by Anne Buist
‘You knew Virginia?’
‘Met her once. Her mother dragged her to our house when I was a kid. Must have been when my old man’s annulment came through. I was only young and the language was pretty colourful, I can tell you.’
‘You and Cliff?’ Natalie prompted Lee to return to her own story.
Lee was on a roll. It sounded like she had been waiting a long time to tell this story.
‘Cliff was a cunt. A bully. Weighed probably a hundred kilos and I was about the same size then as I am now. He used to tell his mates that he’d put me on top and give me a spin. Offered me to them as well more than once.’ Lee took another drag and briefly seemed lost in thought. ‘He was violent, but you probably know that. Didn’t help me in court though. Male jury, mostly. He broke my nose once.’
There was still a slight bump.
‘But fuck me dead, he loved Georgia like there was no other creature on the planet as pretty or as smart. I swear, from the time she was three months old she knew his voice and was always looking out for him. Her whole face lit up whenever he was around.’
‘How did you feel about this relationship with Cliff?’ Natalie wondered if Lee saw it as another rejection. Maybe as Georgia had when Paul had loved his ‘girls’ so openly.
‘I liked being a mother. At first, anyway. It made me feel, I dunno, like I could do something, you know what I mean?’
Natalie nodded. She had heard the same thing often from new mothers, particularly younger ones whose motivation for having a baby was to have someone who would love them exclusively. Except that children need other people in their lives, and that need could be easily misconstrued by these vulnerable young women.
‘She wasn’t a difficult baby but I wasn’t doing it easy. We were living way out of town in the middle of nowhere and we only had Cliff’s car. He used to go to work and leave me behind. It was a way of keeping me dependent. I had no one. He sometimes came back with mates and they’d get wasted. Mostly beer and dope, but whatever they could get their hands on.’
‘Did you use?’ asked Natalie, thinking it would be hard not to if drugs were the only escape on offer.
‘No.’ There was a proud edge to Lee’s tone. ‘A bit of weed but pretty much nothing. I wanted to stay clean to keep Georgia safe.’ She paused. ‘It’s one thing Georgia probably should know, but I guess it doesn’t matter now.’
‘That you stayed clean for her?’
‘No,’ said Lee. ‘That I killed him for her.’
Natalie tried not to react, but it didn’t matter. Lee wasn’t looking at her.
‘Cliff had been drinking all day. He was a big man and could drink more than most and still look okay.’ She looked at Natalie. ‘Georgia needed to go to bed; it was hot and she was cranky. Cliff wanted her to stay up and we fought. It must have been ten o’clock before he said he’d put her to bed.’ Lee took a longer pause, lips pursed. ‘They were there a long time. I went to find out why and Georgia was lying in her cot, naked. It had been a hot night and she used to pull her clothes off. Cliff thought it was funny having her parade around nude.’
Lee lit another cigarette and they both watched the glow of the tobacco and the smoke that whirled around her face as she spoke.
‘He wasn’t touching her. She wouldn’t have understood. But I did. I’d been played with…abused…by…it doesn’t matter. I knew where it would go, what it would do to her later, and I knew then without a doubt.’
The cigarette smoke hung in the air. Natalie wondered how much Lee’s story was a rationalisation that she had murdered her partner for Georgia rather than for herself. It would have made her a hero in the women’s prison. For some reason it hadn’t moved the jury.
‘He had his dick out,’ Lee said, no emotion in her voice. ‘He was coming. Globs of cum shooting into the air and over Georgia’s blanket. I turned and went to the kitchen. I knew exactly what I was going to do and I knew it wasn’t wrong. I’d do it again in an instant.’
She had sharpened the carving knife.
‘I remember how it sounded on the steel. It was like I was getting my strength from it. I knew I had only one chance. Like I told you, he was a big man; a big, angry man. If he got the knife I’d be dead and there would be no one to save Georgia.
‘He was turning around as I came back into Georgia’s room. He’d been drinking and he had that mellowness you get after sex. He saw me and saw the knife but I don’t think it ever occurred to him I was going to use it.’
She had. Five times.
‘That’s why I got a long sentence,’ Lee said without emotion. ‘Made no difference that he was wanking himself over his baby daughter.’
‘Why not?’
Lee looked at Natalie. ‘Because I never told anyone.’
Like Amber. Shame? Because she felt she deserved to go to gaol or because she didn’t think she’d be believed?
‘It must be hard then to make sense of what’s happened with Georgia,’ said Natalie.
‘I’ve come to realise that women just have shit lives mostly. It’s a man’s world and women get the short end of every deal.’
