Sex Crimes (13 page)

‘Clayton, the drummer,’ she said with great certainty.

‘How did you get to the hotel?’

‘In the back of a limousine. Me, Libby, Chris, Clayton and the woman he was with. We all drank more champagne on the way.’

‘Did you take drugs to the party? You or Libby?’ I challenged her.

‘No. Definitely not. I hate pot. I’ve tried it but it doesn’t agree with me. I did some coke at the party but that was the first and last time I’ll do that.’

‘Would you say you and Libby were flirting with Chris Bergin?’

She swallowed hard.

‘This is embarrassing but I guess I was. I was a bit tipsy and he was giving me the vibe you know. Libby? Nah. I don’t think Libby knows how to flirt. She’s too cool.’

‘So you were giving out sexual interest signals but Libby wasn’t.’

‘That’s right and Chris was kind of cool at first but back at the hotel he started warming up.’

‘Was he drinking? Taking drugs?’

‘I only saw him have one line of cocaine at the party but he was drinking some beers and maybe some champagne. And then later…like at about two or three in the morning, he started really waking up and acting all stupid, groping at me and touching me up. I didn’t mind. He told me he’d had some cocaine to wake him up. And it really worked for a while.’

‘Did he say who gave him the coke?’

‘No,’ Abbie said very quickly. ‘I don’t know who had brought drugs but it wasn’t me.’

‘Do you or Libby take pills or use other drugs, usually?’

‘No,’ Abbie said and then looked up at me with surprise. ‘Not illegal ones but yes I take prescribed stuff like my dex.’

This was news to me. I stopped and stared at her, trying to process what she was saying.

‘You know dextroamphetimine …I take it for my ADD,’ she announced brightly. ‘Only it just keeps me normal. Doesn’t make me high or anything and the doctor prescribes it.’

Fucking hell, I thought at that point. How did I manage to miss that? She had never ever mentioned the ADD. Not even her mother had mentioned it.

‘Fine, moving along,’ I stammered and went back to my notes.

I gritted my teeth and shut my eyes with frustration when Magistrate Hallinan called out in his booming voice. He could be such a cantankerous old fart.

‘May I just interrupt and ask Miss Proudfoot if she had the drug in her handbag on the evening in question?’

‘I don’t think so,’ she answered and I breathed a sigh of relief but then she went on. ‘If you’re ADD like me the drug doesn’t give you a buzz you know but if you aren’t ADD it’s like a real buzz…like speed. Libby tried some once just for a laugh and she went psycho.’

‘Thank-you Abigail,’ I said straightening up and turning to level a glare at her.

‘You have said in the statement you gave to the police that you had consensual sex with Mr Bergin. Correct?’ I hammered on.

‘Yes. He was very consenting. He was a bit wasted but that didn’t affect him in that way, if you know what I mean.’ She gave a shy smile.

The girl was an open book. I’ll give her that. She was genuine and sincere and I got the impression she was not accustomed to lying. I had told her quite firmly that it was a crime to lie under oath in court. Her big blue eyes had assured me that she would not.

‘What was Libby doing at the time?’ I asked.

‘Watching,’ she answered. ‘I saw her watching. She wasn’t very happy I don’t think because she had wanted to get with Chris and he had wanted me.’

I winced but tried not to show it. She’d gone too far and put an immature slant on my question.

‘But you said she had not been flirting with Chris,’ I said through clenched teeth.

‘Not flirting
successfully
, I meant,’ she said. ‘She thinks that having an in depth discussion on something deep is flirting. Which is why she is not so popular with the popular boys just people like Chester McNaughton. And he’s got a massive crush on Lib.’

‘But there was no overt sexual behaviour toward Chris from Libby? You are sure,’ I guided her back on topic.

‘She wasn’t being sexy just being interested in things he was saying and stuff.’

We were back on track and then I saw bloody Tim Murphy whispering something to his assistant who left the room with a stealthy gate after bowing to the Magistrate. They were up to something. It riles me to see a snake like Murphy taking money from a child rapist to try to discredit the victim. The girl would not come forward and make a claim that the man was the biological father of her child if he wasn’t. The DNA testing when the child is born will be definitive evidence of that and she would look foolish if that turned out to exonerate Bergin from paternity. Libby O’Neil wasn’t stupid. She wouldn’t let that happen. I for one am certain that the story is as she tells it.

