Blood Tears

by JD Nixon

I had no choice but to watch Merrick driving off in the same muddy brown bomb he’d driven to Little Town.

  I whipped out my phone and rang Mr X, not catching him, but leaving a message. Then to be sure someone received it, I left a message for Zelda too. And then, just to be really safe, I rang the Super, but was diverted to her voicemail where, muttering under my breath about people who never answer their frigging phones, also left her a message. I wanted to stress the importance of keeping Annabel safe now that I’d seen Merrick still hanging around in Big Town.

  Muttering more than a few choice swear words, I stepped out of the Land Rover and returned to the house. If I couldn’t have the man in hand, at least I could try to discover what he’d been doing back here when it was clear he and his gang had moved on from this house, if not this town.

  Upstairs, I entered the room from which he’d run, not knowing what to expect to find inside. What had he been doing in a house that he’d vacated? Had he accidently left something behind when they moved? Was he hiding something? Or retrieving something?

  It was a bedroom, and like all the other rooms in the house, it was messy. The double bed remained unmade, the sheets giving off the sour smell of stale sweat. There didn’t appear to be any personal items left behind, but the door of a large, rickety wardrobe was wide open.

  Curious, I looked inside. The only thing it contained was a disreputable, moth-eaten jacket as eccentric as the one Merrick had worn on his visit to the station. Surely he hadn’t returned to retrieve that?

  It was then I noticed something lying on the bottom of the wardrobe. I leaned down to pick up two photos that appeared to have fallen out of a box or an envelope.

  When I turned them over, I realised why it had been so important for Merrick to come back for them. The two photos that he’d dropped each contained extremely explicit photos of him engaging in sexual acts with a teenager. In one photo, the girl was easily recognisable as Annabel.

  God, what a pervert, I thought, disgusted. To not only force these runaways to ‘keep him happy’ or be turfed out, he had to document the abuse as well. Yep, he was definitely a pervert, but he wasn’t a smart pervert, because he was clearly identifiable in each photo. I didn’t think evidence came much more incriminating than that.

  What I should have done at that point was return to the Big Town police station and hand the photos over to Mr X and Zelda. But I couldn’t risk the Super’s wrath again, and when I checked my watch, I realised I’d taken much longer on my visit to Big Town than I’d ever intended. So instead of going back to their station, I decided to go back to my station, and ring the dees from that safe distance.

  It was only after I managed to get the Land Rover started and drove off that I realised that once again, I’d failed to get the number plate of Merrick’s car. Not that I suspected it would make much difference – he probably had fake plates, or had the car registered in a false name and address.

  On the drive home, I puzzled over why Merrick had left the photos in the house when they’d taken everything else. Had he forgotten about them in the rush to move, and panicked when he discovered he didn’t have them with him? It seemed odd.

  I’d reached about halfway home when the Land Rover started spluttering again.

  “Oh, no,” I groaned, willing it to keep going just long enough to make it back to Little Town.

  But when it began to screech and shudder, steam pouring from the engine, I was forced to pull over to the side of the road. I got out and propped opened the bonnet, but as I knew virtually nothing about engines, I only ended up staring at it in useless ignorance.

  I was just considering kicking the tyres a few times to ease my frustration, and perhaps optimistically and magically get it working again, when a ute pulled up behind me. I watched as a portly, middle-aged man hauled himself from behind the steering wheel. Hurriedly, I leaned over to shove the photos into the glove box. No need for a member of the public to be subjected to that kind of thing.

  “Trouble, love?” he asked with a genial smile.

  “Yep. My Land Rover decided it didn’t want to go any further,” I told him with a wry smile.

  He patted the side of the vehicle. “This one’s old.”

  “I think it’s on its last legs. Or last wheels, I should probably say.”

  He laughed. “Let’s have a look at it.”

  “You know engines?”

  “I know a little about them, but I’m no mechanic.”

  “That’s a shame. I’m pretty sure that’s what I need right now.”

