Medea's Curse

by Anne Buist

  ‘No,’ Natalie said to Lucia. It wouldn’t be fair to Amber to drop in and then out of her life again. ‘Give her my best wishes but there are professional reasons I can’t see her.’

  ‘Of course. Professional reasons. You just look after yourself.’ There was a sound akin to a snort and Lucia hung up.

  When Natalie got home she found herself looking into the shadows, thinking she’d seen something. The only movement was at the end of the lane near the brothel. A man disappeared into the door below the red light. No. She would not be intimidated. She opened the door tentatively. No envelope.

  Bob flew around the warehouse and swooped down past her.

  ‘Bob, you’re an idiot!’ The bird seemed to sense her displeasure and sat up on a rafter and refused to come up to the kitchen with her.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ said Natalie. She was tired. She wanted to run a bath and get an early night.

  She wasn’t about to get to bed in a hurry. At the top of the stairs sitting on the kitchen bench was a red envelope.

  Chapter 14

  ‘Have you touched anything?’

  ‘I live here,’ said Natalie to the green constable the police station had sent, the same one who had taken her initial statement about the notes.

  They had deduced that the uninvited guest had entered via one of the high windows in the garage. They were old and would have been easy to push in. The window that the intruder had chosen was next to a telegraph pole and an indent in the brickwork; both would have helped him manoeuvre in and out. She’d been lucky Bob hadn’t escaped.

  ‘I meant, have you touched the envelope? We need to get the crime scene team in.’

  ‘Just the edge where I got the USB out.’ She had needed to know what it said.

  Constable-wet-behind-the-ears and his female colleague frowned but she didn’t care what they thought. Her mind was still preoccupied with the contents: You won’t win. They belong to me. There was also a scanned photograph. A gravestone, and one she recognised: Eoin’s. Under his name her stalker had overlaid another: hers.

  ‘So which rule do you think this refers to?’

  At the police station the next morning—after she had watched new locks being put on all the windows and door of her warehouse—Senior Constable Tony Hudson, a tall cadaverous-looking man with a South African accent, was taking things seriously, meticulously repeating the words of each note in turn. ‘Do you have a problem with your mental health?’ he asked after the third.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What’s this about mood stabilisers?’ was inevitable after the fourth.

  ‘Medication.’

  ‘What for?’

  Jaw set, she stared at him. ‘Not relevant. The medication works.’

  Senior Constable Hudson leaned forward. ‘Seems to me he knows a lot about you.’

  She knew that, felt it.

  ‘He knows your friend had an accident. Did Eoin have family that’d blame you?’

  That was a laugh. They had cut him off before he died. It had been her mother that had wanted to hold them responsible for her injuries.

  ‘He knows about your mental health problem.’ Senior Constable Hudson paused. ‘Any chance it could be a health professional?’

  The suggestion jolted her. ‘No.’ She’d answered without thinking and his expression suggested he was going to sit there until she did consider it. ‘My doctor is hardly going to stalk me.’ She looked quickly at him and sighed. ‘There would be others, from when I was admitted. But that was seven years ago.’

  ‘So how does he know?’

  ‘It has to be a patient.’

  ‘Any thoughts as to who?’

  ‘I have no idea. All my current patients are female. A lot of them are incarcerated.’

  ‘The notes say they belong to me. Any thoughts about who “they” might be?’

  ‘I don’t have any patients who are from the same family. Partner and child perhaps? I’ve helped women leave violent partners with their children, but as often as not they go back.’ Maybe it wasn’t about her patients at all, but as fast as the thought came to her she dismissed it.

  Senior Constable Hudson could angle one eyebrow well into his forehead so that it disappeared under a thick brown fringe.

  ‘Personal life? Ex-partners? Gay?’

  ‘No. Nor have I turned down any would-be lover of either gender recently. Last boyfriend was a cop.’ This wasn’t the work of the rejected lover, and it was too organised, too intentionally threatening, to be the incompetent-suitor or intimacy-seeker type of stalker. Shit, she knew more than the cops.

  Senior Constable Hudson frowned. Maybe he didn’t approve of cops dating shrinks. ‘I need you to go through anyone you are currently seeing at work or socially or who you’ve seen in…say the last year, who has a record of violence, stalking or threats. Include the incarcerated ones. They may have boyfriends. Anyone who has been angry, who you’ve given evidence against.’

  She did need to make this list but she wasn’t about to give it to him—not the full set of names anyway.

  ‘There is an issue with confidentiality. Particularly for my patients without convictions,’ said Natalie. ‘I can’t have you guys turning up on their doorsteps.’

  ‘My team will approach this sensitively.’

  Yeah, sure.

  ‘You need to take this seriously,’ the senior constable said. ‘Either move out or have someone move in with you.’

