“And I must talk to Susan as soon as I can. Perhaps I can help her find a way out of this mess. Maybe she will trust me because I am Mark’s friend”.
So they sat beside the pool in the heat of the afternoon. Vic talked and both Sandy and Alan wrote notes.
Vic told them how he had worked with Mark on many jobs, on many stations, over the last ten years. He told them what a crack marksman he was, how he was an accomplished horse rider and a jack of all trades. Vic described his vehicle and all the things it used to carry, particularly his rifles; they were something he was a bit obsessed with. He tried to think of other people who were Marks friends or who he had seen him with, those who might know an earlier Mark, but here he knew little. He said, “Mark’s past was like a closed book, something he would not talk about with anyone.”
Then he said, “But Susan really wanted to know, she was head over heels in love with him, anyone could see it, and Mark seemed to have a real big crush on her too. Mark told me how, in Borroloola the next day, he was going to collect some jewellery he had had made up for her, some really special blue opals that he said matched her eyes.
“Before her he never seemed to be able to keep the girls around, they would come for a week of two and leave. But with her it was different; she really wanted to know all about him, he did not want to tell her about his past, he must have had some bad secrets. I think he was abused as a child. His mother died young, he never quite said it but you pick up little bits.
“But anyway Susan wanted to know all and Mark did not want to tell her, it was the only thing that spoiled how perfect it all was between them. Yet he was totally smitten and the jewellery sounded to me a bit like a marriage proposal, if he could have he would have.
Mark was a tough bastard and fearless. But I never saw him do anything bad. He was really gentle with animals, and kind to the aborigines and old people. I never knew him to hurt anyone, not even a punch in a bar fight.
But there were a couple of stories about, about people who tried to bully or cheat him, that were scary. Sometimes he would get a look in his eye with one of these blokes, where you knew it would end badly for someone and not for him. But the times I saw, it was the other guy in the wrong. Fortunately these people were not so brave. They backed down when Mark called their bluff”.
By the end of two hours they had all that Vic could remember, or at least would tell them. It was funny, but as the afternoon wore on it was as if he was changing. His warmness towards Susan seemed to fade and there seemed to be an edge of anger when they tried to dig into Mark having done something bad.
But still he kept telling them what he knew. It was much, yet little, and Alan sensed there were still a couple of secrets withheld. There were little hints but yet the enigma remained just as great. This man, Mark B, that was what Vic called him, was kind and gentle with most people. There was a ruthless, dangerous side too. But when the telling was done his past was as hidden as ever.
As to Mark’s real identity Vic remained guarded. He said that everyone called him Mark B; almost no one used his surname. He signed always as Mark B. It was just for things like tax invoices that he used his surname; that was how Vic knew it. Vic said “Of all the people who knew Mark I reckon less than one in ten knew his surname”. But Vic did not say if he knew what Mark’s real name was. When they asked he dodged the question.
Chapter 22 – Vickram Campbell
Vic was perplexed when the call had come in asking him if he knew a Mark Bennet. While the initial reaction was to say he had no knowledge of a person by that name, at the same time his mind was working in parallel thinking about the strange situation on the morning he and Mark last went flying.
It was then he had known there was something different about the relationship between Susan and Mark.
He knew Mark had few real friends, and that he himself was as close to one as there was. From the time they had first worked together, ten years ago, they had struck up an unlikely bond. He thought it had to do with them both having mixed ancestry and muddled identities; both of them had really left their past identities behind as they forged new careers working across the outback.
Mark was a city kid who had grown up really hard and tough in order to protect himself. Vic was a black kid who had done much the same. The real difference was Vic had a loving family, a mother who always had time for him and a tribe of sisters and brothers.
But the Alice Springs town camp of his home had hardly given him an ideal childhood. Drunkenness and violence was endemic, several of his relatives had been killed in drunken fights or from alcohol related diseases, liver failure, kidney failure, diabetes. And half of his childhood friends sniffed glue or petrol or stole things for a living.
Vic was the youngest and his mother had a fierce determination to not let this crime and delinquency happen to him. In part it was her and his mixed ancestry that made her want something better. She called herself an Arrente women, but in reality that was only half of her lineage. She had an Afghan grandfather on one side and a Scottish Grandfather on the other side. So she had kept the Campbell name for herself and continued the Afghan name in Vickram, though most everyone only knew him as Vic; Mark was the exception.
He and Mark were not so different except that he had a mother who wanted something better for him. His mother had watched her other five children run off the rails. He still liked his brothers and sisters but only one other, his next sister, Polly, had amounted to anything. Both his older brothers had already spent several years in jail. One of his sisters had been pregnant at fourteen, and now had three children by different fathers and lived totally off social security. The second had married an older violent drunken man, who regularly beat her.
His third sister was three years older than him. After a patchy start when she had been one of a gang of kids who was into shoplifting and rapidly heading towards jail, she had suddenly grown up. She seemed to have found religion and stability when she was seventeen. She had left home then and got a job in Alice Springs and a place of her own. Now she spent most of her time on church activities and trying to help other kids from the neighbourhood.
