Lost Girls (7 page)

She supposed
Susan could walk there even if it was a long way, but perhaps
someone would come by and give her a lift. But, for now, at least
until a car that was going the right way came by, Susan would walk.
Every step would bring her closer.

So Susan
walked. An hour later she was still walking and an hour later she
walked still. Her feet were hurting now and she wanted to take the
sandals off. She put them in the shopping bag with the crocodile
totem.

Now Susan could
see some traffic lights in the far distance. She felt like she had
walked for half the night, but at least that was a destination to
aim for. Finally she reached the traffic lights where a big sign
read “Stuart Highway”. As Susan turned onto the start of the
highway, just past traffic lights, she saw there was an occasional
car. Now she saw a white one coming her way. It looked life Mark’s
Toyota. Perhaps he would drive her there, or at least arrange for
lift with one of his friends.

Susan stuck out
her hand to wave it down. It pulled to a stop. The guy was around
Mark’ age, maybe a little older, but then she had not seen him for
almost a year. Susan asked him where he was going.

He replied, “I
am going fishing on the Mary River, an hour and a half’s drive from
here. I always leave early as the fishing is best at dawn; that is
when the barra feed the best, though one always has to keep one’s
eyes out for a big crocodile of which there were plenty in the
place I go.”

Susan said,
“That is good. I want to go to a billabong on the Mary River too. I
am glad you can take me there, it beats walking.”

The man gave
her a curious grin, but then nodded, as if to say, “The world is
full of unusual people and what is one more.”

Susan smiled
brightly in response. She knew this man had been sent to help her
to return.

From a great
distance Emily watched her, unable to stop her.

Vic woke in
hospital on Tuesday morning. His leg was hurting a lot but he had
slept well in drug infused trance. Now he was ravenously hungry. He
remembered Emily-Susan’s promise to bring him a double burger in
the hospital when he woke up.

He found her
double name thing a bit strange though he got her “Emily” desire to
be separated from the “Susan” identity with all the muck that was
going around. He had begun to call her Emily over the last few days
at her request. But he had not really got this new name into his
mind. The Susan part was burnt so bright and he loved the picture
in his mind that went with it, she was the girl he had met and
fallen in love with. So it was hard to change.

But hell, it
was the same adorable person, if it helped her get her life back
together that was fine, though it seemed a bit silly to think she
could just vanish using her middle name, the media was unlikely to
be conned long by that when they were looking for a story. But if
it made Susan feel better then she would become Emily to him.

He remembered
how he had told her he loved her and proposed to her in a half
asleep state last night. And she had more or less said “I do”, he
only had to say it a second time when he was not spaced out for her
to say a proper “Yes”. It made him feel so pumped up and happy to
think of spending the rest of his life with her.

Now he really
wanted to see her. He picked up the new mobile phone he had bought
last week, since his other one went in the river with the chopper.
He dialled her temporary mobile phone number. It was a phone that
one of her friends had given her; Ruth’s spare one.

It rang without
pickup, perhaps she was in the shower and making herself beautiful
to come in and visit him. As if she needed that, she was ravishing
the way she was, particularly when she woke in the morning with her
eyes mussy from sleep, impossible to improve on perfection. But
then she did scrub up really well too. He even found her big round
belly sexy, hard to believe a belly full of another man’s child
could be a turn on. He pulled back from his lustful thoughts; he
did not want to give the nurse tidying around in the room the wrong
idea.

The nurse
turned to him. “Good morning Mr Campbell, can I get you
anything?”

Vic replied,
“Well my girlfriend promised me she would be in early with a double
burger, but failing her arriving right now something else for
breakfast would be just great. I am so hungry I could eat a whole
bullock in one sitting.”

She replied,
“Breakfast should be here in about half an hour. In the meantime I
can get you a cup of tea and a couple biscuits if you like.”

Vic nodded,
“And, while you are at it, is there a paper around? Yesterday or
the weekend’s one would be fine as I have not done much reading of
late.”

Five minutes
later she was back with a tray carrying a cup of tea and a plate of
biscuits, just plain Arnotts family type, but great to dunk. A
minute later she was back with a pile of newspapers, Saturday,
Sunday, yesterday and today’s ones.

He started with
today’s paper; only political rubbish on Page 1. He turned to Page
3. Susan’s photo jumped out at him. He read the reporter’s name,
James Wilkinson, then the headline

“
Two Faces of Susan Emily McDonald continued.

Following
yesterday’s sensational story about the dual identity of this
convicted murderess, who has strangely been released on bail with
all further details suppressed by the judge, we can report that
yesterday she accompanied her new boyfriend to hospital for a
supposed operation to repair his broken leg. Meanwhile the person
in question went off in a taxi alone to an unknown destination. It
is a strange state of affairs for a convicted felon who has served
none of her sentence to be free to come and go on her own.”

More sick
rubbish followed; nasty speculation into Susan’s private life and
former lovers.

Vic could feel
the anger welling up inside him. He wanted to get hold of James
Wilkinson and rearrange his pretty face. How dare he treat Susan
like that? He hoped she had not seen this, it was vile. He decided
he should read yesterday’s story, it was better to know what was
being said even if it was a pack of lies.

He soon found
the story in yesterday’s paper. He read, his hands shaking, his
mind reeling. He did not care what the reporter said about him, or
Mark, or even Susan’s former pretty-boy boyfriends, David and
Edward. But to treat her like a slut or a common criminal and say
these things about her, when she was the most honourable person he
knew, it made his blood boil.

He must talk to
her and quickly, to tell her not to read it, to tell her to come
and see him straight away so he could protect her and keep her away
from all this stuff.

