Blood Tears (27 page)

He shook his head,
sounding genuinely regretful. “Sorry, love. When I reach the
highway, I’m going in the opposite direction.”

“
That’s okay. It was nice of you to offer. I’ll ring my
sergeant and get him to pick me up. It’s practically his fault this
happened because he wouldn’t let me take the patrol
car.”

He laughed again.
“Wouldn’t want to be in his shoes on the drive back.” And with that
he returned to his vehicle and with a jaunty hoot, left me taking
out my phone.

Chapter
18

It felt like I had to
wait ages for the Sarge to arrive. At last I spotted the patrol car
in the distance. He made an illegal u-turn, parking behind me. He
unwound his height from the driver’s seat and moseyed on over,
taking a gander under the bonnet too.

“
What’s the matter with it?” he asked after a minute,
obviously as well-versed in motor mechanics as me.

“
The
guy who stopped said the radiator’s rooted.”

“
What
guy?”

“
I
don’t know. Just some guy who was nice enough to pull over to see
if he could help. He offered me a lift, but he was heading in the
opposite direction to Little Town at the turnoff to the
highway.”

“
Surprised you didn’t have a stream of guys pulling over to
help. Young damsel in distress and all.”

“
Very
modern of you, Sarge. And besides, I think the uniform probably put
them off.”

“
Not
to mention the gun. And perhaps even your reputation.”

I pulled a face at him.
“Have you come to rescue me or just to be rude to me?”

He gave me a mock bow.
“Consider me your knight in shining patrol car. I’ll ring a mobile
mechanic.”

For once I didn’t stop
him from taking over. There was no getting around this disaster – I
needed a mechanic. He rang directory and was soon organising
someone to come out as soon as possible.

When he hung up, he
said, “Sorry. Soon enough is probably not going to be very soon at
all. They’re flat out right now.”

“
Figures.”

“
No
point hanging around here waiting for them. Let’s get back to work.
I was beginning to worry about you, you were taking so
long.”

I limped over to the
patrol car and slid into the passenger seat, trying not to groan
out loud when I sat down. “The Super called me in.”

“
What
did she want
this
time?”

“
Nothing really,” I lied, not willing to confess about the
order she’d given me not to go to Denny’s funeral.

I hadn’t yet decided
whether I’d obey her or not. And even though I acknowledged it was
an exceptionally foolish thing to do to disobey her direct order,
there was something inside me that I couldn’t explain almost
needing
me to go to his funeral. Maybe it was simply the
desire to pay my respects; maybe it was closure; or just maybe I’d
now reached the point where I badly wanted to piss off the whole
Bycraft clan and pay them back for the misery they’d made my life
when the Sarge was gone. And if that meant disrupting their family
funeral, then that was the price I was willing to pay. God only
knew they’d disrupted a few Fuller family funerals in the past.

“
It
wasn’t about her order to you not to attend Denny’s funeral, was it
by any chance?” he asked in a deceptively mild voice that had the
immediate effect of irritating me.

“
Why
ask if you already know the answer?” I grumped. “Did she ring
you?”

“
The
second you left her office.” He looked at his watch. “What have you
been doing since then? I would have expected you back in town ages
ago.”

I didn’t want to answer
him, so gazed out the window, pretending I hadn’t heard him.

“
Tess, what were you doing after you left the Super’s office?
Were you having lunch?”

Thinking about my
current impoverished state, the upcoming mechanic’s bill, my
complete inability to afford to buy lunch, and that breakfast had
been a long time ago, my stomach growled with embarrassingly loud
neediness at the mention of food.

“
Guess not,” he said, with a hint of a smile.

“
I
was investigating something,” I said in the faintest voice I could
– a futile endeavour as he evidently had super-powered
hearing.

“
For
fuck’s sake, Tess!” he exploded. “Do you have a death wish or
something? What the hell do you think the Super would say to you if
she found that out? Even worse, what do you think she’d
do
to you if she found out?”

“
It
was important,” I admitted, still in that faint voice.

He sighed wearily.
“Tell me about it.”

The rest of the trip
was spent with me explaining what Annabel had told me, and telling
him about my adventure with Merrick in the abandoned house.

“
That
at least solves the mystery of why you’re limping,” he said
finally.

“
I
didn’t think you noticed.”

“
Frankly, these days I find it pays to notice everything about
you, so I
did
notice. I was just too afraid to ask you why
you were. Justifiably, as it turns out.”

“
Now
you know.” I showed him the two photos that I’d retrieved from the
Land Rover before making a pointless attempt to lock it. “I found
these in one of the bedrooms. I think there were more too. He was
carrying something, maybe an envelope, when he knocked me
over.”

He risked taking his
eyes from the road to spare a couple of quick glances at them.

“
They’re vile,” he said, screwing up his nose in disgust. “No
wonder he wanted to retrieve them. That kind of perverted thing
gets you lots of close and personal attention from the
police.”

“
I
wonder how long it will take him to realise that he dropped them in
his haste?”

“
Probably not long if he knows his revolting collection
thoroughly. But what I can’t understand is, if the house was as
cleared out as you saw, why he wouldn’t have taken the photos with
him.”

“
I
know. I was puzzling over the same thing. All I could think of was
that they’d left in a huge hurry.”

“
Possibly, but he’s surely had time to go back there before
today, especially if the house is still standing
vacant.”

“
Maybe he was too busy?”

“
Sure, arranging all those robberies must be a full-time
job.”

“
At
least the Super was interested enough to listen to me. She said
she’d assign some dees to look into Merrick and his
gang.”