She, as much as his mother, had been determined that Vic would do better. He was both bright and a gifted athlete. Perhaps it was that he had inherited the best of his mixed ancestry. He had played Australian rules for a local team and had been seriously looked at by Melbourne teams; he had the speed and agility to weave through a gap. An offer was made for him to go to Melbourne for a year and train for a big name club. But it would have interrupted his last year at school and Polly wanted better for him than that. She had driven him to finish high school and get good marks. Then, when she found out he had his heart set on working on a station, she looked for something better he could do and still work in the outback. From the first time he had seen a helicopter muster he had been hooked on these metal birds of the sky.
So his sister had encouraged him to pursue that interest. She had gone looking for work he could do at the airport and found him an apprenticeship with a company there, where he could both learn an aircraft mechanic’s trade and have an easier way to get flying lessons.
He had stayed with her while he got his mechanics ticket and scrimped and saved to get money, doing other odd jobs anywhere he could. All his money went into flying lessons. At the age of twenty three he got his fixed wing pilots license and at the age of twenty five a helicopter license. Then he had worked for Helimuster and other firms for four years, building his savings until finally, three years ago, he had the money to get his own machine, based in Borroloola and doing work mostly for miners and cattle stations
Mark was one of the few whitefellas that his Mum really liked. He had brought him home early on, just a couple years after they first met, when they were doing a job together out to the north east of Alice, up on the Sandover River. It was like his Mum had seen something good in Mark, as well as recognised Mark’s need for family.
So she had sort of adopted Mark, no
questions asked. Now, when he came to town he nearly always went and saw her, even when Vic was far away.
He and Mark had stayed firm friends ever since. A couple times over the years they had little fallings out over girls, they both had plenty but a couple times they had fancied the same one. They seemed to have very similar taste in this; it was a sort of blood brother thing. When they first met they had scored girls they saw and wanted to both hit on. They nearly always got the same score. It was just a game, but a couple times they had skirmishes about this. However, whichever won, the other was a gracious loser and a couple times they had shared. So their mateship had continued.
Neither had found a girl they really wanted to settle with, that was until Susan came along. From the moment Mark rang him and asked him to find a day to take them flying in the Gulf, in a place along the Calvert and Robinson which they both loved, he sensed there was something different. Mark told Vic that an English girl would be travelling there with him, and it was something in his voice that let Vic know she was different; he said her really wanted to show her a good time and also explain his love for this country to her.
And from the moment Vic met her he understood why, she had a real affection for Mark, like they connected at a different level. There was also real class to her. She was no prude, but she had elegance and grace, combined with a tomboy sort of devil may care attitude. He would not have said she was classically beautiful, more pretty, but she had something indefinable, that made her so attractive. He had been with a lot of beautiful girls over the years, flying around in a helicopter had that effect, and he had only met a few like her.
There was something in Susan’s eyes which drew you in. And when she talked to you, there was no one but you in the room. But she was his best friend’s girl; he would not go there, even if she had shown interest which she did not. So apart from a few friendly quips he had not let himself think about her, even though her image was still very clear.
Since Mark and Susan had gone on with their trip his feet had barely touched the ground. It was his busy time of year and work was booming. But he remembered that day of flying so clearly, one of life’s magic moments.
And, even more, he remembered what had come before. Just before they took off Mark had asked to talk to him in private for a minute. Mark made out like it was for planning the route or for other business dealings. But that was all done over the phone, just an invoice to be done at the end of the day at mate’s rates. They had already agreed the price.
Instead Mark had been more frank than useful. He had pulled out a piece of paper. It had the words “Last Will and Testament of Vincent Marco Bassingham” written on the top. Mark said, “Just in case you’re wondering that is my real name and I want you to sign this. It is my will.” Vic saw it also named him as an executor of Mark’s estate.
Mark then said, “We have been best friends for ten years. I know both you and your family but I have told you little about me. There is some bad stuff I have done I could tell you about, but I would rather not. But I have this feeling that something bad, a sort of payback, will happen soon. It may be just imagination, but you never know and sometimes I see these things coming. So I have decided I want to make a will, just in case.
Until now there has never been a person who I wanted to share my life with. But then I met Susan. I am crazy about her but I cannot tell her who I am. However if anything should happen to me I am asking you to help ensure that what I have goes to her. My will names her as my main beneficiary, with some to go to you and a few other friends. In the will I also give instructions about how to access what I own.
If anything happens to me I want you to be like a brother to Susan, to help her, and make sure she gets this. Will you do that for me?”
Vic had been tempted to ask more. But Mark had been so serious and earnest, so he had merely nodded and said, “Like a brother, yeah, can do. But you have the nine lives of a cat with eight left yet. You will outlive us all.”
Mark had replied, “I am probably down to my last one. I have had my share of good luck and can’t ask for more. The crocodile spirits have been calling, the blackfella totem ones from that Top End country where they gave me my skin name.”
