And Then the Darkness

by Sue Williams

  He had plenty of time. He would catch her up later.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  AND THEN THE DARKNESS

  JOANNE LEES DROVE AWAY FROM the showgrounds, with Peter Falconio bowed down beside her over the map, feeling slightly irritated that they were leaving for Darwin so late. Next stop would be the giant granite boulders, the Devil’s Marbles, south of Tennant Creek. The guidebooks recommended seeing the Marbles — known in Aboriginal legend as the eggs of the Rainbow Serpent — at sunrise, but nobody advised driving after dark. At the snail’s pace of the Kombi, it’d take them five to six hours. Joanne hated driving at night in the outback; not just because of the threat of wildlife wandering across the road, but because the tales of strange murders and mysterious disappearances had begun to eat at her.

  BRADLEY MURDOCH WAS IN THE area, halfway along the long drug-run from Sedan in SA to Broome in the northwest, armed to the teeth and, his brain fried by booze, speed and lack of sleep, looking for trouble. Geoffrey Nicholls was driving south, still drinking heavily and playing with his rifle every now and again, as he made his way from Derby in the Kimberley. Andrew Heffernan was driving into Alice Springs just as his medication ran out and his paranoid schizophrenia kicked in. And God only knew who else was out there …

  JOANNE SHIVERED EVEN THOUGH THE afternoon was a warm 23 degrees Celsius. She was still just in her T-shirt and boardshorts, with her denim jacket hanging off the back of the seat, and had tied her hair back with a black elasticated Lady Jane hair band with a gold-coloured clasp and twist pattern. She’d offered to drive the first shift, so Peter could take over when it got dark.

  As the scattered houses of Alice Springs gave way to car yards and forlorn industrial sites, a large, brightly-lit Shell Truckstop, the last chance to refuel before the long road north, came into view. But Joanne didn’t stop. The sun was already hanging low in the bleached sky, and they were behind schedule. By the time the Kombi rattled past the turn-off to the Tanami Track, Bradley Murdoch’s preferred route between SA and Broome, the sun was casting its last soft golden rays over the acres of parched spinifex back in the middle of nowhere.

  Peter was reading his book, The Catcher In The Rye, and Joanne had put on a CD of the Scottish rock band Texas to keep herself awake. After a while, she noticed his head was drooping, and she suggested he climb over the seats to lie down on the bench in the back to read. He clambered over, and settled down. The next time she turned round to look at him, he was fast asleep.

  THE TALL MAN FROM Alice Springs easily caught up with the orange Kombi and hung back, keeping his distance. He didn’t want to attract attention. Through the back window, he could see the English girl’s dark head alone in the front of the van. The passenger seat was empty; she was obviously alone. He gunned the engine, overtook the vehicle and roared off along the road ahead, to get ready.

  JOANNE DIDN’T NOTICE THE OTHER vehicle overtaking. She’d been watching the sunset and marvelling at how beautiful the light was. Far ahead she saw a wedge-tailed eagle diving towards the road, presumably picking at roadkill. By the time she drew level with the Ti Tree Roadhouse she guessed they were about halfway to the Devil’s Marbles, and she needed a break. She made a sudden decision and came down hard on the brake, veering left into a layby on the opposite side of the road to the Roadhouse and service station. At that, Peter woke up and asked what was happening. They both wanted to stretch their legs, and climbed out of the Kombi. Joanne had a drink while Peter rolled a joint with some dope a friend had given him in Sydney, and they watched the show before them in silence.

  Peter would drive the next stretch, so Joanne could relax. There were hardly any other vehicles on the road, but it was only around twenty minutes after they’d set off following a stop to get petrol and snacks and use the toilet when they saw two small fires in the scrub. Peter went to pull up 50 metres on, suggesting they go back and investigate. Joanne, however, felt strangely spooked by the way they were both burning so brightly — obviously only just having started and when there seemed to be no-one else around — and implored him to keep going.

  Further down the road, there were two more similar fires, but the pair continued on. They were now making good headway. The mechanic they’d seen in Alice Springs had said the van should take them wherever they were going, as long as they didn’t thrash it too hard.

