Blood Ties (52 page)

“And yet you saved that boy from serious injury.”

I didn’t respond.

“How old was that boy?”

“Fifteen,” I said quietly as we crossed from the bad to the good side of town.

I wasn’t proud of myself for assaulting a teenager, even if he was a little dropkick who deserved it. I wasn’t a violent person by nature, but I had found myself being violent by necessity – for my own survival. But I hated being violent because there had been too much violence in my life already, and it only served to add to the tally sheet. It took an immeasurable toll on me each time I reacted violently, just as the Sarge had said earlier. It was if he had spoken about me personally when he’d made that comment about a person being irretrievably damaged by each bad thing that they did. I was becoming less of a good person each time I hurt somebody. Before too long, I was going to be nothing but a brute, just like the Bycrafts. I had to get away from Little Town as soon as possible. I was slowly losing my self-respect as a decent human being and a good cop.

I was becoming irredeemable.

We didn’t speak as he steered the car to the Singhs’ place. I had nothing to say at all. I don’t know what he was thinking about the whole situation, but he was probably appalled at how lawless I was. When he parked, I jumped out and pulled the mangled bike from the boot, hefting it onto my shoulder. The Sarge immediately snatched it from me and threw it over his own broad shoulder, an exasperated expression on his face.

There was happiness and despair in the Singh household. Gwen and her husband were glad that the bike had been recovered, but poor Deepak, one of the good kids in the town, was angry about the damage. His bike’s front wheel was bent out of shape and it was no longer operational. I patted him on the shoulder and recommended a good bike mechanic in Big Town. I’d needed him a few times after Timmy Bycraft had stolen my brand new road bike and crashed it doing stunts in the Lake Big carpark. That was before he had dumped it into the depths of Lake Big. I didn’t know that for a fact, but that was what I suspected had happened to it when it went missing for good. I’d been real upset about that loss – I’d saved up for ages to buy that bike and couldn’t afford to replace it.

Back at the station, after another silent drive, I escaped from the car almost before he had stopped. I was full of nervous energy and needed to do something physical to burn it off, but running was out of the question in my condition and I’d already cleaned the station the night before. What could I do? And when my eyes lighted on the ankle-length grass starting to run to seed surrounding the police house and station, I headed away from the station as the Sarge headed into it. I went up to the back of his house to a rickety old timber garden shed and pulled out an ancient mower. I refuelled it and started it up, after five attempts. It was temperamental and if you didn’t handle it exactly right, it refused to cooperate.
Just like Miss Chooky
, I thought ruefully as it finally spluttered and choked, the noise ripping through the afternoon peace.

I began pushing it back and forth across the expanse of grass encompassing the police house and station in the mindless and repetitive task of cutting grass. It was a very therapeutic activity and I hummed to myself as I mowed, always finding that it relaxed me and gave me time to mull over my problems. All I could think about today though was the court hearing tomorrow. How would I feel when I set eyes on those four men again? Would the magistrate make me testify? Would the Bycrafts turn out in force to support their relatives? Would they be granted bail? What would I do if they were, because they would come for me during the night. Of that, I had no doubt.

A quarter of the way through the grass, a hand on my shoulder scared me. I spun around to find the Sarge, his face dark with fury, his mouth moving angrily. Reluctantly, I turned off the noisy mower so that I could hear him.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded to know, incensed.

I answered him patiently, as if he was a simpleton. “Mowing. What does it look like?” Perhaps his apartment block in the city didn’t have a lawn?

He closed his eyes, and by the movement of his lips I could tell that he was silently counting to five. His eyes flicked open again. “
Why
are you mowing?”

I stared back at him uncertainly. Was it a trick question?

“Um . . . because the grass has grown too long?” I replied with hesitation, wondering if that was the right answer.

It wasn’t.

He clenched his jaw and when he spoke his voice was almost incomprehensible through his gritted teeth. “You’re not paid to mow the grass, Fuller.”

“I’m paid to look after the station. That’s what Des always told me,” I argued. I’d known he’d been scamming me at the time, but didn’t mind the physical exertion, so I’d gone along willingly. Plus, we had no budget for a gardener and it didn’t look good for the town’s police station to be swallowed up from neglect by rampant vegetation.

“I couldn’t care less what he said. You don’t even live here,” he argued back, exasperated again. “It’s
my
responsibility to mow the lawn now.”

“Oh, okay,” I said, not really caring one way or the other. “Should I finish?”

“
Leave it!
” he shouted at me in his loud voice. I flinched at his unwarranted anger – I’d been doing him a favour after all – and without a further word pushed the mower back into the shed. I’d had enough of him for the day, so headed not back to the station as he did, but to the carpark to go home. But then I remembered that I’d come here in the patrol car very early in the morning, bringing Graham to the station. I had no ride home.

Biting off the obscenity that sprang to my lips, I walked off home. It was a long trek, five kilometres at least, but what choice did I have? I wasn’t going to ask
him
for a lift home and it wasn’t like the city in this place. There was no public transport system here. You either had a car or a bike or you walked everywhere.

As I drearily trudged along the highway to my home, in a shockingly bad mood, a frog-green hatchback came hurtling towards me, swerving dangerously across the road as the driver noticed me. I groaned to myself. Couldn’t I just have five minutes of peace in this damn town for once?

The car pulled up haphazardly on the verge, its butt sticking out precariously onto the road. Martin poked his head out of the window, a huge smile across his face.

“Do you need a lift, Officer Tess? I’m going in your direction,” he lied brazenly, the bonnet of the car pointing towards town, the opposite path to mine.

“Martin, I’m not getting in that car with you,” I said calmly. “You don’t have a licence, remember?”

His face fell, but before either of us could say another word, the patrol car pulled up, screeching to a halt, skidding in the gravel on the verge.

