by JD Nixon
“Yep, everything’s just dandy,” I replied through clenched teeth.
“Drink?” he enquired.
“Yes, please. And make it a big one.”
We spent another half-hour just chatting idly in the lounge bar before we all called it a night, none of us having slept particularly well the night before.
To my surprise, Baz gave me a big bear hug goodbye, nearly crushing my ribs in the process.
“You stay strong, Tezza. You hear me?”
“Thanks for giving me the all-clear, Baz. I really appreciate that.”
“Look, love, I think that if some of the brass could spend a couple of days in your shoes, they’d get their heads out of their arses, and actually thank you for remaining a cop. You’re an asset to the force.” He considered. “Though perhaps one that needs more corralling than most.”
I laughed. “You had to go and spoil it, didn’t you?”
He patted my shoulder, and leaned in to whisper, “I still reckon you’ve got a nice arse on you.”
“Baz!”
He waved casually, laughing as he walked away upstairs to his room.
Chapter 11
My tummy bulging with good food, and with a couple of glasses of wine under my belt, I was almost asleep when the Sarge drove me home. He didn’t linger, probably thinking longingly of his own bed.
The next morning, after tending to my chickens and taking a few minutes to enjoy watching them jostling for their food, I dressed for jogging. To my surprise, both Romi and the Sarge waited at my front gate for me. Romi stared up at him with unadulterated admiration, even though she’d been slowly developing a relationship over the last few months with a local boy, Deepak.
We set off together, but my culinary excesses the previous night left me slow and sluggish. I struggled to keep up with them, and eventually lagged behind the others.
Back at my place, they waited as I slowly jogged up, my stomach churning unpleasantly.
“Are you all right, Tessie?” asked Romi, her face furrowed with concern. “You’re really off your pace this morning. Are you coming down with something?”
“She came down with an extreme case of gluttony last night,” laughed the Sarge. “She’s paying for it now though.”
“Don’t be mean,” I moaned. “I don’t feel very well. I don’t think I’ll ever eat again. You guys can make your own breakfast. I need to lie down.”
I left them to their own devices and lay on my bed for ten minutes, feeling sorry for myself. When my stomach finally settled, I joined them in the kitchen. I opened the fridge and took out the milk, rummaging in the pantry for a box of cereal.
“I thought you were never eating again,” laughed the Sarge.
“I haven’t eaten since last night. That’s practically never,” I said, pouring a big bowl of bran flakes.
I didn’t really like them, but uncharacteristically, had been virtually brainwashed into buying them by the oversaturation of a cheesy TV ad with a pretty young woman singing an irritating jingle. She didn’t have a great singing voice, and I cringed every time I heard it. But the jingle was an earworm, and I’d found myself humming it more than once as I went about my day. Unfortunately, one of those times had been while I was in Big Town doing the grocery shopping.
Dad rolled into the kitchen, and I waggled the box at him.
“Bran flakes, Dad?”
He groaned, and pulled a face. “I hate those things. They’re almost inedible. The cardboard box they’re in would taste better. Why did you have to buy the jumbo pack, love?”
“I dunno. I had that stupid jingle stuck in my head, and they were on special.”
“I don’t want to waste food, so I suppose we’ll have to finish them, but promise me to never buy them again.”
“That’s a promise I’m happy to make.”
“I don’t mind them,” said the Sarge. “They’re very healthy.”
“That’s probably why they taste so awful,” I grumped, flopping on to a chair next to him. “Trust you to like them. You’re probably the only person in the whole country who does. You’re probably hanging out for tuna-flavoured ones.”
I commenced shovelling flakes into my mouth, figuring if I ate it fast, I wouldn’t taste it as much. Dad and the Sarge exchanged a glance.
“She hasn’t changed much since I left,” the Sarge noted.
“She got crankier,” Dad smiled.
“I did not,” I denied, my mouth full of food. “Everyone else just got happier.”
“Hard to dispute that kind of logic,” said the Sarge dryly, taking his dishes to the sink to wash up. “Okay, I’m off. I’ll see you at the station soon, Tessie.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Romi, do you need a lift home?” he asked nicely.
“Thanks, Finn. But I have my bike,” she replied, clearly crushed by having to turn him down.
“Let’s see if we can fit it in my boot. I’m sure we did it once before.”
Her eyes lit up at that offer, and for the first time ever, she scooted after him without clearing her dishes or saying goodbye to Dad and me.
“Hmm,” I said, watching them leave. “I think she’s forgotten about Deepak.”
“Don’t worry about her. I’m sure Finn will find a new girlfriend soon now that he’s single again.”
I shot him a look. “How do you know about that? I didn’t tell you.”
“It’s a small town, love. Everybody knows.”
“I wonder if Gretel knows,” I pondered.
I found out the answer to that as soon as I walked into the station. Gretel was draped over the counter, propping up her head with one palm, flirting outrageously with a bemused Sarge.
“Good morning, Gretel,” I said archly. “Something to report?”
“No. I just popped in to say hello to you,” she lied shamelessly. “It was a lovely surprise to find Finn back in town.”
