Girl in an Empty Cage Read online

  Chapter 10 – Meeting of Spirit Sisters

  It was Wednesday before Sandy could arrange a prison visit. She decided to do it in a fully official manner, to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s. So first she explained to the senior pathologist about the dual identity; that two people had identified her murder victim with different names, albeit similar. So she must attempt to determine the victim’s true identity. She proposed to start with a visit to the prisoner, to seek further information on a true identity. Then she would pursue other leads which might be of value, particularly DNA based.

  Her senior officer agreed that this was the correct thing to do and sent her an email of confirmation. Once this came through Sandy talked to the prison officers and scheduled her visit for 11 am the following day.

  On arrival at the jail the warder asked Sandy if she needed her to stay in the visitor’s room.

  Sandy shook her head, “No thank you, I am sure there will be no trouble.”

  The warder showed her a button to push to notify them when she was finished, or to use as an alarm if the need arose. With that she nodded and left to fetch Susan.

  Sandy looked at the CCTV behind her realising it was all on camera and running through to a central console somewhere. A minute later the warder brought Susan in, directed her to the seat opposite, then left, locking the external door behind her.

  Sandy was surprised that, up close, Susan was both prettier and more diminutive than the image she had formed. In the distant court view and in dreams of Susan’s face, as seen through the mirror of Susan’s own mind, she was a bigger and plainer person. Perhaps this image was influenced by the media portrayal of her as some sort of seductive monster. Sandy had also imagined, from Alan’s description of her on the aeroplane, that Susan would be more fragile and vulnerable. Sandy was sure that if it was her sitting in Susan’s seat that would certainly have been the case.

  Instead the real Susan who sat opposite had a very self-composed presence about her and the image that now formed in Sandy’s mind was closer to sprung steel than a porcelain doll, despite the pretty face.

  As she sat down, opposite Susan, Sandy felt as if she should go through the formal introduction process. Instead Susan, without introduction, started the conversation. “I am so glad to meet you at last Sandy, as I feel I already know you. Both since the night of my dream of you at the billabong and more, since you gave evidence in court, I have this sense of having known you for a long time.”

  Sandy looked at her in surprise, it was so much what she had been thinking and yet had been reluctant to say. To put it into words seemed somehow a bit crazy. Yet this lady spoke as if it was perfectly natural to know somebody from a dream shared months ago when they lived on opposite sides of the world.

  It felt creepy, this thought communication thing. Yet she had encountered so much that was strange in this case, beginning that day at the billabong with that hugest ever crocodile that seemed to have sought out her and Alan. It had swum up right next to them and just stared, as if telling her and Alan something. Then the way Charlie had told her of the bad crocodile spirit of that place which needed to be placated, how it had fought him for the man’s head he had caught, in a tug of war, Sandy’s own knowledge of this girl’s face before she saw it on CCTV. So this shared connection was no more unusual than all the rest.

  Susan continued, “I am really glad you have come to visit me, I have felt very much on my own lately and all visitors are nice, but especially you. I wanted to see if I liked you as much in person as I had imagined through seeing into your mind. And I am pleased that my first impression is that I do.

  “After that day on the aeroplane with Alan I feel like we have all been friends for a long time, even though today is our first meeting. So I am really glad to meet you now,” she said, holding out her hand.

  Sandy felt delighted and charmed at this positive response but also a bit flummoxed. She had come to meet a person who she sensed was in great need of help. Yet this young woman opposite, very much her own age, seemed the perfect gracious host welcoming her to her house for a garden party, not someone facing a murder charge for killing a lover and feeding him to the crocodiles. It was all so incongruous. Sandy thought it would be more real if a needy or angry person sat opposite her.

  Her puzzlement must have shown on her face because Susan picked up the cue. “You are probably wondering why I do not appear tormented or crazy, with what has happened. In a way I am, I have had very dark times; me in my own company with endless regret; it is an awful empty place. But I am coming to realise that I have to make the best of what I have, to treasure the pieces of blue sky and sunshine, like your visit today. I am trying hard to learn how to live in the moment and act with joy. Sometimes all I see is darkness and I feel my life has burned away, leaving only cold ashes which fill the barren place surrounding me. But then you come along and the darkness burns away for an hour.

  “But you did not come to hear me tell you about my feelings. You came seeking information, to try and find out who Mark really was, the man with the different names. Is that not so?”

  Sandy nodded, even more amazed. Was there anything this woman did not know of her own thoughts? It was like her mind was an open book allowing direct thought transference.

  Sandy sensed the purpose of this visit was being pushed away from what she intended, she wondered if it was deliberate. This woman was an adept mind reader. Now she gained a sense she was being manipulated by a superb actress, one who could kill her lover in one minute and then share cake and tea in the next.

  She made herself rise to the challenge and felt a sense of satisfaction come back from the other. She realised Susan had been testing her, seeing what substance was present in her character, and was now pleased she had pushed back, making her a worthy friend and contestant. So far it had all happened unsaid, within the space of their two minds.

  Sandy pushed her body back in her chair, stretched and said, in a measured way, “You are right, I do want to ask some questions while I am here. But that is only a small part of the reason I came. Most, I too wanted to meet you, to see if our imagined friendship was real, to talk to you as I would to my other friends, to see what you were like.

