She said, “I am sorry I am finding it hard to concentrate, do you think we could stop for a minute.” Her lawyer immediately came in. “My client is asking for a short recess and, as she has patiently answered your questions for over an hour, I think that request is reasonable.”
The others nodded and all leaned back in their seats. She sensed they were about to get up and go out of the room. However before they did so Inspector Davidson put up a hand and said, “With your agreement I would like to talk off the record for just a minute.” All nodded. He said, in a clear voice. “Please stop this recording.” A little green light went off in the centre of the table.
Now he turned to Susan saying, “Susan, you may not believe this. But all of us here think there is much more to this story than what you have told us. I, for one, having observed your character over the last couple weeks and, having talked to many people who know you, find it inconceivable that you deliberately set out to murder Mark Bennet.
Something must have happened, to change what was an apparently affectionate relationship, which lasted all the way to Timber Creek, into a situation where, within a period of 48 hours, Mark Bennet was dead and you were fleeing the country in a way where you sought to remove all evidence of you being together. There is clearly enough evidence for a charge of murder, but it just does not make sense.
So I am appealing to you, as if you were my own daughter. Even if you will not tell us what happened, please tell us why you are unwilling to speak about it. Did something happen between you and Mark Bennet which changed your whole relationship, something that put you in great fear of him?”
Susan could not help it; she gave a little involuntary nod of her head. Then she shook her head violently, turned her face away and buried it in her hands. She bit on her hands till the pain became so severe she could think of nothing else and, without looking up, forced herself to slow her breathing and regain control.
As she looked up she could see blood on her hands from where her teeth had broken the skin. She felt really angry; they had tricked her with kindness into making an admission.
She looked up at them all with flaring rage. “I have sat here for an hour and patiently answered all your questions, even though you kept asking me the same pointless questions, over and over. Now I will make a short statement which I would like you to record and after this I will have nothing further to say, not now, not ever. Before I do, if you need any further DNA please take it now,” she said, pointing to the blood that oozed from the teeth marks on her hands.
They all shook their heads, it was as if she had stunned them to silence.
Susan saw the green light was back on so she started talking again. “My name is Susan McDonald. I admit to travelling in the Northern Territory, in August this year, in the company of Mark Bennet, between Alice Springs and Timber Creek. I am not prepared to answer any further questions in relation to this time or what happened. I will not seek bail if charged with Mr Bennet’s murder. I am happy to return to Australia to stand trial for this murder if that is what authorities determine should happen. I do not now, nor will I in the future make any admissions or pleas in relation to my guilt or innocence in this matter. Beyond that I have nothing further to say. You may continue this interview if you wish but I will not be answering any further questions.”
She turned her chair sideways so she was looking at the wall and not at any of them. She was vaguely aware of their consternation and of a few attempts to engage her. But she was in a frozen place inside her mind where nothing but her anger was real.
After about ten minutes she became aware they had all left the room. In a few more minutes a different female police officer came in and took her by the arm and led her to a cell. She checked Susan’s bag and removed her belt and anything else that might be used for self harm, then she left Susan alone.
Susan sat on her bed, immobile. The rage was still surging through her. She was determined to hold onto it, lest her self-control slip and she start crying. An hour later she was aware that someone had placed a food tray in her cell. She picked listlessly at it. Another hour later there was a knock on her cell, and her solicitor, Dylan, was let inside. He sat on a chair, next to her bed and talked to her even though she had not acknowledged his presence.
He said. “I have been in conference with the others for the last two hours. As you have not told me that you wish me to cease acting for you, I have been following your instructions in these meetings. I have found it necessary to repeat them several times. The others seem to have great difficulty in accepting your instructions at face value.
“Tomorrow you will go before a magistrate who will consider whether there is a reasonable basis for you to be charged with murder. At this hearing, unless you object, I plan to read out the instructions you gave today to all present. It is likely that the magistrate will find that a prima facie case exists for you to stand trial for murder in Australia, and agree that you be sent there for trial. If this occurs a formal request will then be made by the Australian Federal Police for your extradition.
“I have indicated that you do not intend to object to this; however you can change your mind at any stage. If you object to extradition there would be a court hearing to rule on this. If you agree it is then up to the Minister for Justice to approve this request after which you will be transported to Australia in the company of these police officers. If this proceeds without objection by you, it is likely you will be taken to Australia in one to two weeks. In the meantime you will remain in custody here until your departure. I also expect that you will be held in custody in Australia until your trial occurs.”
Finally Susan looked up at him. She tried to smile, it was not his fault and he was doing his best. She said, “Thank you for what you have done. I am happy with the arrangements that you have made and ask you to continue representing me in England on that basis.”
Then he said, “Two more things, firstly, do you need anything, and secondly your parents and your friend Anne have sought permission to visit you, do you wish to see them?”
