by Anne Buist
Liam dropped into her rooms to bring her up to date.
‘Spoke with your Senior Constable Hudson.’
‘And?’
‘Not Wheeler; he’s back in gaol, and has been since prior to our Sydney trip. Assaulted the new girlfriend.’
No surprise there.
‘The other psychs involved with your sleepwalker haven’t received any USBs or red envelopes,’ Liam continued, ‘and Angelo is an alcoholic and rarely leaves the boarding house.’
‘So we’re no closer.’
‘They’re still looking at Celeste’s brother Joe. Has a record for assault—pub brawl and a robbery. Suspended sentence.’
‘What if Celeste’s husband was part of your network?’ said Natalie. ‘As well as her brother. Then they’d be concerned about her telling us, or specifically me, what she knew.’
‘Is this just guesswork?’
‘Not entirely.’ Liam raised an eyebrow but she shook her head. Mentioning the tattoo on Celeste’s arm would expose her to interrogation she wasn’t stable enough to deal with.
‘I’ll have the locals keep an eye on Joe.’
‘If it’s not him, that takes us back to Paul.’
Or Lauren and a private detective. In which case Liam had more to fear than she did.
Liam was still dealing with interstate police politics so Paul had yet to be questioned.
‘We have to tread very carefully. We don’t want to alert him that he’s a suspect in the paedophile ring because if it is him he’s smart enough to have a back-up plan where all the evidence gets destroyed.’
‘Do you think it’s him? My stalker, or your paedophile, or both?’
‘He was in Sydney when we were there,’ said Liam, toying with his coffee cup. ‘My Mr Big? To be honest, no. Carol managed to get his secretary to give out some details of his diary. We’ve confirmed he was overseas at the one time we are certain this guy was in Melbourne. He has had business trips to Asian countries, as we are sure the perp we are looking for has, but half of Australia travels to Asia regularly. Doesn’t mean he isn’t part of the ring though.’
Paul wouldn’t have been able to access her health records. Did this mean he’d got help from other members? The thought was daunting.
‘You’ll go after him hard?’
‘If we have enough evidence.’
‘A prosecutor with a conscience?’ said Natalie, forcing a laugh.
Liam didn’t smile. ‘I like putting the bad guys away. But only if they did it.’ The Hadden legacy.
‘What about Tiphanie?’
‘She’s still lying; but in any case I haven’t taken her to court. You know I’ve thought it was Travis all along.’
‘Someone I knew once’—Tom had interesting friends—‘was put away for a burglary he didn’t do. He figured it was payback for the ones he didn’t get caught for.’
‘His choice to take that attitude, and maybe a good one for a career criminal. But not for a prosecutor. My rule is that if we miss some of the bad guys, so be it. We only prosecute if I’m sure. I’m not God.’ He grinned. ‘I don’t want to be responsible for anyone spending time in prison unless it’s for a crime they did.’
‘Then you’d better get Tiphanie’s charges dropped.’
‘They were only ever an attempt to get Travis. But we can’t arrest him until we’re certain. Completely.’
Jessie was late and upset. It was hard to draw her out. One-word answers to questions and comments were separated by long silences. Natalie decided to push things. She was grateful to be feeling on top of things. Walking the line between maintaining the therapeutic alliance and making a patient work with their conflicts was hard work.
‘Your father’s illness, his death, his belongings. Brought up memories, I’m guessing.’
Jessie mumbled something indistinct.
‘There’s stuff in your head that must be hard to make sense of. Why don’t you try to pick something and let me help? Is there anything you want to put in your box?’
‘I want to die.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m a fat useless piece of shit.’
Something she had been told as a kid? Or something she was telling herself now because the memories were stripping her of any self-respect?
‘Hannah doesn’t think so.’
‘Yeah, well, she’s not here is she?’
‘I don’t think so either.’
‘Doesn’t matter. I just want to die.’
Jessie pulled a knife from under her sleeve. It was a flick knife; illegal, shiny and dangerous. Natalie had seen one used in a fight. The victim had died while her hand was buried in the sinews of his neck in a futile effort to hold his carotid artery together.
‘You have a choice, Jessie. You either give me that knife right now, or you get up and leave and never come back. You want to kill yourself? Your call. But not in my office.’
Jessie hesitated; her eyes went to her shoulder and the hand with the knife started in that direction. Natalie knew she was taking a gamble but she was pretty sure Jessie didn’t want to die. She wanted boundaries, to feel safe. ‘Now, Jessie.’
The arm came down. Jessie looked at the knife. She dragged a finger over the blade and small globules of blood formed on her fingertip.