“Oh, I bet it was,” I said sarcastically, throwing her a look over my shoulder as I opened the hatch, abandoning the Sarge to her gushing admirations. He was a big boy – he could look after himself.
Eventually, Gretel had to reluctantly force herself to leave because it was nearly time for the school day to start.
“Bye, Finn,” I heard her trill. “And don’t forget I’d love to have you over for dinner one night.”
He murmured some non-committed response that I didn’t quite hear, before he joined me in the back room, a puzzled expression on his face.
“What was that all about?” he asked as he sat at his desk.
“What do you think?” I stared at him in disbelief. “You’re now considered eligible property in town. Gretel’s a single woman. You’re a single man. You do the sums.”
“What? No. That’s ridiculous. I’m not even looking for anyone at the moment.”
“Doesn’t matter what you’re looking for – it’s what all the single women in town are wanting,” I laughed. “You’re going to be a very popular man from now on.”
“Like I said, I’m not interested in another relationship at the moment. Definitely, one day. But not right now. I’m happy to wait until the time is right. I’m a very patient man.”
“It doesn’t have to be a relationship. Gretel would be happy to accept a couple of dates. Or whatever else you want to offer.”
“I’ll manage my own love life, thanks anyway,” he said firmly, with an unmistakable air of suggesting that I shut it immediately.
I took the hint and shut it. “So, what will we do today? Will we go back and hunt through the bushes again, to see if we can find Jamie’s girlfriend?”
“No, that seems futile. I think we’ll do some routine stuff today.” He tapped on his keyboard and stared at his screen. “Maybe a spot of random breath testing? It looks as though it’s been a while since that last happened. The Super will be on my arse if we don’t do any soon.”
“Should we do that this morning?”
“I think so. And then this afternoon we can walk the beat
. Let everyone know I’m back in town.”
“Everybody knows already, believe me.”
“It won’t hurt for them to see me in person. But I have to attend to a few things first.” He glanced at my desk with a frown. “You know, you could spend some time cleaning up that mess,” he said pointedly.
“Why is everyone so obsessed with clean desks anyway?”
“Clean desk, clean mind.”
“Oh, God. You sergeants need some new material. Do they teach you all those trite sayings at sergeant school?”
He ignored me. “Just think – if you clean it, you’ll be able to display all the things I sent you.”
“Yeah, but then my desk will be full of things instead of paper.”
“It would certainly enhance the ambience of the station.”
I looked at him sorrowfully. “I don’t know what all your fancy foreign words mean. I’m just a simple country girl.”
He snorted. “You still peddling that bullshit?”
“Still works on some people,” I smiled.
“It’s lucky I’m not some people. Now get your arse into gear and do something productive.”
“Gee, it’s fun having you back,” I griped.
Not feeling like tackling my desk, instead I rang Mr X to see if ‘Mr Mansfield’ had contacted them, or if they’d discovered anything else about Jamie’s real identity. He gloomily advised there had been no progress on either front. I promised him we’d let him know if we heard or discovered anything new.
Secretly, I hoped that ‘Mr Mansfield’ would make another appearance at the station, unaware that we realised he wasn’t who he said he was. I felt responsible for not twigging to that fact when he’d spoken to me. But I knew that was a hopeless wish. He’d know as soon as the dees checked into his details that they’d realise he’d given them truckloads of false information. There was no way he was going to contact any of us now.
When the Sarge had finished his tasks, we decided to hit the north approach to town. There was a pullover bay on each side of the road at both ends of town that we used for breath tests and vehicle roadworthy checks. That meant we didn’t have to halt the flow of traffic on the highway any time we were carrying out our routine duties.
“Will we go for people entering or exiting town?” I asked, hauling the signs out of the boot.
“I don’t know. Do we want to go for locals or drive-throughs?”
“How popular do you want to be walking the beat this afternoon?”
That made up his mind. “It would be nice to have one day without the whole town hating me. Let’s do the entrance.”
“You’ll still catch some locals returning to town.”
“True, but tough luck for them. They shouldn’t be drink-driving.”
A couple of hours later, we’d nabbed four drivers over the limit, one of them worryingly driving a road train. Luckily, none of them were locals, and all were in the low range, probably as a result of one too many the night before. All were required to abandon their vehicles, hand over their keys, and wait until we gave them the all-clear to drive again. Oh, and receive a hefty penalty infringement notice as well, of course.
We were about to pack up when a frog-green car putted towards us, recklessly pulling into the bay at the last second, almost crashing into one of the temporarily impounded cars.
“Oh, geez,” complained the Sarge. “Is he still doing that?”
“Afraid so,” I sighed wearily, stalking over to the driver’s door. “Get out, Martin.”
“What are you doing here, Officer Tess?” asked the ‘driver’ breathlessly.
“Where have you been?”
“I had a lovely drive to Big Town this morning. It was great fun. I had a coffee and a muffin.”
“Where did you get the money to pay for that?”
“There was some money in the ashtray of the car. She always keeps some money there.” He smiled happily. “It was a really good muffin. Apple and cinnamon.”
“Martin, taking someone else’s money is stealing. You know that.” So was taking their car, but I couldn’t be bothered reminding him of that for the millionth time.
