Deborah Locke - Watching the Detectives: One Womans Journey Through Sydneys Criminal Underworld

To my darling husband Greg
and our three beautiful children
Vanessa, Hayes and Bronte

Ron was as flash as a rat with a gold tooth. He always wore large gold rings and the latest in mens fashion. With his dark hair cut very short, he professed to be of Polish heritage, but I suspected he was really Russian or Hungarian.

It was a morning late in 1988. I came into the office to find Ron jumping out of his skin with excitement. I had never seen him so cheerful. Its the big time today, he said smiling. Ill show you what its all about, being a detective. We have a big lunch on today, and if youre a good little girl Ill let you come.

He was almost prancing when he walked, which I found very amusing. Oh, this will be good, I thought. This is going to be just another piss-up. Little did I know.

Ron had been counting down to midday all morning. He snatched the keys to our unmarked car from on top of my desk. He was going to drive. He told me we were going to a very classy local Chinese restaurant; I had never eaten there before. We grabbed our coats, left the office and walked out the back to a fenced car park adjoining Parramatta police station. Before long we were entering the car park of the restaurant. Intelligence reports indicated that at one time it had been an illegal gaming den. As Ron parked the car against the wall, I noticed two other unmarked police vehicles.

The restaurant was fairly large, with the usual gold dragons, bamboo pots, fish tank, and paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling. This will be good, I thought. Cool, a long lunch. Rons obviously found a new restaurant owner to impress.

Smiling, the man on the door directed us to where an Asian man was seated at a large round table near the back of the room. Although seated I could see he was uncommonly tall and thin, wearing an immaculate dark suit. A colleague of Rons was also seated at the table. His face fell when he saw me. He leaned over towards Ron as we sat down, and said, What did you bring her for? not caring whether I heard him or not.

Oh shes all right, said Ron.

Is she?

You can trust her. Shell be all right. Im training her.

Slowly other characters started to roll in. It wasnt long before I had a feeling there was something more going on than just a big lunch. Two very distinguished-looking lunch guests wearing suits were introduced as owning a used car yard. They appeared to be treated as special guests. The next to arrive were four city detectives from one of the squads. They were casually dressed in jeans and polo shirts, not suits like the divisional detectives. I had never seen them before, and I havent since.

Things were progressing in a jovial atmosphere with abundant Crown lagers. Combination chow mein, sweet and sour pork kept rolling in. Over time the table was covered in double-shot glasses of scotch and palate-cleansing ales. In those days my preference alternated between gin and tonic and Malibu and dry.

Dressed as always in a black or dark grey suit with white shirt and thin dark tie was Louis Bayeh. Well known in police circles, Bayeh was also a Parramatta celebrity. I had met him before; he had asked me to approach one of my close relatives to be a front man for him at a well-known disco. I was getting used to everyones blatant disrespect towards me as a woman, from police to crooks, but I didnt understand why the cops were so buddy-buddy with the baddies.

This is going to be big, I thought, and my hunch was confirmed when Detective Sergeant Roger Rogerson joined the group. Suddenly things didnt look so good, and I started to feel as if I was well and truly in the wrong place. I had thought the cops were just pretending to be mates with these guys to get a brief on them, the sort of thing I had been used to in undercover work. It was starting to dawn on me that the relationship here between cops and crims was different.

I couldnt decide whether to leave or not, and I didnt want to draw attention to myself by getting up in the middle of lunch. Convention dictated that I shouldnt leave until Ron had finished. I was definitely not meant to be there that day and my neck had begun turning red, always a giveaway.

I had no idea what was going to happen. Because I was also young and good-looking, were they going to get really drunk and hand me over to someone as a sexual offering? I had come from the Gaming Squad, so maybe they thought I looked like recruitable material. I was the only woman present and I was scared; being with drunken coppers was not safe. As I had another gin to calm my nerves, it crossed my mind that if Internal Affairs were videoing the whole thing, my career would be down the toilet.

The meeting developed a definite pattern. Whenever any of the players needed to talk business, they would quietly get up and move to another table in the restaurant, out of hearing. This continued all afternoon. Louis or Roger always seemed to have someone away in the corner for whispers. I was finding out that a lot of whispering went on at Parramatta.

I had heard about Roger Rogerson. He was widely considered a very intelligent man, and at one stage he had been groomed as a future police commissioner. But that afternoon he obviously had other things on his mind, and he was another one who was definitely not happy to see me. This is not the place for her, he told Ron. You shouldnt have brought her here. Ron was clearly beginning to regret his decision now that he had lost face with the Dodger.

I gradually realised that the police at the table were wearing large gold rings. Theirs were similar: a chunky square with rows of diamonds. With a few drinks under their belts the boys would occasionally hold out a hand, fingers spread, admiring each others rings.

With more alcohol being consumed, lips were loosening further. Despite this, Roger, Louis, the tall Chinese man and the two car salesmen remained cool. The only ones going berserk were the silly bloody detectives getting on the free grog. The sober men were there to talk business, not just celebrate and admire the gold rings. As the lunch went on, one of the detectives got so pissed he slipped off his chair and fell asleep under the table. This was amusing for a while, especially when he began snoring loudly. The entertainment was soon to change.

What the fuck is that smell? demanded Rogerson, his face turning rouge. The unfortunate bastard had soiled his pants. Even worse, he was wearing white jeans. As the stench wafted upward to those seated around the table, Rogerson went berserk. Get that bastard out of here, he barked, getting to his feet. Take him down and put him in the bloody car. Two of the boys I didnt know picked him up, one taking his arms, the other his legs. With strained expressions they carried him downstairs to the car park and left him unconscious in a police car. I never saw him again.

Eventually we were the only people in the restaurant. During lunch there had been a couple of other tables occupied by Asians. Knock-off time at 5pm came and went. We remained at the table talking, a favourite pastime of cops, trying to outdo each other with arrest stories.

As I was seated next to one of the used car salesmen, I borrowed his mobile to call home. Im doing lunch with the boys, I told my mother Irene. It was now a long way past midday. I dont know what time Ill be home. If she had said anything I wouldnt have heard it anyway over the noise from the others at the table.

People had started arriving for dinner, but maybe only about two more tables were occupied by this time. Bayeh and Rogerson again moved to another table to play Chinese whispers. The Chinese man and the used car salesmen eventually left. As he favoured me with the occasional glare, Rogerson might have realised why I had left the Gaming Squad, that I had stood up against corruption and had not physically been safe there any more. Either that or he perceived that I wasnt like the others.