Sunlit Shadow Dance (27 page)

This girl was a victim not a
monster
. He
could harm her no further. He glimpsed it in Beck’s face that day,
but ignored it to still pursue her.

So he
, after visiting all the coastal
towns around Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, searching for a
Jane with two small children, had finally found her trail in the
caravan park in Caloundra, where the manager had confirmed her
identity and told him that the man was Vic.

At that point
Jacob knew how to
find him, Vic the helicopter pilot. He guessed they had gone to
Alice Springs. So he came here to look.

At first nobody
in Alice had known
anything about Vic’s wedding plans amongst his wide group of former
mates. Jacob kept clear of the immediate family and close friends
lest they warn Vic. Instead he focused on friends of friends
knowing that some secrets would pop out. Only last week he cracked
it, finding out from a friend of a friend that Vic was indeed
getting married this Saturday at his sister’s regular church in the
main street of Alice.

So h
e had paid a visit to the church. The
office lady asked pleasantly how she could help. He told her he was
assisting with accommodation for guests coming to this Saturday’s
wedding of Vic Campbell. They had mislaid their wedding invitation
and needed to know the time of the wedding. As he was walking by,
down the main street, he decided to pop in and ask.

S
he answered. “It is at 3 pm.”

So he made his plan to be
there. First he
had thought of setting up to catch Susan on the way to
church, but there would be lots of people standing around and it
might be hard to get to her. In the end he decided that it was best
to let the ceremony proceed and catch her on the way out. That way
the element of surprise would be greatest. And, with everyone
inside, he could set up in the perfect position.

Tomorrow he planned to have his story and
pictures syndicated to the front pages of the London and Australian
tabloids. It would be huge, the picture of the wedding girl in the
white dress alongside the evil monster who murdered her lover and
fed him to the crocodiles. He would tie the two pictures together
with his picture her face and her shocked answer when he asked his
first question.

It just had not worked out that
way
. He knew
that this was a better and more decent result though his journalist
career would go up in smoke if he did not submit the story as
promised to all those who eagerly awaited it.

P
art of him felt a strange relief he had
not succeeded in his final assault on this girl, there was justice
in him being thwarted. Another part of him felt mortified as his
inglorious treatment and thrashing, now he looked like any black
drunk sitting in the gutter. He felt as if he should get up and
crawl away to some obscure location to sleep off the pain and
shame, the way any other black drunk would do.

But yet he stayed transfixed,
watching the unfolding scene
. The family and friends closed around the married
couple, enfolding them in friendly protection, the mood of the
guests lifted again if a bit more subdued.

Jacob decided
t
hey were
right; it was their time in the sun to enjoy, a special occasion
which no one else could take away.

But yet he was still a
journalist and
he needed a story. He wondered if he could do an, “I was
wrong, they are really decent people” story, and tell of his road
to Damascus conversion.

No it would not wash. It would reveal
their location to others of his kind. These people would keep his
previous version running. His stepping aside would hand this story
to them on a plate. He knew the new identity of this girl, Jane
Bennet. Once that got out hiding was not a realistic option for
her. She could not keep running, nor could Vic vanish easily again
either.

He noticed that something had changed in the
wedding group. They had all formed into a tight circle, arms around
each other with the bride and groom in the centre, an enormous
group hug.

There was such a sense of solidarity in
these people and Jacob found himself profoundly moved, he knew he
was not welcome, but part of him felt an urge to join them. It
reminded him of family gatherings of his childhood and the
community of his home. He felt a wistful nostalgia for that time
and place, its simple innocent goodness.

As he watched a grey haired lady detached
from the edge of the group, she did not seem as if she quite
belonged but yet had been moved to express her shared pleasure with
them by joining her arms to these other bodies.

Now she moved purposefully towards him. He
feared she would ask him to join in and he could not do that.
Instead she spoke to him. “I do not really know them, yet I wanted
to wish them well, particularly the girl, Jane. She and I are
fellow travelers.

“
But then I saw you sitting
here, alone and lonely with your cut face. So I thought I would
come and talk to you. You do not know me but I know of you. I have
read some of your stories, true in parts, untrue and unkind in
others. But at least you are a searcher for the truth. It seems
that this story that you planned to tell has got away and will stay
untold.

“
Perhaps I can give you another.
It is time I stopped running from my own past. I am Cathy, one of
the four Lost Girls.”

Jacob allowed himself to be led away by
this strange looking girl. His mind had barely comprehended what
she had said, but she had a power in her eyes and face that
impelled him to action.

It was funny how he had first
thought her old. It was her grey hair, streaked and appearing thin
and worn. And her clothes
, appearing ragged and in the style of what an old
woman would wear. But closer inspection gave the lie to her other
appearances.

She was actually quite youthful, something
approaching his own age. Despite her raggedy demeanor she was
distinctly pretty, a pert button nose and sweet soft mouth. But
most of all she had a look.

He struggled to place where
h
e seen that
look before. It was hauntingly familiar. At last it came to him. It
was the look of Susan on that first day in court, a day when she
should have been pleading for her deliverance and freedom. Rather
she made a guilty plea with something like gloating mischief on her
face. It was a look of sparkling vitality that she could not hide.
In that moment he had hated her cocky joy in that place. It made
him angry and in response he was determined to break it, to make
her pay for what she had done. In that moment he had made himself
the judge of her actions and had decided that his words would be
the tool of justice.

