Chapter 23 – Hiding the Shame – Day 29
The crocodiles were gone. She could no longer see blood and body pieces in the water.
Susan felt the mind-numbing horror recede a notch. Rising up to meet it was an overpowering feeling of shame. She had thought, when she came to this country, she was too smart for the backpacker abduction trick; that she wasn’t one of those silly girls who took lifts with strangers, or put herself into vulnerable positions. Yet she knew, with an absolute certainty, that if she hadn’t found that old blade she would have joined that list of ugly statistics.
She was disgusted with herself. She had indulged in an orgy of sexual pleasure even after she had good grounds for suspicion about this man. Not to mention she had the chance to escape on at least two occasions and had done nothing.
Then there was the small matter of her conspiring to conceal evidence. From the time she had found the passports she had, within her power, the option of taking them to the police. She could have brought an end to the uncertainty about the fate of these girls for four sets of anguished parents.
Yet she had done nothing, preferring to hope for an alternative truth about the man who had captured her mind as much as her body. Only when her own life was a millimetre from extinction had she acted. That was merely for self-preservation; that wasn’t real courage.
She looked now at the morality deep inside herself. It was wanting. She remembered talk of others. those who looked askance at the Germans who, during Hitler’s time, saw nothing, did nothing and said nothing—despite evidence right in front of their eyes. Susan was no better; when the test of her moral core came, she’d failed it, utterly.
So here she was, now, reaping this whirlwind of her own actions. Despite Mark’s awful deeds, was she entitled to be both his judge and executioner?
She could justify using the metal blade to escape; perhaps hitting him was also defensible. But when he lay on the ground, unconscious, she knew neither whether he was alive or dead.
How could she justify pushing his body into the water for the crocodiles to finish? In her heart of hearts she knew he might have lived. She could have taken the car, driven for help, or called the police if she did not want to return herself.
But the real reason she hadn’t was that she simply did not want to face a reliving of her own part in this. Susan did not want to be part of a police investigation into this hideous man.
In her heart and soul she had wanted him dead.
Partly it was to pay him back for her humiliation, partly to let it end, but mostly because she didn’t want to have to give evidence, to describe his exploitation of her naivety, then her sexual and physical entrapment, which she had actively aided and abetted.
She most wanted the whole ugly story to vanish; she didn’t want to have to tell her parents or friends of her cowardice and abject foolishness, not to have testimony splashed over the tabloids, Australian and British; words like ‘British Slut, Murderer; Killer Feeds Man to Crocodile’.
So now she was here, she cold bloodedly gave this man his death wish with crocodiles. She could imagine his eyes had opened and awareness returned in those final seconds, as the crocodiles tore his body apart.
The worst part was that despite the shame that tore at her soul, much of her remained glad of what she had done; she had judged he was not fit to live, and acted on it. She even remembered his words at Barrow Creek, of taking personal vengeance when others did harm. It felt like a perverse moral rightness to use his own spoken words as justification.
Then Susan’s mind twisted in another direction, one of relief and rationalisation. Here she was, alive. Only she knew what had transpired. There was really no need for anyone else to know. Nothing would be served by telling the mothers, fathers, sisters or brothers of those other poor girls about their fate, destroying their remnants of hope.
Now her mind saw a way out. Her plane did not leave until tomorrow morning. She could make the whole thing vanish. No one had seen her and Mark here. She knew he had driven here in the night, coming from the other side of Katherine, with no stops. This was to avoid anyone else seeing him or connecting him to her disappearance or to this place. So that could work to her advantage, she was even more unknown than him.
The chance of his body being discovered, after the crocodiles finished, was remote. The crocodiles had eaten the main parts. The fish would finish off any scraps that remained.
The car need not remain here, where it was connected with this place. All the residual contents of their trip together could vanish, into the bottom of some billabong.
She understood about DNA and forensic evidence, her lab did that sort of work and she knew how to make detection difficult, if not impossible. And, without a basis for suspicion, who would even look?
