Medea's Curse (30 page)

‘Why not just leave her alone? The court is taking care of her.’

‘They’ve just let her out on bail, so maybe not. Perhaps her release rekindled his
anger and he doesn’t know what to do with it.’

‘That describes where I feel I’m at.’

Declan raised an eyebrow. She took a deep breath and gave him a potted summary of
her stalker, minus the possibility that it could be Travis.

‘I assure you,’ Natalie concluded, ‘that this is real. The police have the notes
and videos.’ Well, one of them.

‘It sounds very real and quite frightening. Do they think you’re in danger?’

‘They’re not specific threats. I think the purpose is to
scare me off, but I’m not
sure what from. I’ve a feeling he likes to play with me, maybe see or imagine me
being scared.’

‘Are you?’

She let Declan read it in her face.

‘Have you thought of taking some time off? Moving home to your family?’

Natalie shook her head. ‘I’d sit around worrying. My mother would make me feel worse.
Besides, it could be related to my private life rather than work.’

‘Ah. The married man?’

Natalie nodded. At least Lauren was unlikely to murder her. Too smart, and without
the psychopathology of the predatory stalker.

‘Hell hath no fury…’ Declan caught her expression. ‘Have you considered taking a
break from that?’

Yes, but she couldn’t do it; she needed Liam too much. Something else she wouldn’t
admit.

‘You have suggested to me before,’ said Natalie, ‘that women who have affairs with
married men have more curiosity about what it is to be the other woman than actually
wanting to be with the man. Is that an accurate summary?’

‘You have the essence.’

‘Why?’

‘Because their curiosity is about how to be a wife, their internal conflict about
how such a relationship could work.’ Declan’s eyes never left her.

‘Surely that’s what they get from their parents?’

‘We don’t always have the parental role model we want. For whatever reason there
is a need to reject or question it, look for an alternative.’

Her mother versus Lauren; Craig, her stepfather; the real
father that was at the
tip of her memory…Or Liam.
Shit.
‘So what’s the man’s role in this?’

‘They have a role,’ said Declan with a smile. ‘Beyond the obvious. Perhaps the fantasy
of what a husband should be, but without the risk associated with commitment.’ He
paused then added, ‘Perhaps part of a past they are stuck in.’

Natalie took a breath.
Repetition-compulsion.
Declan knew too much about her, had
too many dots joined. She wasn’t ready. Yet she needed to work out a different ending.

‘I saw Amber,’ she blurted out.

Declan took a sharp breath.

‘She’d just got parole,’ said Natalie with more care, ‘and wanted to let me know.
Before you say anything, I’ve said I can’t keep seeing her.’

Declan nodded, face very still. ‘You are treading on dangerous ground, Natalie.’

‘She’s out, she’s fine. It’s good to know that she can get on with her life.’

‘And close the chapter?’

‘Yes. Thanks.’ She stood up abruptly and kissed Declan lightly on the cheek before
leaving. She didn’t normally do that and wondered what he would make of it.

She rode home feeling strangely settled within herself. Relieved, perhaps because
she’d come clean to Declan. So relieved that the danger seemed to recede. She felt
back in control, though objectively she knew this was far from the reality of her
situation.

She could just imagine what the tae kwon do teacher would have said, if she had still
been doing classes. He’d told her on the fifth week she was unsuitable and to come
back to formal lessons when she was ready to learn. She’d
dismissed his advice, hadn’t
been all that interested anyway, or so she rationalised. She liked being on the edge,
liked living dangerously. To be good at any martial art you had to overcome that
impulse. You had to run first, negotiate second and fight only as a last option.

In the end she settled for a balanced fitness regime that used a punching bag for
boxing. And leg-sweep manoeuvres she hadn’t ever intended to use, although they’d
worked effectively enough on the court steps.

She’d never been in a physical fight. The bikie thing—she had been on the periphery
of the whole scene. Something that had made life exciting, if only briefly, still
stirred inside her. A need to prove herself, even if it put her in danger. A death
wish, Declan had called it. The survivor’s guilt that was aroused every time she
visited Eoin’s grave. And perhaps when she got too close to anyone.

Her confidence faltered as soon as she reached the top of the stairs. Something was
wrong. She stood perfectly still, the thumping of her heart and Bob fussing on his
stand the only noise. What was it? She looked around. There was the usual state of
chaos; it would take an intruder with OCD to create any oddity here. Had she left
that glass on the counter? Stepping forward, she saw it contained the dregs of the
morning’s juice and dropped it quietly in the sink. Something else?

