Call Me Cruel (7 page)

‘Kylie said, “That's the fucking asshole.” When I landed on the floor both Kylie and the male jumped on top of me. I have felt my hands being grabbed and they were bound with something in front of my body . . . it was also around my neck at the same time because I was restricted in movement, I couldn't move my hands very far. I was trying to pull my hands down and it was pulling my head down with me . . . The male then said to me, “What's this fucking stuff?” I didn't answer him as I didn't know what the fuck he was talking about. The male has then said [to Kylie], “Where did Mick say the evidence was?” '

This was a reference to Mick Hollingsworth, the Redfern police officer who had been driving the car when TJ Hickey died four months earlier, and who was blamed for the death by many Aboriginal people. The ‘evidence' was Wilkinson's work notebook, in which he had recorded details of Kylie's changing stories about her alleged rape, an account of the theft of items from Marrickville Police Station, and a record of death threats he said he'd been receiving. Then, his account continued, Kylie said, ‘Mick said [the notebook was] in the house.'

Wilkinson responded, ‘I ain't got it, I've handed it in.' He said the man placed something like a jumper over his face, and he just lay there, too scared to move. He heard things being moved about the house and then the noise of the back door banging shut. There was the smell of smoke so he rolled over and managed to get to his feet, when the jumper fell off his face and he could see. He ran through the house, finding much of it alight and filled with smoke. He went into the main bedroom and closed the door to keep the smoke out, and then kicked the window out and yelled for help. No one came, so he clambered through the hole and ran to his neighbour's and knocked. When no one answered, he ran up the street knocking on doors until one opened. ‘Ring the coppers and ring the firies,' he gasped. ‘The house is on fire.' As a result of the incident, he said, ‘I have a burning throat, it hurts slightly when I breathe, I have a shocking fucking headache and a lump above my right eye. I have sore wrists and my neck is a bit sore.'

After Houlahan and Craig read Wilkinson's statement, they asked Mark Polley what he thought. He was suspicious about the fire: the house doors were barricaded from the inside, which didn't fit Wilkinson's story; and there were the mystifying movements of Burt, a yellow Cockatiel pet that Wilkinson said had been in its cage in the kitchen when he entered the house. Yet the police had found it on the veranda, uninjured.

Craig agreed the fire was suspicious, and wondered why Wilkinson might have set it. One possibility was that he had killed Kylie in the house and was trying to destroy forensic evidence there. But the modest nature of the fire, which actually hadn't done a huge amount of damage, didn't strongly support that. She thought it more likely that, if he had killed her, the purpose of the fire was to throw the investigation off course by suggesting Kylie was still alive. If this was really what was going on, it was a distinctly curious way to do it, by turning himself into Kylie's victim.

Another interesting aspect of the story (which, as police suspected, was a complete fabrication—Wilkinson had set the fire himself) was the inclusion of a twisted version of the TJ Hickey case. This was the first of many times Wilkinson was to incorporate real events into his fantasies.

Once the Bankstown detectives had briefed Houlahan and Craig, they said they wanted to take over the investigation into Kylie's disappearance. This made a lot of sense because the focus was definitely in Sydney: Kylie had last been heard from at Central Station, the only person of interest was Paul Wilkinson of Picnic Point, and the fire there was probably linked to her disappearance. It was all a long way from the Coast. But the crime manager back at Gosford refused to give up the investigation, which is how it came to be run from such a distance over the next five years. Once this was resolved, Houlahan and Craig arranged to interview Wilkinson the next day.

While driving back to Gosford, Craig rang the Homicide Squad, which is based at Parramatta. Homicide does not handle all murders in New South Wales, but its specialist detectives are available to advise local detectives working murder investigations. This advice can cover everything from techniques of collecting evidence to how to go about obtaining the necessary resources. Craig said they needed advice—it was clear by now this would not be a straight-forward case—and was put on to Detective Inspector Andrew Waterman. Then in his forties, Waterman was one of the most experienced homicide investigators in the state. His successes included the arrests of serial killers such as Ivan Milat and John Glover, the so-called ‘granny killer'. He lived on the Coast and was known and respected by many of the officers there, so Craig was pleased to learn his team was on call that day. She and Waterman had the first of what were to be many conversations about Paul Wilkinson.

