I stood with the metal bars rising up in front of me and I looked through them to the circle yard on the other side of the arched iron gates. When horses and carts were used, the circle yard allowed prison vans and carts to enter the jail, circle round and head back out. Now motor vehicles are used, the yard was filled with a fibro building, which allowed prisoners and their families to talk but not have physical contact. It was appropriately called the visitors’ non-contact building. The whole place was cold and forbidding.
A prison warder pointed to the visitor’s book lying on a sloping shelf near the left-hand iron gate.
‘Fill out the book.’
We all signed the entrance book, giving our names, addresses and reason for being at the jail. We all gave our business addresses.
‘Just a moment and we will have someone take you to the interview room.’
Trevor had rung previously to make sure that von Einem would be available. He wanted to make sure that he wasn’t involved in some jail activity that he couldn’t quickly be taken from. We didn’t want to wait around any longer than necessary in this place.
The jailer’s key opened the iron access gate built into the grill of the inner right-hand metal gate. He showed us to the interview rooms in the painted stone building immediately to the right of the circle yard, next to the visitors building. The rectangular building with fifty centimetre-thick stone walls was one of the oldest buildings in the jail, built in 1841 and originally a cell block. Its age was evident by the yellow paint flaking off the stone at the bottom of the walls, showing the white crystal which indicated rising damp.
The two tiny rooms closest to us were the interview rooms for solicitors and police. The second room was the largest and, even so, it was only three metres by 1.5 metres. We headed for it. There weren’t any windows and, while some light came in through two glass sections in the vented door, we still had to turn on the single fluoro to provide sufficient light. The walls of the room were painted the same yellow colour as the outside ones, and blended with the grey lino tiles. There were three chairs in the room scattered around a wooden desk. An old Remington typewriter sat on top. I found another chair from the room next door and brought it back. Trevor had bought a folder with foolscap paper and carbon for the interview.
A smaller man than the first brought von Einem to the room. He was the same as before — emotionless and bland — there was no obvious personality.
Trevor sat at the desk, his back to the door, facing the typewriter. Helena and von Einem were on the other side of him, their chairs pushed back to provide space between the desk and their bodies. I sat next to Trevor, facing the corner of the table with my chair also pushed back as much as possible in the compressed space.
Trevor started the interview with von Einem. He typed his own words on the paper rolled into the typewriter before he asked his first question.
‘Did you see Richard Kelvin on the evening of Sunday, 5th June 1983?’
‘I did.’
‘Would you tell me in your own words how you came to see him and what happened?’
‘I arrived in North Adelaide from my home with the intention of buying my tea at one of the fish and chip shops there in O’Connell Street. I pulled in to park the car but there were no vacant spaces on either side of the road. I drove to the lights and turned left into Ward Street and left again into . . . I don’t know the name of the street, do you want me to go on?’
‘Yes, without the map at this stage if you wouldn’t mind.’
‘A lad ran from a side street on my left, across the street in front of the car. I braked and stopped and wound my window down and told this person that he was lucky I didn’t run into him. He approached my door resting his two arms on the roof.’
Von Einem then showed Trevor how Richard Kelvin rested his arms on the roof of his car. He demonstrated with his hands together and elbows out.
I kept a straight face while thinking to myself: Yeah, you bastard, you are just trying to cover your tracks. When you dragged Richard into the car, he would have put his hands on the roof to try and stop himself being pushed and dragged into the car. I tried not to show any emotion in my face.
Von Einem continued.
‘I was drinking a can of beer. He asked me for a drink. I didn’t offer him a drink. I asked him his age and he told me sixteen. I said that he could hop in the car if he wanted a drink but not in the street, to drink out of the can that is. He got in the car and I drove up the street to Archer Street and turned right into Archer Street and asked him if he wanted to drive around and he said “Yes”.’
I don’t get elated very often but a wave of relief washed through my body at this point. My face and body did not show it, I hope, but I was elated. Von Einem had blown it. Our concerns about problems with juries and scientific evidence were over.
As that wave of excitment passed through my body, Trevor impassively continued to ask questions of von Einem. My partner’s body language did not give anything away but I knew what he was thinking.
Great! Great! Just keep talking. You think you’re smart enough to get away with murder. You’re not as smart as you think.
Von Einem continued to tell his
