Medea's Curse Read online

  Natalie began to outline the rules of therapy. Turn up on time, no suicide attempts, use the crisis line…

  Jessie was grinning. There was the hint of a twinkle in her eye and dimples that negated the tattoo artillery as Natalie walked her out to the waiting room and watched her leave.

  ‘Did you forget your change of clothes?’ Beverley scanned Natalie’s attire with a what were you thinking? expression.

  Natalie let the comment go. Since her divorce, Beverley’s mission had been to find a man. Her latest outfit was a canary coloured skirt and jacket that screamed out a refusal to disappear at forty-five.

  Beverley handed Natalie a red envelope. Her name was printed in neat capitals, but there was no address or sender’s details. ‘Someone gave this to one of Dr Miller’s patients as she came in and told her to give it to you,’ she said. Her tone made it clear that this was both weird and interesting.

  Natalie opened the envelope. A plain white filing card with a handwritten message: Breaking the rules has consequences. It sounded like something Declan would say but he was hardly going to send an anonymous note to remind her. He was her supervisor; he got to tell her in person on a weekly basis. What rule was the note referring to? Some perceived breach of ethics? The duties of patient confidentiality and mandatory reporting of risk were sometimes in conflict.

  Confidentiality? She didn’t discuss patients with anyone except Declan so it was unlikely to be anything she had said.

  Risk? She flipped mentally through her current patients. No apparent danger to any of their children. The two in domestically violent relationships were already well known to police and Natalie had done nothing to incur either partner’s anger. Maybe it was something she had yet to be told or figure out. Apart from child abuse, the only thing that mandatory reporting covered was the risk of serious harm to someone. As far as she knew, none of her patients was planning a murder any time soon.

  Shit, this had to happen to forensic shrinks all the time. In any event, the note was just stating the obvious. It wasn’t like there was any real threat. She’d better get used to it. She turned the card in her hand, considering her options, but in the end dropped it in the paper shredder pile as she headed out the door.

  Chapter 3

  ‘Could have been the star!’

  Natalie hit the punching bag again, harder.

  Bob danced from foot to foot on his perch, screeching periodically. When Natalie continued to punch, ignoring his butchered version of Dylan’s ode to Rubin Carter, he raised his yellow crest and screeched at the top of his voice, ‘You’re a complete unknown!’

  Natalie paused for breath and wiped the sweat trickling down her face. ‘Bob, you really know how to make a girl feel good.’

  Bob strutted, looking pleased with himself. He flew after her, up the stairs from the makeshift gym in the garage below her warehouse apartment, where she let him fly free. He regaled her from the curtain rail.

  ‘Shit there and you’re parrot au vin,’ Natalie warned him. She filled his seed container to give him time to reconsider.

  A patient had asked her to care for Bob while he was incarcerated. The patient had a well-demarcated delusional system that revolved around a belief that Bob Dylan had stolen and changed his lyrics; the cockatoo had picked up a few lines from his owner’s versions of ‘Hurricane’ and ‘Like a Rolling Stone’.

  ‘You’re a complete unknown,’ Bob reiterated before flying to his stand. Natalie clipped his chain on and went to get showered and changed for work.

  From her warehouse, Natalie cycled between the Housing Commission towers. The grounds were empty apart from a tall Sudanese woman and a dog scurrying to get out of her way. Zigzagging through the back streets of Abbotsford, she joined the bike path that ran past Yarra Bend, the forensic psychiatric hospital where she worked Tuesdays and Thursdays. Clouds of mist rose in patches from the river, and she ducked as she passed trees wet with the previous night’s rain. A few cyclists were headed into town in the opposite direction. The winding route made for a longer trip but she was convinced that the physical regime kept her well, at least as much as the medication did.

  The forensic hospital facility was on prime real estate. The tree-lined river path opened out onto lush parklands and a back road to the hospital gates. It was all the same to the inmates. They couldn’t see out from behind the red-brick walls topped with wire any more than passers-by could see in.

  Natalie greeted the security team, eyeballed the iris scanner and was let into the main yard. On the way to her ward, she stuck her head into the administrative section. The hospital manager had, as usual, arrived before the office staff. Only the top of her grey hair, pulled back into a bun, was visible as she checked her emails. She looked up over half-rim glasses. ‘Good morning, Natalie.’

  ‘Do you have a moment, Corinne?’

  Corinne hesitated, then indicated the vacant chair opposite.

  ‘Wadhwa is being unreasonable,’ said Natalie.

  ‘Professor Wadhwa has considerable experience.’

  ‘Associate Professor Wadhwa’—she leaned a little on the title, awarded by some minor university without a medical faculty—‘is being sucked in.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Georgia is attractive, and doesn’t wear tracksuits. She’s a very good liar.’ Georgia Latimer had been transferred to Yarra Bend from the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre for an assessment. It was nearly complete, and she was due to return to prison to await the bail hearing at the end of next week. Natalie and Wadhwa were no closer to agreement about her than when she arrived.

