Blood Tears (30 page)

“
Don’t tell me. It’s Bycraft badness, right?”

“
You
should go into partnership with Lavinia, seeing you’re so psychic,”
I smiled.

“
You
don’t have to be psychic to guess that,” he said dryly. “God,
there’s never a dull moment in this place.”

“
Bet
you miss lazing around on the Mediterranean now.”

“
Not
really. That was a particularly unhappy part of the
trip.”

“
Were
you fighting with Melissa?”

“
Day
and night. And then, just for something different, we’d fight night
and day.”

“
Oh,
sorry. It was supposed to be a joke. Didn’t mean to bring up bad
memories.”

“
Don’t sweat it, kid.”

I let the kid comment
slide as I studied his serious profile, remembering the continuing
generosity and support he’d shown me since he’d arrived in Little
Town, even though I hadn’t always been grateful for it. I’d spent
the last few months being so angry with him, but from what he said,
he’d had as miserable a time as me during his absence, albeit in
much more glamorous surroundings. Melissa was nothing but a fool to
let their relationship deteriorate to the extent of breaking up.
There was no doubt in my mind that she held primary responsibility
for the ending of their engagement. I’d witnessed firsthand her
immaturity and petulant self-absorption.

Oh well
, I
thought.
Her loss would be some other woman’s gain one
day.

And just like that, any
residual anger I still harboured against him dissipated entirely,
and I was suddenly glad that he had returned to town.

I kept my eyes on his
unmoving profile. “You told me your friend, Harry, is a good man.
Well, I think you are too, and you deserve to be happy.”

“
Are
you angling for a spin in my car or something?”

“
No!”
I said indignantly. “I really meant it.”

He spared me a
surprised glance, one eyebrow arching. “That sounds suspiciously
like a welcome back to me.”

“
Hey,
settle down,” I protested. “I never said that.”

He smiled to himself as
he turned into Gum Street.

Chapter
20

The first thing we saw
was a group of the teen Bycrafts lolling around under the big fig
tree that dominated the small park at the corner of the highway and
Gum Street. It was not a place I ever cared to visit – sometimes
even averting my eyes as I drove past – as it was beneath that very
tree that I’d discovered the murdered body of one of my good
friends, Marcelle.

“
God,
they’re drunk again,” spat the Sarge in disgust.

“
I
said they haven’t been going to school lately. I guess we know what
they’ve been doing instead.”

“
How
any of them expect to have futures if they don’t bother getting an
education is beyond me.”

“
They’re not really the future-focused kind of people, Sarge.
This is exactly what they envisage their future will
be.”

“
Who
rang about them?”

“
Grimmell. Apparently, two of the boys raided his shop,
running in and grabbing everything they could get their hands on,
before running off.”

“
They’re so unbelievably blatant. Which two?”

“
He
couldn’t say.”

The Sarge groaned.
“Don’t tell me –
I don’t know who it was. All those little
bastards look the same to me
.”

“
Wow.
Your psychic skills really are impressive, right down to the
‘little bastards’ comment he made,” I said. “Lavinia should watch
out for the competition.”

“
Who
do you think would be most likely?”

“
Hard
to say. Could be Chad, Timmy, Sean, or Mikey. Hang on,” I said,
peering out the window at the group. “Looks like Jade and Kristy
have cut their hair shorter. Great. Depending on what they’re
wearing, that means it will now be pretty much impossible to even
tell the girls from the boys.”

“
That
has to be a deliberate move.”

“
You
betcha. Looking the same is how they all get away with so
much.”

He must have been
watching out for our arrival, because Mr Grimmell came puffing up,
his unattractive, lecherous face red with rage. He angrily thrust
his head through the window, his nose just inches from mine. I
reeled back at the sour smell of his breath.

“
I am
fed up to the back teeth with that gang of hooligans robbing me,”
he hissed. “What do you plan to do about it?”

“
Please remove your head from the vehicle, so that we can get
out,” the Sarge snapped.

Mr Grimmell did as he
was requested, and the Sarge came around to my side of the car,
taking out his notebook. We didn’t try to hide our presence from
the Bycraft teens, and neither did they take off when they saw us.
Instead they remained where they were, laughing and jeering with
supreme confidence, arrogantly assured of their invincibility.

The Sarge questioned Mr
Grimmell at length, but his story was much as he’d told me – a
couple of the young Bycrafts had committed a run-raid of his
supermarket. Again, he said he couldn’t identify which two had
committed the crime, but told us they’d been wearing a dark t-shirt
covered with an unbuttoned long-sleeved dark shirt, blue jeans and
runners. When I glanced over at the six teens though, the first
thing I noticed was that they were all dressed in a similar
fashion.

Yet another deliberate
move by the teens, only proving that they’d intended on a spot of
shoplifting today. And committing crime was probably the most
planning any Bycraft ever bothered exerting themselves over during
the course of their pointless and idle lives.

I ambled on over to the
teens, letting the Sarge finish with upset grocer. They sat in a
loose circle, Chad quickly hiding something behind his back, while
Timmy hastily extinguished something on the grass. My nostrils
twitched at the unmistakable smell of marijuana.

I held out one hand.
“Hand it over, Chad.”

“
Don’t know what you’re talking about, piglet,” he said with a
sneering smile.

“
Fuck
off, piglet. Stop spoiling our fun with your horrible piggy smell,”
said Kristy, looking around at her siblings and cousins for
approval of her incredible wit. And of course, she received it in
bucket loads.

“
Something sure smells around here, and it’s not me,” I said.
“You kids been smoking some joints?”

“
Nope,” said Timmy, and before I could say another word, he
jumped up and sprinted to the small amenities block at the end of
the park.

“
Hey!” I yelled, giving chase.

