Authors: Anne Buist
Medea's Curse
Anne Buist is the Chair of Women’s Mental Health at the University of Melbourne.
She has over twenty-five years’ clinical and research experience in perinatal psychiatry,
and works with protective services and the legal system in cases of abuse, kidnapping,
infanticide and murder.
Medea’s Curse
is her first thriller.
Professor Buist is married to novelist Graeme Simsion and has two children.
The Text Publishing Company
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22 William Street
Melbourne Victoria 3000
Australia
Copyright © 2015 by Anne Buist
The moral right of Anne Buist to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of
this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner
and the publisher of this book.
First published in 2015 by The Text Publishing Company
Book design by Text
Typeset by J&M Typesetting
A CIP record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.
Print ISBN: 9781922182647
eISBN: 9781925095586
For my parents, Greg and Jean Buist, who are so much more than ‘good enough’.
And for Graeme: it couldn’t have happened without you.
The curse of children’s blood be on you.
EURIPIDES:
Medea
(Trans. Philip Vellacott)
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Over the last twenty-five years, working as a perinatal psychiatrist, I have seen
thousands of women suffering from postpartum depression, an illness that affects
around fourteen per cent of women having children. It can be a debilitating disorder
that affects not just the woman but her partner and child also. Fortunately, it generally
responds well to treatment. These women love their children and try to be the best
parents they can be. This is not their story.
In the same time period I have also seen hundreds of women whose transition to parenthood
has been complicated by a range of problems including drugs and alcohol, domestic
violence, poor parenting models and lack of a ‘village’ to support them. Many of
them I have seen because they have come to the attention of child protection agencies
and/or the courts. Most of these women are also trying their best but are ill-equipped
to be ‘good enough’ parents and struggle to rise above the intergenerational trauma;
sometimes the result is child abuse, removal, and more rarely and tragically, the
death of their child. It is the struggles of these families that inspired this story.
As the protagonist, Natalie King, notes in this book, psychiatrists are bound by
a code of ethics taken seriously by the RANZCP (and myself). Any of Natalie’s breaches,
decisions or opinions belong to her character, and are not necessarily endorsed by
her creator.
No real patient or other person is depicted in this work of fiction. Where real cases
have been referred to, they are not cases I was involved with professionally: I had
access only to publicly available material.
CONTENTS
There is a moment as she comes into frame when she hesitates. Just before the anger
takes over, there is a
glimpse of something else. Then she takes the stairs two at
a time, headed towards the man with the wispy goatee standing halfway up. Mid-twenties,
wearing a suit that looks to be borrowed from his dad, puffing nervously on a cigarette.
She turns and in the movement there’s that fierce energy. Her eyes are shining like
a cat’s, brown pools in kohl rings. She shouldn’t wear kohl, it makes her look cheap.
Her legs are bare, her knees knobbly over heavy black boots. The scar at the top
of her right thigh is visible as her index finger drums against the chest of the
man. She has taken a position two steps above him but he is still taller.
Goatee-man looks surprised at what she is saying. It’s impossible to hear her words
over the standard-issue blonde reporter at centre frame
reporting for Channel 7 from
the Supreme Court.
He tosses his cigarette away, narrowly missing Blondie, and looks
around for help.
A curl of red-brown hair escapes the clasp on the top of her head and falls over
an ear studded with metal. She
ignores it and pushes her hand into goatee-man’s chest.
He pulls back, grabs the banister and leans against the bluestone wall.
The Crown Prosecutor arrives—pin-striped suit, blue tie, cocky—and Blondie intercepts
him.
Will you be asking for the five-year maximum?
He ignores her, not even breaking
stride as the camera tracks him. He reaches the arguing couple and puts his hand
on the woman’s arm.
Bad move. Her leg swings, with a flash of white inner thigh, then with a look of
cartoon astonishment the Crown Prosecutor staggers backwards. His arm catches the
banister and breaks his fall. But his Armani-ed arse still hits the concrete. She
puts one hand on her hip, a naughty-girl giggle on the edge of her lips. Goatee-man
smirks as Blondie races into frame, her microphone thrust forward.