  The night was darkening as they passed through Barrow Creek, 89 kilometres north of Ti Tree, and a place avoided by many Aboriginals. ‘It has bad spirit,’ says black tracker Teddy Egan. ‘It’s a place where bad, bad things happen.’ The bad blood began in 1874, when two white men were killed during an attack by the Kaitej people on the Telegraph station, built two years earlier too close to a local waterhole. In retribution, up to sixty local Aboriginals were trapped at Skull Creek, back towards Ti Tree, and then massacred. In 1928, the reputation of the area became even darker. When Aboriginals killed an old dingo trapper on neighbouring Coniston Station, the chief of police and, coincidentally, Chief Protector of Aborigines, led a posse which killed seventy black men, women and children in a bloody series of reprisals.

  The Barrow Creek Roadhouse was lit up as Peter and Joanne passed it at around 7.30 p.m., but neither of them particularly noticed. Joanne had changed the CD to one of Peter’s favourite bands, The Stone Roses, and was feeding Peter sweets as they drove. Every time she saw the shadowy shape of a kangaroo bounding near the road, she warned him to be careful. Ten kilometres further on, Peter saw headlights coming up fast behind and slowed to let the vehicle overtake. But the vehicle remained on his tail. ‘I wish this bloke would hurry up and pass me,’ he said to Joanne. ‘He’s blinding me.’

  Joanne twisted in her seat to look back and screwed her eyes up against the other vehicle’s headlights. ‘Tosser,’ she said.

  At that, the other vehicle took its cue, and pulled out behind them. But when it drew level, the driver slowed down to the same speed.

  THE MAN GLANCED UNHURRIEDLY ACROSS at the window of the Kombi lumbering along beside him, and was taken aback to see the face of a young, cleanshaven man. The girl was now sitting beside him, in the passenger seat. The man hadn’t realised she wasn’t alone.

  But he had everything he needed with him: a gun, cable ties twisted into homemade handcuffs, rolls of heavy-duty black duct tape, and a sack in the back. This stretch of road was dead straight, so he’d be able to see anything coming well in advance. Just up ahead was a little dirt track off to the left he’d scoped out earlier. No, he had plans for that girl, and he wasn’t about to give them up easily.

  PETER LOOKED OVER TO THE man driving the vehicle and waved. The man reached over, wound down his window and gestured urgently towards the back of the Kombi. Peter could just make out the words, ‘Sparks!’ and ‘Exhaust!’ Joanne leaned over to look at the man too, and didn’t like what she saw. In the reflected light, she could see he was white, around forty to forty-five, with a droopy, grey moustache. He was wearing a black baseball cap over his dark, straight hair and a dark-coloured T-shirt with a black-and-white check shirt. His dog was sitting up in the passenger seat beside him. She felt Peter slow down and suddenly had a premonition that something bad was about to happen. ‘Don’t stop, Pete, don’t stop!’ she urged. ‘I don’t like it.’ But Peter continued to brake. He loved his Kombi and there’d been faults on it before. ‘We have to see what it is,’ he replied. ‘It’ll only take a minute.’ He pulled up on the gravel shoulder and the white vehicle pulled up behind. Then Peter smiled at Joanne, opened his door and stepped out. ‘You wait there,’ he said, reassuringly. ‘It’s cold out here.’ He left the door slightly ajar when he got out so the interior light stayed on as he walked around to the back. Joanne shuffled over to the driver’s seat from where she could get a better view of what the two men were doing. She was looking in the mirror and hanging out of the driver’s door looking back, and could see Peter bending down as if to look at the exhaust. She strained her ears to try to catch what they were saying.
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br />   ‘I saw sparks coming out your exhaust,’ the man was telling Peter. ‘It’s been happening for a while. You’ve got a problem there.’

  She heard Peter’s voice. ‘Cheers, mate,’ he said. ‘Thanks for stopping.’ Joanne chided herself for being so suspicious. He seemed like a nice man, she thought to herself. It was nice of him to stop and help.

  Peter stood up and walked back to Joanne. ‘Could you rev the engine?’ he asked her, as he reached to the shelf under the dashboard for his cigarettes. ‘We’ll see how bad it is.’ He walked back to the rear of the Kombi, and then the darkness enveloped him. Joanne glanced in the rearview mirror and caught the other man looking at her. For a few seconds, he held her gaze until she looked away. She couldn’t help it, but she suddenly felt nervous again. Uncomfortable.

