Bright Angel (2 page)

The gunman who last Saturday killed himself in front of dozens of horrified witnesses at one of the city's premier bridal shops, Wedding Heaven, had recently lost a large sum of money to international conmen, it emerged yesterday.

Thomas Radic, 26, son of well-known businessman Petro Radic, creator of Radic Discount Stores, was swindled out of more than a quarter of a million dollars by the conmen, after responding to an email commonly known as a ‘Nigerian scam'.

‘Nigerian scams', so-called because most of them are run by Nigerian gangsters, based not only in Africa but all over the world, are well known to internet users.

Scammers often pose as rich businessmen or corrupt government employees. They offer enormous advance fees to their targets, often millions of dollars, in return for the supposed transfer of funds, or investment in a large business such as the oil industry. Inheritance, lottery, eBay and charity scams are also common.

Millions of these scam emails are sent out every day. The vast majority end up in computer trash cans, but a few reach their targets, with fraudsters fleecing gullible victims out of large sums of money. For instance, in 2007, $166 million was lost in Australia alone, with thousands of victims involved. Bankruptcies, marriage break-ups and mental problems frequently result. Fraudsters are rarely caught, because humiliated victims rarely complain, and there are few investigative units devoted to this sort of crime.

According to police, Thomas Radic responded to an email eighteen months ago, offering him a large commission if he would help facilitate the transfer of a quantity of gold bars into a Belgian bank by paying account fees and other expenses. The fraudsters even paid for his visit to Belgium, where they showed him the gold bars. That, and some apparently official bank paperwork, convinced him the offer was genuine. But on the advice of the scammers, he did not tell anyone in the family, or his then-girlfriend, Ms Helen Makarios, anything about it.

‘He wanted to surprise them,' said a family friend, speaking on condition of anonymity. ‘Poor Tom! He thought it was a great opportunity. Once he realised he'd been had, everything just fell on top of him. It wasn't just the money. His family was absolutely furious, Helen left him, and the police came round to ask him questions because apparently what those scamming bastards wanted him to do was like, illegal, money-laundering or whatever. He was just under so much stress, really depressed. Somehow he got this idea into his head that if only Helen would have him back, his life would get back on track. Then he heard she'd got engaged to someone else.'

Police believe the gun was obtained from a criminal source. It is still unclear how Mr Radic knew Ms Makarios was at Wedding Heaven. Ms Makarios' family was unavailable for comment last night.

Witnesses have been interviewed by police, and offered trauma counselling. ‘In such cases, people need to be encouraged to do what's best for them,' said psychologist Mr Andrew Keitel. ‘For some people, that means being able to talk about it with someone almost at once. Other people take longer to process such traumatic events, and should not be rushed into it.'

For days, I couldn't get the picture out of my head. I kept seeing him on that pedestal, sweating, his eyes glittering, and Helen's white, terrified face – the frozen silence – everyone stilled, unable to move, like a bad dream – and then the bang, so loud my ears rang with it for ages – and the blood ... the bits of him, oh my God, all over her, over that beautiful, ruined dress – the lovely pale carpet, the mirror, the walls – everywhere – everywhere – and then him falling, his arm still around her – and people moving at last, screaming, her mother pulling her away, hugging her.

The police and the paramedics came – everyone was so kind – but it was all a blur. In the hospital they rang Mum and Dad, who then took the first plane out and were there that night. They hugged us and wept with us and talked to us, and made us feel slightly better. They insisted we see the counsellor, and that was good. It did help – she was really nice – she said maybe I might try and write things down, if I couldn't talk about it.

Well, the thing was, I
could
talk about it, mostly, even those horrible bits. But there was one thing I
couldn't
say. Couldn't tell anyone. Not the counsellor, not Mum and Dad, not Claire, not Jessie, not any of my friends. You see, I had this stupid guilty feeling that, well, I'd looked into his eyes just as he came in. I should have guessed, I should have acted, then maybe I could have stopped him. Maybe somehow I might have been able to change his mind, or at least to warn everyone...

I didn't tell anyone because they'd have said I shouldn't feel like that, I must not blame myself, I had nothing to do with it, I was an innocent bystander, it had all happened so quickly, and what could I have done, anyway? Or else they'd have got angry and told me to stop thinking like that because didn't I realise, it was not about me, not about Claire either, but Helen, poor Helen, who'd have what had happened on her mind for the rest of her life – who'd feel much worse than we would – and there was nothing we could have done that could have helped. So I said nothing but one morning I remembered the counsellor's advice about writing things down.

