by JD Nixon
“Do you know where the Grevilles owned land around these parts?” I asked.
She pushed back her chair and stood shakily. “I don’t, but I’m sure it’s all in the library, Tess dear.”
The Sarge and I stood as well and I indicated to him with a nod that he should follow Miss G to the library while I washed up the plates. I could never leave an elderly lady with any dirty dishes or mess after my visit. Fierce Nana Fuller, an absolute gorgon for good manners, would never have forgiven me if I had. And ten minutes later, crockery and cutlery carefully washed, dried and put away, the benches and table wiped down and the chairs neatly pushed back in, I joined them in the library. It was a dim and dusty room, crammed with oversized chairs, tables and books. No one had been inside for years judging by the thick dust settled on every horizontal surface. Boxes of documents were stacked almost to the ceiling. The Sarge, covered in dust himself after moving a few to peer inside, was regarding them with resigned unhappiness.
“What was that you said about new-fashioned police work?” I teased, brushing at the sleeve of his expensive t-shirt, sneezing three times in a row when the dust went up my nose.
He turned to me, handed me his handkerchief and pulled a face. “We’re going to have to take everything back to the station and go through it.”
I blew my nose noisily and shoved his monogrammed linen hanky in my pocket. It was my turn to pull a face. “Or we could just ring Murchison and Murchison,” I suggested. “I know. Why don’t we have a race? You go through all of this and I’ll ring the lawyers and we’ll see who comes up with some information first?” I dared to flash him a cheeky smile.
“Good thinking, Fuller. Except I’ll do the ringing and you can do the sifting.” And he flashed me a smile in return that completely transformed his face into something almost handsome. But the smile was gone as soon as it came.
Miss G laid her gnarled, wrinkled hand on my arm. “Tess dear, was there someone at my window?”
I exchanged a quick glance with the Sarge and decided to be honest with her. She was a sensible woman. “We found some evidence that shows that there may have been someone standing underneath your bedroom window, Miss G. Just to be careful, can you stay for a few days with Bessie?” Miss G and Bessie Goodwill had been best friends since they were five-years-old, which was a long time ago for both of them.
“Bessie lives with her girl in Big Town now,” Miss G reminded me.
“That’s right.” Bessie’s ‘girl’ was over seventy herself. “We’d be happy to drive you to Bessie’s daughter’s place, and we could go and speak to your lawyer while we’re at it. With your permission of course, Miss G.”
She looked at me shrewdly. “You think this has something to do with the Greville family’s ‘secret treasure’, don’t you, Officer Tess?”
“It’s just a possibility, Miss Greville,” the Sarge reassured. “But we would prefer if you could stay with your friend for a while.”
She fixed her gazed on him, then nodded and went off to ring Bessie and pack. While she was occupied sorting her necessities, the Sarge used the phone to ring her lawyers, but it was Saturday and there was no answer at the office.
“Guess it will have to wait until Monday,” I shrugged. “Do you want me to drop you back at my place or at the station? No point you wasting your Saturday coming to Big Town too just to drop off Miss G.”
“I’ll tag along,” he insisted and I shrugged again, not caring one way or the other. Whatever floats his boat, I thought.
When Miss G was ready, we carefully locked up her house and the Sarge gave her his arm to help her down the stairs and into the patrol car, which was thoughtful of him. He stowed her bag in the boot while I settled her in the back seat, on the other side to the still damp stain, and ensured her seatbelt was securely fastened.
“It’s so lovely to be fussed over,” she twittered happily. I smiled at her in the rear view mirror and drove down her bumpy drive to the street.
I kept her occupied during the ninety-minute drive by questioning her about what Little Town had been like when she was growing up. It surprised, and depressed, me just how little the town had changed since then. Most of the town’s buildings dated from its establishment as a timber town, including most of the private houses as well as the police station, lockup and police house. When the timber ran out, the townsfolk had moved the sheep in to replace it. These days though, small seasonal organic farmers dominated the local agricultural scene. Mount Big was an ancient volcanic plug and the surrounding soil was extremely fertile, which was great for us locals because we enjoyed cheap, fresh fruit and vegetables all year round. That was especially fortunate for Dad and me on our limited income.
