Girl in an Empty Cage Read online

  Chapter 1 – Pulled Two Ways

  Anne was conflicted, really conflicted; it was all so bloody hard and it was driving her crazy. She was here, in Australia, to support her best friend, to try and talk sense into her. But that was hopeless, continually hopeless. Susan was buried in a morass of self-absorption. She seemed bent on trashing her own life. And she was doing a good job ofack making a mess of other people’s lives as well; David’s, her own parents, not to mention the havoc being played with Anne herself.

  But Susan was still her best friend, and yet. And Yet – she, Anne, was slowly and inexorably being drawn towards Susan’s fiancé. It would not have been so bad if it was only her, she could have caught a plane back to London, put some distance into it. There was nothing more to be done for Susan right now. But this same chemistry seemed to be working on David. And with two magnets pulling towards each other it was really hard to keep the pieces apart.

  So here she was, on a plane early on Christmas morning, flying first class to Sydney with this man, David, sitting next to her. David had drifted off to sleep, seemingly well pleased to have her for company on the flight. They had departed Darwin at one o’clock in the morning. Christmas Eve was ended and Christmas Day begun. They would arrive in Sydney in time for breakfast on Christmas Day.

  Anne could not help but feel excitement at her first visit to this famous city. The circumstances were all wrong, the attraction was all wrong. And yet!

  And yet, she could and would enjoy the company of this man. They had been thrown together by a collision of circumstances, all of Susan’s making. So now she was on the plane and it was past a time for regret. She would have to make sure nothing came of it; she was stronger than Susan that way, less impulsive. The idea of getting entangled with her best friend’s fiancé, even if their relationship was doomed, must stay out of bounds in her mind; she could not let herself go there. But she was still determined to enjoy the trip and his company, even if just as friends.

  But as she looked at the beautiful face with its tousled golden hair sleeping in the seat next to her, she could not help but feel regret that they could have not met at another place and time. She knew it would only take one little move from her to start the ball rolling.

  All in all it had been a strange day. First they had gone to have a cup of tea with that old aboriginal man, Charlie. They had a conversation about an evil crocodile spirit and a crocodile stone that Charlie had given Susan yesterday. It sounded like mumbo jumbo and neither she nor David really believed it. Susan’s parents had encouraged this meeting; they had located Charlie, somehow, and met with him themselves two days ago. This morning, when she and David met Charlie, he had told them of his visit to Susan yesterday. He told how, after she took that stone in her hand, the bad spirit had gone away and her mind had become clear.

  They liked the old man but thought the story would turn out to be nothing. Yet it was the first time in two months that a resemblance of her old friend was in the room; Susan’s laugh, smile, and mental clarity had returned. Anne remembered that night in London when Susan had come to her for help. That was the last time, before yesterday, that she felt she knew this person. It was not that Susan had shown any sign of changing her mind about what to do, that was still just as hopeless. But at least she seemed to know and understand the world around her. She smiled again and could hold an ordinary conversation.

  With this sense of the return of the real Susan she and David had felt great relief. But that added to the problem. With anxiety lowered about Susan it had become more important to start dealing with the ongoing attraction between them that came from both physical desire and from spending so much time together.

  She had spent eighty percent of her waking hours over the last three weeks, since she had arrived in Darwin, in David’s company. With Susan’s unwillingness to talk to lawyers she and David had become Susan’s de-facto legal team, both determined to try and gain an understanding of what had happened as a first step in marshalling evidence which would give Susan a way out.

  She thought back to their first meeting and all the times in between. That first night when they met, a sort of unofficial engagement party for David and Susan in London, she and David were a bit wowed by each other. Even though David was totally enraptured by Susan, a thing like a primal attraction had flashed between him and her in that first instant.

  Anne had dressed to wow the party. It had worked judging by David’s open mouth when he first saw her red hair, green dress and flashing green-hazel eyes. And she had been equally awestruck by this gorgeous man, even though Susan had already told her he was seriously handsome. That night she had asked Susan if he had a brother she could meet. She was only half joking, the power of the physical attraction was so strong.

  Of course she had been really pleased on Susan’s account that she had met such a gorgeous man; but deep down she was a little jealous as well, not that she would let that come out.

