by Anne Buist
27
‘I’m having dinner with him.’
‘Where?’
‘I don’t need a bodyguard.’
‘He’s a suspect in two murders, Natalie. I’m not taking risks on a third.’
‘He only bumps off wives—Bluebeard, remember?’
Damian was silent on the other end of the phone.
‘Okay, okay. I’m in town and so is he. We’re eating at Huxtable in Smith Street.’
‘Is it purely coincidental that it’s about a hundred metres from your warehouse?’
‘No. Means I can walk there. And no, he isn’t invited back afterwards.’
Another silence.
‘Cross my heart.’ She could tell he only half-believed her, but the restaurant was too small for Damian to turn up and not be noticed, so he’d have to lump it. She could look after herself. Or so she told herself when she woke in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and gasping for air.
___________________
Frank had suggested the restaurant, which indicated to her immediately that he had done his homework and wanted her to know. If he knew her better he’d have suggested Huxtaburger—the takeaway joint opposite, but still. It meant he was either indicating an interest—or a warning. And it left her edgy, in an alive way that she hadn’t felt with a man since Liam. Whatever else could be said for Frank, he was intellectually stimulating. She had taken less quetiapine too, it was true, but she needed to be on alert and she didn’t want the sedation. She promised herself she’d take extra that night. It would have the added benefit of helping her sleep through any nightmares.
Frank was in charm mode. Dulled at the edges just now, of course, and his smiles were no more than fleeting, but his focus was on her, totally. Even the young waitress with the short skirt didn’t get a second look, and she was trying. He let Natalie talk and made it easy for her. The slight nod of encouragement. The suggestion he could block out two possible murder charges and two dead wives, just for her and her inane chatter about how she had ended up buying a Ducati—minus the mania that drove the particular choice. He seemed to know she’d been in an accident. Or maybe people who didn’t ride motorbikes just assumed all motorbike riders ended up getting scraped off the road at some point. He almost got the history of her accident and Eoin’s death out of her until she changed the topic.
But the brush with the subject of past loves gave her the intro she was looking for. ‘How about you? There must have been a long string of heartbroken nurses and doctors before Reeva?’ She didn’t look at him, didn’t want to risk giving away that she had an agenda.
‘No one serious. I was too busy.’
‘Would they have said the same?’ This time she smiled, teasing him with her look, but leaving him no doubt she had his measure.
He held her look. ‘Probably no different to the trail you left behind.’ He paused. ‘So I imagine.’
In the pause she thought of Liam. Her hand gripped the glass, smile still in place. ‘Relationships suck.’
Frank raised an eyebrow and she reminded herself that the new Natalie wouldn’t say something like that. And the old Natalie wouldn’t be sitting in a trendy bistro eating crab noodles and tempura eggplant fritters. Particularly dressed in a floral skirt, even if the flowers were dark and nondescript; even if she had at least paired it with her leather jacket.
‘Ahh…can be fraught,’ she amended lamely.
‘First loves fall the hardest, don’t you think?’
She stared. ‘Yes, I guess they do.’ She twirled her fork in the noodles. ‘Tell me about yours.’
‘Nothing remarkable. Just too young to settle down. I went off to medical school and she didn’t. I went out with a dozen or so others, but no one was special, not until Reeva. A couple of psychiatry registrars, now colleagues.’ He took a sip of wine. ‘I could tell you a story of two, Gillian Lang and Victoria Moore, though maybe I’ll save that for my memoirs. Change names so I’m not sued.’
Natalie vaguely recognised the names; Gillian was an academic specialising in eating disorders. Victoria was in private practice. From memory they were both attractive; one blonde, one brunette.
‘Gillian worked with one of your colleagues,’ Frank continued. ‘Jay.’
She frowned.
‘Jay Wadhwa.’
