Blood Ties (18 page)

“Shove it, Phil, or I’ll tell your wife what you got up to with Foxy Dubois at Des’ retirement party.” I was just bluffing with that threat, but when he paled and glared at me, looking around nervously to see if anyone had heard what I’d said, I smiled evilly to myself.

“No need to do that, Tessie love. I was just helping her with a little problem she was having. It was all very innocent.” He stared at me. “Did she say differently?”

I raised my eyebrows and smiled at him, leaning closer to him and lowering my voice to a confidential whisper, “Your secret’s safe with me but only if you let us use a computer for an hour or so. We need some info and can’t be bothered going back to Little Town for it.”

“Computers broken again, huh?” he sneered, but opened the door to the counter and let us out the back. He directed us to a vacant desk where an almost new computer sat, unused and neglected. It even had a cobweb stretched between the monitor and hard drive. I immediately began plotting how I could steal it without anybody noticing.

I plonked down in the chair looking up at the Sarge who perched himself on the edge of the desk. “What are we looking up, Sarge?”

“I want a list of all Greville properties sold since records started. We’ll run it past Miss Greville and see if she notices any anomalies.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I called up the Titles Office database.

“You don’t mind threatening people to get your own way, do you?” he asked, looking down at me quizzically.

I shrugged one shoulder and kept tapping on the keyboard. “A girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do. I get sick of being patronised all the time. A bit of revenge gets me through the day.”

I typed for a while.

“I’m surprised how comfortable you are using the computer,” he commented casually, watching. “You know, for a country cop.”

I stared up at him, my fingers frozen on the keyboard. “What did I just say about how sick I am of being patronised all the time?”

He reddened. “Sorry Tess. I didn’t mean to.”

“How about a word of advice, Sarge? Every time you want to say something about me that’s going to end in the words “you know, for a country cop”, then don’t say it. It’s guaranteed to be patronising.” I smiled at him to take the sting out of the words, but I meant them.

“Point taken. I’ll endeavour to remember that in the future.”

I turned back to the screen, finished typing in my instructions and waited while it searched the database. The data it finally spat out ran for a couple of pages, and we had a quick squiz at it on the screen before I sent it to the printer, where four pages glided out silently and effortlessly. So different to the printer back at our station, which took a full five minutes to think about each and every page it printed, before screeching and groaning as it forced out the pages, every second one dog-eared and smudged and every dozen pages there would be a paper jam. I’d used every swear word I knew on that printer in the two years I’d lived with it and even made up a few new ones in its honour. Every time I’d complained about it though, Des just said that you couldn’t hurry things in the country. I’d never been entirely convinced he even knew what a printer was.

“Anything else you want me to look up while we’re here?” I asked. “What about a Google search of Greville properties or of Stanley Murchison himself?”

“Good thinking,” he said and I called up the Google homepage. I tried ‘Greville Mount Big Town’ and had a few hits, mostly reports from the
Wattling Bay Messenger
, reporting on sales of properties to various bodies. I printed all of those out as well. Then I typed in ‘Murchison and Murchison’ and got a few hits, the first one directing me to the law firm’s own website. Finally I typed in ‘Stanley Murchison’ and received a few hits as well, more stories from the
Wattling Bay Messenger
about his charity work and some about a couple of his successful and newsworthy trials in his younger, more mobile days. Interestingly, there were a few articles about various developments he’d been involved in over the years. I printed off those stories as well.

Then just for the hell of it, I searched the police database for Stanley Murchison and was surprised when it called up his name in relation to a major fraud case that had been investigated by the Big Town detectives about five years previously. He had been interviewed as the lawyer to a company accused of acting fraudulently, but hadn’t been accused of behaving unlawfully himself. I printed off what I could from that case, and gathered all our paperwork.

“Let’s get some lunch. I’m starving,” I said to the Sarge and we scrounged up a plastic wallet for our print-offs. We were on our way out when I was accosted.

