The first quick search found his carry bag alongside his bedhead. A credit card with von Einem’s name on it helped prove the contents of the bag were his. I found a drug bottle in the bag. The bottle contained assorted drugs and a small slip of paper. On the paper were written the words ‘Uncle Bevan’. The bottle contained Sinequan, Serepax, Rohypnol and Valium.
The drug bottle in his bag did not contain Mandrax. I found three Mandrax drug bottles on the shelf of the cupboard with the mirror, but they were empty. They weren’t in the carry bag or the bottle of assorted drugs. They could be anywhere, even buried in the yard, or hidden in the garage or the roof of the house. How do you find some pills if someone wants to hide them?
I used the element of surprise. Sometimes a direct question can catch people off guard, and this time it came as a surprise to von Einem. He was not expecting it.
I walked from the bedroom to the passageway where Trevor was standing with von Einem and his solicitor.
‘Can you show us where the Mandrax are?’
‘Behind the mirror — there is a ledge there.’
Von Einem walked into his bedroom and moved toward the white cupboard with the mirror in it. He reached into the left-hand side of the cupboard and pulled out two bottles of Mandrax from a ledge behind the mirror and gave them to me.
‘There are tablets and capsules,’ he said.
Bingo, I thought. Trevor and I had another win.
‘How many would there be?’ I said.
‘There would be about forty capsules and . . .’ He hesitated and I asked:
‘Is there anything else hidden in the room?’
‘No.’
To this day I don’t know why I did it but I looked inside the cupboard behind the mirror to see where von Einem had the drugs hidden. I saw a wooden ledge, which formed part of the framework of the cupboard that supported the mirror. Sitting on the ledge was another drug bottle. I reached in and took the bottle from the ledge. I read the word ‘NOCTEC’ on it. Before I said anything von Einem said, ‘I don’t use them much.’
‘When I asked if you had anything else hidden in the room you said you didn’t. That is right isn’t it?’
‘No, it isn’t but I had mentioned to Helena about it in Angas Street.’
Now things were starting to look promising. Von Einem had Mandrax that was found in Mark Langley and Richard Kelvin and now we had found Noctec, which was also in Richard Kelvin. And the drugs were hidden.
Why would he want to hide these two drugs if he has nothing to hide? His other drugs weren’t hidden.
Arch Kempster took photographs of the house inside and out. Other than the drugs, we didn’t find anything of interest. Des Phillips took fibre samples from the house to check for one-way transfers — the movement of fibres from items in the house that might have got onto Richard Kelvin’s clothes. He obtained fibre samples from the carpets in the house and the bedspread in von Einem’s bedroom. He did not check for possible fibres from Richard Kelvin’s clothing being in the house. Kelvin was wearing jeans and a blue T-shirt and they were made of common materials and colours that did not stand out. Daryl Kruse made a general check for fingerprints in von Einem’s bedroom but did not find anything. However, what he did notice was that the door to the bedroom had been wiped clean. The fingerprint powder showed the marks left by the swirling motion of a cleaning cloth. Obviously, houses get cleaned and nothing could be made of this but Daryl was a very experienced fingerprint man and he was surprised just how much cleaning had been done in this bedroom.
We returned to the office about ten that night and gave work away. I was pretty tired after a long day and headed home. I didn’t go to the Police Club, a square 1960s building that was built behind the Angas Street police building that we often visited at the end of a shift. On my way home I was thinking about things and, on a hunch, I decided to drive past von Einem’s home. As I drove past, I saw a vehicle parked in the driveway. It wasn’t von Einem’s silver Toyota Corona hatchback or his older Ford Falcon.
Well, isn’t that interesting? I thought.
I drove past and turned around. I stopped in the street and turned my lights off about five houses away. Parked in von Einem’s driveway was a car, which would soon become very familiar to me. When I checked the registration details the next day, I learnt it belonged to an associate of von Einem. He may have been consoling von Einem after our visit to the house during the day. However, my suspicious mind suggested more sinister reasons. They would be talking about our visit. Talking about the implications of the seizure of the drugs.
Bevan Spencer von Einem just might be starting to get worried, I mused as I sat in my car parked in the darkened street, watching the house. The lounge room light was on. I gave it away at 1.30 in the morning. His friend was still there and I was satisfied that a close association had been confirmed.
Chapter 8
The Raids
The next morning we were back in the office. We didn’t have enough evidence to arrest von Einem for any of the murders but he had to be a hot suspect. He was a homosexual who visited the beats. He had the reputation for picking up boys and sexually abusing them. He had the drug, Noctec, which was found in Alan Barnes and Mark Langley. He had three of the four drugs that were found in Richard Kelvin and two of the drugs, Mandrax and Noctec, were found hidden in his bedroom.
By this time Trevor Kipling was making all
