Lost Girls (3 page)

She told him
she had the full story on a set of tapes that she would transcribe
over the next week or two. But, in the meantime, the one
significant thing he needed to know about was the box which Emily
had buried. She described the hill as told by her friend.

Alan remembered
Susan's little slip, her unintended revelation of something hidden
made in the pre-trial meeting. He knew immediately that this was
it, recounting his own futile search of a few days before.

Anne described
the square flat stone where the hill ended at its furthest edge,
alongside which the box was buried.

Alan even
remembered this place, saying “I stood on it, looking out across
the surrounding country wondering where else to search. It is hard
to believe it was at my feet the whole time.”

Then Alan asked
her if she and David would like to come with him when he went to
this place to retrieve the box. He would get on the phone to his
boss now and organise it for the morning. It was the highest
priority so he was sure it would happen.

Anne and David
had planned a picnic together for tomorrow, their last day before
David returned to Sydney. Anne would then stay on to provide
company and support for her friend until the babies were born.

While Alan had
given Vic and Emily the use of his flat for as long as needed, Anne
was hoping that Emily could be persuaded to soon come to Sydney and
stay there with them until the babies were born. Emily’s cousins
lived there too. Together they would provide a stronger support
network than what was here in Darwin. It would be good to put
distance between Emily and this place of horrors.

So Anne’s
initial inclination was to decline, begging a prior picnic
engagement. But another part of her had a strong curiosity to see
the site of the event which had consumed so much of her life. So
she said she would check with David.

Alan said he
would be leaving at 8 am tomorrow, with a couple vehicles,
accompanied by Sandy and two other men. So if they wished to come
they should be at Sandy's place before then.

Anne felt
comfortable in leaving Emily alone tomorrow. As well as Emily’s own
parents being there she would be spending the day with Vic who was
booked into surgery after lunch. Emily would stay with him in
recovery until the evening before returning to a quiet night on her
own, by which time they should be back in town.

So she made her
pitch to David, “How about we take our picnic out on a site visit
to that buried box place with Alan and Sandy tomorrow. Alan is
organising to excavate the box I told you about last night. I would
really like to see the place with my own eyes, not just as exhibit
photos.”

She could feel
David’s interest was as piqued as her own. He readily agreed.
Instead they decided to have a night out on their own tonight, time
for a celebration for just two, a first step towards planning their
life together. They could think of this with enjoyment now that
Susan-Emily was no longer the centre of both their lives.

Despite
spending more than a month in Darwin, neither David nor Anne had
ever travelled beyond its rural outskirts. So they had a real sense
of adventure as they drove out of town with Alan and Sandy, sitting
in the back of a large Toyota Station wagon. They went down the
Stuart Highway, the same way they had come to Berry Springs last
Christmas. Then they came to a big sign, proclaiming “Arnhem
Highway”, pointing to Kakadu. They took this road. From here it was
all new to them.

First they
passed through a town called Humpty Doo, just a few shops and a
string of houses and larger blocks. The name gave it a picture book
feel, like a Humpty Dumpty place in a children’s story. After it
was left behind there was just featureless scrubby land until they
rounded a small hill and came out onto a wide expanse of swampy
plains.

A minute later
they crossed an expanse of brown water signed “Adelaide River” and
advertising tours to see the jumping crocodiles. This gave Anne
goose bumps as it brought home to her the reality of this place,
this wide placid river with a sense of hidden danger.

Soon the open
plains were left behind and scrub land resumed. They rounded more
low hills and, before she realised where they were, they were
crossing another river. The sign “Mary River” flashed past. Anne
saw a broad tree lined river pass below.

She called out
to Alan in the front. “Could you stop for a minute, Susan told me
something about this place, I need to remember it.”

It came to her.
Susan described discarding the tools and heavy items from Marks
truck, stopping in the middle of this bridge and throwing them into
the water. She suspected most things did not really matter but they
might want to try and search for the number plates and the guns
left here.

She recounted
her memory of Susan’s words while Alan and Sandy listened
attentively, “Susan said she stopped at the far end, behind us.
Then, after listening and looking for sign of anyone else nearby,
she realised it was a good place to dispose of all these things. So
she reversed back onto the bridge, far enough to be fully out over
the water.”

Alan was
nodding. “Yes worth checking out. Maybe it is a needle in a
haystack, but who knows. I doubt we will find number plates but the
guns are worth looking for. Even some of the boxes and tools may
tell us where they came from and help us track other places where
Mark has been.”

They reversed
back, got out and peered over the side.

Anne tried to
imagine her friend standing here on a dark night, exhausted,
terrified, fleeing for her life, but almost to safety. It felt
surreal as she gazed over the water below, reflected trees and
sunlight, an occasional bird and insect to break the calm. She
could not reconcile these two images in her mind.

They drove on.
In half an hour they were at the billabong. It looked like nothing
much at all; an open car parking space, a few blackened stone
piles, some dense shady trees with a papery bark and, on the other
side, a pool of dark blue-green water, about a hundred yards wide,
extending out of view in both directions.

Alan walked
them around the site. He pointed out the hill low on the horizon.
It matched Susan’s description. He showed them the locations from
the main features of their investigation.

As he talked on
Anne was overcome by a huge sense of unreality. How could she align
this beautiful, peaceful place with the horror seen through Susan’s
eyes?

She said,
“Where are the crocodiles? I feel I should be able to see them. The
way Susan talked this place is full of them. Yet instead I hear
birds singing, the water is still and there is nothing in
sight."

Alan replied,
“After we search at the hill we will come back here for lunch,
Sandy has packed a picnic. Then, if you sit quietly and watch, you
will begin to understand. It is hard for visitors to grasp the
hidden danger of these places.”