“If it isn’t little Constable Tessie come visiting? What an honour,” called a voice from behind me. I pulled a face and groaned out loud when I heard it. “You come all the way to the big smoke just to mooch some stationery off us, have you? Why don’t you hold a cake stall to raise some money for your crappy little station? A pretty girl like you would be good in the kitchen. As well as some other rooms, I bet.” Said with a leer.

“You’re never likely to find out, are you, Bum?” I snapped.

There he was, larger than life. And he was pretty large – an enormous man, an obsessive bodybuilder with terrifying and unattractive muscularity, an overwhelming mistaken belief in his fatal magnetism to women and an obnoxiously thick and swaggering personality. Detective Constable Burn Grunion, or Bum Bunion as we all called him to his never-ending chagrin. You’d think after being called something your whole working life, you’d eventually become resigned to the fact that people were going to call you that whether you liked it or not. Not Bum Bunion though. What he lost in intelligence, he more than made up for in stubbornness.

I didn’t call him on the constable crack – he knew perfectly well that I was a senior constable. He just liked to get a rise from me. He just liked to get any reaction from me, being a bit like Denny Bycraft in that respect. In fact, he was just as annoying as a bunion on your bum would be, so he was well-nicknamed. Unfortunately, we had known each other a while, since we studied together at the police academy where I had bested him in every subject. And I was promoted before him as well.

“I gave your little friend Jenny a ride she won’t forget the other night,” he boasted loudly.

I grimaced.
Yuck!
What the hell was Jenny thinking? She must have been drunk out of her brain. I would have to have a stern talk to her. No woman was ever that desperate and I wanted her pouring her carnal urges into her running training. Besides, the gossip from the female cops in Big Town was that Bum Bunion was all talk and little action. And his equipment didn’t live up to his conceited promises either.

“Poor Jenny,” was all I said, before I turned away and continued heading to the exit. I was really hungry.

“Don’t turn your nose up at me, Tessie Fuller! You’d be better off shagging a decent cop like me than one of those Bycraft bastards!” he shouted after me. There was a general murmur of agreement around the room. Geez, that made me angry! It was nobody’s damn business who I slept with.

“
Nobody
wants to shag you, you ugly, knuckle-dragging, small-dicked meathead. Now fuck off and do some work for once,” shouted a husky, sexy voice from the stairs. Bum scooted away without a word, terror on his face. Then the voice turned its fury on me. “Teresa Fuller, where the hell do you think you’re going, you Bycraft-fucking whore? Get back here now!”

The Sarge tensed, eyes wary, ready to jump in and defend me physically, if necessary. That was surprising.

I spun around again. “Always charming as ever, ma’am,” I laughed and gave her a huge hug. I hadn’t seen her for a while.

She looked up at me. “You lying little bitch. You tell me you can’t make lunch today because you have to work, so I agree to fill in for that useless turdball Jerry. He says he’s got a bad back from gardening, but everybody knows that he hurt it wearing out his dick in a marathon wanking session last night. And now I find you waltzing around town with fucking . . .” She took a breath and turned to scrutinise the Sarge. Her demeanour didn’t change, even when she glanced over his tallness, well-balanced muscularity and nice eyes. She wasn’t easily impressed. Her eyes flicked back to me. “Who the fuck is this?”

“This is my new sergeant, Finn Maguire. Sarge, you may be surprised to learn that this person is my friend, the foul-mouthed harridan better known as Detective Inspector Fiona Midden. She’s also on my running team, if she’s managed to fit in any practice between all of her cigarette breaks.”

“Fuck off!” she laughed. “Jesus, you’re such a dictator. You’ll be growing a moustache and making us all goosestep together next. Anyway, I smoke while I train, don’t I?”

I don’t know how old Fiona was exactly – in her mid-fifties was my guess, she wouldn’t tell me – but her skin was so leathery and brown from years of smoking and sunbaking that she looked like a well-loved handbag that your grandma owned. She was small and rail-thin with a shock of short blonde hair and an ugly-pretty pixie face with a pointed chin, cute little nose and sharp pale blue eyes. Unexpectedly, she was quite a good runner and was a much better bet for finishing the eight kilometre race than either Jenny or Eliza who were much younger than her. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if she smoked through the whole race though, she was such a nicotine addict.

