Lights and Sirens Read online

  Grandad snorted.

  It was a while before Matt got a reply back: I’m over Greg’s bullshit.

  You ok?

  Another hour before Hayden’s answer: Finishing up now. Gonna sleep at my place. Need to wash my uniforms before tomorrow. Talk to you later.

  Ok.

  Thursday was a fatal traffic crash on the Bruce Highway. Matt and Sean were working on a stealing complaint, but they heard the job given out over the radio. Two vehicles. Entrapments. Multiple injuries. Possible fatalities. The highway was blocked in both directions.

  Sean winced and sucked a breath in through his clenched teeth. “Sounds bad.”

  “Mmm.” Matt turned his radio down as they approached their complainant for the stealing so she didn’t hear it.

  When he got the chance, he sent a text to Hayden: Did you get sent to that fatal?

  He took Hayden’s lack of response to mean that yes he had been, and that he was up to his neck in it at the moment.

  Matt and Sean grabbed an early lunch from Subway at The Lakes, and ate it back at the station while Sean entered the occurrence for the stealing and guiltily picked shreds of lettuce from the keyboard. Matt took the opportunity to catch up on his emails. By 11 a.m. they were back on the road and on their way to keep the peace while a man attended his ex-partner’s address to collect property. They had a history of domestic violence, and, annoying as it was to play babysitter to grown adults, it was better to stand there for half an hour or so to make sure it all went smoothly than risk a repeat of yesterday’s stabbing.

  The rest of the shift was routine enough that Matt was able to check his phone a lot, but Hayden hadn’t answered yet. At one thirty he and Sean were heading back to the station to tidy up their paperwork before finishing their shift at two.

  “VKR to any unit able to attend a job code five-one-three in Hermit Park.”

  Fuck. This close to knock off.

  Sean reached for the radio, but hesitated for a moment, probably thinking the exact same thing.

  “VKR to any unit.” The dispatcher sounded tense. “Five-one-three in Hermit Park. CPR in progress.”

  Matt nodded.

  “Two-oh-six, VKR,” Sean said. “We’re in Walker Street.”

  “Two-oh-six, you’re authorised Code Two. I’ll go with details when you’re ready.”

  Matt flipped the sirens on, and stepped on the accelerator.

  The little boy was only about two or three years old, and he was laid out on the deck beside the pool. He was wearing a pair of bright yellow shorts, and a single plastic sandal. A Spiderman shirt lay discarded beside him. His other sandal was bobbing on the surface of the pool still.

  Hayden and Greg were crouched over the boy, a pocket mask discarded beside them. Too big for such a tiny face, maybe. The heel of Hayden’s hand was positioned on the boy’s sternum. He was counting compressions. As Matt watched, Hayden leaned down and breathed quickly into the boy’s mouth. The boy’s thin little chest expanded.

  The wires from the defibrillator snaked over the small body. The machine was beeping, the display showing a reading that Matt didn’t understand.

  Hayden gave him a second breath, and then straightened up again.

  Greg pressed his fingers against the boy’s throat. He leaned over to look at the defibrillator, and then shook his head. “No shockable rhythm.”

  Hayden continued his compressions.

  The boards on the deck were damp, but not soaking wet. The boy’s curls were standing out from his head, not plastered to it. How long had they been at this?

  A woman sat in a chair on the deck. She was wearing gym gear. Her wet hair dripped down her back. Her gaze was fixed on some indeterminate point above where the ambos were working on the boy, as though she couldn’t bring herself to either watch or to look away.

  Matt crouched beside the chair. “Hey. My name’s Matt. What’s your name?”

  She stared at him blankly for a moment. “Clare.”

  “What’s your little fellah’s name?”

  “Zach.” She clapped her hands over her mouth. “Oh my god. Oh my god.”

  “Can you tell me what happened, Clare?” Matt tried not to flinch as he heard Greg’s terse “No shockable rhythm” from over by the poolside again.

  “I was on my exercise bike.” She blinked, and tears slid down her pale face. “I thought—I thought he was having a nap. I don’t know—” She shuddered suddenly, violently. “I don’t know how he got through the fence!”