All she needed was a few hours, with no one else in sight, and she could pull it off. Even if someone came now there was really almost nothing to show, nothing to arouse suspicion, and there was plenty more she could do to hide the traces.
What she needed was a careful plan that she followed. She felt energised, her shock and lethargy was pushed back by the need do something decisive.
First she found a notebook. She made a list of what she needed to do and tried to think of all the sources of future problems and of their solutions.
The campground—she needed to remove all traces of blood from the edge of the water and where she had hit him. She would have to ensure there were no items that could be connected with either of them left lying around. She would do her best to get rid of footprints, tyre tracks, soil on the car or other things that may link the vehicle and this place.
The car—it needed to be abandoned somewhere, somewhere that had no connection to this place. Perhaps it could take her to the airport then be dumped.
His personal effects—the clothes, food and personal items could be burned. The heavy items, firearms, camping gear and tools could go into the bottom of a billabong. Not here, but if she took them and spread them out, up and down river, the likelihood of anyone finding them and or connecting them seemed remote. As the guns had serial numbers, that might trace to him, they should be dumped somewhere else.
Her own things—she realised that her backpack and clothes would have his DNA all over them and it would be hard to ensure that it all vanished. So, all but a handful of her things must go, either burned or thrown into rubbish in various places. The few things she needed to take home could be dealt with back in England.
The car would have to be thoroughly cleaned to remove all traces of her presence, and all other identification, either of her or the other girls. There would just be an empty car. She couldn’t get rid of the cage or cooler box, but a good clean should see most traces gone. The cooler box would have to be cleaned extremely thoroughly, considering her time in there. No doubt bits of her skin, hair, blood, urine and more would be in there.
She would have to clean the car a second time after she got to her destination to ensure her DNA from the final trip was not evident in it.
Perhaps once she neared Darwin she could find a shop selling garbage bags, cleaning gear, and unworn clothes to change into for her final leg.
She would have to play some of this by ear. But each extra step was another level of separation and security. Susan wanted every last trace of Mark out of her life.
Before she could do anything, she needed to make it difficult to recognise or identify the vehicle if anyone turned up while she was still here. She retrieved some mud from the bank and smeared it on and around the number plates, confusing threes, eights, and other numbers with strategic dabs of mud. For extra cover she splashed the number plates with water and extra dirt to make them as near to illegible as was possible. Then she took the swag cover and a ground sheet, and draped them over the cool box and cage on the back, to make these less visible and identifiable.
With her plan made Susan started her clean-up; she added branches to the smouldering coals of last night�
�s campfire to create a big hot fire, one with plenty of flames to burn all the things that could burn.
She did a thorough walk around the site, picking up all loose items, along with any rubbish, and piling them next to the fire. She took a shovel and dug up the bloodstained soil. Susan threw this in the water, then levelled off this patch and covered it with some loose dirt and leaves. If someone looked hard one could see a disturbed area but it wasn’t obvious. She was happy that this dealt with the most immediate evidence.
Now she started with her own things, it was easier to begin with these. She removed all her things from her pack and separated what she knew she needed for her trip home. These she put it in her small overnight bag. Then, one by one, she placed all her other clothes on the fire and watched them burn to ash. There was something cathartic about destroying links to this trip and this place.
She went through the cabin of the car and emptied out all the compartments, under and behind seats and all the other compartments and spaces. She made two piles: what couldn’t be burned and what could. Piece by piece everything that would burn went into the fire. She kept adding wood, and stirred the fire with a stick, to ensure that no charred bits remained.
Then came Mark’s things. She felt revulsion about touching anything of his. But it had to be done.
First were his clothes. Each thing she recognised brought her back to the time and place where she he had seen him wear it.
There was a cap that she had did not remember seeing him wear, and yet it seemed strangely familiar, somewhere deep in her brain it rang a bell of association, though she couldn’t think why. It had a picture of a soaring wedged-tail eagle on the front, but the connection was out of reach. She threw it in the fire.
