Red Mist

by Angus McLean

  He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. They were hanging on his every word.

  ‘Now the figure you have, Dan, is about half that.’

  Dan nodded mutely. His cheeks were red. He squeezed Molly’s hand tightly. The weight of the doctor’s words sank him deeper into the cushions.

  ‘What that means,’ Matthew continued, ‘is that it will be very difficult for you to conceive naturally. And, of course, it explains the difficulties you’ve had up till now.’

  More nodding, nothing to say. Talking couldn’t change science.

  ‘So that’s it,’ Molly said. Her eyes were wet.

  Matthew nodded sympathetically. ‘There are other options we can talk about,’ he said gently, ‘but I think unless something has changed for you guys, then...’

  He let it hang there. They had previously discussed other options, and the Crowleys had been firm in their position on that. He knew better than to push it.

  They looked at each other, each trying their hardest to console the other while battling their own emotions. Dan’s face was flushed but stoic. He knew Molly would be feeling it harder than him. He needed to be a rock for her.

  ‘Thanks, Matthew,’ he rasped, his wife’s hand tight in his. His knuckles were white. ‘We appreciate what you’ve done for us.’

  ‘Look, let all this settle in,’ Matthew advised quietly, ‘it’s a lot to take in and it’s pretty important to think with clear heads. Take some time, and maybe give me a bell in a couple of days if you want to come in again.’ He reached over and patted Molly’s other hand. ‘I know it’s not easy or good news, guys, I really do. But you’ve got each other and you will get through it.’ He nodded gently. ‘Believe me, it may not seem like it right now, but you will get through it.’

  Molly felt her eyes prickle, and the dam broke.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Wednesday

  Inspector Newlands’ office seemed crowded, with her behind the desk and Kennedy standing to her side. Tug and Romana sat side by side on the two-seater against the wall, leaving the two visitor’s chairs for Dan and Ace.

  The door was closed and the spotlight was on the two Otahuhu detectives. It was so early the station was barely coming to life.

  Tug had given the Area Commander an update on the case, with the offenders all appearing in court that morning.

  ‘We’ll be opposing their bail, of course,’ he concluded, ‘and should have a very good chance of keeping them in.’

  ‘Thanks for that, I appreciate your work there,’ Newlands told him. She turned to Kennedy. ‘Hugh, anything from you?’

  ‘No...no.’ Kennedy seemed particularly ponderous this morning. ‘Aside from to say that, despite some fairly questionable decision making, it’s been a good result in the end.’ He glanced to Tug and Romana, giving them an appreciative smile. ‘A fair bit of tidy up to do for our friends here, of course, but we’ll all pitch in and get it done.’

  Tug and Romana nodded and smiled graciously.

  ‘Thanks Hugh,’ Newlands said, ‘and that’s exactly the sort of attitude that will get us through at the end of the day. Teamwork.’ She nodded sagely. ‘Nobody is bigger than the organisation.’

  Dan was waiting for it, and he wasn’t disappointed.

  ‘Which brings me to the decision making,’ Newlands continued, turning her attention to the two detectives before her. ‘I have to say, gentlemen, I really expected more from you two.’

  Dan sat silently, his hands folded across his belt buckle. His head was throbbing and he was desperate for a mug of builder’s tea and about a week of sleep. Ace was like a rock beside him.

  ‘Not only have we got to pay for repairs for a car we shouldn’t even have been using, but a clip of you has also gone nuts on social media. Our media people are working extremely hard to keep a lid on that, but it’s probably too late.’ She counted off two fingers. ‘Those are the first two things we have to contend with, but further to that, we also have one offender with a broken rib, another with a significant gunshot wound and a long term prognosis that isn’t promising, and a third claiming retinal damage from being OC sprayed twice within a week-by the same officer.’

  Dan wondered if she was a swimmer. She must’ve had big lungs to get all that out without a breath.

  ‘To be fair, ma’am,’ he said, ‘both those sprayings were completely justified. And it was better than shooting him.’

  ‘This is not a joke, Detective Crowley.’ She had her head mistress look on now. ‘Far from it. Very far from it. The guy with the gunshot wound is claiming you guys shot him when he was trying to surrender.’

