‘Girl in her twenties, apparently. Stabbed at the pub.’
‘Hmm.’ Hayley snorted a rueful, one note-laugh. ‘Which one of Redbelly’s slithering slimebags has gone and done that, then?’
‘Dunno yet.’
‘Plenty out there to choose from,’ Hayley said.
RUSSELL
We got almost all the way to Glenorie in silence so thick and loud it thrummed in my brain; heavier than the roar of my Mustang. And it’s an old Mustang, with a throaty growl and a loose alternator belt. Bridie is tall, like me, so she curled up in her seat in a jumble of legs, like a greyhound on an undersized dog bed, and watched the suburbs become steadily bushier until the horizon had disappeared and we were surrounded by tall, pale gums.
When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I said, ‘I’m really sorry about this.’
She probably thought I just meant the past hour, when really I meant the past ten years, so she said, ‘It’s not your fault. It’s work.’
‘It kind of is my fault, though.’
‘How?’
I cleared my throat. ‘I might have given a drug dealer a little love tap yesterday. This case is my punishment.’
‘You hit a guy?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why?’ Bridie turned slightly in her seat. I felt her eyes on my face, gripped the steering wheel hard, told myself this week was about being completely honest.
‘Um. Well. I’d been called in to take a look at his apartment in Hillsdale. There were bullet holes all over it. The guy’s girlfriend had called the cops because they’d been robbed for a bunch of electronics. And she shouldn’t have done that, because, you know … Itwas an obvious dealer house.’ I shifted in my seat. ‘So her boyfriend, he was pissed already. Then the girlfriend starts telling me that there’s not only electronics missing from the apartment but cash, too. Lots of it. And I ask why there’s so much cash lying around. And the boyfriend grabs her to shut her up.’
‘He grabbed her?’
‘Yeah. Hard. So, I … you know …’
‘You smacked him one.’
‘I did.’ I looked over at Bridie.
We both fell silent. Bridie’s face was unreadable. I’d punched someone in front of her once, and the guilt about that was like a splinter in my brain. We settled back into the swampy, suffocating silence. My phone was buzzing in my pocket. I rounded a curve and the small township of Glenorie opened up in front of us, a big Woolworths car park and a cluster of shops hugging a little road leading into the suburb. There was a giant fibreglass meat pie sitting on top of a trailer off to the side of the road, big as a kiddie pool.
‘I need coffee.’ I started pulling over. ‘I was up all night filling in reports and stuff for clipping the junkie. Do you, uh … do you drink coffee?’
‘I do.’
I slipped my wallet from my pocket and handed it to her. ‘Maybe you could go grab us some supplies while I get started on those thousands of phone calls.’
She took the wallet wordlessly and got out. The relief her absence brought made me break out in a sweat. This was like the worst date I’d ever been on in my life. I finally answered the unknown number. ‘Yeah?’
‘Gunther Powder?’
‘It’s Russell. Who’s this?’
‘Oh. Right. It’s Senior Sergeant Louis Dodge here, from Wisemans Ferry Area Command. I’m calling because—’
‘Okay, so for you it’s “Detective Inspector Powder”, then. Or “Sir”.’
There was silence on Dodge’s end of the line, a beat while the rural cop switched gears and started pedalling hard to catch up.‘Right. Of course.Detective Inspector… I was just checking on your ETA. I’ve got the scene held down, but … I don’t know if you want a sitrep now, or when you get here, or …?’
‘What do you mean you’ve got it “held down”?’ I let my voice, which was already tight, tighten further. ‘Get it through your head now, Dodge, that cop speak terms like “sitrep” and “held down” annoy the shit out of me. What’s the scene?’
