Medea's Curse

by Anne Buist

  Liam was looking at her. Natalie shook her head.

  ‘I really can’t see why he’d bother,’ she said. ‘He used to enjoy creeping me out, making sexual suggestions and getting off on my response.’ He’d stopped when on the third occasion she’d turned to him, smiled sweetly, and told him that if he tried it again she’d have his balls fried for breakfast.

  ‘Who did he murder?’

  ‘Technically it was manslaughter. One of the last people to use provocation as a defence,’ said Natalie. ‘He caught his girlfriend in bed with his best friend.’

  ‘What happened to the best friend?’ asked Liam.

  ‘Survived the bullet. Girlfriend didn’t.’

  Liam wrote his name down with a star next to it. ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘Three women with borderline personalities. They were all angry, but the most recent was six months ago. They’ll have redirected their anger to someone else. Only one had a history of violence to anyone other than herself, and that was road rage.’ She thought for a second. ‘I suppose I should include Celeste. A current inpatient at Yarra Bend, in for attempted murder of her pimp husband. I guess he’s still around. And she has a brother.’

  Liam looked at her thoughtfully. ‘She got a history of abuse?’

  ‘They all do, Liam.’

  ‘Okay. Who else should be on this list that you didn’t tell the good senior constable about?’

  Natalie looked at him. She’d thought about this most nights, alone in bed and not sleeping.

  ‘There’s really only two. First is Travis,’ said Natalie, ‘but I wouldn’t have thought he had the brains or the money. Plus, the timing is a bit early. I got the first letter the week before he saw me at the police station in Welbury. That said, he didn’t look surprised to see me there.’

  Liam shook his head. ‘No one would have told Travis.’

  ‘Think again. Amber’s mother knew I was involved two days after we met for dinner; the day after you booked the room. It’s a country town.’

  Liam shook his head. ‘Would anyone help Travis? Who’s the other?’

  ‘Paul Latimer. The husband of my patient. He sent the card with the bunny logo; Georgia’s lawyer would’ve spoken to you about it, right?’

  Liam nodded. ‘Jacqueline Barrett. She did.’ He wasn’t giving anything away.

  ‘So have you found anything?’

  ‘We’re looking.’

  She could play that game too. ‘I can’t and won’t tell you anything about Georgia other than what you can find out for yourself. She was already in my care when it started. But maybe he had more to do with the death of his children than the police thought, and thinks Georgia has told me.’ She added: ‘And he lives in Sydney.’

  Corinne was in her office at 8 a.m. The woman needed a life as much as Natalie did.

  Natalie hovered in the doorway. ‘I wanted to let you know I’m starting to write a report on Georgia.’

  Corinne looked up. ‘And?’

  Natalie took a deep breath. ‘I think Wadhwa is right.’

  ‘Good to know we’re paying him well for a reason.’ Her tone was dry but Natalie sensed something else.

  ‘He’s still an incompetent jerk.’

  ‘Seems the feeling is mutual.’

  ‘Maybe you’d like my resignation?’ Natalie suggested, only half-joking.

  ‘Christ, don’t you start. No, that wasn’t what I meant. Never mind. You do a good job. Just try not to push his buttons if you can avoid it.’

  ‘The registrar’s with Celeste,’ said Kirsty. ‘She’s been cutting again.’

  Natalie stuck her head into the examination room. Celeste’s slashes looked superficial and the registrar was finishing dabbing them with mercurochrome. It wasn’t the cuts that drew her attention. As Celeste turned around to get her T-shirt, Natalie caught sight of a tattoo. ‘Haven’t seen one like that before.’ Natalie smiled faintly. ‘What does it signify?’

  Celeste stared at the floor. She ignored the question when it was repeated.

  Natalie went closer to be certain. Yes, it was Liam’s porno-ring rabbits.

  Celeste mumbled something, several times, that sounded like ‘angel’. Delusional.

  Natalie went back to Celeste’s file and reviewed the admission notes. Okay, not delusional. Her husband’s name was Angelo. She was wondering about the implications, when Wadhwa made a grand entrance with a television crew and began to parade them around the unit. Natalie thought of Corinne’s comments and went home early.

  ‘I’m not exactly feeling on top of my patient load,’ Natalie confessed to Declan, not adding that she had more than enough other things to worry about.

  ‘Patient A and patient B?’

  ‘Yes, as well as Georgia and Jessie. It’s like I started to look for dissociation and now I see it everywhere.’

  She brought Declan up to date with her visit to Lee, finishing with the unnerving similarities between mother and daughter. ‘Who’s to say that a murderous impulse, directed to a husband in Lee’s case, couldn’t be directed towards a child in Georgia’s, maybe even through one of these other “personalities”?’

