Well she would just have to work harder to try and make sure that there was another choice that was not bad, like all the ones she could see just now.
Chapter 15 – Just a Guilty Plea
Susan sat in a conference room with a prison officer by her side. Sitting opposite her was a barrister and solicitor for the prosecution. Sitting at one end of the table was Alan, as principle witness for the prosecution, though he was only there to clarify any evidence that was unclear and not to otherwise speak, or so it had been explained to her.
Actually she wished she could have a few minutes to talk to him alone. She had not seen him at close quarters since they spent a day sitting next to each other on the aeroplane that returned her to Australia. Not that she had anything specific to say, but she felt affection for him and knew he was trying his best for her despite her best endeavours to lead him and Sandy in the wrong direction. That was just a necessity, it was not personal, and she would have liked to exchange a few friendly words, friends that she could talk to were so few. But instead she turned her attention to the business at hand.
Everyone had tried to get her to retain counsel to represent her in the trial and she kept declining all their offers. In the end the judge had made a ruling that, while he would not appoint a counsel against her wishes, he would appoint a legal representative to act on the courts behalf and seek to protect her interests where feasible.
Susan did not care, she was just glad she had got to this place without further delay. It was nearly over and she wanted it to be over. Today was really just about confirming a few basic facts to save an argument over them in court. “To narrow the scope of what has to be determined during the trial,” was how the prosecution barrister had put it.
She nodded when someone laboriously explained it all for the umpteenth time. “Yes I get that,” she said. “I don’t need you to keep repeating it and I am not clear why you are bothering when I have told you that, once I am able to enter a plea, I will stand up and state that I wish to plead guilty and at that stage it should all be over. So I struggle to see what this whole process is about.”
She saw the barrister from the other side, the man who would stand up to bury her on behalf of the state in six days’ time, roll his eyes in weary exasperation. “Nevertheless Miss McDonald, we are obliged to go through this process, to outline the evidence we will lead, just so there are no surprises, no suggestions that we have relied on information not provided to the defence in establishing your guilt.”
Susan rolled her eyes in return and replied in her own weary exasperation. “But you do not need to prove anything, I will simply admit to the truth of the key facts which you state. These are that I killed Mark Bennet, or rather I should now say, Vincent Marco Bassingham, by striking him on the head with a piece of wood, and then, as he lay on the ground, either dead or unconscious, I don’t know which, that I dragged his body to the edge of the billabong where it was taken and consumed by three large crocodiles which tore the body apart between them.”
Susan could see Alan’s eyebrows raised in surprise; the description of the multiple crocodiles and what they had done when he lay on the ground was a new admission, which she had deliberately made to forestall any discussion that might ensue about how the separated body parts arose. However no one else seemed to notice.
The barrister replied, “Yes, Miss McDonald, we know all that. Like us you have made your points before, but I need to go through the rest of the evidence we will lead.
“We will establish you met Mr Bassingham in Cairns where you went diving with him. We will establish you met him again after arriving in Alice Springs, that you travelled with him to Yulara and then on, over the next week and a half, to Timber Creek through a range of Northern Territory locations including the Barkly Roadhouse and Heartbreak Hotel. Do you agree to those facts?
“Yes,” said Susan, “I have already provided that in an amended statement to the police.”
“Then we will establish that you travelled on with him to the billabong on the Mary River where his body was found.”
Susan sat up and looked intently. This was something new she had not thought about. She asked, “How will you establish that? I have admitted to being with him at the Mary River on the morning of that Saturday in August when I killed him. I have made no admissions about how I got from Timber Creek to the billabong, so how do you propose to establish that?”
She continued, “I do not propose to admit that fact or otherwise as nothing turns on it. It is only relevant that I was at the location where he was killed, at the time he was killed, in order to establish that I could have killed him, and I have already admitted to that.
“So no, I will make no admissions of how I got from Timber Creek to the billabong, because it is not relevant. As far as I can see you have no evidence of how I got there. So I am sorry but I will not agree to that as evidence. You can contest it in court if you choose.”
She glanced to the end of the table where Alan sat. She saw him trying to maintain a poker face but with the edge of a smile creeping into his eyes. He was enjoying this. She had to admit she was too. It was a long time since she had used her brain in an intellectually challenging way. Perhaps the day in court would be more fun than she had thought.
Unfortunately the barrister on the other side seemed to lack a sense of humour and kept grinding away. Yes she agreed to all the facts relating to the murder that she had already admitted. Duh!
Now they moved on to what had happened after the murder.
The barrister droned on. “We will establish you set out to systematically hide the evidence of the murder. That you scraped blood stains away from the place where his body first lay and from where you dragged him to the water.”
Susan replied. “I don’t consider that it relevant to whether or not I murdered him, so I do not admit it however you can seek to prove it if you wish.”
