The Final Cut Read online

  For Robert, who didn’t get the time he wanted to finish this book. He had his finger on the pulse of what is important to examine. His first book, Man at the Window, shone a light on child abuse in 1960s Australia and was published during the time of the Royal Commission Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse, released in 2017. And The Final Cut, started well before the ‘Me Too’ movement, is connected to the underlying issue of the denigration of women in our society, highlighted by the 2021 findings of the Royal Commission into Family Violence.

  That we have not come far from the 1960s in eradicating these abuses is sad and astonishing.

  Vale Robert. Thank you for your courage.

  Rosalba Jeffreys

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sunday, 14 November 1965

  11.17 p.m.

  As the first blow struck the side of her head, she heard a crackling sound then felt a heavy numbness. She was on the floor. How did I get here? She stared at the face above her, the features rippling like a wildfire through a paddock. That isn’t him. But it was him: her husband, ex-Detective Sergeant Hardy, eyes glittering like brittle dead things, arms flailing, mouth moving viciously.

  He grabbed the kitchen bench and drew his leg back. She pulled herself into the foetal position, closed her eyes and braced herself for the blow. He kicked and she was thrust hard against the cupboard below the sink. She kept pushing herself backwards as he came at her again, his fist glancing her face. He lost his balance and stumbled over her, cutlery from a drawer raining down upon them. He steadied himself and went for the blue ceramic jug – That’s Mum’s wedding present, please, no – raised it above his head and lurched towards her. Pulling the top drawer out above her head to protect herself she thought, This time he’s going to kill me.

  Images of her children flooded her vision.

  The drawer splintered as he brought the jug crashing down. Twisting onto her hands and knees, her right hand landed on something hard. In her mind’s eye, she saw the timber-handled carving knife with its dull grey blade. She saw it a dozen times in those fleeting seconds; sharpened on the strop by her husband, used by her to cut the thick pumpkin rind, routinely washed and dried and put away; a calm, blameless tool. She instinctively grabbed it and thrust it upwards with all her strength. She heard a piercing scream. The knife held fast for an instant, then was yanked from her hand.

  She knew it was now going to enter her.

  She didn’t open her eyes; she didn’t want to see it. She focused instead on her children: her daughter playing, bouncing like a gazelle on the grass at Kings Park, her son sprinting like an Olympian after the ducks near the Pioneer Fountain. A loving calm filled her. I’m dead, thank God I didn’t feel anything.

  But she wasn’t dead. Her head roared and seemed to have doubled in weight. She concentrated on the floor. On breathing.

  Opening her eyes, she first saw her husband’s shoes and then his splayed legs. The timber handle of the carving knife protruded from his groin; his trousers were stuck to his legs; his blood was spreading across the floor towards her. She pulled her legs sharply into her body then slowly looked up at his face. It was frozen: open mouth downturned, eyebrows arched, eyelids drawn back, pupils staring in bewilderment.

  She could hear screams as she scrambled to her feet and ran from the kitchen. She flew through the front door and down the steps. When she got outside, her next-door neighbour, holding her dressing gown close to her body, was staring white-faced over the fence.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Monday, 15 November 1965

  8 a.m.

  Detective Sergeant Robert Cardilini drove his car into an empty bay, pulled the handbrake on and switched the ignition off. He sat for a moment, silently composing himself. It was his first day back at work after his suspension.

  Cardilini was a tall man. His once handsome features turned spongy by drink were framed by unkempt, dark hair with a few grey threads. His blue eyes had retreated into doubt and conflict under his heavy eyebrows. He was a man out of place in any era. His wife of twenty-five years, Betty, had died less than a year ago. Her death had left him lost, adrift. It was only their eighteen-year-old son, Paul, who had drawn him, struggling, out from his drunken mire. Paul, and the hope that he could still be of use as a policeman. He was thankful to be back. He sighed, pulled his cigarette packet from his pocket, tapped one out and put it in his mouth. Though he’d showered and shaved he still felt like roadkill. He hoped he didn’t smell like it.

