Blood Sport (52 page)

She stared at me, not understanding.

“You have your kids to think about. Especially your unborn bub,” I reminded her. “If you leave and go home right now, there will be no consequences, I promise. If you make one more move, the Sarge will arrest you for assault and breaching your bond. That means jail. Think about your babies. Please.”

No doubt she was angry and she looked at me as if she wanted to slit my throat there and then, but she wrapped her coat around her swollen stomach and made to leave peacefully. But then she turned and unleashed her vicious tongue.

“Rick was about to ask me to marry him before you opened your big fucking mouth. I would have said yes. I could love him.”

I made a sound of scepticism. “Bycrafts don’t get married.”

“Jakey did,” she spat back with venom. “But not to you. It’s no secret that’s why he’s still married to Chantelle – so he never has to marry you!”

And on that cutting remark, she turned and flounced out.

She certainly jabbed one of my sore spots with that comment. It was something that had crossed my mind more a few times since I’d been going out with Jake. He’d never really provided me with a convincing reason for why he hadn’t yet divorced Chantelle.

“You shouldn’t have let her go,” the Sarge disapproved, his voice cutting through my musings. He moved over to examine the window.

I shrugged. “I’m not arresting a pregnant woman. They’d only release her in Big Town anyway. They wouldn’t want to look after a pregnant woman in the watch house either.”

I retrieved the old broom and swept up the glass, then rang Harry’s cousin’s boyfriend to arrange for him to come and fix the window. He brought up the delicate matter of the enormous amount of money that I owed him and I promised to start paying him off next payday. He agreed to let me pay in installments, but was wanting me to cough up a much bigger chunk of money each fortnight than I’d planned. I tried to negotiate him down to a more reasonable amount, but he hardened, insisting that had been the arrangement for the reduced cost. I flung the phone back into its cradle, briefly covering my face with my hand, worrying over how I was going to cope if something else came up in the meantime.

The Sarge had been listening in, as usual, but I didn’t want to talk to him about my financial position. He already knew much more than I’d ever wanted. I busied myself my computer.

“That reminds me,” he said and reached into the drawer of his desk, handing me a nicely gift-wrapped box.

“A present? For me? It’s not my birthday.”

“It’s not really a present. It’s more of a necessity. You need to have this and I need you to have it.”

Curious, I opened the wrapping. It was a brand new mobile phone – a top-of-the-range one. “Oh Sarge, that’s so sweet of you. But I couldn’t possibly accept it.” I held it back out to him.

“I’m not giving you a choice, Tessie. Frankly, it scares the shit out of me to think of you on the loose without a phone.”

“I’ll pay you back,” I promised, wishing that he hadn’t bought such a fancy phone. It wouldn’t have been cheap and would take me forever to repay him.

He sat back in his chair, left ankle resting on his right knee and regarded me patiently, his head on one side. “I don’t think you quite grasp the concept of a gift. Let me explain. It’s a situation where one person gives another person something with no expectation of payment or return. Usually the gift is given as a token of their affection or esteem or, as in this case, because the first person can’t sleep with worry over the thought of his disaster-prone partner not being contactable at all times. The second person, the giftee, usually says ‘thank you’ prettily and their opinion of the gift-giver rises significantly.”

“Oh, it does, does it?” I smiled. “Thank you very much, Sarge. Was that pretty enough?”

“It’ll do. I’ve already programmed in some numbers for you.”

I checked and he had put in numbers for his mobile, his house, the station, the Big Town station, Fiona, the Big Town forensics team, emergency and the doctor at the prison.

“That’s a real cheery bunch of numbers,” I laughed. “Where are Dad, Jake and my friends?”

He waved dismissively and turned back to his computer. I played with my new phone for half an hour, programming all my favourite numbers and taking photo after photo of him as he worked, learning how to use the phone’s camera and video. I sat back in my chair, boots on my desk and reviewed the photos.

“You take a nice photo, Sarge. You’re very photogenic.”