Natalie nodded, not in agreement but in empathy.
‘She was always a man’s woman,’ said Lee. ‘So she was lucky there. Found herself a better husband than I did.’
Natalie raised an eyebrow.
‘There’s a few good uns,’ said Lee laughing. ‘Paul came to see me, you know.’
No, Natalie didn’t know.
‘Brought Olivia with him. He was curious about me, I think. I suppose he wanted to play happy families; they’d already lost the older girl by then. Georgia didn’t know; they were here for a holiday. He said he was gonna tell her when the time was right.’
‘Then Olivia died.’
‘Yes. Paul came to see me and cried. I never saw him again, never met the others.’
‘So how do you feel towards Georgia?’
‘Georgia is my daughter. My only child. A daughter I never wanted and who loved her father more than me. We all make mistakes. I was able to give her a life that she couldn’t have had with me. Cliff would never have left us alone. Never have left her alone. Single mothers were still a bit on the outer back then and I would have had no support. I did the right thing.’
The self-justification didn’t really answer the question.
‘What do you think happened to her children?’
‘SIDS runs in families,’ said Lee. ‘Maybe it was in Paul’s. I read Olivia had a history of asthma. Kids die of asthma. It’s on the increase, did you know? More than doubled in the last few years. Looked it up on the net.’
‘So you believe Georgia is innocent?’
Georgia’s cool blue eyes looked at her out of Lee’s wrinkled face. ‘I know she’s innocent. She’s my daughter. The police thought that made her a murderer. But I was the one standing watching that cunt abuse her. A mother protects her child at any cost.’
Natalie rang Jacqueline Barrett from the cab as it slowed into the peak hour crush.
‘Can you tell me about the knitting needles?’
‘Reporters got it wrong.’
‘So Georgia didn’t try to induce an abortion?’
‘I don’t know what she did or didn’t do, I only have the facts.’
‘So what facts did the reporters embellish?’
‘A scalpel.’
‘A scalpel?’
‘Yes, a scalpel. With her blood on it.’
Natalie stood in the garden drinking sparkling wine, watching the boats in the harbour. Her head was crowded with thoughts of murder and abuse. The forensic psychiatrists milling around her must have had similar experiences, but they were probably smart enough not to go to cocktail receptions when they did. She decided she couldn’t manage small talk and started walking towards Paddington. She found a funky restaurant that served Thai with an Australian twist, and ate alone, but with thoughts of Georgia, Paul and Lee, as well as the three lost children and the dead Cliff keeping her company. She didn’t notice the food.
Natalie went back to her room and flicked on the television. It was 10 p.m. and she wondered what Liam was doing. Did she want to see him again? Annoyingly, yes. Maybe it was stupid not to make the most of the opportunity. It wasn’t like he was this free all that often.
She was playing with her phone when the message came up. Fancy a fuck?
She typed Bar in 20. The walk took her thirty minutes and he was there waiting.
‘No drink already ordered?’ she asked in mock surprise.
‘Not sure what your post work-function drink is.’
‘Guess.’
She waited for him to joke about cocksucking cowboys but he didn’t. ‘Bourbon, neat?’
They lingered over a second drink. Liam looked more relaxed than she’d seen him before.
Back in the suite there were papers scattered over the table from Liam’s meeting. She couldn’t resist a cursory look, but nothing related to either Tiphanie’s case or the paedophile ring.
Liam started to undress her, stopping her doing it herself, kissing each part of her, tongue lingering over her scars. She struggled to stand still but he insisted, saying he wanted to take his time and enjoy her. He carried her effortlessly to the bed then worked her over with his tongue until she was desperate for him, but he still made her wait. Finally she couldn’t bear the exquisite touch on her clit any longer and she let herself come, with him still fully clothed and watching her.
‘Your turn now,’ she said, undressing him. As she sucked him he was touching her and she came again.
When he entered her, she had the clear thought that this was the best sex she had ever had. As an image of Eoin tumbled through her mind, she wondered if she would always be doomed to want men that she had to let go of. Her own repetition-compulsion.
Bob was predictably put out when Tom brought him home late on Sunday. She spent an hour chasing him around the garage and putting up with him asking how she felt.
When she finally had him clipped to his perch she looked at the time. Nine p.m.
‘Declan, I’m really sorry to disturb you.’
‘Not at all, my dear. Are you all right?’
‘I was wondering if I could run something past you.’
There was a pause. ‘I was just about to have a tipple at my local. Would you like to join me?’
The bar was close to Declan’s home office in Northcote. Before leaving her warehouse she paused to reflect on the feeling that she was being watched, but standing in the shadows scanning the rooftops and doorways revealed nothing apart from a stray cat.
