by Anne Buist
‘That bitch is lying to save her own skin. Must be fucking obvious,’ Travis said sulkily.
Damian looked at Travis, giving nothing away.
Damian took him through his story again. No, he didn’t take Chloe in the car to Rick’s. Yes, he had sometimes in the past but there was no need to because she was asleep. Yes, he was sure. Tiphanie had been very sleepy and gone to bed. He’d gone to Rick and Alli’s, as he often did. They drank, watched footy. He’d said goodbye and left them at the door. His car wouldn’t start even though there had been no problems with it earlier. He’d gone back and banged on Rick’s door. Rick had got the car keys and come out with him and seen the other guys off. He had tried his car one more time, then got into Rick’s car and left.
‘Rick’s car was locked; he went back and got the keys and threw ’em at me.’
‘Rick saw you leave?’
‘Yeah.’ So he would have had to come back to get Chloe’s body if it had been in his own car.
‘You drove Rick’s car straight home?’
‘Yeah,’ said Travis drumming his fingers on the table top.
‘You got home when?’
‘I dunno. Takes about fifteen minutes, I guess.’ Travis paused.
Damian asked about the car, only for her sake, Natalie was sure.
‘I rang the mechanic first thing when I got to work. Why?’
‘So they fixed it?’
‘Yeah, cost two hundred and twenty fucking bucks. For nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘I didn’t get it until the day after, with Chloe disappearing. They couldn’t find anything wrong with it.’
Damian frowned. ‘It just started up?’
‘Yeah. Cunts still charged me. For turning the key.’
From behind the screen Natalie briefly caught Damian’s glance as he looked up. He didn’t like unexplained events any more than she did.
Tiphanie was in the waiting room when Natalie left. An older version of Tiphanie was sitting with her.
‘You must be Kiara,’ said Natalie, introducing herself.
Tiphanie looked surprised to see her. Natalie explained that she had to come up to talk with the police.
‘How are you?’
‘Not great.’ Tiphanie was in jeans and a shirt, perched uncomfortably on the edge of the chair. She looked very young. ‘I can’t believe—’
‘Tiph would never have hurt Chloe.’ Kiara sounded if she was forcing the upbeat tone.
‘I just want to disappear somewhere,’ said Tiphanie.
Kiara gave her a hug. ‘When it’s all over, Tiph. You’ll see, it’ll be fine and you can take that job and start again.’
‘Job?’ Natalie asked curiously. Tiphanie looked down at her hands.
‘Of course she can’t until the charges are dropped,’ said Kiara, still forcing a smile. ‘Mum isn’t keen, but Dad and I think it would do her the world of good to get out of Welbury. Start again.’
Escape this town. Great idea. There was no hope here for Tiphanie. She’d be sucked into her mother’s or the town’s psychopathology and never emerge. It was what she should have done before she had Chloe. Now it might be too late.
‘I want to have a service for Chloe,’ Tiphanie said. ‘I can’t bear to…I mean I want to say goodbye.’
Kiara gave her another hug and they talked about the possibilities of a service and Natalie said she’d like to be there if it went ahead. Tiphanie looked ill and said she needed to lie down. But the police hadn’t finished with her; Andie asked her to come back into the interview room.
Before Natalie left, she asked Kiara where the job offer had been from. The response was a surprise.
‘Japan. Teaching English,’ said Kiara. ‘Like a private tutor. Tiph did really well in Japanese even though she had to do it by correspondence.’
Natalie was deep in thought when Damian interrupted to give her his mobile number.
‘You free for a drink before you leave?’
‘Ah, no, sorry. Got to go.’ Natalie turned, but not before she caught the brief flash of disappointment. He was too nice for her.
Liam caught her on the phone just before she got back on the bike.
‘Where are you?’
‘Welbury.’
‘Anything I should know about?’
‘Damian was interviewing Travis and I wanted to know about the car breaking down.’
‘Important?’
‘Maybe.’
‘I got your voicemail.’
He hadn’t answered his phone the previous night and her message about the rabbit had been brief—curt even. ‘When will you be back?’
‘Two and a half hours.’
Liam said he’d meet her at her house, and hung up before she could reply.
‘So the warning about meddling refers to Georgia?’
‘I guess,’ said Natalie, pacing. She couldn’t sit still. She’d been over every part of her warehouse to be sure the worm hadn’t been there, and found nothing. The absence of evidence hadn’t convinced her.
‘What about your hospital file? Why would I be interested in it?’ Liam hadn’t—yet—received anything.
‘He’s just playing with my head. To make me think he knows things.’ She thought of the pile of case notes she had burned, that she didn’t ever want Liam to see. Unspoken between them sat the possibility of the video being sent to Lauren.