  At 8 a.m. in November it was already hot. It had been hot forever. He got out of his car and locked it, shifted the cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other and walked towards the East Perth Police Station. Detective Sergeant Cardilini, he said to himself, repeating it a few times and giving a derisive huh as he pushed through the front doors into the cool of the building. He walked along the familiar corridor and up the stairs to the detectives’ office. His immediate senior, Detective Inspector Bishop, would be his first port of call. He tapped at Bishop’s open door, leaning against the doorframe.

  Bishop was as tall as Cardilini but thinner, with sparse, grey hair swept over his head in an inadequate attempt to disguise a shiny pink scalp. He had a long, mournful face with perpetually watering eyes. He rarely left his office and, once there, never left his desk, which faced the corridor the detectives walked along to their large open space. ‘Cardilini, how come you always make a place look untidy?’

  ‘Natural talent, I guess. So, what happens now?’

  ‘You go talk to Superintendent Robinson.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘No. Wait until you get a call or I get a call to send you up.’

  ‘When will that be?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

  ‘What do I do ’til then?’

  ‘Have you done all your paperwork?’

  ‘Yep. Did it while suspended.’

  ‘Good.’ Bishop leant back in his chair. His expression became serious. ‘One of ours was killed on Sunday night.’

  ‘Jesus Christ. Who?’

  ‘Hardy.’

  Cardilini sat slowly as the emotions flooded through him. ‘Detective Sergeant Hardy, from this station?’

  ‘That’s the one. Your old partner.’

  ‘Which branch has the case?’

  ‘He was last stationed here, so we have it.’

  ‘Who’s investigating?’

  ‘Spry and Archer.’ Bishop held up his hand. ‘Don’t say anything, it wasn’t my choice.’

  ‘How did he die?’

  ‘Knifed in a park.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’ Cardilini dreaded the answer to his next question. ‘Was it a woman … a working girl?’

  Bishop shook his head and shrugged. ‘We don’t know yet. But you’d best keep your head down for bit. Can you do that?’

  ‘I can try.’

  Leaving Bishop’s office, Cardilini knew that in twenty-five years of policing he had never managed to keep his head down. He could wait for a call from Superintendent Robinson, as requested, or he could not. He walked up the steps, along with the rising heat. The top brass’s offices were on the top floor; it was a few degrees hotter than where the detectives worked. Let ’em cook, he mused. The corridor was lined with wide, heavy timber doors displaying ornate brass nameplates. He stopped at an open door embossed with the words ‘Superintendent Robinson’. Robinson was sitting at his desk, facing the corridor with his back to the window. In a chair opposite him was a woman with loosely curled, ruby-red hair. She was sitting ramrod straight. Robinson shifted his eyes from his visitor to Cardilini.

  ‘You busy?’ Cardilini asked with
out knocking.

  ‘What does it look like?’

  Cardilini ignored him and addressed the woman brightly, ‘Hello, Spencer.’

  The woman turned. ‘Hello, Cardilini.’ She gave him a warm smile.

  ‘Did you get yourself into trouble?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Cardilini met Lorraine Spencer the day she arrived as a constable at East Perth some ten years earlier. He remembered being surprised when he saw her among the graduates: her red hair, her alertness and ever-hopeful expression; an expression that didn’t change no matter how much he, as a mentor to the new constables, assured her she was doing well. He thought she didn’t believe him, or didn’t believe it possible. She understood all too well the perception – at least on the part of most male officers – that in a tight situation a woman couldn’t be relied upon. Policing was seen as largely intimidation, that’s why male applicants were required to be a certain height and of certain physical capabilities. Spencer was tall for a woman but shorter than most of her male counterparts. Cardilini had lost track of her and everything else this past year.

  ‘Plain-clothes?’ he asked her now.

  ‘Detective.’

  ‘Detective? Wow, how long?’

  ‘Are you finished?’ Superintendent Robinson interrupted.

  Spencer turned back with a quiet, ‘Sorry, sir.’

  Cardilini took a chair just inside the door.