Susan felt a particular pang about the cowboy gear that he had worn on the day he had met her in Alice Springs: a holiday that held such promise. With these memories came new sadness at how those good times were gone. She stopped herself.
Then there was his leather satchel of papers. She felt obliged to open it, to see what was inside. It was still locked with a combination lock. She had no idea what the number was. So she found a big screwdriver and a hammer in his tools. She smashed the lock open.
She lifted out the pile of papers, and went through them, one by one. Mostly bills and receipts relating to work; she noted the two names Bennet and Butler but not the others. After a quick glance she consigned each to the fire. Now the main part of the satchel was empty, she was about to consign it to the fire.
In a side pocket she felt something that still remained. There were two things inside: a pouch and a book. She removed the pouch and opened it. The contents spilled into her hand. She gasped, here was a pile of coloured stones; glassy, many types, sizes and shapes. She did not know much about precious stones but recognised that indeed this was what she was looking at. There were probably fifty stones, ranging from a few millimetres in size to some as large as a thumbnail. She recognised the reds and blues of rubies and sapphires; a golden one, perhaps a topaz; some small glassy ones, maybe diamonds; and some flecked white and blue stones which she thought were opals. Most of all she recognised two milky blue stones, cousins to the ones he had given her. She took the chain and ring from around her neck and placed these items with the other stones, they all belonged together.
Susan deliberated on throwing them away. There was clearly value here, tens of thousands of pounds she imagined. Some might even belong to other people who had hired Mark to sell them. If so they may represent life savings of miners she had met. While she didn’t want Mark’s ill-gotten gains, she felt loathe to destroy the property of others. She decided she would keep them for now. She refilled the pouch and set it aside.
She put her hand back into the satchel and pulled out the second object. It looked like a diary. Instant revulsion rose at the prospect of seeing his deeper self through his own eyes. She held it in her hand, arm bent to cast it into the fire. Then she thought; perhaps there is something in here about me, and why he chose me, that I should read.
Susan flipped quickly through the pages; there were lots of small entries containing dates, places, and items relating to transactions. She saw the name Kate a few times, she realised with a shock that there were notes about the Scottish girl, Kate Rodgers. The others were probably here too. It seemed awful to burn the last record of these lives.
She could imagine her body destroyed and hidden in a remote place, then someone finding this last record and casually discarding it, denying all future opportunity to those who knew her to learn of this last part of her life. While she didn’t want anyone else to see this and read her shame, it was an ultimate disrespect to others to destroy a last remnant of their lives in this way. She decided to keep the book and hide it away.
Flipping to the last page, she saw her name. It must have been written within the last two days, perhaps last night.
Susan has really got to me, there’s something so brave and beautiful about her. Why could she not just leave alone? I don’t want to do this, but now I have to make the choice between me and her. What should I do, I must end it. It will be quick.
Perhaps I should let her go, trust her, see what she does—can I take this chance?
She read it, and she re read it and then she read it yet again. Had he really meant to let her go, or did he just have doubts that he overcame?
She could feel emotions welling up, love, hate, serious gentle eyes; ugly, ruthless psychopathic heart. What did it all mean? Tears pricked her eyes. She hated him, almost beyond thinking, and yet she really missed his smile. What a mess.
Susan looked around her. Should she just take this to the police and tell them she had made an awful mistake, it could all be unscrambled, even yet. Here was a record that told of what he was and what he had done. With this no one would blame her.
But then she realised that they would confiscate this book, take it as evidence and she would never get to see it again, except perhaps in court. She needed to have this for herself, whether to read it or not; there may be something in here to help her find herself again.
She decided she would put it somewhere out of all reach, in a bank vault perhaps, maybe left there till she died. But it held a story that she could not just casually destroy—that much she knew. Susan found a handkerchief that had not yet been burnt. She wrapped this around it, to separate it from the rest of her life yet treat it with respect. Then she placed it in the bottom of her overnight bag, along with the bag of gems and covered them with her clothes. Now the rest of his personal effects went into the fire; toothbrush, razor, shampoo, and deodorant.