  She put her foot on the accelerator and revved the engine, all the while trying to see if Peter was signalling any further instructions. She listened hard over the rattle of the engine, in case he was shouting at her to stop. But instead, a sudden, loud crack split the cool night air, like the sound of a vehicle backfiring — or a gunshot. She swivelled round in her seat and saw the man standing there, right beside her at the driver’s door window, alone and with a gun. And then Joanne felt her blood turn to ice.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  TAKEN PRISONER

  JOANNE LEES SAT STARING IN horror at the man holding the gun in his right hand. With a start, she suddenly realised he was now pointing it at her. He reached out to the driver’s door, wrenched it open wider, and then started climbing in. ‘Pete!’ she screamed. ‘Pete!’ But the man kept on coming.

  ‘Turn off the engine,’ he ordered roughly. Still stunned, Joanne reached for the key, but her hands were shaking so violently, she couldn’t grasp it. Impatiently, he shoved Joanne aside, grabbed it himself and turned it off. He pushed her into the passenger seat, sat himself heavily behind the wheel and leaned over to grab her. ‘He was to the side of me, behind me, he seemed to be all over me and around me,’ says Joanne. She was terrified, but she still thought that, at any moment, Peter would turn up to save her. ‘Pete!’ she screamed again. But Peter didn’t come.

  Instead, there was only the man, now calmly instructing her to put her head down and her hands behind her back. Joanne, still stunned, went to do as he’d commanded but then suddenly seemed to wake from the reverie. ‘No!’ she gasped, as she struggled against his big hands trying to force her into the position. She lifted her feet up on to the shelf Peter had built under the dash hoping to get enough leverage to swing herself round and get out through the passenger door. But the man seemed to realise what she was doing. ‘Put your head between your legs, I said,’ he barked. ‘And put your fucking hands behind your back!’ He pushed the muzzle of the revolver against her head. Joanne, terrified, finally did as she was told. The man pulled out some black electrical ties, looped them around her wrists, and pulled them tight.

  The next few minutes were a blur. It seemed to her that she could still feel the steel against her forehead, but she’d also been bundled out the passenger door of the Kombi and thrown face down onto the ground. Her bare knees were throbbing from the impact, she could taste blood in her mouth and she could feel the gravel against her chest through her T-shirt. She could also feel the man straddling her, bending down and trying to tie her ankles together. Joanne realised that this man meant business. She cried out again for Peter, but her voice sounded thin and weak in the blackness and the only noise back was the crunching of the gravel under the man’s feet and his heavy breathing and cursing as he fiddled with the tape. She couldn’t see Peter anywhere in the darkness. He could be out there injured or even … dead. She suddenly felt engulfed by a sense of emptiness. She was staring into a void, and there was only one way out. She decided to fight for her life. ‘I got so angry,’ she says, ‘I just kicked and kicked and kicked.’ She twisted her body and tried to kick upwards aiming at where she imagined the man’s crotch must be. Her hands were still tied together behind her back, but the 10 centimetres or so of the electrical cord between her hands gave her some room to manoeuvre. She tried to push her arms up and away from her body to punch him between the legs.

  ‘Fucking keep still!’ the man shouted in exasperation as he struggled to avoid her hands and feet and keep her ankles still enough to tie them with electrical tape. ‘You bitch!’

  Joanne could feel the pressure suddenly released from her ankles. He’d given up trying to tie them together. But then she realised he’d walked around to stand beside her head. He leaned down towards her and punched her hard against the right temple. The force of the blow took her by surprise and she felt waves of blackness shudder through her. The next thing she knew, he’d hauled her to her feet and was pushing her, one hand at the nape of her neck, the other on her shoulder, towards his vehicle.

  THIS WAS ALL PROVING MUCH harder than the man had thought. The girl was a fighter all right. He’d give her that. He’d wanted to tie her ankles together to make it easier for him. But he couldn’t keep struggling with her. Every second they were still on the road there was the danger someone might pass and see what was happening. He couldn’t risk that. He had to get out of there quick-smart. There was still the body to get rid of before he could take away the girl and have his fun.

