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‘Yeah.'

‘That was Jake, Skitz and me that did it.'

Curtis described how they'd stolen the plates off a real police car and replaced them after the job—he'd been hoping someone might have spotted the rego number while they were at Wreck-A-Mended, and reported the police number. When they got Falconer into the back of the car, Curtis said, he'd put up a violent struggle, and Curtis had hit him too hard and killed him. ‘I really fucked up. I was only supposed to take him to somebody else to be tortured. I fucked up.'

Martin was surprised by this—at that stage Falconer's body hadn't even been found—and he didn't know what to say. The conversation petered out and Curtis and Bennie left. In a later
conversation, Curtis told Martin he'd done the abduction for Steve (Anthony Perish), who Martin knew as a customer in one of the bars he'd worked at. Curtis said he'd been worried about Steve's reaction when he learned Falconer was dead, but all he'd said was it didn't matter as Falconer would have ended up ‘like this' anyway.

When the body parts turned up in the Hastings River, Martin had another conversation with Curtis, who said, ‘Yes, Steve asked me if I'd ever chopped a body before.' Curtis explained he was still working for Steve, and was about to go up to Queensland for him. He took his car and had the upholstery replaced at a cost of $7,000. When he got back he told Martin what he'd done.

‘Are you mad?' Martin asked.

‘It just had to be done.'

Not long after this, Curtis sold the Commodore and bought himself a Saab.

A few years later, Martin met Perish and Curtis for a meal, and heard Curtis say to Perish, ‘You couldn't even get rid of the body parts.'

Thanks to Martin's information, the relationship between Anthony Perish and Brad Curtis now assumed a central place in Tuno's thinking, more important than the relationship between the Perish brothers. Anthony was the dominant personality, smart—he often stuttered because his mouth couldn't keep up with his brain—and with no conscience. He could be charismatic, and had the ability to get his claws into people and hang on. Curtis seemed attracted to the dark side Anthony represented, and excited to be given the chance to use his army skills for criminal purposes.

Where Daley's motive for rolling had been redemption and Taylor's fear, Martin's was, at least initially, a desire for reward money, even though no reward had yet been offered for information leading to the conviction of Terry Falconer's killer. He thought all he had to do to get a reward was provide information, but it was explained to him that he would have to sign a statement and perhaps give evidence in court. He said he didn't want to go that far—he believed Anthony Perish would kill people close to him if it was known he'd talked. For months the detectives tried to persuade Martin to speak on the record, without success.

Tuno had some new officers: Senior Constables Mario Rubelj, Nathan Surplice and Stephen Brown. As a group they were young and keen, and helped inject some more enthusiasm into the investigation. And as well as Martin, for a while it looked like they had another informant—in August 2008, someone told Tuno that Andrew Perish had admitted to killing Falconer. Unfortunately, this source of information never provided enough to be used in court, but, like all the fruitless leads they'd chased over the years, it required a great deal of work.

Overall the case was gradually strengthening: the detectives were further heartened when they obtained a photo of Brad Curtis and showed it to David Taylor, who confirmed this was the man he knew as Redmond. It was another link in the long chain that Tuno was uncovering, which stretched from Terry Falconer's murder to Anthony and Andrew Perish.

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, wither thou goest
.

In August 2008, Tuno found a possible link between Brad Curtis and the attempted murder of Raniera Puketapu in JB's Bar and Grill in 2002. They learned of a conversation between Curtis and a newspaper photographer regarding publicity Curtis was after for youths he was training at the Police Boys Club. Curtis said, ‘Now make sure there's no photo or mention of me, okay? I don't like any notoriety whatsoever.'

‘Front page,' the photographer said, joking.

‘Nah, nah.' Curtis laughed. ‘Been there before. No thanks.'

That got the detectives wondering when Curtis might have been in a newspaper before, which led their thoughts to the photograph on the front page of the
Daily Telegraph
showing the shooter running away from JB's Bar and Grill. What they
needed was Curtis' DNA, to see if it matched that found in the vans near the Puketapu and Davies shootings. A sample was obtained by covert means and, sure enough, it matched. This made everyone very happy. Apart from having solved two major crimes, it was now clear Curtis was not the clean-cut family man he looked like from the outside. He was a killer, probably a hitman—just the sort of individul to have been involved in the death of Terry Falconer.

