by JD Nixon
“I want to go home,” I said, my voice muffled in his shirt. I wasn’t sure I could hold it together for much longer.
He pulled back so he could see me. “I have to take that woman to the watch house. I’m not leaving you alone in this town. Not after all this. I’m sorry, Tessie. You’re going to have to come with me.”
“I don’t want to go to Big Town. Just let her go,” I said numbly. I just wanted to go home, curl up in a ball in the safety of my bed, and cry forever.
“She hit you on the head. I can’t ignore that.”
“I don’t care. Just let her go. Jake was right, Lola needs her. And I don’t want to be the one they blame for her not being there for Lola and the family.”
“They can blame me for it. I’m not letting them get away with treating you, or any cop, like that. They’d never get away with it in any other place. And anyway, we have to take those valuables to Big Town for safer storage and hand over those photos to X and Zelda. You’re going to have to come with me to Big Town one way or another.”
I couldn’t think of anything worse than having to spend hours and hours making small talk with him, and other cops in Big Town, when all I wanted was to be by myself. I desperately needed to process what had just happened between Jake and me, and how on earth things had turned so bad so quickly. I’d been expecting to spend the night with him, and now it seemed I didn’t have a boyfriend at all. My head was spinning, and my eyes were brimming.
“Are you going to be okay?” he asked, his eyes radiating concern.
“No. I’m not okay at all. I’m nowhere near okay.”
“Tess, I expect he’ll come grovelling back to you tomorrow when he’s sobered up. No sane man would give you up so easily.”
I appreciated him trying to make me feel better, but it didn’t even have a chance of denting the huge chasm that had broken open in my heart. I turned away from him, blinking rapidly, determined not to break down in front of him or anyone. And if there was any career that assisted a person in remaining composed under stress, it was surely being a cop. So I pulled my unemotional cop facade out of the depths of my training, and slapped it on my face.
“You grab the bag from the safe and the photos,” he instructed, “and I’ll go get that woman from the lockup.”
“You might need some help with her. She’s not going to get in the car willingly.”
“Fair point.” He threw the car key to me. “Lock that stuff in the car and I’ll wait for you around the back.”
I only took a few minutes, locking the front door of the station behind me while he locked the back. As I’d predicted, Rosie was less than thrilled for us to cuff her again. We bundled her from the lockup, and forcibly thrust her into the back of the patrol car, trying to block out the never-ending stream of obscenities directed at us.
“You’re going to fucking pay for this, piglet,” she snarled as we drove off.
“Quiet in the back,” snapped the Sarge. “I don’t want to hear another word from you about anything.”
“Jakey’s not going to be happy about this. He knows how much I’ve been helping Mum lately. He appreciates me doing that. He’s told me that himself.”
I sat in stony silence, wishing more than anything that I could block her taunting voice from my ears.
“I told you to shut up,” said the Sarge, glaring at her in the rear view mirror.
“Red can’t wait to come back to town. He’s going to get you and give you everything you deserve for banging him up.”
And despite the Sarge repeatedly warning her to stick a sock in it, she continued with her non-stop stream of malicious bile. But short of pulling over and physically gagging her with her own shirt, which would be rather difficult to explain once we reached the Big Town watch house, we were left to let her express her extreme displeasure for the entire ninety minute trip.
“It’s okay, Sarge,” I said at one point, my face deliberately blank. I’d sensed his increasing tenseness, knowing he was probably worrying about how her constant needling about Jake would affect me. “I’m not listening.”
“That’s my girl. They’re never going to bring you down.”
I’d lied to the Sarge because I was listening to every word that Rosie uttered, because not only did it take my mind off what Jake had said to me, but also every loathsome insult served to remind me how much I hated the Bycrafts. And that only made me feel stronger. So I was happy to let her bitch about me.
“Thank God,” muttered the Sarge when we pulled into the Big Town police station, following the road around the back to the watch house.
