Sunlit Shadow Dance

by Graham Wilson

  “What were your favourite animals?” he asked.

  She thought for a minute and then answered, “I am not sure, I thought the apes were so amazing, they are so like us, their behaviours and the way they interact. But then I loved the predators too, the way a cat would stalk up, or silently wait in ambush until something came along.”

  He asked, “Did you ever see any that you remember, perhaps at a zoo or something like that?”

  She thought hard and then said. I think the year before those holidays my Dad took me to a zoo called Whipsnade Zoo and also to London Zoo in Regents Park. I can remember watching a cheetah stalking someone who was walking along the outside of its enclosure at Whipsnade Zoo. And I remember feeling sorry for the lions at Regents Park Zoo. They were lying out in the sun and their enclosure was concrete. I thought of them out in Africa, in the long grass, hunting animals. I thought, What a pity, they have nothing to chase and nowhere to hunt in there.”

  Ross did not know why but the image of a crocodile lying in ambush suddenly came into his mind, perhaps it was all the media speculation about the Crocodile Girl, perhaps it was that freaky story Vic told him last night of a huge crocodile swimming alongside him as he escaped from the wilderness after he crashed his helicopter, or perhaps it came from an association with the predators in her story. The words popped into his mind and were on his tongue before he could think and take them back.

  “Have you ever seen a crocodile?”

  He watched her face as he spoke, wishing he could take the words back.

  First she screwed up her face as if thinking. Then her face transformed into blank dread from which, like a slow motion picture, it morphed into abject horror and overwhelming fear. As it did a noise began, somewhere deep inside. He mouth took a rictus shape. A thin banshee wail flowed from it, rising in tone and volume into a screech of unrelenting terror. Suddenly the noise was gone, bitten off into even more ominous silence. The terror in her eyes was undiminished and her body began to shake before giving way to heartbroken, convulsive sobbing of the words, “No, No, No, My Babies.”

  Ross was first paralysed into inactivity by the noise, but as it transformed into sobbing words he rushed around the table and put his arms around her shoulders, pulling her to him and talking to her as to a small child. “It is OK, no one is hurting your children, they are safe, they are with Vic.”

  Slowly her sobbing and shaking abated, her eyes returned to where they were focused on him, but with an accusatory look, “Why did you say that, that thing about the crocodiles? It is evil. I saw my babies swimming in a pool full of crocodiles. Lots of big crocodiles, swimming towards them, mouths open. My babies needed help and I could not reach them. I was stuck here in the wrong body. I knew the crocodiles would take them, tear them apart, eat them. I knew my babies would be torn into little pieces. I could not reach them or help them. I could not bear to watch it happen. It was so real.

  “I wish you never said those words. I don’t want to talk about memories. I don’t want try and remember, ever. It is all too terrible. I never want to see that awful thing again. I just want to be left alone.”

  Ross tried to calm her, telling her they would go out and see her babies now, they were safe with Vic, it was something she had imagined. It was not real. Her wild eyed terror remained though gradually the self-control came back and the accusation faded from her eyes.

  He suggested she wash her face, go outside and see the others. She complied, but in the manner of a rag doll, moving without purpose.

  So he brought her out to Vic and her children. She hugged her children tightly to her as if fearful they were a mirage and would vanish.

  As she held her children Ross explained to Vic what he had done, his foolish words and how frightened she had been.

  Vic had an instant flash of annoyance on his face, but he seemed less perturbed than expected. “As you said Doc, there is a whole world of pain trapped inside her. I am not sure that I am glad about what you did but it needs to find a way out. So thank you for trying to help. I will talk to you tomorrow after she calms down.”

  Vic walked over and enfolded Jane in his arms. He stroked her hair like that of a small child as he murmured soothing words.

  Soon her children grew impatient at being ignored. “Mummy, mummy come and see the boats on the river.”

  Chapter 22 - The Reporter

  Jacob was pissed off. He knew that lawyer tart, Beck, in Darwin, was stuffing him around. Once upon a time she had been only too happy to take his money for scraps of information. And largely because of her he had made it big time, the journalist that everyone was talking about.

  But now she seemed to have got cold feet. When he rang her work receptionist asking to talk to her, she was always busy and never returned his calls. When he tried to ring her mobile it went to message unanswered, when he emailed her private email she never replied. He knew he could not use her government work email – way too dangerous for him and her if it was shown he was trying to pervert the course of justice.

  He thought of upping the ante, doing something more direct with her work to scare the pants of her, perhaps leaving a message with her secretary that Jacob Shoesmith a journalist from the London’s Fleet Street needed to talk to her urgently about the Susan MacDonald case.

  That would really put a scare into her. He also thought about his threat to send the bank deposit slip for the most recent sum he had paid her bank through to her boss in the mail with a ‘please explain’, anonymous of course. But that was just a threat. She would lose her job if anyone foG160llowed that trail and the goose laying golden eggs in the Susan story would stop laying.

