Medea's Curse Read online

  Natalie put her napkin on the plate, leaving the remaining chips. She was tempted. Not just because of Chloe, but because of Amber, whom she owed. She drained her Corona. She wouldn’t be going back on her word if Travis couldn’t see her, if she didn’t directly talk to him. Liam grinned, knowing he had her.

  ‘Text me and tell me when and where.’ She stood up.

  ‘No dessert?’

  ‘Nope, and no coffee at my place either. I have a conference to prepare for.’

  Liam laughed. ‘You’ve got tickets on yourself. What about a second date then?’

  ‘This wasn’t a first date. Just work.’ Which was the only reason she was going to let him get the bill.

  Not even saying goodbye to Maggie, she walked into the cool night air and slipped into the shapeless shadows of the Collingwood streets.

  Keeping one vow out of two wasn’t bad.

  Chapter 5

  ‘Georgia’s asking to see you.’ Kirsty didn’t bother looking up as Natalie entered the ward office.

  ‘Any reason?’

  ‘You’re the doctor.’

  ‘Wadhwa about?’

  ‘With Corinne.’

  What was he complaining about this time?

  ‘Don’t worry, not you,’ said Kirsty, not taking her eyes off the computer screen. ‘He sent Tania into lithium toxicity and her family are complaining. I gather he’s threatening to resign again.’

  They shared a look.

  ‘Do you know if the psychologist has seen Georgia’s MMPI test?’

  ‘In the patient record.’

  Natalie grabbed Georgia’s file and sank into the chair in the corner. There was nothing in the notes to give any hint of why Georgia was asking to be seen, which she would have known was a regular Thursday event anyway. Wanted to be first? To feel important? Natalie found the MMPI, the personality inventory. She smiled as she read it.

  ‘So how are you, Georgia?’

  She looked serene; Natalie couldn’t help thinking she had no right to seem so untroubled. She was in a high-security forensic psychiatric hospital, for God’s sake.

  ‘Getting by. Thank you so much for seeing me.’ She paused and looked down at a pile of papers in her lap that had a pencil balanced on top. ‘Paul’s lawyers will be working hard to keep me locked up.’

  ‘Because he hates you? Or fears for Miranda?’

  ‘I don’t think he hates me, not really.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t he?’

  Georgia looked at her, pale blue eyes never wavering. ‘He loves me.’

  She thought about Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, the infamous Moors murderers in the sixties, responsible for the deaths of five children, and let herself wonder.

  ‘Tell me about your relationship with him.’ Natalie had little history about Paul. Her focus had been on Georgia’s diagnosis.

  ‘I met him at a party. He’s an engineer. He was working for his father, in his recycling business.’

  ‘How old were you?’

  ‘Twenty-three. He was three years older. We clicked from the start. He was good looking and kind and I hadn’t had much of that.’

  ‘Why do you think he was attracted to you?’

  ‘He was very quiet, shy. I wasn’t. I think he liked that. I did the talking for him.’

  ‘Is he like that with other people?’

  ‘Not once you know him.’ Georgia looked away, fidgeting with the pencil.

  Natalie sat and waited. Like most people, Georgia was quick to fill the space rather than deal with the awkwardness silence induced.

  ‘He saw himself as the provider and was happy that I wanted to be a stay-at-home mother.’

  ‘Did having children come between you?’

  ‘He loves me.’ The pencil in Georgia’s hand snapped. ‘Ask any of our friends. He adored me.’

  Natalie let adore echo in her head. It suggested a scenario in which Georgia killed her children in an act of jealousy. ‘Sometimes mothers tell me that they feel pushed into the background, that their children drive a wedge between them and their partner. Did you ever feel that?’

  ‘Of course not.’ She now seemed less measured, more defensive, scatty. Would Wadhwa have called this a personality change? Natalie saw it as a response to getting too close to something painful. Which of course was what dissociation was—the question was whether Georgia was aware of the process, and if it was within her control or not. And how deep it went.

  ‘So he spent time with his children?’

  ‘Yes, of course, Olivia in particular as she got older. She was a good baby, even easier as a toddler. Paul was amused by her.’

  ‘“Amused”. That seems an odd choice of words.’

  ‘She was an amusing child. She would wait by the door for him to come home and pretend she was hiding. She loved games.’

  Natalie had a sense that Georgia was talking about someone else’s child. An image of Amber in the acute stages of grief flashed into her thoughts. Time hopefully had helped her move on from that level of pain. Had Georgia ever felt pain in the way Amber had? Georgia’s children hadn’t died recently. It was more than twelve years since the death of Genevieve, nearly ten years since Olivia, and five since her son Jonah had been found dead in his cot.