When I was younger I used to keep diaries and stuff but I found it too much of a bother thinking up things to write down cos often nothing much happens except going to school and coming home and who cares about that? I switched to scrapbooks and put in clippings, pictures and poems and so on. I got interested in film too and started writing scripts, which I never could work out how to finish. I made short clips on the computer with Movie-Maker, with my own words and pictures I got from all over the place. Last year we had to do this multimedia assignment for school. It had to be about presenting a mythical creature in an interesting new way. Well, I made a couple of clips for that, about angels, and got high marks for them. So I opened a You Tube account – it's at
www.youtube.com/sylviemandon
– and uploaded the angel clips, and then made a couple more about other things before I got a bit bored with that and went back to poetry again for a while. But when that – that
thing
happened, I hadn't written anything for weeks.

But there was absolutely, absolutely no way I wanted to make a clip about what had happened at Wedding Heaven, or write a poem about it. A journalist rang our place at one stage wanting to get some reactions from us about something he'd discovered about why Radic had done what he did. He'd had no luck with Helen's family. They were not answering any calls. Helen's parents and fiancé had taken Helen off somewhere, the wedding had been put on hold – and nobody outside the immediate family knew where she'd gone or when she'd be back.

Even if we had known, we wouldn't have said anything, of course. Mum told the reporter to take a running jump, and I'm glad she did but then I read his piece in the paper and I thought that maybe that's what I should do, write about it objectively, like I was a reporter or something. Not to publish, but just for myself. But I couldn't bring myself to switch on the computer. Somehow seeing it on the screen, in print, would have made it too – I don't know – too official. Too settled.

Instead, one morning I dug out an old exercise book and I'd actually opened it and put my pen to the page and wrote the date and then Mum came in without knocking and I closed the book quickly because I didn't want her to see what I was doing.

I needn't have worried. She hadn't noticed. She sat on the bed and put an arm around me and said, ‘Darling, Dominic and I have been thinking. You've been through a lot, you and Claire. You've been great. Very strong. But we think, we think that, like Helen, you need a break. A complete change of scene.' She saw my expression and added, quickly, ‘I don't mean going back to the Northern Territory with us. I mean, much further than that. How would you like to go to France?'

I stared at her. ‘What?'

‘Your father's sister – you remember your Aunt Freddy, darling? – well, she's taken a house in the south of France to write her latest book – it's in this most beautiful spot in the Pyrenees – so peaceful – Dom had an email from her this morning – she suggested it.'

‘Suggested what?'

‘That you two might like to stay with her for a little while. I know you might have to testify at the inquest – but that won't be for a few weeks – and till then – well, we just think you could – well, it would be better if you weren't reminded of it every day. I'm sure school won't mind, or Claire's work. They'll understand. And Dom and I – we're going to have to go back to the Territory soon and we don't want to leave you here on your own. We did think of taking you with us but then we thought, well, this might be better. No things about it on TV, no-one to know where you've gone. You can both speak French okay and in any case you'll have Freddy to help. You like Freddy, don't you?'

I hadn't seen my Aunt Frederique – known to everyone as Freddy – for at least five years. She lived in the US and had only come to Australia a couple of times. But what I remembered of her was okay. I nodded.

‘But of course we'll only send you if you both agree,' Mum said. She paused, then added, ‘I mentioned it to Claire already.'

‘What did she say?'

‘That she'd like to go. You know she wanted to help Helen through this – and she's taken it very hard that Helen won't speak to anyone, not even her, and Helen's family's just sort of battened down the hatches. She feels useless, sad and desperate to escape.'

When she said that, I suddenly knew that was what I felt, and what I wanted too. I didn't want to face it. I didn't want those flashbacks. I didn't want to talk or think or write about it any more. I just wanted to escape. As far away as possible, to the other end of the world.

It's really weird when you're in a plane, especially on a long trip like the one between Australia and France. It's like you're in a time-travel capsule, kilometres above the earth, in a place not meant for people at all. And yet you're also in a kind of giant flying bus full of ordinary human happenings. Inside, there's litter in the aisles and people talking and laughing and snoring and arguing and eating and reading and watching movies and trying desperately to get themselves into a more comfortable position. Outside is this cold, clear, beautiful, hostile dream-landscape of bright air and wild bumpy currents and clouds shaped like islands and volcanoes and mountains of foam and weird mythical creatures. When you come through the clouds you can see the real landscape below and it looks like a miniature map or a child's toy and you feel as though you could hold it in your hands, like a god, and twist, shape and pull it about just as you pleased. Come down a bit further and you start to see forests and rivers and cities and glittering night-lights strung out across coasts and roads like magnificent necklaces. It all looks so peaceful and controllable from up there.

I couldn't stop looking out of that window. It was just so fascinating. It's not that I haven't been in planes before. Up and down to the Northern Territory a couple of times, and to Bali twice, and Fiji, once, and America, once too, though that was ages ago. But I'd never been on such a long trip before.

