Double Madness

by Caroline de Costa

  It had all ended abruptly. Trevor seemed to split up with the nurse without the usual tantrums, and suddenly he wasn’t going to Weipa anymore, just up to Cooktown for the day. She managed one final evening with Bernard; he was going back to France soon anyway. They’d crept back into the music school after it had closed and lain on the floor behind the grand piano. Afterwards, he had cut off a lock of her dark hair as a keepsake, and laid it between the pages of his copy of The Well-Tempered Clavier.

  She still had his mother’s phone number, in Clermont-Ferrand, on a slip of paper in her best handbag, at the very top of her wardrobe.

  She’d never dared to suggest anal sex to Trevor. He’d be shocked. He was really very conservative in his sexual tastes as well as his political opinions. And he might wonder where she’d got the idea.

  For years Bernard had stayed dormant in her mind, to be awoken only very infrequently and then for only very short sessions, usually when Trevor wanted sex but she was not aroused. The memory of Bernard was always effective.

  That memory had been jogged, briefly, when she’d met another Frenchman in Cairns. In fact, he’d become her patient – something which happened entirely by accident, and only because she was required by the Children’s Court to see his son. He spoke English with the same accent and nuances as Bernard had; the two were about the same height and had the same olive skin.

  There, Lyndall quickly found, the resemblance ended. One Frenchman was not in fact the same as another. Michel Janvier turned out to be a very difficult case and Lyndall did not enjoy having him as a patient. Even though his consultations were infrequent, she was afraid they might never cease. She could never solve his problem. And while there was absolutely no physical attraction for her, she was aware that Janvier was one of those patients intrigued and excited by his increasing dependence on a woman psychiatrist, so that she was always careful to keep both a physical and an emotional space between them. The buzzer for her receptionist was close by on the desk during their fifty-minute sessions.

  In fact, after Bernard there’d been no-one else, no-one for whom she’d felt the slightest flicker of interest. And in those times when she and Trevor had been getting along together, patches which in recent years had been less and less frequent, the sex, Lyndall thought, had been the best part. But it was over now. Absolutely.

  She would move out of the house by the end of the week. She would go through with treating this Pap smear problem, get over this surgery, and then she would organise a divorce.

  When Lyndall saw Henry the following week, he was as understanding as Jane had predicted. He had no intention of mentioning Trevor. But Lyndall was forthright. After a tense few minutes during which her innermost parts were surveyed and a sharp instrument used to extract a biopsy sample, she dressed herself and sat opposite him at his desk.

  ‘I’m leaving him, Henry,’ she said. ‘It’s something that’s been coming for years, and it’s finally at a head. To find this level of carelessness has made me decide to end the marriage.’

  ‘You don’t think the situation might be helped with some counselling?’ he asked.

  ‘For me, no. It’s too late. I just want to leave, while I can. And for Trevor? He comes from a set mould. Private school, rugby, university, you know. All his friends are the same: doctors like him. He’s never mixed with people who don’t share the same opinions, the same politics. That’s what medical school does to a lot of people, in my experience, men especially. First selects them out, then preserves them. He’d never accept attempts to change him. He’s sure he’s perfectly all right the way he is.’

  ‘The drinking has become a problem?’ It was a rhetorical question. Henry had seen it himself.

  ‘Yes. When we first met I was really swept away by him. I was still a student, and here was this dashing surgical registrar, quite a bit older, interested in me. He already drank a lot at parties. I didn’t drink at all then, so I was always able to drive him home. He wasn’t aggressive when he was drunk, just embarrassing, and the next day he’d be apologetic, and charming all over again.’

  She paused, then said: ‘I guess the pattern was there even before we were engaged. He’d be making passes, touching up other women, talking about scoring, if he’d been drinking, even when I was there. Other girls in my company laughed it off. One or two, I realised later, tried to warn me. But I was very naïve. I thought it was incredible that I’d managed to land this big fish. And – the old story – I thought it would be different once we were married.

  ‘But in fact as soon as we were married he dropped out of surgical training, didn’t pass his primary exam. Too much socialising – said he didn’t want the surgical lifestyle anyway. There was always bravado.’

