Medea's Curse (37 page)

‘Were they in her nightmares?’

‘Not that I recall. It was pretty weird. She had a tattoo, kind of rabbits. She kept
trying to cut it out herself. I made her get it removed. They stuffed it up and had
to put another over the top.’

Natalie stared. Jessie’s shoulder.
Fuck.
She could almost make it out in her memory.
Jessie hadn’t mentioned a rabbit in therapy. Ever. Nor had there been one in the
video of her. Natalie figured it had started later. Maybe something Jessie had drawn
for him and he’d fetishised it. It was an indicator that this early experience had
been formative for him in the development of his sexual pathology. Encapsulated in
the child-adult form of a rabbit.

‘Who mentioned the pink bunny?’

‘One of yours,’ said Hannah. ‘She had the rabbit tattoo as well.’ She pulled out
another cigarette and lit it off the previous one, inhaling and watching the smoke
she blew into the air dissipate before she continued. ‘Her old man got her young.
Celeste.’

‘Do you know if Celeste’s brother was involved too?’

‘No idea.’

Natalie took a breath. Now to test her next hypothesis. ‘Did other women here listen
to this story?’

Hannah snorted. ‘Listen? We were cheering her on. You know she cut his dick off,
right? Believe me, you want to get one of them sick fucks sorted out, just give me
the word. We’ll all be fighting over which one of us does it.’ She dropped her butt
and ground it under her heel, smearing ash over the concrete. ‘Jessie’s at least
died.’

‘Did she ever tell you it was her father?’

‘Sure.’ Hannah stopped. ‘Actually I don’t know. Her dreams never had any real person
in them. I just presumed, I guess.’

‘When you were all cheering,’ said Natalie, ‘what about those women that are segregated?
Were they there?’

Hannah frowned. ‘Some do-gooder group was here, they got us thinking about our pasts.
Like that would help.’
She laughed. ‘Sorry. It got a bit out of control. But yes,
they had us all in together with extra screws to keep an eye on the special inmates.’

‘Hannah,’ Natalie asked. ‘Why did Jessie come to see me?’

‘I pushed her to. She wasn’t doing well.’

‘Why me?’

‘Amber Hardy thinks you’re God’s gift to the underdog. The doc here thinks you get
over-involved.’ She grinned. ‘Sounded like a good thing to me. We saw you take out
the prosecutor on TV
.
’

Great. ‘So, not Georgia?’ Natalie was talking more to herself than Hannah. Maybe
this was why Georgia had wanted to see her too: at Amber’s recommendation. They would
have been in the same unit. Amber had thought she was a hero for tackling Travis.
Had Georgia thought she would do the same to Paul, only inside the courtroom?

Natalie squeezed Hannah’s shoulder in farewell and was halfway to the door when she
turned back. ‘One last question.’ Hannah hadn’t moved, head down picking at her fingernails.
‘How did the police catch you?’

Hannah frowned. ‘No idea. Someone dobbed me in. The guy with me swears it wasn’t
him and he certainly didn’t get any cosy deal. Longer sentence than me.’

‘Jessie knew about…what you’d done?’

‘No fucking way would she lag.’ Hannah stood up abruptly.

‘No,’ agreed Natalie. ‘She wouldn’t.’

Natalie opened the locker to retrieve her belongings. She felt she was close to making
sense of more than just Jessie’s case, but the pieces of the puzzle wouldn’t quite
fit. She had resisted
the idea that her cases were linked but the evidence was accumulating.
It wasn’t coincidence: they were tied together through the prison and Yarra Bend,
through the patients’ common histories of abuse that had made them vulnerable to
mental illness, and to her through her specialisation and appearance on the infanticide
documentary.

The guards weren’t paying her any attention; she could hear them talking about a
reality TV show. She tapped on the window. Jen rolled her eyes and let the other
woman open it.

‘Did you know Georgia Latimer when she was here?’ she asked the guard that wasn’t
Jen.

‘Sure. Model little psychopath.’

‘She was studying, wasn’t she?’

‘Yeah.’ The guard didn’t sound overly impressed. ‘Regular bookworm.’

‘Is there a record of what she studied?’

‘Yeah. Want to look?’