They walked
over to the hill, along with a police photographer and a man
carrying a pick and shovel. Alan carried a thin metal rod to probe
the soil for soft areas. At the far side of the hill Alan pointed
to a flat rock in the place where the ground became level. It was
singular and distinctive. He asked Anne, “Do you think this is the
place she described?”

Anne looked
carefully and shrugged, "Maybe." As she came close, she saw a
smaller flat rock, about a half a metre across, resting of the
earth surface, right next to the large flat rock. She pointed to
it. “That is the place, I am sure.”

Alan walked
over and stood alongside, “Isn’t it amazing, Only three weeks ago I
stood right here, on the bigger rock and looked all around,
wondering where to search to try and find whatever it was that
Susan had hidden. The one place I did not look was at my feet. If I
had I might have guessed this was a hiding place.

The
photographer clicked his camera several times as he recorded it
all. Then Alan bent over, lifted the smaller flat rock and placed
it aside. With the steel rod he probed the ground underneath. At
the edges it was hard but in the centre it went straight in. About
a foot down it hit something hard which sounded metallic.

Anne’s heart
pounded. Everyone had the same tense look on their face that she
was feeling.

The man with
the shovel carefully dug the soft centre soil away, an inch at a
time. When the hole was knee deep Anne heard the shovel make a
scraping sound. That was definitely metallic.

A shiny metal
corner was exposed. More photographs. Alan bent down. He pushed
away the remaining dirt. A rectangular metal box object, around ten
by fifteen centimetres, was revealed.

He turned to
Sandy, “Yours from here, I think.”

Sandy put on
disposable gloves. Then, grasping the very edges with the fingers
of opposite hands, she lifted the box out and placed it on the dirt
beside the hole. She took a plastic specimen bag and carefully slid
it inside.

They all stood
around, looking, knowing that inside was a story of vanished lives.
It seemed too easy.

It was a
remarkably ordinary box, shiny metal with traces of rust in a few
places. And, as Anne had described, recounting Susan’s words, they
saw transparent tape around the edges to seal the lid to the
bottom. Sandy would take it back to the laboratory to open. That
was really it, the end of the search, a mere ten minutes work. A
few more photographs, but the evidence gathering was done.

They returned
to the billabong for their picnic, all sombre now. They sat in a
patch of deep shade ten metres back from the edge of the water,
under a large paperbark tree leaning back over the land. There was
a muted sound of fruit bats squabbling in some distant trees along
the billabong and a few bird noises.

Nobody spoke.
They all sat facing and gazing out over the still water. There was
barely a breath of breeze. The day was hot but not sweltering in
the shade.

Anne was lost
in her own thoughts and the others appeared the same. Finally she
spoke, perhaps reflecting other thoughts. “It is strange being here
now that Susan has told me what happened and how it happened. So
far I am the only one with that full story inside my head. I have
told David some parts. In a few days I will have it transcribed.
Then you will all be able to read her own words, hear her voice and
relive her experience.

"But, even
though I know it happened inside my head, I can’t make it feel
real. I can’t see her reality, feel her panic, feel her terror. I
should be able to see it through her eyes, now that she has told
me. My eyes see only a picture of shady trees and an empty
billabong, pretty but empty.

As she spoke
Anne saw a movement in her furthest vision, far across towards the
distant shore, in a place where tree leaves hung low on the water
and formed the deepest shade. The movement slid slowly from deep
shade to bright sunlight. As light reflected she saw eyes glisten.
They watched her with implacable patience.

Now it was
real, her mind had connected with this being, the hairs on her arms
stood up and goose bumps ran down her spine. She took David’s hand
and pointed; the creature, still far out, was sliding and gliding
in an empty water-space with no apparent motion. It was a shape
shifting shape that moved inexorably towards them.

Now they all
watched, mesmerised, gripped by strange inability to move. It came
to half way and kept on coming; now it was closing on the bank
where they were. They stayed paralysed, barely able to breathe,
still unable to move, while it slid without visible motion towards
them. It seemed to have a power to make invisible water flow their
way and it sat within this invisible flow. As it shape shifted
forwards, its scales separated and became discrete things, the
knobs on its head and its eyes took shapes of their own.

Finally Anne
realised that the invisible motion had stopped. Before them,
resting in the water a bare ten metres away, was an object of
ancient saurian stock. Its length equalled the distance which
separated them. Its girth surpassed the biggest river trees. It
rested, unmoving, save for an occasional eye flick. It made no
other move, it stayed, now parallel to the bank, watching with a
single eye.

None of the
watchers spoke or moved, all were trapped in the mesmeric miasma.
Finally it sunk beneath the waters, inch by inch, and was no
more.

Anne shook her
head. She said to David, “Was that real? Or was it something that
only I saw, a creature inside my mind.”

“No it was
real. Hard to believe any creature could be so big and silent. And,
even though it is undoubtedly dangerous, I felt no sense of danger
as it looked at us. Do you think that is the crocodile that Susan
tells of, the one that came and took Mark’s body away from the
others?”

Anne nodded,
“Yes it must be, I cannot imagine there are any other crocodiles
out here that big. What do you think Alan?”

He replied,
“Yes, that must be the one, it is far and away the biggest I have
ever seen. Sandy and I have seen it just once before. I have never
heard others tell of it. It did something similar on the day they
found and removed the other part of Mark’s body, the forearm. That
day only Sandy and I saw it. We did not tell others of it then, of
how it came close by and watched us, it sounded mad.

“That day it
stayed just out from the edge, like now, and it looked at us the
same way before it went away. I could have sworn that day it was
trying to tell us something, perhaps seeking the return of the body
parts we had taken, signalling its loss.

“Today it does
not seem to be trying to send another message, only telling us it
is still here and waiting, waiting for us to return what we have
taken away.”