Читать книгу The Frankston Murders - Vikki Petraitis - Страница 9

Paul Webster arrived home on Friday 11 June at 4pm. He had picked up his motorcycle from a shop in Bentleigh after working an early shift at the Ventura Bus Company. When he left for work at 4.35am, his wife Rita and his niece Elizabeth were asleep.

He pulled the Yamaha into the driveway of his Langwarrin home and saw the family dog, Blaze, in the back yard. He realised that Elizabeth must be out because she always put Blaze outside and turned on the alarm when she left the house. Paul Webster flicked his remote switch to de-activate the alarm, entered the house and put the kettle on to make a cup of coffee. He glanced at the bench and saw a note from Elizabeth.

Uncle Paul or Aunty Rita,

I will be at the Frankston TAFE Library or the Frankston City Library. Home about 8pm. Frankston TAFE Library 784-8241. Frankston City Library 783-9033.

Liz

He thought to himself that Lizzie must have left late to go to the library because she was normally home well before eight o’clock in the evening. It meant she would have to catch the last bus to Langwarrin. If she missed the bus, she would be stranded. He could imagine her voice over the telephone. Uncle Paul, I’ve missed the bus, can you come and get me please? Not that he’d mind. He and Rita had become very fond of their niece since she had come to live with them. She had been looking for a family and found one with them. Now it seemed like she had always been there.

When he took his coffee into the lounge room, the alarm’s siren sounded. He was sure he had turned the alarm off outside; this was the first time the switch had failed to work. Puzzled, he turned it off again.

Rita Webster arrived home around 6.30pm after doing some shopping at Chadstone. Driving home from the mall, she’d been caught in the atrocious storm that had swept the city. She hadn’t seen her niece that morning either, having left for work at 6.30am.

‘Where’s Liz?’ she asked her husband in a voice showing faint traces of her childhood in England.

‘She’s at the library and she won’t be home until eight. She left a note with the phone numbers on it.’

Paul and Rita ate dinner in front of the television and waited for Liz to come home. Sale of the Century finished with the host, Glen Ridge, congratulating the winning quiz contestant who’d decided to return after the weekend to play on for the cash jackpot. As the credits rolled, Paul told his wife that he needed cigarettes. After checking that the rain had at least temporarily stopped, the two decided to walk the dog up to the local shops. They set off, wrapped warmly in thick coats, figuring they could probably meet Liz as she got off the bus.

At the shops, Paul and Rita Webster saw the eight o’clock bus pull into the nearby bus stop and watched as one person get off. It wasn’t Lizzie.

Rita wasn’t overly concerned. She thought they may have mistaken the time that Liz said she would be coming home. Besides, her niece had just been paid her Austudy allowance so if worse came to worst, she could always catch a taxi home or ring them for a lift.

After buying Paul’s cigarettes, the Websters walked back home and settled in front of the television to watch a movie. When nine o’clock came around, Rita began to get a little anxious. It wasn’t like Liz to be late. She always telephoned to let them know where she was and when she was coming home. It was one of the rules they had decided on when Liz had moved in six months before.

Rita remembered the three of them sitting around the kitchen table discussing what they expected of each other. When Rita had told her niece that she always wanted to know what time she would be home, it had been mostly for the practical reason of planning meals but Liz had taken it to the extreme and always let them know exact times and left detailed notes for them. Rita knew that Liz was in many ways much younger than her 18 years.

The two women had had great fun since Elizabeth joined the family, cooking and painting; things that Liz hadn’t done much of. For Rita, it was the daughter she never had. Rita smiled to herself remembering one of the other rules they had decided upon. Since Rita and Paul both worked, Liz took responsibility for cooking one meal each week. Liz would go through cook books and had so far produced rubber chicken fillets and a cake half an inch high and solid as a rock. Her roasts however, were improving under Rita’s guidance.

Trying not to overreact, Rita reasoned that the library didn’t close until nine; Liz had probably got caught up in her studies. She didn’t mention her concerns to her husband.

The movie finished at 10.30pm and by then both the Websters were worried. They figured that Liz must have missed the bus and decided to walk home so Paul suggested that he drive around and try to find her while Rita waited at home in case she arrived or telephoned.

Paul drove up Paterson Avenue and along Cranbourne Road and then all the way to Frankston TAFE; his eyes scanning the footpaths for his niece. He stopped the car and went to the front door of the college but the place was in darkness; there were two security cards pushed into the locked door which told Paul it had been closed for a while. Worried, he drove around to the Frankston Library, but that too was deserted. Pulling out of the car park, Paul had a quick look in McDonalds, but the place looked like it was about to close.

