Late in the day they came to Borroloola with nothing useful found out in Daly Waters or Heartbreak Hotel. They were both struggling to come to terms with what they had heard at Top Springs. To any normal person it would sound like the man, Mike, was mad, and yet.
They had tried to talk about it, the idea that a part of Mark wanted to kill Susan and that instead he had deliberately chosen to sacrifice himself for her. It did not quite fit with the facts, but there was a truth somehow hidden within this story. It could not be dismissed but yet it could not be understood. Still there was something of vital importance locked within the puzzle he had given them, if they could only see it.
Now they were tired of talking and thinking. They wanted to hold close to each other’s bodies in the night and push the shadows they had glimpsed away.
Next morning they woke to a bright clear sunny day. The muggy heat and humidity was gone. Instead a light, cool breeze was blowing from the south east, the start of the dry season, Alan said.
They knew Borroloola was an intended destination for a visit by Mark and Susan and they may have spent a few hours here. It was not clear whether anyone would know or recognise either from a photo after all these months. So they each took a part of the town to work their way round, showing the photos and seeking recognition.
Alan said he would go first to the police station; the local copper might have some clues, if not through recognising one of them, by suggesting where to ask.
Sandy said she would start with the hotel, petrol station and local shop. She walked into the hotel bar. It looked like it had only just opened. It was dark and felt cool. She let her eyes adjust and walked over to the counter where a solid middle aged man looked up.
She explained her mission and passed over the photo of Susan.
He held it to a light, looked at it for a bare half second and nodded. “Yes I remember her quite clearly, a pretty girl with an English accent, like you say sometime around last August. The reason I remember was her nice manners mixed with something, a sort of anxiety, like she needed to do something unpleasant and did not want to.
“She ordered a lemon lime and bitters and went and sat in that corner just next to the door you came in through, and she kept glancing towards it as if to check whether someone else was coming. When she was first at the bar she asked me what time it was. When I told her, just about 12 am, she said that meant it was around three o’clock in the morning in England.
“Then she asked if she could charge up her phone, said the battery was getting pretty low and she needed to send a text, that she could not ring her friend in England at that time of night so she would text.
“So I pointed to the power point just next to that seat and she plugged her phone in and sat there to have her drink. I did not take a big lot of notice but I saw her pull out a tiny notebook from her purse and look carefully at it while she was sending the text.
I thought maybe flight details home or something like that. It took her a few minutes; it was like she was trying to work out what to say as she did it, and she was nervous, the way she kept looking up. Then, when it was done, she finished her drink, unplugged the phone and walked outside. Actually a bloke came in and she went out with him.”
Susan showed him Mark’s photo. “Is that him?”
The barman replied. “Could be, not sure, I barely looked at him. Only she obviously knew him and was pleased to see him. But she had already put her phone away, soon as she was finished, and the moment he came in she left.
The strangest thing is that I am sure I have seen her picture since, like on TV or something but I am dammed if I can remember when, it just seems too familiar.”
Sandy sat at the bar for a few minutes and wrote out the details and then read them back to the man. He confirmed their accuracy so she thanked him and left. She decided she had something significant so she rang Alan and found out where he was.
He too had found a man with information, someone who knew Mark. Alan gave her directions to find him. It took five minutes to walk to the corrugated iron building where a middle-aged, non-descript man was showing Alan a photo of two beautiful blue stones, one set in a pendant and one set in a ring.
Sandy heard the man say, “Those are what he collected. Said they were for his sweetheart, the nearest thing he could get to an engagement ring for someone who lived on the other side of the world.
“I have had dealings with him from time to time over the last five or six years, ordering things in, selling off gemstones for him and the like. I suppose I am a bit of a wheeler dealer and have contacts all over the place, and that is a bit the way he struck me too.
“He was usually pretty guarded, never said much about his business, but always had plenty of cash and early on once he gave me his license details for ID; Mark Butler was his name though most people just called him Mark or Mark B. He seemed to know quite a few of the people round here, particularly the aboriginals, they would shout his name when they saw him in the street and he seemed often to have meat and fish to give away to them.
“I had not seen him for a few months but he had rung a couple weeks before and asked if he could have a delivery made to my place which he would collect on his way through.
“It was in a small box and I would not have known what it was except that I had to sign that it was received in good order. So I opened the box and checked its contents and that was what I saw. I took a picture just in case it was stolen, for insurance purposes.
“The thing I best remember was that he was different on that day, normally he was serious and deadpan. That day he was excited when he collected it, he had a lovesick puppy look. He opened it to check in front of me and then he told me what it was for, the way I already said. He also gave me an extra fifty for my troubles.”
Alan asked if he could get a copy of the photo. So they brought it outside and he copied it on his digital camera. Then they were on their way. They felt they had got what was most useful to know in this town. It seemed that Mark’s main purpose in coming here was to collect this gift. It sounded like it was intended as a present for Susan; they must check now whether anyone saw her wearing it. It was obviously valuable from the photo.