  Then Anne remembered that awful phone call she had to make when Susan’s trouble began, after Susan was called into the police station. From that time Susan had known she could no longer marry David; that, despite the hurt that it would cause, she must end it.

  But Susan could not bring herself to ring and tell him it was finished, all she could do was run away. So she had asked Anne to be her emissary. Anne, despite strong qualms, had reluctantly agreed to call David and tell him that the engagement was off.

  She remembered the shocked silence on the other end of the phone as she bumbled her way through Susan’s message, then anger and denial, followed by a slowly dawning acceptance of it being real as the actuality came out, then David’s refusal to accept from anyone except Susan that the engagement was over.

  As the conversation went on and as he began to grasp both the loss and the futility of it all, his grief came down the phone line to her. In that minute she had felt so sorry for both him and Susan. She had said and truly meant it that she wished her message was otherwise.

  Anne had promised, and kept her promise, to continue to ring him on a weekly basis, giving him first hand news about the legal processes in England as they unfolded. It had taken great effort on her part to dissuade David from flying to England.

  Only by Anne saying that Susan did not want him there, that Susan did not want his photos as her jilted fiancé in the English tabloids, that Susan had already made up her mind to return to Australia and face the charges, could he be convinced.

  As time went on, with these weekly phone calls and seeing him on the television, she gained ever increasing respect for both David’s decency and his mental toughness. He refused to get into sordid speculation; he simply kept a consistent line of knowing that Susan was a good person. He also briefed his family to say the same. He had answered the journalists’ reasonable questions with politeness, but there were times when a line was crossed and she felt white fire coming from him.

  He would not tolerate anyone saying offensive things about Susan’s character or her family to him; he made this very clear. Others, even the worst journalists, now stepped back before this line was crossed.

  Then, when Susan was extradited to Darwin and Anne had cleared her work sufficiently to fly there for the committal hearing, David had booked her a business class flight and insisted that he pay. He said that Anne was trying to help his fiancé. Her finding time to act as a friend was more than enough for her to cover. So he had paid for her flight and for her hotel accommodation ever since she arrived.

  Anne understood he could well afford it. But, even so, it seemed very decent and kind, both to her and to Susan. It was not that Anne was poor but her family were not nearly as well off as Susan’s were. And, on a legal secretary’s salary, she had little money left over each week after she paid for her little London flat. So, while Anne would have found a way to come anyway, even if she had to borrow the money, David’s help had made her life very much easier.

  She had been apprehensive about meeting him again in
Darwin; she was the messenger of the train wreck which had come his way. But, as she came off the plane, he was standing there, waiting for her. From that first minute he had been so polite and gracious, saying how he appreciated all she had done and tried to do and how he really valued her honesty.

  This had meant a lot to her. It had all been very hard for Anne too; the nasty press speculation which enveloped everyone who knew Susan, Susan’s unresponsive state, then Anne needing to juggle time and money to help. It felt good that someone else saw and valued her many efforts.

  Anne liked Susan’s family, but they had more than enough troubles of their own. Still they did not seem to understand the cost of this to Anne herself, particularly emotionally, whereas David seemed to understand this intuitively.

  David announced, the day after Anne arrived in Darwin that, despite Susan’s lack of response, he was still totally committed both to her as a person and to her gaining her freedom, no matter what happened with their relationship.

  David appointed himself as Susan’s unofficial legal representative, and asked Anne to help him in this task. Anne’s work as a legal secretary was of great assistance and the two of them set up an office in his hotel suite living room, along the passage from her own room.

  They had worked long days for three weeks since then, gathering any fragments of evidence that they could find from various parties and sources; the pathologist, police, prosecutors, witnesses. Despite them having no official status most people seemed to really want to help. It was as if, despite the continuous horrible speculation about Susan that went on and on in the papers, there was a general sense that this story did not make sense and there must be more to it. So, many people welcomed someone else trying to get to the bottom of what had really happened.

  The only person who they had not managed to talk to was the initial investigation officer, Sergeant Alan Richards. They were told his work on this case was now finished and that, since the committal hearing, he had been assigned to other work and therefore he would not be able to help with their inquiries. Anne knew his face from the English legal proceedings and they had seen him briefly in court at the first Australian hearing. But despite making innumerable phone calls and leaving as many messages, they had been unable to talk to him and he had not returned their calls.

