Vanishing Point (16 page)

It was Benjamin's rule that Katherine serve his food first. When he finished she was permitted to eat alone. After Karl's first dinner at the Factory, Benjamin called her over to the table and gave her a rare compliment. ‘Good meal, woman. Ya can eat now, there's plenty.'

He and Karl left the table making their way to the opposite side of the room and the two old lounge chairs.

‘It was easier with the fresh meat Karl brought.' She looked at Karl thinking that she might yet somehow persuade him to get news of her predicament out to the authorities, even if he was Benjamin's mate.

Benjamin opened a beer while Karl poured a whisky then lit a cigarette. Benjamin did not smoke and Katherine was interested to see that while his eyes disapproved of the curling blue smoke, he said nothing.

‘Karl's gunna go shoppin' for us. Make a list of what ya need an' he'll see if he can get it.'

‘I definitely need clothes. Apart from the few in my bag when you kidnapped me, I have nothing. And you tore up some of what I had. Nappies and baby food, and —'

‘Jist make a list, woman. Don't nag.'

Karl smirked. ‘Gotta keep ‘em in place, eh Benjamin? Others they nag ya ta death.' He looked at the ceiling and blew out a torrent of smoke.

* * *

Karl left before sunrise, taking Katherine's list with him. She had already been told that her list was too long and the clothes she needed had not been included.

As Benjamin explained, ‘Ya can't expect Karl to go shopping for women's clothes.'

Although Katherine was embarrassed, there was something she needed more than new clothes. ‘Well, if clothing is embarrassing for him, what about other things? I need something for my periods at the chemist. Is he going to get me those things for women's hygiene?'

Benjamin grimaced. ‘When that happens ya're unclean. You won't make our food, or touch it. Ya stay in ya room, or on that side. Don't let ya shadow cross me. I'll bring ya water to wash in mornings an' some food at night, Ya can go down the back path to the dunny but keep away from the rest of the Factory.'

And so it was that for about four or five days each month she kept out of sight. In a way it was a relief. At first she made the time longer than it need be just to avoid Benjamin.

It soon became a very uncomfortable time for her. The restriction to her room meant that she had only one meal a day. Benjamin brought it with the daily jug of water, which was never enough, and left both outside her room. She began to long for the relative freedom of the rest of the compound, the kitchen and ability to prepare her own food, limited though it was. So she came to resent what Benjamin called her ‘unclean' time and stayed in her quarters only for as long as necessary.

Remembering his Biblical quote she had been terrified that, after her first month at the Factory, he might rape her, but the month passed as did the next, and the next, and he made no attempt at sexual advances. She began to relax.

A
lec walked along North Terrace towards Adelaide University. The early morning, weak winter sun was filtering its way through the bare branches of the trees. Underfoot the footpath was still damp from the fine, morning drizzle. Alec had worked on his research all weekend and now, early Monday morning, he was headed back to work. By concentrating on his research he found that he could suppress his pain and temporarily put aside the thoughts of his wife and child. Their memory was forever with him and there were always things and events that reminded him of their short time together.

Even now, as he walked past the memorial to the soldiers who died in the South African War, he was reminded of the times the two of them had walked hand in hand from the railway station to the University. The memorial nearly always sparked a heated discussion between them: the readiness of the government to commit its soldiers to wars both far away and, as far as Alec was concerned, none of Australia's business. He missed their discussions and Katherine's gentle chiding when he got on to his soapbox.

Seven miserable months had crept by since their fateful field excursion to the arid areas around Ceduna. In all that time the police had found no trace of Katherine or Carolyn, nor a scrap of evidence as to what had happened to them. Not a single clue. The press had carried a few reports in November, and published the photograph that Alec had given to Sergeant John Murray, but no leads emerged. Since then the newspapers were filled with the news of the mysterious disappearance of the three Beaumont children in January. Even though Jane, Arnna and four year old Grant had disappeared from Glenelg Beach on Australia Day, six months previously, there were still reports regularly appearing in The Advertiser. Police had conducted exhaustive searches, both for the children and for any evidence of discarded clothing or other items but to no avail. Alec thought of his own situation where there were many items left behind but no real clues as to what had happened. In the letters to the editor there were even suggestions that aliens had taken the Beaumont children and Alec's family into outer space. At least in the case of the missing children there were several witness statements suggesting that they had been with a ‘man in blue trunks.' A shop assistant told police that Jane, the eldest child at nine years, had offered a one pound note when buying cakes. In the case of Katherine and Carolyn there was nothing. Just the empty Kombi and the desert wind.

Since the tearful reunion with Katherine's mother and his own family, Alec's relationship with his mother-in-law had deteriorated. Although she never verbally blamed him, their conversation was limited and frosty when they met. His own parents had scolded him and it was only from his sister, Amy, that Alec felt some understanding. He and Amy had always been close and perhaps the three years between them allowed her to understand him more easily than his parents. His father, in spite of his profession, was not capable of much empathy and his mother was unduly protective. She had never understood risk-taking or his desire for adventure. In the past, Alec had jokingly said he must have been mixed up in the hospital and been given to the wrong parents. Since Katherine disappeared Alec rarely smiled, let alone made jokes.

