Blood Tears (35 page)

“
No,
Mum. Course not.”

“
She
assaulted Senior Constable Fuller,” the Sarge said coldly over his
shoulder.

“
So
fucking what? That’s not a crime. The whore deserved
it.”

“
Call
Senior Constable Fuller that one more time, and you’ll find
yourself in the cell next to your daughter.”

Lola laughed
uproariously, her hands on her scrawny hips, cigarette dangling
precariously from the corner of her mouth. “Just try it, copper. I
dare you.”

Neither of us bothered
answering her, bundling Rosie across the dry expanse of weed-ridden
dirt that constituted Lola’s front yard. That was when the hail of
objects started.

The Sarge was first
hit. An egg, which from the smell of it was way past its
use-by-date, clocked him on the back of the head, the yolk and
white dripping down inside his shirt. Needless to say, that didn’t
improve his mood.

“
Who
threw that?” he demanded angrily, briefly stopping and turning
around.

A gaggle of Bycrafts
stood on the verandah, all with their hands behind their backs,
sniggering at us.

“
Must
have fallen out of the sky, copper,” Lola smirked, engendering
rippling laughter from her kin.

“
Come
on, Tess. The sooner we’re out of here, the better,” the Sarge.
“Next time we’ll let this bunch of savages beat each other to
death. It would be a favour to the world.”

When we turned around
again, they pelted us with an assortment of objects. A disposable
nappy full of excrement narrowly missed me and thumped on the
ground, spilling its disagreeable contents.

“
Gross,” I said.

The Sarge copped
another rotten egg in the middle of his back, while I caught a rock
on my right shoulder. I spun around to see Chad quickly whipping
his hand behind his back again.

Inflamed by that, by
what had happened to Annabel, and by the theft of my 4WD, red fury
engulfed me. I let go of Rosie and charged back towards the house,
heading straight for Chad. Though not the smartest of creatures on
the planet, the Bycrafts were all blessed with rat cunning.
Sniffing danger, he turned tail and legged it.

“
Tessie, get back here!
Now!
” the Sarge yelled after
me, but it was too late.

Chad Bycraft was going
to pay for wrecking my Land Rover.

“
Shit!” I heard the Sarge say. “Tess, I’m going kick your arse
if you don’t get back here now.”

I stormed up the
stairs, pushing Bycrafts aside as I did. Chad had disappeared
inside the house, so I barged in after him.

“
Get
out of my house, you fucking bitch,” screeched Lola. “You’ve got no
right to invade like that. Fuck off out of there. That’s private
property.”

I ignored her,
following the sound of panicked retreat down the hallway, dodging
the discarded toys and shoes, insensitive to the sounds of small
children crying, and the squalid and malodorous surroundings.

I made it through the
door to the kitchen in time to spot Chad rushing out the back
door.

“
Chad
Bycraft, you little shit, get back here. You’re going to pay for
smashing my 4WD.”

“
Fuck
you, piglet,” he called over his shoulder, sprinting off towards
the bushland behind Lola’s house.

I sped up, well knowing
that if I let him escape into that, I’d lose him. The Bycrafts had
innumerable escape routes and boltholes scattered throughout the
low-lying bush and the mountains known only to them, and passed on
from generation to generation.

But though I wasn’t too
shabby as a runner, he was younger and faster. At the edge of the
bushland, he stopped and turned, an insufferably cocky look on his
face.

“
Don’t know why you’re so upset, piglet. Your 4WD was a bucket
of shit to drive. But I s’pose it suits a bucket of shit like
you.”

And with that, he ran
off into the bushes, and though I blundered around in there for a
good five minutes afterwards, I lost his trail.

When I emerged, hot,
sweaty and even more furious, the Sarge stood with his hands on his
hips, a thunderous expression on his face.

“
When
I tell you to stop doing something, I expect you to stop doing it,”
he roared at me.

I flapped a dismissive
hand in his direction, not interested in talking to him.

Not pleased by that, he
marched over to me, grabbed me roughly by the upper arm, and
frogmarched me around the side of the house to the front. A swarm
of Bycrafts surrounded the patrol car, trying everything they knew
about car theft to open the door and free Rosie, who the Sarge had
locked in the back seat.

“
Oi!
Get away from that car!” he bellowed, freeing my arm and pulling
out his baton.

I pulled out mine too,
and after a few judicious whacks, the Bycrafts took the hint and
retreated, some a little more wounded than when the day had
started. But then, hey, so was I.

“
Get
in the car,” the Sarge ordered through gritted teeth.

Silently, I slid into
the passenger seat and waited until he’d buckled up and sped off
with an unnecessary screech of tyres.

“
What
the hell was that about?” he demanded angrily.

I sneaked a glimpse at
his profile. It was as hard as a sheer granite mountain, and just
about as approachable. “I just wanted to have a little chat with
Chad about what happened to my Land Rover.”

“
Bullshit. What were you planning on doing to him?”

“
I
don’t know,” I confessed. “Teach him a lesson about respecting
other people’s property.”

“
How?
By kicking or belting the crap out of him?”

“
I
don’t know. Maybe both.”

“
I
hope you think that something like that is worth losing your career
over.”

I stayed mute, knowing
that anything I said would only inflame him further.

At the station, I
helped him transport a still resistant Rosie from the patrol car to
one of the cells in the lockup. He uncuffed her and shoved her
inside, slamming and locking the door on her.

She pummelled her fists
on the bars. “Let me out of here. I haven’t fucking done anything
wrong.”

“
There’s only the little matter of you assaulting Senior
Constable Fuller.”

“
So
what? The dumb bitch was in my way. What else was I supposed to
do?”

“
Don’t refer to Senior Constable Fuller in that way,” warned
the Sarge.