He outran me into the
men’s bathroom, and though I had no hesitation in bursting in
there, my only reward for my lack of etiquette was the sound of a
toilet flushing.

Timmy came out of one
of the stalls, deliberately and provocatively washing his hands
with great care. “What are you – some kind of fucking perv, piglet?
Can’t even let a kid take a slash in private? I should report
you.”

“
What
did you flush, Timmy?”

He walked past me on
his way to the exit, eyeballing me the whole way with derision. “I
flushed my piss, piglet. Remind me next time to keep it for you in
a jar since it makes you so horny.”

I strode over to the
stall and peered in the bowl while the cistern refilled with a soft
hissing. Nothing. It was clean – well, as clean as a public toilet
can ever be.

Annoyed, I stalked back
to the kids just as the Sarge finished with Grimmell and joined
me.

“
What’s up? Saw you haring off after that one.”

“
This
little shit just flushed something away. I think it was a
joint.”

“
Prove it, piglet,” dared Timmy. “She’s just a sicko who wants
to watch kids piss.” The others openly snickered.

The Sarge stepped over,
grabbed Timmy by the front of his shirt and hauled him to his feet.
“I warned you kids not to call Senior Constable Fuller that ever
again. Maybe you got away with it when I was gone, but guess what?
I’m back again.” He looked around at all of them, his eyes
darkening a stormy blue, as they always did when he was angry. “Do
you delinquents understand?”

He was met with six
sullen, silent expressions.

He shook Timmy
viciously. “
Do you understand?
” he bellowed right into
Timmy’s face.

Grimmell edged closer
as other shop owners and townsfolk stood watching on the footpath,
drawn by the racket. There wouldn’t be anyone stepping in to defend
these particular kids from any police roughness we showed. Not in
this town.

Timmy nodded with
reluctant churlishness.

“
Good,” said the Sarge, giving him a small push that sent him
tumbling back on to his butt.

“
Chad’s got a bottle of something behind his back,” I informed
the Sarge.

“
Hand
it over now,” he barked.

With great sullenness,
Chad handed over a three-quarters empty bottle of vodka.

“
You
kids are supposed to be at school,” I lectured.

“
So?”
asked Mikey.

“
So,
you’re supposed to be at school,” repeated the Sarge. “Why aren’t
you?”

“
We’re helping Mum get the funeral ready for Denny, aren’t we?
Got a problem with that?” sneered Mikey.

“
Bullshit,” I muttered.

“
Sure
looks like it,” said the Sarge snidely. “In between smoking pot,
drinking, and shoplifting, right? Big help you’re being to
her.”

“
Which ones of you hit Mr Grimmell’s shop?” I
asked.

“
Don’t know what you’re talking about, pig –” started Jade,
before catching the Sarge’s dangerously flashing eyes.

“
Look
at those sweet and chip wrappers everywhere,” burst out Mr
Grimmell. “They’re all around them. They came from
my
store.”

“
Prove it, old man,” sniggered a very drunken Chad. “We bought
them in Big Town.”

“
There are witnesses,” insisted Mr Grimmell.

The Sarge and I looked
at each other. Despite knowing the utter futility of the exercise,
I wearily walked up and down the street interviewing anyone who’d
seen anything – all with the same result. Nobody could positively
identify which two of the six had committed the crime.

In the meanwhile, the
Sarge took on the thankless job of trying to corral all six
intoxicated teens and walk them to their homes, only a few blocks
away. But before that happened, he did his part for the tidy town
movement, and forced the six, not without much under-the-breath
swearing and insolent slowness, to clean up their mess.

“
It’s
hopeless,” I said to him on his return from marching the kids home.
“Lots of people saw them running away, and some were even inside
the store when they hit, but nobody can give me a positive
identification.”

“
I’m
sick and tired of having to just let things go around here all the
time,” he fumed. “Maybe we should just charge all six of them? Even
if they didn’t actually do it, they’re all at least complicit for
eating the evidence.”

“
We
can’t drag them all to Big Town for a spot of shoplifting,
especially with how busy they are there. We haven’t got room in the
patrol car for them all, and besides, the Super would turn our guts
into guitar strings if we tried that on.”

He stood with his hands
on his hips, staring down the street. “It pisses me off so
much.”

“
I
don’t see what else we can do, Sarge. I think we just have to let
it go. As usual.”

“
I’m
going to ring their principal at least. If they were at school like
they’re supposed to be, half of these crimes would never
happen.”

“
Sure
they would. They’d just happen after school. Leopards won’t change
their spots, and Bycrafts won’t change their lazy, thieving ways.
But good luck with the principal. I’ve tried a few times over the
last few months, and he’s just as flummoxed as us as to how to
handle them.”

“
Perhaps if we issue a few truancy fines to their mothers,
that might at least make them listen.”

“
They
wouldn’t pay them anyway. Well, Valerie might, but Lola wouldn’t.
She’s probably collected a whole drawer full of unpaid truancy
fines over the years.”

I watched as he slowly
recovered his equilibrium. “All right. I suppose I have to give in
and give up. I guess I’ll just have to look on the bright
side.”

“
There’s a bright side?”

He winked at me.
“Another report for you to write this afternoon.”

I groaned. “As if there
weren’t enough reasons in the world already for me to hate the
Bycrafts.”

*****

Later, after many
boring hours writing reports, I tried in vain to coax Dad into
eating some of the salad I’d made for dinner. We spent the evening
together relaxing by watching some mindless quiz show on TV. At a
reasonably early hour, I had to nudge him awake so he could prepare
for bed, and with nothing better to do, I decided to hit the sack
too.

Seeing Jake’s guitars
gathering dust in our music room, I lay in bed and called him.

“
Hi,
baby doll,” he answered, and I felt such a strong need to see him
and touch him, that it almost hurt. “Watcha doing?”