Susan replied, “I am happy to see my parents and Anne tomorrow. Today I would prefer to be left alone and I have everything else I need for today.”
In the end the extradition took over three weeks to process. While she sought no delay there was now a crowd of well wishers who had started a ‘Save Susan Campaign’ and were advocating that the government oppose her return to Darwin, citing all sorts of obscure reasons why justice would not be served if she was extradited. Concern was expressed for her mental welfare, her unwillingness to state her guilt or innocence seemed to be of great concern to some along with the passive role she was taking as to what happened. There were suggestions that she was mentally ill, profoundly depressed or suffering from some physical ailment. Examining doctors and psychiatrists were called. They asked her many questions. She answered politely about everything except the actual case, where she maintained stony silence.
She was informed that the opinion given was that, while she was otherwise sane and healthy, she appeared to have been profoundly traumatised by some unknown event which had happened in the Northern Territory while she was there. One gave the opinion that the government should provide treatment for PTSD before she returned to Australia.
Susan let this all go without any comment. In a way she supposed their conclusions were accurate, her grief and mental anguish were real, but she had no intention of undertaking any treatments.
It was funny, but no one sought to test her pregnancy status, or to even question whether this was a possibility, despite two separate physical examinations. She politely declined requests to provide blood and urine samples, saying, “My health is good, this is not needed.”
Finally the day came. She was handcuffed to the female police officer, and taken to the airport in a police car with Sergeant Alan Richards sitting alongside and Inspector Davidson in the front. At the boarding gate Inspector Davidson stepped up to say goodbye.
She fo
und her anger from that day when she was brought into custody was long since gone. She reached out and took his hand and looked directly at his face. “Thank you. I am sorry I could not co-operate. I am also sorry that I got angry with you. I do understand that you were only trying to help.”
“Thank you Susan, I know it will come out alright somehow. Whatever you have done you are a brave young woman. I admire that.”
As Susan sat on the plane she looked at the date on her boarding pass. It was December 7th. This was the day she had been due to fly back to Australia to get married. She started to cry.
Chapter 20 – The Blue Girl
Alan sat on the Airbus 380 looking at this woman who sat beside him as the tears streamed down her face. Her crying was not audible, though her body shook with an occasional sob. He felt a great desire to put his arm around her shoulder and pull her towards him to comfort her.
He knew he must not though, perhaps if it had been only them, then he would have. His police companion on the other side of Susan sat stony faced and unmoved, as if she found such displays of emotion were a bit of a bore. He would be glad when she continued on the plane to Sydney; when he exited at Bangkok for the Darwin flight, she had hardly been an exciting companion for the last three weeks.
He looked back to Susan, she was such an enigma, sitting here and crying her heart out, yet so resolute and in control at other times. Her rage in the interview room had been terrifying, as if a switch had flipped in her brain. In that minute she had been capable of anything, he knew that in that instant she could have killed someone. And the way she had bitten down into her hand to suppress her emotions and regain control, the teeth marks were still clearly evident nearly three weeks later. Yet, here she was, crying her heart out like a school girl whose pet dog had died. Now she just seemed fragile and vulnerable.
She turned her face to him, looking slightly embarrassed. Before, he had thought her pretty, but no more. Now, as her blue eyes glistening with tears, focussed on him, giving him her total attention through a watery but radiant smile, he realised she was sensationally beautiful, her eyes were totally captivating. In that moment he sensed another type of danger, one which flowed from her, the power of her unconscious beauty. It could captivate men’s souls. It was the unconscious nature of it that made her so dangerous.
With her free hand, the one that was not shackled to the arm rest, she touched him lightly on the forearm and said. “I am sorry. It was just that, when I saw today’s date on my boarding pass, it all came crashing in on me, how my life has run off the rails. Today I was due to fly to Sydney to get married. It seemed like a fairy tale. Yet here I am flying to Darwin to go to jail. I am alright again now, but just for a minute it all seemed so futile.”
It was funny how, in that minute, a strange friendship was born. If Alan was truthful he was a little bit captivated by her, it was good the flight was only for a day and he was returning to Sandy, really wanting to see her.
But there was something that seemed intrinsically good and decent about this girl that tore at his heartstrings. Forever after he would remember her that day, on the aeroplane, as the Blue Girl, the blue brilliance in her eyes and a deep blueness in her soul, that he wished he could help mend, but that was for someone else. Yet he knew, in that instant, he was one of many men who was a little bit in love with her.
As the hours drifted by they spent more and more time talking. At first it was just nibbles of conversation, polite pleasantries, but as the hours went by it became deep, a meaningful sharing of souls. But the strangest thing was part of the time he could have sworn he was looking at and talking to Sandy. Several times he felt strongly that it was Sandy, not Susan, who was looking at him and talking to him. It made it even more intense, like being entranced by two people at once.
Alan first justified it as a way of coming to understand this person, his murder suspect, and that this might assist in cracking the case properly. But he knew this was not the real reason, there was a much deeper bond between them.