“
This
is what I think of your precious piglet,” she snarled, launching a
gob of spit in my direction. I had to jump out of the way to avoid
it landing on my pants.

“
Right,” said the Sarge with determination. “For that little
stunt, you can sit here for a few hours before we’ll bother
interviewing you. See if that improves your level of
civility.”

“
Fuck
you, copper.”

“
Enjoy the solitude,” he snarled, drawing me down the stairs
and back to the station, both of us trying to block out her further
obscenities. Sparring with her had helped him swiftly get over his
anger with me, and for the first time in my life, I had something
for which to thank Rosie Bycraft. “She’s a right charmer, isn’t
she?”

“
Do
you fancy her?” I dared to try out a smile on him.

He pulled a face. “I’d
sooner date a death adder.”

“
Probably have the same result for you.”

“
Look, Tess, I’m going to have leave you for a short time to
have a shower and change. This egg’s starting to set on my back,
and I can’t stand the smell of it.”

“
I
know. It’s foul.”

He smiled. “I see what
you did there.”

I smiled at him again.
“I was going to say something about the smell, but I’m too
polite.”

“
You?
That would be a first. Did you get hit by much?”

“
Nah.
Luckily they’re lousy aims. Dodged a dirty nappy
though.”

“
That’s disgusting. I think they’re sub-human.”

“
I
don’t think they’re human at all.”

“
Let
me check your head. It was quite a whack she gave you.”

“
Can
you check it after your shower? You smell
really
bad.”

He tweaked my nose.
“And here I was thinking you never notice the effort I go to for
you. I want to make sure you’re okay before I head off. I don’t
want to come back to find you unconscious, or running around in
circles clucking, or something even worse.”

“
I’ll
live,” I giggled.

“
Just
be quiet for once and stand still.”

“
Be
quick then. I can’t hold my breath for too long.”

I stood in front of
him, looking up at him as he probed around the side of my head
above my ear. I winced a few times as his fingers ran over the lump
that had grown since Rosie hit me.

“
A
bit of a bump, but I think you’ll live.”

“
I
already told you that.”

I wasn’t sure what
happened next, but at some point he’d stopped probing and we just
stood there, facing each other, staring into each other’s eyes. One
of his hands rested on my shoulder, the other’s fingers lightly
feathering around my bump, careful not to touch it. It was as if
the world stopped for a moment, and we were trapped, lost in a
reverie with each other.

“
Tessie,” he breathed, his voice lower and huskier than
normal.

“
You
could bring me some fucking water, at least,” shrieked Rosie in her
unpleasant voice, breaking the spell.

The Sarge shook his
head slightly as if to wake himself from a dream. I hastily stepped
away from him, feeling awkward. We looked everywhere except at each
other.

“
I
better be off,” he said. “Take her some water, will
you?”

“
Yep.”

“
I
won’t be long.”

“
Okay. No worries.”

“
Lock
the doors after you’ve taken her the water.”

“
Will
do,” I promised as he left out the back.

I grabbed a bottle of
water from the fridge and headed to the cell, passing it through
the bars. Rosie snatched it from me, opened it and greedily glugged
from it.

“
You’re welcome,” I said sweetly.

“
Fuck
you, piglet,” she spat out, wiping her mouth on her
forearm.

“
You
have a nice day too.”

I’d just spun around to
return to the station, when the almost full water bottle hit me
square between my shoulders. I stopped for a moment, reining in my
temper.

“
You
just lost your water privileges, you stupid cow.”

“
Fuck
you.”

I picked up the bottle
and continued towards the station, not prepared to engage in any
more ‘conversation’ with her. I locked the doors and settled down
to commence writing all the reports beginning to pile up on my
to-do list.

A pounding on the front
door had me on my feet, hand near my gun as I approached the
counter. I stood behind the closed door.

“
Who
is it?” I asked.

“
It’s
me.”

I unlocked the door and
opened it.

“
Jakey! What a lovely surprise. I didn’t expect to see you
until tonight.”

He thrust his way
through the doorway forcing me back. His face was set with a level
of anger I’d never seen on him before.

“
What’s the matter, honey-boy?”

He grasped my arm by
the wrist, squeezing it tightly. He moved his face down close to
mine until we were almost nose-to-nose. I could smell alcohol on
his breath.

“
Let
Rosie out now.”

Chapter
24

“
Jakey, you’ve been drinking,” I said, crinkling my nose in
disapproval.

“
So?”
he said, his tone aggressive.

“
Let
go of me,” I demanded, trying to free my wrist. “You’re hurting
me.”

“
Did
you hear me, Tessie? Let Rosie out now.”

“
Not
a chance. That’s not possible, and you know it. She’s in custody.
Why are you even asking?”

“
Do
you know what you’re doing to my family? Do you even care what
you’re doing to my family?”

“
No.
Why should I? I couldn’t give a shit about your family.”

“
I’m
part of my family. If you don’t give a shit about
them, then you don’t give a shit about me.”

“
That’s not true, and you know it. You’re not like anyone in
your family.”

He shook my wrist
again, and I tried to yank it free of his grip. It was the first
time Jake had ever shown any physical force towards me, and I’d be
damned if I was going to let him get away with it.

“
I
turned up at Mum’s place just now to find Rick black and blue, and
Mum collapsed in tears.”

I snorted in derision.
“Lola in tears? Don’t make me laugh. She wouldn’t know how to
cry.”

“
Why
do you always have to be such a bitch towards her? She’s trying to
plan a fucking funeral, and you’ve just arrested her daughter, the
one person she’s been leaning on the most for support. Mum’s not
coping so well with Denny’s death. I told you that. She
needs
Rosie. Don’t you have any compassion?”