Medea's Curse (12 page)

Natalie let the silence stretch and become awkward. When Georgia filled it, she returned
to the sexual relationship.

‘He made it hard to say no,’ said Georgia, eyes averted. ‘If I didn’t enjoy it, he
didn’t like that either.’

‘Did he threaten you? Physically abuse you?’

Georgia looked down. ‘Not really. I mean I just knew.’

‘Knew what, Georgia?’

This time Georgia smiled into the silence, a smile that dug under Natalie’s skin.
Ashamed and hiding something—or an act?

‘Have you spoken to Paul since your release?’ Natalie asked, remembering Georgia’s
insistence that he still loved her.

‘No, I’m not allowed to,’ said Georgia. ‘He sent me a card.’

‘Really?’ Natalie found it hard to sound anything other than incredulous. ‘What did
it say?’

‘Nothing, it was blank. But I knew it was from him.’

‘How?’

‘We’ve been married for fifteen years. Anyway, who else could it be?’

It was possible, just. Not committing anything to writing would suggest ambivalence,
perhaps the inability to believe he’d been married to a monster. Or a way of still
trying to control her, keeping her on a string. As for who else could have sent it—hate
mail from the public wouldn’t have been surprising. But the sender surely wouldn’t
have left it blank. Or was the whole thing in Georgia’s imagination? Who
would have
her new address anyway? Was this a fantasy, based on a need to bolster her self-esteem?

Natalie was still making notes after Georgia had left, when a major inconsistency
occurred to her. Georgia had stated that she was sexually naive, that Paul had been
her first serious boyfriend. She flicked back through the case file and found it.
Prior to meeting Paul she had been pregnant—and lost a thirty-eight-week foetus.

Although it was only 4 p.m., a late winter mist was settling on Welbury as Natalie
turned off the freeway into the wide streets of the town and parked her bike outside
the police station. Inside Natalie watched Tiphanie being separated from Travis,
over protests from him. There was not a word from her. On the day Natalie had watched
Travis being interviewed, she caught a look from Tiphanie and wondered about shame
and guilt, and whether she was at risk from Travis. Today, though, she still looked
younger than her twenty years. She swaggered in with a bravado close to truculence,
like a schoolgirl caught smoking behind the sheds.

Neither Travis nor Tiphanie had been told which psychiatrist would be conducting
the interview, but given that Travis had seen Natalie on the last visit, he could
have made an educated guess it would be her. The messages in the red envelopes were
fresh in her mind. Had Travis had sent them?
Breaking the rules has consequences.
Was that about the way she’d confronted him over Amber more than a year earlier?
And if so, were the following two notes warnings about speaking to Tiphanie?
I wouldn’t
get too close if I were you
and
Getting close can be dangerous for your mental health.

Would seeing Tiphanie be, as the message suggested, dangerous? Travis certainly fitted
her profile; she remembered Amber telling her that his mother was domineering.

‘I’ve told the cops everything,’ Tiphanie said to no one in particular. Natalie was
sitting on the same side of the table as her in small sparsely-furnished room. Damian,
on the other side, was reading his notes. He’d barely spoken to Natalie since her
arrival.

Natalie pulled her chair closer.

‘Not that they were listening,’ Tiphanie added.

‘I’ll probably be asking a few questions they haven’t.’

‘Can’t tell you anything different.’ Tiphanie stared at her, lips pursed. A look
of something Natalie couldn’t quite pinpoint. She had spent half her school years
in the principal’s office, sitting in Tiphanie’s position: she felt she should be
able to get inside her head. On the other hand this meeting was about something a
lot more serious than a bottle of vodka in her locker.

‘Well, let’s wait and see what the questions are, shall we?’ Natalie managed to hold
eye contact briefly. ‘How are you doing?’

‘How do you think?’

‘Shit, I should imagine.’

Tiphanie looked up again. For a moment there was a connection. ‘Yeah.’

‘What thoughts go around your head? Mostly.’

‘Thoughts? Just wondering where she is, you know. Hoping…’ Tiphanie took a breath.
‘Hoping she’s okay.’

‘It must be hard not knowing.’

Tiphanie looked downwards.

Natalie took her through the routine questions about depression and anxiety and Tiphanie
told her that she had
been fine until Chloe disappeared. ‘Now that’s all I think
about,’ she said.