Daisy wasn’t at the desk today, but the senior sergeant who was duty officer processed Rosie with little emotion but maximum efficiency. It wasn’t long before we found ourselves in the lift heading up to dees section.
We were lucky again to find Mr X and Zelda at their desks, bickering mildly in their usual way about some detail of one of the cases they were working.
The Sarge plonked the bag of valuables on Mr X’s desk. I felt awkward making eye contact with him after I went off at him on the phone earlier.
“Tess,” Mr X said, and I reluctantly looked up to meet his warm, brown eyes. “It’s okay. We deserved it.”
That was so nice of him, but I wasn’t surprised. I’d always thought he was a really good guy.
“We’ve issued a look out for Annabel and that scumbag to all the patrol cars in the district. We’ve given them the description you gave us and the picture of him and Jamie,” Zelda said.
“I have something else you might be interested in,” I said, sliding over the photos I’d found in the house to her.
She picked them up and went hmm before handing them over to Mr X. He whistled under his breath as he examined them.
“The dirty bastard,” Zelda said with contempt.
“You mean the stupid, dirty bastard,” noted Mr X. “Most creeps like him don’t usually allow their faces to show in these kinds of photos.”
“Demonstrates a lot of arrogance,” agreed Zelda.
“From what Annabel told me, he would have considered them as part of his valuables,” I said.
“Speaking of which,” said Mr X, pulling out a drawer and taking out some disposable gloves. He unzipped the bag and had a rummage around inside for a few minutes, Zelda standing behind him peering over his shoulder. He raised wide eyes to us when he’d finished. “It’s like Tutankhamen’s tomb in here.”
“The guy knows his stuff,” said Zelda, impressed despite herself at the beautiful goods.
“It’s all yours now,” said the Sarge. “We were gloved up the whole time we handled everything, but I doubt you’ll get many good prints. They’ll all probably belong to Annabel and her boyfriend.”
Mr X stood, leaving his gloves on. “I suppose we better log all these in for evidence and forensics.”
“Don’t forget our receipt for handing them over,” reminded the Sarge.
“Geez,” Mr X said, rolling his eyes. “Of course I wouldn’t forget. If you can’t trust a cop to be honest, who can you?”
The Sarge was about to offer some retort in response, when we all heard the click-clack of low-heeled, sensible, but expensive, Italian leather shoes. And it was doubtful whether even the cloven hooves of Satan himself approaching with fire-and-damnation menace could have instilled as much fear in a room full of adults.
The Sarge and I exchanged glances, and we both groaned.
“Not again,” he complained. “It’s like she has a sixth sense about us.”
“I’m not hiding from her again,” I decided. “That was just plain embarrassing last time.”
The door to the dees section flung open, and the unmistakable scent of cigarette smoke wafted in.
“Which one of you fucking morons left this illiterate report on my desk? I swear to God, I’m sick of reading this crap. It’s affect, not effect. It’s lose, not loose. Fuck! My right tit writes more coherently than this.”
She noticed the
Sarge and me, her mouth compressing into a thin slit. But her expression changed when her eyes rested on me, a small frown creasing between her brows.
“Tessie, in my office. Now,” she barked.
“Yes, ma’am.” Everyone threw me sympathetic glances.
The Sarge stepped forward to follow me.
“Did I also issue you an invitation, Maguire? No, I fucking did not. So, sod off and do some work for once.”
I shot him a worried look over my shoulder, which he mirrored in return.
What had I done now?
Chapter 25
“Close the door,” she snapped when we reached her office.
Must be serious, I thought with dread as I shut the door. Another uniform scurried past as I did, deliberately trying not to make eye contact with me. Nobody wanted to be associated with a colleague in trouble.
“Take a seat.”
I took a seat, perching right on the edge, my hands clasped in my lap, my mind racing with all my recent transgressions that she hadn’t bawled me out over already. Surely she couldn’t have heard so quickly about me chasing Chad? It wasn’t like I’d done anything to him, after all. Or perhaps it was the unauthorised snooping around Merrick’s former house that was going to get me in trouble?