“This ugly old mug?”

“Don’t be silly. You’re not ugly.” I propelled myself towards him in my chair, rolling too fast and colliding violently with his chair, the momentum knocking him sideways.

“Tess!” he reprimanded, righting himself.

“Sorry,” I said sheepishly, leaning over to show him a profile photo of himself. “Look at this photo. You have a great profile. Very masculine. Look at your jawline. Nice.”

“Get back to work,” he ordered, but it was said very mildly. He pushed my chair away, back in the direction of my desk.

I rolled backwards towards my desk. “Seriously, Sarge. You’re a pretty good-looking guy.”

“You just noticed, did you?”

I smiled and turned back to my phone. “I like this photo. I’m going to keep it. I’ll show it to every female cop I meet so they’ll be jealous of me for having such a nice-looking boss.”

He rolled his eyes. “Well, in that case you have to let me take a photo of you for my phone then.”

“No way.”

“It’s only fair.”

“I don’t care, you’re not taking one.”

“But I want to show every male cop that I meet your photo. Then they can see what a strong-willed, disobedient, trouble-making partner I have to work with and feel sorry for me.”

And with that he received a lovely photo of me poking my tongue out and giving him the finger with each hand.

“Tessie! That’s not very polite,” he complained. “And although it does bolster my argument considerably, I’m going to have to delete that one.” He did just that. “Doesn’t matter if you won’t cooperate anyway, because I already have a very nice photo of you.”

“What? Let me see!” I stormed over to him and tried to snatch his phone off him. He pushed a few buttons and held up the screen for me to see. It was a close-up photo of me in uniform, hair up and sitting at my desk. I had my chin in my palm, with an absorbed, contemplative look on my face as I read something. “Gee, I look real intelligent in that photo, don’t I? I look like I’m solving all the world’s problems. But I was probably actually reading a trashy magazine or a boring memo from the Commissioner or something.” I took another look at the photo. It was hard to tell when it had been taken, but I was wearing my winter jacket so it wasn’t too long ago. I shot him a sharp glance. “When did you take this, Sarge? And
why
did you take this?”

“About a fortnight ago. You were safe and sound, sitting quietly at your desk, doing your paperwork without complaining. Nobody was trying to kill you. You weren’t trying to kill anybody. You weren’t whining about being hungry. It was such a rare moment of peace around here that I felt compelled to take a photo to record it for prosperity.”

I wasn’t sure if he was serious or not, but I thumped him on the upper arm, just in case he was.

“Ow! Stop beating me up,” he moaned, rubbing his arm.

“Stop making me beat you up.”

I had just placed my hands on the keyboard to restart my report when the bell to the front door jangled.

A husky, growly voice rang loudly through the station. “Oi, you two pig-pokers! Get your hands off each other’s pink bits and get the fuck out the front now!”

We looked at each other and groaned quietly. It was the Super.

Chapter 32

“Ma’am, what a lovely surprise,” I lied, as I walked to the counter.

“Get moving. I’ve brought the dogs with me,” she snapped, indicating over her shoulder where two stocky female uniforms I only knew in passing were standing, looking around them with undisguised scorn.

“Ma’am!” I hissed in protest. “Don’t use that kind of language –”

She glanced behind and sighed, rolling her eyes. “Not
them
, you dumbarse. The cadaver dogs. Let’s get moving. You know I hate spending even a second in this shitpile of a backwater. I’m already getting itchy from all the lice.”

“There’s no lice here,” I grumbled at her as I gathered my things. She noticed the broken window.

“Tessie, you haven’t been having a temper tantrum again, have you? You can’t go around breaking windows whenever you want to just because you’re on the fucking rag.”

I flushed, because the Sarge had walked in then and heard that comment.

“
I’m not having a period
,” I whispered at her furiously, then louder. “Dorrie Lebutt did that.”

“What the
fuck
? Are you all drinking the same moonshine or something in this town that every bitch gets her tits off by breaking windows?”

