Call Me Cruel Read online

  By April 2001 they had left Melbourne and were living together in a flat at Erina. Kylie’s relations with her family picked up, and now Sean and she spent time with Louisa, Carol, Leanne and her two young daughters, and Michael. In Melbourne Kylie had been concerned about what he would think of her family. His own was intact and pretty typical, while hers, obviously, was not. But at Erina they got on well enough: each side made an effort, and Sean soon felt accepted.

  He discovered Kylie didn’t have any friends on the Coast, or even in Sydney. She told him everyone she’d been to school with was either dead or in prison. This solitariness was unusual but had its benefits for a sailor’s wife: Kylie was independent and happy to fit in with Sean’s postings around the country, at least in those early days. Not all partners were so flexible.

  Kylie got a job at a nursing home in North Sydney, and Sean was stationed at HMAS Penguin, conveniently nearby in Mosman. She would turn up at the base during the day and sometimes in the evening, expecting to be able to hang out with him. This was unusual and he had to explain that she couldn’t come to his work all the time because he was getting in trouble. She had difficulty understanding this and they argued.

  As Sean got to know Kylie better, he found she had a frustrated desire to help people. Whenever she met anyone of any age who was in some sort of strife, she’d do her best to assist them, sometimes even taking on too much. At work she would ring patients once their treatment was finished to see how they were. Once she got to know Sean’s family, she took an interest and would call them on their birthdays. At Erina she would sometimes look after Leanne’s girls and buy them presents. Sean found all this very appealing. She began to talk about studying to become a registered nurse. She hadn’t done it before because she’d thought she wouldn’t be able to handle the demands of university, but the more she worked in nursing homes, the more confident she became. She was fascinated by people in uniform, and gradually her desire to become a nurse grew.

  As they became closer, Kylie told Sean more about her unstable upbringing, which included plenty of experience of violence and other effects of alcoholism. She still seemed to resent her mother for what she had done, although she didn’t talk about it much. As he came to love her she seemed happier, and he wanted to make her contented, to give her a settled home. They decided to get married, and to announce this at Kylie’s twenty-first birthday party in September 2001.

  Kylie wore a dark-blue satin dress for the event; her hair was dyed a light blonde and elaborately teased into curls. She looked happy but also a little startled, as though nervous at being the centre of attention. Compared with his wedding photo of some twenty-eight years earlier, John hadn’t changed much, at least outwardly. The warmth was still in his eyes, but if you looked carefully, the confidence of his earlier years was diminished. He’d remarried and just come through a bad divorce, the emotional effects putting him into South Pacific Private Hospital for a while at the beginning of the year. But he was getting over it now, and for the next six years would work part-time as a volunteer in the hospital, helping other people deal with their problems. It was a period of personal growth for him: as he grew older, he mellowed from the disciplinarian he had once been and developed a modest sense of humour.

  In the photos from the twenty-first party, Carol is bigger than she’d been at her wedding and a certain unhappy tenseness is set in her expression. Michael once observed that Kylie was the sibling closest to their mother, and you can see it in their eyes, a wariness that seems out of place on such an occasion. Possibly it was part of their nature but also a reaction to life as both mother and daughter had experienced it.

  The wedding was not to be held for more than a year, but Kylie took on the job of organising it and began immediately. The job brought her out of herself, gave her a goal and, even more, almost a new identity as a future wife with the right to assert herself, at least with regard to the marriage plans. The planning was meticulous, with Kylie insisting everything be done exactly as she wanted. She wasn’t good at negotiating disagreement: at one point she went right over the top and fell out with Sean’s sisters. They had been going to be bridesmaids but couldn’t live up to Kylie’s demands.

  In August Kylie was quite stressed by all the planning, so Sean and she took a holiday in Tasmania. Sean did all the driving, as he usually did when they were together, and they enjoyed the restaurants in Hobart and the bushwalking at Cradle Mountain. It was an early honeymoon, and marked the beginning of the best period of their relationship.

  In October 2002 Sean was posted back to Melbourne, and the wedding took place at St David’s Anglican Church in East Doncaster in January 2003. Kylie wore a simple white dress with a multi-coloured bouquet. Carol had chosen a red suit for the occasion, while Leanne, the matron of honour, wore yellow. Michael was in formal black and Sean, his blond hair cut short, was grinning with delight.

  John and Carol each looked at the young couple and thought about the choices they’d made in their own relationships, and the effects those choices had had on their daughter. They hoped that she had found the stability and happiness she craved and deserved, and which they wanted her so very much to have. Sean was good for Kylie: she seemed to have grown up a lot in the past year.

  Leanne also believed that Kylie’s life had turned around. The sisters had never been close. Apart from the five-year gap in ages, there was a big difference in their characters, with Leanne calm and mistrustful of the love of drama Kylie had inherited from their mother. Kylie was an attention-seeker and was drawn towards danger, qualities that frankly scared Leanne. She’d seen her sister grow into a woman who was always either hyper-cheerful or moody, and who resented any attempt at a serious conversation as an intrusion into her private world.