N
ow he understood she had been the actress
playing a deliberate role to turn the crowd against her own self,
mocking the gravity of the court and refusing to bow to fear. So,
despite her central role on a day of horrors, an ineffable part of
her soul’s defiance had bubbled out into a look. This lady had it
too, a willingness to look horror in the face and smile,
unbowed.

In that second, as he saw this
similarity, he knew what was missing from today. It was what had
crumbled his desire to pursue her
, Susan. The thing he hated in her was
gone, gone was her defiance of the world. But, in losing it she had
lost most of herself; her soul was missing. What remained now in
her body shell was a simple kind person who had lost their devil
spirit and with it their life’s fire. He knew of his hand in that
loss and from thence came his shame. He had in part destroyed her
essence, broken an essential part of her humanity and
being.

But this other woman who stood beside him,
holding his hand in hers, still had that life force, the yin and
yang of a full soul. With it came courage to look at the worst of
the world and spit in its face. So he would go with her and hear
her story. The story mattered, but it was the power in the life
force in her soul that drew him in, he fed now on its
power.

He looked carefully at this
woman and she turned her face to him. If you put aside the raggedy
hair and
outdated clothes, she really was seriously beautiful. Their
eyes connected and he felt a jolt, it was not lust. It was two
souls sharing knowledge and pain, their own and others.

He said,
“What did you say your name was
again. My mind was inside my head until now and I did not properly
hear what you were saying.”

She said, “Today most people call me Kate
James, my few friends call me Cathy. But my true name is Fiona
Rodgers. As I said before, I am one of the ‘Lost Girls’ in this
story you and others have been writing. Today I came here to show
my solidarity with this other Lost Girl, Susan, now called
Jane.

“
I sat quietly in the back of
the church, unknown and unseen, and wished her a new joy in life
after much horror. I intended to leave quietly, to slip away and
return to my quiet unknown life, my story still unknown.

“
In that moment when you tried
to tear her story from her, I knew that there was another story
that must be told. I decided, in those seconds of your
confrontation and beating, to seek out her friend, Anne, to ask her
to tell my story. She knows I am alive, but not where. I would have
given her my story.

“
But, when I saw you sitting in
the gutter, beaten and shamed, I knew that it was you who should
tell my story. You have been a seeker after truth, even if blinded
by your own cleverness. Now you have understood the pain done by
your former words, their ability to harm as well as heal, I think
you are ready to take and tell my story, if you will.

“
So I will tell it to you. You
must find words to tell it to the world with kindness. It, like
Susan’s story, is a story with power to harm. But my hiding it for
so long has caused more harm. So now I know it must be
told.”

They found a café where they
sat for two hours and he listened as she talked. It was the life of
an innocent young girl, trusting of her uncle
. It told of her sister’s rape
and suicide, of her own rape, then of her seeking escape in the
selling of her body. She told of her flight from that life to
Australia, then of her meeting the man, Mark, travelling with him
for a week, first as friends then as lovers, though only for two
nights. She told of a first wonderful night, when she had told him
of her own awful childhood and he had held her and comforted her.
In that night she had loved him and known he cared for
her.

Then she told of a second wonderful night
when she had joined her body to him and it seemed he had loved her
in return, how he had told of his awful secrets, the killing of
Isabelle to save her from the crocodiles, then the killing of Josie
and Amanda. Despite knowing this she had loved him
still.

Then she told of the awful realization
that came to her in the early light of next morning that he was too
dangerous to stay with, not for her but for her family. He slept
still as she arose and quietly dressed, knowing she must leave him,
to protect him from himself.

T
he knowledge had come to her in the
darkest part of the night. At first she had not understood it. Now
in the morning she saw it more clearly and it convinced her she
must leave. She saw in him an uncompromising hatred of those who
harmed small children, those who abused them or destroyed their
innocence. In that moment she knew he would surely kill her uncle,
her own abuser, when the chance arose. He had said it to her in the
night. At the time he spoke, full of the rapture of love, she had
not really listened.

His words were, “The only way to fix
bastards who do things like that to little children is to kill
them. I will fix him so he will never harm another.”

So, in the morning’s first light she had
known, if she stayed with him, he would act on these words. She
could not bear for him to further kill a part of the goodness in
his soul through killing another and, despite her hatred of her
uncle, she did not wish for his death. It would only bring yet more
pain to her family. So she fled, taking rides along the highway to
Alice Springs. She left all her things in his car, except for her
purse with a few hundred dollars which was in her hand as she got
out of bed.

Once in Alice Springs she had stayed
there, changing her appearance so no one would know her, finding a
cleaning job that did not require identify papers, paid cash in
hand. Now more than three years had passed.

She lived alone, in a tiny room
with a gas burner to cook on, and mostly read books when not
working. In the early mornings and evenings she walked along the
sandy river
bed and beside the red hillsides. As people thought she was
old and slightly mad, no one troubled her.

Her only real friends were a few of the
aboriginal people who also lived in the river and some who walked
in the hills, collecting foods. In this way she had met Vic’s
mother, Rosa, at odd times over more than two years.

Over time and story sharing she
had realized that
Rosa’s son Vic and Mark were friends so she had connected
Susan to them through the story of Mark’s murder and the trial.
Then, when Susan vanished, Rosa had told her how cut up her son
was, searching for but never finding this girl. Then one day Rosa
was smiling again. Cathy knew Rosa had a happy secret but did not
probe. One day Rosa had told her, sworn to secrecy, that Vic had
found Susan again and, a few months later, of the marriage
plans.