  STUNNED BY THE BLOW TO her head, Joanne was pushed towards the back of the man’s ute. She felt him try to put tape on her mouth but he couldn’t seem to get his fingers to work properly and she kept twisting and squirming away from him. The tape got stuck in her hair instead, and then he couldn’t wrench it free back over her mouth. He gave that up too, and instead reached over to the back of his ute, lifted the loose collar of the canopy, pushed his hand inside and pulled out a canvas sack. He wheeled her around, and yanked it over her head. The man then pushed Joanne to the front of the vehicle. The sudden darkness of the sack shocked her into finding her voice again. ‘Help!’ she screamed. ‘Pete! Pete! Where are you?’

  The man shook her. ‘Fucking shut up!’ he yelled. He yanked open the passenger door and pushed her in. As she twisted round, the bag came off her head and she saw the dog sitting patiently in the driver’s seat. It was a medium-sized, broad-shouldered dog, that looked brown and white in the gloom of the night. It took no notice of her at all and didn’t make a sound. Joanne edged towards the driver’s door thinking she might be able to escape that way, but the dog remained in the way, blocking her exit. Then she started screaming again and shouting for help. At that, the man climbed into the cab and pushed her somehow — maybe through an opening — into the back of the ute. She landed on something warm and soft, something that felt like a mattress, and which seemed higher than the front of the vehicle. She lay sprawled there for a moment on her stomach, with her legs towards the back of the vehicle and her head nearest the cab. She rolled over onto her back and tried to sit up. She could see little but, as her eyes adjusted, she noticed a patch of faint light at the rear of the ute and wondered if that might be the tailgate. She could hear the man at the side of the ute, the crunch of his feet on the gravel and a strange scraping sound. Joanne was still yelling. ‘What do you want with me?’ she shouted. ‘Is it money? What do you want? Where’s Pete? What have you done with Pete?’

  She heard more footsteps in the gravel. ‘Be quiet,’ he said. ‘If you don’t, I’ll fucking shoot you.’

  Joanne was quiet for a moment, and then took a breath. ‘Are you going to rape me?’ she asked. There was a silence, and Joanne realised with a start that she was more afraid of being raped than of being shot and killed. She took a deep breath and summoned up all her courage to keep confronting the man. ‘Have you shot Pete? Have you shot my boyfriend?’ she asked. There was silence and the realisation suddenly hit her that he may well have shot Peter. It seemed like an age before he answered.

  ‘No,’ he finally replied.

  Joanne then heard the sound of something — or someone — being dragged away through the gravel. She didn’t want to thi
nk about it, but she couldn’t stop an image of Peter flashing through her mind as she’d last seen him — smiling, telling her to rev the engine, so trusting of everyone. He’d even thanked the man for bothering to stop. The anger then started to rise again. And with that came the need for action. She guessed the man was preoccupied with his task, and that this was her one opportunity. She might not get another. ‘I kept thinking, “Oh my God, I’m going to die”,’ she says. ‘I was thinking, “Where’s Pete? This is over. This is the end of my life”.’ Slowly, quietly, she began sliding from the front of the ute towards the tailgate, her hands still tied behind her back. When she’d finally inched her way down, she hung her legs over the tray. ‘I thought, “This is it, this is my chance to get out”,’ she says. She looked around for a second, couldn’t see anything, and then jumped. As she landed, the crunch of the gravel, to her ears, was deafening. But she didn’t wait to find out if it had alerted the man. She ran for her life.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THE HUNTER AND HIS PREY

  JOANNE LEES RAN AS FAST as she could into the scrub on the western side of the highway. It was difficult to run with her hands still tied behind her back, crashing through the spinifex and mulga bushes in the pitch black of a moonless night. Twice, she tripped over and thudded to the ground. Twice, she scrambled back up and kept on running. Eventually she sank to the ground and crawled under a bush to hide. It felt like she’d run a long, long way from the road. In truth, she’d managed to cover just 40 metres.

  To her ears, the noise she’d made had been thunderous, and she could still hear the echoes roaring through the still night air. She curled up into a ball under the prickly fingers of a metre-tall mulga bush and tried to control her breathing. She’d been gasping with the effort of running, and fear, and she needed to stay as quiet as she could. ‘I didn’t have any energy left to keep running,’ she says. ‘And it was so quiet out there, that every noise I’d made running over branches and trees sounded so loud. My heart was making such a loud noise. I knew I had to be as quiet as I could.’ Her life could depend on it.