  ‘With his own gun?’ Dan gave her subtle incredulous. ‘The loaded sawn off shotgun he was unlawfully carrying, on his way to do a robbery?’ He shook his head. ‘Buck and I were both tested for gunshot residue on our hands, and neither of us had any. I think that alone blows his allegation out of the water, with respect.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t. Not at all.’ She looked disappointed. Clearly he didn’t get it. ‘An independent investigation will determine exactly what happened there.’

  ‘I’m just pretty happy none of us got shot,’ Ace piped up. ‘They did have three loaded firearms in the car. They should be counting themselves lucky none of them were actually shot.’ He reconsidered for a second. ‘By us.’

  ‘Yes, it could have all gone horribly wrong,’ Newlands conceded. ‘I am fully aware of that, and acknowledge it. What I am concerned about is the decision making shown by you two in this instance, which in my view falls some way short of what I would expect from two such experienced detectives.’

  Dan felt his cheeks reddening, and couldn’t help but glance sideways towards the two seater. Tug and Romana both wore smug looks.

  ‘With respect, ma’am,’ Dan interjected, ‘if we’re going to move on to that kind of conversation, I’m not sure the Major Crime guys need to be here for it. It sounds like they’ve got plenty of work to do, anyway.’

  He took a breath and shut his mouth. It was never a good idea to push it with an inspector, especially when you were already in the hot seat.

  Newlands was silent for a moment. ‘Fair enough,’ she said. ‘Thank you, gentlemen. Keep in touch.’

  Tug and Romana stood, still wearing their smug expressions. They moved towards the door.

  ‘Oh, just out of interest,’ Dan said, fixing his gaze on Tug.

  He waited until the tubby DS stopped and looked back at him.

  ‘How’re you getting on with that other crew you were looking at?’

  Tug’s brow furrowed. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You know, the guys you had robbing the cash vans.’ He hiked his shoulders. ‘Apparently we were looking at the wrong crew, as you said.’

  ‘Detective Crowley,’ Newlands warned.

  ‘Just wondering how you’re going with that other crew,’ Dan finished.

  Tug frowned properly, and Romana gave a scowl. It was probably a pretty scary scowl, if you were a schoolkid. Tug broke the stare and looked back to Newlands.

  ‘Good luck,’ he said, and led the way out.

  As soon as the door shut, Newlands started again. This time Dan sat and kept quiet. The point had been made and there was no point poking the bear any further. Ace seemed to agree, and also stayed silent.

  When Newlands had finished, Kennedy piped up with his five cents worth. Dan sat and stared at the wall. In his head he counted up how many CDs he had at home. Then he counted how many he had in the car, and decided which ones he should swap around. Def Leppard hadn’t had a run for a while. Maybe it was time to get Adrenalized. Corey Hart could probably come for a ride too, he hadn’t been out for months. Molly had a soft spot for Journey. He couldn’t remember where the album was now. She probably had it under her pillow. She was just a small town girl, livin’ in a lonely world.

  He tuned back in when Newlands wrapped things up. Ace subtly cleared his throat and began to rise.

  Dan followed suit, and together they exited
the office, closing the door behind them.

  ‘Wow,’ Dan said as they made their way towards the kitchen.

  ‘Were you asleep at the end there?’

  ‘Cataloguing my CD collection. You?’

  Ace grinned. ‘Working out tide times. I’m going surfing this weekend.’

  Dan harrumphed, feeling marginally better. At least the bollocking had taken his mind off the baby-making news. Thinking of it again now made his head hurt even worse, and his mood darkened again.

  ***

  Molly had to wait for Ailsa to disappear on her morning tea break-which, as usual, was a coffee and a smoke out the back-before she could take action.

  Her head was throbbing and she’d woken with a sand dune in her mouth. A litre of water and a couple of Panadol had barely touched the surface. It had been a late night, with lots of talking, lots of emotion, and lots of wine.

  She felt like she had shed her body weight in tears, and when she woke up Dan had wrapped his arms around her and rocked her back to sleep, whispering tender nothingness in her ear. He had been a rock for her, but she knew he was hurting just as much as she did.

