LITMIR.BIZ

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      McCann muttered to the others, ‘Lucky they weren’t here.’

      Looking around outside, the point of entry was clear; the intruder had climbed onto a nappy bucket around the back, forced a window open and climbed through. Left behind on the blind was a gloved hand impression in blood.

      So brutal and bizarre was the attack on the cats and the threat to Donna Vanes, that detectives called in crime scene examiners, photographics and fingerprint experts to examine the Claude Street flat. They also arranged for officers from the Australian Animal Protection Society to perform post-mortem examinations on the cat and kittens to try and come up with anything that could help in the investigation. The examinations came up with nothing of any value but it was confirmed that the messages scrawled in the kitchen and the lounge room had been written in cat’s blood.

      The obvious conclusion was that the attacker knew Donna Vanes and hated her. Chris McCann drove to where she was staying at a relative’s house and questioned her about any enemies she might have. Donna was at a loss to explain the vicious attack. She could think of no enemies except perhaps the father of her child with whom she had ended the relationship before the baby was born. But she doubted that he would have had anything to do with such a violent attack. While the break-up had been acrimonious, it had never been violent. She could think of no one else who could do such a thing. Referring to the second name mentioned in the written threats, McCann asked her who Robyn was. Donna had no idea. Her father’s name was Robert but some people called him Robyn. Otherwise, she was at a loss.

      Chris McCann located Donna’s ex-boyfriend and questioned him at the Dandenong police station. He had an alibi for the previous evening and welcomed the detectives into his home to have a look around. The detectives found nothing incriminating at his house, and after speaking at length to the young man, Chris McCann doubted that he would have been responsible.

      The detective also contacted Donna’s father to see if he could think of anyone who hated him and his daughter. He couldn’t. After spending all day checking the few leads, McCann headed home to a couple of hours sleep before being called out to a house in Bulleen where an elderly couple and their son had been burgled and attacked by a gang armed with machetes.

      Donna Vanes moved out of the flat, staying temporarily with her sister Tricia. One of Tricia’s neighbours, Paul, had known Donna for a while. He told her that she was safe now and that if they ever caught the person responsible, he would take care of him.

      It seemed neighbour Paul made a habit of comforting women who lived in flats near him. The previous September, another of his neighbours, Julia, had suffered a similar break-in. While she was interstate, someone had broken into her flat and slashed photographs of her and her fiancé. Chillingly, her throat had been cut in all the pictures. The dress she had worn to her engagement party was sliced, and the intruder had attacked her piano with a knife, and carved symbols of reverse question marks into her wardrobe.

      Julia had chatted to Paul and his girlfriend Sharon before the break-in, she immediately suspected that it might have been Paul who attacked her things. She had seen him peeping through her windows, and a couple of times, he had appeared in her backyard. There was something strange about him…

      At Julia’s urging, the police questioned Paul, but the young man denied any involvement. The intruder was never caught.

      3

      ELIZABETH

      As 18-year-old Elizabeth Stevens stepped down off the bus which had brought her from Frankston to Cranbourne Road, Langwarrin, she was unaware that she was being watched.

      It was 7.15 pm on the evening of Friday 11 June 1993, and heavy rain had soaked Elizabeth’s short wavy hair so that it clung damply to her neck. She didn’t usually come home this late, but she had been working at the Frankston Library for a bothersome English assignment – one she had already completed but her teacher had asked for more research on the topic.

      A couple of weeks earlier, Elizabeth had dropped a history course that she had been taking at the Frankston TAFE college. While she enjoyed her English course, history wasn’t a subject that she was good at. She figured that she was at a disadvantage because she hadn’t studied it in Year 11. Her real dream was to join the army and the TAFE course was a means to that end.

      Elizabeth shivered in the cold June rain and hurried quickly towards the home she shared with her aunt and uncle, Paul and Rita Webster. Her own parents were separated and Elizabeth had lived in a children’s home in Tasmania from the time she was 14 until her 18th birthday the previous October. She had lived for a while with her mother, and then another aunt, before the Websters had offered her a home in Langwarrin. It was only a 20-minute bus ride to the TAFE college and Frankston Library, so the arrangement suited Elizabeth perfectly and she finally felt settled.

      As she walked along Cranbourne Road that Friday night, she was unaware that a man had followed her. He was drawing closer as she turned into Paterson Avenue.

      The rain grew heavier and it was hard to see.

      Out of the darkness, the man in the green army jacket and navy baseball cap lunged at her from behind, clasped a hand roughly around her mouth and pushed what felt like the barrel of a gun to her head. She screamed in fright but the sound was drowned out by the wind and the rain. He dragged her onto the front lawn of somebody’s house. She struggled against him, thinking she could protect herself; she had taken karate lessons for four years, but he was a big man, strong, and he had a gun. There was nothing she could do.

      The sexual urges that had apparently overcome the man when he first saw Elizabeth step off the bus, were replaced by urges of a much more deadly nature.

      ‘Shut up or I’ll blow your head off,’ he shouted at her, his voice rising above the heavy rain, chilling her into submission.

      ‘Kiss the end of the gun!’ he ordered.

      Elizabeth was too afraid to move.

      ‘We’re going to take a walk,’ he told the young woman, pushing her to her feet and leading her on down the road.

      She was terrified. What did he want with her? Was he a rapist? Or worse? A couple of cars drove past and the man grabbed her hand trying to make their walk down Paterson Avenue look innocent.

      As they walked past one house, a man and a woman ran from the driveway towards a car parked in a street. They barely noticed the man and his captive hurrying past them. If it hadn’t been raining so hard, the couple would have recognised the large man whom they had both known at school.

      The man forced Elizabeth Stevens down another street towards Lloyd Park. He knew exactly where he was going. Passing bushland and the park’s tennis courts, the man dragged Elizabeth into a clump of bushes; still holding the gun to her head. He stopped her when they had passed a dirt track near some sand hills.

      ‘Can I go to the toilet?’ she asked, desperately trying to think of some way to get away from the man. He agreed and led her to a mound of dirt and grass, gesturing that she go behind it. It was dark.

      The man watched Elizabeth open her school bag and remove two pieces of folder paper to use as toilet paper. She went behind the mound and he turned away, not wanting to watch.

      ‘What’s your name?’ he asked when she reappeared.

      ‘Elizabeth, but everyone calls me Liz,’ she told him, not believing what was happening to her.

      ‘How old are you?’

      ‘Seventeen,’ lied the eighteen-year-old. Perhaps she thought seventeen sounded younger and he wouldn’t hurt her.

      She was wrong.

      ‘Do you want a fuck?’ he asked bluntly.

      The terrified young woman stalled. She told him she didn’t know how and her abductor asked if she was a virgin. She nodded.

      ‘Well, I won’t rape you or anything,’ he assured her.

      Elizabeth Stevens’s relief was very short-lived. The

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