He dialled the
number again and again the phone rang out.

He had this
awful premonition. She should be out of the shower by now; she
would see his missed call. Even if she did not pick up in the
instant she would ring back in a minute.

He remembered
back to yesterday. While he was waiting to go into surgery he had
this terrible feeling that it was all about to go awfully wrong,
but her reassurance had pushed it away.

Then last night
it had been at the edge of his consciousness until he had got out
the love word and she had returned it. Then, after that, he had
felt so happy and it had been forgotten.

But now it hit
him with both barrels, an awful sense of loss. Something bad had
really happened to her.
Calm down,
calm down
, he told
himself. He rang again, still no answer.

He rang Alan’s
number. Sandy picked up. He asked Sandy if she had read yesterday
or today’s paper about Susan.

She said no,
they had gone out to dinner with David and Anne last night, as
David was on his way back to Sydney today and they had slept late
this morning. Now Alan was in the shower and getting ready for
work. Sandy asked him what it was about.

Vic told her
and also told her how he had tried to ring Susan this morning and
could not get onto her. Now he was really worried lest she had read
the paper and done something stupid.

Sandy was all
practical common sense. “I am sure she has just gone out for an
early morning walk, walking along the beach or something like that.
She must have left the phone behind. Why don’t you give her another
half an hour and try to ring her again? Once Alan is dressed I will
ask him to call there and check on her, just to be safe.”

Vic thanked her
and hung up.

Now his
breakfast had come but his appetite was gone. He forced himself to
slowly eat all the food that was on the plates, so as to pass the
time, before he tried to ring again.

Half an hour
had passed since he last rang. He called again, twice, five minutes
apart. Each time he left a message. “Emily, ring me please, as soon
as you can.”

Just as he hung
up the second time his own phone rung back. He looked at it with a
flash of hope, hoping to see her number come up. Instead it was
Alan’s number.

He picked up,
“Vic here.”

Alan’s voice
came down the line. “This is strange; I am here at the flat. There
is no sign of Susan, but nothing is gone. However the paper is open
at the page of yesterday’s story, so she must have read it. But her
clothes are here, the bed looks like it has been slept in, nothing
else I can see to get excited about. Perhaps she has gone out for
breakfast or something like that. I will ask around downstairs and
see if anyone has seen her.”

Vic said thanks
and clicked off.

He thought.
“This is crazy, me sitting here in hospital while she has gone
missing. I must get out and go and look for her. He rang the nurses
call bell.

In a minute the
nurse came in. He told her he was checking out as soon as could be
arranged, he just needed her help to get him a set of crutches so
he could walk without putting weight on his leg.

She protested
and called the doctor who answered. In a minute the doctor and
senior nurse were both there and telling him to calm down, that he
risked damaging his leg and undoing the benefit of the operation if
he did not stay in bed for at least two more days.

Vic would have
none of it. Finally he got them to bring him a set of crutches and
he signed his discharge papers. Then he was in a taxi heading back
to Alan’s flat.

When Vic
arrived Alan and Sandy were both there, looking around, perplexed,
as he hobbled in on his crutches.

“What are you
doing here? We have barely begun to look for her, we don’t even
know she is missing, you should still be in hospital.”

Vic could feel
panic coursing through him. It was his sixth sense, not something
tangible. He agreed there were lots of explanations but deep down
he knew it was not that simple, it was something to do with the
level of commitment they had towards each other. It told him she
would not just go off somewhere without letting him know.

Alan was a
master of practicality, he held up the phone which Susan had been
using with the missed calls from Vic. It had been next to the bed.
“OK, first we need to contact her parents and Anne, just in case
she has gone visiting either of them early in the morning. Sandy
can do that.

“Then we need
to contact the other people she knows, Buck, the doctors in the
hospital she regularly sees, just in case the babies have come
early. I will do that.

“What I need
you to do, Vic, is walk carefully around the flat and see if you
can spot anything of hers which should be here and is missing, or
anything that is out of place since you were last here. While you
are at it have a close look at the bed, see if you can tell whether
she has slept in it since you were last here together, same for the
bathroom and kitchen, see if there are signs of her being here
since you were here yesterday morning.

“At this stage
we don’t really know if she even came home last night, except for
the paper, assuming that was not from yesterday morning. The phone
could have been left here since yesterday. Do you know if she
brought it to the hospital?”

Vic was sure
there had been no newspaper in the morning. She could have hardly
opened it without seeing the story and if she had seen it he would
have surely known. In fact at that point he would have cancelled
the surgery until he knew how it affected her. As for the phone, he
could not remember seeing it at the hospital, he had thought she
brought it but was not sure. So he checked the call register. There
were no outgoing or received calls since the day before yesterday,
just Vic’s missed calls this morning. So that did not really
help.

He looked at
the bed, felt the pillows and looked at the shapes of the body
outlines left in the bedclothes. He could almost swear that Susan
had slept here last night; the pillow he normally used had traces
of lipstick and her smell, as if she had cuddled it to herself. It
was not conclusive but, when he added that to the paper, he felt
almost sure that she had come back here last night after leaving
him in the hospital.

Then he saw a
bottle of Bundy and a glass next to the lounge. The bottle had not
been there when he had left yesterday. He did not much like Bundy,
and he and Susan had not drunk from it together. He saw fingermarks
on the glass and it had a small amount of what smelt and looked
like neat rum in the bottom.

He called out
to Alan, “When you are finished can you come and look at this.”

Alan was busy
on the phone, as was Sandy. So he looked around some more, seeing
the computer in the corner. He went over to it and pressed the
keyboard. The screen came to life.