  Yes, thought Henry, bravado. He was aware of at least three rumoured affairs in Trevor’s recent past, even though the subject interested him little. Always a lot of swagger, name-dropping, fairly tasteless jokes in the theatre change rooms. Not apparently anything to do with Lyndall herself, who was a jolly nice woman, Henry thought. And still damned good-looking. He preferred brunettes to blondes, any day. No, it must be rooted in Symonds’ upbringing.

  ‘I think,’ said Lyndall, ‘that it’s all part of the same problem. His father was always a heavy drinker, though not, as far as I know, a womaniser. But his father had an excuse: the war. He was a prisoner of war, came back from Burma a different man, they said, well of course he was lucky to come back at all. So Trevor grew up thinking that drinking like that was normal. The answer to all life’s problems. That’s what he does now whenever anything’s too hard. Henry, you only see him drinking socially, and that’s bad enough, but on a daily basis, it’s been affecting his practice, his judgement about patients, and how he relates to us, his family.

  ‘I think, also, it’s what gives him the … nerve … to go after other women. I never know who knows what. People seem to drop hints and then, when I try to follow them through, they clam up. It seems that everything is more noticed, and more criticised, because he’s a doctor. He’s been the GP to so many people, so it’s somehow more surprising, more shocking, in a town this size, than it would be in a big city.’

  She added: ‘I even worry, sometimes, that he might have an affair with a patient, or have tried to. I worry that his judgement is getting more and more erratic.’

  ‘Have you any evidence for that?’ Henry asked. Lyndall looked up suddenly. Henry’s manner seemed to have changed. Did he know something she didn’t? As she gazed intently at him Henry’s neck flushed a deep scarlet.

  ‘No,’ she answered slowly, ‘it’s just something I’ve grown concerned about. Do you … is there something you know about?’

  Henry seemed to gather himself, and shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s just that if such a thing did happen he’d lose his registration. If there was a complaint.’

  ‘Well, exactly,’ said Lyndall, ‘and much more than his registration. But,’ she stood up to leave, ‘I’m no longer worrying about Trevor. I’m doing what I’m always telling my own patients to do! Changing my life, acting for myself. And do you know what, Henry? I think I’m going to enjoy it!’

  Her immediate future was full of plans. First this surgery. She had complete faith in Henry for that. Then a definitive move. For the moment, she and Nicola were staying with friends, leaving Trevor alone in the house. She had told him, tersely, about her Pap result the previous week, once she had the car packed and a place to go. Soon she must find a flat for herself; Nicola wanted to move to a student house out near the university. She must increase her consulting hours and look at taking on more private patients. There would be lots of expenses in the coming months and she would no longer take any of Trevor’s money. For the first time in her whole life, Lyndall would live on her own.

  But at some point, she knew, there was something else she would be doing. She would be taking down her handbag, finding her French phrasebook, and trying, just trying, the number in Clermont-Ferrand.

  Ca
irns, 1 March 2011

  Back at the station Cass grabbed more coffee, and a cheese sandwich she’d brought from home. She texted Jordon – hi don’t forget take back those dvds overdue ru in for dinner 2nite?? luv mum☺ – then sat down to run through the responses she’d got from the Hermès stores interstate. The stores all had very good records of who their customers were, and there was no purchase of the four designs she’d specified from any of the stores by a single customer during the past five years, no match to any woman who might be their corpse.

  Her phone pinged and there was response from Jordon – u said u will watch hurtlocker again & u didnt watch sherlock holmes yet. U mite get clues from jude law ☺ .

  OK, she replied, smiling, but take the others back.

  Two fruitless hours followed as she called one city store after another from the list of retailers Hermès had supplied. There were a few customers in Cairns but they’d all bought only one scarf and none seemed likely to be their victim. Frustrated, she went in search of another double shot, then sat at her desk, searching for inspiration from the silken fibres of these damn scarves.

