Sunlit Shadow Dance

by Graham Wilson

  Anne told the story of the diary, the parts in it that Mark had written about Cathy, telling of her early life and its pain, parts that the inquest had deliberately withheld, even from her parents lest they cause further harm.

  She said, “I know what your uncle did to you as a child and why you fled. I also know your uncle has been missing for three years now. It is unknown if he has gone into hiding or if it is something else. But he is missing too. Because of what he has done we chose not to tell that part of the story.”

  Anne asked if she could ring Cathy’s parents to tell them of meeting her.

  Cathy shook her head. “Soon I hope, but not now. I need to know fully about my Uncle first. I cannot see my parents and tell them this until I know the truth about him, whether he is hiding or he is dead.

  “Before I knew what you have told me about him being missing I had decided to confront him with Jacob present. I would have asked him to admit to what he had done, to give him the choice to go and tell it to my parents and the police or I would do if for him.

  “Now it seems we cannot do that. So now we must try to find him for ourselves. If he is out there I may be able to reach him when others cannot. Jacob has the skills and contacts of an investigative journalist to help in this.

  “If we locate him it will be as I have said. We will give him a choice to turn himself in and admit publicly to what he has done. If he does not then Jacob will write and publish his story for the whole world to read. That is the only way I can see for real justice to be done.”

  So David and Anne agreed to help in this quest. They offered money, but Cathy said she had more than enough. Instead they arranged an introduction to Alan who was dealing with the English Police in the search for this man.

  Cathy said that armed with this information they would conduct their own search for him. If he was hiding somewhere there must be others that knew, and she would try and find a way to reach him through people who knew. It may take some months but that is what she and Jacob would do. She said she would give it six months and then, if no trace was found, she would contact her parents.

  Two days later Anne and David met with Cathy and Jacob in Darwin at the police station. Information was exchanged along with the promise that should anything be found Jacob and Cathy would let both the English and Australian police know.

  Two days later they were on a plane bound for Iraq.

  Chapter 34- Crocodile Sisters

  Beck and Ross were together again in Darwin, after a wonderful weekend in Brisbane when they had crossed the bridge from friends to lovers. Beck was very busy sorting out the arrangements for the pardon, doing briefs to all and sundry. The need to keep them in the strictest confidence was a challenge.

  Ross was now very cautious about what he said about this whole thing, following the cautionary tale about the leaking and consequences. They knew there were others who could also be the source of something getting out. He and Beck both waited in trepidation lest the journalist from London spring a discovery of Susan’s location, but all remained silent.

  Finally it was all done, the pardon had been signed and delivered, the wedding had occurred and Susan and Vic had flown away. Of Jacob nothing was heard, he seemed to have faded away without sign. Both Beck and Ross breathed a sigh of relief as their day to day lives continued.

  A few days later Alan came on the phone to Beck, saying, “The word is around town that you have a new man. Sandy and I would like to invite you both out to dinner with a dear friend of ours, Charlie, otherwise known to friends as the real Crocodile Man. His wife is making her legendary catfish curry this Friday night and she told us to bring any extras we can find. So I thought of you, particularly as I hear that you and that Queensland doctor who saw Susan are now an item. I thought you might like to meet a few of the locals and hear a bit of the back story about how this all unfolded.”

  Beck had no hesitation in accepting. Alan and Sandy were good company and it was great to be out in the open with Ross. This relationship somehow felt different from her previous one night stands and she wanted the whole world to know about them.

  They drove to the address given, carrying beer and wine in their arms. Charlie greeted them at the door. She had seen him from a distance at the previous legal proceedings but had never spoken to him.

  His eyes twinkled as he met them. “Aha, more friends of the girl with the crocodile stone.”

  Beck look puzzled. Alan came over to bring join the welcome and he explained. “Charlie means ‘Susan’, I suppose you could call us all the ‘Save Susan Committee’, not that she knows about us. But now you have played your part of helping her and now she is on her way to the other side of the world so we wanted to welcome you to our group.”

  Alan brought them over and introduced them to two others who Beck also knew by sight, the flaming English redhead, Anne, now becoming a significant TV celebrity and her drop dead gorgeous boyfriend, David. Beck knew he had been engaged to Susan before, and was now hooked up with her best friend. He was also something of a TV celebrity with all the publicity.

  At first she felt a bit overawed with all these people. However, in the course of drinks and plate of curry the ice was soon broken. Within an hour they felt like they had been friends forever.

  As they talked, Alan told of the wedding, a week ago now and how the journalist Jake had waited outside the church with camera and microphone in hand for them to come out. He said that Vic had dropped him with some well directed punches and some other nameless people, had warned him off and then left him nursing a cut face on the edge of the street, then how the girl, Cathy, long lost, had found him, taken him in hand and led him away. She and Ross listened in trepidation and then relief as it the story emerged from Anne and David that Jacob would trouble Susan no more.

  It felt to Beck like a stone of fear was lifted off her heart and she said a silent prayer of thanks for this deliverance.

  As they sat there in a loose circle, talking, Charlie came over, asked Beck to put out her open hand. Into it he placed a flat round item which rested neatly in the palm of her hand. It was cool and heavy and felt like a stone.