‘The knife.’ Natalie put her hand out, calculating whether a kick would dislodge the weapon from Jessie’s hand. She shifted slightly so the angle was better. Not that she rated her chances of success as high. Five tae kwon do lessons didn’t make her Bruce Lee.
Jessie, still fixated on the knife, flicked it closed and threw it on the floor. Natalie started to breathe again. She picked it up and put it on the far side of her desk.
‘I want you to talk. Really talk.’
Natalie had either passed a test or Jessie was so desperate that she had to grasp at whatever was offered. It was the turning point in any therapy. Jessie spilled out the horror stories of her childhood. Most of them were more dream than clear memory, disjointed and made little sense: stories about spiders and snakes and dead babies. But woven through the narrative were obvious allusions to penetrative sex. A uniting theme of frank abuse at multiple levels; physical, sexual and emotional.
Even after Jessie had left home at sixteen, things hadn’t improved.
‘Lived on the streets for a while,’ said Jessie. ‘Slept under a bridge for a few months, till I woke up and found a guy with his hand in my pants.’
‘You must have felt very vulnerable.’
Jessie’s expression moved from blank to fearful and when she spoke her voice had dropped to a whisper. ‘I’m being watched.’ Natalie wasn’t sure if she was referring to her childhood, or current life. Or both. ‘I was filmed.’
Amber looked brighter. Natalie hadn’t lied to Declan. She had told Amber she couldn’t be her psychiatrist. But she had agreed to one last appointment.
‘I probably didn’t need to come,’ Amber said, ‘now Tiphanie is back home with her parents.’
‘T
hat doesn’t mean that she won’t go to prison,’ said Natalie. ‘The police are still investigating.’
‘I know.’ Amber looked…smug? Or was it just relief?
‘How do you know?’ asked Natalie.
‘Everyone in Welbury knows.’
‘Amber, who have you been talking to?’
Amber blushed. ‘Kiara; I used to go to school with her.’ And Detective Constable Andie Grimbank presumably. Small towns.
‘They’re looking at Rick’s car. I’m sure they’ll find something…’ Her voice trailed off. As sweet as it might be for her to see Travis gaoled, if it represented the final confirmation that Chloe was dead then the victory would be pyrrhic.
As Amber left, Natalie wondered again if Travis had known that Liam was going to invite her to Welbury. All it needed was one person at the police station to have known. At that point Travis would have had a motivation to deter her from being involved. It would surely make him the prime suspect as her stalker. She felt, for a moment, powerless at the thought of him in her home, sitting in her chair, lying on her bed while she wasn’t there, opening the bottles in her bathroom. He would have done all that and what else? Spat on her food? Ejaculated…
She tried not to think about it but could not free her mind of the feeling that she was surrounded by his invisible traces. Travis was a coward, but cowards were dangerous.
She was still turning it over in her mind when she got home. There were no more notes or USB sticks, but she was unable to stop herself from looking in her drawers, imagining he had moved things just to freak her out, even though her house was all but a fortress. She checked the camera and alarm. Maybe Travis would leave her alone if he thought the police were monitoring him.
Natalie’s faith in professionals was not helped by seeing Wadhwa on the evening news.
‘My study is opening up exciting possibilities about how personality and criminality can be interlinked.’ Natalie hit the off button and went up to bed. Bob’s photo from her office was sitting by her bedside table.
Chapter 27
The Halfpenny was filling early; it would have been nice to think it was the band drawing them in but the Magpies had annihilated the Blues, and the customers were more interested in celebrating football results than hearing music.
‘I’m thinking more overnighters, guys,’ Gil said as he tuned his bass.
‘Jesus,’ said Natalie. ‘Your wife needs you with her.’
‘Believe me, I’m more use to her for the rest of the week if I have one good night’s sleep.’
Shaun pulled out his diary. ‘Focus, guys. What do we think about Albury-Wodonga?’
‘Bloody long way. And more car-scratchers,’ Tom said, without sounding as if he meant it. The others were keen to go.
‘Done. Warrnambool have given us another date too.’
Busy was good; less time to think. If being away meant giving her stalker the run-around, all the better. Even the new lock on her bedroom balcony door and the camera on the roof were not enough to make her feel safe.
Vince stuck his head in and gestured to Natalie. She followed him into the corridor, taking her beer with her.
‘We’ve got trouble.’
She felt the adrenaline surge, took a breath and welcomed the tingle of energy.
‘There’s a guy out there.’
‘The one Benny saw before?’
Vince nodded his head.
‘And?’
‘Tonight he asked Maggie if The Styx was the band with a shrink singer.’
‘To which she replied?’
‘I answered for her. Something like, why did he want to know?’ The grin suggested there’d been some additional descriptive language.