He knew his niece didn’t have any friends in Melbourne. She wasn’t interested in boys and her closest friends lived in Tasmania. She was a bit of a loner and he was at a complete loss as to where she could be.

He couldn’t see her at the Frankston railway station nor at the bus stop, so he drove once again around the main streets of Frankston before heading home. Perhaps he would find her at home and she would have some reasonable explanation for her lateness and he could breathe easy again.

But it was not to be.

As soon as her husband arrived home alone, Rita wanted to ring the police but was torn between her fears and not wanting to over-react. Paul headed off once again in his car to shine a torch in the darker areas all the way to the TAFE college and then to the railway station. Driving past Ballam Park, he stopped the car and illuminated the barbecue area and the children’s playground with his torch beam. When he saw no sign of the missing teenager, he came home and finally agreed to call the Frankston police.

He told the officer who answered the phone that his niece Elizabeth was missing and that she was a very reliable girl. After taking a description, the police officer said that he would pass on the information to Cranbourne because the Webster’s house was in the Cranbourne police district.

Around 1.10am, the Websters were visited by Sergeant Steve Lewis and Senior Constable Alan Robinson who had received the missing person call through D-24 about twenty minutes earlier. The two officers had been making a routine patrol of their district in a marked police car. The weather was shocking and the night had been quiet.

Sergeant Steve Lewis, with seventeen years experience in the police force, usually knew what to expect with a missing persons call. In the first couple of questions, the person making the report usually admitted to some sort of domestic fight or family trouble and the missing person invariably returned home. Hurrying through the heavy rain to the shelter of the Webster’s carport, Lewis stepped up to the front door and knocked.

Paul Webster answered the door and invited the two officers inside, leading them through the kitchen to a dining area where they all sat down at a wooden dining table. Rita offered them coffee but the officers refused – these reports usually didn’t take very long.

Paul and Rita Webster began by explaining that Elizabeth had gone to the library to study and had been expected home at 8pm. Lewis sensed that they were worried yet trying to keep their fears in check. Her disappearance was totally out of character, they said. Paul explained how he had driven around Frankston but he couldn’t find Liz.

Lewis asked the customary question, ‘Could she have gone off with a friend or boyfriend?’

The Websters explained that while Liz was free to do as she chose, she was a homebody with no friends that they knew of since she had only moved from Tasmania at the beginning of the year and had been living with them since mid-January.

Steve Lewis got the impression that Elizabeth Stevens was a nice young woman who loved her school work and while being friendly to everyone, had yet to find close friends in Melbourne.

Lewis asked if there had been any domestic difficulties but the Websters couldn’t think of anything that could have upset their niece. The only fight they’d had was when Liz had ridden a pushbike home from Frankston after dark without lights a couple of weeks earlier. Rita had been angry at the risk her niece had taken.

‘But I could see all the cars,’ Liz had said.

‘Well, you might have been able to see them but they couldn’t see you!’ Rita had cried, exasperated.

Liz didn’t always show common sense but she always saw reason and wouldn’t repeat her mistakes.

When Lewis asked if Elizabeth had any money on her, Rita Webster told him that she had just received her Austudy cheque. A possibility that occurred to the sergeant, although he didn’t share it with the concerned couple, was that Elizabeth Stevens had been robbed for her meagre student allowance.

There was something about the Websters and their story that gave the sergeant a strong gut feeling that something was terribly wrong. Elizabeth didn’t drink or take drugs and she always let them know where she was and what time she would be home. To illustrate the point, Paul showed the police officers the note that Liz had written.

As soon as Steve Lewis read it, he became really concerned about the safety of Elizabeth Stevens. He thought that any kid who left such a detailed note was unlikely to change plans without phoning to let her uncle and aunt know. According to the Websters, they didn’t exercise strict control over their niece. She had chosen from the outset to leave notes regarding her plans and she had always let them know where she was. It sounded to the officers as if it were as much for Elizabeth’s own security as her uncle and aunt’s peace of mind.

The sergeant asked to see Liz’s room on the off chance that it could contain clues to her whereabouts, perhaps a diary or an address book. The Websters showed the officers into a neat bedroom with a double bed which made the room look smaller. Next to the bed was a free-standing wardrobe and chest of drawers. The room was sparse and confirmed the Websters’ description of their niece. It seemed to be the bedroom of a neat, conscientious young adult. Lewis had a quick look around but he couldn’t find a diary or address book or anything else that might suggest what had become of the missing teenager.

Lewis obtained a full description of the young woman and filled out a missing persons report form. Neither Paul nor Rita knew what Liz had been wearing when she left that morning; in fact neither had seen her since the night before when she had gone to bed after watching a movie. They guessed that she would be carrying her school books in her navy and white sports bag.