Claire had happily let me have the window seat. She said it made her sick to look down and realise how far up we were. Instead, she watched movie after movie. Not dramas or thrillers or scary things – nothing with guns or blood in it at all – but lots of comedies and animated films and light romances, stuff like that. She doesn't get enough time to watch many movies normally because her job as a publicity person working for the children's books section of a big publisher is very demanding and she often has to work late and do stuff on the weekends and go away on tours with authors and stuff like that. Mind you, she does get to meet some interesting people, really famous writers. Not JK Rowling or Stephenie Meyer, unfortunately, but lots of people whose books she'd really, really liked as a kid. She said that at first it was so weird, she felt so shy and intimidated, but now she's used to it. Sometimes she gets mean authors who make her life difficult and are really demanding – I could tell you some amazing stories about it like you wouldn't believe! – but mostly she says her authors are really nice and normal sort of people that she can get on with easily.

Ever since we got on that plane, we hadn't talked about what had happened the previous week. It was like there was this unspoken agreement between us that we really were making an effort to turn our backs on it all. And, strangely enough, it worked. Not talking about it, I mean. Being in that weird flying bus in the heavens, crossing time zones and borders had somehow made those events already seem as far away and unreal and controllable as the landscapes below. Like another world. I didn't think once about Helen. I didn't think once about Thomas Radic. My head was full of peaceful cloud, just like the sky outside. And that felt good.

It was early morning when we touched down at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. It was grey and looked a bit cold outside, though it was April and that's supposed to be in the middle of the European spring. But it didn't matter because we weren't staying in Paris, we were going straight to the south, where supposedly the weather was better. We had two hours to kill in the airport before we could catch our connection to Toulouse, so we mooched around looking at things and having cups of coffee and stickybeaking at what other people were doing. The funny thing was that though I'd hardly slept a wink all the way, I didn't feel tired. I felt as light as a feather, my head still full of clouds. I couldn't get over how weird it was hearing all this French around me – only some of which I could understand. I mean, I can manage basic stuff and Dad says I have quite a good accent, but if people start to go fast, then I'm lost. But I love listening to French. It sounds so nice. I was happy enough eavesdropping on people's conversations.

That's how we first spotted them. You couldn't miss them, actually. Sleek and smartly dressed, they were clustered in a big group around a bar, chattering and laughing. I was about to say to Claire that it looked like they were having a party when she suddenly clutched my arm and said, ‘Oh my God – look – that's Marc Fleury.'

‘Who?'

‘That young guy with them, the one in the dark-blue leather jacket with the chestnut-coloured hair – that's Marc Fleury, the author. We've just taken on his books in translation,' she added, when I still looked mystified. ‘He's like one of the most popular children's authors in France at the moment. He's written this amazing series of mystery novels for kids, set in Roman times. It's called
The Eagle's Children.
The books have been published all over Europe and in America too. The first book of the series comes out with us in Australia in a few months. I read it just recently. It's just so good. Really exciting. His publicity photo is sitting in my in-tray back in Australia. That's how I recognised him.'

I looked over at the handsome young Frenchman in the middle of the chattering group. He wasn't chattering though. In fact, he looked a bit sulky, even sullen. ‘You should go over and introduce yourself,' I said, mischievously.

‘Don't be stupid, Syl,' she said. ‘I was just, just amazed to see him there, after having just read his book.'

‘I wonder what he's doing here,' I mused. ‘And who are all those people? I didn't know authors travelled with an entourage, like film stars.'

‘They don't, usually. But maybe things are different in France.'

‘He looks like a film star, anyway,' I said. ‘I bet you he's one of those difficult types of writers. Brooding. Demanding. Just you wait till you have to organise a tour for him. He'll make you run around like a blue-arsed fly.'

‘Don't be silly. You don't know him. Anyway, I doubt he's going to come all the way to Australia,' said Claire a little wistfully.

I knew that tone. Claire can be a sucker for a handsome face. I'm always telling her to watch it, that handsome men are usually too much in love with themselves to trouble about anyone else. Though they always like to have a pretty girl to take out, and Claire's certainly that, with her tall, slim figure, masses of honey-blonde hair and big brown eyes. Put a white veil and blue robes on her and she'd look just like the Virgin Mary in an old painting or something. We don't look much alike. I'm small and dark and grey-eyed, like my mother. People who don't know us don't usually pick that we're sisters.

‘Maybe he will,' I began, ‘if you go over there and ask him nicely. Go down on bended knee, kiss his hand, shower him with compliments. That should do it.'

‘Honestly, Syl, you're so childish sometimes,' said Claire crossly. ‘What do you think I am, some sort of stupid groupie? And don't you dare answer,' she said even more crossly, catching my wry expression. ‘Anyway, it's not like I'm ever going to see him again.'

Famous last words.