‘Point him out,’ she said. From the doorway to the bar, she followed the direction of Vince’s nod. He was hovering behind a group of revellers, trying to blend in. Most of the crowd was twenty to thirty and he was the wrong side of forty, and wearing a blazer, so he wasn’t succeeding. Medium height, brown hair on the longish side, glasses. Nondescript.
‘Never seen him before,’ said Natalie as another wave of adrenaline hit her. She fought to calm herself. ‘Could he be a private investigator?’ Vince had a pretty good nose for the law in all its guises.
Vince narrowed his eyes. ‘Do you want to tell me a bit more about what shit you’ve got yourself into?’
Natalie shrugged.
‘The jerk’s wife?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Okay, I’ll watch him. We’ll have him on our security camera. And regardless,’ he went on, still glowering, ‘tonight, one of us walks you home.’
Natalie kissed him on the cheek. ‘Thanks, Dad.’
It was one of their better gigs. Maybe it wasn’t obvious to the audience but the band always knew when they were on fire. Tonight there was an extra vitality in Natalie’s performance. Partly perhaps from not having a full dose of medication on board, but also a frisson of anticipation. Maybe she’d have her answer tomorrow when the police saw him on video and she could stop feeling like a paralysed insect waiting to be eaten.
They didn’t do many covers in the end. The crowd were right behind them, loving what Natalie did with the raw sexuality of Shaun’s lyrics.
Vince was backstage when they took a break.
‘The jerk is here too,’ said Vince. ‘Can I throw him out?’
Natalie sculled a bottle of water. Who was following whom, she wondered? Her stomach turned at the thought of confronting Lauren. Would she be satisfied with venting her anger at Liam, or would she turn up on Natalie’s doorstep with pictures of the children? Children in person, even? She steeled herself. If she had to, she could handle Lauren. At the end of the day, it was Liam that had broken trust, not her. And it would be a better scenario than a predatory stalker with sexual motivations and an interest in escalating her distress to add to his excitement.
‘Don’t chuck him out. Let’s see if we can resolve the issue after the next bracket.’
They didn’t let up in the second half. If anything, they played louder and edgier. The Collingwood locals seemed to love it; a good result at the footy always helped. In the final song Natalie had her tongue in Tom’s mouth and later her hands down Shaun’s pants. Knowing Liam was watching might have spurred the bad behaviour. He had shied away from her mania at the ball; she wanted to know if he could cope with the real her.
She was so fired up she contemplated going up to Mr Nondescript and asking him directly what he was up to but restrained herself. Give Liam a chance to sort the mystery out first. As she slid onto the stool next to him at the bar, she noticed Mr Nondescript watching and wondered if Liam had too.
She didn’t speak to him, didn’t even acknowledge him. Just took the glass of the bourbon from the bar and downed half of it.
‘Don’t look now, but we’re being watched. Wearing glasses near the door. Brown hair, your age or older.’
Liam kept drinking, never looking at her. After a minute he knocked the coaster that had been stuck to the bottom of his Guinness glass to the floor, and glanced around the room as he picked it
up.
‘Never met him, but he looks familiar.’
Natalie slugged down the remaining bourbon. ‘I still think there’s a chance this is about you.’
There was a long pause. Wondering where he had seen the stalker before? ‘No. I have thought about it.’
‘I think the first note was spontaneous, maybe outraged over something, hence the handwriting, which I unfortunately threw out. It arrived the day I ran you into the flower bed. Let’s suppose Lauren was already having you followed.’ Natalie paused. ‘Maybe because of a previous indiscretion?’ Liam’s expression was impossible to read, so Natalie continued. ‘Maybe she came to my rooms in person after she got the report that first day, thinking I was the latest woman but not sure, but then sent the USBs after that. Once she found out we really were…involved, then she got the PI to do more serious surveillance.’
Liam remained silent.
‘Could Lauren have found another man and want to dump you? Maybe she wants your children to think it’s your fault with the bonus of giving me a hard time in the meantime?’
Liam managed a half-laugh. ‘You seem to have the hang of Lauren’s style. But the language in the notes isn’t like her. And all the notes were about you.’
‘The Sydney video was both of us.’
‘Lauren doesn’t fit with the “they belong to me” note.’
‘Sorry to remind you that you aren’t the centre of the world, but don’t you have two children?’
‘Shit.’ For a moment Liam looked unnerved.
‘Any suggestions from here?’
‘I’m on it,’ said Liam. He got up, wandered closer to Mr Nondescript and fiddled with his phone before rejoining her. Natalie watched as he sent the photos he had taken. Vince glared at Liam from behind the bar.
Liam caught Vince’s eye. ‘I don’t intend her any harm, if that helps.’