  Plus he had enjoyed his nights with her when he visited Darwin, she was only a mediocre sort to look at, good body but face a bit angular for his taste, but she was really hungry for sex when he got her between the sheets, her other recent bonks had obviously been limited with a sick mother. So he recalled the two nights spent with her as memorably good, they had turned each other on big time, perhaps his black body made her horny, her milky white thighs certainly had that effect on him. It would be nice to do it again at least one more time.

  But, for now, she needed to deliver something. He had money waiting to send her. But she needed to use inside information to reopen the trail on the Crocodile Girl which had gone cold. He licked his lips, savoring finding that Susan tart, sticking a camera in her face as they brought her back to jail.

  It had been far and away the biggest story he had ever broken. He had followed it from the start, from when they unearthed those clues saying the crocodile was not the real killer. The crocodile had only come along after the bloke was dead, finishing the murderer’s work. Instead it had come out that someone with a girl sized footprint had finished of that Australian Outback dude, Vincent Mark Bassingham, whacking him on the side of the head with a big lump of wood and dragging him to the water. This person obviously expected the crocodiles to do the rest and leave no trace. So he knew from the start she was as guilty as hell the way she had deliberately tried to hide the evidence. No lovers tiff this but a cold and calculated murder from a clever but thoroughly nasty little bitch.

  He had to give it to her; she was a great actress, deserving an Academy Award for her Saint Susan role in the murder trial. She had barely spoken, silence and beauty were such effective weapons when put together, playing the martyr image. But he had cracked that open, with a bit of help from the Darwin girl, Beck. He found that she spread herself around pretty well, that was her past history. Now she must have moved on to a newbie. Pity she and Vic had not stuck, he was sure he could have found Susan through him if he knew where she was. But he had seen Vic’s plane ticket for Canada, 18 months or so after Susan vanished. Jacob’s sources had told him the word was Vic was all broken up.

  A bit after Vic’s going abroad, rumors had surfaced about Susan having been found in Queensland. Beck had fed this rumor to Jacob back when she was talking to him. She told of a vague story of a pers
on who looked just like her working in a town up north. So he had jumped on a plane there and spent a month looking around for anything that was real. He checked out the obvious places, Cairns, Townsville, he went to the smaller places and resorts, checking out all the shops and bars and businesses, flashing her photo and cash around and telling that he would pay well if anyone knew where she was. He had been pretty well everywhere except the blackfella places where no one in their right mind would go. And he had found zip.

  But still the rumors bubbled around. When she vanished she was too pregnant for an abortion. A nurse at the hospital told him it was twins. He imagined her now with two small children. She should be easy to find.

  He remembered the adrenalin rush from that time almost two years ago when his piece, ‘The Two Faces of Susan Emily MacDonald’, had been far and away the highest rating story of the English tabloids. Then Beck had told him about her going by her middle name. He thought that was both weird and a bit silly, as if by taking that name she could vanish.

  Back then he got part of his story came from an earlier boyfriend, Edward, definitely still a bit smitten by her. Edward told Jacob the story of how she had dumped him and how she was a party girl, always willing to try it on with new men. To add to that he had the story of her shagging both the outback bloke, Vincent, Mark B or whatever and at the same time that rich dude, David. Then, the instant she was out of jail on bail, Beck told him she was shagging the helicopter pilot. At that point he knew he had gold, a true English tart, giving plenty on her back but quick to put the knife in when she no longer wanted it.

  Not to mention that she proudly carried a belly full of arms and legs from her contest, who knows whose it really was, perhaps one each to two fathers, seeing as the nurse also told her they were a girl and boy, not identical. The brats in her belly did not come from being a good girl who only went to church. So, when it was added to the crocodile killer, it was a story of sensation made in heaven. It had pushed him right to the top. He loved being in that place where his name was on everyone’s lips. But then it slowly slid away. As it did he slowly slid down the ratings and pay scales.

  Now he had to make the story come alive again, it would be even bigger if he could find her now, particularly after all the Saint Susan TV publicity her red headed friend had done last year. He knew, if he could just get that Beck bitch to give what she knew, he could crack it. Perhaps he should double the offer to twenty big ones. He thought about it for a minute. Yes, he was sure that would bring her round. He knew she needed more cash for her mother’s treatment. She may not want to talk to him but her mother’s part time nurse had no such scruples and had told him about the need for a new wheelchair for ten big ones. So it stood to reason that if she needed that cash just for one thing then she would need more for other things as well.

  So she must be playing hard to get to put up the price. He needed to get out there and get in her face. Nothing like more pillow talk, after a good fuck, to bring her around. Being there in person would make it very hard for her to refuse him, either the money or the sex.

  Having decided how to move it along he booked his flight to Darwin for next week. It was a small town and Beck would be easy to catch up to. Who knows, after he bonked her, paid her and got what she knew, he could spend a couple more weeks working all those Queensland towns again himself, if he talked to enough people and threw plenty of cash around he would surely dig something up.

  That afternoon he got an OK from his boss for a ten thousand pound cash advance to pay his source, and another five for his own expenses for the trip he had booked. His boss was as hungry as him for a new big splash, but his patience was starting to wear thin.