At first he could feel resistance from their travelling companion, Inspector Ryan; an unspoken message that fraternising with the enemy was inappropriate. But as time went by he could feel Susan start to win her over too. It was the way that she listened intently as she looked with those eyes, loveliness radiated, but with room for all. So by the time they reached Bangkok they had all become friends of sorts, even though from here their lives would take different trajectories.
Susan seemed to have no need to sleep. Sometimes she looked out the window at the ocean, sometimes she watched TV or read a magazine, but mostly when not talking or listening she sat there living a life inside her head. Once, after a burst of conversation, she said. “I am sorry I am talking so much, I have sat alone and silent for most of the last month, waiting for things to happen. It is as if I have stored up all these words to say. Tomorrow I will be silent again, I promise.”
He said, “It is good to hear you talk, to know there is a real person inside there.”
She had told him of her life in England, her former boyfriend Edward, her engagement to David and the recent trip to Australia and wedding plans, her friend Anne, her life as a child riding horses and walking with her father in the Scottish hills.
He, in return, told her about his life in Australia and particularly his work in the Northern Territory, some of the cases he had worked on, some of the communities he visited, crazy tales of the aboriginal people, his girlfriend Sandy and their hopes together.
He was surprised of her apparent knowledge of places he had been, the characters and history of the Northern Territory, it seemed a huge amount to have absorbed in a couple weeks of travel. But there was so much about this lady that was remarkable.
The one thing they did not talk about was the case they were both part of. He knew it was a taboo subject for her, and he did not want to spoil this pleasant interlude. After Bangkok Detective Ryan parted and they caught a new flight; she was on the continuing direct flight to Sydney from here and he assured her that it would be fine with just the two of them.
He liked the idea of just the two of them, him and Susan, on the last leg of the flight. It would be nice to talk privately without the third person, and they now had a full row of seats to themselves. As they sat down he removed the handcuff from his wrist, and then, rather than clip hers to the seat rest he indicated for her to hold it out and he took it off her too. She smiled thanks with those brilliant blue eyes, and he could feel himself more smitten.
Susan sat in the seat next to the window and at first he sat next to the aisle. They ate the meal that was served and after it was packed up she said, “Why don’t you come and sit next to me, it is easier to chat when we are side by side rather than separated by a seat.”
He nodded and moved across. Now she took his hand and said. “I am glad it is just the two of us now. It is better that way. I know there is something you want to talk to me about and there is something I want to tell you. I will go first; it is easier for me to begin.
“About two months ago, when you first found the body of Mark, and you and Sandy were not yet lovers, but wanting to be, I had a dream. In that dream I was carried across the ocean, from my house in England, back to that billabong. You and Sandy slept in two mosquito nets, side by side. As I reached that place, I found myself inside Sandy’s dream, and she was also inside my mind. But at the same time I was being pulled towards a crocodile spirit which wanted to capture me and keep me for itself.
“I was very frightened and Sandy could feel my fear and she became terrified too. When I realised that she was feeling this terror too I made myself pull out of her mind. She did not see all of it, but she had already seen much and knew much of what had happened.
“Now she has seen my mind from the inside, and I have seen hers too. And part of that link remains, even now. Don’t ask me to explain it; I just know it is so. It makes us like sisters. I know she did not want you to arrest me. From the inside of her mind I also know
of her attraction to you. Through her I feel and share some of it too, even though for me it is different, I love another. And you too feel some of the attraction for me that you feel for her. In part she and I have become kindred spirits. But you also love her more than your attraction for me.
“When I was leaving that place of death I saw her come to you, and you desired her greatly but just held her close and comforted her. Because of that trust, soon after you became lovers. At that time some part of me desired you too, because I felt her desire for you, our minds and desires were shared and intermingled.
“So it means that I trust you and we should be friends. And despite this pull of attraction for one another, which we both feel, our other loyalties will keep us apart. It means that from here we will be the closest of friends and will be able to give strength to each other through our minds. Sometimes our bodies will desire one another, but our friendship will be stronger.
“I know you want me to tell you of that night and new day, the killing time. I cannot tell you what you want to know, the why and how it happened. That is for you to find out, if you can. I will neither help nor hinder you. Much of the knowledge already lies in Sandy’s mind, though she does not really understand it yet. Perhaps it is better if she never does, that knowledge was not meant to pass to either of you.
“That is why I was so angry with Detective Davidson; through our friendship he tricked me into revealing what was not rightfully mine to tell. He did it for good intentions but it still led me to betrayal. My anger over it still remains.
“So if you want to know what happened you must not seek it from my mind, either directly or through Sandy’s knowledge, that will only tear at her loyalties and give her a sense of betrayal, like that time when my secrets were stolen through trust.
Crocodile Spirit Dreaming - Possession - Books 1 - 3 Page 42