  Molly took a slow breath and guzzled some water. She needed to focus on what she had to do right now.

  She logged into her personal email, found the draft she’d been working on over the last month or so, and triple checked it. Unable to see anything glaringly obvious, she quadruple checked that her CV was attached, and hit Send.

  She killed the window and sat back in her chair. Her head was spinning. She couldn’t think straight, but she’d been sitting on this for so long, she figured she may as well do it.

  She was going nowhere at Apex, and she hated coming to work every day. She had nothing to lose.

  Molly dug her cell phone out of her bag and tapped out a quick message to Dan.

  I’ve done it. Wait and see. I love you xx.

  He came back instantly, like he’d been waiting for her.

  Long time coming. Good decision. Love you too xxx.

  She smiled and was about to put the phone away when it vibrated in her hand again.

  I spose we’re back on the 2 min noodles again 

  Molly smiled and put her phone away. He may be right. It was risky to give up a fulltime job, but yesterday’s news had brought some perspective to life. You couldn’t afford to sit around waiting for things, because they may never happen.

  At least she should be able to get temping work, and Dan looked likely to get promoted soon, especially after their great result yesterday, so things would be okay.

  For every cloud there was a silver lining; sometimes you just had to look for it.

  ***

  Buck walked into the office and dropped a heavy box on his desk. He removed his sunnies, which had been sliding down his nose, and tossed them onto the blotter beside the box.

  He had hit the road early and tried to chase down witnesses for a couple of cases. One was a sexual assault matter that had gone to trial a month ago, the other was a drugs-related robbery trial coming up soon.

  ‘How’d you get on?’ Joe asked, glancing up at him.

  ‘Got most of it done.’ Buck flopped into his chair. ‘I tried to return all that property to my sexual assault victim, but she just wants me to destroy it, so I went round to the witness for the home invasion and got a statement from him, went to his wife and got a statement from her, then went round to my other victim to return her property and she’s gone.’

  ‘Whaddaya mean, gone?’

  ‘Gone. Like, to Aussie.’

  ‘And this is the one with the trial coming up in two weeks?’

  ‘Yep. I checked with Immigration, she left yesterday.’

  ‘Bugger.’ Joe pulled a face. ‘Good luck getting her back then...’

  ‘Hmmm. I think she probably planned it all along.’

  The victim was a small-time P dealer who had been stood over by some gang members for dealing in their patch without their permission, a common practice known as “taxing.” With the victim’s lack of co-operation it would have been a dead-end, had it not been for the fact that a neighbour had called the cops and they had caught the offenders leaving the scene.

  With the victim’s testimony they would likely go down for aggravated robbery and Class A drugs. Without it, they would only face the drugs charges and get a much lighter sentence.

  It was a regular occurrence for the CIB, but it never got any less frustrating.

  Buck looked across to where Dan was sitting hunched over his desk, head down and chin on his hands. He lowered his voice. ‘What’s up with him today?’

  ‘Him and Ace got torn a new one by Biddy and Kennedy.’ Joe looked up from the file he was reading and shrugged.

  Buck clocked his use of the inspector’s first name. It seemed a bit odd. He said nothing.

  ‘Now he’s real grumpy. Phil from TCU came over and asked him for some advice on some job, and Dan goes “Try investigating it.” Phil asked him what his problem was and Dan goes “Idiots that ask me stupid questions.” He hasn’t spoken to anyone since. Ace has disappeared somewhere, too.’

  ‘Ouch,’ Buck said, ‘how long ago was that?’

  Joe checked his watch. ‘Two hours.’

  Buck rolled himself into his desk. ‘I was going to talk to him about this trial, but I think I’ll wait till Ace gets back.’ He looked around again. ‘Where’d you say he was?’

  Joe shrugged again. ‘Who would know, mate?’

  Joe went back to reading his file, and Buck started to sort out the box of property for destruction. It wasn’t surprising the victim didn’t want it back.