Liam let it go. ‘You need to tell me more about him and his wife.’
Georgia had yet to go to trial. Natalie was professionally bound not to discuss details of a patient’s therapy with anyone, let alone someone likely to be prosecuting them. But she wanted her stalker caught.
‘Could Georgia and Paul be involved in the paedophile ring together?’ asked Liam. He sounded frustrated.
Natalie shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But she hasn’t said anything that would make me think that.’
‘If Latimer is my Mr Big, he’s damned good at hiding his tracks. More likely, he’s just a member of the group. But that’s still potentially very useful to us.’
‘Natalie took a breath. ‘The rabbit might have been a reference to Fatal Attraction. From Lauren. She could easily access hospital records.’
‘Lauren?’ Liam stiffened. ‘She might nail one of us to the fence, but not a rabbit. And nobody’s going to draw that logo randomly. It’s not Lauren.’
‘Okay, so Paul then I guess,’ said Natalie. ‘Initially he was just playing, maybe trying to get me so on edge that when he asked me to stop seeing Georgia I would. When he found out about my connection to you, I guess, that was when he really freaked. The video was meant to drive a wedge between us. But now…’
‘Sending Lauren the video might be the next step in his strategy given he’s now mentioned me.’ The corner of Liam’s eye twitched.
‘You said you don’t have enough cause to question him, but I do. Maybe it’s time for Paul and me to talk.’
They had t
he quick urgent sex of distraction. Natalie willed herself to be in the moment.
As she watched him leave down the staircase from her bedroom, she hated that she had felt safer with him there, hated that she even wished he could be around for practical things too. There were little jobs she never got around to that it would be nice to share; the window that wouldn’t open, the door hinge that squeaked and the mess from the tiles that crashed regularly off her neighbour’s roof.
She stopped herself. She was wanting too much.
Jessie was patently nervous, barely holding it together. At least she had turned up.
‘Have you had more memories? More nightmares?’
Jessie nodded.
‘Try not to worry too much about what’s real and what isn’t. Your mind has blanked bits out, substituted things. Just talk about what you see.’
Jessie held her black box, lid closed, and stared out of the window. Natalie watched the flickering expressions of pain and remembered what it was like to be lost and alone. She had to trust Jessie to do the hard work. All she could do as a therapist was guide her; help her to access whatever resilience she had.
Jessie was no longer a child: the healing had to help the adult part of her reconcile all that had occurred in her childhood, and make up for the unconditional love and safe haven that she had never had.
‘Did he love me?’
The question jolted Natalie. ‘Love can mean different things to different people.’
‘Did he?’
Natalie wasn’t sure how to answer. Who was ‘he’? Her father? Probably. He had also loved the feeling of power and perhaps of sexual gratification as well. But he had never loved or valued Jessie as a person in the way a child needed and deserved. Truth was going to be the best answer.
‘Your father?’
Jessie gripped the box.
‘Abuse isn’t a way of showing love.’
Jessie bit her lip. ‘None of this, these feelings, make sense. I just don’t know what to do with them.’
‘Give yourself time.’
Jessie nodded. She opened her box and retrieved another drawing, an anime character. It looked a little like her arm tattoo except in red; thick and reminiscent of blood.
‘Who is it Jessie?’
‘Aoi Sakuraba; she loved Kaoru.’
‘You’re going to have to explain that.’
Jessie’s shrug said ‘no point’.
So who was Kaoru in her childhood?
‘Why draw her now?’ And why in blood red?
Jessie picked up the picture and with both hands, scrunched and threw it across the room. ‘Just fantasy.’
‘Do you want to put it back in your box?’
Jessie thought for a moment, collected the ball of paper and did as Natalie suggested. Natalie found her eyes drawn to the tattoos on one shoulder, above the one she imagined to be Aoi Sakuraba, in the dense area where another had been partially and inexpertly removed.
‘What was the tattoo there?’ asked Natalie, pointing.
Jessie looked at her. Wondering. A child looking to a parent for guidance. Natalie was acutely aware of her responsibility. In an instant Jessie’s expression changed. ‘You watched it didn’t you?’ she said loudly. Without saying anything more, she turned and left, slamming the door behind her.
Natalie stared after her. She went to the window. Jessie strode out the front door, banging it behind her, and headed towards the car park. Natalie saw a car door open and a man step out: Kyle. He put his arm around Jessie and, as he ushered her into the car, turned around, looking back towards the house and directly at Natalie. She willed herself not to move, meeting the stare and reading in it all the malice that was intended.