  ‘The unleashing of the primitive id. We all have murderous impulses, but most of us don’t act on them.’

  ‘Then there’s Saint Paul who likes cutting up rabbits on cards for fun. As well as being kept amused, whatever that means. Why did he go to see Georgia’s mother without telling her? A fascination with murderers?’

  ‘It’s hard to know without talking to him. Try to place yourself in his position. Maybe he really did love her. There could be some truth in what she says about him knowing, but it may be subconscious. If he then feels he was duped into colluding in the murder of his children, anger would be understandable.’

  ‘Why not just leave her alone? The court is taking care of her.’

  ‘They’ve just let her out on bail, so maybe not. Perhaps her release rekindled his anger and he doesn’t know what to do with it.’

  ‘That describes where I feel I’m at.’

  Declan raised an eyebrow. She took a deep breath and gave him a potted summary of her stalker, minus the possibility that it could be Travis.

  ‘I assure you,’ Natalie concluded, ‘that this is real. The police have the notes and videos.’ Well, one of them.

  ‘It sounds very real and quite frightening. Do they think you’re in danger?’

  ‘They’re not specific threats. I think the purpose is to scare me off, but I’m not sure what from. I’ve a feeling he likes to play with me, maybe see or imagine me being scared.’

  ‘Are you?’

  She let Declan read it in her face.

  ‘Have you thought of taking some time off? Moving home to your family?’

  Natalie shook her head. ‘I’d sit around worrying. My mother would make me feel worse. Besides, it could be related to my private life rather than work.’

  ‘Ah. The married man?’

  Natalie nodded. At least Lauren was unlikely to murder her. Too smart, and without the psych
opathology of the predatory stalker.

  ‘Hell hath no fury…’ Declan caught her expression. ‘Have you considered taking a break from that?’

  Yes, but she couldn’t do it; she needed Liam too much. Something else she wouldn’t admit.

  ‘You have suggested to me before,’ said Natalie, ‘that women who have affairs with married men have more curiosity about what it is to be the other woman than actually wanting to be with the man. Is that an accurate summary?’

  ‘You have the essence.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because their curiosity is about how to be a wife, their internal conflict about how such a relationship could work.’ Declan’s eyes never left her.

  ‘Surely that’s what they get from their parents?’

  ‘We don’t always have the parental role model we want. For whatever reason there is a need to reject or question it, look for an alternative.’

  Her mother versus Lauren; Craig, her stepfather; the real father that was at the tip of her memory…Or Liam. Shit. ‘So what’s the man’s role in this?’

  ‘They have a role,’ said Declan with a smile. ‘Beyond the obvious. Perhaps the fantasy of what a husband should be, but without the risk associated with commitment.’ He paused then added, ‘Perhaps part of a past they are stuck in.’

  Natalie took a breath. Repetition-compulsion. Declan knew too much about her, had too many dots joined. She wasn’t ready. Yet she needed to work out a different ending.

  ‘I saw Amber,’ she blurted out.

  Declan took a sharp breath.

  ‘She’d just got parole,’ said Natalie with more care, ‘and wanted to let me know. Before you say anything, I’ve said I can’t keep seeing her.’

  Declan nodded, face very still. ‘You are treading on dangerous ground, Natalie.’

  ‘She’s out, she’s fine. It’s good to know that she can get on with her life.’

  ‘And close the chapter?’

  ‘Yes. Thanks.’ She stood up abruptly and kissed Declan lightly on the cheek before leaving. She didn’t normally do that and wondered what he would make of it.

  She rode home feeling strangely settled within herself. Relieved, perhaps because she’d come clean to Declan. So relieved that the danger seemed to recede. She felt back in control, though objectively she knew this was far from the reality of her situation.

  She could just imagine what the tae kwon do teacher would have said, if she had still been doing classes. He’d told her on the fifth week she was unsuitable and to come back to formal lessons when she was ready to learn. She’d dismissed his advice, hadn’t been all that interested anyway, or so she rationalised. She liked being on the edge, liked living dangerously. To be good at any martial art you had to overcome that impulse. You had to run first, negotiate second and fight only as a last option.

  In the end she settled for a balanced fitness regime that used a punching bag for boxing. And leg-sweep manoeuvres she hadn’t ever intended to use, although they’d worked effectively enough on the court steps.

  She’d never been in a physical fight. The bikie thing—she had been on the periphery of the whole scene. Something that had made life exciting, if only briefly, still stirred inside her. A need to prove herself, even if it put her in danger. A death wish, Declan had called it. The survivor’s guilt that was aroused every time she visited Eoin’s grave. And perhaps when she got too close to anyone.