  But lately she’d changed. Leanne looked forward to a future when Kylie and Sean would buy a house and have children, a future when the sisters would be able to talk properly and grow close, for the first time in their often difficult and troubled lives. Leanne believed the gap between Kylie and herself—in maturity and circumstances—was shrinking: Kylie was finally catching up.

  As John headed down the Central Coast Highway in May 2004, he recalled the details of his recent encounter with Kylie, when she’d visited him at work in Parramatta. After announcing her separation from Sean, she said she was staying with Louisa at Erina, where an agent was holding a flat for her. If John could give her $500 she could move in the next day. He pressed her for more information and she admitted she needed $1500 in total; she was hoping to get the rest from her grandmother. John said he’d give her the full amount and offered to write a cheque. Kylie said she needed it that day, so after she left he used the internet to transfer the money into her account. He rang her that night on her mobile and confirmed she’d received it.

  The next day he’d called to see how things were going. This time he rang the landline and talked with Louisa, who told him Kylie wasn’t staying there at all. He figured he’d been caught up in one of Kylie’s dramas—maybe she did need the money for a flat, despite the lie about where she was living, or maybe it was for something else. He decided not to pursue the matter for the moment; Kylie could tell him what was really going on in her own good time.

  Now he wondered some more about the money. According to what Michael had told him on the phone, Kylie had not come to live with Louisa until a few weeks after the meeting at Parramatta, and she hadn’t taken out a lease on a flat. The money must have been for something else. Maybe she was involved in something dangerous, although he had no idea what. Maybe she was in hiding. Disturbing thoughts ran through his mind as he reached Gosford, the region’s biggest town.

  The Central Coast was once a string of holiday and retirement beaches connected to Sydney by a road so tortuous that commuting was out of the question. But with the building of the freeway, daily travel to the city became feasible, and in the 1980s the Coast began to grow into what
it is today: a region of some 300,000 people sprawled among attractive beaches, waterways and bushland. Many of the new residents came from Sydney’s western suburbs, prompted to move by changes brought about by high levels of immigration and poor government. Roads became clogged, public transport was overburdened and house prices shot up and became unaffordable for many young couples. Tens of thousands moved up to the Coast in search of a more relaxed environment in which to retire or bring up children.

  Erina is a suburb of Gosford. John reached Louisa’s flat at 1.30 p.m., when he had the first of what would be many conversations with her and the rest of the family. She described how at 6.15 p.m. on Wednesday 28 April, Kylie had left the flat and walked across the road to the bus stop, where she took the service to Gosford Railway Station. She was hauling two bags, had her hair tied back in a ponytail, and was wearing a red and green Rabbitohs zip-up jacket, jeans and white sneakers. A few hours later, she’d called Louisa to say she’d arrived at Central Railway Station in Sydney. That was the last time anyone in the family had heard from her.

  John asked about Kylie’s behaviour over the past few weeks. The more he learned, the more confusing the story became: Kylie’s recent life had been even more eventful than he’d realised. For a start, apparently she’d been raped by a friend of Sean’s two months earlier. John was shocked by this news, which set his thoughts off in new directions. He wondered if the rapist might have had anything to do with her disappearance, but it seemed unlikely: he lived interstate.

  There were more surprises, and also plenty of confusion. While some members of the family believed Kylie was going to visit friends, she’d told others she’d decided to become a police officer and was off to the Police Academy at Goulburn to commence her training. But in confidence she’d told Louisa something else entirely: she was pregnant. The father wasn’t Sean. Nor was it the alleged rapist, who had worn a condom. It says something about Kylie’s character, and her relationship with her family, that she’d been able to parcel out all these dramatic secrets, which only now were being fully shared and compared.

  When Kylie hadn’t come home after a week, Louisa thought she might be spending time with the man who’d got her pregnant—whoever that might be. The family speculated on this now, and the others told John of changes they’d noticed in Kylie when she had moved to Louisa’s a few weeks earlier. She swore a lot, which was new, and was more aggressive. She’d also taken up smoking—although that had stopped abruptly about a fortnight ago, perhaps when she’d discovered she was pregnant. There was also a new enthusiasm for the South Sydney rugby league team, which was unusual because Kylie had no connection they were aware of with Redfern, Souths’ heartland, and had not even followed league in recent years.

  Another major puzzle was that the day after Kylie left, a removalist firm had rung Louisa. They said Kylie had sent her furniture (which had been in storage since her split with Sean) to the inland city of Dubbo, and had arranged to meet them there that day but hadn’t turned up. This was strange, although it might possibly fit in with one of Kylie’s stories: maybe she was planning to move to Dubbo with her child’s father, and had sent her furniture ahead.

  The family, as they now explained to John, had been concerned enough to do some investigating before they contacted him. Leanne had rung Sutherland Hospital, where Kylie had been working until recently as a nursing assistant, and tried without success to find out who her friends were. Leanne wanted to talk with them to ask if they were the people Kylie had gone to Sydney to visit. But the only response was speculation Kylie might be in a woman’s refuge somewhere. Some months earlier, she’d told colleagues she was having marriage problems.

