Free Medea's Curse by Anne Buist Page B

presumed my response would be that you should have taken him home.’
    ‘He certainly did.’ Jessie was lost in her thoughts for a moment.
    She was too young to shoulder adult responsibilities for the man who raised her,
Natalie reflected. Particularly with so many unresolved issues between them.
    ‘Did they tell you his prognosis?’ Better to deal with the here and now.
    ‘Yeah. Shit.’ Jessie looked up at her. ‘Dying. The grog’s finally getting him. Just
not fast enough.’
    ‘So where is he now?’
    ‘Jay found a nursing home. Same town we grew up in.’
    Natalie processed this. Jessie might well feel alone, but there was family around
to help when they had to.
    ‘Shit place.’
    Natalie wasn’t sure if she meant the town or the nursing home. ‘Bad memories?’
    ‘And some.’
    More silence. Her father’s illness had brought up things Jessie wasn’t in any rush
to share, and it was too early in therapy to open them up. Natalie concentrated on
helping her cope with the here and now—which for Jessie was going to be hard enough.
    ‘Sounds like he’s somewhere where he can get care and you can visit. Write down your
feelings when they come to you,’ said Natalie. ‘Then bring them here so we can talk
about them.’ Where it was safe.
    Some fathers, Natalie mused as the session ended, had a lot to answer for. Liam’s
da’, whose example had been rejected. Or her own: her mother refused to tell her
anything about him except he had left when she was a toddler and, Natalie could only
assume, traumatised them both sufficiently to not even feature on her birth certificate.
    She was certain Jessie’s had been worse than both, though the details had yet to
emerge.
    ‘It’s Morecombe Legal Service on the phone.’
    Natalie was in her office writing a letter when Beverley called her. ‘Did they say
which lawyer or which client?’
    ‘No, hold on.’ A moment later Beverley was back. ‘Barrister called Jacqueline Barrett.
About Georgia Latimer.’
    ‘Put her through.’
    Ms Barrett was straight to the point. ‘Your name has been suggested as someone to
monitor my client if she gets bail.’
    Who by? Not someone from Morecombe, because she’d never heard of them.
    ‘Is she likely to?’
    ‘We have an excellent case. Are you able to see her?’
    ‘That depends,’ Natalie said.
    ‘On what?’
    ‘Whether your client is prepared to see me.’
    ‘Exactly the point,’ the lawyer said. ‘Georgia will do what the court instructs,
but she is worried you are not sympathetic to her.’
    ‘If by that she means I question what she tells me, she’s right,’ said Natalie. ‘If
she would prefer to see Professor Wadhwa—’
    ‘No,’ said Ms Barrett almost too quickly. Had Wadhwa managed to piss them off somehow?
More likely they thought that Natalie, younger and less experienced, would be easier
to play. Perhaps they just needed a female on side? It was no coincidence that the
barrister was a woman, Natalie was sure.
    ‘She wants you, but she wants to be certain you are open to her side of the story.’
    ‘I’m always open to the truth,’ Natalie replied. ‘In all its strange presentations.’
    ‘Good,’ said Ms Barrett. ‘I have to tell you, we are looking into her husband. I’ll
be in touch. If you can get me a report as soon as possible that would be helpful.’
    With that she hung up, leaving Natalie wondering, not for the first time, about Georgia’s
husband .

    When the mail came, there was another red envelope. With another USB stick.
    Natalie felt a surge of adrenaline, almost immediately followed by anger. She had
put the last message to the back of her mind and her preoccupation with Liam and
Travis and Amber had allowed her to forget it. Stupid. What was this about? She opened
it on her computer.
    Getting close can be dangerous for your mental health.
    Vague. A threat all the same. Her mind raced. Why had the first letter been handwritten
and the subsequent ones so much more