She started on the back of the car. Fortunately the cooler box was almost empty. The inside smelt awful. She carried a couple buckets of water and emptied them inside; the cleaning part could wait.
Susan lifted each box off the back and opened it. She created a pile of non-flammables, to add to the small pile from the cabin. It was all destined for the bottom of the billabong; knives, tools, metal boxes, and cooking things. Steadily the pile grew. She filled a bucket with the contents from the pile and walked one way, almost a hundred yards along the waterhole. She threw all the items out in different directions. She repeated it five more times in different places.
Now only the guns and heavy tools remained. They would go somewhere else, perhaps in different billabong, once she was driving.
One of the last things to do was destroy the food. Susan had left it for near last, knowing that she may need to eat. She thought she must have been working now for over four hours, slowly and methodically, hunger forgotten. It must be past midday and she knew that she must make herself eat; she was starting to feel light headed, all her early morning energy long gone.
The thought of food brought Mark’s face into her mind; they had shared this food together so many times over the days until now, their own private ritual in which they shared an enjoyment of togetherness.
She couldn’t let herself think of the good t
imes. All that was left was the image of his face, devoid of emotion. She pictured his eyes looking at her in that way once he had killed her. There would be no recognition of her life force gone, no anguish, just cool dispassion as he discarded her from his mind then moved on to the next task.
Then she thought of the large crocodile carrying Mark’s body in its mouth. That awful ripping and tearing sound, as all three crocodiles pulled and tugged, causing body parts to separate, the dismemberment of all that had been once a living breathing person.
A wave of bile rose in her insides; she retched.
Susan found a cup of water and rinsed her mouth. She had to keep going. She systematically started burning the food. The smell was bad, but she pushed on. She emptied the metal tins and glass jars, the plastic she burnt on the fire.
Only a quarter of packet of broken biscuits remained, crushed in travel. She took a piece, her mouth dry, chewed slightly then gulped it down with a mouthful of water. She repeated it with another fragment. Occasionally her stomach threatened to rebel, but each time she paused, breathed deeply, calmed herself and took another piece.
She realised she had totally forgotten about the most important thing, the thing that had started this path to madness: the metal box with the girls’ passports and Mark’s multiple IDs. Like the diary, she could not burn the passports. That would be like killing the girls a second time.
Susan thought of throwing the box in the water and burning his IDs, then just bringing the passports away with her. But she knew this was a crazy risk. What if she was searched at airport security? Four passports, all of which clearly did not belong to her, they spelt disaster, no possible way of explaining that. By a process of elimination she realised that her only real choice was to hide them.
She carefully examined the area around her, looking for landmarks. There was nothing distinctive close by, only a big waterhole with a partly cleared area along its banks; perhaps where people sometimes came to camp and fish. A few hundred yards away she saw a little rocky knoll, rising a few feet above the surrounding ground. She took a spade and the box and walked across to it.
The hill itself was bigger than she first though, ten or fifteen feet high and about twenty yards across the base. It was also rocky and hard to dig and there were no obvious cracks or crevices to use. On the other side a big flat rock, squarish and about a metre across, sat low on the ground, just beyond the rise. There was clear dirt just beyond it. She walked over and tested the ground with her spade. It was hard but not rocky. She chipped away at the surface. Her hands were blistered and sore and it was hard going at first. But once she was down a few inches the ground was softer, a dark sandy loam. She dug down about a foot, hard up against the side of the big rock, which kept going straight down.
Then she placed the box in the bottom of the hole. She saw another piece of flat rock, maybe twice this box’s size, lying nearby. She placed it, lying flat over the metal box, also in the base of the hole. She figured that would reduce the risk of rust or water damage. Then she backfilled and pushed the dirt down firmly with her feet. The remaining dirt she scattered around the area.