One thing they discussed was how she and Houlahan should approach Wilkinson the next day. The problem was that although his behaviour on many counts was highly suspicious, they did not have one piece of firm evidence linking him to Kylie's disappearance. Because of this uncertainty, they would need to proceed with caution. Once Wilkinson realised he was a suspect, he would probably ‘lawyer up' and be advised not to speak to the police anymore. It was decided, in order to minimise the chance of rattling him, to keep their approach fairly relaxed.

Craig's first interview with Paul Wilkinson took place on 18 May at Bankstown Police Station. He was pretty much as she remembered him: a good-looking, dark-skinned man of average build, although he'd put on some weight. In manner he was confident and talkative. Houlahan and Craig began the conversation by asking about his recent relationship with Kylie; they learned that, following previous encounters at Redfern and Miranda, Wilkinson and Kylie had met again when she'd been working as a nurse's aide at Sutherland Hospital. In December 2003 he'd gone into the hospital for a few days of tests.

While he was there, he said, ‘I wasn't really allowed to smoke but I did, and I remember one time it was about half past three in the morning . . . I snuck out for a smoke . . . she came out to the smoking area and she put it on me there.'

‘What did she say or do?' said Craig.

‘She said, “We're alone,” she put her hand on my genitals. I pulled away and I just got up and went to my ward.'

They'd kept in contact after Wilkinson left hospital, he said, partly because Kylie was interested in joining the police force, and partly because she wanted to have sex with him.

Wilkinson's behaviour during the interview was peculiar. Sometimes he'd try to dominate by asking his own questions. At several points he was even aggressive, saying things like, ‘What are you asking that shit for?' and ‘What are you, stupid?' He seemed particularly hostile towards Craig, which was odd because at Redfern they'd got on well enough, and Wilkinson had had a good relationship with her husband, who is also part-Aboriginal. Craig asked Wilkinson if Kylie had ever been in his car. He said she'd got in one time and refused to get out unless he ‘engaged in some sort of sexual thing with her and I refused and refused and refused and it was at that point that she said to me she was going home to ask her husband for a threesome, her, her husband and myself. It frightened the shit out of me in the end.'

Craig asked if Kylie and he had eventually had sex. ‘No . . . I just told her that I was married and I had a young bloke.'

‘Did you ever think she had an obsession with you personally?'

‘Yeah, she did . . . she had problems with her husband and she couldn't have children. She always said she wanted to have a copper's child or a dark child.'

‘I got hit with two things from her,' he said in a long and rambling answer to a question about Kylie's problems. One was the alleged rape. The other was ‘info about Mick and what happened with TJ'. Kylie had told him something important about Hollingsworth, although he wouldn't say what. ‘I told her . . . she's gunna have to speak to someone who's in a very high position about TJ. She went, like, weird after that and, you know, and like I've never been frightened of anyone in my life, I'll stand there and have a crack at anyone. She had me that much in fear because, you know, she said she was gunna have me fixed, she was gunna inform my wife that we were having an affair, when we weren't having an affair. She threatened my family if I was to speak out about the sexual assault and the TJ incident. I was more or less like a puppy led around by her. My wife hasn't seen an angry man, she wouldn't know what an angry man is, she hasn't been around violence before.'

Craig listened with surprise to Wilkinson's convoluted, even disjointed, responses. This wasn't how he'd been back in their days at Redfern.