Rita checked Liz’s wardrobe and found her white runners were missing as well as a new grey top that Liz had recently bought. She also guessed that Liz could have been wearing her favourite grey tracksuit pants. The Websters found her passport and showed the officers her photo.

As they left, Lewis gave the Websters his card, telling them to call the police station immediately if Elizabeth turned up. Offering a parting gesture of reassurance, he told the couple that she may have met up with a friend they didn’t know and simply forgotten to telephone. There were many possibilities – not all of them bad. Despite his unvoiced concerns in this case, Steve Lewis had never taken a missing persons report where the person hadn’t eventually turned up again.

Paul Webster asked if it was okay for him to drive around Frankston again to see if he could find his niece and, when Steve Lewis encouraged it, the worried man headed straight for his car. He gave the officers a parting look which did little to quell their own concerns.

Driving away from the home in Langwarrin, Lewis hoped that Elizabeth Stevens had done something totally out of character and gone to visit a friend, or gone down the pub – anything as long as she came home.

Back at Cranbourne, the police officers treated the matter seriously. People went missing all the time but this was different. Lewis’s gut feeling grew stronger. He telephoned through a description of Elizabeth Stevens to be broadcast via D-24 for all units in the Cranbourne and Frankston areas to keep a lookout for her. He then telephoned the shift supervisor to inform him of the missing teenager and faxed a copy of the report to the Hallam community policing squad.

Out on patrol again at 3.30am, Sergeant Lewis and his partner duplicated the route taken earlier by Paul Webster, checking the TAFE college and the railway station. He also kept an eye out for her school bag in case she had dropped it in a struggle or left it somewhere. The most frustrating aspect for the two officers was the early hour of the morning. There was no one they could call; the library was shut and so was the bus company. There was little else to do besides cruise around and hope to find the missing young woman. Two of the more remote possibilities were that she had been robbed and assaulted or that she had been abducted.

While Steve Lewis was aware that the Websters had only contacted police in desperation as the evening had worn on, valuable hours had elapsed before the report, and Elizabeth had now been missing for eight hours. But he also knew that it was a catch-22 situation – if the Websters had reported their niece missing when she was only an hour late home, the police would have just told them to wait – after all, she was eighteen years old. Lewis just hoped for the phone call that would tell him that Elizabeth had arrived home safely.

But the call didn’t come.

At 7am when his shift ended, Lewis passed on the report to the officers arriving to work the day shift.

On Saturday morning, Paul and Rita Webster played the waiting game. Elizabeth still hadn’t returned and they frantically rang relatives to see if she had gone to visit one of them. When Rita Webster telephoned her boss and his wife to cancel a dinner date that evening, she explained they couldn’t make it because their niece was missing. As she spoke to the boss’s wife, her voice suddenly broke as a strong feeling came over her that she would never see Liz again.

Constable Sally Davis came on duty at 2.30pm as watch-house keeper at the Cranbourne police station. She checked the missing persons notice board and made herself familiar with the events surrounding the missing eighteen-year-old.

At 3.30pm she telephoned the Websters and learnt that Elizabeth still hadn’t come home. Paul Webster told her that he had found another photo of Liz, and the policewoman asked if he could bring it to the station. Paul arrived half an hour later with the photo.

Constable Davis tried to contact the TAFE library but received an answering machine reply. She arranged for police to visit Elizabeth’s younger sister in Brunswick.

Less than an hour later, Sally Davis answered a telephone call from a Frankston-area local who was at the Langwarrin football oval.

‘There’s been a body found,’ he told the young constable breathlessly.

‘Where?’ she asked grabbing a pen to take down the details.

‘In the track off the Langwarrin Sports Club off the Cranbourne-Frankston Road.’

Constable Davis wrote down the address and told him she would send the police, then she set the investigative wheels in motion by informing a divisional van crew and the duty sergeant of the possible body find. The sports club and football ovals were part of Lloyd Park – the Webster’s house on Paterson Avenue backed on to the huge reserve.

Barely 10 minutes after the news of the body find, Paul Webster rang the Cranbourne police station to tell officers that he had received a phone call from Liz’s younger sister who had spoken to Liz around five o’clock the previous afternoon to organise a shopping trip. While he was talking to one of the officers, Paul Webster overheard the discussion in the background about a body being found and then he heard one officer say, ‘I bet it is that girl.’

Paul Webster put his hand over the mouthpiece, turned to Rita and told her what he had heard. ‘I think they may have just found Liz’s body.’

There was nothing for the aunt and uncle to do but wait and pray that Paul was wrong; and the body was not that of their niece.