  ‘You must have had less time for each other when the children were around.’

  ‘I suppose so. But Paul is a very attentive man. Mothers’ Day, thanking me for giving him such beautiful girls, looking after me when…’ She paused, submerged in memories for a moment. Sad for her loss of the children, or of the adoring Paul? And why ‘girls’? What about the son?

  ‘You had some difficult times to get through. How did they affect your relationship?’

  Natalie let her talk, steering her towards their sex life.

  ‘It was fine for both of us, nothing out of the ordinary.’

  There was a knock on the door and a nurse put her head in: Georgia’s lawyer was waiting.

  Georgia stood, smiling. ‘My lawyer, she…I…wondered about, well, do you think I’ll get bail?’

  ‘It won’t be up to me.’ Natalie looked at Georgia’s apple-pie smile and wondered where she was going with this.

  ‘I know.’ Georgia looked down, playing with the two pencil pieces. Then: ‘I’m not a danger to anyone.’

  ‘It’s a court decision.’

  ‘If I do, I would need to see a psychiatrist while I was out, right? Do you see people privately?’

  Natalie looked at her, certain she already knew the answer. At the door Georgia turned and said, ‘Paul could be…difficult of course, when…things didn’t go his way.’

  Now Natalie had two more questions to ponder: what did Paul being ‘difficult’ mean, and why was Georgia so keen on seeing her?

  The work day turned out longer than expected. Beverley had left a text message: Booked in old patient. Emergency 6 p.m. Can’t find her file.

  The ‘emergency’ slot was meant to be just that. On Thursday nights, her room was
free but it was not a time she liked working. Tonight it would mean a long cycle ride in the dark. The Can’t find her file was irritating. It was Beverley’s way of saying she’d stuffed up, that it wasn’t really an old patient and she’d fallen for it.

  Beverley had already left. She had at least organised the referral letter to be faxed, and it was on her desk. Natalie read it twice to make sure she understood.

  Thank you for seeing Kay Long, who I believe you know. She has been struggling with anxiety and depression for the last year since her daughter’s incarceration and her husband’s sudden death. She requests to see you re management.

  The doctor had included a list of her medications: the only psychotropic was sertraline, consistent with the depression diagnosis.

  Natalie did know her, but there was a reason Beverley had not found a file. The patient had not been Kay, but her daughter: Amber. After a second read she fell back in the chair and tried to organise her thoughts. Kay’s contact so soon after Liam had asked her to be involved in Travis’s case was surely no coincidence, but how could they be connected?

  There was another problem; Declan wouldn’t want her seeing Kay because of the connection with Amber, the case he had told her she was over-involved in. If Kay still lived several hours drive away, perhaps this was a once-off.

  Kay arrived early, in faded blue trousers and a white blouse, sensible shoes and a fawn coat with a mended pocket. Her mousy hair was tied back in a ponytail: practicality rather than fashion. The weight loss that had been steady in the early weeks of Amber’s incarceration had plateaued, but the lines had continued to form and she looked closer to sixty than the mid-forties she had to be; she had been sixteen when she became pregnant with Amber. Despite the hasty wedding, and a son, Cameron, born shortly after Amber, the marriage had endured.

  ‘Kay.’ Natalie extended her hand and Kay hesitated before taking it. Her nervous smile broadened in response to the warmth in Natalie’s greeting.

  ‘Dr King…thank you so much for seeing me at such short notice.’

  Natalie led her into the consulting room and they sat opposite each other in the armchairs near the window. Natalie, referral in hand, spoke as soon as the older woman was settled. ‘I’m so sorry about Glen. When…?’ Amber’s father, the stoic farmer, hadn’t ever said much, but had been steadfast in his support.

  ‘He never recovered from Amber being charged. Heart attack. He made it to hospital but…’ She shrugged.

  ‘It’s been a tough year for you.’

  ‘Yes, but not much choice but to keep going is there? Glen’s mother, and Cam and his wife help with the farm. Amber will be out soon. She’ll need me.’

  ‘You’ve been anxious? Depressed?’

  ‘Wasn’t sleeping for a long time. But the Zoloft seems to have solved that, more or less.’

  Natalie frowned, and glanced at the referral. Kay caught the look.

  ‘Actually, I think that’s all fine.’ She paused. ‘You heard about Travis’s second baby?’

  Natalie nodded slowly, alarm bells starting to ring.

