Ladykiller (6 page)

‘That’s fine,’ Kerry waved back.

It normally took two minutes to drive from the front gate to the Whelans’ five-bedroom house. Yet at least ten minutes had passed by the time Bruce parked his Jaguar and came to the door. Amanda heard the dog barking but did not see Kerry greet her visitor. When she wandered up to the main house fifteen minutes later to get a drink, Kerry was standing in the kitchen on one side of the bench. The man was on the other.

‘Amanda, this is Bruce,’ Kerry said as she handed him a cup of coffee. ‘Amanda trains our horses.’

‘A pleasure to meet you, Amanda,’ the man said, and half turned his back on her.

At the time Amanda had assumed he did not want to bother with the hired help. But now, lying on her bed, she wondered. It was almost as if the man hadn’t wanted her to get a good look at him. He’d turned his face away as if stung by her gaze, and then quickly followed Kerry out into the courtyard.

Amanda did not take too much notice of guests. They were always coming and going from the Whelan property, and she had plenty of chores to finish. But as she filled the kettle looking out the window at this unfamiliar man, she saw something. Kerry’s body language had changed. Kerry was usually friendly and vivacious, but now she appeared uncomfortable and defensive. Normally seated with her body open and facing people, Kerry sat stiffly back in her chair, as if affronted by something the man was saying.

Amanda popped her head out the window. ‘Is your guest joining us for lunch?’

‘No.’ Kerry’s tone was abrupt.

The man sat still for a second and then rose to go. He leant forward to give Kerry a kiss goodbye, but she turned her cheek away and Bruce grazed it with a light peck. Amanda did not see the visitor leave but she heard the ding-dong of the electronic bell as the Jaguar drove out the gate.

A short time later Kerry came into the kitchen. ‘Can you do me a favour, Amanda?’

‘Yeah, of course.’ Amanda put down her sandwich.

‘Please don’t tell anybody he was here.’ Kerry’s tone was serious. ‘I’ll let you know in a couple of weeks why he was here . . . you never saw him here. Right?’ Her voice was tense.

Amanda looked back at her strangely.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not having an affair.’ Kerry pulled a face of self-mockery. ‘With this body?’ she gestured at her waistline. Pausing for a moment, her tone became confidential: ‘It’s a surprise.’

Kerry walked over to the sink and as she rinsed the cups, she muttered, ‘Why is this bastard doing this to me?’

Amanda pretended she had not heard it. Her relationship with Kerry was warm, closer than just boss and employee. They were like sisters, yet Amanda did not want to pry. Now, as she lay on her bed in the dark, Amanda wished she had. She remembered thinking at the time how out of character it was for Kerry to be angry or upset. In the hour he had been at Willow Park, this man, this Bruce Burrell, had clearly distressed Kerry.

Three days after the visit, on a Saturday morning, Amanda was standing in the kitchen with Kerry, in almost identical positions to the ones they had been in when they had the conversation about Bruce. It pricked Amanda’s memory and she was about to ask Kerry, ‘Hey, who was that Bruce guy?’ But one of the children scurried by, and the moment passed. If only she had. If only . . . Damn it. Now it was the police’s best lead.

Amanda was not only troubled, but a bit scared, and had earlier confided in an officer, ‘What if this guy finds out I’ve dobbed him in? What if something happens to me?’

The officer’s reply was hardly reassuring: ‘If something happens to you, we’ll know it’s definitely him.’

Amanda felt better about her revelations when James chipped in with some more information. ‘Sure,’ he told police when they asked whether he remembered the man, Bruce, visiting his mum. In particular he remembered his car. ‘It was a Jaguar sedan XJ6,’ the eleven-year-old rattled off to the detective. James was positive about the vehicle’s make. He was a car buff, with a vast knowledge of vehicles, both vintage and modern. But he was not so positive about the colour. ‘It was either a dark green or blue colour with white and black numberplates. It had white creamy seats,’ he said.

The detective probed him further. ‘Did Bruce say anything to you?’

‘He said he just went to the pistol club at Lithgow. Amanda let him in.’

‘How do you know the man Bruce had been to a pistol club?’ the detective asked.

‘’Cause he said that,’ James answered.

‘You told me earlier that when Bruce came to the house your mum was very happy to see him,’ the detective said. ‘Why do you say your mum was happy?’

‘I ran out to the door to see who it was but I didn’t recognise the car. Mum saw him, she was like really happy. She hadn’t seen him for a long time.’