We drove into Big Town, a pleasant coastal urban centre with a population nudging twenty-five thousand. It sprawled around a deep bay that provided good commercial and recreational fishing. When I was a kid, Dad had often taken me fishing there with a close friend of his who possessed a large boat and an even larger family (seven kids). That evening we’d have a beach barbecue of fresh fish, which made a nice change from all the lamb and mutton Dad and I normally ate. I had warm memories of driving back home at the end of the day, sleepy, happy after running around madly with all of those other kids, a bit sunburnt and windswept, the smell of fish permeating his old Land Rover.
We dropped Miss G off at Bessie’s house and I cruised past Miss G’s lawyers’ office just in case someone was working today even if they weren’t answering the phone. But the place was in darkness. Before I turned to head back home, I made a detour to the bay to the fishermen’s market. The Sarge gave me a look that spoke volumes of what he thought about cops who did their personal shopping in the patrol car.
“I won’t be a sec,” I cajoled. “You want some fresh seafood for dinner, don’t you?”
His disapproval wavered at the mention of fresh seafood, so I took advantage of his weakness and ran off to the market without a second glance. Of course all the good stuff was gone by that time of the day, but I still managed to squeeze out of my favourite fisherman some decent green king prawns that he’d been hoarding for his own family. True, I had to kiss his fishy, salty and stubbly cheek to win over that favour and then listen to a lot of good-natured and jealous ribbing from the others about that, but I didn’t mind. The older guys had all known me since I was a kid. Dad and his friend had always sheepishly bought our dinner from the market on the many occasions we’d returned unsuccessful after our own fishing expeditions.
Waving goodbye to them, their best wishes for Dad ringing in my ears, I was back in the car before the Sarge could change his mind back to disapproval. I sped off home towards Little Town. I thought I’d done quite enough unpaid overtime for the day and planned on heading straight home, whether he wanted to or not. As we approached Little Town though, I noticed something that I couldn’t ignore.
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath, then more loudly to the Sarge, “Hold on!”
I flicked on the siren and lights and planted my foot, swerving around other cars on the road, my eyes firmly fixed on the small frog-green hatchback in the distance ahead of us. It didn’t try to outrun me or avoid me, just kept driving along at a steady speed on the road that wound its way up the lower reaches of the Coastal Range. It was only when I was right up its backside and we’d reached the flatness of Little Town that the driver, with a pleased expression that I could clearly see in the car’s rearview mirror, noticed us and hastily pulled over to the side of the road. I pulled over too and turned off the siren, but not the lights.
“What’s going on?” the Sarge demanded to know.
“Stolen vehicle,” I said.
“How can you be so sure?” I really hated people questioning my judgement, especially other cops, but held my resentment in with some restraint. I replied with patience tempered through gritted teeth.
“Because I know for a fact that the person driving that car doesn’t have a licence or a car. He’s also unpredictable and can be very vo
latile. I wish I had my gear with me. I might need cuffs and spray. Can you look in the glove box to see if there are any quick restraints in there? I think I threw some in a while ago, just in case.”
He opened the glove box, dug through the mess, handed a pair to me and slipped a pair into his own jeans pocket.
“Ta. The driver is Martin Cline, a patient at the mental health clinic, and the car belongs to one of the psychiatrists who work there. I’ve told her to stop leaving the damn car unlocked so many times now that I’ve lost count. Martin’s a regular escapee and he likes to drive. For some reason, he loves that car and tends to steal it more than any of the others, but that’s probably because the stupid woman keeps leaving it unlocked all the time. Normally he doesn’t cause any problems. He usually just goes for a little zoom around town then back to the clinic, but every now and again he becomes very aggressive, drives erratically, tries to run people over. I never know what mood he’s going to be in.”
“I’ll deal with this,” he decided, opening his door.
“No, Martin’s used to me. You’ll just scare him.”
