Underbelly 5 Page 8

  ‘Johnny, this is the chance for you to do something for your mate. Frank did think you were a good mate, his best mate. Could you help solve the murder and possibly recover his body so that his family can put it to rest, once and for all?’

  Morrow watched the screen in silence. He then turned to the two Victorian detectives and said something that amazed them …

  Frank MacGregor was alive. He had seen him seven years earlier.

  CONOMY thought Morrow was lying to save himself. They put the former thief into a New Zealand police car and started to chase a ghost.

  They went to the house where Morrow had last seen his former partner, then to pubs, jails, houses and bakeries where MacGregor had lived, worked or been imprisoned over the years.

  Finally, they were told that a man fitting the description was living in a caravan in the backyard of a house, in the Auckland suburb of Papakura.

  Conomy walked into an adjoining garage and saw a large balding man with a bushy beard.

  I said, “Hello Frank” and he said, “No my name is Ringa”. Even though the man spoke with a distinct New Zealand accent, Conomy was in no doubt – even though he had only a 30-year-old photo for identification.

  I knew it was him. I could recognise his eyes.’

  The man said he didn’t know anyone called Frank MacGregor and that his full name was Ringa Awhina Morehu.

  ‘I introduced myself as Detective Sergeant Conomy from Australia but he kept denying he was Frank. I told him I had Morrow in the car and he said, “That old bastard”.

  I told him his father had died and that he owed it to talk to his family.’ (His father, Frank senior, died on 3 November, 1983, believing two of his children had been murdered).

  ‘I told Frank that if he came with us, I would get his brother on the phone and he could talk to him direct. He then broke down and cried on my shoulder. He said, “You don’t know how often I nearly rang him but I couldn’t”.’

  They drove back to Huntley and Conomy called Andrew MacGregor in Geelong. The former police piper had just returned from his part-time job when the phone rang on 21 July, 2000.

  When he heard Conomy’s voice from New Zealand he hoped there was a breakthrough. He thought he might be about to hear where his twin’s body was buried.

  Then the detective said, ‘I have your brother here’ and handed the phone over.

  Andrew was sitting on the edge of his bed. ‘I wasn’t floored, but it did take time to sink in.’ He still had his doubts. Frank sounded totally different – he had a strong New Zealand accent.

  He asked his twin a question. ‘What was I called as a kid?’ The man with the stranger’s voice answered correctly, ‘Gertie’.

  CONOMY had solved the case. There had been no murder and he was talking to the supposed victim.

  So what really happened?

  MacGregor and Morrow have different recollections of exactly what happened after the star witness walked out of the Russell Street police station on 22 November, 1972.

  According to Morrow, they met and went to a local hotel where Kevin Angell walked in and said that Frank MacGregor would not be given the option of pleading guilty. He would have to disappear – for good.

  Frank was given a simple choice: flee overseas or die. ‘He was told his body would be found at the Preston tip if he didn’t go,’ Andrew said.

  He wasn’t given much time to think. He didn’t need it. He was put in the back of a car with Morrow and driven to Sydney. Morrow told police Angell said he would not have hesitated to kill MacGregor. According to Conomy, ‘Angell said, “I have a job to do.” But MacGregor got lucky. Angell liked Morrow, and because MacGregor was Morrow’s mate, Angell decided to give him a second chance.’

  To reinforce the fact that he was serious, Angell produced evidence of what he had done to the last person who had annoyed him. He showed them a small box. Inside was a human finger.

  Conomy said the men were driven to Sydney Airport. ‘They tossed a coin to see whether to go to New Guinea or New Zealand. They went to New Zealand. It was in the days before you needed a passport to go there and the two of them disappeared. ‘He gave them $100 each.’

  Frank MacGregor says his memories of what happened have been blurred by the years. He said he left the police station and was followed by four men in a car who took him to a nearby hotel.

  ‘There was Johnny Morrow, Angell and two others. Angell told me I had a choice – go to New Zealand or stay here permanently (as a body).