  “Okay.” Matt stood, and drew Sean aside. He lowered his voice. “Go out the front and call VKR. Get them to find out if there’s another ambulance coming for the mum. And ask them to send the DDO out here.”

  Sean hurried away.

  Matt crossed over to Hayden and Greg. Hayden’s face was a mask of concentration, so fixated on his patient that Matt doubted he even knew he was there. Greg looked up at him, and shook his head minutely.

  Matt’s stomach twisted, and a wave of dread, cold and dark, rose up in him. He went and stood by Clare as she rocked back and forth in her seat, her hands moving restlessly as though searching for something to hold.

  The minutes ticked by interminably.

  Matt thought of that First Aid refresher course. He thought of Hayden’s laughter, and his bag of red frogs, and of the way he’d told them to continue CPR until the ambos took over, a medical professional told them to stop, or they couldn’t physically continue. The first two didn’t apply in Hayden’s case, and Matt wondered how long until the third became an inevitability.

  Hayden leaned back, rolling his shoulders. “That’s three cycles.”

  “No pulse,” Greg said. He took the boy’s tiny arm and slid a cannula into it. Then he retracted the needle, disposing of it in the sharps container sticking out of his bag, and fastened a valve onto the end of the cannula.

  Hayden’s hand still rested on the little boy’s chest, his blue gloves stark and bright against the boy’s pallor. He rubbed his thumb over the boy’s skin as he watched Greg work.

  Greg injected something into the cannula.

  Matt felt sick with anticipation as he waited for something to happen—for anything to happen—but nothing did.

  “No shockable rhythm,” Greg repeated, and Hayden wordlessly began another round of compressions.

  In the pool, the little plastic sandal bobbed and spun in an eddy created by the filter.

  Matt had never waited longer to hear sirens in his life.

  Sean reappeared with a second ambulance crew in tow. They slotted in beside Hayden and Greg, and transitioned smoothly. Hayden scooted backwards, away from the edge of the pool, and slumped down in the shade. He sat there, arms resting on his drawn-up knees, his head bowed.

  Gordy the DDO turned up soon after with a pair of detectives from the Child Protection Unit, and a supervisor from the Ambulance Service on their heels. All these people, Matt thought wildly, for such a tiny boy.

  Such a tiny boy who’d probably been dead long before his mum pulled him out of the pool.

  It was late by the time Matt and Sean finished at work.

  “That was…that was something today,” Sean said, shoving his gear in his locker. He closed the door and it bounced back. He slammed it again, the sound reverberating sharply in the basement room, and then leaned his forehead against it. “Fuck.”

  Matt put a hand on his shoulder. “You want to talk about it?”

  Sean snorted. “Pretty sure you can’t give me a pep talk for this, Matt.”

  “I’m pretty sure you’re right,” Matt agreed. “But talking helps.”

  Sean sighed, and then straightened up and turned around. “I think I’m going to be hearing his mum screaming for a long time.”

  A chill rose in Matt. “Yeah.”

  “Zach! Zach! Zachy!”

  If Matt never heard the name again, it’d be too soon.

  Sean twisted his mouth. “I’m fine.” And then, in response to Matt’s look: “I’ll be
fine. You should go and check in with Hayden, yeah?”

  “Yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

  “Let’s do it all again,” Sean said dryly.

  Matt smiled despite himself, and hefted his bag onto his shoulder. He left the station, but instead of heading for the car park, he turned down Stanley Street towards Hayden’s place.

  He called Hayden on the way, to make sure he’d be there to buzz him in.

  “Bring beer,” Hayden said.

  Dusk was turning the sky pink and orange and purple when Matt stepped out onto the balcony of Hayden’s apartment after Monique let him in. Hayden was leaning back in one of the chairs, his fingers curled around the neck of a beer bottle.

  “I knew it wasn’t going to work,” he said. “He was already cold. He’d probably been there a while.” His voice rasped, and he took a swig of beer. “I couldn’t stop with his mum looking at me though, could I?”