When Natalie turned back to her desk, she saw that Jessie had left her box behind.
She pulled out the USB Beverley had given her and looked at it. She thought about the pathology between Georgia and Paul. She remembered how Amber had sacrificed herself for Travis and thought about how victims and their mothers so often protected their abusers. She thought of Jessie and her abuser, and, finally, of Tiphanie.
Chapter 30
‘I was in Who Weekly,’ Georgia said. ‘They had a picture.’
‘A picture of you?’
‘What? Yes, that too.’ Georgia wasn’t looking at Natalie as she picked at the chipped nail polish on her thumb.
‘So who else did they have photos of?’
Georgia pulled her bag into her lap. She unfolded a few ripped-out pages. ‘Look.’
The picture was of Miranda, the daughter she hadn’t seen in nine months. It was not a posed shot. Paul was holding his daughter, trying to shield her from the camera.
‘Tell me about Paul before he met you.’ Natalie temporarily abandoned the therapeutic process. She needed information if she was going to deal with the worm and it would give her a better understanding of Georgia’s enmeshment with him.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Had he had other girlfriends?’
‘Nothing serious.’
‘Any trouble with the police? Trouble at school?’
‘What do you mean?’
Natalie shrugged, watching Georgia thinking. She seemed to be weighing her answer, choosing her words.
‘He didn’t have many friends. I thought that was…all we needed was each other. Then he was working and I had the children. We didn’t go out much.’
‘What about his trips? Was he travelling with people?’
‘He met people, did deals. I’m sure he never had an affair, if that’s what you mean.’
Natalie hadn’t meant this. Georgia was good at picking up cues and giving what she thought you wanted. She was also adept at avoiding the questions she didn’t want to, or couldn’t, answer.
Lee Draper had painted Paul as caring and balanced, but she’d only seen the side he had presented to her, and if Georgia’s father, Cliff, was representative of Lee’s taste in men, she was probably not a good judge. Virginia hadn’t mentioned meeting him. After the session, Natalie rang her.
‘Paul?’ asked Virginia. ‘We went to the wedding of course. Vernon gave her away. She wanted everything to be right.’
‘Before that?’
‘After she started nursing we didn’t see her much, and you know later she cut us off. We had dinner with them once. Paul was quiet. Georgia wanted to be the centre of attention and Paul seemed to be happy with that. We were just pleased she’d found someone.’
Natalie really had to meet him. His answering service picked up.
‘Mr Latimer, this is Dr King. We spoke at the Halfpenny. I was perhaps a little hasty.’ It had been Liam’s suggestion to say this. ‘I would very much like to hear your side of the story if you’re prepared to talk to me.’ She left her mobile number.
Tiphanie was booked in to see her. Both she and her father looked like they hadn’t slept in days.
Tiphanie paced the room, not speaking. Finally, she sat down on the edge of the chair.
‘I’m your patient, right?’
Natalie nodded.
‘So it’s not like when I was in Yarra Bend? I’m not being assessed?’
‘Yes and no. But my notes can be subpoenaed and used in court.’ She held her pen up for a moment then purposefully laid it on the desk.
Tiphanie took a breath and looked straight at Natalie. ‘Can you find a way to have the police ask if Rick or Allison removed a rug—like a blanket—from their car? He would have had to wrap…her up. It was cold.’
Only if she had still been alive.
Paul rang back. He was in Melbourne and could see her at 6.30 p.m. Liam arrived an hour earlier.
‘This office is all yours,’ she told him. She parked him next to door to where she’d be seeing Paul. At 6.25 p.m., both with mobiles in hand, she phoned him. With the communication link established she went to her own office and put her phone on the desk behind the stack of files.
Natalie recognised Paul immediately. He was less out of place than at the Halfpenny, but just as awkward.
‘Thank you for coming,’ said Natalie as they sat down. Her smile felt taut.
‘Sure.’ Paul shifted in his seat. ‘Does Georgia know you’re seeing me?’
‘She knows I tried to earlier.’
‘So she really thinks I’m still on her side.’
‘I’m not sure I’d say that.’
‘What do you want to know?’ Paul sounded weary. He looked harmless, but then so did most serial killers. Most murderers were weak rather than scary, but psychopaths were different. Paul might well be one.
‘Your side of the story. Not so much about things related to the case but rather what Georgia was like. Why you got together.’
‘I liked her, she was fun, confident.’ Paul ran his hand through his hair. ‘I was at a party with a mate and she and a girlfriend just started chatting to us. I thought they both liked him, but turned out Georgia fancied me. I just let it happen.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I never saw any of this coming. Idiot bloke I guess.’