  Her confidence faltered as soon as she reached the top of the stairs. Something was wrong. She stood perfectly still, the thumping of her heart and Bob fussing on his stand the only noise. What was it? She looked around. There was the usual state of chaos; it would take an intruder with OCD to create any oddity here. Had she left that glass on the counter? Stepping forward, she saw it contained the dregs of the morning’s juice and dropped it quietly in the sink. Something else?

  From where she stood now it jumped out at her. The television was on, sound muted. The picture flickering between scenes sent shadows across the room, all the more eerie in the silence.

  Hand shaking, she found the remote on top of a pile of papers and clicked it off. She looked more closely at the papers; she didn’t recognise them. She picked up them up and peered at the top sheet. Spun around as the papers fell around her in disarray, feelings of terror surging through her, certain he was still there, looking over her shoulder.

  Nothing. She dropped to her haunches, on full alert, sensitive to every sound that Bob made. Another sound in the distance made her turn but it was outside, too far off. It was minutes before she could bring herself to pick the papers up.

  They were case notes. Her case notes, from the one time she’d been admitted while manic. Seven years ago.

  ‘Could he be a health professional?’ Senior Constable Hudson had asked.

  Jesus. It looked like it had to be, and suddenly the net seemed a whole lot wider. A nurse she’d pissed off? The intern who had been her friend until her manic behaviour had driven a wedge between them? Or…? Lauren. Lauren was based at the hospital where Natalie had been admitted years earlier. Her case notes would be archived there. She longed for Liam, but was not going to show this to anyone, least of all him. Instead she found where he had got in—this time he had smashed a back window in the garage—boarded it up as best she could, and rang Tom. Then she waited. Unable to rid herself of the feeling she was being watched, her response scrutinised.

  A piece of plastic in the garage below flapped in the breeze from the broken window. She sat perfectly still as she listened.

  Chapter 26

  Beverley had booked Tiphanie to see her Wednesday morning in a slot that didn’t exist. Then she’d gone off sick. Natalie wondered what revenge she could exact. Maybe banning false nails on hygiene grounds? It took twenty minutes of rearranging appointments to make her day manageable.

  Tiphanie arrived with her father Jim and headed straight to the consulting room.

  ‘How’s she going?’ Natalie asked him.

  ‘When the going gets tough…’ He shrugged.

  Tiphanie was already seated, not looking at all tough. ‘It’s nice being out.’ The bags under her eyes had almost disappeared.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you.’ Natalie was curious; her contact with Tiphanie had been for assessment, not therapy.

  ‘It’s okay isn’t it?’ Tiphanie looked younger than her twenty years. ‘I just…I can’t talk about it with Mum and Dad.’

  ‘Family members often grieve in different ways. Helping each other can be hard.’

  ‘I think about her all the time.’ Tiphanie pulled her phone from her bag and thrust it at Natalie. There was a photo of Chloe filling the screen. ‘Just swipe.’

  Natalie scrolled, watching Chloe’s life from the newborn photos to those of a month earlier. Her brief life had been well documented. Tiphanie provided a running commentary.

  ‘I called her my little Eskimo,’ she said, as she pointed to Chloe dressed like a giant snowball. ‘She hated being cold.’

  Despite the past tense, and the tears in her eyes, Tiphanie was still talking about Chloe as if she was part of her life. She had yet to come to terms with the reality that h
er child wasn’t coming home.

  ‘Do the police…keep in touch?’ Natalie finally asked as the session came to an end.

  ‘Yes. Andie mostly. The cops…’ Tiphanie bit her lip. ‘They’re looking for blood.’

  ‘They may not find anything,’ said Natalie.

  ‘If he…they will get him won’t they?’ Tiphanie looked at Natalie, desperate for reassurance. ‘I mean she was only… yesterday was her birthday.’

  Natalie hugged her. Reassured her, without knowing if it was the case, that the police would find evidence to charge Travis, and that she would do anything she could to help.

  Natalie fought back the way she always did: music and exercise. The Styx played Friday and Saturday night in Bendigo and she did two workouts in a local gym to blow off the last of the steam. She felt relaxed enough afterwards to buy a pair of earrings that looked like handcuffs, and flirt with one of the barmen. On Sunday she managed a ten kilometre run. Tom arrived for takeaway on Sunday evening. Bob’s serenade capped a return to some approximation of normality.

  She felt in control, and refused to allow herself to obsess about who was watching her. She could feel the anger working its way into her system. Worm. A little demeaning name for a pathetic little person who was hiding and thought he could get to her. She pictured him as small in every way. A worm that she could feed to Bob. Most of the time it worked.

  She kept an eye out for the worm, but told herself it was only for the opportunity to vent her anger on him. She had a security firm install a camera underneath her Bridge of Sighs, bars over the garage windows and, in the living area, an alarm that alerted the local police. She asked Vince and Benny to use their own security cameras if the man who had asked after her turned up.