Vanishing Point (22 page)

As she drew near his arm flashed out and grabbed her wrist. ‘I'se bin waitin' fa ya, woman. Too long, bin waitin'. He effortlessly pulled her on to the bed, fumbled with her shift pulling it up to her waist and then rolled on top of her. He forced her legs apart with his knee and without hesitation thrust into her.

Katherine remained silent, biting her lip, in spite of the pain. She could smell the sweet smoke of the angel dust cigarettes and knew Karl sat outside on the porch, listening. She realised she had lost the battle of wills and surrendered everything she stood for.

The whole episode lasted only a few minutes. Benjamin made animal noises that echoed around the Factory. Outside, Karl was laughing between gulps of whisky.

Katherine tried desperately not to think of the only other man she had been intimate with. It was her husband, her Alec, a man she loved, and there was pleasure in the sex act.

After it was over Benjamin's heavy weight collapsed on her, his breath coming in gasps.

‘I can't breath,' she mumbled.

He lay for a few moments longer until he shrank out of her then rolled off. He grunted and pushed her from the bed. ‘Go woman. Go ta ya own place.'

In rolling off her he partly lay on the torn shift. She struggled to pull it free but he angrily said, ‘Leave me, leave it. Go. Git out now, woman, git ta ya own place. Now. Go.'

She pulled again but it was trapped under his heavy weight.

Trying to maintain as much dignity as she could muster she quickly ran across the veranda to her own quarters, past the grinning Karl whose eyes never left her. From her room grabbed a towel and fled to the shower. In spite of the cold night air she soaped and scrubbed herself thoroughly, not caring about how much water she used.

* * *

Katherine's life began to improve slightly. Benjamin provided her with more material to make clothes, some toys and books for Carolyn. He even bought her a long skirt from Kalgoorlie.

In exchange Benjamin demanded that she come to his room regularly. Each visit was similar to the first but lasted much longer. She suffered less from physical pain but more from the longer time exposed to emotional pain. If she appeared hesitant, he told her that it was her duty as a wife. If she refused, he reminded her that Carolyn was now big enough to go shooting with Karl. He provided no contraceptives, citing an obscure Biblical text about Onan, so she knew it would be just a matter of time before her own primitive methods failed.

A
lec's rented apartment in the tree-rich suburb of Briar Hill, northwest of the hustle and bustle of Melbourne city, provided an ideal home for a single person. With lower rent and good proximity to the busy railway station at Greensborough, Alec found he spent so little on accommodation and transport, that he saved money at a great rate. In spite of the hills making his cycling difficult, he found it a convenient place to live.

It was some months since Petri's last visit so social outings were limited to just Alec and Shelley. After a matinee concert by Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, they shared a pleasant meal of crumbed veal, washed down with several glasses of vintage Penfold's cabernet sauvignon. Alec, living on his own, had become a competent, if not cordon bleu, cook.

The friendship with Shelley had developed into warm, mutual understanding although, to an outside observer, Shelley was driving the relationship. Slowly, through regularly shared coffee breaks at the Agora and discussions together or with Petri, they learned more about each other and the mutual attraction increased. Now, with that satisfied feeling of cosiness following a good meal, they sat side by side on the floor in the semi-darkened lounge, sipping wine while the tape recorder softly played a selection of music taped by Alec. The heater warmed the room against the Melbourne winter chill.

Alec was finally feeling comfortable enough to explain what happened to his wife and child. ‘People talk about ‘closure' but, as far as I'm concerned, that just doesn't happen. There is just life before they disappeared and life afterwards. You never have so-called closure.'

‘The police never found anything?' Shelley asked.

‘Nothing. There is a special unit that deals with missing persons in each state and I still call the South Australian one regularly, even now. But the story is always the same. A case of missing persons is never closed but as time passes there is less and less chance of finding out what happened. I'm not sure if the different state units talk much with each other.'

‘What do you think might have happened?'

‘Well, obviously I don't know. At first I thought someone might have come along and she accepted a ride into Ceduna. But I spent several days in Ceduna waiting and looking, then months with the police and even time with a private detective without a result. I finally had to accept that something really terrible must have happened.'

‘Like what? I mean, it sounds terrible, but do you think they were murdered?'

‘Well, the tracker pretty well confirmed there was another vehicle along that track after we broke down. It towed our Kombi for a bit, then left it in the bush, partly hidden. Very little was taken. Apart from Katherine's personal bag and the few baby items, including the bassinette, everything was left, even her purse.

‘So it wasn't robbery.'

‘No, anyway, Katherine didn't have much money. Anyway, what she did have she left behind.'

‘What, then?'

Alec took a mouthful of wine before answering. ‘Whoever stopped there must have kidnapped them both, that's all I can think of. It has been so long now that I've come to accept that maybe they were murdered, either there or later. The area was well searched, so whatever happened must have taken place away from where the Kombi was left.'

Alec swallowed hard, his eyes watered. Even after six years the loss was painful. The mere thought of what might have happened would always distress him.

‘Oh! Alec. Why would anyone do anything like that?'

His voice tremulous and hoarse, Alec replied, ‘I don't know. Maybe it was a sex crime. I just wish I knew what happened to them. It would be better to know for sure, no matter how terrible, than be left always to wonder.'

Shelley leaned over and gave him a hug. Her eyes were moist. Alec put his arms around her and they kissed gently. Although initiated as a hug of sympathy, the kiss became something more, a touch of sensual passion.