The Sarge wound the window down and shouted out at me. “Fuller, where the hell do you think you’re going? I didn’t say you could leave work. Get back to the station now!”

“I’m going home, Sergeant Maguire,” I yelled back at him. “And if you don’t like that, then too bad for you! Martin has offered me a lift, so you can just piss off!”

Martin’s face lifted with indescribable joy. He jumped out of the driver’s seat to gallantly open the door to the passenger seat for me. Ungraciously, I pushed him into it instead and quickly stalked over to sit in the driver’s seat.

“Fuller!” shouted the Sarge, impatiently.

“Officer Tess,” complained Martin, at the same time.

I paid no attention to either of them and slammed the door, spinning the little car around, its wheels screeching on the bitumen. I spun off, thirty kilometres over the speed limit, down the winding mountain road to the mental health clinic to return Martin. The Sarge tailed me the whole way in the patrol car.

I pulled into the carpark and braked hard. Martin, realising that his little jaunt was over, turned to me, his bottom lip wobbling.

“Officer Tess, I only wanted to give you a lift home,” Martin howled, tears pouring down his face. I leaned over and patted him on the shoulder.

“I know, Martin,” I soothed. “But you’re not allowed to drive and I can’t let you because it’s against the law.”

The Sarge opened Martin’s door and grasped him by the arm, dragging him ungently to the director’s office, poor Martin crying the whole way. The Sarge pushed past the personal assistant who protested weakly that the director was too busy to see us at the moment. But we found him with his feet up on his desk, playing a racing game on a handheld PSP console. He jumped up when we burst into this office, hastily shoving the PSP into the top drawer of his desk. He greeted the Sarge warmly, which didn’t save him from a well-deserved reaming over Martin’s latest escape. I listened impassively for a while, arms crossed, but soon grew bored with hearing it all again for the umpteenth time. I left quietly.

“Shit.” I realised when I got to the carpark that I still didn’t have a car, and now I was even further from home. I wanted to curl up into a little ball somewhere dark and safe until life got better.

“Get in the car,” ordered the Sarge, hastily abandoning his lecture to follow me out to the carpark.

“No thanks. I’m fine,” I said coolly, and strode off down the road without looking back. Ten kilometres wasn’t that far to walk, if you thought about it. I’d be home in no time at all, I told myself with desperate optimism. And, to look on the bright side, it was good exercise for the fun run.

He sped past me angrily, burning rubber as he did.

A few kilometres further down the road I was feeling sore, my feet aching. Police boots weren’t designed for hiking, especially uphill, and my injuries were reminding me unsubtly that I hurt everywhere. I was in a lot of pain and feeling exceedingly sorry for myself.

I saw the patrol car from ages away, the section of the road it was parked on being straight and long before the highway headed back up the mountain range. The Sarge was waiting for me and eventually I drew up next to the car.

“Get in the car, Fuller,” he demanded impatiently. “I haven’t got all bloody day to wait around for you.”

I walked right past him, ignoring his repeated demands for me to get inside. He sped off again in a temper when he realised that I wasn’t going to comply.

Another few kilometres later though, when I caught up to the parked car again, I climbed into the passenger seat silently. I was too tired and too sore to argue any more. We didn’t exchange a word as we drove to my house. When he pulled into my driveway, I slipped out of the car, carefully and quietly closing the door behind me, not thanking him and not saying goodbye.

Dad was spending the night with his long-time girlfriend Adele, who worked at the supermarket, so I was alone that evening.
Yay, freedom
, I thought sadly. I wouldn’t have minded some company – anything to take my mind off the next day.

I threw off my uniform and changed into civvies, did a few loads of washing and made myself Vegemite on toast and a glass of milk for dinner with a slice of watermelon for dessert. I had a shower, and then in an unusual move for me, I grabbed from the fridge the second bottle of wine that the Sarge had brought me all those nights ago. Slumped on the lounge, I poured myself four glasses in a row as I watched some overly-dramatic reality cooking show where the contestants cried more than they cooked. Three-quarters of the bottle gone, I sent Jake a suggestive text message and received a positively obscene one in return from him that made me smile with anticipation. Then I collapsed into bed before nine, inebriated and exhausted.

Chapter 27

I was in the patrol car with the Sarge, Martin and Red Bycraft. We were cruising along the road to Big Town at night and the Sarge was driving. I was trapped in the backseat between Martin and Red, wearing the distinctive dark purple sheepskin jacket that I had lent to Marcelle, and in which she had been murdered. Martin and Red were each trying to drag me over to their side of the seat, Red winning. He slipped his arm around my throat, pulling out a sharp knife, its blade gleaming in the moonlight. I yelled at the Sarge in panic to stop the car but he wouldn’t, reminding me haughtily as he drove that he was the senior officer and I would do what he told me to if I knew what was good for me. Laughing in nasty agreement, Red held the knife to my throat and pressed against it, a trickle of blood snaking down my neck and staining the yellow of my blouse orange.

Out of the window I saw Jake hitch-hiking by the side of the road and begged the Sarge to stop and pick him up to save me from Red. But the Sarge turned to me with his ocean blue eyes cold and distant and told me in a harsh voice that I was finally going to get what I deserved for letting Marcelle die. And Red thrust his knife into my chest again and again, while he grinned and shouted, “It should have been you, Tessie! It should have been you!”

I woke up screaming, in a sweat, twisted up in my sheets, panting loudly and feeling queasy. I ran to the bathroom and threw up until there was nothing left, before collapsing against the cold tiles, weeping silently. Immediately, automatically, I forced myself to stop and wiped the tears away from both eyes with the heels of my palms. I took some paracetamol and drank a few glasses of water, before falling back into bed, clutching my knife in comfort.