Sunlit Shadow Dance (15 page)

As the stars
came out into the clear air of a mountain summer evening they sat
on the veranda in little groups sharing company and tales. For a
while Jane’s parents sat with Vic, telling him how much they
appreciated all he had done for their daughter and that he was part
of their family now and they hoped to shortly meet his own family.
Then the groups rearranged and it was Vic and Jane talking to
David’s parents while Anne and David talked to Jane’s parents. Then
Jane and Tim were locked in close conversation while the rest sat
apart. Finally the whole group joined together to share a glass of
port, with two sleepy children on grandparents’ laps.

It was a
difficult goodbye the next day. They had all become so close, like
one huge family, over the last ten days. Jane said she wanted to
see all her new found family and friends again soon and get on with
arrangements for her and Vic’s wedding. She wanted to go to Alice
Springs, meet Vic’s family and get married there and wanted this
new family of hers to all come too.

Everyone
agreed that this was a good idea and they would all come once it
could be arranged. It was too hard to tell her of all the obstacles
that had to be overcome before it could happen. However as Anne and
Vic said their own goodbyes both had a sense they had opened the
Pandora’s Box in bringing Jane back into the world of others who
knew her. It was as if they had started a runaway freight train
with no one at the controls. Stopping it from here without a train
wreck may be easier said than done.

Vic felt
pleasure in the happiness he had brought to this delightful girl
who sat beside him, cuddled into his arm, as they drove away. But
he knew a great fear that it could all go horribly wrong and
control could slip through his fingers. His mind’s eye saw Jane as
an exquisite crystal; flawless perfection outside, but cracks
running through the core. One big knock could shatter it into a
million fragments, never able to be made whole again

An old nursery
rhyme ran through his mind

“
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall.

Humpty Dumpty
had a big fall.

All the King’s
horses and all the King’s Men.

Never could
put Humpty back together again.”

The next week,
after updating Alan about the holiday visit, David arranged a
teleconference with his barrister and the NT Attorney General’s
office. On the other end of the line was the NT Minister and his
executive assistant, Rebecca Singleton, the Beck of Alan’s
conversation.

His barrister
spoke on his behalf. “My client’s representative may be willing to
agree to the psychological assessment you are proposing to show she
has lost all memory of the events which occurred. This is on the
basis that, if we do so, you will seek a pardon for my client from
the murder conviction, without the need for a retrial or a resumed
sentencing hearing.

Such agreement
must be on the basis that all events prior to a pardon being
granted remain absolutely in confidence. Both the medical
examination and any future dealings with her or her representatives
must be done in a manner which does not reveal my client’s current
location and allows her to continue her current undisturbed
life.”

The Attorney
General answered. “That is very much what I had in mind, with the
examination to confirm her mental state being the first step.

“
I have sought expert advice from a former justice of the High
Court to confirm a pardon is legally appropriate in this situation.
I expect to receive this by the end of the month. If this supports
our proposed course of action I will then give an undertaking to
seek a pardon on behalf of my government. In the meantime I am
happy to give an undertaking of confidentiality on behalf of my
department for the other steps which need to occur.

“
The only caveat is that the psychological assessment needs to
be done by a person who is acceptable to my office on the basis of
their expertise and independence. This party may be required to
give in person private evidence to NT legal authorities of their
findings. I will leave it to Rebecca to confirm the suitability of
such a person directly with you.”

The barrister
replied, “Have you identified any such people you consider to be
suitable to do this examination at this stage?”

Rebecca
replied, “As you are aware most of the leading psychologists are
based in cities such as Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. I have a
list of names that may be suitable but have yet to meet any or
discuss what is required with any of them. Because of the
sensitivity of this issue I wish to meet in person with a small
number of relevant specialists so as to determine who has most
appropriate skills and at the same time understands the absolute
confidentiality of this task. I am happy to fly to one or more
major Australian cities to meet with these people if we can agree
on a short list with requisite qualifications and expertise.”

The barrister
replied. “Do you have Dr Ross Sangster of Brisbane on your
list?”

“
Indeed I do,” Rebecca replied. “He and a Dr Pamela Hunt, in
Sydney, are at the top of my list. In Melbourne Dr Veronica Ritchie
is also high on my list.”

“
Is Dr Sangster is acceptable to your client?”

The barrister
replied. “I believe he is likely to be. I would want to have the
opportunity to interview him in person before confirming this.”

So it was
agreed, they would meet in Dr Sangster’s Brisbane examination rooms
the following week to work out the details and confirm this was
satisfactory to all. They would only make arrangements to interview
other doctors if either of them had reservations about the
suitability of this man.

Beck flew to
Brisbane on the Tuesday evening for a Wednesday meeting with the
psychologist and the barrister from the other side. She could have
flown down on the red-eye flight that left at 2 am in the morning,
getting in at breakfast time. But she hated spending nights on a
plane when she could sleep in a comfortable bed. Not that there was
anyone to share this bed with at either end right now, but it still
beat an aeroplane seat.

As she sat
into her seat that afternoon and banked over Darwin before heading
south she thought how drab her life had become over the last two
years, she an up and coming lawyer with a prestigious job, though
the pay was only mediocre.

She should be
living the high life, in her own apartment. But instead she lived
at home and cared for her Mum who had Motor Neurone Disease and was
going downhill fast. Not that she begrudged her Mum the care, they
were close and there was no other family still living in Darwin,
her brother and sister were long gone, one to Kiwi Land and one in
Perth, and her father had been dead now for five years, though she
still missed him.