  ‘No one invited you in, Cardilini,’ Robinson said.

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘This,’ Robinson said, gesturing to Spencer, ‘could be official business.’

  ‘Not with your door open.’

  ‘Didn’t Bishop tell you to wait until I called you?’

  ‘Yep.’

  Robinson shook his head, looked at Spencer and then raised his eyebrows. ‘And you think he’s the one?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘The one for what?’ Cardilini asked, leaning forward.

  Robinson couldn’t contain a flicker of a smile. ‘Detective Constable Spencer will be working out of East Perth. She’s going to be focusing on domestic violence crimes.’

  Cardilini blanched and immediately got up. ‘Well, that’s great. I’d better be going, then.’

  ‘Sit,’ Robinson barked.

  ‘Why?’

  Robinson’s smile broadened as Spencer turned her hopeful eyes to Cardilini.

  ‘No.’ Cardilini stood his ground.

  ‘No?’ Robinson said.

  Cardilini blustered, backing towards the door. ‘Not me, I hate domestics, waste of time. I’m not your man, if that’s what you’re thinking. Besides, Bishop has put me on a murder case, so I’m not available. He’s just finalising who my partner will be. Sorry, Spencer, it’s just not my thing. I’ll pop downstairs and wait for your call, boss.’

  ‘Sit down and shut up,’ Robinson growled. ‘You don’t have a say. This is a new initiative and you’re available. And for some reason Spencer is willing to work with you.’ He drew some sheets of paper to the centre of his desk.

  ‘I’d be no good to you, Spencer,’ Cardilini said.

  ‘You are going to partner up with Detective Constable Spencer. If you prove useless or obstructive you can go home.’

  Cardilini sat down again. ‘It’s not you, Spencer, it’s just domestics; they’re messy.’

  ‘Exactly, and we usually make a complete cock-up of them,’ Robinson said.

  ‘Most of the time the police cause more trouble,’ Spencer added.

  ‘That’s not the official line, Spencer,’ Robinson snapped.

  ‘The official line is cock-up,’ Cardilini said.

  ‘Shut up, Cardilini,’ Robinson said. ‘This initiative is just to improve on a very thorough system of procedures we already have in place. That’s the line. Neither of you two say otherwise. Just as we have dedicated teams investigating traffic accidents, we’re going to have a dedicated team investigating domestics. Of course, you two would only come in if the managing officers—’ Robinson started.

  ‘… weren’t managing?’ Cardilini said. ‘Come on. Why would they bother even trying if they know they can just handball it?’

  ‘Don’t you want to solve crime, Cardilini?’ Spencer said.

  Robinson leant back in his chair and raised his eyebrows at Cardilini.

  ‘I want to do police work. I don’t want to be the umpire in a lovers’ tiff.’

  ‘So, if a husband flattens his wife you need an umpire. But if the same husband flattens a bloke you need police work. How do you figure that?’

  Cardilini looked dumbly to Robinson, who was still smiling. ‘You see, boss, it’s a nightmare!’

  ‘Yeah, well. It’s an initiative of the commissioner so we work at it regardless. And you get your own office.’

  ‘No, no, leave us in the detectives’ office,’ Cardilini said. ‘It’s all a matter of consultation. It wouldn’t look good if we were by ourselves.’

  ‘You never consult anyone, Cardilini. Besides, if I don’t grab the office, traffic will. Now, before you interrupted us, Spencer here was giving me a rundown on what she’s got planned.’

  Spencer turned back to Robinson and Cardilini rolled his eyes. This was a disaster. He had no patience for what the police academy taught new recruits. It was at odds with how things really were. Sure, Lorraine Spencer had worked the hardest, and was brighter than her peers, most of whom thought policing was all about being tall and strong. And yes, she had a sense of right and wrong based on the laws of the land. But those laws didn’t always cater for circumstance – human circumstance. Her fellow recruits noticed this straight off the bat, and avoided her. They understood the unspoken rules of serving and supporting your colleagues. Cardilini had watched her, a solo sailor at sea in a storm, buffeted by the elements. But she’d stood, windswept and drenched at the helm, defiant. He’d mentioned her to Betty and Betty had wanted to invite her around for dinner. But without inviting the others, he couldn’t.