  He eyeballed me curiously, taking in my uniform. “So, off to work, are you?”

  “Nah. I’m returning from some police business in Wattling Bay.”

  He gave the Land Rover the once-over. “Doesn’t look like any patrol car I’ve ever seen.”

  I smiled. “Unfortunately, this is my own vehicle. My sergeant wouldn’t let me take the patrol car in case he needed it back in town.”

  He peered at the engine for a few minutes. “Like I said, love, I’m no expert, but even I can tell that your radiator’s rooted.”

  I groaned. “That sounds expensive.”

  “Isn’t everything to do with a car?” He patted the Land Rover again. “This beauty’s not going anywhere. You’re going to need a tow truck or a mobile mechanic.”

  “Just great.”

  “Where were you headed? I might be able to give you a lift.”

  “Mount Big Town.” He gazed at me blankly. “It’s up on the Coastal Range. At the foot of Mount Big.”

  He shook his head, sounding genuinely regretful. “Sorry, love. When I reach the highway, I’m going in the opposite direction.”

  “That’s okay. It was nice of you to offer. I’ll ring my sergeant and get him to pick me up. It’s practically his fault this happened because he wouldn’t let me take the patrol car.”

  He laughed again. “Wouldn’t want to be in his shoes on the drive back.” And with that he returned to his vehicle and with a jaunty hoot, left me taking out my phone.

  Chapter 18

  It felt like I had to wait ages for the Sarge to arrive. At last I spotted the patrol car in the distance. He made an illegal u-turn, parking behind me. He unwound his height from the driver’s seat and moseyed on over, taking a gander under the bonnet too.

  “What’s the matter with it?” he asked after a minute, obviously as well-versed in motor mechanics as me.

  “The guy who stopped said the radiator’s rooted.”

  “What guy?”

  “I don’t know. Just some guy who was nice enough to pull over to see if he could help. He offered me a lift, but he was heading in the opposite direction to Little Town at the turnoff to the highway.”

  “Surprised you didn’t have a stream of guys pulling over to help. Young damsel in distress and all.”

  “Very modern of you, Sarge. And besides, I think the uniform probably put them off.”

  “Not to mention the gun. And perhaps even your reputation.”

  I pulled a face at him. “Have you come to rescue me or just to be rude to me?”

  He gave me a mock bow. “Consider me your knight in shining patrol car. I’ll ring a mobile mechanic.”

  For once I didn’t stop him from taking over. There was no getting around this disaster – I needed a mechanic. He rang directory and was soon organising someone to come out as soon as possible.

  When he hung up, he said, “Sorry. Soon enough is probably not going to be very soon at all. They’re flat out right now.”

  “Figures.”

  “No point hanging around here waiting for them. Let’s get back to work. I was beginning to worry about you, you were taking so long.”

  I limped over to the patrol car and slid into the passenger seat, trying not to groan out loud when I sat down. “The Super called me in.”

  “What did she want this time?”

  “Nothing really,” I lied, not willing to confess about the order she’d given me not to go to Denny�
�s funeral.

  I hadn’t yet decided whether I’d obey her or not. And even though I acknowledged it was an exceptionally foolish thing to do to disobey her direct order, there was something inside me that I couldn’t explain almost needing me to go to his funeral. Maybe it was simply the desire to pay my respects; maybe it was closure; or just maybe I’d now reached the point where I badly wanted to piss off the whole Bycraft clan and pay them back for the misery they’d made my life when the Sarge was gone. And if that meant disrupting their family funeral, then that was the price I was willing to pay. God only knew they’d disrupted a few Fuller family funerals in the past.

  “It wasn’t about her order to you not to attend Denny’s funeral, was it by any chance?” he asked in a deceptively mild voice that had the immediate effect of irritating me.

  “Why ask if you already know the answer?” I grumped. “Did she ring you?”

  “The second you left her office.” He looked at his watch. “What have you been doing since then? I would have expected you back in town ages ago.”