He went on, ‘I was extremely frightened for my young bloke and should also add in there back, I'm yet to be investigated for it but I will at some stage. Items went missing from Marrickville Police Station and they were [the] crime co-ordinator's mobile phone, and one of those hand-held video cameras . . . it was Kylie, she was gunna, this is how she had me, it may even cost me my job. I mean if I was to say anything to the Marrickville commander, he was asking the initial questions, she was going to deny everything, I didn't know what to do, I have to bring money in for the young bloke, he is forever growing. I guess what I'm trying to say to you, Beck, is everything that is going on, she was the centre of it.'

The more Wilkinson talked, the more he said had been ‘going on'. He said he'd received death threats, and Houlahan and Craig asked for details.

‘About two months ago,' he recalled, ‘my wife and I came home, I go through the same ritual when I come home. I walk inside the house first before my wife and kid come in. I've opened the front door and as you walk in there is one of my boy's teddy bears stuck to the wall with a knife through its throat. I've told Julie to grab me boy and go next door to Dorothy's and stay there until I say so. In searching the rest of the house, on my fridge in large letters were DIE, the house was clear and I went to get Julie to have a look. I've then told Julie to pack some of her stuff and stay with her parents until I say it's safe to come home. I didn't report it to the police because I, I, I don't know . . . I did, I did question Kylie about what happened, there was no words, there was a sly giggle.'

During this offbeat conversation, Wilkinson was rung several times by his wife, Julie, who was waiting outside. Finally he said he had to go and terminated the interview. This, the first of a number of statements Wilkinson was to make to police, is revealing in retrospect, although to Craig at the time it was more of a bizarre jumble. It contains most of the key preoccupations and fantasies that were to be elaborated in many of his later statements and conversations. One is the notion of Kylie as a sexual predator, another that she was violent and a thief, and yet another that she possessed secret information about the truth of TJ Hickey's death. Then there is Wilkinson's apparent concern for his family's safety, his professed love for his son and the fear that his wife might leave him if Kylie told her she and Paul were having an affair—even when they weren't. And finally there was the peculiar comment about his own capacity for violence (‘My wife hasn't seen an angry man . . .'), which had nothing to do with anything else in the conversation.

The interview was continued two days later when he came back; this time it was filmed and recorded. This procedure, known as an ERISP (Electronically Recorded Interview with a Suspected Person), is, as the name implies, most commonly used for suspects, but it can also be used by police to create a record of important witness interviews. After explaining to Wilkinson that he was not under arrest and was free to go at any stage, the detectives returned to the threats against his life. Another example of these was a letter he'd received at home with his car's registration number on it along with the word ‘tick' repeated a dozen times.

‘It got to the point that before even getting in the car I'd look under the car,' he said, ‘with the tick, tick, tick, tick about twelve times . . . I could only assume that it was a bomb.' He said the letter was handwritten, the same as another letter he'd received. That one had been put on his vehicle when he was visiting the Aboriginal Medical Service. This mentioned a police officer's name in relation to the death of TJ Hickey, and Wilkinson gave it to the Aboriginal Legal Service. Another letter received at home referred to his wife's colourful pyjamas, which Wilkinson sometimes wore when he went outside in the morning to adjust their faulty water main. ‘One of the letters,' he said, ‘it was along the lines of “Nice pyjamas”, or something to that effect. That had me like a bit windy, that's why I told Julie she's got to take the little boy over to her mother's and stay there for a while, 'cause the only time they would have seen me in the pyjamas was when I'd gone out the front, and that was an indication to me that, you know, it's possible that people are around watching.'

The letters, he said, were not sent through the post: someone had hand-delivered them to the mailbox out front of their house. Asked if he had any idea who had sent them, Wilkinson said, ‘At the time I was 100 per cent certain that it was the blackfellas, the local blacks down there at the Block [in Redfern], after what had happened to TJ . . . the day in which I went to the Aboriginal Medical Service . . . in the foyer there was not less than seven local Koori ladies, um, sheilas, and they gave me a hard time over what happened with TJ, and in the end when I was finished with the doctor I had to go out the back door because there was more of them down there, and that's when I've gone back to my car to go home and on the windscreen there was a letter.'