Alec did not take any time off from his work at the University. On the contrary, he threw himself into both his teaching duties and his research, often working late into the night. Dr Jones, normally somewhat aloof from the personal affairs of his students, became concerned about Alec's state of mind and strongly recommended a break. However, Alec ignored the advice.

Even on Christmas Day he excused himself from the unusually sombre family gathering and went to the Mawson Laboratories to spend the day looking down his microscope and crushing rocks for chemical analysis. The entire time he thought of his missing family, recognising that this would have been Carolyn's first Christmas, their first as a ‘real family not just a couple' as Katherine used to say.

Now, as dull skies blanketed Adelaide and a wintery drizzle settled in for the day, Alec turned into the University. He walked past the grey-walled, ovolo Elder Hall that looked more like a bishop's residence than a university building, and down the steps to the Mawson Laboratories. He entered the familiar main entry of the geology department and turned left, stopping only to collect his mail from the pigeonholes next to the secretary's office. Alec was early and, apart from one of the cleaners whom he greeted with a curt ”morning', there was no-one else in the corridor. He went slowly down the stairs to his office in the basement. At his desk he picked up the picture of his wife holding Carolyn. It was one taken in the hospital some hours after the birth and Katherine was glowing, in spite of her unruly, damp hair.

Alec gazed at it for a while and sighed deeply before returning it to its usual place on his desk. The photograph faced him so he had their images in front of him all the time. He looked at it frequently while he worked, as if to give him inspiration or courage to continue.

Initially Alec determined he would spend the rest of his life looking for Katherine and Carolyn or, at least, trying to find out what had happened. That changed only after extensive discussions with his family, a grief counsellor recommended by Amy and the police, who persuaded him that his best course of action was to get on with his life and let the experts find his wife. His initial approach to private investigators had similarly persuaded him that the results of going down that avenue most likely would cost a great deal in both emotion and cash, and was likely to be unsuccessful in the end. Alec telephoned the police weekly, partly to find out if there was any news but also because he felt that if he kept reminding them the police would be more active. Detective Sergeant Finney worked tirelessly trying to unearth what had happened, but the case remained unsolved. It was one of many ‘miss per' cases that they dealt with every week.

After another long look at the photograph, he took a deep breath to try and ease the tightness in his chest, before taking out some microscope slides and his notebook. The microscope was under the high windows where the light was better. He went across to it, placed a thin section of rock under the microscope, bent his head to the eyepiece and started examining the translucent fragment, ground to only a few microns thickness.

* * *

For Katherine, the first months seemed the worst. It was so difficult trying to come to terms with what had happened to her. She feared the uncertainty of her own and Carolyn's futures. Once the first month passed and Benjamin did not assault her, she started to relax slightly. She constantly worried about Alec's state of mind. Conversation with Benjamin was non-existent and they remained in a state of constant tension.

She had few clothes for herself and fewer items for her baby, only those taken when she thought she would be a couple of nights in Ceduna. Most of her lower garments were shorts and slacks and Benjamin destroyed those. She had two skirts, both short but somehow Benjamin seemed to think they were better than trousers even though they exposed more of her flesh. She had only half a dozen shirts and even fewer underclothes.

It was clear from the food stores that her abduction had been a spur of the moment decision and Benjamin had not planned for company. They ate very sparsely, and always tasteless, canned food. She lost weight, although she ensured that she drank plenty of the available water to keep up her milk supply.

Carolyn was thriving, the change in diet and environment seeming to have no impact on the infant. Because of the limited supply of both water and nappies, much of the daytime Katherine left her child, near-naked, outside. Every time Benjamin saw the nappies drying in the sun he complained about the shortage of water so it became a choice between washing nappies or having a shower. Sometimes she combined both tasks.

Katherine tried to work out how far from Kalgoorlie she was. Plans for an escape or some method of contacting the outside world all came to nothing because she realised that to get anywhere she would need a vehicle. Not only did Benjamin keep the keys on his person all the time, but also he never left the Land Rover at night without fiddling under the bonnet. And he made sure she saw nothing that would help her.

For the most part Benjamin left her alone and went about his business as if she were not there. She tried passive resistance by refusing to make a meal from the stores. When she failed to prepare a meal he told her she would not eat and he made his own food, leaving her nothing. After two days of hunger she gave in; for the sake of Carolyn she had to keep up her strength.

At night, before she left the main room, he made her kneel while he mumbled a prayer. Katherine never quite understood what he said as he seemed to be speaking a different language. However, he always finished by loudly saying, ‘Thank you God for me life, for me work, for me woman an' the bubs. I pray to lead us on in the ways of the Lord. Amen.'

For a while Katherine tried to keep a calendar by scratching marks on the underside of the timber veranda. Time passed exceedingly slowly as she had no books, no radio and no way of entertaining herself other than with her baby. She eventually lost track of dates and daily time was guessed by the position of the sun, although time didn't seem to matter after a while. Her best measure of the passing weeks and months was her child. Carolyn grew into quite an active and apparently happy and healthy toddler. When Katherine's milk supply stopped she was weaned on cereal with honey and canned foods. When she started to talk Katherine ensured she did not learn the word for ‘daddy'.