  “I don’t mind paying for results and you certainly delivered in spades a year or two ago on this one. But you have nothing to show for the money we have laid out since then. It is time to move on if this does not pan out. Plenty of local stories in our part of the world that you need to put a bit more effort into or your pay packet will take a haircut at your next performance review.

  “So I am cutting you slack for a month to go and run this to ground. But if it does not happen you better find some other big stories while you are out there, or perhaps a job at half pay or a new job will be in the offing.”

  Jacob could feel his ears burning as he walked outside. With all the trouble that Rupert M and the other big boys had had over the last couple years it was getting harder and harder to use underground sources to crack the big ones in England and he was over piss poor jobs, with a thousand hopefuls looking over his shoulder and waiting for him to trip and fall.

  That was why he had decided for cash this time; if it blew up he wanted no money trail back to him and an inquiry. With a month in Australia, if he could live sensibly, this big wad of expenses would leave enough to pay Beck well and still leave him free to chase down other stories. His boss was right; he needed to find other things to pursue even if this panned out. No one could live forever on one story. He needed to dig into the other girls that were part of this, perhaps some new trails and sensations there.

  The coverage on TV of this story had been very soft and lovey-dovey, the making of a new bunch of martyrs. That was fine and all but the public most hungered for raunchy and out there stories. A requisite mix of sex, violence, horror and tragedy were his staple fare, goodies soon got boring.

  As he walked home he thought how he had risen from his own humble beginnings, a black kid, with a Jamaican mum and some mixed up north African bits on the other side, it was a bit muddled whether Egyptian, Moroccan or Ethiopian was dominant but he got a bit of it all.

  So his rise from a promising school student to a cadetship with a tabloid daily then to a journalist in his own right had been a big deal in his family. When he risen to the top of the pool the year before last that had been a really big deal, and he had spent his large income freely to impress family and friends. Now it was hard to think of a drop back to being another middle level journalist, who made a living – just.

  The funny thing was when he had dug quite bit into the bloke Vic’s background, the black kid from a town camp made good as a helicopter pilot and then running his own show, had felt a sort of brotherhood with him. So when he seemed desperate to shack up with the Susan witch-bitch after his miraculous survival Jacob felt he was protective of him. Perhaps that had a small bit to do with the hard-ball way he had decided to play this girl’s story, leaving no room in his mind for sympathy for her.

  He could let such things get in the way; he had to look after himself to stay as the number 1 super trash digger in the tough journo game.

  Chapter 23 – Beck

  Beck had talked to Ross Sangster on the phone several times since their meeting in Brisbane. Most recently she had talked to him twice since his meeting with Susan, first on the following day when he told her how the meeting went and mostly about Susan’s distress when he asked about her memories of crocodiles. He promised Beck his report and video next week once he had agreement from the other side about the video’s contents.

  He then rang her earlier today to say he had posted the video express mail and she should have it within two days. Once she viewed it he asked her to call him so they could talk about what to do from here.

  Their telephone conversations had become remarkably friendly and frank, she found herself very comfortable talking to this odd man. His cryptic sense of humor gelled with hers; they had subtle mind contests with words and phrases that were both friendly and challenging. She was unsure if she thought he was attractive, but she liked him, liked his company.

  He seemed to enjoy talking to her as much as she enjoyed talking to him. Sometimes he gave too much away about this case and the meeting, as if he inherently trusted her not to abuse privileged information. This made her squirm inside when she thought of what she had already done.

  He let slip that this girl had two children, a boy and girl, who stayed with a man outside while she was in the meeting with him. It was obvio
us, from the way Ross talked about the man, that she and he were in a relationship, not just friends. It came out when he told Beck about her reaction to the crocodile words. He followed that story by saying that, once she calmed down, he brought her back outside to the man who was minding their children and he put his arms around her and comforted her. He also told Beck that, when he asked this girl what she most wanted to do in her life from here, she said she wanted to get married. So it was odds on that the person she wanted to marry was to the same person minding her children.

  Ross had also used the name Jane once instead of Susan. Beck suspected this was the name she used now. Added to this he said they had driven down to Brisbane from where she lived the afternoon before he met them so this indicated that she was staying within a few hours of Brisbane. Ross also spoke of her taking the children for regular walks along the beach which suggested she lived in a seaside place.

  Each bit alone was not much. But when she put these bits together it was a lot more than she was supposed to know. It told a story about who this girl was now and gave a much narrower circle around where she lived. She knew it was information worth a lot of money.

  As she walked out of the building to go home she was torn. She did not want to betray this girl yet again. But her Mum was getting steadily worse, becoming more and more housebound as she lost the strength in her arms to push the wheelchair. Beck really wanted to get her the new chair with the motor, and it would only take one phone call. She promised if she did that, afterwards she would call it quits. She could feel the balance in her mind tipping towards this, but she had to put some protection in as well. She had to make sure if she gave him one more story this man would do two things.