  She asked, “What is it?”

  “What you think,” said Charlie.

  She closed her hand over it and closed her eyes. It was clearly a stone and yet it was more, it seemed to be imbued with something, a presence. Keeping her mind clear she tried to focus on this presence and slowly it sharpened into something more distinct, an ancient presence of places such are rivers, deep water. She could not see its shape, just a sense of being inside and looking out into a watery world.

  Sandy came over, by herself and took Beck’s hand. Now it was like there was a link formed between their minds, Sandy could see and feel what she felt and she could see and feel what Sandy felt.

  She asked Sandy, curiously, “Why is this, what it this thing that makes us connected, I can sense its presence but I cannot see its shape. I only know it is a creature of the water, a giant fish or turtle perhaps.”

  Then it came to her, as if an insight from inside Sandy’s mind. “I know, it is a stone which belongs to a crocodile, infused with a crocodile’s spirit. It sits inside a crocodile. It allows one to look out, as if with the eyes of a crocodile.”

  Sandy nodded, “I suppose you could call it a crocodile spirit stone. It is a stone taken from the stomach of a crocodile where it sat for many years, becoming infused with its presence. A part of it lingers still. Only some can see and feel it, most cannot. Susan could, I can, you can. I guess that makes us all crocodile sisters.

  When Susan sat in jail, in her moments of terror and she thought the bad crocodile spirit of Mark would overwhelm her, she would hold this stone, keep it touching her skin. And when she did, the crocodile spirit within this stone would free her from other outside spirits trying to invade her mind. She must have let some parts of them in on that fateful first day there.

  But as the madness seized her, she did not want to hold this anymore.
Then I feared that other spirits, bad spirits of crocodiles at that waterhole, would overwhelm her, draw her to them and consume her.

  Now I hope and pray she has escaped their hold. But that thing you saw on the video, Alan told me of that. It means that part of a bad crocodile spirit lurks somewhere deep inside her and still has the power to tear at her soul. So we have to help her be safe in whatever way we can.

  It may be something you can do to help her in return for what you have done. I have seen your secret in your mind and know it too. I am not one to judge, none of us are. But should she have need of us, then we are her kin. We will help her in the way sisters do. Anne is her best friend and that is a powerful bond. But only you and I share her sisterhood.

  Chapter 35 - Northern Seas

  Vic was pleased with the positive change in Jane as the family settled into the routines of the Scottish hill farm. She seemed to pick up where she had left off her life as a 12 year old girl when last she remembered being here.

  She had even taken to using her original names of Emily and Susan again some of the time. These were what her grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins called her without thinking, mostly Em, or Emily, the name of her later childhood, but sometimes Susan, her small girl name and the name which connected her memories to the past.

  She told Vic, one day, that, now that she had his surname of Campbell as her married name and she was getting used to the names of Susan and Emily again, she did not mind him using these names for her too if he wanted. He found that all three names were now connected in his brain and he could use them all and move between them without effort, though more and more she became Susan again to him in his mind.

  One day Jane asked Vic if he thought she should change her name back. He said he did not mind if she added back the old names but he did not want her to lose the name he had rediscovered her under. There was a sweet and innocent part of her that was still Jane to him.

  Now her aunt and parents mostly called her Emily, her grandparents mostly called her Susan and he called her all three as the mood took him, sometimes all together, Susan-Emily-Jane. They were all one fused person and he loved them equally. Their children of course just called her Mummy so it did not matter to them.

  Vic could sense this place, with its quiet and peaceful routines, was good for healing her spirit and mind. He was pleased it was so.

  There was also an endless flow of people wanting to meet the children, cousins, friends of cousins, village neighbors.

  Tom and Elinor said they could stay for the first two weeks. The children were rarely out of their grandparents’ sight and sometimes would make their own visits to Great Gran and Great Pa and tell them their stories of the day.

  Vic worked alongside the farm manager most days to have an outlet for all his energy. He found he needed to spend time outdoors or he could feel restlessness grow inside him like a caged animal.

  Jane seemed content to spend hours inside with her grandparents, parents, aunts and cousins chatting and drinking cups of tea. He loved her dearly and he found satisfaction in the stability she seemed to have gained. But sometimes he wished she had a bit of the fire that burned inside the old Susan, the ferocity and anger as well as the gentle softness. But he knew that trying to bring that person back was fraught with danger and he did not want to risk opening up any cracks to her missing years.

  Still it was as if what she was now was a sweet twelve year old in an adult’s body, without the edginess of maturity. Her boundaries were very contained things and she seemed to live contentedly within them. Part of him, deep down, ached to have a bit more of the old Susan back.

  So he put in hard physical days outside and loved the bare open Scottish hillsides even though a spring day here rarely reached the temperature of an Alice Springs winter day.

  The day before Tom and Elinor were due to leave Tom brought out two rifles and suggested Vic walk out with him to try and bag a deer. He said that once he would have loved to do this with Susan but now she seemed to have lost her desire for the outdoor life. There was a wistfulness in Tom’s voice as he said these words.

