Blood Tears (17 page)

“
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

After lunch at his
place – bloody tuna and salad
again
– we hit the town centre
for a bit of beat walking. ‘Town Centre’ was a generous term for
what were in reality two streets with shops. Timber Street formed
part of the Coastal Range Highway that snaked through town, and Gum
Street made a T-junction with it. It was Gum Street where the
supermarket was situated and the road down which I’d chased Jamie
before he’d run out on to the highway.