Kerry had said to James: ‘Don’t you remember Bruce? He’s an old friend of Daddy’s.’ James didn’t.

James said he was watching television, and did not hear what his mum and the man talked about in the courtyard. But he had followed them out to the car, standing with his mum as Bruce drove off . He liked his car. ‘When he left , Mum didn’t have a good look on her face. She was not happy and not in a good mood.’

Was there anything else?

James looked sheepish. ‘Yep.’ He squirmed in his seat. ‘Mum said to me: “Don’t tell Daddy he was here” . ’ James had done as he was told.

Bernie was confused and angry. Police wanted to know about Burrell. What was the history of their relationship? And how close was he to Kerry? That last question jarred Bernie. Why hadn’t Kerry mentioned the visit? Why had she insisted that Amanda and her own son keep it a secret? What did his wife of seventeen years have to hide? Their relationship, as far as Bernie was concerned, had always been an honest and trusting one. For the moment, Bernie could not stew on it. His priority was to help the police, so they could return Kerry to him.

Dennis Bray had directed six detectives to work on building a profile of Burrell, dating back to his childhood. He wanted details of his family, his work history, his relationships and, importantly, his financial situation.

Bernie told detectives that Burrell owned a farm called Hillydale at Bungonia, just outside Goulburn, in the state’s central-west. Bray sent two officers, Detective Sergeant Peter Walsh and Detective Constable Darren Deamer, to conduct some discreet enquiries around the town. Bray also directed a surveillance team to head south.

Bernie was able to fill in some gaps for Bray, explaining that he had met Burrell, an advertising manager, in 1985 when Crown employed an agency, Advertising Works, to manage its account. Bruce Burrell was in charge of the Crown account and had liaised with Bernie regularly, on the phone and at meetings and business lunches, including one at Parramatta’s Parkroyal Hotel. Their business relationship extended to social gatherings. Bernie and Bruce both shared an interest in farming and recreational shooting. Burrell had joined a group of them on pig-shooting weekends, including travelling to the Whelans’ Guyra property. The wives and children came too. Bernie showed police a photograph of that weekend, Burrell between him and Kerry, all smiles. In other pictures, Burrell posed with the Whelans and their children, even nursing an infant Sarah. Kerry and Bernie had attended Burrell’s wedding, when he married his second wife, Dallas.

After Bernie retrenched Burrell from Crown in 1990, the couples still socialised together. On one shooting expedition, in 1992, Bernie mentioned that the drought was making cattle-grazing difficult, in fact almost impossible. Burrell offered to agist the cattle on his own property, Hillydale, at Bungonia where there was plenty of feed. Bernie subsequently arranged for the pedigree cows, calves and a bull to be transported there, but a few weeks later Burrell phoned him and told him that the cattle, together with some of his own, had wandered off into the Morton National Park which adjoins his property. ‘I recall that Bruce told me he’d reported the loss to the National Parks and Wildlife ranger at Bungonia, who had also conducted a search.’ Bernie’s voice was tight: ‘I’ve not seen nor heard of those cattle since,’ he told police.

The cattle loss was followed by another suspicious incident a year later. Burrell phoned Bernie, telling him his neighbour was having problems with feral pigs and needed a suitable weapon. Would Bernie be interested in selling his Ruger .223 semiautomatic rifle? Bernie told Burrell he would let him have a look at it. Burrell picked it up from Bernie’s office on a Friday, on the way to his farm, but a fortnight later, he called Bernie to report that the gun had been stolen from the boot of his car at Redfern: ‘Sorry, mate,’ Burrell told him. ‘I was making a sales call in Redfern. You know what that area is like.’ Bernie had insisted Burrell report it to Redfern police, which he did.

‘After that, I didn’t want much to do with Bruce,’ Bernie explained to Bray. And when Burrell’s old job came up at Crown Equipment later that year, Bernie gave it to Burrell’s junior, a woman. Bernie told police that Kerry knew he no longer had much time for Burrell. ‘Kerry knew I didn’t really trust him anymore.’

As Bernie talked, something else came to him. ‘Excuse me . . . um, sorry, Detective, I’ve just remembered something. I got a bizarre phone call from Bruce. Gosh, it must have been a month ago, completely out of the blue.’ He grabbed his diary, and there it was: Monday 7 April, a month before Kerry’s abduction. On that morning, Bernie had attended a small reception in the boardroom for the birthday of a company director, Brian Hoare. When Bernie returned to his office he found a yellow post-it sticker on his phone. ‘Ring Bruce Burrell at Hillydale, at his farm’, his secretary had scribbled, above a phone number. Four years had passed since Bernie had last spoken to Bruce Burrell. Bernie imagined Burrell wanted something. A job? A loan?