So he had signed the will and Mark had put it back in the car with an enigmatic smile. Then they had gone flying and afterwards Susan and Mark had left. That was the last he had seen or heard of either of them.
Today the cops had rushed to Katherine to see him and told him the real story. That was it. Marks strange prophecy had been fulfilled.
And he had helped those cops, well sort of. They had wanted his help to save Susan, this girl who they knew was guilty and yet believed was not, or at least was somehow justified in what she did. They sought his help in discovering the real Mark.
At first he had helped them out, feeling affection for the girl in her trouble, remembering her fondly from the day in the helicopter. But as the afternoon wore on and he told of his knowledge he started to see her differently.
He had not let himself think about Mark’s loss and what it meant until now. But he really missed this man. He was the brother he would have wanted if he could have chosen. He was not the crying type but felt sort of choked up thinking of that last day, and the magic of the hunt and the fishing hole. There were ten years of other magic times as well.
Still, shit happens. Tomorrow it could be his turn: the thread that holds one to life is so thin that one puff of wind can break it, he thought.
Somehow he could not put Susan in the same frame as Mark’s death. But the cops had been pretty convincing in the story they told him, evidence was evidence. Thinking about her killing Mark, whatever he had done before, made him feel angry towards her. Mark was his mate, they had shared so much together and she had taken him away. He could feel his affection for her turning into something dark, a desire for payback.
But yet Mark had made him promise to treat her like a sister. And Mark had told him, though he had barely read it, that he, Vic, was the executor of his will and Susan was the principal beneficiary. It was all completely whacky.
So he must do what he promised, but also find out the truth. As soon as he had finished his year of mustering he would go and see Susan and get the real story. He would beat it out of her if he had to, sure he would look after her as he had promised but she would tell him the truth if it killed him. He was not one to be taken in by tears and silence; he had seen too much crazy stuff in his life to let that stop him.
When the cops had shown him her photo he had really warm thoughts about her, more like lust really. But now, when he thought about her killing Mark, the image was all changed. He saw her as an evil, dangerous and calculating bitch, perhaps charming his friend to get at his money and then getting rid of him when it suited. But then the cops did not talk about her that way, they said she seemed to be totally infatuated with his friend. Stuffed if he knew what to make of it; but he would find out, of that he was sure.
Chapter 23 - Susan alone
Susan felt like she had been kept in a cage by herself for months now. It seemed like a lifetime since she had walked down a street on her own. Was it really only about a month? It was hard to remember.
At first, when they had put her in a cage, she had been so angry, that detective trying to trick a confession out of her. Then gradually a lost feeling had come over her, her life slowly descending into gloom, endless days of staring at cell walls, no other people to talk to. There were no more happy days with friends, no loving nights with men except in her dreams.
And even the dreams were turning bad now. There were occasional tender moments with Mark, loving embraces. But he was getting hard to see clearly, sometimes he had a crocodile snout, sometimes scales on his body, or long pointy teeth, or slit like yellow crocodile eyes.
When she awoke there were hours and hours of nothing. She found herself unable to read, she kept losing her place in novels and found that not much made sense. So now she mostly just sat and stared. She
also found people’s visits hard to bear. They reminded her of another life out there which she could not experience. And everyone kept asking her to tell the truth.
They all knew the truth, the evidence did not lie. She had been with him, she had killed him and then she had tried to hide what she had done. They were the ones that refused to accept what was there before their eyes. They wanted to see her as Saint Susan. But she was not, she was just someone who had done a terrible thing and now she must pay for her crime. Why was it so hard for everyone to understand?
There had been one day of sunshine, one day when the shadows went away. It was that day on the aeroplane. The kindness of that policeman, Alan, and her double connection with him through his girlfriend and their shared memories. Her words had come tumbling out, such a relief after the silence. He had talked, but she had talked much more. And there was the simple physical pleasure of being in the company of an attractive man, one that found her attractive too, it somehow made her feel good about herself, if just for a day.
Really what she wanted was to feel a man’s arms around her, a real man loving her in the night, bodies joined, the way she remembered with her other lovers, with Edward, with Mark, with David. She knew this act could push the darkness away. Even if it was only for an hour she would accept that gratefully. Instead her life was filled with endless hours of darkness. So, even one hour of escape would be wonderful.
She particularly remembered Alan’s male arousal when she had put his hand on her lower belly. Then how, after he sensed the life in her, she had moved his hand down lower. She had felt his touch so clearly, they both knew what was being done. She had pressed down over his fingers with her other hand, and had tried to bring her body up to meet his fingers. He had moved his fingers over and stroked and caressed her there. His fingers touched her with such exquisite sensitivity. Part of her wanted to cover them both with a blanket. Then he could lift her skirt and touch more. In privacy what followed would have been inevitable.
Crocodile Spirit Dreaming - Possession - Books 1 - 3 Page 45