‘What do you imagine?’

‘Horrible things,’ Tiphanie mumbled. ‘She’ll be missing me. She’ll be scared.’

This was a definite improvement on her partner. Tiphanie was able to think of her
daughter as someone separate from herself. Someone vulnerable, and still alive. It
couldn’t be Travis’s coaching. He wasn’t up to this level.

‘Sometimes children feel scared even when they’re with their parents,’ said Natalie
carefully. ‘Do you think she ever felt like that, maybe when you were asleep or when
you and Travis were arguing?’

Tiphanie shook her head. ‘Chloe’s a happy kid. She’s good, easy.’

Perhaps Natalie was hoping for too much. Georgia had also said her children were
‘good’ as if that was evidence of what a great mother she was. There was something
else about Tiphanie that reminded her of Georgia, but she couldn’t place what. Narcissism?
Borderline traits?

‘What do you think happened?’ Natalie asked. There was another moment of eye contact
but again Tiphanie didn’t hold it long.

‘Don’t know.’

‘You know your daughter,’ said Natalie. ‘Is she capable of getting a chair and opening
the back door?’

The paediatrician that the police had consulted had thought not, but experts were
not infallible. They’d got the Chamberlain case wrong. Natalie didn’t know any eleven-month-old
children, but from her reading she thought it was a task more for a three-year-old
or an advanced two-year-old.

‘Don’t know. I guess.’

‘Tell me about her.’ On this topic Tiphanie was happy to open up, able to forget
that the child was missing. Like Natalie, she probably preferred to think of Chloe
being still alive.

‘She loves playing with the pots and pans in the kitchen while I cook. She always
goes to bed, um, like, with her two favourite toys. She likes Big Bird on TV too.’

‘Does Travis play with her?’

‘Sure. He sometimes reads her a book.’ After a pause she added, ‘And helps with her
bath.’ The way she said ‘helps’ suggested to Natalie that he was next to useless.
But given what happened to Bella-Kaye, maybe neither of them was comfortable with
baths.

‘Did you ever leave her with anyone?’ Natalie asked. ‘You know, so you could go out?’

Tiphanie shook her head. ‘Never.’

‘What about to shop? Go to the hairdresser? Get your nails done?’ From her memory
of Amber these were the major pastimes of the unemployed mothers in the area, though
usually at each others’ houses rather than a salon. Tiphanie’s short, square-cut
nails and limp hair suggested beauty care wasn’t a pastime she had indulged in for
a while.

‘She comes everywhere with me,’ said Tiphanie. Tears formed in her eyes. ‘I miss
her.’

Natalie believed her. Trouble was, Tiphanie was not describing a child that, at less
than one, was likely to go any further than a metre radius from her mother. In the
stranger-anxiety period of development, Chloe was neither physically nor psychologically
competent to take off alone. Tiphanie and Travis’s story had so many holes it was
curious the cops hadn’t busted it already. Tiphanie did seem to genuinely
care; as
you would for a missing child—or one that you, or your partner, had accidentally
killed.

Outside, Damian said, ‘We’d like her to cough up Travis, but we’ll get him without
her co-operation if we have to.’ And without your help, the look suggested.

‘She’s hiding something.’

Damian frowned. ‘She’s covering for Travis.’

Like Liam, the cops seemed firmly of the opinion that lightning didn’t strike twice
and their focus was on Travis. She should have been delighted. Why wasn’t she? There
was no doubt Tiphanie loved her daughter, but there was something else. Was the sullen
bravado covering fear, and if so, of what? Natalie wasn’t sure. She had said she
was fine before Chloe’s disappearance. Then why did she need to sleep all morning?
Chloe slept through the night, so disturbed sleep couldn’t explain it. ‘Can you check
with her GP? Get her records?’ she asked Damian.

Damian was noncommittal, but he wrote something down. Maybe
fucking shrinks.

Later, Natalie saw Tiphanie walk out to join Travis, and her expression was unmistakable.
Jubilation. She thought she had got away with something.