  I didn’t want to answer him, so gazed out the window, pretending I hadn’t heard him.

  “Tess, what were you doing after you left the Super’s office? Were you having lunch?”

  Thinking about my current impoverished state, the upcoming mechanic’s bill, my complete inability to afford to buy lunch, and that breakfast had been a long time ago, my stomach growled with embarrassingly loud neediness at the mention of food.

  “Guess not,” he said, with a hint of a smile.

  “I was investigating something,” I said in the faintest voice I could – a futile endeavour as he evidently had super-powered hearing.

  “For fuck’s sake, Tess!” he exploded. “Do you have a death wish or something? What the hell do you think the Super would say to you if she found that out? Even worse, what do you think she’d do to you if she found out?”

  “It was important,” I admitted, still in that faint voice.

  He sighed wearily. “Tell me about it.”

  The rest of the trip was spent with me explaining what Annabel had told me, and telling him about my adventure with Merrick in the abandoned house.

  “That at least solves the mystery of why you’re limping,” he said finally.

  “I didn’t think you noticed.”

  “Frankly, these days I find it pays to notice everything about you, so I did notice. I was just too afraid to ask you why you were. Justifiably, as it turns out.”

  “Now you know.” I showed him the two photos that I’d retrieved from the Land Rover before making a pointless attempt to lock it. “I found these in one of the bedrooms. I think there were more too. He was carrying something, maybe an envelope, when he knocked me over.”

  He risked taking his eyes from the road to spare a couple of quick glances at them.

  “They’re vile,” he said, screwing up his nose in disgust. “No wonder he wanted to retrieve them. That kind of perverted thing gets you lots of close and personal attention from the police.”

  “I wonder how long it will take him to realise that he dropped them in his haste?”

  “Probably not long if he knows his revolting collection thoroughly. But what I can’t understand is, if the house was as cleared out as you saw, why he wouldn’t have taken the photos with him.”

  “I know. I was puzzling over the same thing. All I could think of was that they’d left in a huge hurry.”

  “Possibly, but he’s surely had time to go back there before today, especially if the house is still standing vacant.”

  “Maybe he was too busy?”

  “Sure, arranging all those robberies must be a full-time job.”

  “At least the Super was interested enough to listen to me. She said she’d assign some dees to look into Merrick and his gang.”

  “Which is exactly why she’ll haul your arse over the fire if she ever found out that you’d been investigating the case. In fact, I want to haul your arse over the fire for investigating by yourself. It wasn’t only dangerous to try to work a case by yourself, but because you didn’t have the proper equipment or back up, he escaped.”

  I rounded on him. “It’s your bloody fault I didn’t have the patrol car. You wouldn’t let me take it, and now my car has broken down, and Dad and I have got no wheels at all, whereas you have two perfectly good cars at your disposal, and if you’d just let me take your Beemer for once without being so sexist about me driving it, none of this would have happened. And another thing –”

  “Take a breath,” he advised with the ghost of a smile. “You’re in grave danger of exploding.”

  I took a breath cavernous in size. “I’m not going to explode.”

  “Glad to hear it. A Tess bomb is a terrifying thing to witness.”

  We drove in silence for a while.

  “Thanks for picking me up,” I said rather belatedly. “I really appreciate it.”

  “Any time, you know that. That’s what partners are for. And besides, I can’t have you stranded by the side of the road. What if some Bycrafts had driven past?”

  “I’d shoot them.”

  He cut me a long sideways glance that required him to correct his steering when his eyes returned to the road. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

  “Most days, neither can I.”

  “So, Denny’s funeral . . .”

  I was quiet for a moment. “It seems as though that since Denny’s death, a real tension is growing in Little Town. I feel like I can almost touch it.”

  “Between you and the Bycrafts?”