Bernie was reluctant to phone him, but as he drove home he called Burrell. They spoke briefly before the line dropped out. After dinner, around 7.40 p.m., Bernie tried again, using the phone in the kitchen while Kerry packed the dishwasher. It was a perplexing conversation, Bernie now told police. Bruce had wandered from subject to subject: his separation from his wife Dallas—‘That’s a shame, Bruce,’ Bernie said. About Dallas’s ailing health. ‘Give her our love.’ Questions about Crown. ‘It’s been very hectic. Budget time,’ Bernie told him.

‘Are you still travelling as much, mate?’ Burrell enquired.

‘Yeah, a lot. Apart from the trips to Asia we’ve opened a new site in Adelaide so I’m there every second Wednesday for meetings.’

The call continued for just over nine minutes. Mostly Burrell asked questions and Bernie answered. Bernie kept waiting for Burrell to ask for something, but it never came. ‘My recollection was that Mr Burrell was doing most of the talking and quite frankly, I was waiting for him to give me a reason for the call,’ Bernie told police. ‘I was waiting for the punchline.’

Just before signing off , Burrell asked after Kerry and the kids. ‘They’re good, fighting fit,’ Bernie told him. Then he hung up. ‘Well that was a weird conversation,’ he later remarked to Kerry. ‘I thought he’d be asking for a favour, but . . .’ Bernie let it go, distracted by Matthew, who needed help with his maths homework. Now Bray was, once more, making Bernie go over the call he had received from Burrell. It was beginning to appear that the phone conversation had much purpose after all.

Taskforce Bellaire was preparing for the most risky stage of its operation: the ransom exchange. According to the letter, the kidnappers would make contact in seven days. Three days had already passed since Kerry had been snatched, and with the deadline for contact fast approaching, Howe and Bray knew there was still much to be done. But Detective Dennis Bray was grateful for one thing. They did not have to worry about where they would get the money for the ransom.

Crown Equipment had issued its executives with a directive in case of extortion, blackmail or kidnap. Bray was impressed by Crown’s forethought and planning, the details of which were set out in a letter that Bernie took from his bedroom safe and handed to Bray. The letter had yellowed during the years it had lain there—unused—but its typed instructions were clear and precise. Bernie gripped the telephone as he punched in the numbers to his company’s headquarters in Ohio. It was the middle of the night in the United States and the detective knew Bernie was dragging someone out of bed.

For half a minute, Bernie had some trouble making his purpose clear. ‘Remember the note that we were given twelve or fifteen years ago . . .’ Bernie said, ‘whenever it was. In case of extortion? Well, it’s happened. I need urgent assistance.’

Within twenty-four hours, the money was ready.

6 HORSE FEED

Bernie Whelan had never seen so much money. Huge wads of hundred-dollar notes tied with rubber bands, and packed into cream calico bank bags. It was the million-dollar ransom for the life of his beloved Kerry who had been absent now four days.

An armoured van, escorted by police, had collected the cash from the Commonwealth Bank and delivered it to the Whelan house where it was placed in a green garbage bag, and secured in Bernie’s bedroom safe. Bernie had fixed his eyes on the bulging bag and prayed that he would soon be rid of it. After seventeen years with Kerry, he could not fathom that she was gone and he was stuck in this awful reality. Bernie and the children were now on an active file lodged with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington. He shook his head and tears flew from his eyes.

Outside, before the distant rolling foothills of the once tranquil neighbourhood, heavily armed men were crawling through his horse paddocks. They were members of the State Protection Group, or SPG, an elite group of police officers trained to deal with hostage negotiation, rescue and bomb disposal, and high-risk searches. The sixteen-member team, led by Detective Inspector Dan Ruming, had undergone rigorous physical, psychiatric and medical assessments to qualify for a program that was merciless in its final selection stage.

The officers wore charcoal-blue coveralls, bullet-resistant vests and Kevlar helmets. Each of them carried two firearms: a Heckler & Koch MP5, the 700-millimetre German submachine gun that was standard issue for counter-terrorist forces, and a Glock 22 .40 calibre pistol. They had clips of spare rounds for each weapon as well as stun grenades (known as ‘flash bangs’), and canisters of tear gas and capsicum spray. Their body armour added around 30 kilograms to each officer’s weight.