Sunlit Shadow Dance (20 page)

“
So I am cutting you slack for a
month to go and run this to ground. But if it does not happen you
better find some other big stories while you are out there, or
perhaps a job at half pay or a new job will be in the
offing.”

Jacob could feel his ears burning as he
walked outside. With all the trouble that Rupert M and the other
big boys had had over the last couple years it was getting harder
and harder to use underground sources to crack the big ones in
England and he was over piss poor jobs, with a thousand hopefuls
looking over his shoulder and waiting for him to trip and
fall.

That was why he had decided for cash this
time; if it blew up he wanted no money trail back to him and an
inquiry. With a month in Australia, if he could live sensibly, this
big wad of expenses would leave enough to pay Beck well and still
leave him free to chase down other stories. His boss was right; he
needed to find other things to pursue even if this panned out. No
one could live forever on one story. He needed to dig into the
other girls that were part of this, perhaps some new trails and
sensations there.

The coverage on TV
of this story had
been very soft and lovey-dovey, the making of a new bunch of
martyrs. That was fine and all but the public most hungered for
raunchy and out there stories. A requisite mix of sex, violence,
horror and tragedy were his staple fare, goodies soon got
boring.

As he walked home he thought how he had
risen from his own humble beginnings, a black kid, with a Jamaican
mum and some mixed up north African bits on the other side, it was
a bit muddled whether Egyptian, Moroccan or Ethiopian was dominant
but he got a bit of it all.

So his rise from a promising school
student to a cadetship with a tabloid daily then to a journalist in
his own right had been a big deal in his family. When he risen to
the top of the pool the year before last that had been a really big
deal, and he had spent his large income freely to impress family
and friends. Now it was hard to think of a drop back to being
another middle level journalist, who made a living –
just.

The funny thing was when he had dug quite
bit into the bloke Vic’s background, the black kid from a town camp
made good as a helicopter pilot and then running his own show, had
felt a sort of brotherhood with him. So when he seemed desperate to
shack up with the Susan witch-bitch after his miraculous survival
Jacob felt he was protective of him. Perhaps that had a small bit
to do with the hard-ball way he had decided to play this girl’s
story, leaving no room in his mind for sympathy for her.

He could let such things get in the way;
he had to look after himself to stay as the number 1 super trash
digger in the tough journo game.

Beck had talked to Ross
Sangster on the phone several times since their meeting in
Brisbane. Most recently she had talked to him twice since
his meeting with
Susan, first on the following day when he told her how the meeting
went and mostly about Susan’s distress when he asked about her
memories of crocodiles. He promised Beck his report and video next
week once he had agreement from the other side about the video’s
contents.

He then rang her
earlier today to
say he had posted the video express mail and she should have it
within two days. Once she viewed it he asked her to call him so
they could talk about what to do from here.

Their telephone conversations
had become remarkably
friendly and frank, she found herself very
comfortable talking to this odd man. His cryptic sense of humor
gelled with hers; they had subtle mind contests with words and
phrases that were both friendly and challenging. She was unsure if
she thought he was attractive, but she liked him, liked his
company.

He seemed to enjoy talking to her as much
as she enjoyed talking to him. Sometimes he gave too much away
about this case and the meeting, as if he inherently trusted her
not to abuse privileged information. This made her squirm inside
when she thought of what she had already done.

He let slip that
th
is girl
had two children, a boy and girl, who stayed with a man outside
while she was in the meeting with him. It was obvious, from the way
Ross talked about the man, that she and he were in a relationship,
not just friends. It came out when he told Beck about her reaction
to the crocodile words. He followed that story by saying that, once
she calmed down, he brought her back outside to the man who was
minding their children and he put his arms around her and comforted
her. He also told Beck that, when he asked this girl what she most
wanted to do in her life from here, she said she wanted to get
married. So it was odds on that the person she wanted to marry was
to the same person minding her children.

Ross had also used the name Jane once
instead of Susan. Beck suspected this was the name she used now.
Added to this he said they had driven down to Brisbane from where
she lived the afternoon before he met them so this indicated that
she was staying within a few hours of Brisbane. Ross also spoke of
her taking the children for regular walks along the beach which
suggested she lived in a seaside place.

Each bit alone was not much.
But when she put the
se bits together it was a lot more than she was supposed to
know. It told a story about who this girl was now and gave a much
narrower circle around where she lived. She knew it was information
worth a lot of money.

As she walked out of the
building to go home she was torn. She did not want to betray this
girl yet again. But her Mum was getting steadily worse, becoming
more and more housebound as she lost the strength in her arms to
push the wheelchair.
Beck really wanted to get her the new chair with
the motor, and it would only take one phone call. She promised if
she did that, afterwards she would call it quits. She could feel
the balance in her mind tipping towards this, but she had to put
some protection in as well. She had to make sure if she gave him
one more story this man would do two things.

The first was that Jacob would never come
back again and ask for more, the relationship was at an end. The
second condition she would require was he not run any story that
could lead back to her. So he could not do a piece in the paper
that led back to what she told him. He had to use the information
to find out the rest of the story himself; the true story of who
she was and where she was. He could only go public if he got that
story. He must not leak this information in a way where it could be
linked back to her. It was not just for her own sake, she could not
bear for Ross to ever find out she had used privileged information
he had let slip to harm his client.

