Medea's Curse (6 page)

Shaun, the keyboard player, juggled his beer, burger and pen. The blue band of his
straw hat matched the blue of his glasses and the flowers of his shirt. ‘So how about
Welbury? They need a fill-in Friday after next.’

Welbury. Travis and Tiphanie territory. Natalie felt as if fate was pushing; she
pushed back. ‘It’s a dump.’

‘I’m not driving,’ said Tom. ‘Someone coined my car last time we were up there.’

Shaun looked to Gil.

‘I guess I can do one night away.’ Gil, the plumber-cum-bass player, sounded less
reluctant than he should have been to leave his pregnant wife.

‘They pay okay,’ said Shaun. ‘Beats doing another wedding.’

Two all. Shaun’s pen hovered. ‘Welbury crowd too tough for you Nat?’

Natalie glared at him. She knew what he was trying to do.

‘I can take your drums in the van,’ Shaun continued, looking at Tom now.

Tom hesitated, looked at Natalie and shrugged. She knew she’d lost, but wasn’t sure
that at the end of the day she hadn’t wanted to.

The first bracket was always a warm-up but it took longer than usual to settle in.
Groups of people hovered around the bar, leaving the dance floor empty. By the end
of the set, though, the crowd was having as much fun as the band and Natalie recognised
a few of the regulars. Beer slopping from glasses had hit the floor and the air was
sweet and hot.

Vince brought her a Corona in the break. ‘You in any trouble?’ Vince had a strong
fatherly streak.

‘What sort of trouble?’

‘The sort that’s in the bar asking after you.’

Natalie looked at Vince sharply. He was the other side of sixty and, if the scar
on his neck was anything to go by, knew trouble when he saw it. She thought about
Tom seeing a man outside her warehouse and wondered if it was a patient stalking
her. She didn’t work with men anymore. Maybe a patient’s partner?

‘Describe him,’ she said, wiping her brow. It was hot out on the stage.

‘Benny told me some jerk’s been asking about your band but seemed more interested
in you; said he backed down as soon as Benny pressed him. Same bloke I guess. A smart
arse, know what I’m saying?’

Liam. Shit. ‘Where is he?’

Natalie considered going out front and telling him to bugger off. He’d probably laugh.
Pubs were, after all public, and she didn’t own the Halfpenny. Vince did, though,
and he’d be more than happy to throw Liam out on his ear. Maybe she’d keep that favour
for when she really needed it. Right now there was a definite upside to Liam’s presence.
Her need to expend some sexual energy was escalating and she’d rather not fall back
into bad habits with Tom. Not that Liam was a good habit to start, and she had promised
herself she wouldn’t get involved. ‘No more than the usual man trouble,’ she assured
Vince and turned to the band.

‘Guys, can we change a number in the next bracket?’

They started with a few of their own songs. It was hard to see from the stage with
the lights on her, but she picked out Liam on a bar stool along the wall, watching.

Fancy this?
Shaun sketched out the opening riff of ‘Because the Night’ on his Roland.
It was one of Natalie’s favourite covers and she’d practised enough to lend it her
own style; Tom called it the sex-on-a-stick mix.

She sang the opening line, voice low and husky, and imagined Liam taking her as the
words left her lips. She was fairly certain it would be what he was thinking. She
sang about being touched and she could all but feel his hands on her as the lights
were burning on her skin. In the second she finished the song their eyes locked and
it was clear he knew she’d been singing it for him.

She had the audience calling for more. Natalie was
acutely aware that the song had
the same effect on her she had hoped it would have on Liam; desperate had now moved
into almost uncontrollable. She reminded herself that it was a really, really bad
idea to get involved with this man. He was married, problem enough. But she sensed
he was bad news in other ways she couldn’t put her finger on. The self-warning, the
sense of danger, only accentuated her desire.

She took her time coming out front, more to get control of herself than to make him
wait. He was back at the bar, a spare stool next to him and a Corona ready.