  ‘I rang my mother and said I had met an old girlfriend and would be late home. I hoped she would work out there was something wrong, but she didn’t.’

  He said he was forced to drive to Sydney with Morrow and a girl and then fly to New Zealand.

  Frank didn’t know that Angell had died and he disappeared into the land-of-the-long-white-cloud, fearing that if he returned to Australia he would be murdered.

  Both MacGregor and Morrow were to come under police notice in New Zealand, but no one knew they were wanted in Melbourne. When MacGregor was put in a New Zealand jail he should have been fingerprinted, which would have identified him as the man wanted in Melbourne but, mysteriously, someone swapped his prints with another man’s.

  Andrew MacGregor speaks warmly of Jim Conomy and David Rae. They are thorough and dedicated detectives.’ But he remains angry that it took almost three decades for anyone to take his complaints seriously.

  ‘If we had known back then that Frank was alive, it would have saved a great deal of heartache. I was told Frank had been dumped in the bay. Every time they found a body, you would think it was Frank.’

  Andrew blamed himself because he’d brought his brother in to talk to detectives. ‘I had nightmares for three years.’

  Frank MacGregor said that when Detective Sergeant Conomy walked into the Auckland garage and called him by his real name, ‘I was really relieved. I knew it was over.’

  CHAPTER 5

  Three minutes to death

  ‘I just saw this bloodless face. I grabbed him and he was like an eel to touch, he was that cold.’

  ALL his adult life, David Key had been trained to control his imagination. More than a decade in army Leopard tanks and almost as long in the police air wing had taught him to concentrate on the urgent and leave reflections to others.

  As he lay in the middle of a massive Bass Strait cyclone, more than 120 kilometres from shore, Key didn’t have the time to reflect on how he got there. He had to devote all his energies to getting out. Above him, literally, was his lifeline – the aging police helicopter – being battered by winds of up to 150 kph. But he knew that if he was dragged off by a monster wave, his mates above, pilot Darryl Jones, and winch operator, Barry Barclay, would detach the steel cable connecting him.

  Even though they had been friends for years the helicopter crew had been trained to protect the aircraft at all costs. If Key was acting as a sea anchor and there was a risk of dragging the helicopter into the boiling sea, they would cut him loose, and he would have to fend for himself, in waves 25 metres high.

  As a good swimmer and an experienced rescuer, Key was equipped to deal with even the most challenging conditions, but the weather in Bass Strait in the gathering gloom, had gone well beyond the imagination Key was not allowed to use. It was a nightmare.

  The noise of the waves, the bellowing winds and sea spray hitting his face like needles at point blank range, meant that he could not hear or see the helicopter battling to stay above him. He knew he was still connected only when he felt himself being dragged along the surface of the sea – through three waves the size of small hills – by his rescue wire. It was as if he were a giant spinner being hauled along on a fishing line.

  He was being dragged by the helicopter, not towards safety, but into further danger. The police air wing crew was trying to rescue John Campbell, who was washed from a yacht during the 1998 Sydney to Hobart race.

  The race had begun as the traditional Boxing Day distraction fo
r millions of Australians, but now, a day later, had turned into a maritime disaster.

  THE Sydney to Hobart is like no other ocean-going yacht race in the world. In the tradition of the other great Australian races, the Melbourne Cup, and the Stawell Gift, it is a handicap event – meaning that, in theory at least, gifted amateurs can compete against hardened professionals.

  Perhaps it is part of the Australian psyche to give the battler a chance. Blue-water sailing might be the richest of rich men’s sports, but the Sydney to Hobart accepts entries from weekend yachties as well as international billionaires.

  Of the 115 entrants jockeying for position in Sydney Harbor on Boxing Day 1998, the yachts varied from maxis, using technology developed for the space shuttle, to the beautifully restored Winston Churchill, built in 1942, when the piston-driven Spitfire fighter plane was at the cutting edge of development. The yacht owners were as varied as the craft they sailed, from American software billionaire Larry Ellison, who arrived on his personal executive jet for the event, to Newcastle yachtsman, Tony Mowbray, who mortgaged his house to buy his boat, Solo Global Challenger, and was planning a lone voyage around the world.