She lit a cigarette and went to her window to open it, blowing the smoke outside. Her searing blue eyes stayed on me for what seemed like an eternity.
“What’s the matter?” she asked eventually, when she’d smoked half the cigarette down.
“What do you mean, ma’am?”
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing, ma’am,” I said, but my voice cracked tellingly.
“Don’t waste my time with bullshit, Tessie,” she said impatiently. “Look at you. Your eyes are all wet and shiny, and I’ve seen happier faces in the fucking morgue. If it’s the return of Maguire that’s making you so miserable, just say the word and I’ll have him transferred so far away, he’ll need to swim halfway across the fucking ocean fighting off sharks to get back here.”
“No, ma’am, of course it’s not the Sarge.”
She took a long drag on her cigarette and ground it down on the outside edge of the window frame, carrying the butt back inside to drop in her overflowing ashtray. “Pity. I was afraid you’d say that. It’s not your monthly visit from the red devil, is it?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Fuck, Tess. I don’t want to spend all day playing twenty fucking questions with you.”
“Jake dumped me,” I blurted out.
“Good.” She lit another cigarette. “That’s the second best news I’ve heard all day. It would have been the best news if you’d told me you’d finally come to your fucking senses and dumped his sorry arse first. Hope you’re not expecting a hug from me, because I’m not into consoling people over good news.”
Naturally I hadn’t been expecting a hug from her, though I wouldn’t have said no if she’d offered. I was happy to make do with the Sarge’s very comforting and genuine hug earlier. But still, my face crumpled. I hung my head, trying not to let any tears escape.
“Don’t even think about it, Tessie,” she warned. “You know how much crying shits me to tears. I don’t want you wasting one fucking teardrop on a Bycraft. Not one.”
“I was with Jakey for almost three years, Fiona. Three years. And then he ended it in a few minutes.”
She blew smoke up towards the ceiling. “Think of it as three years of smoking hot roots, which, incidentally, most people would donate a kidney without anaesthetic for, given half a chance. But now it’s time for you to move on. You deserve more than hot roots with a married man, especially when that man’s a Bycraft.”
“I love him.”
“You’ll get over it. You got over that arsewipe, Mitch. And you’ll get over Jake the Arsewipe too. My advice to you is to organise a few girls’ nights out up here in Wattling Bay soon, and have a couple of casual shags. Get him out of your system.”
“I’m not a casual shag kind of person. As you well know, Fiona.”
“More’s the shame. You would have a lot more fun in life if you were, believe me.”
“Jakey was supposed to be coming over tonight.” Tears threatened again.
“Tess, I warned you about the fucking waterworks. Stop it now.” I stopped it. “I’ve heard things haven’t been happy families between you and Jake since his brother died.”
“How have you heard that?” I hoped I didn’t sound as instantly hostile as I felt.
“Settle, petal. I haven’t fucking bugged you, if that’s what you’re wondering. Though I thought about it seeing you’ve been so incommunicado, and Ronnie was forever on my tits about you.” She took a puff. “I know things have been shitty between us since then, so I can’t imagine they’ve been any better with Jake.”
“Baz told you, didn’t he?”
She shrugged a shoulder in a that’s my fucking business kind of way, which only served to confirm my suspicions.
“Jakey took Denny’s death hard,” I admitted. “We’ve been fighting a bit, especially about the funeral. He wanted me to lay off his family for a while. Give them some grieving space. But I refused to, and well . . .”
“Damn right you wouldn’t lay off them. That pack of fucking arse scum would be waiting for a weakness like this to take advantage.”
“That’s what I figured. We arrested Rosie earlier today because she hit me on the head with a lump of timber.”
Her eyes raked over me. “Bit of a bump. You’ll live.”
“I know that,” I said, indignant. “Jakey said Lola was in tears about us arresting Rosie.”
