Chapter 10 - Gone Girl
Vic woke in hospital on Tuesday morning. His leg was hurting a lot but he had slept well in drug infused trance. Now he was ravenously hungry. He remembered Emily-Susan’s promise to bring him a double burger in the hospital when he woke up.
He found her double name thing a kind of strange though he got her “Emily” desire to be separated from the “Susan” identity with all the muck that was going around. He had begun to call her Emily over the last few days at her request. But he had not really got this new name into his mind. The Susan part was burnt so bright and he loved the picture in his mind that went with it, she was the girl he had met and fallen in love with. So it was hard to change.
But hell, it was the same adorable person, if it helped her get her life back together that was fine, though it seemed a bit silly to think she could just vanish using her middle name, the media was unlikely to be conned long by that when they were looking for a story. But if it made Susan feel better then she would become Emily to him.
He remembered how he had told her he loved her and proposed to her in a half asleep state last night. And she had more or less said “I do”, he only had to say it a second time when he was not spaced out for her to say a proper “Yes”. It made him feel so pumped up and happy to think of spending the rest of his life with her.
Now he really wanted to see her. He picked up the new mobile phone he had bought last week, since his other one went in the river with the chopper. He dialled her temporary mobile phone number. It was a phone that one of her friends had given her; Ruth’s spare one.
It rang without pickup, perhaps she was in the shower and making herself beautiful to come in and visit him. As if she needed that, she was ravishing the way she was, particularly when she woke in the morning with her eyes mussy from sleep, impossible to improve on perfection. But then she did scrub up really well too. He even found her big round belly sexy, hard to believe a belly full of another man’s child could be a turn on. He pulled back from his lustful thoughts; he did not want to give the nurse tidying around in the room the wrong idea.
The nurse said, “Good morning Mr Campbell, can I get you anything?”
Vic replied, “Well my girlfriend promised me she would be in early with a double burger, but failing her arriving right now something else for breakfast would be just great. I am so hungry I could eat a whole bullock in one sitting.”
She replied, “Breakfast should be here in about half an hour. In the meantime I can get you a cup of tea and a couple biscuits if you like.”
Vic nodded, “And, while you are at it, is there a paper around? Yesterday or the weekend’s one would be fine as I have not done much reading of late.”
Five minutes later she was back with a tray carrying a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits, just plain Arnotts family type, but great to dunk. A minute later she was back with a pile of newspapers, Saturday, Sunday, yesterday and today’s ones.
He started with today’s paper; only political rubbish on Page 1. He turned to Page 3. Susan’s photo jumped out at him. He read the reporter’s name, James Wilkinson, then the headline
“Two Faces of Susan Emily McDonald continued.
Following yesterday’s sensational story about the dual identity of this convicted murderess, who has strangely been released on bail with all further details suppressed by the judge, we can report that yesterday she accompanied her new boyfriend to hospital for a supposed operation to repair his broken leg. Meanwhile the person in question went off in a taxi alone to an unknown destination. It is a strange state of affairs for a convicted felon who has served none of her sentence to be free to come and go on her own.”
More sick rubbish followed; nasty speculation into Susan’s private life and former lovers.
Vic could feel the anger welling up inside him. He wanted to get hold of James Wilkinson and rearrange his pretty face. How dare he treat Susan like that? He hoped she had not seen this, it was vile. He decided he should read yesterday’s story, it was better to know what was being said even if it was a pack of lies.
He soon found the story in yesterday’s paper. He read, his hands shaking, his mind reeling. He did not care what the reporter said about him, or Mark, or even Susan’s former pretty-boy boyfriends, David and Edward. But to treat her like a slut or a common criminal and say these things about her, when she was the most honourable person he knew, it made his blood boil.
He must talk to her and quickly, to tell her not to read it, to tell her to come and see him straight away so he could protect her and keep her away from all this stuff.
He dialled the number again and again the phone rang out.
He had this awful premonition. She should be out of the shower by now; she would see his missed call. Even if she did not pick up in the instant she would ring back in a minute.
He remembered back to yesterday. While he was waiting to go into surgery he had this terrible feeling that it was all about to go awfully wrong, but her reassurance had pushed it away.
Then last night it had been at the edge of his consciousness until he had got out the love word and she had returned it. Then, after that, he had felt so happy and it had been forgotten.
But now it hit him with both barrels, an awful sense of loss. Something bad had really happened to her. Calm down, calm down, he told himself. He rang again and again, still no answer.
He rang Alan’s number. Sandy picked up. He asked Sandy if she had read yesterday or today’s paper about Susan.
