Blood Tears (49 page)

We directed him to wait
in his car for us while we watched as Arapeta and Quentin searched
the four prisoners before returning them to their compartments in
the van.

“
So
what’s the plan with them now?” asked the Sarge.

“
Back
to the pub. Have dinner. Sleep. Head back to the city first thing
in the morning,” said Arapeta.

“
They’re not going to the wake?” I asked.

Quentin laughed, and it
wasn’t a nice laugh. I decided I liked him less and less every
second I spent in his company. “They’re not here for a party.
They’ve attended the funeral, if you can call that sordid display a
funeral. That’s their excursion over.”

“
Enjoy your dinner,” I said, turning and stalking off to the
patrol car, the Sarge following a minute later.

We watched the van
negotiate the rutted cemetery path again and drove off down the
road.

The priest followed us
back to the station where I prepared him a cup of tea as strong as
I dared. When he finished, and exhausted his disbelief and disgust
at the funeral, we escorted him safely out of town.

In the station, I
flopped into my chair, sighing heavily. “It’s done and nothing
happened. I can hardly believe it.”

“
Said
you were worrying too much. The prisoners will be safely locked up
at the pub all night, and we’ll let the rest of the Bycrafts
happily drink themselves to death.” He eyed me, a strange
expression on his face. “So, do you want to come to my place for
dinner?”

“
I
thought you’d never ask,” I smiled. “Though I hope your cooking
skills have improved from your travels. Something French or Italian
would be nice.”

“
The
girl’s subtle all right.”

“
Sarge?”

“
Mmm?”

“
Did
you really mean it when you said that life will get better for
me?”

“
Tessie, I told you. I’ve never been more sure about
anything.”

But he’d never been
more wrong about anything.

Chapter
34

“
Let’s knock over our reports before dinner,” said the Sarge.
“That way we can give ourselves some time off tomorrow. You’re not
hungry, are you?”

My tummy grumbled in
response.

“
Oh,
God. Look who I’m asking,” he said, going to the cupboard and
throwing me a couple of Tim Tams.

I caught one in each
hand, earning me a sarcastic slow clap from him.

“
Hey,
that’s a skill, you know,” I said through a mouthful of crumbs.
“Kind of like a ninja skill.”

“
No,
Fuller. Writing your reports is a skill. Driving a car safely is a
skill. Tidying your desk is a skill. Respecting your supervisor is
a skill. Avoiding the Super is a skill.”

“
I
don’t like where this conversation is going.”

“
But
catching Tim Tams is most definitely not a skill.”

I poked out a
chocolate-covered tongue at him. “We all know that those who can’t
do, criticise instead.”

The phone rang. We
looked at each other.

“
It’s
the Super,” I said, hurriedly standing up and racing to the back
door.

“
Hey,
it’s your turn to talk to her,” he called out
indignantly.

“
Sorry, gotta pee. Guess this is why they give you all those
supervisor perks.” I hastily exited to the sound of him grumbling
loudly before answering the phone.

I took my time about
using the bathroom, but when I returned he was still on the phone,
the expression on his face making me assume he was seriously
considering cutting the phone cord with his scissors.

“
I
disagree, ma’am . . . Well, that’s not quite the point . . . Yes,
we didn’t need the extra uniforms today, but we
might
have
needed them . . . What’s that, ma’am? . . . Ma’am? I can’t hear
you, ma’am . . . Speak up . . . There must be interference from the
mountain . . . It’s no use. I can’t hear you . . . I’ll try to ring
you tomorrow.”

He hung up, and
breathed out in relief.

“
Mountain interference? First the priest, and now the Super?”
I asked, shaking my head with mock sorrow. “You’re becoming an
habitual liar, Maguire. I won’t be able to trust anything you say
from now.”

“
She
wanted you to go to Big Town tomorrow.”

“
Oh
boy, thanks, Sarge. What did you save me from? My overdue
bollocking about the other day?”

“
What
else? You get so many bollockings that you’re lucky you don’t
actually have bollocks, or they’d be black and blue by
now.”

I laughed. “I’m glad I
don’t have any.”

“
So
am I. I prefer you as a woman.”

I laughed at him. “You
can tell you’re single, Maguire. First you’re looking at my boobs.
Then you’re glad I don’t have bollocks. Next thing I know, you’ll
be asking me out on a date.”

“
Ready for dinner?” he asked with a smile.

“
What
about the reports?”

“
Ah,
stuff them.” He glanced out the window. “It’s getting dark anyway.
Let’s go relax for a while.”

“
Can
I go home and get changed first?”

“
Don’t worry about it. I’ll find something for you to change
into.”

“
Let
me ring Dad first.”

He waited patiently
while I spoke to Dad, who after I filled him in on the funeral –
which naturally he’d already heard every last detail about –
assured me several times that he was feeling better today. He also
told me that Adele would be spending the night and making him
dinner, and that he was looking forward to it.

“
You
sure?” I asked for the fourth time, guilty that I hadn’t been able
to spend much time with him lately myself.

“
Yes,
love,” he said with more than a hint of impatience, which made me
believe that he really was feeling better. “I’ll be fine. You go
have dinner with Finn. It’s good for you two to spend some non-work
time together like you used to before he went away.”

“
Okay, if you’re sure.”

“
Tessie, get off the phone and go have some
dinner.”

“
Okay. Bye Dad. See you later tonight.” I hung up and looked
at the Sarge. “All right. I’m ready to try to politely choke down
another one of your atrocious, inedible dinners.”

He mock punched my
chin. “It will be better than what I’d get at your house.”

“
Oh,
yeah?”

“
Yeah, so get your arse moving.”

“
Consider my arse duly moving.”