He completely ignored me as he did with everything he didn’t want to hear. “You haven’t told me what you’re doing here.”
“We’re conducting random breath tests.”
“Oh, wow. Can you test me? Please.”
“No,” I said impatiently. “Get out.”
“Please, Officer Tess. Please.”
“No, Martin. It’s not a game. It’s serious police business.”
His puppy dog enthusiasm turned to petulance in a blink. “I’m not getting out then. You’re not being very nice to me.”
“Martin, out of the car now, please,” requested the Sarge.
“What’s he doing back here? I thought he’d gone for good,” Martin sulked.
“Out of the car,” the Sarge ordered, a little less polite this time.
“Nope. I’m not getting out until Officer Tess breath tests me.”
The Sarge and I looked at each other.
“It will only take a minute,” I said.
“You shouldn’t give in to him. You only encourage him.”
I shrugged in a what am I supposed to do about it kind of way. “Sometimes it’s just easier to give in. Otherwise, the next time he’ll be even worse. And I’d rather have him as a happy joyrider than an angry one.”
“For God’s sake,” he muttered, handing the breathalyser over to me.
I recited the instructions in a bored voice, thinking that it would be the surprise of the year if Martin tested positive for alcohol. They didn’t do much right at the mental health facility at which he was an inmate, including letting him frequently escape to liberate one of the psychiatrist’s car, but I’d presume that alcohol was absolutely forbidden.
Martin blew into the breathalyser with such enthusiasm and force that it quickly reached the level required.
“You can stop, Martin,” I instructed, but he kept blowing and blowing. “Martin, stop. Stop now.” He didn’t listen but kept blowing. I yanked it out of his mouth. “Geez, Martin, you nearly blew the bloody thing up.”
“What’s my reading, Officer Tess?” And I can honestly say I’d never heard a motorist before ask that with so much anticipation.
“It’s 0.0, Martin. Congratulations, you passed. Now, get out.”
“Can you drive me back, Officer Tess?”
The Sarge shot me a look before addressing the four stranded motorists. “We’ll be gone for about ten minutes or so. When you think you’ve sobered up, walk to the police station. It’s a five-minute walk down the road. You can’t miss it. One of us will breathalyse you again, and if you’re good to go, you can have your keys back. Try to take off while we’re gone, and you’ll be in a world of trouble and facing court, not just an infringement notice.”
I drove Martin in the green car south of the town, down the mountain range to the clinic, the Sarge following behind. After giving the clinic director another reaming for his carelessness and inattention to his duty of care, we drove back to the station.
“Do you think any of our drink-drivers have done a runner?” I asked him.
“Possibly. We only made them hand over the set of keys they were using to drive. Some of them had passengers who could have had spares.”
“True. But they’d be stupid to do it. Will we go after them if they do?”
He thought about it for a moment. “Let’s see what mood I’m in if it happens,” he decided.
“Dealing with Martin again hasn’t improved my mood.”
“You know, when I was gone I thought of this place a lot, often with a kind of nostalgia.”
“But being back here has reminded you of the stark, ugly reality of Little Town.”
He smiled. “Something like that.”
“Why did you come back here? You probably could have gone anywhere.”
His dark blue eyes settled on me. “What?
And leave you to the mercies of some heartless sergeant who didn’t understand the importance of Tim Tams to your productivity levels?”
I laughed. “Speaking of which . . .” I opened the kitchenette cupboard to show him its bleak emptiness.
“Okay, I can take a hint. I’ll be back in a jiff.”
A minute after he drove away, our first drink-driver made an appearance. I breathalysed him and he came in at 0.52.
“Almost,” I told him. “Take a seat on the bench for another ten minutes or so. Do you want a cup of tea while you wait?”
He did, so I made both of us one, and chatted to him until the Sarge returned with five packets of Tim Tams.
“Five? That’s not enough,” I joked.
“I’m hoping they’ll get you through until lunch at least. I know that’s a whole hour away.”
“Oh, you’re so funny.” I looked at the motorist. “Sorry, mate. I’m not sharing these with you.”
“I’d never get between a woman and a packet of Tim Tams,” he said with a straight face.
“Wise man,” agreed the Sarge.
I stored the packets in the cupboard, opening one, and munching on a couple of biscuits as I checked my email.
“Where’s my cup of tea?” the Sarge shouted through from the front.
“In the kettle,” I yelled back, but shifted my butt to make him one.
When I took it out to him, he was testing our visitor again. He handed back the man’s keys with an accompanying lecture that the man listened to attentively, but sheepishly.
Over the next hour, the other three of our drink-drivers wandered in to be cleared to drive again, the Sarge reserving his sternest lecture for the road train driver, reminding him his livelihood depended on him keeping his licence.
“You’re good at lectures,” I commented, after they’d all been processed and left.
“Then why don’t you ever listen to any of them?”
“Because all I hear is Fuller, blah, blah, blah, Fuller, blah, blah, blah, Tim Tams.”
He laughed. “Well, Fuller, I’m sure you’ll hear this – let’s go have some lunch.”
“You know what, Sarge? I heard that loud and clear.”
Chapter 12