  ‘Are you seeing Tiphanie?’ The words came out in a rush.

  ‘You know I can’t tell you that Kay, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Of course.’ Kay quickly pulled herself together. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway. You can’t tell anyone about what I tell you either, can you?’

  Which meant this was about Travis.

  ‘I need to tell you something.’

  ‘I’m not involved in this case, Kay. If you know something, go to the police.’

  ‘I can’t.’ Her tone had a steeliness that Amber’s had never had. ‘They won’t believe me. I don’t have proof.’

  ‘What do you expect me to do with it then?’

  ‘He did it.’ Her hands were holding each other as if to stop herself hitting out.

  ‘Did what?’ Natalie cursed herself silently. Even if Amber was no longer her patient, this was dangerous territory. A lesson in why therapists shouldn’t see members of the same family.

  ‘Killed Bella-Kaye.’

  ‘He might have failed to support her,’ said Natalie carefully, ‘but Amber confessed.’

  ‘He told Glen.’

  Natalie stared at her, trying to work out how to get out of the interview pretending it had never happened.

  ‘However much of a shit Travis is,’ Kay continued, ‘he didn’t want Glen dying thinking his daughter killed little Bella.’ There were tears in her eyes. ‘He came to see Glen in hospital, soon as he heard. Glen told me…but then he died and…what could I do?’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now,’ said Kay, ‘there’s another child gone. If you do see Tiphanie, if you are involved in any way, I want you to remember what I’ve told you.’

  The doorbell rang as Natalie was returning to the kitchen from the external staircase that led to her bedroom. She had been planning an early night. Since Liam had alerted her to Chloe’s disappearance, her sleep had been disturbed by dreams about Amber and Bella-Kaye. Now with Kay Long’s confession it was likely to be worse.

  She had bought her converted warehouse when she qualified as a psychiatrist two years earlier, getting a good price because the renovation had been abandoned before completion. Showering in a concrete square was a long way off what the previous owner must have envisaged but Natalie liked it as it was. From the outside it looked like the other two and three level factories that surrounded her, a motley assortment of red and painted brickwork adorned with graffiti, set back from bluestone gutters.

  The distinguishing feature was a corrugated-iron clad walkway on the first level that spanned the narrow lane and connected her with the fire stairwell in the building opposite. The real estate agent had described the anomaly as a Bridge of Sighs, and it was the one thing she had changed. The enclosed bridge was now lined with bookshelves, and at the end, instead of a flimsy connecting door, there was an electronically controlled sliding panel, unrecognisable on either side as an entrance or exit. No one apart from the other building’s owner and the security company that installed it knew it was there, and even if they did, they couldn’t get in.

  Finding the doorbell required dedication. You had to know that a wrought-iron version of Munch’s Scream was hiding it, and be prepared to lift it up in all its agony. Visitors were a rarity.

  It was Tom, who lived locally, a six pack of Coronas in hand. Stocky and broad shouldered, he had shaved the beard a few years earlier. He was the drummer in her band but still looked more balding ex-biker than Charlie Watts. She kissed him chastely on the cheek.

  Tom rubbed Bob’s head on the way to the fridge. The bird bit him. ‘Ouch.’ He sucked his finger. ‘Ever thought of getting a normal pet? You know, a cat or dog that likes to cuddle up?’

  Natalie didn’t bother answering. Bob suited her fine.

  ‘Anything to eat?’ He helped himself to a beer and tossed one to Natalie.

  ‘Nup.’ She joined him on the sofa. ‘I’ll call for pizza.’ She added, ‘And then I’m sending you home.’

  There was a moment of disappointment, but Tom recovered quickly. ‘Was someone just here?’ he asked.
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  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Guy looked like he was checking the place out.’

  ‘Maybe going to make me an offer.’ Tom didn’t generally make a nuisance of himself but he could be annoyingly territorial.

  ‘Check your locks.’

  Chapter 6

  Friday night she arrived half an hour early at the Halfpenny to have a burger with the band. She’d been singing with The Styx since her early twenties and they had a semi-residency there. The songs—both the ones she and Shaun wrote, and the favourites they covered—were on the sexually explicit side. It wasn’t a persona she wanted her patients to see. The wig she wore on stage, short blonde and spiked, and the heavy makeup were only partly stagecraft.

  It was 9.30; the kitchen was technically closed, but Vince had a soft spot for Natalie and would whip up burgers himself if he had to. There were a few upcoming gigs to discuss, including some country ones.

  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?’