  Now, as he struggled back from his lowest ebb, he and Lorraine Spencer were to be partners. Even worse, they’d be dealing with domestics. The law didn’t apply in the case of domestics and the state prosecutors and police stayed well away. Cardilini shook his head at the madness of it all and immediately thought of going to the pub. The very idea filled his mouth with saliva. He stood abruptly and left.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Monday, 4 January 1954

  11 a.m.

  The car had just left Wicherina and was on the Geraldton-Mount Magnet Road heading west. The man behind the wheel was in his forties, weathered in his wiry limbs and face, but with a gut that protruded between his low-slung working trousers and stained singlet. As he drove, he kept glancing in the rear-view mirror at the pretty young girl on the back seat. Her eleven-year-old frame was all skinny legs and arms. Dark hair pulled into a side ponytail highlighted her even features: high forehead, wide-spaced eyes, prominent cheekbones waiting to be softened with maturity, a full mouth. She fidgeted with a small bluebird pendant hanging from a chain. The man had given it to her that morning. Her birthday had come and gone with little fanfare, though that wasn’t unusual. A belated birthday pressie, the man had said, while her mum had laughed and told him not to spoil her. The little bird lay in the nest of her hand.

  The man yawned. ‘I’m gunna put my head down in the back for a bit,’ he said to the woman sitting beside him. She was in her early thirties, petite, with pretty dark eyes and curving lips. Her midriff top and shorts revealed a smooth tanned tummy and legs. She turned and looked at her daughter. ‘You can drive,’ the man went on, ‘but bloody slowly. Keep your eyes on the road. If you crash and it doesn’t kill you,’ he smiled a mirthless smile, ‘I will.’

  The woman attempted a smile in return as the man pulled onto the gravel at the side of the road. ‘You okay, Melody?�
�

  The girl looked back sulkily. It hadn’t been her idea to leave Yalgoo; she had a friend there. It wasn’t fair; she hadn’t even had time to say goodbye. She slouched on the sticky seat and watched some galahs fly by, squawking into the tree beside them.

  The man got out and climbed in the other side of the car. He gave her a sly smile. ‘Going to rest me head on you, okay?’ Melody looked to her mother, who looked back and shrugged. The man laid his head on her lap and she turned her nose to the window; it wasn’t fully open.

  ‘Come on, then,’ the man instructed. The woman slid across to the driver’s side, put the car in gear and pulled slowly out onto the road.

  The road’s undulations made the man’s head rise and fall on the girl’s lap. She reached for the window handle and rested her hand there, not wanting to wake him but wanting to open it further. He placed his hand under her legs and with each successive bump his fingers pressed further. She held her bluebird pendant tightly but had difficulty breathing. She dared not look down; she felt he was looking up at her but she wasn’t sure. He’s asleep, she told herself, he just thinks I’m a pillow. His fingers pushed further and she felt a need to go to the toilet. I push my hand under my pillow, I move my fingers, she told herself. Look down to see if he’s asleep … No, don’t look down … He is asleep … I want to wee … but I weed at Mullewa.

  She tried to speak but her voice was frozen in her throat. She cast her eyes and thoughts to the distant range of hills. She watched them rising then falling, sometimes covered in trees, sometimes covered in golden stubble. The pink and grey galahs would fly at times beside the car; she flew with them and looked back puzzled at the face of the young girl in the back seat, eyes like her mother’s, pretty and dark.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Tuesday, 16 November 1965

  3 p.m.

  Spencer spent her first day as Cardilini’s new partner organising their office. Cardilini in turn packed up his old desk in the detectives’ area, hunted for furniture and made copious cups of tea. Day two was mostly awkward small talk, getting up to speed with what was happening at the station and the cases they might be looking into. And fielding the odd irritating interruption by other detectives.