The next three hours or
so were some of the most relaxed and pleasant that I’d spent in a
long time. Barefoot and wearing one of his t-shirts over my uniform
cargo pants, I helped him make dinner, which we ate at a leisurely
pace at his kitchen table. I refused a glass of wine, sure it would
send me straight to snoozeville, but he sipped on what I was sure
would have been an expensive and exquisite glass of red.

I spent the rest of the
time looking at his travel photos on his computer, glancing at him
a few times when pictures of Melissa and him appeared.

“
Does
it bother you seeing her?” I asked.

“
Not
really. She was a big part of my life once. I don’t regret that –
our relationship was right at the time, but it’s just not right for
me anymore. I don’t have any hard feelings or anything for her, but
she’s extremely pissed off at me. She doesn’t answer any of the
emails I send her, and she’s unfriended me on Facebook. I don’t
think she’ll ever forgive me.”

“
That’s understandable.” Had I been on Facebook, I would
probably have done the same to Jake. I wouldn’t want to know who he
was seeing, or what he was saying about me and our relationship.
“Were you hard when you ended it?”

“
No.
I probably wasn’t hard enough. It took her a while to realise I
actually meant it.”

What would be
worse?
I thought.
Easing out of a relationship or it ending
abruptly? Pulling the plaster off slowly or ripping it off?
I
decided that both were painful in their own way.

“
You
look a lot like your dad,” I said, smiling when we got to the
photos of him in Ireland.

“
Do
I? Now you know what I’ll look like when I get older.”

I giggled. “You make it
sound like we’ll work together forever.”

“
There could be worse fates in life. I can’t actually name any
of them at the moment, but I’m sure there must be worse ones.
Perhaps being buried in sand up to my neck and having the Super use
my head as a football might be slightly more painful.”

I punched him in the
arm, but not too hard. After all, he had just made me a delicious
dinner that I’d disparaged mercilessly, though I’d gone back for
seconds.

“
Who
are all those people with you? Are they your cousins?”

“
No.
They’re my brothers and sisters.”

“
What? I thought you were joking about that. You’re an only
child, aren’t you?”

“
I’m
the only child from my mother and my father’s marriage, but my
father’s had other wives.”

“
How
many?”

“
His
current one is number five.”

“
What?” My mouth dropped open. “Five wives?”

He smiled with
affection. “He’s a bit of a playboy.”

“
Obviously. But not a stayer.”

“
No,
he’s not a stayer. Sometimes I wish he would settle down and stay
with one wife. It’s getting a bit embarrassing. My newest sister
was born just before I arrived there.”

I laughed. “You have a
baby sister. Literally.”

“
Literally. Here’s a pic of us together.”

“
Aw,
she’s beautiful.”

“
She
is, but to be honest, I have trouble keeping up with who’s
who.”

“
I
bet. But you wouldn’t get to see them very often?”

“
Not
as much as I’d like, but Dad and I are in touch all the
time.”

“
Is
that so he can give you tips about your love life?”

He whacked me lightly
on the back of the head. “You’re wasted in the force, Fuller. You
could have a career on stage.”

“
He
must have to pay oodles of child support.”

“
He
can afford it. He’s a squillionaire.” He watched my face to gauge
my reaction to that piece of news.

I laughed. “There’s no
such thing as a squillionaire.”

“
I’m
exaggerating. He’s probably not a squillionaire anymore. He’s not
the smartest man about money, as you can tell from him having so
many children. But it’s not really something we ever talk
about.”

I wasn’t sure if he was
pulling my leg or not. “How did he become a squillionaire?”

“
He’s
a software developer. He came up with an actuarial program that
revolutionised the insurance industry.”

“
Oh.
An actuarial program,” I said, feigning knowledge. “How, um,
interesting.”

He laughed. “Don’t
worry. I don’t understand it either, but it made him very rich.
Very, very rich. Of course, this was after my mother left him. They
were very young and stony broke when they were married.”

“
Why
did she leave him?”

“
Because he’s a playboy. My mother has great dignity and
self-respect, and she wasn’t going to put up with that. So, soon
after I was born, she packed her bags, left him and Ireland behind,
and returned back here with me. She was only eighteen at the time.
They divorced not long after that.”

I couldn’t believe he
was opening up to me so much, so I trod carefully, not wanting to
destroy the mood.

“
But
they still get along?”

“
For
my sake, she kept in touch with him, and allowed me to develop a
close relationship with him. But it’s all water under the bridge
now. She remarried and he remarried many times, and everything is
very civilised, and has been for a long while.”

I sat back in my chair
thinking about what he’d just told me. It seemed to me the gulf
between our lives had just expanded into a huge, gaping chasm.

“
Wow,” I said quietly. “We live very different
lives.”

“
Not
really. My dad’s money is his money. I don’t know what he does with
it, and I don’t know if he even has any left. He’s a very generous
and extravagant man. He bought me my apartment for my twenty-first
birthday, and the Beemer for my thirtieth. I don’t know if he does
that for all his kids, or whether it’s because I’m his first born
he treats me a bit more specially. I don’t have a trust fund or
anything, Tess. I need to earn a living, and I live off my salary,
just like you.”

He could spin it anyway
he wanted, but there was no way on this planet he was just like me.
Maybe he wasn’t a trust fund baby, but he had an apartment, an
expensive, sporty car, savings, investments, and a wealthy father
who’d gladly bail him out in any situation. I suddenly felt
uncomfortable and tongue-tied. I’d wanted him to tell me more about
his life, but now I wished he hadn’t.

“
Are
you okay?” he asked. “You seem a little quiet.”

“
Yep.
I’m great.” I made a great show of looking at my watch. “Geez, look
at the time! I better head off.”