“Well, keep up the good work and I’ll talk to you soon. Take care and give my love to Ronnie,” I said. As I reached the door, I turned around to her. “Get those other two motivated as well. We’ve only got a few weeks to go.”

“What do I look like?” she shouted at me over her shoulder as she started climbing the stairs again, loud enough to make everybody on the entire floor, including members of the public, turn and listen. “A fucking life coach? Do it yourself, you lazy slut. I’ve got to work for a living. And I don’t have hot Bycraft cock to come home to like some lucky bitches.”

And while that instantly dried up everyone’s criticisms of my relationship with Jake, I cringed with embarrassment at her blunt talking as we left the building.

Back in the car, the Sarge turned to me. “Okay,
she
is abrasive, with a real mouth on her.”

I laughed. “That’s what most people say when they first meet her. I’m used to her though, having known her most of my life. She’s been a real mentor to me.”

He turned his head to me in disbelief. “Really?”

“Yes, really. She’s the inspector in charge of the detective team in Big Town, as tough as a commando and she doesn’t take any rubbish from anybody. The male cops are terrified of her, suspects confess after five minutes with her, and we female cops love her to bits. She’s a hardcore role model, and doesn’t care what anyone thinks. She’s one of the main reasons I decided to become a cop in the first place.”

I looked out the window for a moment only to see Mark Bycraft walking down the street, his arm around Dorrie Lebutt. They stopped and exchanged spit for a while, his hand up her top, hers down the front of his jeans, ignoring the disgusted glances from the decent citizens scurrying past them.
Holy hell, Dorrie was playing with fire!
Seeing Rick, seeing his cousin Mark and trying to come on to my Jake, all at the same time. I don’t know what she was playing at, but it was going to end in tears. Or worse. Mark and Dorrie must have assumed they were safe from prying eyes up here in Big Town.

I told the Sarge what I’d just seen, in case it turned ugly later on back home. I wasn’t the only person who visited Big Town on a regular basis, and Mark and Dorrie weren’t exactly being discreet. Rick would find out soon enough. And then
his
girlfriend, Stacey, would find out about him and Dorrie. There would be blood spilled in Little Town in the near future. And truth be told, there was nothing scarier than Bycraft versus Bycraft. They usually stuck together in times of trouble, but they fought one another like wild animals when they crossed each other. I only hoped that Jake didn’t become involved. He would be backing his brother Rick over his cousin Mark any day.

The Sarge took it in but didn’t say much, as usual. “I’m thinking that Little Town runs a lot deeper than I ever expected.”

“You thought you were being forced to go to a quiet country detail where you would die of boredom, didn’t you?”

He smiled faintly, but didn’t answer.
Probably didn’t want to incriminate himself
, I thought.

“Can we have some lunch soon? I’m starving. My day off’s not going the way I planned.” I didn’t mean to sound whiny, but I’m pretty sure that’s how it came across. But instead of heading into the nearest fast food place for a quick feed like I would have done, he pulled into the carpark of a small Mexican restaurant.

I wasn’t thrilled. “I need to eat fast, Sarge. I’m fading away,” I hinted. “Fried chicken or burgers are fast.”

“No Tess. You shouldn’t eat food like that. We can get some quick healthy food here.”

Sullenly I followed him into the restaurant, sure I would be waiting an hour to be fed, when every cell in my body was screaming at me to eat
right now!
We were seated immediately and our order was also taken quickly. I was convinced it was the uniform that sped everything along. In my experience, cops eating somewhere in uniform always provoked one of two responses – either the restaurateur was thrilled to have us there and lavished us with attention, or they couldn’t wait to get rid of us, trying not to cause any offence, but rushing us through the meal. This felt like a rush job, but that just might have been because the restaurant was busy in the lunchtime peak hour and the staff were rushing everyone.