In the end she decided she
would do nothing until the weekend, three days away. But
if
, after
viewing the tape, it did not change her mind, she would ring Jacob
in London on Sunday. She would do it when her mother was taken to
church by a neighbor. She would not tell the story at first. Rather
she would get a clear agreement to her conditions before she
revealed any more.

She was locked in her own world, thinking
this out as she walked to where her car was parked. Someone was
standing in her way, blocking the pavement in front of her. She
stepped to the side to go round them. They stepped that way too.
She stepped back the other way, they followed.

She felt annoyed and
was about to dish
out a caustic, “If You Don’t Mind, Get The Fuck Out Of My Way,
PLEASE!!!” She looked up, vaguely aware of the dark skin,
thinking,
Drunk Aborigine
.

It was Jacob. He did not look
like an aborigine, but his skin was half way to that color. She was
lost for words
; he was the one person she did not want or expect to see.
She thought she had made up her mind just before to talk to him.
But now he was here in person, she realized her mind was still in a
state of flux, she needed a couple days to think this through and
compose herself before she was ready to talk to him.

He gave her a half grin,
saying, “I know you have been doing your best to avoid me, so I
decided I had to see you in person.
Now I have got to see you, you had better
come with me for a drink and a talk. We have important stuff we
need to discuss, lots of important stuff.”

She could not mobilize the will
to fight him so she meekly followed him
as he led her along the street to the
bar on the corner, then followed as he went into a corner booth
where she sat facing him.

He could feel his sexual magnetism
grabbing at her. She knew he was going to proposition her both for
more information and a night in bed. She felt powerless to say no
to either.

He went and bought them both a drink,
remembering her usual gin and tonic from last time. He clinked his
glass to hers and took a mouthful as he looked at her thoughtfully.
“Here is to renewing our friendship,” he said.

She lifted her glass in return
and took a sip; it did taste good. She took a proper swallow, then
thought, “
what the hell, my body wants another night with him, and I
want the money, what is the harm!”

Three drinks and an hour later
she felt fully mellow
. With each swallow he looker sexier and sexier.
In a slightly dreamy state she let him take her hand and lead her
out and along the street to his hotel then into the lift and up to
his room.

As he undressed her she felt
incredibly horny, pushing the little voice of caution out of her
mind. Then he was on top of her on the bed, riding her up and down.
While her body was loving it, her mind suddenly snapped
back.
Why am
I doing this? Why am I letting him fuck me?

She shook her head and pushed
him away.
“This is all wrong. I just want this to be over. I will
tell you what you want to know, what I know right now, but only on
the condition it ends today, no more sex, no more pestering, no
threats of telling anyone anything about me.

“
You can take what I give you
and see if you can find the girl and get your story. In return you
can give me the ten thousand dollars I need for a new wheelchair
for my mother. At least that will be something good from the bad
thing I have done.

“
I don’t know much about this
girl but she is better than either of us. She deserves a new life
after the bad that has happened to her. Remember that if you
do find her. You
are the arsehole in this, not her. Before you smear her name across
the tabloids, think,
What harm has she ever done to you that entitles
you to treat her like this?
”

She turned her face and then her body
away. She found herself crying quietly. How had she let herself
come to this place? She wished it was over now, except for her
mother’s need of her and her income, she would throw her job, catch
a plane and vanish, try to do the same as this girl was doing, find
a new life without a past. She felt anger driving her. She would
keep her bad bargain, if he agreed to her terms. But she would end
it today.

She grabbed at the sheet and
pulled it up over her body, then turned to him with the anger
glistening through the tears.
“Well, what is it to be. Do you want what I have
to tell you, at my price, or shall I just get dressed and leave
now?”

She watched the emotions swirl
across the dark face. He looked shocked and hurt too
at her stinging
rebuke. But despite her mental slap there was still hunger in his
eyes, not hunger for her and her body, that had never had any
meaning beyond the sex act, but hunger for her knowledge and for
the power and status it would bring him if he could find the girl
Susan and write another chapter of her story. It was the hunger of
a poor boy, risen to the top, who could feel it all slipping away
and could not bear the thought of becoming a nobody again. Despite
her anger a part of her felt sorrow and sympathy for his
degradation, alongside hers.

He went to his briefcase and pulled out an
envelope, it was thick. There are 100 fifty pound notes, in there.
“They are yours, right now, no strings. And there is another
envelope the same for when you tell me what you know. Then I will
leave you alone. I will call it quits, whether I find the girl or
not, I will let you alone after today.”

She dressed and then sat in a chair facing
him, wanting this to be over fast. “What I know is this. She has
been found but we do not know where she is. She has two children.
The name she uses now is Jane. I do not know where she lives now,
except I think it is somewhere in a coastal town, not too far from
Brisbane, perhaps somewhere like the Gold Coast, where she can hide
amongst other people. She lives with a man whose name I don’t know
and wants to get married to him as soon as it can be arranged. He
treats the children as if he is their father and she loves him.
That is what I know, perhaps it is enough to find her, if you are
as good as you say.

“
The only thing I ask is that,
if you find her you treat her better than you have before. You
could still write a good story which would sell and remake your
name without harming her, this time you could try to be a little
kinder. She deserves decency and a new life.”