The barman pulled a cap off a craft beer and directed her out the back.
‘So, tell all,’ Declan said.
‘Jesus, how long have you got?’ Natalie smiled. ‘The main thing I actually can’t tell you about, so we’ll do a hypothetical, okay?’
Declan nodded.
‘Let’s say I have a patient who knew about a crime. The person who committed it has done the same thing again, but isn’t currently a danger to anyone.’
Declan wasn’t about to give anything away, hard as she was looking for it.
‘My patient refuses to go to the police and refuses to let me tell them. I have another patient who may go to gaol, and this information could make all the difference.’
Declan nodded. ‘I see your dilemma. Though of course it isn’t a dilemma at all, or at least not yours.’
Natalie looked at him hopefully.
‘Imagine you were only seeing patient A, the one with the information and knew nothing about patient B. What would you do?’
‘Same as I am now. Try to convince her to go to the police.’ She bit her lip. ‘But not too hard because if this comes out it will be detrimental for her.’
‘So you have your answer.’
‘But—’
‘There is no “but”. Your duty to patient B is the same, with complete disregard to the information you have from patient A. Chinese walls.’
‘What if someone else worked it out and—’
‘You are in dangerous territory,’ said Declan with a firmness that was unusual for him. ‘If you are in any way involved, however peripherally, you have a legal and moral obligation to patient A. It is not your information. She trusted you. Break that trust and you break her, your relationship with her, and any good so far achieved.’ He added, patting her hand, ‘Natalie, you are not God. We can only be what we are.’
Natalie didn’t think she was God, but she was more than just a psychiatrist. Every other part of her was screaming at the injustice.
‘Okay,’ she said, knowing he was right, but wondering how to reconcile the part of her that wanted to see Travis brought to account.
‘Is there more you want to talk about?’ asked Declan.
Natalie shook her head. ‘No, thanks. It’ll wait until Tuesday.’
She rode home knowing he was worried about her.
On the door of her warehouse was another red envelope, with another USB. While she was able to reassure herself that the locks were keeping the stalker out, the content rocked her. And gave her cause to completely rethink just who her stalker might be.
Chapter 24
Jessie was in the waiting room: good. Sunglasses on: not so good. She followed Natalie into the office, sat in the upright chair and said nothing.
‘How was the funeral?’ Natalie asked. Might as well deal with the elephant in the room.
‘How do you reckon?’
‘Funerals are for the living. So it depends what you and the others there were looking for.’
‘They were there.’
‘They?’
‘The bitch—my stepmother, with my half-sister. And Jay. The bitch only came because she thinks she’ll get money.’
‘Is there any money?’
‘Not that I know of. She was so sweet it made me want to puke. At least I had someone with me.’
Jessie had said she didn’t do ‘alone’; like many people with borderline personality styles she mostly felt empty and the feeling of abandonment was accentuated when she was by herself.
‘She’s a brat. Nine going on eighteen.’
‘Jay?’
‘He’s doing good.’
‘Have you talked much with him since your father died?’
‘A bit. At the funeral Kyle was with me. We all talked. He filmed it, the funeral. Said he’d send me a copy.’
‘Kyle is a friend?’
‘From school,’ said Jessie. She went into a long and confusing explanation of how she’d run into Kyle again.
‘So Kyle is the ex-boyfriend of your high-school girlfriend?’
‘Yeah, and a mate of Jay’s when they were at school, not so much since. When I ran away I stayed with him a while. He used to kind of look after me. Before Hannah.’
‘You’re seeing him again?’
Jessie shrugged. ‘A bit. He brings me here sometimes.’
Ponytail man. ‘Does Hannah know?’
‘No, but it’s not like she’s here helping is it?’
‘Be careful,’ Natalie said, pretty sure that Jessie wouldn’t be. At least she wasn’t asking for the computer back.
The next patient cancelled. Natalie found her mind drifting. Drifting, she told herself, not racing. She hadn’t had much sleep the previous night. When she had fallen asleep, she had jerked awake after only minutes, heart racing, sure she was being watched. Not paranoid. This was real. The USB from the last envelope left on her door was still in her laptop on the bedroom floor. This wasn’t someone having a lark. It wasn’t a patient acting impulsively.
She needed to keep both well and alert, so she had reduced her dose of quetiapine to 200mg. A little less than usual, but it had been enough in the past.
She pulled her mind back to the present and opened the drawer in her desk. No computer. Shit. The break-in. Or did Beverley have it? She couldn’t recall.