  Matt sat down in the seat beside him. Watching today had been difficult enough. He didn’t want to think about what it would have felt like if he’d had to touch the little boy. Feel his skin. His curls. The pressure of his small chest expanding with the breath he pushed into him, while knowing that it wasn’t making any difference at all.

  Hayden’s eyes were red rimmed when he turned his gaze to Matt. “Three.”

  “Three what?”

  “Two fatalities at that accident, and then the little kid.” Hayden’s mouth twisted into something too sour to be considered a smile. “One of the fatalities at the accident was a seventeen-year-old girl. What a waste, I thought. She never even got the chance to have a life. I figured that was the shittiest job I’d get for a while, you know?”

  Matt winced.

  “Yeah,” Hayden said. “Fuck you, universe, for going one better.” He exhaled heavily, and then seemed to shake himself awake. “Did you bring more beer?”

  “Nope.”

  “Arsehole.” There was no heat in the word.

  “Have you eaten yet?” Matt asked.

  “I’m not hungry.” Hayden set his beer bottle down on the tiles with a hollow clink. Empty.

  “Come on.” Matt stood up, and held his hand down for Hayden, who rolled his eyes, but took it, and allowed Matt to draw him to his feet and into an embrace. He was resistant for a moment, and then the taut line of his shoulders gave way and he leaned into Matt on a long sigh. Matt brushed his fingers over the short hairs at the nape of Hayden’s neck and breathed in his scent. He smelled faintly of antiseptic.

  A shitty day in a so-far shitty week, and things like this…they had a way of digging into the mind and staying there. Matt could brush off most stuff, but he still carried around the ghosts of a few jobs and probably always would. Some things, and not always the ones he expected, were hard to get past.

  The nature of the job.

  Matt had learned to use that phrase to excuse so much, when it wasn’t the nature of the job that was the problem at all, was it? It was the nature of the universe; the job just tied a bow around it and shoved it right in his face.

  “Today was a bad day,” Hayden murmured, his voice cracking and his breath hot against Matt’s throat. “A really bad day.”

  Matt swallowed around the ache in his throat. “I know.”

  “Jesus fuck.” Hayden straightened up, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I’m just… I’m over today, Matt.”

  His mouth quirked, as though he recognised the gulf between what he was feeling and the inadequate words he had to express it. He looked tired. He looked angry, and helpless, and bitter and miserable, and a thousand other things that were exactly how Matt felt too, all of them competing for space inside his skin.

  Matt held his breath as he watched him, unsure which emotion would win out for now.

  And then Hayden’s shoulders slumped, and he shook his head. There was a trace of his customary humour in the quick smile he flashed at Matt. “I’m just tired. Thanks, though, for coming to check on me.” He raised his eyebrows. “Are you okay?”

  “Just tired,” Matt echoed, and they both let the lie hang in the air between them as the dusk softened into night.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN

  Hayden didn’t sleep well the night after Zach drowned.

  He sat out on the balcony for a few hours after Matt left, feet propped against the railings, and played dumb games on his phone long past when tiredness had transformed into fatigue. His shoulders ached. His abdomen and his thighs did. It had been a while since he’d done CPR for so long. He’d be even more sore tomorrow.

  He closed his stinging eyes. When he opened them again, his vision was fuzzy. A stream of headlights blurred into a smear of light on the other side of the creek, and he blinked to clear his vision.

  There was no horror story in Hayden’s past, but there was a recurring nightmare of screaming and screaming and screaming while someone carried him out of his mother’s flat. He must have been five, maybe six. His memories of that time of his life were hazy, but sometimes, stepping into some filthy house with holes in the wall and kids covered in lice, he got a rush of something that felt like recognition. He wondered how much of that was memory, and how much was just putting the pieces together as an adult, filling in the gaps in his memory with the knowledge gained by experience.

  There was some part of his mind—the part that still belonged to that screaming kid maybe—that couldn’t let go of the unfairness of a world where he’d been born to a mother who’d never given a damn about him and probably hadn’t even noticed when he’d gone, but mothers like Zach’s mum would have given anything to turn back the clock on today and spent a lifetime hating themselves the moment’s inattention that had cost them everything.