  The 1000 or so men and women on board the yachts were equally diverse; from professional crews, including America’s Cup veterans employed to give the maxis an edge, and international Olympic sailors looking to broaden their experience, to a group of mates from Tasmania who paid $500 each to crew on their friend’s 12-metre yacht.

  They all knew what to expect. Bass Strait – a shallow, narrow piece of water dominated by two oceans and unforgiving weather from the Antarctic – was notorious, but that was the challenge. The Sydney to Hobart had not become one of the three great ocean races in the world because it was easy.

  On Christmas Eve the yachties were briefed by weather expert Ken Batt, wearing a Santa’s hat. He told them they could expect to be hit by a ‘Southerly Buster’. This was typical race conditions – difficult, but not dangerous.

  Yet even as the fleet cleared the harbor on spinnakers to sprint down the coast, weather experts looking at satellite pictures and computer models, issued a storm warning. What the yachtsmen didn’t know yet was that the ‘storm’ had all the signs of becoming a cyclone.

  One of the great equalisers of sailing is that nature can conspire against anyone and everyone. As the fleet headed towards Bass Strait, there was a tail wind virtually sucking the yachts into the looming disaster.

  Ellison’s maxi, Sayonara, recorded speeds of just under 50 kph and was on track to break the course record. Just eight metres shorter than Captain Cook’s Endeavour, the hi-tech yacht was equipped with every nautical bell and computer whistle. With satellite global positioning her crew knew their location within one metre and, below decks, laptops and faxes provided continual updates on weather and winds.

  But veteran sailors know the best equipment in the world guarantees nothing if the weather turns evil. Even the great ocean liner, Queen Mary, almost capsized when swamped by a 27-metre wave, in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Newfoundland.

  Gear on Sayonara, designed for any conditions in the world, began to fail. Sails ripped, brass fittings snapped and winches, made of carbon fibre and titanium, were crushed as though they were made of recycled aluminium cans. And, as the front runner, Sayonara avoided the worst of it. It would be the slower boats that would bear the brunt of the unimaginable.

  INSPECTOR Garry Schipper is a bear of a man and a legend in the Victoria Police Force.’ At 195 centimetres and 130 kilograms, he has always demanded instant attention when dealing with some of the biggest names in the Melbourne underworld.

  Self-confessed killer, Mark Brandon Read, said Schipper was the toughest and strongest policeman he had met. ‘He wouldn’t hurt anyone unless, of course, they got between him and the dinner table,’ Read joked.

  Schipper is also well-known and respected in the yachting world, where his power is used on the manual winches to raise and trim sails on the big yachts.

  Even before the weather was to reach its most dangerous, Bass Strait was to provide a preview of what was to come. Schipper, on his 18th Sydney to Hobart race, was crewing on board Challenge Again, when hit by a giant wave. It was 2.30 am on 27 December.

  He had just unclipped his safety harness to get past gear on the deck when the wave plucked him up and threw him over the rail as if he were a rubber toy.

  True to Murphy’s Law, I was only unclipped for a couple of seconds when this large wave hit us,’ he was to recall, more than a year later.

  Schipper was in his wet-weather gear and had taped his sea boots to his rubber pants. It was the action of an experienced sailor who wanted to stay as dry as possible, but once he was in the water his boots began to drag him under.

  The rudder on the yacht was fouled, and it sailed 250 metres before it began to slowly turn. Schipper didn’t realise when he was thrown from the boat that he was still holding his waterproof torch. He was able to keep the light above his head as he was buffeted by the waves. Without the torch, his rescuers may not have been able to find him before he was swamped.

  Finally, the boat pulled alongside, but he was too exhausted to clamber back on board. His younger and smaller crew mates refused to let him go in the worsening seas. Schipper believes if they had, he would never have had a second chance. Finally they managed to winch him on to the deck.

  Schipper might be tough, but he’s not stupid. He is now an enthusiastic convert to wearing inflatable safety gear while sailing.