Not too bad, but a bit obvious if someone came looking over here soon. She laid another flat sheet of rock on top to hide the freshly turned dirt. Now with leaves to make it look a bit more natural, she defied anyone to know that something was buried here. So long as she could find the campsite, she could find this place again if she needed.
It was now mid afternoon as she walked back to the car. Only two tasks remained. The first was to burn their bedding, the last remains of their life together. It was too personal; she did not want to do it, these objects of their lovemaking. But she couldn’t stop now. She lifted the mattress, and threw it onto the fire; it smouldered and smelt awful, but eventually the foam burnt through and she pushed the ends together till only a pile of sticky burning goo remained. Then the pillow, quilt and sheets.
As she picked up the bottom sheet her lace knickers fell to the ground. It was a symbol of their passionate lovemaking, even when trust was lost.
At the sight of the white lace, Susan’s shoulders started to shake. The tears came quickly, silently, dripping down her cheeks.
She cried for herself and the loss of her innocence. She cried for him too, the loss of his life, and the loss of belief in his goodness. She had tried so hard to believe he was good, that he could do no wrong. Now it was time to let that go.
Eventually the crying passed, leaving her feeling utterly drained. Susan picked up the knickers, looked at them one last time, and consigned them to the fire.
The light was fading as the sun fell behind the trees. Susan wanted to lie down, she was so very tired, but there was one last task to complete. She had to wash the car, inside and out.
She washed the hateful cooler box first. Five times she carried water, sloshed it around, emptied and wiped it out. Her arms were shaking with fatigue as she lifted the bucket and her legs wobbled with exhaustion as she walked.
She repeated the procedure with the cabin. Then she did the tray and cage, then finally, the outside of the cabin. She scraped and washed the wheel arches and the under-body as best she could.
Now the daylight had faded to a red-pink glow. It was getting hard to see in the guttering firelight. She piled the fire up one more time. The groundsheet and canvass swag cover went on the fire, the oily plastic coating blazing brightly.
Next she stripped off her clothes and threw them in the fire, and used some water from the water tank and a cup to rinse her body, cleaning herself as best she could. She shivered in the cold night air, feeling naked and vulnerable. Quickly she put on the clean shorts and T-shirt she had kept aside.
Finally Susan dowsed the fire. In the dark she needed to be careful near the water. Cautiously she scooped a bucket out, but of crocodiles there was no sign. She repressed a shudder as she thought they wouldn’t need to eat again, they had already feasted today.
She picked up the ends of the burning sticks and threw them in the water. Then she threw her bucket of water on the coals. It exploded with a great hissing. She repeated this several further times until little heat remained. She took the shovel and, with it carried the piles of ash, along with any other fragments, to the water’s edge and threw them in. Finally only a slightly hollowed out depression remained where the fire had been. She threw some handfuls of leaves over this place.
With the fire gone the mosquitoes were thick. She swatted them away, but it was futile. She wished she had kept the repellent. There were noises of animal movements in the night. She desperately wanted to be gone from this place.
Susan made herself do one last walk around with the torch she had saved. She could see nothing that remained. However she tore a branch from a tree and walked around, brushing dirt in all the places where she thought they had walked, trying to hide obvious tracks. She tossed the branch into the water—satisfied she could do no more.
As she looked across the water there was a miasma of something sitting over its surface, mist like, but not quite. It eddied towards her despite the non-existent breeze. Involuntarily she found herself breathing it in. It felt like there was more in it than water laden air, as if a presence attached to the place came into her, giving her a fleeting sense of Mark’s grinning face merged with that of a crocodile. She shuddered and forced this awareness out of her mind, determined to let no residue of this place remain within her.
She stumbled as she turned, engulfed by weariness, driven these last hours by need alone. This air at the water’s edge felt like a spider’s web, sticky tendrils of nothingness catching hold of her skin.
She forced herself to stand straight. She must now summon the strength to leave this place.
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