“
Which is exactly why she’ll haul your arse over the fire if
she ever found out that you’d been investigating the case. In fact,
I
want to haul your arse over the fire for investigating by
yourself. It wasn’t only dangerous to try to work a case by
yourself, but because you didn’t have the proper equipment or back
up, he escaped.”

I rounded on him. “It’s
your
bloody fault I didn’t have the patrol car. You wouldn’t
let me take it, and now my car has broken down, and Dad and I have
got no wheels at all, whereas you have two perfectly good cars at
your disposal, and if you’d just let me take your Beemer for once
without being so sexist about me driving it, none of this would
have happened. And another thing –”

“
Take
a breath,” he advised with the ghost of a smile. “You’re in grave
danger of exploding.”

I took a breath
cavernous in size. “I’m not going to explode.”

“
Glad
to hear it. A Tess bomb is a terrifying thing to
witness.”

We drove in silence for
a while.

“
Thanks for picking me up,” I said rather belatedly. “I really
appreciate it.”

“
Any
time, you know that. That’s what partners are for. And besides, I
can’t have you stranded by the side of the road. What if some
Bycrafts had driven past?”

“
I’d
shoot them.”

He cut me a long
sideways glance that required him to correct his steering when his
eyes returned to the road. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or
not.”

“
Most
days, neither can I.”

“
So,
Denny’s funeral . . .”

I was quiet for a
moment. “It seems as though that since Denny’s death, a real
tension is growing in Little Town. I feel like I can almost touch
it.”

“
Between you and the Bycrafts?”

“
Not
just between them and me, but between them and the whole town.
They’re becoming increasingly aggressive. You saw how Baz was
king-hit. And Gretel tells me that even the young ones have ramped
up their bullying towards the other kids at school. I don’t even
know the last time the teens attended high school. I think the
principal has practically given up on them. Then there’s Lola being
drunk, and Abe’s had trouble with them trying to steal his grog
over the past few months. And just the other day, Joanna and Rosie
almost came to blows when she tried to deliver a package to Lola’s
house.” A few ticks went by before I spoke again. “And I can feel
the strain growing between Jakey and me.”

“
They’re angry.”

“
Yes,
but so are lots of people, including me. You saw how quickly the
situation escalated between the townsfolk and the Bycrafts after
Miss G died. I really believe things are going to come to a head
soon. It’s almost an oppressive feeling. Like a volcano brewing,
ready to erupt. And it seems to me like it’s all centred around
Denny’s funeral.” I glanced at him. “Maybe I’m just being
fanciful?”

“
No.
You have good instincts about the Bycrafts, so if you’re feeling
something’s building, then I believe something is.”

“
It’s
difficult to describe what I’m feeling. It’s almost as if the
Bycrafts want the town to acknowledge Denny’s death as the tragedy
it was, but that the townsfolk have been hurt too many times by
them that they’re indifferent to his death. And that’s burning up
the Bycrafts.”

“
Let’s be honest, after suffering the Bycrafts for
generations, some townsfolk are probably glad there’s one less of
them in town.”

“
Exactly. And if it hadn’t been for the particular
circumstances of Denny’s death, I probably would have heaved a sigh
of relief about it too, especially since he’d no longer be
constantly stalking me.”

“
So,
what you’re saying is that the Bycrafts want the town to care about
Denny’s death and respect him, but they don’t want
you
to.”

“
Yes,
I think that’s it,” I agreed soberly. “It’s like it’s almost an
insult to them for me to want to pay my respects.”

“
Tess, you won’t be welcome at that funeral.”

“
I
don’t care. I’m still going. I’m not having the Bycrafts dictate
what I can and can’t do.”

“
It’s
not them I’m worried about. It’s the Super. She’s certainly
dictating what you
can’t
do – and that’s attend that
funeral. Okay?”

I remained stubbornly
quiet.

“
Tess, can’t you see that –”

My phone ringing
thankfully interrupted his incipient lecture. Grateful for the
reprieve, I pulled it out.

“
Tess
Fuller.” A burst of garbled, panicked speech flooded my ears. “Hey,
hey, slow down. I can’t understand you.”

“
Officer Tess,” half-sobbed an elderly voice that I
desperately tried to place, followed by more incoherent
talk.

“
Who
am I speaking to?” I asked, interrupting the flow.

I heard the person on
the other end take a huge intake of breath. “It’s Mrs Gatton,
Dave’s mother.”

“
What
can I do for you, Mrs Gatton? You sound a bit upset about
something.”

“
Oh,
Officer Tess. I don’t know what to do.”

“
Do
about what, Mrs Gatton? Take your time.”

“
I’m
afraid there might not be any time. It’s Dave. He’s locked himself
in his bedroom and won’t answer me. I’m so worried about
him.”

“
Perhaps he’s sleeping?”

“
Officer Tess, I may not know much in life, but one thing I do
know is my son. He’s a hard worker and would never sleep during the
day. Never.”

Suitably chastened, I
asked, “Is there any reason you can think of why he’d want to lock
himself in his room?”

“
That’s what I’m so worried about. He’s been so withdrawn
lately, even for him. Ever since that incident with those two young
people and his ute, I can hardly get a word out of him.”

“
Has
he spoken to you about anything that’s troubling him? Any problems
he’s having?”

“
Dave
doesn’t talk about things like that,” she said. “He’s like his
father, my husband, that way. You know what farmers are
like.”

I did know what farmers
were like – my own father used to be one before his illness claimed
his ability to work. And I had to agree with Mrs Gatton. My father
and I didn’t discuss any ‘airy’ topics. We talked about finances,
our house, local gossip, and trivial events in each other’s lives –
nothing deep.

“
Okay, Mrs Gatton. We’re on our way now.”

“
Thank you. Thank you so much.”