She said no, they had gone out to dinner with David and Anne last night, as David was on his way back to Sydney today and they had slept late this morning. Now Alan was in the shower and getting ready for work. Sandy asked him what it was about.
Vic told her and also told her how he had tried to ring Susan this morning and could not get onto her. Now he was really worried lest she had read the paper and done something stupid.
Sandy was all practical common sense. “I am sure she has just gone out for an early morning walk, walking along the beach or something like that. She must have left the phone behind. Why don’t you give her another half an hour and try to ring her again? Once Alan is dressed I will ask him to call there and check on her, just to be safe.”
Vic thanked her and hung up.
Now his breakfast had come but his appetite was gone. He forced himself to slowly eat all the food that was on the plates, so as to pass the time, before he tried to ring again.
Half an hour had passed since he last rang. He called again, twice, five minutes apart. Each time he left a message. “Emily, ring me please, as soon as you can.”
Just as he hung up the second time his own phone rung back. He looked at it with a flash of hope, hoping to see her number come up. Instead it was Alan’s number.
He picked up, “Vic here.”
Alan’s voice came down the line. “This is strange; I am here at the flat. There is no sign of Susan, but nothing is gone. However the paper is open at the page of yesterday’s story, so she must have read it. But her clothes are here, the bed looks like it has been slept in, nothing else I can see to get excited about. Perhaps she has gone out for breakfast or something like that. I will ask around downstairs and see if anyone has seen her.”
Vic said thanks and clicked off.
He thought. “This is crazy, me sitting here in hospital while she has gone missing. I must get out and go and look for her. He rang the nurses call bell.
In a minute the nurse came in. He told her he was checking out as soon as could be arranged, he just needed her help to get him a set of crutches so he could walk without putting weight on his leg.
She protested and called the doctor who answered. In a minute the doctor and senior nurse were both there and telling him to calm down, that he risked damaging his leg and undoing the benefit of the operation if he did not stay in bed for at least two more days.
Vic would have none of it. Finally he got them to bring him a set of c
rutches and he signed his discharge papers. Then he was in a taxi heading back to Alan’s flat.
When Vic arrived Alan and Sandy were both there, looking around, perplexed, as he hobbled in on his crutches.
“What are you doing here? We have barely begun to look for her, we don’t even know she is missing, you should still be in hospital.”
Vic could feel panic coursing through him. It was his sixth sense, not something tangible. He agreed there were lots of explanations but deep down he knew it was not that simple, it was something to do with the level of commitment they had towards each other. It told him she would not just go off somewhere without letting him know.
Alan was a master of practicality, he held up the phone which Susan had been using with the missed calls from Vic. It had been next to the bed. “OK, first we need to contact her parents and Anne, just in case she has gone visiting either of them early in the morning. Sandy can do that.
“Then we need to contact the other people she knows, Buck, the doctors in the hospital she regularly sees, just in case the babies have come early. I will do that.
“What I need you to do, Vic, is walk carefully around the flat and see if you can spot anything of hers which should be here and is missing, or anything that is out of place since you were last here. While you are at it have a close look at the bed, see if you can tell whether she has slept in it since you were last here together, same for the bathroom and kitchen, see if there are signs of her having being here since you were here yesterday morning together.
“At this stage we don’t really know if she even came home last night, except for the paper, assuming that was not from yesterday morning. The phone could have been left here since yesterday. Do you know if she brought it to the hospital?”
Vic was sure there had been no newspaper in the morning. She could have hardly opened it without seeing the story and if she had seen it he would have surely known. In fact at that point he would have cancelled the surgery until he knew how it affected her. As for the phone, he could not remember seeing it at the hospital, he had thought she brought it but was not sure. So he checked the call register. There were no outgoing or received calls since the day before yesterday, just Vic’s missed calls this morning. So that did not help.
He looked at the bed, felt the pillows and looked at the shapes of the body outlines left in the bedclothes. He could almost swear that Susan had slept here last night; the pillow he normally used had traces of lipstick and her smell, as if she had cuddled it to herself. It was not conclusive but, when he added that to the open newspaper, he felt almost sure that she had come back here last night after leaving him in the hospital.
Then he saw a bottle of Bundy and a glass next to the lounge. The bottle had not been there when he had left yesterday. He did not much like Bundy, and he and Susan had not drunk from it together. He saw fingermarks on the glass and it had a small amount of what smelt and looked like neat rum in the bottom. He called out to Alan, “When you are finished can you come and look at this.”
Alan was busy on the phone, as was Sandy. So he looked around some more, seeing the computer in the corner. He went over to it and pressed the keyboard. The screen came to life.