But the thing that seemed most significant was that Susan had sent a text to a friend in England when it was the middle of the night there; her demeanour suggested she was anxious when she did it and it was done when Mark was not with her, and then she had put her phone out of sight before he met her again.
It may have been nothing but both felt the key was here. Now Alan kicked himself for never following up before whether Susan had a phone in Australia, if so what the number was and where it was now. His first job for back in Darwin was to trace it.
They drove out to Seven Emus for an early lunch. The people were very hospitable. They knew Mark quite well and remembered him with Susan. They told of a morning tea of Chinese dumplings and spiced pork, they told of Mark and Susan’s affection for one another, but could tell them nothing else that was useful.
So then it was a long afternoon of driving before they arrived in Darwin in the early hours of the next morning, both feeling completely whacked.
Alan knew he had one burning priority, he must find the phone that Susan had used.
Chapter 18 - The Trial
Susan was awake early in the morning. She should be calm but could feel anxiety swirling around inside. This was a critical day and she needed to get through it without any major mistakes.
She had been almost continuously anxious since that pre-trial meeting blunder. She had been worried about them tracing her phone calls before.
Now on top of that was a whole new line of inquiry. Could they find the box she had buried with the four missing girls passports and Marks multiple fake IDs? Why had she left them together? The passports on their own did not link to Mark, but to be found alongside all his own documents, well that was game set and match for association. She could read through Sandy’s mind Alan was closing in on her.
Why ha
d she willed him to do this on the aeroplane? An average lazy copper would have been gloating that he had nailed her and have looked no further.
But this was a man on a mission and she had a premonition he would succeed. What would she do then? Perhaps she would find a way to kill herself and her unborn children so that they would all be gone and never have to live with this. But no, she could not countenance that, the children did not deserve to die. Well, once she was gone the whole story would fade away, and by the time her children were old enough to know it would all be long buried under yesterday’s news.
Then she realised she was being silly, nothing had happened, no startling revelations. After today it would pretty much be too late; Conviction, Guilty, Move On.
So now she must focus on getting her mind into the right state for her murder trial. She must be a credible witness to her own guilt, not too abject, let them all think she was a conniving bitch who was playing games with the truth. So she would plead guilty as planned.
But she would contest the evidence about her attempt at concealment, about what had happened before and after and any speculation as to motive. She would gloat a bit at her little wins which would come when they overplayed their hand. Most would probably not succeed but the performance would give some entertainment to the assembled cast and audience and give the press some new dead end leads to follow. In particular her performance would not endear her in the public mind. They wanted to think of her as an evil witch; well let them; it would be her role for today.
The trial went pretty much as planned. She was glad that she had her own barrister in the end. He stuck strictly to her instructions though she could tell he did not like it. But it was her show, she was the star and she was playing her cast character how she wanted.
As the day unfolded she realised that today was little different to any other theatrical production. She had a flair for this acting stuff: Saint Susan today, Slut Susan tomorrow.
The only difference was that the stakes now were higher; they were all playing for her life. But what the hell she had already conceded that, so there was nothing more to lose.
It was simple really, a game of chess. When the game was lost you knocked your king over. As he lay dead on the ground everyone else knew it too, the game was really over.
So the day ground its slow way forward and she ground out her acting, worth an Oscar, she thought.
When the prosecution had finished its tortuous and contested trail of evidence, she took the stand, swearing to tell the truth, she blocked the word ‘whole’ out of her mind, she would tell no lies.
Her evidence took barely a minute and her guilty plea was entered. She could see everyone squirming, saying this is not enough, there must be more, there must be something, the why.
She looked the devil in the eye and laughed; her trademark grin to the audience. She heard gasps from the back stalls at her obvious lack of remorse and noticed a reporter furiously scribbling a line to crucify her.
From a far off place she heard the judge asking her, most earnestly, to provide some better explanation, something that would help him understand and reach a verdict. A tale that balanced justice with a story that made sense of the situation for the whole community who watched on, not least for her family and friends and her many other supporters.
She looked him in the eye, smiled brightly again and said, “Your honour I have told you that I killed him, when I killed him and how I killed him. What more is there that you need to know before you reach your verdict?”
She could have sworn he muttered a curse under his breath and she allowed herself a further tiny smile of victory. He called a short recess and asked to speak to her with just her barrister present.
The judge explained to her that he saw no choice but to find her guilty by her own admission but he found the whole thing very distasteful, unsatisfactory and disturbing, that she would willingly submit herself to spending many years in jail without offering any resistance. He implored her to give him some explanation of why or what she was hiding or protecting. He said he would be delaying sentencing for 2 weeks and would require her to undergo psychiatric assessment as he was very concerned about her mental state. He asked her to give it one last consideration before he walked back into the court and made a ruling.