  ‘This case, it is Dissociative Identity Disorder,’ he had pronounced after their joint assessment a week earlier.

  ‘On what evidence?’

  ‘We are not lawyers, Dr King. Not evidence—history and mental state examination.’

  ‘All right then, on what history and mental state findings?’

  ‘Her postings on Facebook. This is most certainly dissociation. The vagueness and memory lapses, these, they are classical.’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t see two or more distinct personalities.’

  Wadhwa waved his hand dismissively. ‘We have the middle-class wife and mother and the regressed child. The details will come out over time. When you have seen as many as I have, Dr King, you will know the signs.’

  Natalie had gritted her teeth then and remained unconvinced now.

  ‘I’m not saying Georgia doesn’t dissociate,’ she told Corinne. ‘But if you’re asking me to make a call, then she’s putting on an act. It’s a gift for Wadhwa’s research project. If he didn’t need the numbers, he’d be saying she had a personality disorder. Which is what she has.’

  ‘I know what you think of his research but the project has been good for the hospital. The board of directors like us to be on the leading edge and Professor Wadhwa is helping us meet our KPIs.’

  Natalie raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Look,’ said Corinne, leaning forward on her desk. ‘Hear me clearly: you have to find a way of working with him. It won’t look good in court if you contradict each other and you know how much media coverage he gets.’ She rested her chin on her hand. ‘Natalie, he’
s in here complaining to me as often as you are. In the end if I have to choose between an Associate Professor and a junior consultant…’ she shrugged. ‘And I’m not just talking about this specific case. Am I being clear enough?’

  Natalie was still fuming when she squeezed into the ward office for handover.

  ‘Most kind of you to join us, Dr King.’

  Jesus, she was only five minutes late. ‘Always a privilege, Associate Professor Wadhwa.’

  Kirsty, the unit manager, winked as she handed Natalie the patient summary sheet. They had shared more than one drink reviewing Wadhwa’s esoteric diagnoses, treatment disasters and lack of bedside manner. Any time anyone criticised him he would whip out a pre-written resignation from his leather compendium and storm into Corinne’s office, confident she would never accept it.

  ‘For those who have come in late,’ said Wadhwa, ‘we had just heard that Celeste has deteriorated.’

  ‘Did anything happen over the weekend?’ said Natalie.

  ‘Just her brother visiting as usual,’ said Kirsty.

  Wadhwa looked at his list. ‘She is married. Why did her husband not visit?’

  Natalie tried not to smirk. ‘He’s probably still upset about her cutting his dick off.’

  In the absence of any response, Kirsty continued handover. ‘Susie has been slashing up again.’

  ‘How?’ said Wadhwa.

  ‘Her own toenails,’ Kirsty said.

  Wadhwa’s nodded. ‘Perhaps her medication needs review.’

  ‘Does she need suturing?’ Natalie addressed Kirsty.

  ‘No; she’s so scarred you wouldn’t be able to is my guess.’

  ‘Consider lamotrigine,’ Wadhwa said.

  ‘Last time I looked at the College guidelines there wasn’t a medication likely to cure severe borderline personality disorder.’

  Wadhwa was shaking his head, giving up. ‘So,’ he paused and Natalie knew what was coming. ‘Along with your other patients there will be sufficient to keep you busy, I should think?’

  ‘Busy enough,’ said Natalie. ‘But don’t worry, I can still squeeze Georgia in.’

  ‘She’s completing my assessment forms.’

  ‘I’ll be sure to ask if she needs them explained.’

  ‘She has D.I.D., Dr King.’

  ‘Well then, Associate Professor Wadhwa, I imagine that’s what my diagnosis will be, don’t you?’

  Natalie started her rounds, mindful of the research meeting she was meant to attend. She was going to make time to see Georgia and had no intention of kowtowing to Wadhwa, or Corinne for that matter.

  Celeste was back to the state she had been in at admission: rocking and pleading with her dead mother to stop yelling at her. Natalie pulled the treatment sheet from the file.

  ‘Besides her brother, anything different? Could she have been putting the pills under her tongue?’ Natalie asked Kirsty.

  ‘Doubt it; we watch her after the pile we found under her mattress. Saturday she was playing table tennis with a few of the others and she seemed fine.’

  ‘Spending time with anyone in particular?’

  ‘Not really. Georgia’s the only patient that seeks out company, and she prefers the nurses.’

  ‘Good morning, Georgia.’

  ‘Good morning, Dr King.’ Unlike the other women in the unit, Georgia was well groomed—hair and makeup nicely done, clothes casual. She gave no indication that she was there for anything more serious than a chat with a girlfriend over coffee; in fact, she had a mug in her hand. In her late thirties, slim, with pale blue eyes and bobbed blonde hair, she looked younger than her years. Natalie wondered if her appearance had contributed to Wadhwa’s rejection of borderline as a diagnosis. She was a qualified nurse and halfway through an online arts course. Until her arrest Georgia had been married and middle class: a gym membership and a first-name relationship with her hairdresser.

