Blood Tears (36 page)

“
No,
I don’t. Not towards her, and not towards anyone else in your
family. When have any of them shown me the slightest sliver of
compassion in my life?”

We glared at each
other. His nostrils flared with anger and his amber eyes, usually
so soft and loving, were coldly furious.

“
You
don’t understand how hard Denny’s death has been for my family,” he
asserted in a low angry voice.

I snorted again, but
this time with disbelieving laughter. “
I
don’t understand?
You honestly think
I
don’t understand how hard it is to lose
someone close to me?”

“
And
that’s why
you
of all fucking people should realise how much
Mum needs her children around her. Especially Rosie.” He shook my
arm again, and started forcing me backwards towards the open hatch
of the counter. “So get in there, get the key, and get Rosie the
fuck out of that cage.”

“
No,
I’m not going to. Why don’t you just leave now, Jake? You’ve
obviously been drinking, and you’re going to regret this in the
morning.”

“
The
only thing I’m regretting right now is ever hooking up with you in
the first place.”

That was like a slap on
the face to me. “Jakey, you don’t mean that.”

“
Why
don’t I? For three years I’ve put up with you slagging off my
family and being hostile towards them.”

“
Me
being hostile towards
them
? You’re joking,
aren’t you?”

“
You
never even tried to give them a chance.” He pushed me up against
the counter and pressed his body on mine so that the battered
hardwood cut into my back. “I’ve bent over backwards to be friendly
with your dad and your friends. I’ve taken their shit and I’ve
smiled the whole time. You never even made one tiny little shitty
effort to be friendly to mine. And now we’re going through a family
tragedy, you seem determined to persecute us, and ruin Denny’s
funeral.”

“
I’m
not trying to ruin his funeral. I just wanted to –”

“
I
should have listened to them. Bycrafts and Fullers don’t belong
together. It’s unnatural. It’s wrong. They kept telling me and
telling me, but I kept telling them that it was different with us.
That we were special.”

“
We
are special, Jakey. We’ve always been special.”

“
No.
What we’ve been is wrong. Everything I thought I had with you has
been wrong, all this time.”

“
No,
it hasn’t.”

“
Let
Rosie out now. Mum needs her.”

“
No.
I won’t. She hit me on the head with a piece of timber.”

He laughed, a sound
with no mirth. “So that’s how it is, is it? Denny’s funeral is less
important than a little bump on the head for you?” He slowly shook
his head in disgust. “How could I not have seen all along what my
family’s been telling me? That you’re a stuck up little bitch who
thinks she’s better than any Bycraft, even me. God, I’ve been such
an idiot not to see it before now.”

“
Jake
–”

“
A
stuck up little bitch who looks down on every Bycraft in town. A
stuck up little bitch who’s turned everyone in town against
us.”

“
Let
me go right now, Jake, or you’re going to force me to do something
we’ll both be sorry about,” I warned, my hand reaching towards my
OC spray. I wasn’t putting up with one more second of this
tantrum.

“
Get
in there, you stuck up little bitch of a Fuller, and let my sister
out.”

“
And
for the last time – no.”

He grabbed me by the
front of my uniform and hauled me away from the counter, letting go
of my wrist. I pushed him backwards with both hands on his chest,
intending to barricade myself behind the counter until he came to
his senses.

“
You
think you’re going to disrupt Denny’s funeral. Well, you’re not,”
he snarled. I shrank back, shocked at witnessing a side of Jake
that I’d never seen.

I struggled to free
myself from his grip on my shirt. “Let go of me.”

“
You’re not welcome at Denny’s funeral. You’re not welcome
around my family. And you’re especially not welcome in my life
anymore.”

“
Jakey! Go away and sober up. You don’t mean that.”

“
I’ve
never meant anything so much before. We’re done.” And with that he
violently thrust me away from him so that I stumbled backwards,
crashing into the corner between the counter and the
wall.

He made a move towards
the back office, as if to retrieve the key to the cell, when the
Sarge knocked on the back door.

“
Tessie, let me in.”

Jake froze, and with
frustration all over his face, he turned and strode out of the
front door.

The Sarge’s knocks
became more frantic. “Tessie, let me in. Tessie. Tessie.”

Numb with shock, I sank
to the floor, wedged in the corner, hugging my knees. I heard the
sound of Jake’s ute roaring out of the carpark.

The Sarge clumped up
the front stairs at double speed. “Tessie?”

He pulled up when he
stepped into the reception. He kneeled down next to me, but I
barely registered his presence.

“
Tessie, what’s happened? Are you okay?”

I looked at him
blankly, and I didn’t know what he saw in my eyes and my face, but
it was enough to make him slide his arm around my shoulders.

“
Was
that Jake’s ute I saw driving off?”

“
Yes,” I whispered.

“
What
happened with him, Tessie?” He noticed me cradling my sore wrist.
He gently unwrapped my hand from it, his face set as hard as stone.
“Did he hurt you? I’ll kill him if he did.”

“
It’s
nothing.”

“
What
did he want?”

“
He
wanted me to let Rosie out.”

“
What?”

“
I
didn’t do it.”

“
I
know you didn’t. I know you wouldn’t. I heard her when I came up
the back.” His eyes raked my face. “Did he hurt you?”

I touched my chest with
my fingers. “Only here,” I whispered.

“
What
do you mean, Tessie?”

“
He
said some awful things to me. He was so angry at me.”

“
What
kind of things did he say?”

“
That
I was a stuck up bitch who thought I was better than the Bycrafts.
That he should never have got together with me. That we were wrong
together.”

He leaned back on his
haunches. “What? That doesn’t sound like Jake.”

I hung my head. “He
dumped me, Sarge. He said I’m not welcome in his life anymore. He
said we’re done.”

“
I
honestly can’t believe what I’m hearing. Was he drunk or
something?”

“
Yes.”

“
Ah,
that explains things a bit more.” He put his hand under my chin to
raise my head so I had to look at him. “Tessie, he’ll come around
to his senses when he’s sober again.”

“
I
don’t think so. I’ve never seen him like that before. It’s Denny’s
death and this funeral. They don’t know how to deal with grief.
It’s tearing them all apart.” And then as if I was talking to
myself, “It’s torn us apart.”

“
I’m
not going to lie to you, Tessie. I don’t like Jake and if you
really have broken up with him, then I’m glad about that. He was
right when he said you were wrong together, but not for the reasons
he gave. You deserve much better than a married man who refuses to
commit to you and stands by while his family abuses you over and
over. You deserve so much more than that in life.”

He stood and held out
his hand for me. I lifted miserable eyes to his and saw the genuine
concern and warmth on his face. I held out my hand and he grasped
it, helping me to my feet.

“
Come
here,” he said, wrapping his arms around me.

A hug was the perfect
thing I needed right then. I leaned against his chest and let him
rub my back in consolation. And it took every single scrap of
self-control I had not to completely lose it and soak his shirt in
tears.

“
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.