Curtis was now under surveillance, and the police became aware of a planned meeting between him and his associate Jake Bennie. On 4 September 2008 Jubelin and a few detectives from the Gangs Squad headed up to the Caltex service station and McDonald's on the F3 expressway between Sydney and Newcastle, hoping this was the intended meeting place. They arranged for surveillance police to be there too, and were glad to see Curtis turn up. He met with a younger man, presumably Bennie, and another fellow identified afterwards as Michael Christiansen. The latter was a big man, one hundred and twenty kilos of solid muscle; they later learned he used steroids.

A sheet of paper was handed around the small group and the detectives grew worried. Tuno now suspected Curtis was a contract killer: what if the paper was the photo of a target to be killed that night? Should they move in and arrest the men? But if they did and they found nothing incriminating, they would have alerted the crooks—and the Perishes—to the fact they were under surveillance. Jubelin decided not to move, and later the police followed the men back to their homes.

The F3 meeting, following all the information provided by Martin, was something of a defining event for Tuno. The detectives now had firm evidence that the Perishes and people
with whom they were closely linked were major criminals who seemed to be planning further serious badness. In other words, they posed a grave danger to the community. Jubelin met with Assistant Commissioner Dave Hudson, the head of State Crime Command (which had replaced Crime Agencies), and put this to him, and Hudson agreed. It was decided to beef up Tuno and give it formal responsibility for a number of other unsolved murders possibly linked to the Perishes. The new strike force would be called Tuno 2 and have about twenty officers.

At this stage Tuno still had little idea of the structure of Anthony Perish's organisation. They knew he referred to it as a ‘company', but the impression they'd built from what they knew was that it was not a formal hierarchy but more like a fluid network in which people were hired for individual jobs. This—plus the fact that Perish's base remained unknown—made his operation frustratingly hard to track down. But from what they did know, they were certain it was significant and it was dangerous.

The new officers included Joe Doueihi, Glen Morfoot, Kaan McGregor, Andrew Tesoriero and a number of others from various squads at State Crime Command who brought with them a wide range of experience. Jubelin needed a group capable of taking on the type of criminals they were pursuing, and that's what he got.

Detective Sergeant Joe Doueihi was an experienced homicide investigator who'd worked the tough Kings Cross beat. Glen Morfoot and Kaan McGregor were homicide detectives who had worked with many of the Tuno team before: Morfoot was known for his good legal knowledge and McGregor had a reputation as being a very focused analytical type. Tesoriero
came highly recommended by Andrew Waterman, who'd worked with him before. He was glad of the chance to be part of such an unusual type of case: ‘Organised crime murders are few and far between in New South Wales, and it's a privilege to work on them. I like the focus on crooks, the offence is not opportunistic or personal. They wake up each day to be criminals, and we wake up each day to be police. That's interesting and rewarding.'

The disappearances and killings under active investigation by Tuno 2—in a few cases involving assistance to Queensland police—were those of Ian Draper, the witness from Andrew Perish's murder trial, and Terry Falconer in 2001; and of Michael Davies, Benita Forster and her young son Tana Taui in 2002. These last two had been found at the foot of a waterfall on the Gold Coast, their deaths at first classified as suicide. The attempted murders Tuno 2 was looking at were of Gary Mack, an ex-bikie shot in 2001, and Raniera Puketapu in 2002. In the background, as it were, were the murders of Anthony and Frances Perish in 1993, and bikies Greg McDonald and Paul Wheeler in 1991. (Police refuse to give details about some of these murders as they remain unsolved and investigations are continuing. But all were suspected of being linked to the strike force's targets.)