  She wondered if he was hiding something, perhaps his discomfort about the way the investigation had turned out. She knew that when he first found the head in the billabong he could never have believed that it would unfold in such an awful way. Susan had told her about their strange friendship on the plane trip and Anne felt he must still be searching for the truth, even if he seemed to be avoiding them.

  As their investigation proceeded the one thing that Anne was not able to tell David was the information that came from Susan on the night that she first sought Anne’s help; two things really; the existence of the man’s diary and the holiday text exchange with Susan. The sum of these was that there must be a good reason for what Susan had done; she had been in fear for her life.

  The reason Anne could not tell David about this information was that, regardless of its great importance, she must honour her promise to Susan. Susan must have one person in her corner that she could fully trust. Even though Anne knew David was on her side too, telling him would betray that special trust .

  In a funny way she understood Susan’s dilemma. Susan had loved this man she was charged with murdering. Now she was carrying his child and she could not, and would not sully his reputation. Therefore Anne could not, at least not in any deliberate way, act contrary to Susan’s intent. As a result it felt she was fighting for Susan with a hand tied behind her back.

  So Anne understood it was for others to go there and discover these secrets. In her place she must try to think of things that could point that way but without requiring her collaboration. Unfortunately, as they had gathered the evidence, Anne had to admit it did look bad for Susan. And Susan was doing zero to help her own cause, she was like a diver caught in a sinking submarine without an escape hatch.

  As she and David had worked side by side, with a quiet desperation, trying to find something in Susan’s favour, this other thing had happened, a moving beyond simple physical attraction to something much deeper, an intense liking for each other.

  United by a common purpose they started to notice each other. Anne had always been very aware of this attractive man, but had kept that part of her mind closed off; he was still her best friend’s fiancé.

  But she would find herself looking forward to his smile of greeting when he first opened the door to her in the morning. And she loved the way that he did little things to improve her life in this place and did them with unconscious charm.

  Each morning he would have a breakfast platter of coffee, croissants, pastries and orange juice set up on his verandah looking out across Darwin harbour. He insisted that they begin each day with breakfast together and as the weeks went by they started to chat about themselves and other things beyond Susan at these times. He always had lunch brought in when they were not out at meetings. And, despite the long days of work, he always insisted they go out to eat a proper meal each night in one of the many Darwin restaurants. Sometimes it included Susan’s family, a couple times there were other business acquaintances or legal people and a couple times it was just with her.

  As these weeks passed she realised there was clearly something happening between them that they both tried to deny, a deep sense of mutual attraction. Sometimes, when she turned to look at David unexpectedly, she caught his eyes looking at her in a way that seemed more than just friendly, and he had seemed embarrassed and looked away. And she herself was the same. Occasionally she felt an almost deliberate touch as he brushed off her, and it gave her a little thrill.

  David also insisted they both take a full day off each Sunday. He had taken her sightseeing locally on these days, once to Berry Springs, first to the zoo and then for a swim at the lovely crystal clear natural pool, again with Susan’s family along, once on a boat trip in the harbour with some business friends.

  When she saw David’s bare body in his swimmers the power of his physical attraction really hit her. She could tell the same was happening in reverse whenever she wore a skimpy top and shorts or bikini that showed off her body. That day at Berry Springs she had almost swum up to him without thinking and wrapped her arms around his body, it was a thing she ached to do. But once done there would be no undoing it. It was lucky Susan’s family was there as well that day.

  And, a couple times in the morning, she had come into his room and he was still in bed. Each time she had an almost overpowering urge to climb in beside him; she could feel his sexuality willing her to do this. But from there there would be no way back either.

  Then, when he arranged for her to come to Sydney with him it felt as if a line had been crossed and they were heading down a path towards something more. It was particularly the way this was a private invitation directed just to her. She knew she should not go there, she did not want to be disloyal to her friend, and yet. And yet there it was, this mutual attraction, and it just kept on working on them both and drawing them together, like a rubber band stretched tighter and tighter until one day it must inevitably break.

  So now, as she sat on this aeroplane early on Christmas morning, almost three weeks of her month in Australia was gone and despite all her effort she had done little to help Susan’s cause. After the New Year, when she returned to Darwin there were only four days before she must catch a plane back to London and return to work, she had well and truly used up all her work credit and goodwill.