The barrister continued “We will establish that you burnt all the items which belong to the victim to conceal his identity.”
Again Susan replied. “I don’t consider that it relevant to whether or not I murdered him, so I do not admit it however you can seek to prove it if you wish.”
The barrister continued. “We will establish that you removed and destroyed all the victim’s identity papers and other items which belonged to him, yourself or other persons unknown, and which may have provided a link between him, yourself and the murder site.”
As the barrister described persons unknown the four passports, which she had tried never to think of since that day, came bursting into her head, along with Marks diary.
Instinctively, before she had time to think, she shook her head. “No, that is not true.”
The barristers barely seemed to notice, but she saw Alan look at her sharply. She knew he had picked it up though he said nothing.
She clarified. “I don’t consider that it is relevant as to whether or not I murdered him, so I do not admit it. However, you can seek to prove it if you wish.”
After another half hour it was all done. It was really a waste of time but so be it. She would fight those items that she was not admitting, line by line on the day, a few they could prove, most they could not. It would help her get through what she knew would be a gruelling day, her trial date, as her parents and friends watched on.
It was OK here, it was just pretend blood sport, but in there it would be for real. She was pleased she had come here today rather than refusing to attend. It had toughened her up for the real thing when there would be a crowd baying for her blood and her parents and friends were watching it all in horror.
But she also knew that she had made a mistake, an admission which might provide a worm hole for that policeman, Alan, to burrow through. She thought he would be hard pushed to find anything on the basis of that little admission.
But she had as good as said there was still stuff she had not destroyed, that it was still out there to be found. Of course the finding would be much harder
but it was not impossible. She was glad that nobody had thought to use sniffer dogs when they first searched the site. Even after a month or two they may have found the passports where she had buried them. Now, with the wet season rain, she knew that chance had passed.
Still she felt a grudging admiration for Alan; he was nothing if not sharp. She was no longer so sure that all her secrets would stay hidden. If they ever found the metal box with those things she had buried it would all be over.
Chapter 16 - David and Anne
David and Anne both flew into Darwin on the Sunday before the trial, though David had arrived on the lunch time flight and Anne did not get in until later in the afternoon. Anne had also talked to Susan parents and knew they had come two days earlier, though Tim had stayed at University knowing that there was little he could do for his sister.
Anne felt like a giddy school girl as the plane touched down, she could not believe her excitement at the prospect of seeing this man again. She felt almost disloyal to Susan for allowing David to dominate her mind, but then she knew Susan would be well pleased. She and Susan had exchanged two letters in the meantime and their friendship was as strong as ever.
Susan had specifically mentioned David in the last letter and wished her well when she met him on this trip. At the side of the writing she had placed little cryptic symbols and drawings of families and babies, as if to hint she should go for it. Anne herself had more or less decided to throw caution to the wind and let whatever would happen, happen.
She just hoped that David would not find it all too painful watching what unfolded with Susan. Anne had very low expectations about anything good coming out of the trial. She understood that sentencing would be delayed for a couple weeks to allow submissions to be made specifically on the punishment, the length of the custodial sentence. She had decided to put all her effort into this space, as she knew that nothing would change Susan’s mind on her guilty plea. But there was some hope that she could convince Susan to explain her fear, once the guilty conviction was made and this, along with character references, could be used to get a large reduction in sentence.
Anne waited; suppressed impatience mingled with nervousness, as everyone filed down the aisle of the plane and queued their way through customs. At last she was outside.
There was David, blue short sleeved shirt with muscular arms and tousled blond hair, gorgeous as ever. He was a bit slow spotting her as she was behind a bigger group.
She ran around them and flung herself into his arms. He let out a whoop of delight and picked her up and swung her around then planted a big kiss on her lips; it was more than a friend’s kiss.
They talked frenetically on the way to the hotel; he had booked them adjoining rooms. She went in and freshened up and then they went down for a drink and dinner. Finally with dinner, she felt obliged to turn the conversation to the serious business they were here for and they spent the next hour discussing all the ways they could approach it to try and improve what happened, whatever the outcome might be.
Anne was very tempted to tell him about the text from Susan all those months ago, but something held her back. Now with the wine she was beginning to feel sleepy, and realised that, with the frantic rush to pack and leave and the two short days on the flight, her time was all out of sync. It had been lovely in business class but she had not slept as well as last trip; a mix of anticipation and nervous anxiety that everything hung in the balance for Susan from here.
She felt a huge yawn come over her. David signed the chit for the bill and escorted her upstairs telling her she needed to get to bed and have a good night’s sleep.
Anne felt vaguely disappointed that the night had ended so soon but almost as soon as she lay down she fell into a deep sleep. She woke at 4 am feeling cold and wishing there was another warm body alongside her.
She thought, there is a warm body just next door, what am I waiting for?
There was a connecting door between their rooms. She tried it, it was unlocked.