‘How touching, you remembered.’ Natalie handed it back to Vince who was watching
closely from the other side of the bar. He exchanged it for bourbon. Neat. Liam raised
an eyebrow.

‘Your after-performance preference?’

‘Something like that.’

‘You were great, incidentally,’ said Liam, his expression revealing little. The blue
eyes were more used to reading others than giving anything away. ‘But you know that.’

He looked less lawyer tonight and more Sinn Féin. Something about the curl over one
eye and the black leather jacket. And the stubble. He smelled good. Not cologne,
just male.

‘So can I ask what the fuck you’re doing here?’

He grinned. A man used to getting what he wanted; she wasn’t overly upset that right
now it was her. ‘I misplaced your phone number and thought I’d deliver the message
in person.’

Like that was believable. ‘The message?’

‘Thursday, five o’clock. Interview with Travis at Welbury police station. If Chloe
is still missing.’

‘You don’t seriously expect me to go to Welbury?’ She
thought of Kay’s eyes on her,
of Amber, of the photo of Chloe. What were the police doing in the meantime? A week
off had to mean they would be putting pressure on Travis for a confession.

‘I’m here to persuade you.’ He sat back and looked her up and down. Tight leather
low-riders, and a small black tank top. She could tell he’d already taken them off
in his imagination.

‘I was thinking of staying overnight after the interview and coming back in the morning.
You could drive up with me.’

Natalie stared at him. She reminded herself he was serious trouble too, that all
he was doing was trying to even up the scores. Did one bruised ego equal one roll
in the sheets? Knowing this did nothing to stop her wanting him. But if he thought
he could call the shots he was mistaken. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Vince
shaking his head.

‘I’ll think about it.’ She turned towards the door. Liam grabbed her arm. Brave…or
foolish, given their history.

‘Honey you’re not leaving already, surely?’ He slipped off the stool and was standing
next to her. He might not have been tall, but even with her platform shoes on he
still had more than ten centimetres on her. She could feel the power in his hand.
Somewhere in his busy legal career he must have found some time for weights. Natalie
could see Vince poised for action; she caught his eye. Reluctantly he eased off.

She turned back to Liam. ‘I do things on my own timeline.’ She shook her arm out
of his grip, heart pounding, and walked away without looking back.

It was only hours later, in bed alone, she marvelled that she’d managed it. Not without
help though. She’d picked Tom up on the way out of the bar and he’d only just left.

Jessie was on time, more or less: session two and still in the honeymoon phase.

‘You asked me about boyfriends last week,’ she said. ‘And I said no.’
Shit no
, actually.
‘Which is true. But there is Hannah.’

Natalie waited. The abuse history wasn’t the only thing Jessie had kept from her.

‘I mean I’m not with her if she’s locked up, right?’

‘Hannah’s in prison?’

‘Armed rob. One of her druggie friends must have done a deal with the cops. The robbery
happened before we got together; she needed the money to pay her dealer. She’s been
clean since I moved in.’

‘How long has she been there?’

‘A year.’ Jessie’s tone made it sound more like a decade. ‘Four more, minimum.’

A year fitted with the timing of the initial GP letter.

‘Was this why you were originally referred?’

Jessie nodded. ‘We’d been together six months. She wanted me to get help.’

Natalie noted the genuine warmth and sorrow for her partner, not just her own loss.

‘After that, I mean Jay was around…’ She shrugged.

Jay—Jesse—Cadek, Jessie’s stepbrother. Perhaps he’d provided enough support for Jessie
to ignore the earlier referral.

‘So why come to see me now?’

‘It’s really hard,’ said Jessie. ‘I don’t want to cut up. Hannah always asks how
I’m doing, but she isn’t there. I don’t feel I can talk to her about it. I mean she’s
the one in prison, I’ve got it easy.’

‘Doesn’t mean it feels easy.’

