AN EVIL MAN
Ned McCann.

"He called her on the phone to say that a friend was ill and asked her to meet him. She walked to his house, where he was waiting for her in the drive. Once he got her in the car, he overpowered her with chloroform, and put her in the back seat with a linen bag over her head,
He drove west and when she recovered he punched her and chloroformed her again, saying, "You owe me."
They drove down a dirt track. He strangled her, and buried her in a shallow grave between two pepper gums."
I listen as Cedwyn tells me this. My mate, Lennie, had warned me about his girl friend. "She’s unpredictable, prone to violence, and a mean, vicious, bad arse of a woman." Nevertheless I interviewed her, for Cedwyn is a psychic and I’d run out of all leads on the physical plane.
Not a well woman, she suffers from a myriad of complaints. However, Anorexia does not seem to be one of them, for she is huge. She attributes this hugeness to eleven pregnancies, and seven miscarriages. Out of all that travail, she managed to keep and raise four.
The only exercise Cedwyn seems to get is when she rises from her chair to pour herself yet another half-pint of red wine from the four-litre cask in her spotless kitchen. She is also a heavy smoker, fifty a day. However, the house does not smell of it. Cedwyn attributes this to the eternal flame of beeswax votive candles, burning before the altar dedicated to the Goddess.
During my conversation with Cedwyn, she told me that Dot Davies had been met by Bruce Birrel in the driveway of his cottage. I corrected her. B.B. did not live in a cottage, he lived in a penthouse at Maroubra Apartments. Cedwyn, however, was insistent that it was a cottage. I noted this but, rather than quibble over details, let it pass.
Wednesday. July 25th 2001.
Someone left on the bus seat Bishop Spong's, 'Why Christianity Must Change or Die'. It is such an enthralling read I miss my stop and get off the bus at the Maroubra Beach Terminus. Maroubra gave birth to the Maroubra Stomp and Little Pattie, who regaled stompers with, 'He's My Long Haired Stompy, Wompie Surfer Boy and I Love Him So.' It's a cold, wet winter morning, but I'm rugged up and want to walk.
Walking along Marine Drive, heading for Lurline Bay, I glance off shore to some figures paddling around in wet suits; and wonder if they are what they seem to be, or the ghosts of those stompy wompy surfer boys, still waiting since the 60's for that perfect wave.
Lurline Bay, is not what could be called a sheltered harbour. Here, huge waves batter tumbled rocks the size of 1/4-acre blocks; and it is easy to see why Captain Philip upped anchor from his landfall near here 1788, and cruised the coast until he found harbour in Farm Cove, where, " 1000 ships of the line could safely anchor."
Undine street runs down from Banks Street to a sheer drop, where more of those huge 1/4-acre blocks of cliff tumbled stone are still being beaten by the sea. The street is deserted, squeeky clean. The wind, blowing the trickles of smoke from the chimneys into horizontal streaks, tells me that someone is at home doing something sensible; like watching the Mid-day movie over a mug of rum and Bonox, instead of splashing through puddles.
A big dog barks at me from number 5. But his tail is wagging and the gate is barred; so I bark back and walk down Undine until I reach the cliff path leading to Marine Parade looking for Maroubra Mansions where BB was interrogated by the cops in 'his luxury penthouse apartment. ' back in '93.
And there it was- a half moon of steel and glass luxury apartment sweeping around a curve in the Parade. An old guy comes out with a towel slung over his shoulder. Skin like Spanish leather, he is obviously one of those, damn the weather, daily swimmers. The bulges in his crimson Speedos tells me he is either hung like a circus pony, or suffering from testicular elephantiasis.
When I ask if the block of flats he has just come from is Maroubra Apartments, the old guy wrinkles his nose as if he has just put his thong in a pile of dog shit. Turning from me, he points to a place further down the track.
Maroubra Apartments is a rust streaked heap of cancerous concrete. The bottom storey consists of garages. The forecourt, littered with engines, motor body parts is not a good look.
There is a surveyor's obelisk on the cliff top opposite the apartments . I stand beside it . A squall patters me with spume as I try to visualise Dot arriving, being met by BB in the forecourt and look at the notes I made the last time I saw Cedwyn. The obelisk gives me compass directions and Cedwyn is correct. Dot, if she had walked from Undine street to BB's apartment block, would have been walking west. There's only one thing, though. According to my notes, now smearing in the rain, Cedwyn did say that Dot was met at the driveway to a house. However, I dismissed this detail, for she warned me not to expect 100% accuracy in her readings.
I make back to Undine street for another sticky beak, and this time I'm in luck. An elderly lady from number 3 is putting out some waste paper.
Mrs Norma Peacock has wrinkles so deep her face looks as if it had been clawed. She has lived at number 3 since March 7th 1964. "Or was it the 8th of March? Me memory's going."
I make notes.
" Of course I knew Dot. Knew her well. She and her husband, Jack, moved into number 9 the year after we did-'65."
Something circled among the notes I had made during my session with Cedwyn caught my eye, "Jack," she had said. "Dot is saying, Jack. It seems to be important."
Mrs Norma Peacock likes a chat and listens carefully through her hearing aid. What did she think of Birrell's story about giving Dot the 90 grand back?
"We'll it's only his word, for Dot's not around to say she got it."
Sick friend?
Mrs Norma Peacock sniffed. "Sick friend… There was no sick friend. She went round to Birrell's house, and was never seen again."
"Maroubra apartments."
"No." Mrs Norma Peacock corrected me. "His house. As well as that apartment, he owned a house on the corner of Wilson street and Marine Parade. If Dot had gone to his apartment, she'd have driven, on account her having arthiritis in her knee. But his house is an easy stroll."
It is an easy stroll, only two blocks away. "She walked two blocks west ."
And there it is; semi detached. "and was met by BB in the driveway of his house."
With a driveway running up the side of it.
My last interview with Cedwyne was a marathon. During it she threw fits claiming Birrel was attacking her on the astral plane. We bedded her down. I spent the night on a divan, Lennie, who suffers from sleep aponea slept upright on a chair.
During the night Cedwyn tried to smother Lennie with a pillow. Lennie awoke and slapped her around till she calmed down. About an hour later she pulled a dagger from the altar and stabbed at him with it.
We tied her up in an eiderdown and spent what was left of the night smoking dope and drinking tea.
Cedwyn still phones, usually in the wee, sma’ oors, blaming me for exposing her to psychic attacks from Birrel, and threatening the direst of consequences if she should ever catch up with me on the astral plane.