She’d ridden down alone and was staying at the corner pub where the music was loud,
the crowds spilled onto the pavement and the cops did a clean-up run after midnight.
She hadn’t asked Liam if he was in town, and there was no reason for him to be, particularly
since the O.P.P. needed to keep their distance from the police investigation. He
had a wife and the usual commitments, presumably. School functions, law practice
obligations, probably a list of social shit from political party fundraising to film
nights. She knew
instinctively that regardless of all these things he would try to
make it happen tonight. Not because he’d told her so, but because she had felt his
body respond to hers and knew it had surprised him as much as it had her. She’d seen
his eyes later. He was hooked. Trouble was, if she was honest with herself, so was
she. And it was obvious Liam didn’t care one way or another about her involvement
in the case.

She helped the band set up as the early arrivals hugged the bar. Natalie’s experience
was that, audience-wise, drunk was better than sober. The worst gig they ever did
was in the early afternoon when no one had had enough on board to loosen them up.

‘How’s your wife?’ Natalie asked Gil.

‘Fat.’

‘It ain’t fat,’ Natalie laughed.

‘Not enjoying impending fatherhood I take it?’ Tom threw him a cable and they plugged
in the bass amp in light that was barely bright enough to see each other.

‘So guys,’ said Natalie, ‘feel for the crowd?’

‘Eighties and nineties covers.’ Tom sounded depressed.

‘Could be worse.’

Most of the punters were tastefully attired in muscle shirts over beer bellies. She
was certain at least a few were bikies, the outlaw kind. She hoped they weren’t here
on business. Tom didn’t appear too concerned, but as a former enforcer, he was used
to keeping his thoughts well-hidden. What the hell, they’d seen worse. Natalie’s
sexual energy, heightened by thoughts of the possibilities ahead, would probably
help. So would the fact that she hadn’t taken her meds. She knew she should; she
just hated how
dull
they made her feel. On stage, high, she was invincible. She just
had to manage it, not let herself go
too
high. She’d take a
dose tonight, after the
gig. A half dose.

From the first song she had the crowd in her hand. The choice of songs, mostly left
to Shaun, was also working well—the chemistry between the two of them always clicked
in these numbers. Off stage they never flirted, not even a suggestive joke. But on
stage there was a gritty sexual tension. No one watching would ever guess that it
was Tom who was the friend with benefits.

Backstage after the first bracket she downed a water and decided not to go out front,
but Gil came back with a beer she hadn’t ordered. ‘You’ve been followed.’

Natalie raised her eyebrows.

‘You reckon we didn’t notice that bloke at the Halfpenny?’

Natalie’s stomach did a flip. The best sort. She rubbed her arms and her legs quivered.

The second bracket was straight, solid hard rock. They included some Nirvana, Red
Hot Chilli Peppers, Madonna and Pink, Natalie spitting out the words with more feeling
than usual. The pub was overflowing now, and outside fights had started to break
out. One more bracket and they’d be done.

Liam came backstage in the break. With a bourbon.

‘Come to get the lowdown on the case?’ she asked.

‘If you’re offering, though it wasn’t exactly in the forefront of my mind.’

‘Well just for the record, I rang and organised the interview before I heard from
your office. And Tiphanie’s hiding something.’

Liam leaned against the door frame. ‘What?’

‘Maybe she was in on it. I guess all I’m saying is don’t dismiss her.’

‘Come off it Natalie, Travis did it; remember, that’s why
you wanted to be on the
team?’ He looked her up and down. ‘You are the hottest woman I have ever seen.’

‘Out there or as a shrink?’

‘Both. And you know where else.’

‘You in town for the night?’ Maybe just one more night with him, then call it quits.

‘Could be.’

Natalie raised an eyebrow.

‘I want to take you for a drive first.’

‘You have something that’ll compete with a Ducati?’ Natalie asked in disbelief.

Liam grinned. ‘See you after the show.’

The finale was definitely tongue in cheek. The Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’ was Natalie’s
challenge to Liam, to show she wasn’t going to back off from anything he could come
up with. It was hard not to smile singing the repetitive chorus, the volley of teasing
‘no’s. She could feel, rather than see, Liam returning her sentiment with amusement
in the crowd, but he didn’t come backstage. Natalie looked for him in the bar and
he wasn’t there. She paused only a minute before making her way out, to ribald jeers
from some of the locals. She found him outside the entrance in a yellow convertible,
top down, talking to one of the cops. The constable was checking out the machinery.