Next morning they flew to Kununurra, fueled up to maximum fuel and took on two more passengers, a local aboriginal policewoman, Jessie, who was a traditional owner of the place to which they were going, and Isabelle’s father. He had flown from France to be here with them when they searched for his daughter’s things. As there was no suggestion they would find a body there was no need for a pathologist’s attendance, today was about recovering the personal effects of a person the NT coroner had already found was deceased, a finding with which the Western Australian coroner had agreed.
So they had a full load with extra fuel and ten people aboard and, as they got airborne, Vic could feel the load in his big machine. The weight would burn off as he burnt fuel on the trip north.
For an hour the helicopter flew north, north-west over a rough and broken land. It was a place of red and brown mountains which raised their fractured heads to the sky. Between scarps narrow gorges plunged, giving glimpses of green trees fringing pools of water and places of yellow sand.
As they flew Cathy thought about her Uncle and all that had passed with him. The note told of how Mark had tracked him down in Oman, already in hiding, as the police were looking for him over other child sex charges.
Mark said he had taken him out to Rub al Khali, otherwise known as the Empty Quarter. Mark gave an approximate place but that was all.
Mark’s note said he had talked to her Uncle there and told him what he knew, how he had raped and abused his two nieces and how one had killed herself because of him. He said he had since found out this man had done similar to other girls as well. So he deemed his life forfeit as payment.
Mark wrote, “I told him I should use my knife on him for what he done; cut away the parts that had hurt little girls. But I did not. I gave him a choice, to go to the English police while I watched on, and tell of all he had done, or to stay here and take his chances. I told him there was no water here, none for two hundred miles and no one ever came here. He said he preferred to stay here, perhaps he thought he could cheat death. I knew he could not.
“I left him with a bottle of whiskey and a tablet that would end it. And even though I did not tell him so, in the whiskey was a thing which would bring a speedy end. I knew when the thirst came he would drink this and soon die, unless he took the tablet first. I drove away, not looking back, and came back to Australia. His bones are far out in the Empty Quarter of the Arabian Desert. I do not know where but I am glad it is so.”
It was not as Cathy would have done it but she could feel it was justice, better justice than a court could ever have given. At first she and Jacob had thought of going there, but there was no point. Whatever was done was finished three years past. There was nothing to gain in driving through an empty desert. If, by a miracle, he had survived she knew that none would ever see him again. And she knew, the way Mark had done it, survival was not an option, his only choice a kinder death. That was how Mark saw justice. After all the people her uncle had harmed she could not disagree. Now, when she balanced it all up, her main feeling was relief.
So she left his memory behind and looked up. Half an hour had passed, now she glimpsed and then saw a blue line on a smoky horizon, then the line became the place where the sea met the sky. She hoped there was more joy in this place than where her mind had been.
They came to the coast at a place where sheer red cliffs met an azure sparkling sea. Vic matched this place to his GPS and map and turned further west, following the turns of the coast as it twisted and plunged. Fifteen minutes later he saw a headland overlooking a little bay, shaped into a half circle. It looked right. He came in closer to see it better.
Mid-point of the cliff circle he saw a small waterfall that fell to ocean, its spray all a glisten. Behind the waterfall lay a clear pool of water, and rising up behind it were other broken rocky hills. Wheel tracks wended their way near the side of the cliff and then vanished into the green grey scrub behind.
He knew this was it, the place of his map, the place which the custodians of this land called Wallaby Dove Pool, a place from where these first spirits had come out from this water and joined the land. Now, each evening, their descendants came to drink. It was the place that Mark called Crystal Creek.
Vic brought the helicopter to rest and sat in it for a minute while the turbines wound down. He handed the map to Alan, saying, “Perhaps you should go first with Jessie to look. Then the rest of us will come.”
Alan and Jessie nodded and walked away.
Five minutes later Alan waved them over. Jessie held a small brass object in her fingers, a twenty two rifle shell, found lying near the cliff side in a place where the rock had broken away.
“It must be this place, just round from the waterfall, from which she fell,” he said, pointing to the ground.
They looked for other signs; there was an old blackened fireplace, unused in years. It was a long time since any had camped here, perhaps the last was them. They checked the hillside behind, looking for caves and rock crevices.
At last they found it, an entrance overgrown by shrubs. It was a crevice in the rock, two meters long and half a meter high. It had been filled with stones so nothing could enter it except, perhaps; a small mouse. As they cleared away stones they saw the neck of a guitar with a backpack beside it.
Alan lifted the guitar out and passed it to Belle’s father. He took it, hands shaking, he knew it was hers, a present of her family when fifteen years old.
He handled it lovingly and strummed a few chords then he passed it to others with a wistful sigh. He opened the pack; its contents neatly folded inside and still dry.
He shook out a shirt, “It is from the local market in our home village,” he said with a tear in his eye. Inside the shirt was a diary, only small notebook size. He took it and opened it and read it aloud.
J'ai passé un moment merveilleux. Je suis enchanté avec cette homme. Cette nuit nous somme devenir amants. Aujourd'hui je suis extatique. Il est un bon homme. Même si on ne se revoit jamais, je ne t'oublierai jamais
This morning I sang him one of my favourite songs – Piaf is perfect for a day when I am in love. I sang it first in English then in French, then the last verse again in English. The French is far more beautiful as befits my beautiful man.
Then her father picked up the guitar and played it by ear, singing the words as she might have sung them.
No, nothing at all,
No, I don't regret anything!
Neither the good that's been done to me,
Nor the bad;
It's all the same to me!
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait
Ni le mal; tout ça m'est bien égal !
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
C'est payé, balayé, oublié
Je me fous du passé !
Avec mes souvenirs
J'ai allumé le feu
Mes chagrins, mes plaisirs
Je n'ai plus besoin d'eux !
Balayées les amours
Et tous leurs tremolos
Balayés pour toujours
Je repars à zéro
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait
Ni le mal; tout ça m'est bien égal !
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
Car ma vie, car mes joies
Aujourd'hui, ça commence avec toi
No, nothing at all,
No, I don't regret anything!
Because my life,
because my joy,
today
begins with you!
When he had finished he was too emotional to speak and they all had tears in their eyes. He walked to the edge of the cliff and flung the guitar into the sky, watching as it slowly fell to the water below, saying,
“It belongs here with her, may she always hear its sweet music.”
Jane walked over to the helicopter and took out a small bottle. It was the last container of Mark’s ashes. At first she thought to fling it to the place where the guitar had gone, but then she remembered her charge, as Susan, from him.
So she unscrewed the lid, took out a pinch and, with all the love she could bring to her mind, tossed this dust of the man into the air, her mind hoping that some part of it would mingle together with whatever life essence remained here of Belle. She passed it around and the others did the same.
Then they loaded Belle’s pack in the helicopter and flew home.
That night they stopped at Timber Creek. It was a story telling night about Mark and Belle. It was the wake Mark had never had and a memorial for Belle. It might have been sad but it was not. Those who knew Mark told a story of him, those who did not know him told a story of other lives he had touched. Belle’s father told of his daughter and Anne read from the diaries.
It was not quite celebratory, but in all the minds and voices there was joy and forgiveness as well as pain. They remembered a man of two parts, the good and the bad and the woman he had lost who regretted nothing.