‘Yes. And—’

The prison guard looked at her expectantly.

‘Do you keep visitor records?’

Natalie jotted down some notes about Georgia’s studies. But it was the visitor records
that shook her.

Chapter 32

Damian texted Natalie to say there was going to be a service for Chloe on Thursday
afternoon. Tiphanie wanted to say goodbye, even though, without a body, it would
be a long time before Chloe could be declared dead.

Natalie put in a half day with her ward patients, then headed southeast. The September
day was windy, with intermittent rain pelting her visor. It fitted the occasion.

The church was full, with people standing at the back and along the sides. A huge
photo of Chloe was propped on a chair at the front, soft toys surrounding it. She
looked angelic. And the picture alone would have been enough to reduce everyone to
tears, without Eric Clapton’s ‘Tears in Heaven’ playing in the background.

Natalie recognised more people than she thought she would. Travis was with his family,
standing awkwardly apart from Tiphanie and hers. There were a number of police, Damian
and Andie included.

Damian spotted her and strolled over. ‘You were right. Again.’

Natalie willed herself to look him in the eye. ‘A blanket?’

Damian nodded. ‘Allison was quite upfront. The blanket
was usually in the car. She’d
brought it inside because her heating wasn’t working.’

‘And?’

‘Forensics have identified blood. Is it going to be Chloe’s?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Natalie.

‘You asked me about the toys too. Neither were missing.’

‘Did you see them?’

‘Yes.’ He tipped his head. ‘Tiphanie has them up there with the photos. What’s this
about, Natalie?’

Natalie looked across the heads to where she had seen the soft toys. Flanking the
photo chair was a big pink and white rabbit that had fallen on its side and a version
of Big Bird that would have been bigger than Chloe. ‘I just wondered why they hadn’t
been with her that night; they were her favourites. But seems like they were too
big, not the take-to-bed type of soft toys.’

Tiphanie and her family were sitting in the front row. She and Kiara gave awkward
but touching eulogies. Jim and Sandra sat with a young man in a wheelchair, presumably
Tiphanie’s brother William. Amber kept towards the back with her brother Cam and
his wife. Natalie saw no sign of Amber’s mother; babysitting, presumably.

At the end of the ceremony, most of the mourners headed towards Tiphanie. Cam spoke
with his sister and left. Amber looked unsure of what she should do. Natalie went
up to her.

‘She won’t blame you,’ she said.

‘No, I know.’ Amber replied. ‘I just…Well it’s an awful time and I don’t want to
intrude.’

‘You appreciated your friends’ support,’ Natalie said. ‘Are Rick and Allison here
today?’

Amber seemed to know who she was talking about. She looked around and pointed to
a couple heading out the door.

‘Go wish her the best,’ Natalie suggested, and as Amber went in one direction she
went in the other, following Rick and Allison.

‘I’m curious,’ said Natalie after introducing herself. ‘Do you have any idea what
was wrong with Travis’s car?’

Rick shrugged his shoulders. ‘Would have looked at the time if I hadn’t been smashed.
Carport light wasn’t working, which didn’t help. Loose battery lead, I’d guess. Electrics
were dead when Travis tried it.’

Natalie nodded. This much mechanics she could manage. ‘Why didn’t you drive him home,
rather than let him borrow it?’

‘No fucking way.’ It was Allison who spoke this time. ‘Next time he gets caught drink
driving he goes to gaol.’

Rick looked sheepish.

Natalie made it back inside just in time to see Amber squeeze Tiphanie’s hand and
leave.

Natalie arrived home exhausted. Her mind hadn’t let up for a second during the long
journey but she had been unable to make sense of the recurring thoughts. Later, she
blamed fatigue for her inattention. She was normally vigilant, but on this night
she just wanted to grab a beer, sit on her terrace and space out watching the sunset.

Bob dive-bombed her. Natalie swiped at him and he retired to the rafter and refused
to come upstairs. Natalie stared at him, her hand trembling on the banister.
Shit,
this stalker had her so on edge she was relying on a cockatoo instead of her expensive
security system. She left the door up into the kitchen open. She figured loneliness
and hunger would get the better of him.