  “So please, tell me about how you find it being here, what is good and what is bad? I cannot imagine how I would cope with being locked up in this place. I would go crazy, alone by myself, day after day. Alan has told me you are expecting a baby. Tell me about that?

  Susan replied, “I would like that, just to talk to you about ordinary things. Since coming here I have barely spoken any words and I feel consumed by silence.

  “First I must say, I killed him, very much in the way your report described. But do not ask me about what happened on that day or why, that is off limits.

  “Anything else I know I will tell you. I would like it if you would be my friend and visit me when you can. While I can offer little in return, as you can see, I can return friendship.”

  So they sat and talked, like sisters who had known each other all their lives but had not met for a decade and now were full of endless news to exchange.

  Once or twice Sandy thought, this is crazy, me going out of my way to befriend someone who is self confessed murderer.

  Again Susan read her thoughts, saying. “It is crazy that we should be friends like this. But think of me as a silly young girl who became infatuated, did a thing she regrets, and now must make recompense.”

  For a while they talked about their shared interest in and knowledge of pathology.

  Sandy said, “Now I understand, it was what struck me when I went to the billabong; that the clean up after was done by someone who knew what they were doing and planned it carefully. It so nearly worked; if the head was not found, or if it had rained first, nobody would have ever known. Is it luck or is it destiny that it turned out this way?”

  Susan answered with perfect clarity. “It is much better this way. At first I thought I could run awa
y and hide from what I did. Now I know I could not and I am glad I don’t have to live that lie. It would have been like a cancer inside me, eating out my insides across all my future. For me the truth is better, even if my future is a bitter pill to swallow.”

  Then they talked about the baby. Susan told her about David and Sydney, then meeting Mark again in Alice Springs, how excited and infatuated she had been, how pregnancy protection had been left aside. “As best I can tell I got pregnant in the middle of August; that makes me between five and six months now.

  “It is funny but none of the officials seem to have noticed, though it is really beginning to show. I have told my friends but it never seemed important to tell others. I have asked my parents to adopt him, my baby, as I will not be able to keep him in prison; his middle name will be Marco, like his father’s name was.”

  Susan continued, “Mark told me his proper name was Vincent Marco Bassingham. It is the only thing I know about his life before except that he told me he had a happy memory of fishing with his uncle in Brisbane. Oh, and he told me his mother died when he was a boy, I do not know her name but she was Italian and the name Marco came from her brother who died young. Also he told me he ran away from remand school after getting caught shoplifting when he was about twelve and he hated his father who was a bully, and has never seen him since.

  “So if you can locate Mark’s true family that would be a good thing. While Mark hated his father, he seemed to like his uncle. Perhaps it would be good for my child to know any extended family from Mark’s side. That is why I am happy that you try to trace him. As you have Mark’s DNA that should assist in confirming any family links you find.”

  Sandy asked if Susan would like her to notify the prison officials of her pregnancy. Susan she said she thought this was a good idea. In the end their visit was cut short by the warder saying that she was sorry but the time was up and Sandy would have to leave now.

  On the way out Sandy notified the prison office of Susan’s pregnancy status and asked whether it would be possible for her to organise a doctor to visit or did it need to be handled by the prison. They said they were uncertain and would call her back.

  As she walked away Sandy felt both pleased and perplexed. Her liking of Susan was real and instinctive, it was as if they were very much kindred spirits, the term “spirit sisters” resonated in her mind. Their friendship was natural and easy. Susan had great charm and was almost impossible not to like. And she sensed Susan was telling the truth about the terrible dark times she had lived through since the event, Mark’s death. She also had to admit that her own ego felt gratified that what happened on that day had been the way her pathology report described, an affirmation of her professional skill.

  But there was an undercurrent here that made her uneasy, what was it? She chewed over it in her mind and by the time she reached her car in the car park it came to her. It was too easy; getting the past information on the identity of Mark was too easy. This consummate actress was steering her. She had no doubt that Susan had told the truth about the likely true identity of her murder victim, along with the fragments of childhood memory that he had conveyed, even down to the remand school. They were provided as details to check and help locate a person. It was in stark contrast to the secret of Mark now.

  At the time Susan had told her these things she had accepted Susan’s facile reason for the disclosures, that it would be good for the child to know something about the father’s family. She and Alan had discussed how this former identity might be the lead that could crack the case open, get to the true Mark. It was based on the idea that, in Mark’s distant past there might lie the clue to who he was, something which would explain what had happened between them. Perhaps it was still so, that there was an important clue hidden in his distant past.

  But she realised that this woman had detected Sandy’s desire to go down this path, and had steered her actively towards it. Susan was deliberately hiding a secret and yet she had steered Sandy towards what she and Alan thought may be the key. The name that had been whispered to them, Vincent Mark Bassingham, was now official and would justify an investigation to locate this new identity. Birth records, marriage records, next of kin records, DNA checks, thus giving the victim a face and identity. Susan had readily assisted in providing information for this search.

  But why? Too easy, much too easy was how it seemed!