  John asked the others more about this, wondering if Sean might have anything to do with Kylie’s disappearance. It didn’t seem likely: despite the sudden collapse of the marriage, there’d been no hint of violence from Sean, who was a mild-mannered sort of bloke. The family said they had no reason to think the two had met since Kylie left him.

  Once Louisa had become seriously worried about the lack of contact from Kylie, she’d gone into her room and found two recent monthly phone accounts; she was surprised to see how big they were: $800 and $1300. They showed that Kylie had been in constant contact with one number in particular, and when Michael next came over, on 7 May, he’d called it.

  ‘You have reached Paul Wilkinson,’ said a recorded voice. ‘Leave your name and message.’

  No one in the family had ever heard the name Paul Wilkinson. Michael hung up without leaving a message. Fifteen minutes later his mobile received a text message: ‘There was a missed call from your number, who are you.’ Michael rang again and a man answered. ‘Are you Paul Wilkinson?’ Michael said. ‘I’m Kylie’s brother.’

  ‘I didn’t know she had a brother,’ said the man.

  ‘Have you seen her lately?’

  ‘The last time I heard from her was the Monday before she left.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ said Michael.

  ‘Yeah.’

  It was a noisy phone call: Michael could hear a woman’s voice in the background, and a baby was making a lot of noise. Recalling Kylie’s story about joining the police, he said to Wilkinson, ‘Are you a copper?’

  ‘Yeah. How did you know that?’ Wilkinson suggested Michael tell the local police at Gosford that Kylie was missing, and mention his name. ‘If you hear from her, can you give me a call?’ he said. And then, ‘If you’re around some time we could meet up. I work in Sydney.’ The background noise increased and Wilkinson rang off, saying he would call Michael later.

  When Wilkinson hadn’t called back later that day, Leanne rang and asked if he’d heard from Kylie.

  ‘No,’ said Wilkinson, ‘not since Monday. How did your brother know I was a cop?’ He sounded concerned about this, which Leanne thought odd.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Where are you based?’

  ‘Sydney. I can tell you something. I don’t know whether you know or not . . . I am dealing with something to do with Kylie now. I’m at Miranda Police Station because she filed a rape charge, and it’s a hoax—she’s filed a false statement.’

  Leanne said, ‘How did you get this information? How did they [the police] find out about this rape charge? Have they found it out by investigation or word from her?’

  ‘From her.’

  Leanne was confused and concerned. ‘What do you think will happen to her for putting in a false statement?’

  ‘It’s pretty serious,’ said Wilkinson, ‘but it’s up to the detectives dealing with the case.’

  ‘Are you at work now?’

  ‘No, I’m based at Marrickville, but I’m not working at the moment as I’ve been a bad boy.’ As he said this, Wilkinson giggled. This was the second thing about him that struck Leanne as unusual.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘we won’t go there. Where do you fit in with Kylie? How do you know her?’

  Wilkinson said they’d met in 1999, when she’d been working at the Rachel Foster Hospital in Redfern. He’d helped her out when she’d had trouble with Aboriginal kids trying to rob her as she walked to work from the railway station; she had come into Redfern Police Station for help. In 2003 they’d come across each other again by accident at Miranda Fair, the enormous shopping mall that services the suburbs of the Sutherland Shire in Sydney’s south. They’d kept in touch.

  Leanne said, ‘We’re all a bit concerned about Kylie . . . She hasn’t made contact with the family in a week and a half. We’d really appreciate it if you could tell us anything.’

  ‘If it was my sister,’ said Wilkinson, ‘I’d go straight down to the local police station and report her missing. Where is your local station?’

  ‘Gosford.’

  ‘Go down there and tell them what you know. The detectives need something to do up there—and can I ask you a favour? Can you give them my nam
e and number . . . don’t forget to give them my name and number.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘I know how you feel,’ said Wilkinson. ‘My brother went missing for three months—it’s hard. Just go straight down there and report it, and give them my name and number. You can call me any time.’

  ‘Thanks for your time,’ said Leanne, and hung up. She was in a daze and wondered what it all meant. Later, she would wonder even more about Wilkinson’s insistence that the family mention his name to the police at Gosford. It was as though he was trying to insert himself into the investigation.

  Half an hour after Leanne’s call, Wilkinson called Michael and said he’d just come out of Miranda Police Station. ‘Kylie’s sent me a text,’ he said. ‘It said the rape allegation is false. Kylie has been having an affair with Gary [the name used in this book for the man she alleged raped her], and she’s gone [interstate] to be with him.’ He added, ‘Make sure you report it to the police, and give them my number.’

  The family were of course terrifically encouraged by this phone call from a man they believed to be a police officer, because it indicated Kylie was alive.

  John learned about other inquiries the family had made. Carol, wondering about the possibility of a link between Wilkinson and Dubbo, due to the call from the removalists, had checked with directory assistance and found the number of a woman named Wilkinson there. She rang, but the woman said she did not know a Paul Wilkinson. Michael had rung the removalists to see if Kylie had turned up; she hadn’t. Her possessions had been stored at Ark Self Storage and she owed them $200 on the deposit.

  Once he’d heard all these stories, John decided to search Kylie’s room thoroughly. He found her diaries and other documents, and two cards in the drawer of the bedside table. The first was for Louisa: