The car’s rough passage smooths, and it feels as if the car’s speed has increased. The road surface must have changed to bitumen. Lulled by the regular motion she dozes, waking occasionally. She loses track of time. Is it early or late in the night? Are they driving north, east or west?

  She is extremely thirsty and wishes Mark had given her a bottle of water. But, with the thought of water, her bladder begins to ache. She tries to hold on and think of other things, but she can feel it leaking and her underwear becoming damp. The driving goes on and on, and she can sense no likelihood of them stopping anytime soon. She can’t hold on much longer, so it’s better to relieve herself with some control. It’s easier to maintain her balance now the road is smooth. She manages a squat and, with difficulty, pulls her underwear down her thighs. She positions the blanket underneath herself in the hope of avoiding it sloshing around and wetting everything. As it flows out she feels both relief and a sense she has rescued a tiny piece of her own dignity and self-control.

  She pulls her clothing back in place and curls up as best she can in the opposite corner, trying to ignore the smell of urine. She wraps her arms around her body. Hugging herself gives her a certain comfort, and she drifts back to sleep.

  When she wakes again the car has stopped. What does it mean? Have they stopped in a town? Can she scream for help? Or have they stopped in the middle of the bush where no one will hear and screaming it will only make Mark angry, maybe make him gag her again.

  She starts counting to one hundred. If nothing happens by the time she reaches it she’ll quietly call out to Mark. If he answers, she’ll ask him to let her out. She will ask nicely, even though an undercurrent of anger makes her want to scratch, bite and hurt him.

  When that time has passed she calls out. There is no answer. She calls again, as loud as she can. His voice comes back, faint and muffled. “I’ll let you out in a minute.”

  She feels a wave of relief.

  Even though it’s hard to tell, he doesn’t sound angry.

  There’s a creak as the door opens. He is standing up on the tray with a torch, looking in, face lit by reflection. She tries for a smile and is surprised when he smiles back.

  It’s cold, but the air coming in is fresh and smells sweet. She hasn’t realised how chilled she’s become, immobile in this box for hours. She starts to shiver uncontrollably.

  “I’m sure you’re angry with me,” Mark says, not unkindly, “and I hope your trip wasn’t too bad. We’re here now, at the place I wanted to show you, where the big crocodile lives.

  “The locals once called this place Point Stuart Station. It’s on the Mary River, east of Darwin, half way to Kakadu. It’s a place people rarely come to. I’ve come through a fence with a gate that keeps the public out. It’s getting late, an hour to midnight. There’s no one around here for miles, so there’s no point screaming.”

  Mark points some distance away from them. “There’s a big billabong full of crocodiles, just over there. I will throw you in if you give me trouble. But, if you promise to behave, you can come out. I’ll fix some dinner and you can sleep out here.”

  “Okay,” Susan answers meekly.

  He reaches in with both hands, grasps her arms and lifts her up. Her legs wobble as she stands, body poking forward out the door. She tries to climb over the doorsill, but without arms to steady her and with legs tied together, she overbalances and almost falls.

  Mark grasps her and lifts her clear, setting her down on the tray. There is something almost tender in the way he wraps his arms around her. She is shaking like a leaf, and he seems to hold her tighter, hugging her to him to give her warmth.

  Susan tries to push him away, but it’s too hard with her arms trapped, and it feels so comforting.

  His hands caress and stroke her back gently; it’s almost as if he’s forgotten what has happened.

  She wants to forget too.

  She should hate him—she does hate him—but for now, for a minute, she wants to be held and comforted. She cries, tears and little gulps at first, but soon she is sobbing. Mark pushes her face into his shirt and runs his hands through the back of her hair. She just wants to die in this moment of human comfort.

  But a fierce independence flares inside her, fed by anger at what he’s done. She pushes herself straight and, with all the pride she can find, says, “Thank you for letting me out. You can let me go now.”

  His hands drop and he steps back. “Okay then.” He springs down, agile as a cat, and asks, “Shall I lift you down?”

  Susan’s dignity returns, and she hold her head up high. “No thank you. Just untie my legs.”

  He shrugs, bends to loosen the knots, and removes the rope.

  Susan walks to the edge of the tray. She reaches out and grasps the side with shackled hands, lifts one foot over, feeling for the side rail. It’s precarious, but she should be able to pivot and vault if she uses her hands for balance. Her feet get tangled. She overbalances and pivots forward, falling headfirst towards the ground.

  Mark is incredibly quick. As she spears forward, he wraps his arms around her, pulls her to him, and sets her on the ground.

  “That was a near thing. I don’t want you getting hurt. I know this isn’t easy for you, but it’s better if we both cooperate.”

  Suddenly she’s laughing. It is so ludicrous and funny, her likely murderer and lover, tender and careful for her safety, while treating her like a wild animal, tied up and confined to a box.

  Then he’s laughing too; they are both looking at each other and laughing; it can’t all be real and true. Their shared laughter is like a circuit breaker. Neither can laugh and hate at the same time. When the laughter subsides, she holds out her hands.

  “Unlock me please. Tonight, I’ll cooperate; I want this night to be happy. Tomorrow is for crocodiles.”

  She collapses into another fit of giggles, and Mark starts to laugh again too, but he is restrained this time. It’s as if he’s only just started to think through the consequences of his actions.

  He ignores her outstretched hands and gazes at her, a bitter smile edging at his lips. “Why couldn’t you just leave it alone? I didn’t want it to come to this. But you do know now and that can’t be undone.”

  She looks at him earnestly. “Please, let’s not talk about it right now.”

  He shrugs. “Well, tomorrow is tomorrow, tonight is now.”

  There’s a sort of fatalistic sadness in his manner, tender, but also incredibly callous. She thinks this is the way he would look at a dog at the vet before the lethal injection was given.

  Susan’s bravery quails under this reality. But she rejects it.

  “Tonight, I’ll make a pact with you, which I’ll honour. If you let me go I won’t try to run away, and I won’t try to hurt you. I’ll help you cook dinner and I’ll be your companion in the same way as before.

  “But you, in return, have to tell me your story. Honestly. I want ... I need the truth. You must tell me of the life you’ve lived, of what brought us to this place. It’s something I must know for my own peace of mind.”

  Mark looks at her sadly. “I’m not much good at that kind of talk, but I will try.”

  He releases her hands.

  They work side by side. There is something incredibly tender and intimate in this moment. Dinner is simple: bacon, sausages and onions fried up, with a tin of tomatoes mixed through. They eat from the pan, using a spoon. Sometimes they share morsels.

  Susan leans against his side; he is solid and strong, like a tree. Without quite realising what she’s doing, she puts an arm around his waist and lays her face against his chest. Tears run down her cheeks, and she pushes her face harder into him, feeling little sobs convulse her.

  He strokes her hair and kisses her forehead.

  She presses her lips against his, tasting tears and salt. “What would you do if we could make this all disappear?” she asks.

  “I’d do what I’m going to do you, make love to you.” He slides his hand down between her breasts and grasps the ring and locket on the chain. He lifts the chain from her neck and unclips the ring. With the ring in his hand he looks at her with great seriousness. “First, I would ask you to become my wife, if just for this one night.”

  She holds out her left hand as he slides the ring on it. “Yes!”

  They lie together in the dark night. The fire is gone. They make love, and they make love again. When it seems he can give no more, she brings him back to life with her gentle touching and stroking. This time the loving seems to go on forever.

  They hold on to each other in silent stillness. There are only a few hours until dawn. He pulls away but keeps his face towards hers. “I must fulfil my part of our bargain. This is my story.”

  Chapter 20 – Marco’s Story – Night 28

  “My real name is Vincent Marco Bassingham. Vincent was my father’s name. Marco was the name of my mother’s brother, who died young. My mother, who was Italian, called me Marco. At school it got shortened to Mark B.

  “I liked this name better than Vincent because I hated my father, and I couldn’t stand being compared to him. He was a big man, quick with his fists and his temper. Few people could stand against him. Those who tried came out much the worse.

  “He would hit my mother, mostly slaps, but at times with a fist or a belt. She was terrified of him. He was a total bully.

  “Once, when another man tried to stop him hitting her, my father almost killed him. When a policeman came to ask about it, my father told him to shoot through or he’d do the same to him. The policeman never came back.

  “I was seven when my mum ran away; she seemed scared of him all the time and had to find somewhere to escape. My father was so mad at her for doing this. He said it made him look bad.

  “It was a long time before he found her. When he did find her he beat her so badly she was taken to hospital for several days. She refused to press charges.

  “The last time I saw her was the day she was discharged. My father told her she had to come home to look after me or he’d thrash her again, far worse than before.

  “The next day she swallowed a whole bottle of pills and died. I only found that out years later. He didn’t explain at the time why she wasn’t there when I got home from school.

  “That’s terrible, to lose your mother that way. I’m so sorry. Was your father any better to you after that?”

  “He went on with his violent drunken life without a backwards glance. I hated him, but I was frightened of him too. I could fight well enough at school, but with him I had no chance. He was three times my size and hit me with anything he found, belts, walking sticks, a horse whip, a cricket bat.

  “Usually he went to the pub after work and got home too drunk to do anything. Sometimes the lady next door gave me dinner, but mostly I had to eat whatever I could find.

  “I learned how to look after myself. I would shoplift, pick pockets, steal from store-yards and from people’s houses. I almost never got caught. I thought it was really clever the way I could sneak in and out of all those places.

  “But, when I was twelve, a policeman saw me stealing a block of chocolate. I was taken to the police station, but as my father was drinking and couldn’t be found, a neighbour was called and took me home.

  “When my father found out he flew into a rage and whipped me like a dog. My back was bleeding in lots of places. Next day, the police came and took me away. They sent me to remand school where I stayed for over a year.

  “I thought my father was a bully. But he had nothing on the guys who ran the remand school. They’d line us up in a row for three hours most evenings. We had to stand still while they sat drinking beer. Every time someone moved they’d belt him with a long cane. They raped the prettier boys; they’d take them to their rooms and often two would have a go together. The boys would come out bleeding and crying. A few boys tried to run away, but they were brought back and beaten, really badly. Some tried to complain, but they got beaten as well, even worse. No one did anything to stop them.”

  Susan put her hand on his arm. “Did they do that to you?”

  Mark put his hand over hers for a brief second then continued. “No, they never got me that way. I was a bit smarter and less good looking, with scars on my face from where my father had hit me. But I knew it was just a matter of time.

  “One day I was caught by one of the biggest guys, a warden who I hated. He’d taken to hitting me when I wasn’t looking. I was late coming down for school that day. I’d tried to hide away to skip classes but, as I came out of our room, there he was.

  “He said it was my lucky day and he had a big surprise for me. When he took off his leather belt and started to unzip his pants, I knew what he was going to do. First thrash me with his belt then, when I was hurting too much to try and get away, he’d take me to his room and fuck me.

  “We were right at the top of a big flight of stairs. No one else was around. He grabbed me by the ear, like he was planning to take me downstairs. He liked boys my age. He’d already done this to most others.

  “At the top of the stairs he caught his part open pants on the rail. I saw my chance and gave him a big shove. He went flying down the stairs. When I got down to the bottom, he was lying there at a funny angle with his head facing the wrong way and not moving.

  “I didn’t know he was dead, but I was glad I’d hurt him because he was such a bastard. No one else was there, so I snuck off to school.

  “When I came back, after school had finished that afternoon, the police were there asking questions. They wanted to know if anyone had seen what happened. Everyone said no, and they assumed he must have tripped, fallen and broken his neck. It seems they didn’t notice his half-undone pants. Perhaps they thought he’d been to the toilet.

  “After that I knew how to get rid of people I didn’t like.

  “Later that year I ran away and got a job working on a sheep station. One job was to help a man fixing windmills. He was a bastard too. He used to hit me with a big piece of hard plastic pipe whenever something went wrong. I was scared he’d knock me off the edge. One day he dropped a spanner from the high windmill tower and said it was my fault. He laid into me with the plastic pipe. I kept my head turned away and hung onto the steel frame for dear life.

  “When he paused between swings, I grabbed it and gave it a push away, pushing him out to the edge. He tried to pull himself back as I held the pipe at the other end, but I pushed back harder and let it go as I did.

  “He went over the edge, head first. I looked down and saw him lying, dead as a maggot, on the ground down there. Back at the station I told the boss he’d lost his balance and fallen. The boss was happy to believe it. I think he was relieved the bastard was dead too. He was a nasty piece of work.

  “By the time I was twenty I’d got rid of three more blokes like him. Nobody asked any questions because each time, deep down, people were happy to see the end of them, and I’d got good at hiding any evidence. One even gave me a new identity; he tried to mug me with a knife and take my money in the car park of a casino in Darwin. I put the knife into him instead. Afterwards I found his car and license. His name was Martin Bennet, and his driver’s license photo was pretty like me, so I adopted his identity which I shortened to Mart B. Nobody questioned it. He was scum anyway and was never missed. I even wrote a letter to his sister, copying his handwriting, to get a copy of his birth certificate.

  “When I heard there was big money to be made in the Middle East, I got a job there running security for the pipelines.

  “We’d get real smartarse robbers, mostly from Egyptian gangs, with no papers. They’d try steal oil and other things to sell. Our job was to make ‘em disappear, the more permanently the better. We bumped off a few, dropped their bodies in empty wells, or shafts, places they couldn’t be found. Word got around pretty quick to leave us alone. We would catch and kill another one or two every few months to keep things quiet.

  “A guy I was working with got me to go to the Congo with him to do security there. There, as well as getting rid of men who caused trouble, the mercenaries could take any women they wanted, force them to have sex. If any got difficult, they were shut up for good. That’s where I killed my first woman. She bit me when I was going to have her, so I hit her hard and accidently killed her. We threw her body in the river and it washed away.

  Susan visualises a different Mark, a violent sadistic man who takes pleasure in brutally dominating and raping a woman. It hits her like a shock, so discordant from the man who sits beside her. Even when she saw the text from Anne, she never really thought of him like this.

  Her words spill out vehemently without thought. “Do you mean you were going to rape her?”

  Mark answers gently, almost kindly, “Yes, I suppose so. The other soldiers had taken turns, and now it was my turn. It was what happened to many women in that war. I can’t pretend I didn’t take part. They usually killed them with a knife when they were finished. I’m glad she died quickly from my fist.

  “I’ve killed maybe thirty people since I was a teenager, mostly blokes, but a few girls. The blokes were bad bastards and bullies, and I reckon the world is better off without them.

  “A couple of the women were tarts who tried to touch me up for money or things. One threatened to cry rape if I went to the police. Another took my personal possessions and valuable jewels. Once you’ve killed one, the rest are easy. Alive one minute, dead the next with a surprised look on their faces.

  “Killing people is easy if you know how and don’t care. You just need to be smart to make sure no one sees what happens or can identify you. Keep away from CCTV and all that sort of thing. Afterwards you make sure the bodies and personal effects don’t turn up. That way they get listed as missing persons, whereabouts unknown.

  “With backpackers, when they come out here, they go every which way. They rarely know each other’s names, and yet they feel safe in each other’s company. Provided they don’t know who you really are, or where you’re going, it’s real hard for anyone to connect you to their disappearance.