I looked over at Chris Bergin and watched him looking at the girl he had indulged in a sex act with. Nothing. If anything he looked disgusted. With her. Not with himself. That’s what hedonistic rock and roll fame does. It alienates you from real people. It is a culture of slut-shaming which belittles women and stereotypes them into walking talking porn stars and little more. Which brought me to my next question.

‘You and Libby have said that Chris asked you to perform a sexual act together.’

‘Yeah,’ she blushed and looked down at her hands. ‘He wanted us to kiss and touch each other. So we did.’

‘Had you and Libby ever done that before? Did it make you feel uncomfortable?’

Abigail looked up at the ceiling and then back at her hands.

‘It was a bit weird but Libby did really get into it. She wanted to go down on me but I didn’t want her to. She said she was only trying to impress Chris. But we just kissed and touched each other’s boobs.’

‘This was after you and Chris had sex?’

‘Um…yeah,’ she mumbled.

‘And you were naked? How about Libby?’

‘Nah, she had her clothes on.’

‘And was Chris pleased with your performance?’

‘Well he had a huge …you know…. so I guess so,’ she laughed.

‘Even straight after you’d had sex?’ I asked.

‘He was like a machine. It was up all night I think.’

I could see Magistrate Hallinan squirm and push his spectacles up over his bulbous nose. The old bastard was probably getting off on all of this. Libby’s parents looked horrified but I continued. This was good because it played Abbie as the more adventurous girl to her friend’s reserve.

‘Keep the questions tame, Counsellor,’ the man boomed down at me. ‘We do not want graphic questions put to the girl here in public. As discussed.’  

‘And then you went to the bathroom? You needed to go?’ I asked after nodding back up to him.

‘I was feeling a bit dizzy and wanted to wash my face and pee and put on some make-up because I saw in the mirror that I looked a total mess.’

‘How long were you in the bathroom?’ I pushed on.

‘As long as it took to pee and wash my face and put on some make-up. Lippie and stuff. Five minutes. Maybe ten at the most,’ she said, thinking about it although she’d told the police investigators and me the same thing over and over. She was very consistent.

‘And when you returned? What was happening in the room?’

‘Um. I’m not sure. It’s not totally clear.’

That’s when the bloody silver fox leapt in to action. Tim Murphy rose and interjected asking the Magistrate if he could interrupt with a question. The bastard. It wouldn’t have happened in a trial court. But Hallinan was flexible with witness interrogation during preliminaries. He didn’t like minors being cross-examined, though an occasional cross question was allowed and allow he did.

Silver Fox walked up to the podium and looked at Abigail, smiling his foxy, sly and cunning smile.

‘Miss Proudfoot, was Libby O’Neil a virgin when you arrived at that hotel that evening? You’re her best friend and best friends know those sorts of things about each other.’

‘She was. She’d pashed a few guys and maybe done a little more but never anything serious. She was still a V card carrier for sure,’ Abbie said.

Good girl, I thought. And really. It is so unlikely that a girl who has hung on to her virginity while her best friend plays the field is going to jump a drunk rock-star after her girlfriend has finished with him and be all done when the girlfriend reappears and be desperate to leave. Girls who do that sort of thing also tend to take photos on their phones as brag material.

‘And when did she tell you she had been raped? Immediately?’

Abigail began to fidget. She blushed and looked up at Chris. No. Dammit. Don’t look at him, I thought. You have a connection. You’ve been lovers. He’s got power over you. He’s abused it once, don’t let him do it again.

‘I can’t remember.’

Damn. He was spooking her. She didn’t want to dish dirt on that bastard now that their eyes had met. The arsehole was giving her big puppy dog eyes I could see it.

‘Look,’ she said flatly and turned back up to the Magistrate. ‘I know I said she told me straight away but that’s because Libby said later that she had. I honestly can’t remember and I was a bit drunk so I can’t say anything about that for sure, you know?’

Thanks a lot Murphy, for derailing and distracting my witness, I thought.

‘That’s all,’ he nodded and smiled at me.

I so wanted to flip the finger at him but would have been in contempt.

‘Is Libby the sort of girl who would make up this whole story?’ I asked. ‘To make a false allegation?’