Tuno 2 set up its incident room on level fourteen of the State Crime Command offices, which had now moved to gleaming new premises in Charles Street, Parramatta. Black and white portraits on whiteboards around the room showed all the targets. Three teams were established. Glen Browne had the Falconer murder, the disappearance of Ian Draper, and the shooting of Gary Mack. Team two, led by Joe Doueihi, was
looking at the shooting of Puketapu at JB's Bar and Grill, and the Queensland murders. And Morfoot, with the ‘proactive' third team, had the job of keeping the targets—most importantly the elusive Anthony Perish and Brad Curtis—under surveillance. In order not to alert the targets to the level of police interest, a blackout was placed on all dealings with the media. This is one reason why the biggest murder investigation in Australia's history stayed a secret for so long.

On Browne's team, Kaan McGregor was given the job of reinvestigating the 2001 disappearance of Ian Draper. He soon discovered that in 2007 police had been told Draper had been killed by a man who was not Andrew Perish. McGregor and others spent the next eighteen months learning more about the allegation and then investigating the alleged killer. This involved speaking with some forty people and conducting various forms of surveillance. In the end it was established the person had no link to Draper's disappearance, or to Andrew Perish, back in 2001. In one sense this was a disappointment, but in another it was positive: building a circumstantial case involves excluding all reasonable alternative hypotheses.

The detectives also spoke with some of the other witnesses from Andrew Perish's 1998 murder trial, where Draper had given evidence, and confirmed that more than one had been threatened, not only before the trial but after it. One witness had been followed and talked to in 2003, five years after the trial.

•

In early 2008 Tuno had completed the brief of evidence for Anthony Perish and Andrew Perish, and sent it to the DPP for
a so-called sufficiency advising. The initial response from the DPP was promising, but the detectives still faced the problem of persuading Tony Martin to sign a statement and agree to give evidence in court. Until this was done, they could not arrest Anthony Perish or Brad Curtis for the murder of Terry Falconer. Martin was clearly terrified. Tuno and the Crime Commission continued their surveillance of Perish and Curtis, hoping to catch them in some criminal activity for which they could be arrested. Once they were in custody (Andrew Perish was already locked up for his drug conviction) Martin would feel safer, as would other witnesses and potential witnesses.

On 17 September 2008, surveillance showed that Brad Curtis was heading to a meeting. Jubelin had established four levels of alert to apply to targets. Level One was when they were going about their ordinary business in their normal locations. Curtis was now raised to Level Two, which meant preparations were made to interfere immediately if it looked like he was about to engage in criminal activity.

Tuno had one unmarked car on him in Newcastle, and arranged for more to be ready to shadow him in Sydney, assuming that was where he was headed. But when he reached the freeway outside Newcastle, to their surprise he turned right and went up the coast. Jubelin and Browne, down at Parramatta, jumped in a car and headed north through the heavy Friday afternoon traffic. As they drove up the expressway, the surveillance car announced Curtis had stopped at a McDonald's and met someone.

They observed the two men go around to the boot of the unknown man's black car, and Curtis took something out and shoved it down the front of his pants. Almost certainly it was
a pistol, suggesting the other man was a criminal too. This pushed the alert status to Level Three.

Jubelin had to decide whether to wheel Curtis over (meaning stop and arrest him). Because of the strong suspicion he was carrying a gun, it would have to be a ‘tactical stop', with heavily armed police forcing him off the road. Obviously this would soon alert all Tuno's targets to the possibility they'd been under surveillance. Heading up the F3 in the rush hour traffic, Jubelin had to make a quick decision; he called the head of homicide and was told it was up to him.

He chose to let the crooks keep going, and they all continued driving up the Pacific Highway, the two targets together in the second man's car. It grew late and the traffic thinned out, but Curtis and the other man kept going north; it looked like they might be heading for Queensland. Sometimes they would stop at a McDonald's, and the cops figured they must like hamburgers; later they discovered Curtis had been taking advantage of the burger chain's WiFi facilities to use his laptop.

Jubelin decided he needed to find out who was in the car with Curtis, and this might be achieved through a random breath test. He rang the police station at Coffs Harbour, the next big town north, hoping he'd get someone who would grasp the situation quickly. He was put onto the sergeant in charge of Highway Patrol and said, ‘Mate, this is the situation, we're running out of time. We've got a contract killer half an hour away, we think he's armed and on his way to kill someone. We want to find out who's in the car without them knowing we're onto them.'