  Whether it was the rising caffeine levels she couldn’t say, but certainly one idea came: silk. Those scarves were made of the finest silk. They would have needed to be cleaned … and she doubted their owner would have trusted them to the washing machine. So maybe she sent them to the drycleaners.

  Cass swallowed the dregs of her coffee then took the stairs two at a time down to the ground floor. She didn’t need a car, it was just a five-minute walk to Cairns Central Laundry. So intent was she on her mission that she completely failed to see Troy Barwen returning from lunch, crossing the foyer in the opposite direction. His injured gaze followed her as she went rapidly out the door and turned left into Sheridan Street.

  Fifteen minutes later she was back in the building and in Drew’s office. A grin spread wide across her face.

  ‘The benefits of the sporting life!’ she said mysteriously to him, then added: ‘And networking! Or at least, netball-working.’ She smiled. ‘I’ve just been to the drycleaners. Their headquarters across the canal, you know, they have depots all over Cairns. To ask about Hermès scarves. An Indian family has taken over the business, and I play netball with their daughter. Luckily Sharmila is there just now.

  ‘I gave her a description of our woman, minus the gruesome bits. After a minute Sharmila said: “That sounds like Mrs Janvier!” Sharmila says she’s a very smart woman who owns a lot of scarves, always very dressed up. Said she must have an important job to dress like she does in Cairns, but she doesn’t really know all that much about her.

  ‘One other interesting thing – Sharmila and her mum both remember her because although she brings them a lot of work she never gives her phone number. Again, they think this is because she’s someone important who has to protect her privacy, but they’re sure she lives locally, at least part of the time.’

  ‘Janvier?’ said Drew slowly. ‘Now why does that name sound familiar? Do a search of our databases, Cass, and then we’ll take it from there.’

  ‘I’ll get onto it straight away,’ Cass said. ‘And I’m thinking about why, if she lives in Cairns, she hasn’t been reported missing sooner.’

  Cass went back to her desk and began to trawl the police databases. An hour later later, she called Drew and Troy into her office. She had several printouts ready and photos on her screen.

  ‘We have an Odile Janvier resident in Cairns,’ she told them. ‘And bingo! She’s French. At least, born in France. Fifty years old. Born Odile Marie Lebrun on 22 June 1960, in Nantes, France. Married a Michel Janvier in St André, France, in 1982. Acquired Australian citizenship in 1985, in Brisbane. Height 164 centimetres, hair dark brown, eyes brown, no distinguishing marks.’

  They studied the photo from Odile Janvier’s driver’s licence on Cass’s laptop. It had been taken in 2002. She was heavily made up in the photo, and so did not greatly resemble the corpse, but there was an overall similarity, and the descriptions matched. She was a stylish woman, Cass thought, but there was something quite malicious in the look she gave the camera.

  ‘You’d think a woman with family overseas might be on Facebook,’ Cass said. ‘But she’s not, at least not under that name.’ Cass flicked to another photo.

  ‘Her husband,’ she continued, ‘is, or perhaps was, Michel Philippe Janvier. Aged fifty-five. Also born in France, in 1955. Acquired Australian citizenship in 1978. Gives his occupation as ‘businessman’. His current business is said to be Kwality Kleening, with an office at 11E Falmouth Lane, Portsmith.’ In his photo Michel Janvier was unsmiling, olive-skinned, with blunt, smudged features.

  ‘Their home address, it’s in Cairns?’ asked Troy.

  ‘They’re not in the phone book,’ Cass said. ‘So I went through Telstra. There’s a Michel Janvier living at 11 Paradise Close in Earlville. And the electoral records show an Odile Janvier living there as well. Also, Michel is down as having previously had a business number at that Portsmith address. But he had the phone disconnected about five years ago. The bill for Earlville is overdue. It should have been paid two weeks ago. The Telstra bloke was very helpful.’

  Cass turned to Drew. ‘You said you recognised the name. We have records of our own for two other Janviers. Dominic and Damian. Brothers. Previously living in Cairns, in Smithfield. But not here now, apparently. Maybe the children of Michel and Odile, who don’t have any convictions themselves.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s it!’ exclaimed Drew. ‘Janvier – now I remember! When I was still in uniform. Two kids, both dealing drugs in school, especially the older one. Went to a couple of schools, expelled from them both, I think, maybe even three schools. About ten, twelve years ago.’