‘No,’ she said firmly and it would have been perfect if she’d left it there but she didn’t. ‘There was one time she did make up something but it was just a pay-back thing, she said Mr Luft had grabbed her boob and she even told the Principal but then she told everyone she’d been kidding because he’d flunked her for theatre history. But that was just like a practical joke nothing like this and she’s really pregnant so she couldn’t be making it up. Not this time.’

I shut my eyes and nodded slowly. Oh dear God, why did she not stop. She’d gone over the line and it was something that might really hurt us, I thought at the time.

‘Thank you Abigail. That will be all,’ I said.

All I could do was pray that the defence was done. I thought we still had enough to push forward to trial. If we got a jury trial, Bergin would fry. The public had ditched him in a millisecond and it would be hard to find any juror who had sympathy for him.

The detective leading the case, Simmonds, a big bear of a man with a Hercule Pierrot moustache suddenly walked down the aisle and approached the bench, speaking with the Magistrate. I strained to hear but couldn’t.

And then Hallinan announced that the police had only just retrieved the CTC footage of the girls leaving the hotel and footage of from the elevators. It had been thought to be lost but had apparently turned up after all. The hotel had been having technical difficulties. I just prayed that it would tie in with the girls’ story. The footage was being brought over to the court room and was only half an hour away. If it showed Libby in any kind of distress, that would be great for our case.

And then Murphy approached the bench and spoke with Hallinan. They were head to head for ages and that was making me nervous.

‘While this is highly irregular, the defence has requested one more witness who has only just come forward who may be able to give evidence that might have a serious bearing on my decision to move to trial or not.’  Hallinan said brusquely.

I went to argue. This was the prosecution’s hearing. What the hell was Murphy doing? Hallinan pointed at me and frowned. Bloody boys club.

‘I’m calling a recess and admitting the witness. One Chester McNaughton.’

I bristled. Who the heck was that? Was that the boy Abigail had mentioned? Why was he significant? I’d never heard of him before.

‘I’ve not been briefed on this witness,’ I called out angrily.

‘He’s only just come forward and that was almost contempt! Hallinan said a deep, billowing but smooth voice. ‘He’s in a taxi en route now.’

At recess I called Libby. I knew she’d be waiting by the phone anxious to hear how it was going.

‘Who is Chester McNaughton?’ I asked her brusquely .  

There was a silence from the other end. A long silence. And then she spoke. Her voice was more of a hiss and she sounded like someone else completely.

‘He raped me. Don’t believe anything he says. He’s a compulsive liar and a rapist.’

‘He raped you?’ I stammered. ‘Libby, what are you saying.’

‘Just don’t let him talk about me because it’s all lies. He raped me.’

‘What about Chris Bergin? When did this Chester rape you?’

‘Oh fuck! Forget it you idiot,’ she screamed at me. ‘I’m coming down to the court house now. I’ll catch a cab’

‘No, Libby. You can’t cause a scene. No!’

But the girl hung up. I tried to level my breathing. I tried to calm my throbbing head. But things were going from bad to worse.

***

16.

Magistrate Fred Hallinan

The first thing I did when I was back in my chambers at break was look up this dexeroamphetimine business and I discovered that some of the adverse side effects can include hypersexuality and profound personality changes and delusional behaviour. It intrigues me that these girls definitely had access to such drugs and witnesses have given accounts of the girls being high and passing drugs out. The report from the school principal shows that Elizabeth O’Neil was caught with the drug Ecstasy in her possession. The defendant was certainly acting in a hypersexual way and from all accounts, out of character.

I’d be pretty damned ashamed of my daughters if they ever behaved like these teenage Sirens. Of course I don’t know that my girls  haven’t been a little wild but they’ve never ended up having their sex, drugs and rock and roll lives hug out for the world to see, that’s for sure. Kim is a general practitioner and Sam is a graduate lawyer so I find it highly unlikely that they were ever as out-of-control as these two young girls are.

It’s hard sometimes to be impartial. I fight the urge to be judgmental. I know that sounds ironic but by that I mean that I can’t afford for Fred, the man, the father, the husband and all-round good bloke and excellent golfer, to be judgmental. When I pick up my gavel and don the robe, I become impartial and objective. I had to forget that I have daughters. I have to forget today that I hate rock music and most particularly the drivel put out by
Drop
Dead Gorgeous
. I am a servant of justice. A law-enforcer. I must see that the law wins out against human whimsy and that fact beats rhetoric. The scales of justice must be weighed because without that equilibrium we would be tossed and buffeted on the waves of emotion.