By the end of the session Natalie felt there was a good base to work with, the connection
a little stronger, though she still wasn’t certain why after all this time the situation
had reached crisis point for Jessie.

She watched Jessie leave through the car park and get into a beaten-up Commodore.
A gangly man with a ponytail of mousy hair, who had been leaning against the car,
tossed a cigarette into the gutter and moved into the driver’s seat. Jay, she assumed.

The rest of the day dragged. Natalie didn’t get her mail until she was about to leave.
Beverley passed her a USB stick. Natalie frowned. ‘What’s this?’

‘Arrived in the mail. I’d forgotten,’ said Beverley. ‘In a red envelope. No explanation.
I thought you must have been expecting it.’

Natalie was pretty sure Beverley hadn’t thought about it at all. She fingered the
small red device, worried about the possibility of a virus, but curiosity won. It
contained a single Word document. She opened the file.

Just one line.
I wouldn’t get too close if I were you.

She hated the adrenaline that surged through her, didn’t want to believe that one
stupid sentence could make her feel so vulnerable.

She took a breath, closed the file and put the USB in her top drawer.

Instead of getting on her bike and going straight home she walked to the nearest
newsagents, ten minutes away. The first card had been hand delivered, and she was
certain the USB came from the same author. In the back of the shop were the same
red envelopes and cards, but of course the girl behind the counter had no recollection
of anyone buying any
the previous week. Natalie hadn’t really thought she’d get any
useful information. There was nothing she could report that anyone could do anything
about in any case.

She just needed to be proactive in some way.

Chapter 7

‘From a diagnostic point of view,’ said Natalie, ‘Georgia presents some interesting
possibilities. The differential diagnoses to consider are Dissociative Identity Disorder—D.I.D.—and
a personality disorder, Cluster B.’ She smiled at Wadhwa and clicked the mouse.

Georgia’s case conference at Yarra Bend had attracted most of the hospital’s forensic
psychiatrists and registrars, as well as several psychologists and a few nurses.
Today Corinne was also present. There were obvious similarities with the well-publicised
case of Kathleen Folbigg, a New South Wales mother convicted of killing her four
children, largely on the basis of her diary entries. The previous week’s discussion
of Celeste’s treatment-resistant schizophrenia had not been such a crowd-puller.

Natalie’s new slide showed a list of symptoms.

‘These are the symptoms of D.I.D.,’ she said, clicking again. A tick, a question
mark or a cross came up against each symptom. There were only three ticks. She progressed
to the next slide.

‘And these are the symptoms of borderline, narcissistic and antisocial personality
disorder.’ The next click brought
up an array of ticks and a few question marks.
Only two crosses. ‘As you can see,’ said Natalie, avoiding Wadhwa’s eyes, ‘there
seems to be more
evidence
suggestive of a personality disorder in Georgia’s case.’
Catching Corinne’s stern expression she added, ‘At this stage.’

‘Dr King,’ Wadhwa interjected, ‘there is no reason she cannot have both D.I.D.
and
a personality disorder. Indeed, a childhood abuse history is essential to both diagnoses.
She will not have a robust personality structure; this will predispose her to a Dissociative
Identity Disorder. This can be read about in my paper in the Journal of—’

‘I agree,’ said Natalie. Her registrar hid a giggle at Wadhwa’s open-mouthed stare.
‘In general. In Georgia’s case though’—she clicked back to the list of D.I.D. symptoms
—‘this remains to be proven, don’t you think? Particularly given narcissistic and
antisocial traits came up on the MMPI inventory.’ Unable to stop herself smiling
as she said it, she added, ‘As well as the high lie score.’ The registrar was less
successful this time, turning the giggle into a cough.

Wadhwa waved his hand dismissively. ‘The lie scale is always high in criminal cases.
She is trying to appear better than she is. Georgia has at least three different
personalities, so that’s Criterion One. They clearly have power over her—they caused
her to kill her children: Criterion Two. She has periods of lack of recall: Criterion
Three.’