Another lawyer, shambolic and aghast, descends with gown billowing. The microphone
catches him saying, ‘Dr King…’ He grabs her arm, whispers in her ear. Whatever he
says pulls her up. The intensity collapses and suddenly she looks young. Her face
is a perfect oval. There is a tiny heart-shaped birthmark on her cheek that would
be easy to miss. Like the faint scar where she used to wear a nose stud.
Unless you knew her.
Really
knew her.
The frame freezes and he rewinds to the moment of hesitancy that reveals her vulnerability;
no, more than that. He knows this expression:
shame.
His own reflection is on the
plasma screen, next to hers, as if they were joined in the same world. He leans forward,
and his fingers trace over her image, tongue running over the edge of his teeth.
He replays the footage. Again.
Natalie gunned the bike through the gap in the morning traffic, then braked hard
before she hit the driveway. She would have missed Liam O’Shea, standing just inside
the wrought-iron gate, but he sidestepped into the flower bed anyway. She parked
her bike, pulled off her helmet and shook out her hair.
He was wiping his muddied feet on the brickwork border as she walked back. ‘Fan
tah
stic.’
She had forgotten his Irish brogue. And the bedroom eyes.
‘Didn’t anyone tell you motorbikes are dangerous?’
‘Yes.’ Her stepfather, most Sundays. She walked past O’Shea, towards the building.
‘I need to speak to you, Dr King.’
Over her shoulder she said, ‘You
want
to speak to me. I don’t need to speak to you.’
‘I’d only be wantin’ five minutes.’ The Irish accent was laid on with a trowel.
Natalie, halfway up the staircase to the Victorian mansion where she saw private
patients, turned back to look at him. ‘Give me one good reason why I should waste
my time.’
‘A chance to get Amber Hardy out of gaol?’
Reasons didn’t come any better than that, but O’Shea was expecting opposition and
she’d have hated to disappoint. ‘You got her in there on your own didn’t you? I imagine
you can get her out as well.’
‘Five minutes?’
She could think of a more enjoyable way of spending five minutes with him; but that
would have been almost as problematic as reopening Amber’s case. He followed her
up the stairs, across the balcony and into the dimly lit corridor. Natalie nodded
good morning to Beverley, the office secretary, whose smile was directed at Liam
as he followed Natalie to the coffee room. They had the space to themselves.
‘I’m here about Amber’s ex-husband,’ Liam said.
Natalie turned towards the espresso machine and tamped the coffee down hard.
‘Travis?’
‘Him and his new partner. Did you know about her?’
She knew. Where was he going with this?
He continued. ‘She was pregnant pretty damn quickly.’
Amber had been her patient until just after the plea hearing, and was devastated
to discover that Travis had found a new partner so quickly. At that time she was
still coming to terms with the charges, with incarceration and life without her infant
daughter. ‘Didn’t he love us?’ she had asked, bewildered.
Natalie handed Liam the coffee. If he took it any other way than short and black
he didn’t say. She studied him for signs he was leading her into a trap. ‘And?’
He had the grace to look away briefly. ‘Look, we all knew she did it. She confessed.’
‘There were extenuating circumstances I could have raised if I’d been allowed to
take the stand.’ She felt a surge of guilt and squashed it. She couldn’t afford to
feel vulnerable in front of Liam.
‘Defence’s call, not mine. Anyway the judge, he wasn’t going to buy anything you
said. The media would have crucified him.’
‘She shouldn’t have got a custodial sentence.’
Liam drank his coffee, watching her. ‘Your testimony wouldn’t have made any difference.’
‘Just given you a chance to destroy my credibility and bolster your own ego?’
‘It wouldn’t have helped her. She’d already refused to request bail. The expert witness
was good but Tanner wasn’t going to accept the dissociation line. Nor anything else
you came up with.’
Natalie put her cup down. A trail of black liquid slopped down its sides.
Liam placed a photo on the table next to her coffee cup. A blonde-haired girl of
about a year old looked up at the camera. The photographer had caught her in a moment
of delight, blue eyes shining and hands coming towards her mouth as if to suppress
a giggle. She looked vaguely familiar.
‘Chloe. Travis’s daughter with the new partner.’
‘And?’
‘She’s missing.’
‘Missing?’