  Cass pulled up Dominic and Damian Janvier from the police database.

  ‘Dominic was born in 1985,’ she said. ‘First came to the attention of the police when picked up under-age in a club in 1999 – at 2 am. He was fourteen. He had a small amount of cannabis and e. Returned home to his parents who didn’t seem too concerned about it, according to the reports. At sixteen, charged with possession in the Children’s Court, sent to Townsville. Seen by a psychiatrist. Dr Lyndall Symonds. She spoke of his difficult life with his mother and her evidence was taken into account by the court. A further charge when he was eighteen, possession, in Sydney. Just cannabis. Went to jail for six months. Next heard of in northern New South Wales, possession and supply. Twelve months. Time reduced for good behaviour. Finally, in 2009, convicted of robbery of a pharmacy in New South Wales and now serving a longish spell in Wellington Gaol.’

  ‘Well, if the woman is Odile Janvier at least we can conclude that Dominic hasn’t killed his mother,’ remarked Drew. ‘Although we should check that he’s still inside, and has been, at least since Christmas. He might have been paroled. “Difficult life with his mother” in the psych’s report – that’s certainly interesting.’

  ‘As for Damian Janvier,’ said Cass, ‘he was born in 1986. So he’s a year younger. Was in the Children’s Court in 2001 when his brother was also charged, but after that Damian seems to have kept out of trouble. He’s not recorded on the electoral roll in Cairns at the moment. There is however a Damian Janvier listed with Telstra, living in Tasmania. Has a Tasmanian driving licence. He’s on Facebook too. He’s working as a chef in a restaurant in Hobart.’

  She opened Facebook and brought up the entry for Damian Janvier.

  ‘Since we aren’t his friends we can only see what he puts on his home page. He lives with his girlfriend Katie. That must be her there.’ There was a photo – an open-faced young man with dark, gelled hair styled in a faux-hawk, his arm around an attractive blonde in her early twenties, both of them in chef’s outfits and standing in a restaurant kitchen. ‘They work in the same place. Music tastes: U2 and Beyoncé. He also likes bushwalking and fishing.’

  ‘Right,’ said Drew. ‘Cass, you and I’ll go to Earlville. Troy, take Constable Garth and check out Portsmith. W
e’ll meet back here later.’

  Cairns, August 2009

  Two years previously, on a sunny Tuesday morning, Dr George O’Malley stood at the glass doors of the hospital’s operating theatres, dressed in blue surgical scrubs, watching the progress of Dr Arthur Geoffrey Mellish down the corridor towards him. Dr Mellish was a short man, with a neat little pot belly, sparse gingerish hair combed carefully over his bald spot, and a narrow, straggling moustache. Today he wore a short-sleeved light-grey safari suit with his College of Surgeons tie, white brogues and black socks, an outfit that reminded George irresistibly of Mickey Mouse.

  ‘Whadda you bet, Nimal,’ he asked his colleague Dr Jayasinghe, who stood beside him, ‘that Aggie asks us about the batting order? And I don’t mean what’s happening in England.’

  Nimal smiled. ‘Yes, George,’ he said, ‘Dr Mellish is a sporting man.’

  The theatre doors parted and Mellish marched in. ‘Morning, George,’ he said.

  ‘Morning, Arthur,’ responded George, who had been the anaesthetist for Mellish’s regular operating list for three years now. It was, he had said to his wife Jane, one of life’s many burdens that he had to bear. Jane had laughed and punched him on the arm.

  Nimal spoke up: ‘Good morning, Dr Mellish.’

  Mellish turned. ‘Oh, morning, Jayasinghe. Got a list of starters for me, have you?’ Behind Mellish’s back George rolled his eyes at Nimal.

  ‘Yes, Sir. One gallbladder is cancelled; the second, Mrs McNamara, she has a respiratory tract infection.’