academic results, as she had little interest in school or the subjects they taught there. Her parents were not troubled by her lack of achievement at school, as they had not performed there either. They saw no reason why she would need an education when it had been denied to them.
Likewise, her teachers were not troubled by her lack of performance, as they themselves felt trapped in careers and school that had not fulfilled their aspirations. They believed that even her looks would not elevate her above the stagnation of emptiness and poverty that surrounded her.
Brett gained the impression that her parents envisioned her being crushed by the weight of a lack of education. Her mother became embittered by recurring betrayals and her father succumbed to being pickled in his alcohol as a way of numbing the bitterness surrounding his upset of the hand that life had dealt him in being railed constantly about being a labourer in all kinds of weather for very little pay and having to follow the idiotic orders of people he didn’t respect. Her mother wore her body down further, working as a cleaner in other people’s homes.
Deborah, or “Nancy” back then, learnt to refine her anger to the point where it was silent, because to acknowledge such things made them appear real. She quarantined herself from her family’s failures, as if they were infectious viruses that could be passed onto her. She was an only child, as her parents felt further children would be a drain on them.
She could see her parents withering under the pressure of existence, where nothing in life tempted them any longer. She had no memory of them having been any different, but people who knew them, said they had been alive and vital in their youth. Nothing drives some people more than the vision of what failure can bring.
She chose to leave Northcote HSC midway through Form 4, eager to enter what she called the real world, and commenced her life from then on. Prior to that time, to those who prided themselves on their ability to pick losers, she appeared to be one. Her parents never got to know their daughter Nancy had reinvented herself and disowned her past as soon after both her parents died from medical causes.
Deborah worked in a variety of short term unskilled jobs that she considered trivial, until two years later she began working with a group running yoga classes. Within a year of starting she went on to develop her own small but increasingly popular yoga school, and this opened the door to having contact with people possessing positions of power.
To those who came to know her, it was never clear when she made the decision to head a sect, and possibly she herself could not have pinpointed the time in her life when such a momentous determination developed. Most likely it was a seamless transition generated by her desire to escape her parents’ fate, where she realised that like chess, at the end of the game, the queen and the pawn go back into the same box, but whilst the game was on, she was determined to win.
On Deborah’s 10-acre property, there were scattered huts and a larger house where she and her partner Bill stayed. Over 35 young children lived on the property and were clothed in exactly the same manner, all with their hair dyed blonde. A number of the adults in the sect were responsible for supervising and educating the children, as they did not attend outside schools. These supervisors were mainly women and meted out punishments in a strict manner, at times bordering on cruel. Any sign of rebellion by the children would be suppressed by the use of solitary isolation and canings.
Deborah also possessed a store of illicit drugs obtained from medical and paramedical contacts, and she allowed these to be used at times to sedate the children, as a means of controlling them. The drugs used ranged from tranquilisers and antidepressants to LSD.
The goal of the children’s schooling was that one day they would become nurses, social workers, teachers and the like. These were all occupations that could be used to assist Deborah in building up and protecting her group and her control over them.
The children were all given her surname of Duval. Brett learned that some of the children had been taken from young unmarried mothers, where social workers connected to The Union had convinced the distressed mothers to give the babies up for adoption. Other children were progeny of the adults who belonged to the sect and lived on the property. The remainder of the children originated from a breeding program instituted by Deborah, where she dictated which man would sleep with which woman on any particular night. These children also took on her surname and were dressed identically with the others.
Brett wondered if Deborah really thought she was developing a master race or whether she just viewed them as a bunch of screwed up kids that she could control, as she did the adults.
Immersed in his alcohol and maudlin thoughts, Brett recalled the conversation when Deborah had rung him the day before.
Wednesday, 20 January 1988
6.30 p.m.
Brett sat himself at the counter of the DT's pub with two of his workmates. DT’s was a pub he often frequented, a satisfactory waterhole and hiding place that he chose in preference to rushing home.
He nursed his beer, though the urge was to drink something more numbing but for the fact he had to drive home later. Though he had his workmates alongside, he might as well have been on his own, as the fog of his black mood began to engulf him.
He was no stranger to these moods and this night the alcohol and black mood blurred the world around him. Not by choice, the piercing sound of his phone dragged him back.
Deborah’s angry voice penetrated the fog, engulfing Brett.
‘I've had it with those media rags reporting a bunch of lies from the termites who've deserted. They're out to destroy me and The Union. I’ve heard that many of those deserters have been seeing that quack psychiatrist Dr Wright and complained about The Union, and he’s promised them to try and get the authorities involved.’
Brett remained silent, stunned by the angry outburst. What the fuck can I do about it, Deborah? he silently queried, as his mind translated her words into a demand.
As if reading his thoughts Deborah reminded him that in the same manner she had pumped air into his career, she could also readily deflate it. Her message was clear to Brett that he either assisted her with this problem "or else". He knew the "or else" was not an idle threat.
‘I want you to drive up to see me no later than 8.30 p.m. tonight so we can discuss the best way of dealing with this problem.’
Brett again heard this as an order, rather than a request.
He went through the motions of letting Jenny know that a major case was taking him out of town and he wouldn't be sleeping at home that night. When his call went through to message, allowing him to leave a scripted response without questions being raised, he felt a sense of relief. Not that he would have felt any pressure to answer truthfully, and having left the message, neither he nor Jenny would broach the matter again.
Brett's career had stalled in its original upward path as initially he had moved up the ranks, scoring significant convictions of drug peddlers, petty criminals and a rapist/murderer who ran a prostitution racket, even if it involved using unorthodox measures at times. If it came down to their word against his, then he knew he was safe, but he was tiring of the hassles of dealing with the Police Ethical Department.
Recently a young hoon had laid complaints against Brett, alleging he had “belted him up”. It wasn’t Brett’s job to catch idiots like this but he was driving home at the time, saw the hoon doing skids down a North Melbourne street, and decided he’d bring him in. The case was due to go to court, where he knew some smart-arse lawyer would attempt to give him a hard time. He knew how to handle himself in the witness box and believed he would