So it was the
least she could do. But still it was nice to be away for a night
and to know her night was her own. It had been hard keeping the
money up for her Mum’s treatment. Sure the public health system
paid a fair bit. But the extra and new treatment which promised
some hope of stopping the disease’s awful progression had to be
paid for out of her own pocket.

While it had
been a struggle thus far, she had managed to raise this extra cash,
but there was nothing left for a life of her own. Thus her social
life had almost vanished over the last two years though she kept a
bright smile on her face and tried to act as if she was having a
ball, being a party girl.

It had really
come in handy when she had met that journalist in town the year
before last. It was six months after diagnosis, just after she had
moved back home but before it had got too bad. It had been one of
her few nights out. This man was in town for the trial and
sentencing of the notorious Crocodile Man killer, the English
witch-bitch dubbed Crocodile Girl.

At that time
Beck had largely bought the negative gossip doing the rounds that
this girl Susan was a cold calculating killer. So she was flattered
when this guy, Jacob, had come up to her in the bar, telling her
how hot she looked, and, after buying her a few drinks, suggesting
they go back to his hotel room to finish the night.

It had been
one of the last and best bonks she had, good sex was hard to find
when you lived with a Mum who depended on you. So, in the pillow
talk after, when it emerged that she worked for the Attorney
General and had the inside info and she had also told him about the
struggle to pay for her Mum’s treatment, he had offered to
help.

He said that,
if she could provide some inside info about the case, he could
arrange for his media outlet, an online news service in London
which syndicated to many papers across the world, to make generous
donations to help cover her mother’s expenses.

So she had
told him what she knew from the inside about this case then, not
that she knew about the last minute defence pitch which got Susan
out on bail until it happened. But she had known that after Susan’s
release she was staying with her new boyfriend Vic, the helicopter
pilot, and she had known that she had chosen to take the name Emily
instead of Susan; that was part of the bail related information
that had come to her boss.

So with those
bits, plus Jacob’s existing knowledge about this girl whose life he
had been digging into for months now, it had given a big part of
the splash in the paper just before she had gone missing, ‘The Two
Faces of Susan Emily McDonald’, he had called it. Beck knew it had
been a huge story across Australia and England for days, and
Susan’s disappearance had then made it even bigger and more
sensational.

The ten
thousand dollars which had turned up in her account a few days
later, called bet winnings, had been very welcome too. She had
thought the article Jacob wrote had been a bit over the top, but
hell the girl was no saint, she was an uppity Pommie bitch, that
how Susan had struck her the one day she had seen her in court for
her trial. It was the way she smiled from the witness box as they
asked her about the murder. So Beck did not feel bad, all said and
done, that part of the story had come from her.

She remembered
the next time she had seen Jacob. In town for the inquest, he had
looked her up, asking for any more insights. Another good night of
sex had followed; the last she had. He had asked her if she had any
more inside info. She did not have much at that stage, just a bit
more inside info about the police investigation which had never
quite got out before, only minor details but it added local color.
Jacob paid another $5000 for this. He promised her that any more
bits would also be paid for similarly.

So, when the
rumor of the girl turning up again got going, she fed this too him
too and it had earned another ten thousand. It seemed harmless
enough. She had never walked in the shoes of this girl, but Beck
thought she was an English tramp who had got caught and had run
away from facing the music. That money really helped with her Mum’s
latest treatment.

But as fast as
she spent money on her Mum a new set of needs and costs would
appear. A better wheelchair was the latest on the list. It was
another cool ten thousand of which the state would pay near zero.
It said the old one was good enough, even if her Mum was no longer
strong enough to push it up even the most gentle hill on her own.
So now Beck needed another ten big ones, for a wheelchair with a
motor. She knew Jacob would pay.

But now Jacob
was getting antsy, saying it was time for more inside info,
suggesting she needed to try harder to find out, threatening how he
would hate it if the deposit slip for the money he had paid her was
to turn up in her bosses mail. Jacob was chasing where this Susan
girl was holed up, probably in Queensland somewhere. But he was
getting nowhere and now suggested Beck was not trying hard enough
to find out.

She knew she
would lose her job instantly and her career if the payments ever
came out. She hated the way that what she had done was being used
against her. But the money for her Mum made such a difference. So
she had told Jacob she would try harder to find out and she had
meant it.

Then the real
story had been dropped in lap by that copper Alan. Trouble was she
liked the guy; she liked Sandy too, she was not jealous that way.
But there was something honest and good about the way he was
putting his job on the line to protect and help this girl. He had
told her about the guilt he felt for his role in convicting her. As
she saw his decency this way, she started to feel ashamed about her
own role. It was too easy to wriggle out of any blame by saying
that the information she had given had made no real difference and
Susan got what was coming to her.

But as Alan
told his tale about Susan that day, as they sat in the corner of
the pub, Beck had started to walk in her shoes, seeing how it must
have felt from the inside, so desperate and alone that she was
suicidal. And there was something honorable in Susan refusing to
disclose the true nature of the man she had killed, even though it
had come out later anyway in the police investigation. The idea of
Susan protecting her own children from guilt by association with
their biological father did seem well intended.

So it no
longer was easy to be the inside source when the information would
be used to damage this girl, though, God knew, she really needed
that money, the next ten grand to buy the wheelchair.

For now she
tried to block out her dual role and focus on the here and now, the
fact that she was doing something that may help this girl and could
even undo some of the harm she had caused. It was a nice thought,
though it would not pay the bills.