Blood Sport (34 page)

“There’s always the phone,” I smiled at him. “Or email. There’s plenty of ways she could contact you still.”

“Oh great,” he said dryly.

He reduced speed to turn left onto the highway from Wattling Bay Road, on the home stretch to Little Town. We travelled in companionable silence for a while, the only sound the monotonous swish of the wipers. They struggled to keep up with the relentless downpour, even at their highest speed.

The bad weather made people naturally cautious as they drove, and the traffic was light and well-behaved. I slouched in my seat, absently singing that same catchy pop song I’d sung for the Sarge only days ago when we’d confronted Red Bycraft. It felt like years since that eventful morning. It had been quite a week and it was still only Tuesday.

“You have such a lovely singing voice, Tess. I could listen to you sing all day.”

“Thanks, Sarge.”
How sweet was that?

“Maybe you could earn some extra money singing somewhere?”

I laughed. “Abe wanted me to sing in the bistro bar on Saturday nights now and then. But my job is too unreliable to commit to gigs, so I had to turn him down. He was offering me good money too.”

“I could cover for you if you want to explore that opportunity with him again.”

“Nah, thanks anyway. It would be too embarrassing. I’m not
that
good. And I hate the idea of everyone looking at me.”

“At least promise me that you’ll talk to Abe about it again?”

“Dunno. Maybe.”

A bright flash of green flew past us into the distance. It took some moments for us both to realise that it was a car.

“
Holy shit!
” exclaimed the Sarge. “How fast were they going?”

“It’s Martin,” I said, sitting up in alarm. “He’s going to kill himself driving that fast in this weather.”

“Or someone else.” The Sarge flicked on the lights and sirens and sped up after him.

Martin Cline was an inmate of the mental health clinic situated to the south of the town. He was mostly harmless, but had an annoying habit of stealing cars and joyriding around town, despite not having a licence. His favourite car was the little frog-green hatchback owned by one of the clinic’s psychiatrists, a ditzy woman who kept forgetting to lock her vehicle. Normally, Martin puttered around town for a while and then returned back to the clinic peacefully. But every so often he became worked up, turning quite dangerous to himself in particular, and to the public in general.

Martin, usually so obedient, didn’t pull over when he noticed the patrol car behind him.

“Aw geez, he’s in a mood,” I sighed.

“Have you ignored him lately?”

“Yeah, but it was a couple of weeks ago. Remember when the Super forced all of the constables and senior constables to go to that refresher course on the proper handling of evidence?” He nodded and I laughed guiltily, thinking about the Super’s rebuke of us over the bikies’ ashes. I obviously hadn’t paid enough attention to the presenter. “I spotted Martin driving around then, but I was running late, so I ignored him even though he kept overtaking me and braking in front of me.”

The Sarge whistled. “Then he’s mighty peeved with you.”

“Apparently.” I trusted the Sarge’s driving, but it was a fast pursuit in terrible weather, and I was clutching the side-rest of my door tightly. I hoped the airbags felt like working today. I wasn’t ready to meet my maker yet.

Other users of the highway pulled over courteously or slowed down to make it easier for us to manoeuvre around them. Well, all of them did except one old rust-bucket, filled to the brim with junior Bycrafts. There must have been eight teenagers jammed into the car, none of them wearing seatbelts, the stereo cranked to maximum so that they probably didn’t even hear us. Jake’s sister, Larissa, was at the wheel, driving way over the speed limit and as we pulled alongside them, I noticed a bottle being passed around.

“Bloody hell,” muttered the Sarge.

“Which of them do we take on, Sarge?”

“The teenagers,” he decided. I caught Larissa’s attention and gestured for her to pull over to the side of the road. She flipped me the finger in response and sped up.

The Sarge jerked the patrol car in behind them and spat out, “God, I hate the Bycrafts! Call it in, Tess. See if anyone’s around to help. Those kids aren’t going to stop for us.”