  It was an unfair comparison, but his brain wouldn’t let it go.

  When he finally dragged himself to bed, sleep didn’t come. His alarm was set for five in the morning, and didn’t doze off until around one, after hours of tossing and turning, tasting phantom chlorine on his lips.

  The taste of it was still with him the next morning. His eyes stung from the too-bright light of day, and he wore his sunglasses at work and tried not to listen to Greg ramble on about the football, or the cricket, or the V8 supercars, or whatever the fuck it was that Greg was rambling on about.

  Hayden curled his shaking fingers around his seatbelt and his heart tumbled over a few missed beats whenever the radio crackled. It felt like the seatbelt was the only thing keeping him anchored. Keeping him from opening the door and falling out into traffic.

  Tired. He was just tired.

  Not dissociating.

  Tired.

  He needed to sleep, that was all.

  When they were stopped in traffic he let his eyes slide shut.

  It was Matt’s bed he thought of. Matt’s bed in that sturdy little house at the base of Castle Hill that Matt was fixing nail by nail. The floorboards that groaned, the click of Charlie’s claws as he moved from room to room, Joe’s old leather armchair creaking as he settled in it to watch TV. The way the dust motes hung in the light that spilled in from outside. The slow, lazy rhythms of the hours that Hayden had spent under that roof.

  He jolted awake when the lights changed and the ambulance lurched forward.

  He glanced at Greg, and found him looking back, mouth pressed into a disapproving line.

  Fuck him.

  Hayden turned and stared out the passenger window.

  If he’d been partnered with Kate, no way in hell would they have started today’s shift with nothing more than a curt nod. Not after yesterday. They would have started the day with an abomination of a coffee—double shots of caramel, whipped cream, and more sugar than in anyone’s recommended daily intake—and then they would have talked, dragging normality back into their day with every word—the conversation forced at first, but not by the end.

  Hayden didn’t have that familiarity with Greg. When Greg talked, Hayden didn’t want to join in. Hayden wanted to punch
him in the face. So yeah. Silence was the safer option, probably. Silence and fatigue.

  Hayden turned his phone over and over in his hand, sliding the pad of his thumb over the dark screen. Was Matt even working this morning? Hayden had lost track of Matt’s roster somewhere in the fug of his mind. Maybe he wasn’t at work. Maybe he was still in bed, relaxed and sleep mussed, his expensive new air conditioner humming quietly.

  Hayden closed his eyes, and the over-bright voice of the dispatcher jerked him into wakefulness again. He reached out for the radio before he registered what he was doing: muscle memory.

  His voice rasped a little as he told the dispatcher to go ahead with details.

  His hand shook as he wrote the address down.

  It was going to take all the coffee in the world to get through today and make it to the other side.

  Mrs. Marchetta lived in the retirement village off Fulham Road, in a small unit that smelled faintly of vinegar. A collection of plastic saints, faded by the sun, lined the window sill behind the kitchen sink. She had wispy white hair, skin as thin as paper, and a cut on hand that had dripped blood onto her pristine floor tiles. The knife still sat on the cutting board, a half-sliced tomato beside it.

  Her son, a middle-aged man in a bright orange workman’s shirt, loomed over Hayden and Greg anxiously as they worked.

  “There we go,” Hayden said, finishing up with the tape. “Who’s your GP?”

  “I go to the medical centre in Currajong,” Mrs. Marchetta said. “I usually see Dr. Gupta.”

  Hayden nodded. “Okay, so you can either go there and get it stitched up, or we can take you up to the hospital.”

  “Oh!” Mrs. Marchetta looked faintly surprised. “It needs stitches then?”

  “I told you it did, Mum,” her son grizzled.

  The son had been the one who called the ambulance, and had been berating his mother gently when they’d arrived, because she should have called them herself instead of getting him to come over first. It wasn’t that he’d been called away from work that annoyed him. It was that she hadn’t also called the ambulance at the same time, and she’d sat here bleeding into a tea towel for at least half an hour because of it by the time Hayden and Greg arrived.