  Natalie decided to deviate from her focus on building a trusting relationship. Right now she needed some hard facts and time was short. Georgia would be returning to the main prison soon.

  ‘How are you finding Professor Wadhwa’s forms?’

  ‘Interesting. A lot of very unusual questions. They pass the time.’

  Natalie made a mental note to check them out. She knew one was a personality inventory. Georgia was too smart not to know what the forms were looking for. In any case, Wadhwa had already shared his opinions with her lawyer.

  ‘What do you think of his diagnosis?’ Natalie asked.

  Georgia gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘I don’t really know. It doesn’t make much sense to me.’

  ‘Have you had periods where you lose time?’ Natalie had already been through many of these questions, but one of the hallmarks of Dissociative Identity Disorder was that memories changed according to which ‘personality’ was present. Natalie hadn’t seen any sign of this, though. She only ever saw the same woman—sometimes agitated, sometimes calmer. No more fragmented than her other patients with borderline personality disorder. Wadhwa might need Georgia to have D.I.D., and so might her lawyer. It didn’t mean she had it.

  ‘There are events I don’t remember very well.’

  ‘Tell me about those.’

  ‘I’ve told you before. When the ambulance and police first arrived.’

  A time when memory impairment was to be expected. ‘What about sleep walking? Ever find yourself somewhere and not recall how you got there?’

  ‘Would you count the time when I drank most of a bottle of vodka?’

  No, Natalie wouldn’t. It had been in response to stress and was not repeated. Wadhwa was an idiot.

  ‘Tell me about your mother.’

  ‘I was two when she went to prison. I don’t remember her.’

  ‘But you’ve thought a lot about her.’

  ‘Of course. She was the sort of mother I wasn’t going to be.’

  ‘What about your aunt? The one who raised you. What sort of mother was she?’

  ‘She prided herself on being tough.’

  Natalie was aware that she was seeing an act and was conscious of how gullible psychiatrists could be, how ready to believe what they were told. It was a reasonable starting point—if you weren’t working with criminals. Georgia had a lot at stake. Everything in this interaction was admissible in court.

  ‘So what sort of mother were you, Georgia?’

  ‘Caring, devoted.’ She paused. ‘Not perfect. My children were good kids, but they got sick. Have you ever looked after children, Dr King? Being woken up every night for a week at a time. Hourly at times. I think I did quite well under the circumstances.’

  Georgia looked down. Probably not wanting to appear confrontational. She might be using the conversation as practice for the bail hearing. She had been denied bail the first time because she was pregnant and the unborn child was deemed to be at risk from a woman facing three murder charges—all her own children. The fourth child, a girl, had been born in custody.

  ‘What about your youngest child? Do you miss her?’
r />   Georgia looked up, ice-blue eyes unwavering. ‘Three of my children died tragically, doctor. Then Miranda was taken from me. She was taken from me in the labour ward. What do you think?’

  It was a good question: one Natalie wished she had an answer to.

  She brought the interview to a close and watched Georgia leave, watched her turn in the doorway to look back and smile before closing the door softly. A half-smile that Natalie was left to wonder about: carefully staged or secretive? Or merely friendly and hopeful; nothing that would be pondered on, had it been given by anyone else?

  The interview had been inconclusive. Natalie understood this woman no better than she had at the start. She couldn’t tell whether she had been talking to Wadhwa’s fragmented, disorganised soul or a cold-hearted monster.

  Chapter 4

  What the hell had possessed her, agreeing to have dinner with Liam O’Shea?

  She read the online newspaper stories about Liam’s case to pass time before they were due to meet. She was irritable and it didn’t help that she knew why. She didn’t do dinner dates; particularly with married men she fancied fucking. She had caved in instantly, and why? Because of an Irish accent and blue eyes?

  Vow number one: no matter what, she was not bringing him home after their dinner meeting. He was already too cocksure and there was far too much of a payback element involved.

  She couldn’t even console herself that the evening would be worthwhile because of what Liam ostensibly wanted to discuss. She wanted desperately to know more about Travis and the little blonde girl, and to help Amber, but she had to leave it alone, or there’d be hell to pay with Declan, her supervisor.

  Vow number two: she’d help him as far as she could over dinner. For Chloe and Amber’s sake. Then no more Liam and no more involvement with Amber’s ex-husband Travis.

  The internet search didn’t provide much information. No one seemed to think anything more than bad parenting was involved in Chloe’s disappearance. The story had only warranted brief mentions in the metropolitan papers, but it had made the front page of the Welbury Leader. One picture included Travis but Natalie wouldn’t have recognised him. Only his eyes were the same as she remembered, a slightly puppy-dog look. More self-assured now, in a fuller face with the goatee neatly trimmed. His chin was thrust towards the photographer, meaning business in a way that had been absent on the steps of the Supreme Court. Tiphanie, the baby’s mother, had her head turned, avoiding the camera. Didn’t she want her fifteen minutes of fame? Chloe looked sweet, vulnerable and innocent. In this photo she was holding a small soft toy.