He saw that Internet Explorer was open with a series of web pages open in the browser. He started reading, it was an awful story about Susan by an internet troll, totally vile “Cut the babies out of the bitch and watch the crocodiles jump to feast on them.”
He felt mortified that someone could write this about his beautiful Susan. He looked at the web page log. The most recent page about her had been opened at 11.45 last night. Now he knew for sure she had been here at that time and reading this poison, completely destroying the fragile self esteem she had begun to rebuild.
He brought Alan and Sandy inside to show them. Now all knew this was really something to be frightened about. It seemed, after reading this, she must have run off into the night to God knows where. Her friends and the hospital had confirmed that nothing had been seen or heard of her.
Alan decided it was time for a full scale missing person’s search with the police raising the alarm through the media, seeking any sightings. He called his boss and was told that in five minutes a squad car would come and collect them and bring them to the police station. At the same time a second car would come and secure the site for subsequent investigation.
Susan’s family and close friends had also been contacted and asked to come to the police station to give statements about any contact they had with her in the last 24 hours. It was inconvenient as her parents and David were each scheduled to leave on midday flights for England and Sydney. However all other plans were off until Susan was found.
Vic’s leg was hurting and he felt woozy from yesterday’s operation. But he resisted all entreaties to depart, to go off and have a rest. He said he had returned to Susan once, against the odds, and was determined not to let her go again.
A news conference was called for just after lunch. Thus far a series of searches of the beaches and local parks had found nothing. At the news conference Vic, Anne and her parents all spoke of their concern about her absence, Vic told of discovering that she had read the awful articles in the paper and on the internet, that her mental state was very fragile and that he was very fearful for her safety. He asked that anyone who had seen anything, particularly between midnight and daylight this morning, to come forward with this information.
This went out on all the local TV and radio channels. Now all they could do was hope.
In the late afternoon the others returned to their hotel rooms after a fruitless day of searching. Alan and Vic stayed on at police HQ, Alan coordinating the search while Vic sat and watched on helplessly. He knew there was nothing further he could do, but he refused to give up until all the efforts of the day were finished.
About eight thirty that night a call came in. It was an early morning delivery driver. He told of returning to Darwin from Palmerston after delivering stores to the Coles Supermarket about 5 am, driving a flat-back truck. He said the Berrimah lights had changed red just as he was coming up to them. As he slowed down at the lights he thought he had seen a girl who matched Susan’s description flag down a white Toyota tray-back going in the opposite direction. While he was stopped at the lights he had seen this person climb into the passenger side of the vehicle which had then driven away, heading south on the Stuart Highway. As best he could say the time was about quarter past five in the morning.
At the time he had thought it was very early for a backpacker to be looking for a lift. He also thought the girl looked fat or perhaps pregnant though his side on view was not very clear once the Toyota had stopped, he could only see her head. He had rung in now because he had just seen Susan’s photo on the late news, the first he had heard about the search.
In five minutes Alan and Vic were in a squad car, going to meet the witness. He was a pleasant young bloke, trying hard to be helpful. He had no description of the car driver, and all he could say about the vehicle that stopped was that it was a white Toyota tray-back which looked like it had a few boxes on the back, nothing distinctive. But he was fairly sure that the girl he had seen was Susan, even though he had only glimpsed her in the half light from across the road. He was also fairly sure, at the time he first saw her, that she was carrying a small overnight bag in one hand, but nothing bigger like a backpack.
So that was it, the next day the search was widened across the NT, particularly focused on the top half. Nothing was found or reported that helped find her. Within a week lots of vague reports of people who looked like Susan were coming in from all parts of Australia. But none came to anything. So the police opinion became that she had run away to an unknown place. Based on the sighting of her going with the man in the Toyota, serious fears were held for her safety when she was not found.
It was all too general, too many white Toyotas were registered in the NT and nobody came forward to admit to having given this girl a lift.
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A week passed, then it was two and then it was a month. Still nothing had been found. The police had now raised a warrant for the arrest of Susan Emily McDonald for absconding on bail, should she be found. The judge who had released her on bail reluctantly confirmed the warrant and asked Alan to press on with his investigation of the other missing girls.
Now the papers had taken to calling Susan, “Gone Girl”, based on the book and the movie. Slowly “Gone Girl” slid away from peoples’ memories as other stories came and went. Only her closest friends continued the search, refusing to give up.
Vic was plagued by guilt and Anne was plagued by guilt, Vic for allowing the operation to happen despite his fears, Anne for leaving her friend unattended on this critical day. But nothing made any difference; nothing could bring “Gone Girl” back.