She threw her bag on the sofa and took a beer from the
fridge, aware suddenly of
how quiet it was. Something was different. She walked slowly around the room. No
television turned on. Fridge empty as always. She wasn’t obsessional enough to notice
if he had switched anything around. Had he just walked through, touching things?
Surely he couldn’t have found a way of dismantling the alarm? Even if he had, her
cameras would have caught him, maybe with a better angle this time. She walked over
to the security unit and played the tapes. Nothing. She was letting this bastard
get to her.

Natalie tightened her grip on the beer, aware from the churn of her stomach that
instinct hadn’t been subdued by her self-talk. She took a deep breath and cautiously
went up the stairs to the deck. Stopped on the top step and looked ahead. More of
the neighbour’s tiles had landed on her patio. Because he had come in by the roof
again? Would he have known that there was a second security unit, one in her bedroom?
She felt a surge of hope. Maybe he’d missed it and she’d have captured him on it,
and would finally get a good look at him.

She turned to go in and check.

He grabbed her from behind and pulled hard. Must have been hiding behind the outside
door from the kitchen and followed her up the stairs. Spinning out of his grip, she
slammed hard into the wall, the stubbie in her hand flying and spewing beer across
the patio. He stepped towards her, stooping down to her level. A thought flashed
through her mind almost as fast as the pain. In the end, all her intelligence and
fitness were worth nothing. Brawn was going to win without her ever having a chance.

‘Bitch,’ he whispered through the balaclava that covered his head. His full weight
was against her, the brickwork
rough against her face as she turned away from him.
‘I warned you.’

Natalie steeled herself. He was going to have to move; she just needed to be ready.
He did move, but too quickly. He bunched up the front of her leather jacket and sent
her sprawling across the patio again, into the other sidewall. She barely noticed
the pain that shot through her right shoulder, her mind racing, trying to push down
the rising panic. She staggered up, letting him think she was as weak as she felt,
while she focused on her strength. She might only have one chance and every blow
would weaken her further. As he stepped towards her she spun around on her left leg,
lifted her right foot to knee height, and with all the power she could muster, lashed
out in the groin kick she had practised a thousand times.

She missed. She connected with his upper thigh, but he was too slow to catch her
leg and pull her over. It told her an important bit of information. He was relying
on size, not skill. She felt a small ray of hope, and concentrated on the first and
most important lesson of self-defence: getting out whatever way she could.

She made it to the second stair but he was right behind her. He grasped a full handful
of hair and pulled and her scream echoed across the rooftops. She fell and the man
pulled her backwards, dragging her across the patio, through the door into her bedroom,
the pain in her head so intense she wondered whether her scalp was being ripped off.
She kept screaming. The patio door was open and maybe someone would hear. Breathing
heavily, he kicked her hard and she heard a rib crack before the pain caught up and
tore through her.

‘You took a copy, didn’t you? Did you really think I
wouldn’t know?’ Did she know
the voice? Maybe. Not Paul Latimer, not Travis Hardy. Full set of teeth, not Celeste’s
brother. He lashed out again, and Natalie had just enough time to move to protect
her injured side, his foot connecting this time with her pelvis. Painful, but the
bone, reinforced with metal from her bike accident, was solid enough to take it.
She rolled over groaning, playing for time. He had no intention of leaving her alive
after this encounter. If she survived it would only be because she saved herself.

‘It’s in my bag,’ she managed to say. ‘Downstairs.’ She lay still, hoping he wouldn’t
notice her right arm edging below the bed where she’d stashed the cricket bat.

‘You thought you’d take her away from me didn’t you? The girls are mine.’
They.
Jessie
and all the others he had filmed and abused. Or Jessie and the video he needed to
get back.

‘You’re right,’ said Natalie. ‘She’s never given you up.’ Her fingers were only millimetres
from the bat when he leaned down and pulled her up, throwing her on the bed as if
she were a doll. She saw his eyes glistening behind the mask and knew he was evaluating
her. A wave of fear rippled through her; she willed herself to glare back angrily
as she thought furiously about her next move.

‘I like them younger than you,’ he said coldly. ‘But at least you’re small. I might
just pretend. I rather like the idea of fucking her shrink.’

The predatory stalker, the psychopath that had no regard for anyone other than himself.
Intellectually she had always known this was the most likely.