I opened my door and climbed out, approaching the car slowly. He appeared to be calm, sitting quietly in the driver’s seat with his hands on the steering wheel, waiting for me. I’d long thought that being pulled over by me was a critical part of his fun, and he loved the excitement of being caught by the police. When I hadn’t seen him for a while, or he’d gotten away with one of his little drives without being caught, he always made sure the next time that he drove around town for long enough that I would either notice him myself or someone would ring me to tell me he was on the loose again. Jake liked to tease me that Martin is in love with me and while I scoff at him, he might have a point because Martin does try to run down Jake every time he sees him.
I reached the driver’s door and Martin wound down the window.
“Hello, Officer Tess. You look really pretty today with your hair loose like that. But you’re not in uniform.” He was disappointed.
“No, it’s the weekend, Martin. I don’t live in my uniform, you know.”
He laughed in an inappropriately loud and raucous way that far exceeded any humour in my comment. Oh dear, I thought.
“You going to step out of the car for me so I can take you back home?” I asked.
“Who’s that man with you?”
“That’s Sergeant Maguire. He’s the replacement for Des.”
“Why are you hanging around with him on the weekend in your normal clothes? Are you on a date?” Slightly peevish tone.
“No, Martin, we’re not on a date. We had some police business in Big Town to attend to. I was just showing him around town. You’re not helping to create a very good first impression of the town driving around in a stolen car, are you?”
He was hurt. “Officer Tess, it’s not stolen, it’s just borrowed. I’m going to take it back.”
“I know you are. But you took it without permission and that’s wrong, remember? That’s stealing. We’ve had this talk a million times before.”
A sulky expression settled on his face. “Are you still seeing that Jake Bycraft? The Bycrafts are nothing but scum.”
I leaned down to look at him more closely. Sometimes I could tell by his eyes how dangerous he was going to be. “It’s none of your business who I’m seeing, Martin. Get out of the car please.”
“I don’t like your attitude today, Officer Tess. You’re being mean to me.”
Oh brother, I thought, here we go, and looked over at the Sarge, who was standing by the patrol car watching the action keenly. I hoped he was good at reading minds because we hadn’t had a chance to develop any signals for each other and I wanted him over here. Fast.
But before he could move, Martin threw open the front door of the car on to me, catching me by surprise and knocking me flying. He sprinted from the car and headed off down the street like lightning. He was a fast runner and a regular gold medallist for the sprint races at the clinic’s annual athletic games. I was up on my feet and pounding after him before I could even gather my thoughts, ignoring my bruised butt and as angry as hell. I didn’t want my prawns to spoil sitting there in the sun.
He ran to a t-junction, flipped his head left, then right, and shot off to the right, running across the road without even checking if it was clear. A battered ute screeched to a halt, narrowly missing him, its horn blaring angrily. I held up my palm to stop the ute taking off and ran across in front of it as well. I was running Martin down, not being too shabby in the sprinting department myself, when I heard the siren sound nearby and turned to see the Sarge in the patrol car. I jumped in the passenger seat and pointed down the street where we could see Martin running for his life.
Although the roads leading into it are reasonably steep and windy, Little Town itself was built on a plateau so was flat with streets made wide to allow bullock trains hauling timber to do a full u-turn. It wasn’t full of small alleys, back lanes and traffic like a city, so in terms of tailing someone, it was a dream come true. We cruised behind Martin, easily following him with the lights flashing, but siren turned off still.
When Martin appeared to flag, the Sarge pulled over and we both jumped out.
“Lock the car!” I yelled over my shoulder. “Otherwise one of those Bycraft bastards will steal it.”
We ran after Martin and soon had him cornered in the town’s only dead end street, imaginatively called Dead End Street. It was the only street in town not named after a tree and it terminated with the old cemetery. I’d often wondered if the town fathers had deliberately planned it that way as a subtle statement on human mortality.
The cemetery was full of ornate and precariously leaning headstones from the town’s earliest settlement days. A lot of my ancestors were buried there; some of them well before their time, including my mother. It was closed now except for family plots. The new lawn cemetery that replaced it was located two kilometres out of town on the corner of the Coastal Range Highway and Mountain Road, the road that led up to Mount Big.