  Some of it was her clothing she’d been wearing at the time, which had all been forensically examined. Other stuff included the course books that the offender had left at her flat and later claimed weren’t his, despite his name being written inside the covers and his fingerprints being all over them.

  They had been attending the same course and the offender persuaded the victim to let him come over and study with her. It was just a ruse and things had all gone bad very quickly. He’d been convicted at trial and was awaiting sentencing. It had been Buck’s first serious trial and he had put plenty of hours in on it, hoping for a good result. His elation at a guilty verdict had been tempered when the senior guys had cautioned him not to get his hopes up for the sentencing.

  The offender was a foreign student with no family support in New Zealand, spoke limited English, and had never been in trouble before. Even his church minister gave evidence about what “a good boy” he was. He was providing a lot of mitigation for his defence lawyer to work with come sentencing time.

  Regardless, Buck planned to forge on and continue to put the best case forward. There was nothing else he could do. In the meantime, of course, he would have to find a hiding place for the box of property. Leaving it under his desk was nowhere near lean. There was no way that would make the car go faster.

  He glanced up to see Dan heading past with his mug in his hand and a scowl on his face.

  ‘Time for a cuppa?’ Buck enquired cheerily.

  Dan grunted and continued walking.

  Joe caught Buck’s eye and pulled a face. Buck waited a few seconds before grabbing his own cup and following Dan.

  He found him in the kitchen, making tea. A sudden stab of doubt stopped Buck in the doorway, and he hesitated. Dan was his mentor and he cared about his welfare, but Dan also had a strong streak of grumpy, and sometimes it was best to leave him alone. Maybe Buck had been too eager and this was one of those times.

  Normally it was Dan talking to him, checking on his progress with his cases, pulling him aside for some coaching or the occasional kick in the backside, constantly giving him pointers and help. Sometimes it was a bit much and he would get overwhelmed. But he always knew that Dan had good intentions. This felt wrong.

  He was about to turn and go when Dan spoke.

  ‘You just gunna stand there or do you want something, Bucko?’
r />   Buck felt his guts flutter as Dan turned to look at him, a teaspoon in one hand. He would be letting his tea steep until it got good and dark, before adding just a splash of milk. Buck didn’t know how he could stand it.

  He took a breath, then a slow step into the kitchen. Dan was watching him, his dark eyes giving nothing away. Buck thought he suited the new mo, made him look like that marshal from the cowboy movie.

  ‘You seem,’ Buck began cautiously, ‘a bit growly today...um...growlier than...you know...’

  ‘Normal?’ Dan suggested.

  Buck’s nod was tentative. ‘Yeah...um...I just wanted to check...you know...ahh...’ He knew he was making a hash of it, but he floundered on. He’d come so far now he couldn’t back out. He felt Dan’s eyes on his face, studying him. ‘Are you alright?’ Buck blurted.

  Dan was quiet a long moment, staring at the wall now. Buck didn’t want to breathe in case it broke the silence.

  ‘No mate,’ Dan said quietly, ‘I’m not.’

  Buck felt a rush of emotions. It was a relief that Dan hadn’t snapped his head off, but his friend’s tone was so sad that it kicked Buck hard in the chest.

  ‘I’m not alright,’ Dan said. ‘We’re not alright.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Buck breathed, ‘you haven’t...’

  Dan looked at him. ‘No, you muppet. Not in that way. We’ve been having tests.’ His face was sombre. ‘We’ve been trying for a baby for a long time. It’s not working.’ He swallowed hard and looked away. He took a deep breath and licked his lips. ‘We can’t have one. It’s my fault, I can’t give Molly...us...a baby.’

  Buck watched him blinking hard, fighting to keep control. He felt a lump in his own throat.

  ‘I can’t make babies so we miss out, and there’s nothing we can do about it.’ Dan looked at him now and Buck could see the tears in his eyes. ‘There’s not a damn thing we can do about it, mate. And I see all these scumbags and no-hopers out there, on the booze and drugs and they just throw kids out left right and centre and don’t care for them, and it absolutely guts me. It rips my heart out that they’re so useless and worthless, can’t even look after themselves, and here we are, desperate for a baby that we would love and cherish its whole life, and we can’t have one.’