Great. Frank looked smug, showing he’d checked her out. She certainly hadn’t given Wadhwa as a referee. No, Frank was smug about something else. She replayed the conversation. Yes. He’d told her something, then headed her away in the direction he wanted to go; any direction except the one she had been looking. And it suggested he’d really checked her out if he knew about Eoin.
‘I haven’t seen my first love since I was sixteen. Half a lifetime ago.’ She looked directly at Frank. ‘Do you see your first love around?’ He had, she thought, believed he could tease her with his knowledge and then thought she wouldn’t linger there. He was wrong. He took time to answer.
‘She’s still there in Lorne as far as I know. An artist. Probably what attracted her to me; she mistakenly thought I was going to be another Antonije.’
There couldn’t be that many female artists of the right age in Lorne.
He lingered over their farewell, waiting, Natalie was sure, for an invitation. When he kissed her cheek and whispered thank you into her ear she almost issued one; another drink and she was sure she could get closer to his core, to understanding how he thought. She recalled the maternal impulse she’d felt before and wondered how the need to care for him gelled with finding him appealing as a potential partner. When he looked at her, the Natalie that woke drenched in sweat, the one whose loneliness swamped her in moments of despair, felt that he could be the answer to everything. But it was Damian’s words that she thought of as she pulled away, squeezing his hands.
Missing her normal life, she decided to stop off at her usual pub for a Jack Daniels to help her sleep—Vince the owner and his son, Benny were both there; Benny greeted her warmly but Vince rolled his eyes.
‘Figured you’d be turning up.’
‘And how did you figure that Vince?’
Vince inclined his head to the right. ‘He’s come in a few times.’
Liam was sitting in the same corner he had been on their very first date, which had actually been a meeting about a case. Guinness in hand, just like then too. She was tempted to down her bourbon and turn on her heel. But he’d think she was running—and she would never let a man, least of all Liam, think that. So she walked to his table and stood there waiting.
‘Can we talk?’ Liam wasn’t smiling.
‘There’s nothing to say, Liam.’
‘How about your objection?’
‘I’d prefer to deal with that through the court.’
Liam looked at his drink, contemplating his next move. Natalie watched him warily. They hadn’t left on the best of terms. She had threatened him with blackmail to save a patient he was prosecuting. He wasn’t to know she’d never have gone through with it.
‘We have unfinished business,’ Liam finally said.
Natalie downed her drink so she could leave, but his look stopped her. It said you owe me. And she did. Out of the corner of her eye she caught Vince’s disapproving stare.
‘Okay,’ said Natalie. ‘I’ll hear you out. But let’s not put a show on here. My place.’
She turned without looking back; he knew the way, barely a hundred metres from the pub. She didn’t hear him behind her and left the door open, using the time to steel herself. She figured it wasn’t going to be pretty.
He took his time. Perhaps five minutes, but it felt like fifteen. His tread was soft on the stair, and standing at the top in the lamplight he looked good. Far, far, too good. He didn’t make any attempt to come in further, watching her like a cat about to pounce. Natalie smiled tightly, stepped towards him, challenging him to do his worst.
‘First things first,’ Liam said softly. ‘No one blackmails me.’
Natalie wince
d, but didn’t speak. Too late now to explain, and it wouldn’t have satisfied him anyway.
‘And just so you know, it was totally ineffective,’ Liam continued. ‘Your stalker did his worst—Lauren knew about our affair within a week of that particular conversation.’
Which meant Natalie had never had anything to blackmail him with.
Natalie groaned. ‘Oh Liam, I am so sorry. I never wanted that.’ She took a breath. This did change things. Why had he gone along with what she’d wanted?
‘You threatened it.’ Liam had stepped closer, anger in the tone of his voice and the tension of his shoulders. ‘But you see Dr King, I can sleep straight at nights because I, unlike you, did not compromise my integrity.’
Natalie stiffened.