“No! She’s mad at me because I told Rick Bycraft that her baby might not be his.”

She sighed in frustration. “Have you ever stopped to think that you are the direct cause of eighty percent of your problems with the Bycrafts?”

“Yes,” I said honestly. “But I don’t seem to be able to help myself.”

“You can’t leave the station like this. Every fucking Bycraft in town will be here five minutes after we’re gone, stealing everything that’s not nailed to the floor and pissing on everything that is. Maguire, you stay here. Tessie, you come with me.”

The Sarge was clearly torn and debating whether to argue with her or not. On the one hand, he didn’t want to let me out of his sight. On the other, he was glad not to be spending more time with the Super. She didn’t give him an option though, and we exchanged a wry smile before I left with Fiona.

“Tessie,” he called back to me. “Don’t forget your phone.”

“Wouldn’t want to leave that behind, would I now, Sarge?”

“No, you wouldn’t,” he smiled and tossed it to me.

“Hey, ma’am,” I said, chasing after her. “Look at this photo I took of the Sarge. It’s a nice one of him, isn’t it?”

She glanced at the photo, then at me intently. “You are spending too much time with that man,” she snapped and climbed into the passenger seat of her unmarked without another word. Bum was waiting patiently at the wheel and I jumped in the back seat. The two uniforms climbed into their patrol car.

“Bum, look at this,” I insisted. “It’s a nice photo, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess,” he conceded. “Hey, he looks like Sergeant Maguire.”

I never knew if he was yanking my chain or not. Nobody could possibly be that stupid. Not all the time, surely. “It
is
the Sarge, Bum. It’s a photo of Sergeant Maguire.”

“Oh, really?” he asked, turning right when he reached the gate. The patrol car and the vehicle with the dogs followed us in a flotilla of law enforcement through the town. Townsfolk stared after us curiously, wondering what was going on.

“Didn’t his uniform give you a clue?” I asked with bemusement.

“Didn’t notice, to be honest.” And this from a detective.

“Bum, you’re a shining example of the Wattling Bay police station’s finest and brightest,” I noted sarcastically.

“Thanks, Tessie! That’s real sweet of you.” He smiled at me in the rear view mirror.

“Bum, you’re a fucking idiot,” muttered the Super, looking out the window, her nose turned up at the town’s beautiful bucolic scenery. “God, I hate the country. Nothing but rednecks and animals and sometimes it’s hard to tell which is which. Drive faster, Bum. The sooner we’re finished, the sooner I can get back to civilization. Running water. Electricity. The internet.”

“Ma’am!” I exclaimed with exasperation. Her prejudice against my home town pushed my buttons sometimes. “We have all those things here, as you well know.”

She confined her response to a snort expressing a strange mix of disbelief and disinterest.

Xavier and Zelda were waiting for us at the junction of the highway and Mountain Road. The two uniforms were left behind to close Mountain Road off to the public and to enforce that closure. I guess the Hungarian tourists weren’t going to be happy about that. The rest of us drove to where I thought I’d emerged from the gully onto the road. When the Super questioned my memory, I explained about the fifteen kilometre sign I’d seen when I’d started trudging with Kylie on my back. I guesstimated that I’d already walked perhaps about a kilometre before I’d even reached that sign.

We stepped out of our vehicles, handbrakes on tightly because of the steep incline. And did nothing but stand around while the dog handlers prepared their animals.

Bored of waiting, the Super cornered the senior dog handler. “Are you ready yet or do you need to tickle its balls some more or hold its dick while it takes a piss? Fuck me, but you treat those mangy fleabags better than my husband treats me. And I have a fantastic husband.”

“Blossom’s a female dog, ma’am,” he replied huffily. “And I certainly don’t do any of those things for her.” He obviously hadn’t worked with the Super before.

“I didn’t ask for a fucking biography of the bitch, Senior Sergeant. Just get it ready for searching. Tessie!” I jumped. “Where did you come up from the bush?”