  FOR the crew of Victoria Police’s Air 491, the Sunday shift just after Christmas should have been a doddle. Businesses were closed and so was half of Melbourne. But that afternoon, the air wing received a call from Australian Search and Rescue in Canberra. There had been reports of emergency beacons being activated in Bass Strait. Could they respond? The freak winds that had dragged the yachts into the disaster area did the same to the rescue helicopter as it headed to Mallacoota. The Dauphin, a French twin-engine helicopter that first flew for the police in October 1979, has a top speed of 240 kmh. When the aircrew looked down at the speed gauge, they were travelling at 420 kmh – such was the strength of the tailwind.

  They refuelled and learned the situation had descended from ominous to chaotic. At least five yachts had sent out mayday calls and two were believed to be sinking. Two other yachts reported men overboard.

  A young American, John Campbell, had crewed in two previous Sydney to Hobarts, but both times his yachts had been forced to retire because of gear failure.

  This time he was on board the heavy-weather specialist Kingurra and he could reasonably expect to finish the race. But there was nothing reasonable about the seas in this, the 54th running of the 1000-kilometre race.

  Kingurra was swamped by a giant wave and rolled. By the time the boat righted itself Campbell had been washed away and knocked out when his head hit the deck or boom.

  It looked bad, but it was still salvageable, as he was connected by his safety harness to a lifeline. But, as other crew members tried to drag him back on board, he began to slip out of his harness and back into the raging sea. Luckily, the waves stripped him of his sea boots and wet-weather pants. He was alone in a cyclone dressed in a T-shirt and blue long johns.

  But for the moment, the weather worked for him. When the police helicopter took off from Mallacoota with a full tank of fuel and loaded with rescue gear, it should have taken at least thirty minutes to reach the stricken Kingurra. With a howling tail wind it took just ten.

  The wind was so strong, the helicopter was blown 800 metres behind the boat before it began a search pattern.

  Campbell had regained consciousness and was trying to keep sight of the yacht, which was itself in danger of sinking.

  The helicopter’s altitude needle showed it was about 30 metres above the sea. Then, a giant wave would rise within just three metres of the fuselage.

  At one stage the pilot, Darryl Jones, looked forward and saw a wall of water about 80 metre
s wide. The trouble was, it was not beneath but directly in front. He slammed on power and climbed from about 30 to 48 metres, then watched as the sea rose to within a few metres of the wheels underneath.

  If he had not reacted so fast, the helicopter would have been swallowed by the freak wave. But, experienced sailors say, it is not the size of the waves that make them killers – or, more clinically, ‘non negotiable’ – it is their shape and direction. In Bass Strait they would come from any direction and without pattern, often against the prevailing current.

  They are sometimes called ‘green waves’ as they seem to come from the ocean floor to swamp a boat. They are so steep they are almost impossible to climb, and as they move under the yacht, there is no rear slope to surf down.

  Giant yachts are left airborne. Skippers reported 20-tonne yachts dropping up to twelve metres to the base of the waves. The shock can knock the fillings out of teeth or, more alarmingly, split a hull like an over-ripe tomato.

  To imagine what the injured John Campbell saw while he tried to keep afloat as dusk began to fall over the cyclone, squat in front of six-storey building and look up. Then imagine the building moving towards you at around 30 kph, and then imagine it crashing on to you again and again. Imagine you are so cold your body is shutting down the blood supply to your arms and legs, to try to protect your vital organs. Then imagine you are as frightened and lonely as you can be. That’s how John Campbell felt. But at least Campbell was there by accident. David Key, on the other hand, knew exactly what the dangers were, as he pushed off from the police helicopter to be winched into the hell below.

  Key knew about danger. He had been in the army from 1973 until 1984, working as a Leopard tank commander. When he resigned from the army, he left on a Friday to join the Police Academy on the Monday, and was now in his second, long stint in the air wing.

  The wind was so strong that, although they were hovering above the injured sailor, Key ended up three troughs away. He was carrying 15 kilograms of rescue gear. ‘When I hit the water I just kept going down.’