At my comment, the Super laughed so hard she had a choking fit that turned her face almost purple. Worried that I was about to kill my commanding officer, and good friend, with an unbelievably ridiculous comment, I rushed around to her side of the desk to thump her thin shoulders as hard as I dared. She coughed and choked before she could talk again.
“Lola Bycraft crying? That’s the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever heard since that media whore of a Police Minister assured everyone this year there’d be no budget cuts. That bitch was born without tear ducts. And you can decide which bitch I’m referring to yourself.” She pealed off into another round of tear-inducing laughter. Eventually she subdued, after a few watery snorts, and half-a-pack of tissues to wipe up the tears of hilarity she’d shed.
“That’s what Jakey told me,” I repeated.
“I hoped you laughed in his face at that.”
“I did. That’s why he dumped me. I guess I don’t respect Lola enough for him.”
We looked at each other, and we both started laughing. It took a while for us both to stop – her, because she also found that hilarious; me, because I found it full of sadness. If there were anything on earth I could have wished for, it would have been that Jake had come from a family that I honestly could have loved and respected. And joined.
I stood. “I better go. The Sarge is probably finished signing in all of Merrick’s valuables.”
“Hmm,” she said, grinding out her cigarette and immediately reaching for another. “You seem to be determined on breaking this case all by yourself. I hope you haven’t been investigating.”
“Of course not, ma’am,” I said, with the straightest face I could manage.
“Glad to hear,” she said, with the straightest face she could manage.
I went to the door.
“Tessie?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“You’re not still planning on going to that funeral?”
“No, ma’am. I can see that wouldn’t be wise. Especially now. Maybe I’ll go to Denny’s grave later on and pay my respects then.”
“Good girl.”
I turned the handle of the doorknob.
“Tessie, wait.”
I waited.
She came up to me, and we regarded each other. Shorter than me, smaller than me, lighter than me, older than me – yet so
mehow she managed to dominate all of us, including me.
She held her arms out, and I gladly accepted the hug she offered. And it even lasted a whole twenty seconds this time, so I knew she’d been worried about me for an age.
When we separated, I said, “I’ll be okay, Fiona.”
“Of course you will. Who questioned that?” She settled herself behind her desk again, picking up the phone. “Now, fuck off. I’m busy, and you’ve wasted too much of my time today.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” I said with a watery smile.
“And despite what I said before, don’t just go taking any old offer of a fuck you receive now, okay? Only quality ones. You hear?”
“Yes, ma’am. I hear. Only quality, I promise.”
“I’m just relieved that Sergeant Happy-pants Maguire is tied up with his stupid fiancee at the moment.”
“Um . . . They broke up overseas, ma’am. They’re not engaged anymore.”
She stared at me and stood, instantly enraged. “What? What the fuckingest fucking fuck?”
“He called it off when he was overseas on suspended leave. I thought you knew. Everyone knows.”
She slammed both fists on her desk and turned to kick at her chair. “Why the fuck didn’t anyone tell me this?”
“I didn’t know until he returned,” I said, feeling rather apologetic, though I wasn’t quite sure why.
“I am not happy about this. If I’d known that he’d broken it off with that spoilt princess, I’d never have agreed for him to return to Mount Big Town. And they had to twist my nipples to get me to agree in the first place.”
“Why are you so upset about him returning? I’m glad he’s there with me. He’s been really supportive.”
“Oh, I bet he fucking has,” she growled.
“Fiona, I don’t know what your problem is with the Sarge, and I don’t care. All I care about now is trying to get on with my life without Jake.”
Her gaze softened. “You do that, Tessie. That’s the best thing for you to do.”
I turned to leave again.
“But if Jake comes snivelling back to you, which I suspect he will quicker than you can say lonely dick, then don’t even spare him a second to listen. You tell him exactly where he can shove his lonely dick, and it’s nowhere near you. He needs to fuck off fast and fuck off far away from you. You hear me?”