She made out David’s shadowy outline in the bed. He was sleeping soundly. Part of her felt disappointed but another part was pleased to give him a surprise when he woke up. She cuddled in next to him, lay her head on his chest and fell into a dreamless sleep.
In the early morning light she woke and saw David lying there motionless and looking at her intently. “You are so beautiful,” he said, and gently stroked her hair as she pushed her face into him.
They did not make love then, but there was something nicer in their casual friendship and intimacy. As they got up to face the day she went into her room and carried her things into his.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she said as she saw him watching her closely. “I just decided last night, when I woke by myself, that I wanted much more to be with you and was tired of stopping myself on account of anyone or anything else.
“So I figure we can both share this room though, if you really want to, we can keep the other room as well, just for appearances.”
David replied, “I am glad that’s how you feel, I have felt unsure how to be with you, wanting something much more than friends, yet being constrained by what has gone before and also by what Susan and I had, even though by the time I met you in Darwin last year it was really over. So I, like you, don’t feel inclined to waste time wishing for something when the alternative is to enjoy it now.”
Then Anne walked over and kissed him on the lips lightly before taking off her dressing gown and walking naked into the bathroom, giving her bottom a saucy wiggle as she closed the door part way, still leaving enough open so that he could watch her as she showered.
He looked at her. She caught his eye. She could sense his desire as she turned on the shower.
“Why don’t you come and join me, then we can wash each others’ backs” she said.
He came in alongside her, his erection throbbing.
She looked at it, bent down and kissed it, then took it into her mouth.
She looked up at him and said, “There is another part of me that needs to feel it more.”
He nodded, he had not spoken. He put his hands behind her thighs and lifted her up.
She felt it go all the way inside, it felt wonderful.
She said “Let’s stop messing around and go and fuck properly. I want you to fuck me as hard and long as you can. Then, when you are finished, I want you to do it all again. I am so horny to feel you moving inside me. Whatever else happens I want this part right now.”
The sex was better than they could have imagined and even on that first time they both came together. Soon they were doing it again and then they slept for another hour and did it again. About nine o’clock they decided they must have some breakfast and face the day.
Both felt good about what had happened and Anne told David what Susan had said.
David replied, “I think I am the luckiest man alive having had the two most gorgeous women in England. But after the second course I don’t want to go back to the first.”
Anne replied. “I don’t mind her coming before me. But she better not come after me or I will cut that thing off.” She said it with such ferocity that he believed she would.
They visited Susan after lunch and told her about themselves.
Susan seemed genuinely pleased. She said, “It is funny, but I knew, David, right from the first day you met Anne that she was my main danger with you, not a crocodile. At the time I was a little jealous of your instinctive reaction to Anne. It was like she and you had a deeper level of attraction than with us. I see now that is how it was meant to be. So, truth be told, I am really glad for you both, and not jealous, well not more than a tiny bit.”
She turned to Anne and giggled. “No little brother for you Anne, imagine that.”
Anne giggled back and soon the three of them were laughing then hugging together.
It felt good to them all that life had moved on, at least for that part.
Now Anne turned to Susan, totally serious and said, “What can
we do to help, we are here at your disposal. Can I find a lawyer to represent you in court? I know you said you don’t want a lawyer, you can speak for yourself, and that is your right. But you having someone in your corner, watching that the other side acts fairly from a legal viewpoint; that could be useful.”
Susan laughed and said, “Actually I sort of have one; the judge has taken it into his own hands to appoint someone in that role. He sat in at the pre-trial conference last week. I could see his mind was sharp. I kinda liked him, he did not try to barge in when I was speaking. So, as long as he does not try and take over and change what I have to say, you can retain him on my behalf. His name is James Patterson. Just make it clear that I do not intend to change what I have already said. I am just asking the court to make its judgement on the facts. I am not asking for any deals or any special consideration.”
Then she turned to Anne and said, “Did you know I am going to have twins, a boy and a girl? My parents will adopt them once they are born and take them back to England to live with them and have a good life. They can give them a much better life than I could ever have. So I am glad it will soon be over.
“There is just one thing I would like to ask you both, whether you stay together or not. I would like to name them Anne and David, but with Marco as the middle name for the boy, and Rosalie as the girl’s middle name, Mark’s mother’s name. It would make me happy if you would agree to that. And I would like you to be their godparents, I daresay my parents will have them baptised in the local Presbyterian Church in Reading, so perhaps you could both go along and make your promises on my behalf, seeing I won’t be able to come.
Then, after, I would like you to be like and aunt and uncle to them and, if anything happens to my parents I would like you to take responsibility for their upbringing. You don’t have to adopt them but you must at least make sure they can stay together in a good happy family, well provided for. Could you agree to all that? It would help set my mind at rest for the future.”
Crocodile Spirit Dreaming - Possession - Books 1 - 3 Page 56