  Let the arsehole win? Never. She had replaced locks and secured windows. She was smarter than her stalker; she just needed to work out who he was.

  There turned out to be less than a dozen names, and she could even cross some of those off. Someone with chronic schizophrenia wouldn’t have the planning skills, and others didn’t have stable partnerships. Celeste had a brother, Joe. She thought of his toothless grin and his eyes following her but she couldn’t think of any reason why he would be stalking her.

  There was Travis. But as much as he niggled at the back of her mind, the timing wasn’t quite right and she didn’t think he could have worked out where she lived. A patient who was also a health professional might have access to health records…that took her to Georgia. She might qualify for the list if her court case was to go badly, but currently there was nothing in their interactions for her to be concerned about.

  None of the others were anything more than business as usual. From the past there was one who had schizophrenia and had been charged for stalking a childhood sweetheart, a couple of murderers, and three women with borderline personality disorders who hadn’t lasted in therapy. As the stalker had reminded her so compellingly, she couldn’t give any of these last names up to the police. But if he was worried about confidentiality, then he or his partner or relative had to have been a patient. That meant she’d find him eventually. Then she could decide what to do.

  Tiphanie was looking neither jubilant nor truculent.

  They watched her through the one-way screen where she was sitting in a featureless room, biting her nails and looking at her feet.

  ‘So what has she said to you so far?’ Natalie asked D
amian, who had loosened up considerably. Even greeted her with a smile.

  ‘Not much. We haven’t pushed her.’

  ‘But Travis knows she was popping pills?’

  Andie Grimbank grinned but there was an edge to her mirth. ‘He does now.’

  Damian and Andie had gone to see them at their home for an ‘informal chat’. The place looked immaculate, but Tiphanie had been nervous and edgy, perhaps because she wasn’t currently using anything. Travis was full of himself as usual.

  Andie had taken them back over the day before the disappearance. Then Damian asked how Tiphanie woke up for the baby, given the pills she was on.

  ‘We could have heard a pin drop,’ said Damian. ‘Tiphanie looked like she was going to pass out.’

  Travis had launched into an angry spiel at the cops but then, realising Tiphanie had gone quiet, stopped and stared at her. ‘Tell ’em Tiph. I know you don’t do drugs. You don’t even drink.’

  Tiphanie had eventually said, no, she didn’t do drugs. When Damian said, ‘What about prescription ones?’ there was another silence, not broken by Travis this time.

  Natalie tensed as she listened to Damian’s account. She knew from Amber what Travis was capable of. Knew from Kay’s version what more Travis might have been capable of, none of which she could share.

  Damian caught her glance. ‘We took Tiphanie to her mother’s after the interview.’

  Natalie took a breath. This cop was one of the smart guys.

  Tiphanie was now here alone, without Travis hanging off her and raging about their rights—which didn’t mean he wasn’t venting his anger elsewhere.

  Natalie thought about the notes.

  Breaking the rules.

  That could mean the dressing-down she gave him before Amber’s court case.

  Then in the latest note. They belong to me. Amber and Tiphanie? Tiphanie and Chloe?

  Tiphanie was still staying with her parents. Whatever rift had occurred with them previously had presumably been resolved.

  ‘I think we’ll be able to do this gently,’ said Natalie. Andie looked noncommittal. Damian’s expression suggested that he was happy to give her some extra rope and see what happened.

  ‘Hi Tiphanie,’ Natalie said, sitting opposite her as the other two took chairs to the side.

  Tiphanie looked up briefly. Her eyes were puffy, her skin sallow.

  ‘I understand you didn’t exactly tell me the truth last time we talked.’

  Tiphanie didn’t respond, apart from a sniffle.

  ‘Which is okay. There are a whole lot of reasons why people don’t want to talk about things.’ Natalie paused, then added, ‘We’re trying to work out what happened to Chloe. Maybe you can help us find her. Whatever the answer is, you want to know the truth don’t you?’

  No response.

  ‘So tell me why your doctor prescribed the antidepressant and the sedative.’ Natalie let the silence sit this time. Finally Tiphanie raised her head.

  ‘I wasn’t coping all that well.’ Natalie watched her, monitoring her affect and her level of eye contact.

  ‘Chloe wasn’t a problem. I loved her straight away. Soon as I saw her on the ultrasound.’ There was a depth of emotion in Tiphanie’s voice, at odds with the whisper in which she’d uttered the first statement.

  ‘Yes, I know. Having postnatal depression doesn’t mean you don’t love your child.’

  ‘I couldn’t get out of bed, didn’t want to do anything. I thought maybe I had glandular fever or something.’

  ‘Were you sleeping?’

  ‘Yes. Too much. But I was always exhausted.’