Susan could feel something like a great weight pulling at her to give something, at least to admit her fear or that, in the end she knew it had been a mistake. But every step forward from where she was now opened the Pandora’s Box, if fear then of what, if a mistake then why. She hardened her resolve again and answered.
“Your honour, I am not being deliberately contrary, I would dearly like to help you, the court and all my friends to understand why I did this. But I just am not able to say, I refuse to say, that is my right under law. Therefore you will have to rule only on the facts which are before you. I, like you, wish it was otherwise. But it cannot be so.”
So she walked back to her place and the judge walked back to his bench and he ruled that she, Susan McDonald, was guilty of the murder of Vincent Marco Bassingham. He made no findings as to premeditation or otherwise. He announced that sentencing would occur two weeks from tomorrow when he would consider any submissions that the parties wished to make. In the meantime he ordered that she go for psychiatric assessment.
Susan thought she should savour her success, but it now left such a bitter taste in her mouth and such an empty place in her soul; betrayal on betrayal. She did not care about the sentencing. It held no fears; it could not undo the verdict. So, only one last real step remained, well perhaps two when she counted her babies, before she would be free.
Chapter 19 – Anne’s Dilemma
Anne felt appalled as she watched the trial unfold.
This beautiful girl, her friend, playing the acting performance of her life, as, with deliberate purpose, she condemned herself to death. She saw it so clearly now, this was not death in some metaphorical sense. This was the real thing. The babies would be born, Susan’s parents would adopt them and take them back to England, she and David would both attend the baptism.
While they were all gathered there, a fitting place for the funeral after the body was returned, the phone call would come saying that Susan, lovely beautiful Susan, was dead. Anne could try and protect her, ask for extra watches and removal of anything dangerous, but it would be futile, Susan was way too clever and would find a way.
So, as Anne walked away from court, after the sentence was pronounced, she knew she had a choice to make, to let her friend die, or betray her promise. Suddenly there was no choice to make anymore; the answer was clear and simple.
But she would let it wait until a minute before midnight, only when it was almost finished. She would provide the evidence to Susan’s barrister right at the time he stood to sum up on sentencing day, the last possible moment before the judge pronounced sentence. And she would build a safety catch, just in case anything happened to her. She would tell David but she would hold him to the same promise which bound her. She would transcribe the two text messages; they would only take one sheet of paper. She would make a copy for David to keep and a copy for herself and she would lock her phone in the hotel safe, where it could be produced when required to verify the transcript.
The lawyers would hate evidence produced at this very late stage; they would talk of ambush and use all sorts of high sounding legal names to deplore what she had done. But the evidence would be accepted, the evidence would show that Susan was in real fear for her life just before the murder, and therefore it would be deemed, that even if she was guilty her actions were justified, really self-defence, but the lawyers could argue the finer legal points of that.
Once back at their hotel room she sat and wrote it out, then woke David who was napping in the bed and read it out to him, after she had extracted his promise. He was a bit fuzzy from sleep, but then the light went on in his brain.
He said, “Suddenly it all makes sense.” Now he was bursting for action,
“We must trace these people, the named girls, their last movements, show Mark could have been responsible, I can get ten people onto it in the morning.”
Anne shook her head. “No, no, no: my impulsive one!
“I have promised her I will not reveal this. I only choose to do so because I know she will commit suicide after the babies are born. I will only do it if there is really no other choice. That means, as her barrister stands up to speak, he will be passed the note and asked to read it immediately. He will not like it but he will do it. And he will be obliged, in the interests of justice, to demand that it be admitted into evidence.
“It will mean, almost certainly, that the judge will suspend his sentencing decision. It is also highly likely that Susan will be released on bail. Even doing it this way is a very high risk. I will make sure that a 24 hour watch is placed on her cell if she stays in jail. I will stay with her all day and every day until she gives birth. I will make sure she holds and loves her babies and knows she cannot abandon them. It gives us a fighting chance. But the element of surprise is everything. That means it can only happen then. Because, if the texts are revealed in advance, she may not wait for her babies to born before she ends it.
“And I do not want to betray her trust. I will do so only as an absolute last resort. I know that Alan is following similar lines, Sandy was asking me about her phone when I saw her yesterday but I just played dumb. So they may discover this too and I would rather it comes from them, though again later is better.
“So don’t get any crazy ideas about becoming a super sleuth. That will be the job of the police. Our job will simply be to point them in the right direction.”
Then she shook her head, “I hope one day Susan will thank me, but l doubt it, however I am sure it is what I must do. But even with this I am still very afraid for her. It is the way she talks now in the past tense about her life, in her head she has already decided it is over, it is the way she smiles brightly as she looks towards an impossible future, it is the way she acted in court today as if she was playing a chess game for her own life. She acts as if there will be no tomorrow. It is because, for her, she has already decided there will not be one.”
Crocodile Spirit Dreaming - Possession - Books 1 - 3 Page 58