From where she stood now it jumped out at her. The television was on, sound muted.
The picture flickering between scenes sent shadows across the room, all the more
eerie in the silence.

Hand shaking, she found the remote on top of a pile of papers and clicked it off.
She looked more closely at the papers; she didn’t recognise them. She picked up them
up
and peered at the top sheet. Spun around as the papers fell around her in disarray,
feelings of terror surging through her, certain he was still there, looking over
her shoulder.

Nothing. She dropped to her haunches, on full alert, sensitive to every sound that
Bob made. Another sound in the distance made her turn but it was outside, too far
off. It was minutes before she could bring herself to pick the papers up.

They were case notes.
Her
case notes, from the one time she’d been admitted while
manic. Seven years ago.

‘Could he be a health professional?’ Senior Constable Hudson had asked.

Jesus. It looked like it had to be, and suddenly the net seemed a whole lot wider.
A nurse she’d pissed off? The intern who had been her friend until her manic behaviour
had driven a wedge between them? Or…? Lauren. Lauren was based at the hospital where
Natalie had been admitted years earlier. Her case notes would be archived there.
She longed for Liam, but was not going to show this to anyone, least of all him.
Instead she found where he had got in—this time he had smashed a back window in the
garage—boarded it up as best she could, and rang Tom. Then she waited. Unable to
rid herself of the feeling she was being watched, her response scrutinised.

A piece of plastic in the garage below flapped in the breeze from the broken window.
She sat perfectly still as she listened.

Chapter 26

Beverley had booked Tiphanie to see her Wednesday morning in a slot that didn’t exist.
Then she’d gone off sick. Natalie wondered what revenge she could exact. Maybe banning
false nails on hygiene grounds? It took twenty minutes of rearranging appointments
to make her day manageable.

Tiphanie arrived with her father Jim and headed straight to the consulting room.

‘How’s she going?’ Natalie asked him.

‘When the going gets tough…’ He shrugged.

Tiphanie was already seated, not looking at all tough. ‘It’s nice being out.’ The
bags under her eyes had almost disappeared.

‘I wasn’t expecting to see you.’ Natalie was curious; her contact with Tiphanie had
been for assessment, not therapy.

‘It’s okay isn’t it?’ Tiphanie looked younger than her twenty years. ‘I just…I can’t
talk about it with Mum and Dad.’

‘Family members often grieve in different ways. Helping each other can be hard.’

‘I think about her all the time.’ Tiphanie pulled her
phone from her bag and thrust
it at Natalie. There was a photo of Chloe filling the screen. ‘Just swipe.’

Natalie scrolled, watching Chloe’s life from the newborn photos to those of a month
earlier. Her brief life had been well documented. Tiphanie provided a running commentary.

‘I called her my little Eskimo,’ she said, as she pointed to Chloe dressed like a
giant snowball. ‘She hated being cold.’

Despite the past tense, and the tears in her eyes, Tiphanie was still talking about
Chloe as if she was part of her life. She had yet to come to terms with the reality
that her child wasn’t coming home.

‘Do the police…keep in touch?’ Natalie finally asked as the session came to an end.

‘Yes. Andie mostly. The cops…’ Tiphanie bit her lip. ‘They’re looking for blood.’

‘They may not find anything,’ said Natalie.

‘If he…they will get him won’t they?’ Tiphanie looked at Natalie, desperate for reassurance.
‘I mean she was only… yesterday was her birthday.’

Natalie hugged her. Reassured her, without knowing if it was the case, that the police
would find evidence to charge Travis, and that she would do anything she could to
help.

Natalie fought back the way she always did: music and exercise. The Styx played Friday
and Saturday night in Bendigo and she did two workouts in a local gym to blow off
the last of the steam. She felt relaxed enough afterwards to buy a pair of earrings
that looked like handcuffs, and flirt with one of the barmen. On Sunday she managed
a ten kilometre run. Tom arrived for takeaway on Sunday evening. Bob’s serenade capped
a return to some approximation of normality.

She felt in control, and refused to allow herself to obsess about who was watching
her. She could feel the anger working its way into her system.
Worm.
A little demeaning
name for a pathetic little person who was hiding and thought he could get to her.
She pictured him as small in every way. A
worm
that she could feed to Bob. Most of
the time it worked.

She kept an eye out for the worm, but told herself it was only for the opportunity
to vent her anger on him. She had a security firm install a camera underneath her
Bridge of Sighs, bars over the garage windows and, in the living area, an alarm that
alerted the local police. She asked Vince and Benny to use their own security cameras
if the man who had asked after her turned up.

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.