  ‘Did the antidepressants help?’

  ‘A bit. I guess. The Valium was better. For a while, anyway.’

  ‘Are you taking them now?’

  Tiphanie shook her head and tears welled in her eyes.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Natalie.

  Tiphanie whispered something.

  ‘Tiphanie?’

  ‘It’s all my fault.’

  ‘What do you mean, Tiphanie?’ Natalie held up her hand to stop Damian, who had sat forward in his chair, from intervening.

  ‘I took a Valium that morning. Two. One when I got up and another when I went back to bed.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Natalie. ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘I was stressed out.’

  ‘About…?’

  ‘Everything. I was so useless and I was afraid.’

  ‘Of?’

  Tiphanie looked down. ‘Nothing. I…I wouldn’t have heard her, you know.’ As if a thought had come to her suddenly she looked up, eyes wide in fear. ‘I mean I was out of it. I don’t really remember the morning. I could have even—’

  ‘Could have what?’

  It took a few moments for her to pull herself together. She looked so lost and vulnerable that Natalie wanted to hug her.

  ‘I don’t…well…maybe I left the door open,’ she mumbled.

  ‘So is that the whole truth?’ Andie asked after they finished the interview. ‘People should get licences before they have kids.’

  ‘I think she’s still hiding something,’ said Natalie. She had been certain that at the end of interview, Tiphanie had been going to say something else, and stopped herself.

  Andie drummed her fingers impatiently. ‘Can’t you hypnotise her or something?’

  Natalie stopped herself from rolling her eyes. ‘Not that simple. Psychiatrists aren’t mind readers, and even under hypnosis people can exert free will.’

  ‘Then what can you do?’

  Not as much as she’d like. Natalie’s gut instinct was strong but what was it that didn’t ring true? ‘Try and put the pieces together, making sense of who she is and therefore why she is saying some things…and not others. Tiphanie couldn’t maintain eye contact. I had…a sense of her knowing I knew she was hiding something.’

  ‘Still protecting our mate Travis?’ Damian leaned forward.

  ‘Probably,’ said Natalie. He did it. ‘She’s certainly feeling guilty, but is it for not saving Chloe from Travis, or for bombing herself out and not being there for her child? Or for not taking Chloe and moving to her parents’ months earlier?’ Amber had asked repeatedly, ‘Why didn’t I just take Bella-Kaye and walk?’

  ‘She didn’t say anything about Chloe having breakfast,’ Natalie added, half to herself.

  ‘Meaning?’ Damian asked.

  ‘If Travis is intimidating her to stick to the story, that’s where it will come unstuck,’ said Natalie. ‘The morning. When Chloe may not have been there.’

  ‘I’m thinking she’s still scared of Travis,’ said Andie.

  Was she? ‘Is she scared of her father too?’

  ‘More likely her mother. I know the Murchisons.’

  Of course she did. It was the advantage of small towns. Andie was older than Tiphanie—even if she’d grown up here they wouldn’t have gone to school together—but still Natalie and Damian lo
oked at her expectantly.

  ‘A Welbury special,’ said Andie. ‘Parents both got kids from previous relationships. There’s a much older half-brother who isn’t around, a half-sister and a brother. Tiphanie’s the baby.’

  ‘So what are the parents like?’

  ‘Dad runs the petrol station heading east out of town. Nice enough bloke, bit beige.’ Andie wrinkled her nose.

  Natalie warmed to her. ‘And her mother?’

  ‘A piece of work,’ said Andie.

  ‘Care to expand?’ Damian asked.

  Andie looked grim. ‘Let’s just say Kiara—her stepsister; no, half-sister…whatever—showed off some ugly bruises in the change room at school.’

  Liam was waiting in the foyer of the police station. Natalie sensed Damian tensing up.

  ‘Thinking of moving down here?’ he said to Liam. ‘I can introduce you to the real estate agent.’

  ‘I’m starting to like the drive. Your boss tells me there’s been a new development.’

  Damian looked at him then Natalie and turned around without replying.

  The late winter fog was descending as they walked back to the hotel and Natalie appreciated the protection of her leather jacket.

  ‘You seem more on edge than normal,’ Liam said. ‘This case getting to you?’

  It wasn’t just the case getting to her, nor was it the games he was playing with Damian. And the stalker wasn’t Liam’s problem.

  ‘I want to find Chloe; and whoever caused her disappearance. Don’t you?’

  They went out for pizza. The meal was purely fuel and afterwards Natalie would have been at a loss to say what topping was on it, apart from cheese, which she had played with, stretching the long melting strands between her mouth and the pizza slice, as Liam looked on. Wanting her and not the food. She made him wait though, lingering over her drink, enjoying teasing him, enjoying her own anticipation.