‘The facts of the case pointed to the person who pleaded guilty,’ Liam continued. ‘I did my job.’ He paused. ‘Did you?’ He went on, eyes narrowing, ‘And you dared to bring my personal life into the equation.’
Natalie took a breath. ‘I didn’t get off scot free, if that helps.’ Months of depression. Shock treatment. ‘I would never have told her.’
‘Justice,’ said Liam, ‘is my job, not yours.’
She wondered if Lauren had thrown him out. Whether he saw his kids at all—because it had always been about them more than his wife. It wasn’t as if Natalie had been his first indiscretion.
There was another pause. Some of the tension in him seemed to ease subtly.
‘You’re looking good, Natalie.’ He leaned in closer. To her irritation she felt her heart race, felt the desire for him as strong as it had ever been. He leaned down to her ear. ‘Have you missed me?’
Missed him? She hadn’t thought of anything else for six weeks. But no way in hell was she telling him that. ‘I think you should go.’
‘One drink?’
‘No Liam, bad idea.’ She couldn’t risk going there again. Sacrifices, Declan had said. Liam was one of them.
‘I bought you some bourbon.’ He held up the bottle, but it was the way he amped up his Irish accent that made her stomach drop.
She didn’t answer. She had already had an evening of verbal sparring; she no longer had the energy to think about her behaviour or analyse anyone else’s.
She could hear her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. Liam didn’t move, stood on the last step, watching her. Why was he here? She didn’t want to think about it; was aware only of a rekindling of the longing she had tried to bury. His anger had made him all the more dangerous, and impossibly, all the more attractive. The curl over his eye, the cocky stance, the whole sense of him being comfortable with himself and his place in the world. Was this why she had been drawn to him, because he could take it up to her, because he’d liked her just as she was?
She looked at him now, wondered in those seconds where his anger had gone, whether the longing she read in his look was tempered by other, darker, emotions.
It was Liam who moved first. Or at least that was what her memory told her later. But she moved too, any hesitancy disappearing in the moment of his first step. They sank into the kiss, her last rational thought being that she’d worry about the aftermath tomorrow.
He tasted of liquor and she wondered how much he had drunk, whether he had needed it to break down the barriers that led to her door, and why now after so long?
Against her his body had none of the gentle hesitance of Damian’s, nor the soft privilege she sensed in Frank’s touch. It was a body she knew and missed, wanted though she knew she shouldn’t. She moaned gently as his hands moved over her, felt his need of her as strong as hers was for him.
He pushed her hard against the wall. Whispered, ‘You are such a bitch’ in her ear before kissing her again, a bruising, intense kiss that she returned with just as much force. In those moments she forgot all the pain of the past months, all her hard work, the tentative steps to be a different person, to try a relationship with someone that was good for her rather than someone who was dangerous at every level.
Sex with Liam was intoxicating, an addiction. She laughed when, in the rush to run hands over each other, her boring floral top ripped down the front. Felt alive with his touch, an electricity surging through her that the gentleness of Damian couldn’t hope to compete with. Liam was, she was certain, every bit as aroused as her; he took her, pushed up against the wall, her legs wrapped around him, finishing with them both exhausted on the floor.
But he didn’t wait as their breathing eased back to normal, or linger to savour the feeling of skin on skin. He was standing up almost immediately, clothes on before she even rolled over.
‘Now,’ he said, not looking at her, ‘we’re done.’
He succeeded, she thought later. If it was revenge he was after, he got it.
She didn’t sleep, just stared at the ceiling. Feeling the humiliation burn in her gut. Thinking of how she was destined, like Frank, not to live happily ever after.
28
I may have underestimated her—not an experience with which I am familiar. People by and large are both gullible and predictable. She is neither, nor is she the type to which I am usually attracted, apart from her intellectual capabilities. There is a brittleness to her, an unknown territory. Perhaps I’ll be able to use this to my advantage if necessary. I have more than enough to occupy my thoughts, yet I find they keep turning back to her.