  So part of her felt that her loyalty to Susan required that she stay in Darwin with her until then and keep trying to help her. But she knew it would have been a miserable time in Darwin between now and the New Year; Susan in prison, she alone in a hotel room, her own family back in England in Reading, and all her other friends in other places.

  If Susan’s parents had st
ayed in Darwin it would have been easier. But they were also flying to Sydney tomorrow, for a week, to see Ruth and Jess, the Australian cousins. They would return early in the New Year, after which they would refocus their efforts on helping Susan for another fortnight before they needed to return to England too.

  Anne did not have enough money for a side trip for this holiday time and did not feel she could ask anyone else to help with this. If she had the money, she might have flown to Cairns to visit the Barrier Reef; like Susan she loved diving. But she had not said this to anyone, she did not want to put others under a sense of obligation for her own enjoyment.

  Then, yesterday, David made the suggestion that she come home with him for Christmas and, even though she had not said yes, feeling uncomfortable about getting in deeper with him, the next day, actually just this morning, he had presented her with a return ticket to Sydney, saying his family had invited them both to come and stay for a few days over Christmas and, after that, he was determined to show her the New Year’s Eve celebrations in Sydney before they returned to Darwin.

  Despite her reservations she had agreed to go. In that moment she knew that a line had been crossed. So now they were descending into Sydney, and even though nothing had really happened between them she felt as if she had stepped onto a roller coaster from which she could no longer get off.

  The week together in Sydney passed in a rapid but exhilarating manner. On arrival she re-met Susan’s cousin Ruth, who was one of David’s best friends. She had met her a couple times before in England. After a quick brunch and news exchange they drove, in David’s sports car across the mountains, to reach his home in time for Christmas dinner.

  It was a thoroughly traditional affair with all the trimmings. The whole family made Anne feel very welcome and in return she could not help but like them, thinking what a nice family Susan had come into when she met David, and being glad she had now got to know them all too.

  The next few days there were driving trips in the country and endless visits to and by relatives, combined with endless cups of tea and slices of Christmas cake. It was such a breath of fresh air after the last few months of Susan’s high dramas.

  Occasionally Anne felt guilty about how Susan was locked up while she was enjoying herself; but she knew it was beyond her to help Susan at this time and her unease soon passed. Two days before New Year they said goodbye to all the extended family and returned to Sydney. David had organised for her to stay in the spare room at Jess’s place, perhaps sensing he should minimise temptation for them both as well as avoid the risk of gossip.

  On the way David told her he would not be able to come back to Darwin right now as a red hot issue had come up for his business and he needed to spend a couple weeks in Sydney to sort it out. He asked her if she wanted to continue in Sydney rather than fly back to Darwin on New Year’s Day, as she was currently booked to do.

  Their relationship was much more relaxed and honest since coming away. She knew both of them were happy to enjoy doing things together and for now, would park their desire for anything more.

  She told him, “I would much rather stay here with you, I have really enjoyed this time. However my first loyalty needs to be with my friend. Seeing I have less than a week before I return to work I will spend as much of it as I can with her. I must see what I can do to get her to help herself; not to pressure her, but instead try to help her find a way to tell the story of what really happened, to unblock her fear of whatever this thing is that she is hiding from.”

  David took her hand and squeezed it. “Thank you, you have been such a good friend to us both and I have enjoyed my time with you so much too.”

  “But you are right, Susan is the priority for both of us now, I will be back in Darwin about a week after you leave. Perhaps it is better if each of us meets and talks to her alone. She may be more open on a one on one basis. It seems that whenever people try and put pressure on her together she feels we are ganging up on her, gets defensive and fights back.

  “But I want you to come back as soon as you are able, certainly we will both need to be with her for a week or two before the trial starts. Will you be able to get away from your work?

  Anne replied. “You can count on it.”

  They had a lovely New Year’s Eve, on a boat on the harbour with Ruth, her boyfriend Steve, Jess and her partner Robbie and a couple of other friends.

  Then the next morning it was off to the airport. They hugged tight as they said goodbye and that was it. As they pulled apart each said “I will miss you,” to the other. The question about them still remained but they both knew that now was not the time.