  “Not just between them and me, but between them and the whole town. They’re becoming increasingly aggressive. You saw how Baz was king-hit. And Gretel tells me that even the young ones have ramped up their bullying towards the other kids at school. I don’t even know the last time the teens attended high school. I think the principal has practically given up on them. Then there’s Lola being drunk, and Abe’s had trouble with them trying to steal his grog over the past few months. And just the other day, Joanna and Rosie almost came to blows when she tried to deliver a package to Lola’s house.” A few ticks went by before I spoke again. “And I can feel the strain growing between Jakey and me.”

  “They’re angry.”

  “Yes, but so are lots of people, including me. You saw how quickly the situation escalated between the townsfolk and the Bycrafts after Miss G died. I really believe things are going to come to a head soon. It’s almost an oppressive feeling. Like a volcano brewing, ready to erupt. And it seems to me like it’s all centred around Denny’s funeral.” I glanced at him. “Maybe I’m just being fanciful?”

  “No. You have good instincts about the Bycrafts, so if you’re feeling something’s building, then I believe something is.”

  “It’s difficult to describe what I’m feeling. It’s almost as if the Bycrafts want the town to acknowledge Denny’s death as the tragedy it was, but that the townsfolk have been hurt too many times by them that they’re indifferent to his death. And that’s burning up the Bycrafts.”

  “Let’s be honest, after suffering the Bycrafts for generations, some townsfolk are probably glad there’s one less of them in town.”

  “Exactly. And if it hadn’t been for the particular circumstances of Denny’s death, I probably would have heaved a sigh of relief about it too, especially since he’d no longer be constantly stalking me.”

  “So, what you’re saying is that the Bycrafts want the town to care about Denny’s death and respect him, but they don’t want you to.”

  “Yes, I think that’s it,” I agreed soberly. “It’s like it’s almost an insult to them for me to want to pay my respects.”

  “Tess, you won’t be welcome at that funeral.”

  “I don’t care. I’m still going. I’m not having the Bycrafts dictate what I can and can’t do.”

  “It’s not them I’m worried about. It’s the Super. She’s certainly dictating what you can’t do – and that�
�s attend that funeral. Okay?”

  I remained stubbornly quiet.

  “Tess, can’t you see that –”

  My phone ringing thankfully interrupted his incipient lecture. Grateful for the reprieve, I pulled it out.

  “Tess Fuller.” A burst of garbled, panicked speech flooded my ears. “Hey, hey, slow down. I can’t understand you.”

  “Officer Tess,” half-sobbed an elderly voice that I desperately tried to place, followed by more incoherent talk.

  “Who am I speaking to?” I asked, interrupting the flow.

  I heard the person on the other end take a huge intake of breath. “It’s Mrs Gatton, Dave’s mother.”

  “What can I do for you, Mrs Gatton? You sound a bit upset about something.”

  “Oh, Officer Tess. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Do about what, Mrs Gatton? Take your time.”

  “I’m afraid there might not be any time. It’s Dave. He’s locked himself in his bedroom and won’t answer me. I’m so worried about him.”

  “Perhaps he’s sleeping?”

  “Officer Tess, I may not know much in life, but one thing I do know is my son. He’s a hard worker and would never sleep during the day. Never.”

  Suitably chastened, I asked, “Is there any reason you can think of why he’d want to lock himself in his room?”

  “That’s what I’m so worried about. He’s been so withdrawn lately, even for him. Ever since that incident with those two young people and his ute, I can hardly get a word out of him.”

  “Has he spoken to you about anything that’s troubling him? Any problems he’s having?”

  “Dave doesn’t talk about things like that,” she said. “He’s like his father, my husband, that way. You know what farmers are like.”

  I did know what farmers were like – my own father used to be one before his illness claimed his ability to work. And I had to agree with Mrs Gatton. My father and I didn’t discuss any ‘airy’ topics. We talked about finances, our house, local gossip, and trivial events in each other’s lives – nothing deep.

  “Okay, Mrs Gatton. We’re on our way now.”

  “Thank you. Thank you so much.”