Martin was very superstitious and would never set foot in the cemetery, so for him to run down this street told me a lot about his strong need to be captured and returned to safety. I’d never asked, but I’d always assumed that he had some kind of authority complex, which was probably why he needed his regular encounters with me.
“Take it easy on him,” I said in a low voice as the Sarge efficiently pushed Martin to the ground and snapped the quick restraints around his wrists, hauling him to his feet gently. Martin began to cry and I didn’t mean a few token tears trickling out of his eyes to make us feel sorry for him, but huge gut-wrenching sobs that shook his whole body and echoed down the street. His eyes and then eventually his nose streamed with liquid.
“I-I j-j-just w-wanted to g-g-g-go for a dr-dr-drive,” he wailed, hyperventilating, almost incomprehensive with emotion. He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his t-shirt, leaving a disgusting smear behind.
“I know, Martin,” I said kindly, patting him on the shoulder. “But you’re not allowed to drive. You don’t have a licence. It’s not safe for you to drive. Not for you or for other people.”
He gave a watery snort and appeared puzzled when I mentioned other people. I wasn’t a psychiatrist, but even I could tell that Martin had great difficulty in empathising with other folk. His entire world consisted of him and his needs and desires alone. There was probably some fancy term to describe that, but I didn’t know what it was.
We led him to the patrol car and pushed him gently into the back seat. I handed him a bunch of tissues and climbed into the driver’s seat again and the Sarge into the passenger seat.
“We’d better secure the stolen car first,” I said, and he nodded agreement.
“Borrowed,” insisted Martin from the back with another watery snort. I ignored him, did a u-turn, and drove back to where Martin had abandoned the little green car.
It was gone.
“Bloody Bycrafts,” I muttered
to myself and sped off in anger the fifteen kilometres to the south of town where the mental health clinic was situated. I threw the Sarge my mobile and asked him to ring the clinic to let them know we were bringing Martin back, mindful of his ticking off earlier this morning about using the phone while driving. I had the number to the clinic on speed-dial.
He spoke for a few moments and not long afterwards we turned into the tall gates of the clinic and handed over Martin to its relieved and embarrassed director. The Sarge gave him a hard-faced reprimand about allowing a patient to escape so frequently and bluntly suggested that he review the clinic’s security arrangements immediately. The director nodded the entire time, his face a strange mix of fawning discomfit. He’d never looked like that when I’d given him a serve about Martin, I thought sourly. In fact, he’d always had a smutty smirk on his face as he listened, his eyes dropping continuously from my face to my boobs, once even wolf-whistling under his breath when I walked to the door. I quietly resented it when people took a male cop more seriously than me.
Martin safely returned, we drove off back towards town again. I sped past my home though, instead taking the turnoff for Mountain Road, the Sarge raising his eyebrows at me in question. We drove up the mountain in silence. As I suspected, sitting forlornly abandoned in the public carpark adjacent to Lake Big was the little green car, doors wide open and keys in the ignition. It was a little scraped on the front bumper and worse for wear inside, but mostly okay.
“How did you know it would be here?” the Sarge asked, looking at me with guarded respect.
“This is where the Bycrafts abandon all their stolen cars,” I told him, instantly dispelling his emerging image of me as a wonder-cop. “They’re creatures of routine. And knowing them, they’ve probably had an orgy in the car as well.” I smiled at him brightly. “So which one do you want to drive back to my place?”
I wasn’t too surprised when he kicked me out of the patrol car and drove off.
There was a revolting stain on the driver’s seat of the little car that I didn’t care to examine too closely. I looked around for something to cover it and found a beautiful and expensive pale lilac cashmere jumper carelessly thrown on to the back seat. That silly psychiatrist, I tutted to myself. It looked as though someone had wiped something disgusting on it, maybe even a few times, that I also didn’t care to examine. I draped the jumper carefully over the stain and drove the little car back to my house. The patrol car was already parked when I returned, but I noticed immediately that the Sarge’s Beemer was gone.