‘But in that argument you failed to disclose at that time, an altercation took place involving a spade. You hit Mr MacFarlane with that spade, is that correct?’
‘Yes. I did hit Ty, but I didn’t kill him. I immediately felt bad about what I’d done and nursed him back to health. He felt guilty too for what he’d said to me. We made up. Got closer again.’
‘Why did you not think to tell the detectives about this argument?’
‘It seemed so long ago, after everything that had happened since. It wasn’t the version of Ty I wanted to keep in my mind.’
Jodie nods. ‘Ms Stone, would you tell the jury about that final night you spent with Mr MacFarlane?’
Again, Jodie lets me tell my story in the way I want to tell it, slowly and carefully. I tell the jury how you fixed the car in that blisteringly hot afternoon, and how we lay in each other’s arms after swimming in the cool water in the heart of the Separates. I tell them we talked about forgiveness and love and sacrifice. I say that you finally understood what it was like for me.
‘And why did you decide that you couldn’t stay together, Ms Stone?’
I shrug. It seems obvious. ‘Our love was impossible; we’d never be allowed to stay together. Even if the law allowed it, everyone would always question our sanity, our relationship. We’d be ostracised from society, from everything. Besides, we’re not good for each other.’
The questions continue: all morning from Jodie, all afternoon from Mr Lowe. I don’t tell the jury everything,but then, who does that? I don’t raise the other doubts starting to creep into my head, either. There is a niggling question, isn’t there, a great big fly in this ointment? The fact that you’ve never come forward, that you’ve never been found: will the jury take this to mean you didn’t love me as much as Jodie is trying to prove? Or even that the prosecution is right and you couldn’t return, and I really did kill you? Is our story really a whole lot more sinister? Is there another, darker version about what happened with a gun and a waterhole that day?
If you had come forward—turned up to this trial as I imagined three days ago—you could have stopped it from proceeding. The fact that there is no body—nolivebody—goes against my story, too.
But you’re smart, though, aren’t you, Ty? And you were feeling guilty again. Because, even with proof that you were alive, the police could still have got me for kidnap, perhaps even attempted murder, a whole host of other charges, no doubt. Your sister would have made sure of that. Unless you came forward and told the truth. My truth. Like I’m doing now. If you told this story, it would’ve helped me out, you know. But you won’t come forward. It suits us both for the world to think that you really are gone, so that no one comes looking, and no one ever finds you. Disappeared.
I’ve come to see that I’m good at imagining, good at telling stories. I like knowing all the possibilities of a tale before deciding on the version of the truth I’m going to tell.