I grabbed the radio and called it in to Big Town. By a stroke of bad luck I was picked up by that same bored female dispatcher I’d spoken to when we lost Red Bycraft.

“Where are you calling from?” she asked, yawning.

My shoulders slumped in despair. “Mount Big Town,” I repeated patiently. “It’s
urgent
! We have two dangerous situations to deal with simultaneously. Is anyone close to us?”

“I’ll get back to you.”

“I said it’s urgent! I told you – we have a car full of teenagers driving dangerously, possibly drinking and refusing to pull over, and a mental health patient on the loose, driving without a licence. We need help
now
! You don’t need to talk to anyone about it. Just tell me if there are any patrols close by and –”

With no warning, I found myself on hold. I muttered some things about that woman that caused the Sarge raise his eyebrows and would have had Nana Fuller shaking her head in disappointment at me.

The radio crackled again. “Cease all pursuits,” commanded the bored voice.

“What the –?” I didn’t get to finish because she hung up on me. I turned to the Sarge. “We’ve been told to cease all pursuits.”

“What the
fuck
? Those kids are going to kill someone.” He slowed right down and turned off the lights and siren. The Bycrafts sped off ahead of us, five of them hanging their arms out of the windows to flip us the finger. One of them mooned us, pressing his buttocks up against the rear window. They overtook a car that was forced to drive half off the road to give them enough room to pass as Larissa swerved erratically.

“Don’t ever ask me to call anything in again,” I fumed at the Sarge. “They are a bunch of over-cautious wimps in Big Town, with absolutely no understanding of what happens here. Now we can’t even go after Martin, which only means that he’s going to be even more dangerous the next time he ventures out. And
they
don’t have to deal with that –
we
do!”

“I’m just used to getting some support in my job,” he snapped, slamming his fist down on the steering wheel in frustrated anger. “I hate this fucking town.”

For some reason, that felt like a personal attack. “Go back to the city then where everything’s perfect,” I bit back at him.

“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t be like that.”

“Be like what?”

“I think you need some Tim Tams.”

“Oh, that’s right! Just dismiss anything I say as some pathetic woman who needs chocolate to function. Don’t bother taking me seriously.”

“I never said that.”

“You meant it.”

“You’re psychic now, are you? Along with all your other superpowers?” he retorted.

I paused for a moment, regarding his angry profile. “No,” I replied carefully, aware that we were quickly escalating into a full-blown fight, taking our frustration out on each other. “But I do know a psychic.”

He turned towards me doubtfully for a second, before half-smiling. “So do I, but she scares the shit out of me.”

“Me too.”

“I wonder if she knows what we’re saying about her.”

I laughed and the tension dissipated. We drove for a while in silence approaching Little Town when my eye was captured by a flash of colour off to my left. Frog-green.

“Martin’s back,” I groaned.

This time he pulled out right in front of us in a dawdling manner that cut us off closely and forced the Sarge to slam on the brakes, sending the patrol car skidding sharply on to the other side of the road.

“Now I’m really pissed off,” he said, lips and eyebrows scrunched in anger. He spun the car around.

“Don’t give him the lights and siren,” I cautioned as we trailed him through town. “He doesn’t deserve them.”

Martin complied lawfully with the sixty kilometre speed limit, the Sarge flashing the high beam at him. Eventually, he decided to pull over.

Martin sat patiently in the car, very familiar with the routine.

“Off you go, Tess. He’ll only take off if I approach him,” said the Sarge, shoving me gently on the shoulder.

I shook him off and grumbled about going out in the rain while I searched for the umbrella, finding it wedged under my seat.

“Say hello to him for me,” smiled the Sarge, cranking up the heater and leaning back in his seat.

“I really don’t like you sometimes. You know that, don’t you?” I told him, slamming the door behind me and struggling with one arm to pop open the umbrella. In the time it took, a flood of freezing rain trickled down the back of my jacket, chilling my neck and my spine.

