Three men go on trial today accused of the kidnap, rape and murder of a Swanbourne waitress.
Michael Evan, 31, George Constantine, 34, and Clay Tate, 29, are accused of luring Vanessa Gordy, 24, from the Indian Ocean Bar in North Cottesloe. Her body was found two months later in bushland near Yanchep by a family walking their dog.
The case has attracted huge media attention in Perth, as Tate is a member of the prominent Tate Mining family.
All three men have pleaded not guilty.
The report was already weeks old. Each day it seemed more and more pressing that he come to a decision. If they didn’t hurry, they might miss the trial altogether. This was their chance.
He had spent years after Amy had disappeared thinking of what those bastards had done to her, to him, to them. Not only that, but the more he remembered the time they had spent at the hospital, the more he felt he had let Amy down, unable to discern, much less offer her, the support she needed, and the stronger his urge had become to redeem himself and make it up to her. Time hadn’t faded his feelings much; it was only upon meeting Chloe that he had been able to gradually lay them aside.
So many times he had dreamt of seeing those men caught and punished. Not quite as often as he had imagined the retribution he would inflict himself were he allowed, but this was certainly the next best thing. Amy’s return had brought back all the old torments: the inadequacies he still felt; the rage he thought he’d quietened; and more and more his thoughts were consumed with at least seeing that justice was done.
Eventually, he left Chloe a long message on their home answering machine, explaining as much as he could think of, and then made his way to see Amy, still hoping beyond hope that this was the right thing to do.
Amy was overwhelmed when she saw Alex at her door. She had almost given up on him. The last few days had seemed to exist separately in time, as though there were nothing imaginable either before or after: past and future were on an entirely different plane of existence. She had been in a bubble, scared almost to breathe in case it should burst.
She invited him in, and watched as he cast his eye over her surroundings for the first time. She saw his gaze run across the bare white walls scarred with dirty marks, and the damp spot on the ceiling, then on to the scuffed wooden floors and over to the sofa bed in the corner at one end, the kitchenette at the other.
‘This is… is…’ He threw up his hands as if lost for words.
‘Horrible,’ she finished for him, moving to the kettle that perched on a tiny sill of the kitchenette. ‘It’s only temporary, though.’
Which was true, but the way she’d said it made it sound like she was about to buy a huge three-bedroomed semi-detached in the suburbs, whereas all her places in the past ten years had looked very similar to this, and she had no doubt the next one would too.
She looked up with a wry smile on her face as she said it, to let him know that she wasn’t feeling sorry for herself, and he smiled back.
They stood there awkwardly for a moment. Eventually, Alex walked across and put his arms around her, his cheek pressing against the top of her head. She kept her arms by her sides, but didn’t want to push him away.
‘Look,’ he said, holding on to her. She could smell his skin – aftershave mixed with something earthier and more natural. She breathed deeply, listening as he continued, ‘I don’t know how much longer the trial will last…’
She moved away from him and walked over to the window. ‘You don’t have to come, you know,’ she said softly, looking at the grey sky outside.
There was anger in Alex’s tone as he said from behind her, ‘Oh, really? For god’s sake, have we really just picked up from where we left off ten years ago, Amy?’ His voice became louder as he added, ‘Have you come back into my life, turned everything I know upside down, just so you can continue to shut me out?’
She turned and stared at him. ‘My name is Julia,’ she replied, enunciating the name slowly as though he were a child.
‘No, it’s not,’ he said. He stomped over to the door, grabbing the handle before he came marching back across the room, cupped her face firmly between his palms, making her look at him, and said, ‘Amy – Julia – whoever you are – I am NOT leaving. This time, I am NOT going. I want to help you. You are GOING to let me help you.’
The force of his words terrified her for a moment – even though it was Alex, perhaps the one man she still trusted – and she burst into tears. And then he lifted her bodily, carried her to the sofa and sat her on his lap, shushing her as though she were an infant, holding her, letting her weep and weep. And when she was done, she realised she didn’t want him to leave ever again.
That afternoon she told him the story of the past ten years, all her adventures – as bold a narrator as some returning conquistador. She described climbing mountains, rappelling off cliff faces, rafting through white-water gorges, snorkelling in coral seas. And he stared at her in open amazement.
Yet in between each word she spoke there was the void of everything she left out. She held his attention with the solidity of her words, distracting him from the great white sea of absence around them. What would he see, she wondered, if he could peer into this ocean of things held back? And what would he think of the terrible thing she hadn’t yet told him? Would he understand that she had tried to live the life they had dreamed of having together? Or would he see that when she went rappelling she had been praying the rope would have an undetected fray; that halfway through her descent it would snap, leaving her plummeting to earth. Or that her life jacket would deflate, her scuba tank be empty of oxygen, her foot brush against a deadly creature that would not hesitate to bite. That she had spent the years since death first took a long, appraising look at her, actively seeking it out once more. But because of the promise she had made to her mother – and perhaps also the prospect of facing her father in the afterlife – she couldn’t empower herself to take charge of her destiny. How galling it was that as much as she had become a victim of life, she was still forced to wait to be the victim of death – it was out of her hands, there was nothing she could do.
When she had finished talking, they both said little. The atmosphere in the cramped flat was dense.
After a while, he whispered to her:
‘It wasn’t easy for me, Amy. I was miserable for a long, long time. I even went back, you know – to Perth – a couple of years later. I thought I could play detective somehow, that if I found the men who attacked you, I might somehow karmically bring you back to me. But it was a waste of time, of course. There were no unsolved precedents to your attack; nothing new to uncover, however long I wandered around for. I didn’t really know what I was looking for anyway, and the police didn’t have time for me. I gave up after a few weeks and came home. Then I drank for a while… but pulled myself through that eventually when I realised how much I was upsetting my folks. And I tried to support your mum, until she cut me off. I checked in with missing persons regularly. I saw you everywhere, on the street, waiting for buses. I thought about you all the time, every minute…’ His voice trailed off. Silence reigned again.
After an age, Alex lifted his head and said softly: ‘I haven’t changed my mind, Amy. I’ll come with you… to Australia.’
‘Alex, you really don’t have to… there’s no point,’ she replied, hardened against his emotion.
‘Yes, I do,’ he answered, reaching across to tilt her chin up so she could look him in the eye. ‘And there is a point, of course there is. I’m sorry, it’s just that Chloe…’ His voice cracked on her name and he shook his head as he added, ‘God knows what she’s thinking, I can’t even find her to talk to right now. It’s not an easy situation all round,’ he finished.