Although they had kissed previously it had always been the courteous kiss of old friends parting for the evening. This was different. Shelley felt her insecurities fading slightly. She really wanted this relationship to develop but recognised the shadow of his missing wife would always be present.

The tape played ‘I don't know how to love him' in the background and Shelley thought to herself, ‘How true! I wish I could wash away his pain with love.' She gave him a squeeze.

Alec pulled back. ‘Shell, you are really lovely, and I greatly value our friendship. You've told me about your past problems in relationships. And you know I really, really like you but I don't want to use any sympathy for me, no matter how genuine, to be mistaken for love.'

‘Sure, sure, I understand.' She tried not to let her disappointment show; her fondness for Alec she knew was a great deal more than sympathy. But was it love?

‘We are both still very vulnerable, but I do have very strong feelings for you,' Alec said.

She nodded. In spite of her outward confidence, brio and striking looks, Shelley had developed a carapace of self-protection. Life had not been easy and she had been on the receiving end of several failed relationships, largely because her easy-going, uninhibited nature had been mistaken for being sexually promiscuous. Once it was found that she was far from wanton the relationships petered out. She had come to accept that a girl with good looks and a relaxed, uninhibited approach to life seemed to be regarded as an easy lay by most men and they seemed unable to appreciate her other qualities. Too often her body seemed to be of greater importance than her sharp wit and intelligence. The fact that Alec was different appealed to her.

Until now Alec had hardly spoken about Katherine and Carolyn and never about his personal feelings. He never asked about her background and she never raised the subject. Until tonight they had just accepted each other as they were without any detailed investigation of their histories.

‘They searched the area,' Alec picked up the conversation, ‘and the police put roadblocks on the roads to both Port Augusta and at Bordertown in case whoever gave them a lift went to WA or headed to Eyre Peninsula. I reckon that, because of the time I took to get into Ceduna and back out again, they would have already passed through before any roadblocks were in place. That is if they even went there. Pictures were circulated and the press carried stories, but you know newspapers. News only lasts a short while then they need new headlines to sell stories. With so much else happening at the time interest in their disappearance soon faded.'

‘Yes, I know, I understand.'

‘I'm not angry about the efforts. I reckon the police did their best, but I am really very distressed and saddened by the fact that we can't find them, or … or their … their bodies. I keep hoping that they are alive somehow, somewhere.' Alec's eyes involuntarily filled again with tears.

‘One has to keep hope alive, never give up.'

‘But after six years! After so long it's becoming increasingly unlikely. Carolyn would be a little girl now.' The tears edged from the corners of his eyes and into the creases at the base of his nose. Alec took a tissue from the table and dabbed at his face.

Shelley put her arm around his shoulder and pulled him towards her. They hugged each other silently. Alec gave into his tears and cried openly.

* * *

On the other side of Australia, across the flat, red desert and scattering of small bushes, Petri's four-wheel drive left tracks in the virgin sand. On the seat next to him lay the stack of aerial photographs, maps and notebooks with which a field geologist always travels. His vehicle had been turned into a combined field office, transporter and home away from home. Mounted on the rear was a hinged auger with an electric motor. Once turned into a vertical position it could be used for drilling through soft sands, allowing samples to be collected from buried drainages up to ten metres deep. On the front was an electric winch, on the side a large jack was fastened and on the bonnet was a second spare wheel. The jeep-like shape combined with all of the attachments made it look more like a military vehicle than the efficient exploration vehicle it had become.

Petri was following the ancient courses of rivers long since abandoned. Thirty million years ago they flowed across the gold-rich rocks, taking with them grains of the precious metal. In times of high rainfall the rivers, engorged with water, carried the dense gold particles long distances from their source in the high greenstone hills. As the rush of water declined to the point where it no longer had the energy to carry the heavier grains they sank, along with other dense minerals and larger boulders, to partly fill the river channels. As the climate became drier, the courses became clogged and then buried by the windblown sands.

Petri had to find the locations where the richest deposits of gold occurred, hidden beneath the blanket of sand. The auger penetrated the buried river channels to collect samples that he then took to Kalgoorlie for analysis. Assays done at the newly established laboratories there would tell how much gold was in each of the samples down to one part per million. Results returned so far had been promising: the gold was there as Petri had predicted and by plotting the results on a map, Petri was reaching the point where he could advise Spex of best place to carry out their first extraction experiment.

But could the gold be recovered economically? Fred Cooper had displayed enough confidence in Petri's theories to organise some preliminary tests. These showed the gold from the sand-filled creeks could be dissolved using cyanide solutions even in the presence of the salt-rich ground waters. Unfortunately, although partly successful, problems had arisen because of the salt. While its very salinity provided protection against contamination, it also caused precipitation of the same salts from cyanide-rich solutions. The pipes became arteries carrying the gold-enriched cyanide blood upwards, slowly being clogged by a plaque of magnesium salt precipitated along its length. Within a very short amount of time the flow of pregnant liquor was reduced from a torrent to a mere trickle. This had a serious impact on the recovery process and the economics of the whole program. While it was the chemist's problem rather than Petri's, it made him anxious. A lot was riding on his theory that economic quantities of gold could be extracted from the ancient Tertiary channels.

Petri had been collecting samples for several weeks, making maximum use of the benefits offered by the cooler winter weather. It was time to draw this particular trip to an end. His grey Toyota, of which he was so proud, was now low in supplies and covered with mud and dust. The boxes were almost devoid of food, tins having been replaced by dozens of sample-filled calico bags. It was time to head back to Kalgoorlie.