I drew up next to the car, rapping crossly on the window. Martin wound it down and looked up at me with excitement.

“Hello, Officer Tess. I’ve been very naughty today. You might have to arrest me this time.”

I held my index finger and thumb out a centimetre from each other. “I’m
this
close to locking you up forever, Martin. Out of the car and into to the patrol car. Now.”

“No. You ignored me last time. I
know
you saw me, but you kept driving. You didn’t even wave to me.”

“I was late for a course. I wasn’t on duty.” He flung his head in the opposite direction, an unsubtle childish snub. “Okay Martin, be like that if you want to. I’ll call Sergeant Maguire over to sort you out.”

“No! I don’t like him.” He looked up at me with his sad brown puppy dog eyes. I softened.

“Martin,” I sighed. “How about I drive us back to the clinic and we can have a lovely chat while I do.”

“Really, Officer Tess? Just you and me?”

“Yep.”

“Will you take the long way there?”

I sighed again. “Yes, Martin. I promise. But only if you promise to not steal this car anymore.”

“Borrow,” he insisted. His smile was beautifully brilliant as he scooted over to the passenger seat. “I promise, Officer Tess.”

We both knew he had no intention of keeping that promise. Wearily, I waved to the Sarge to let him know I was okay and slid into the driver’s seat, pulling off my sling as I did. Martin watched me, but didn’t comment on my injuries or ask about them.

I drove the both of us slowly around the town, shadowed by the patrol car. I listened to Martin’s monologue about his life at the clinic, because he didn’t actually want to have a conversation. He was a very self-absorbed man and not able to care about other people. There was probably some fancy psychiatric term for his condition, but I didn’t know what it was. Narcissism, maybe. He also had authority issues that forced him to seek police attention regularly. I wasn’t pretending to be any kind of expert, but to me it didn’t seem as though the mental health clinic was helping him very much with his problems.

I sped up on the road to the clinic, passing my own home on the way, throwing a curious glance at the sight of half-a-dozen utes and 4WDs parked in my muddy driveway. One of them was Jake’s distinctive gold ute with its JAKEY-B licence plate that I’d bought him last Christmas.

At the clinic, I let the Sarge take charge as I readjusted my sling. He handed a tearful Martin over to a surprised orderly and treated the director to yet another stern talking to about the security arrangements for inmates of the place. The Sarge started quoting passages from some obscure piece of legislation about duty of care that made the director grow even paler. He vowed,
promised
, to keep Martin locked up this time. The glance the Sarge and I exchanged was sceptical to say the least.

That done, we ran to the patrol car and headed back to town and the police station again. I managed to talk him into stopping at my house for a few minutes and he pulled into the driveway, squeezing the patrol car into a space amongst all the other vehicles. Inside the house, there were men everywhere, cleaning and repairing.

I spied Jake standing in the middle of a group of men. A frown of concentration creased his beautiful face as he listened to one of them speaking, nodding before pointing his finger in one direction then another. He said something that made them all laugh and the group broke up, each man heading to his assigned task, a smile on his face.

When he looked up and spotted me, his face lit up. “Hey, babe!”

I rushed over to him, hugging him tightly with my good arm. It felt like ages since I’d touched him. He spared time for a quick smooch and I forced him to do it again because it was so nice.

“You look tired,” he said with concern, stroking my cheek.

“I’ve had a horrible day. The Sarge and I were reamed by the Super.”

He cringed sympathetically and hugged me more tightly. “Poor Tessie. You don’t deserve that.”

I smiled up at him. “Sometimes I do.”

He kissed me on the nose. “How’s the house looking?”

“I don’t know what to say, Jakey. Everyone is being so wonderful.” And for a few minutes, I watched a man industriously hammering a board across one of my lounge room windows, while another carefully swept up the glass from Dad’s shattered aquarium. “Can I look around, so I can tell Dad what’s going on?”