The challenges with her are far more edifying than the tedious discussions with DSS McBride. I waited in a poky room that smelled faintly of urine while Mala was interviewed. We had a moment together as she passed the baton (personified by our lawyer, Amy, who insisted on being present). Mala, hovering in the doorway, out of earshot, rolled her eyes. ‘All the usual questions.’ She paused, squeezed my hands, looking at me carefully. ‘I tried to be helpful.’
‘Meaning?’
‘They wanted to know what I thought.’
I nodded. ‘Which is?’
Mala sighed. She had her hair pulled up into a bun. Her serious look, but I doubt if it made her any less distracting to the two male cops. ‘I’m sorry. But I do think Reeva more than likely killed herself. Alison?’ She shrugged. ‘An accident I guess.’
‘They didn’t ask about Vesna?’
‘Only about how she got on with your wives.’
‘To which you answered?’
‘Honestly. She’s not the first woman to have issues with her daughters-in-law. Don’t worry, I don’t think she’s in their sights.’
Mala was told she could go, and she elected to wait for me in the café around the corner. My turn. The focus was, predictably, on the night Alison died.
‘What were you fighting about?’
It was the hormones, she was irritable. Nothing serious. All married couples fight. She hadn’t been sleeping. Neither Alison nor Reeva slept well. Or any other woman at thirty-nine weeks pregnant. The uterus rests on the bladder; they need to get up frequently.
‘Isn’t it a little strange that you were not sleeping in the same room with either of your wives the night they died?’
As above. The same questions, the same answers, occasional objections from Amy.
‘Did you love your wives?’ ‘You remarried quickly.’ ‘Had you grieved for your first wife?’ I caught a trace of Natalie in that question coming from DSS McBride. He was polite, hadn’t moved into bad-cop mode, not yet. None of them had, all hedging around me, my status, my lawyer. To say nothing of the absence of proof.
DSS McBride leaned back in his chair. This was the second time I had been asked to visit the Lorne police station. Amy told me I didn’t have to, but what’s the sense in antagonising them? My wives died in tragic accidents.
‘I’d just like to go through this with you again.’ He looked apologetic but I wasn’t fooled. ‘Can we start with that morning?’
Now this was a shift. Previous conversations had started with our meeting at the pub. The police assumed I had been eating there with her and I hadn’t dissuaded them of the belief. They had assumed we
had arrived together. Not that I had lied; they just needed to ask the right question. I imagined that now they had got Senka to talk. She didn’t have her father’s sense of family duty. They had no interest in the mundane details of life as an academic. But I made sure I told him in absolute detail of the day. McBride managed to maintain concentration, which is more than I could say for his overweight sidekick.
‘And after you left Canberra?’
‘I met one of my researchers for a drink at Wye River pub.’ If he knew where I was going he showed no indication. But then he would have steeled himself to look blank. Perhaps I could test that. ‘You’ve met her. Natalie.’ I paused, but he just kept taking notes. ‘I rang her and she was there later that night,’ I continued, annoyed that he wasn’t showing me simple courtesy.
‘Yes. Dr King,’ he said, still not looking at me. ‘You were there at the pub how long?’
I told him, told him Alison met me and we went straight home.
‘So how did you get there?’ DSS McBride asked.
‘My own car, I had left it at the airport.’
‘So you didn’t need a lift?’
Obviously no. I smiled.
‘So why did Alison come if you weren’t eating there?’
‘We changed our mind.’
DSS McBride didn’t bother hiding his disbelief. ‘And when did the fight with your wife start?’
‘Immediately.’ I smoothed the crease in my trousers.
‘And remind me, what was it about?’
‘I had been away. She thought I should have sent someone else to Canberra rather than going myself.’ He still wasn’t looking at me. Thinking of fucking Natalie perhaps. I imagined she might be entertaining. ‘Though choosing to keep my appointment with Natalie…Dr King…That didn’t help.’