  Vic looked at him sharply. Tom returned his look. “Yes I know,” he said, “we should just be happy to have our daughter back. Truly I am so grateful, and to you for your part. But yet I miss the fire she used to have. She does not argue with me anymore or challenge anything I say. She does not burst with her uncontained energy of before. I would not lose what we have for all the tea in China, but a part of me aches to have my little fiery Susan back.”

  Vic nodded, “Me too, sometimes I cannot bear to sit around the house any more. I am a person used to doing physical things. I suppose we could go off and travel, but I do not want to break up her pleasure in rebuilding her family and memories. But I find I want more, to work hard in something that pushes me to the limits. The farm work is good, but easy on my mind.”

  Tom said, “Yes I know and I have been thinking about that. You are not the sort of bloke to sit around twiddling your thumbs. I hear tell you’re a helicopter pilot, a damn good one at that, so your friends say. Are you still up for that?”

  Vic nodded, not seeing where a job like that would come from over here.

  Tom continued, “Well I know a good few people in the North Sea oil industry business, they have oil rigs, lots of them, off the coast not too far east of here, out in the North Sea. They use helicopters a lot to ferry people and goods out and back. They use ships too, but often a helicopter is the best, it gets in and out quickly with the bad weather out there.

  “So I could ask around with some of the big bosses I know, see if there are any jobs supplying the rigs, even maintenance might be the go. I am not sure what you would need to do to get a ticket to fly one, but I heard tell you are also a qualified aircraft mechanic. So even that would be something to get you out of here, and once there you never know.

  “Anyway I will inquire if you like. After that it will be up to you to impress them. Not that I expect you to have too much trouble if you can fly like you can box. Working a machine amongst the trees chasing cattle is probably a bigger test than doing a ferry run to an oil rig.”

  Vic said, “Thanks Tom, I would love if you’d ask. I think I will need to do something soon or I will go mad and I don’t want to tear Susan away from here, she seems so happy back with her family again.”

  Tom nodded and the talking was done. They walked miles up and over the heather. Late in the day they got their deer, two fine heads and headed back home, struggling under the weight of the meat

  Next day, true to his word, Tom made some calls and a visit to the helicopter base was arranged. The day after Vic was on his way, driving to Aberdeen, two hours east where he was to meet the head pilot.

  His name was Jim; he was standing in the hangar as they stripped down a big jet turbine machine. He began asking Vic odd questions as they watched the work. He quizzed Vic on his maintenance skills and the need to see his ticket for this. Then he asked about the machines he had flown, expecting from the story that had come down from the big boss that Vic had only flown the little stuff, light and maneuverable, but not really the type for this work.

  Vic told him he had endorsements for most of the main types, having done a lot of work for the mining companies with the heavy lift machines used to bring machinery and spare parts in and out of the remote NT and Kimberly mines.

  The work on the machine was finishing now, so Jim said to the head mechanic, “Well roll her out, I want to give it a test flight, just to be sure, before you sign her off.”

  “Aye, aye sir,” the mechanic replied.

  Vic stepped back, expecting that his meeting was done for now and he would hear more later.

  Instead Jim turned to him and said, “Well what are you waiting for, I imagined that you would want to get the feel of your bum in the seat of a metal bird again, back in the air.”

  Vic strapped himself in the copilot seat while Jim took the command seat. The sound of the turbines spinning
up was sweet music in Vic’s ears, then they were up and away. The ground fell away and they climbed steadily heading out into a grey eastern sky over an even greyer and lumpy ocean. They leveled at 1000 feet heading due east at about 150 knots.

  Jim turned to Vic and said, “Over to you sonny boy, put this old girl through her paces and show us what she can do.”

  Vic realized Jim had taken his hands off the controls and now it was up to him. He had never flown this exact type before but it was pretty similar to some other big birds he had worked, so he took the stick in hand and steadily pushed her into a slow bank, then pulled back to feel how she responded to a climb. She was slow and heavy and the engine revs began to dip. So he piled on the power. Now she was responding as the turbines roared up the range.

  Vic felt fully alive for the first time in ages. He looked across at Jim with a grin. Do you mind if I work her through the paces a bit more?

  Jim nodded, “Disappointed if you don’t.”

  So Vic focused all his attention on getting to be as one with this huge bird, dialing up the power to feel the limit of her climb, then a gentle bank which he tightened sharply, the a dive and flare to pull her up down above the waves. He kept her straight and steady and just above wave skipping height as he pushed her forward, steadily increasing the speed, until she was roaring through the spume just above wave tops at over 100 knots. Then gradually he brought her back to the original height, straight and level, almost exactly as she had been ten minutes earlier when he first began.

  He turned to Jim and said, “Well I am a bit rusty yet and she is a wee bit different from others I have used but I feel I am starting to get her to sing like a bird for me.”

  Jim looked at him and nodded, “For someone who has not flown in six months and with a new machine type in a different place I think you have pretty much nailed it. I would have been hard pressed to do it any better and I have over 1000 hours on type. We had better go and see my form filling secretary to work out all the dozens of forms and papers we need to get you on the books.”