Two Man Station Read online

  Section 364A(1).

  A person who, having the lawful care or charge of a child under 12 years, leaves the child for an unreasonable time without making reasonable provision for the supervision and care of the child during that time commits a misdemeanour.

  It came with a maximum penalty of three years imprisonment.

  It wouldn’t come to that. In the end, Jason probably wouldn’t even be charged with anything. He would be asked, behind the scenes, if he thought he might be better off in another line of work. Friendly tones at first, before they piled the pressure on. The exact same pressure they’d applied to Gio, most likely, because everything would have been so much easier if Gio had just gone away.

  And Jason really wanted to hate Gio for threatening to report him, but Gio was absolutely right.

  “If I went round to Janey Ferguson’s house and found out she’d left her kids alone for hours at night, you’d expect me to report it. Wouldn’t you?”

  Yes.

  Jason didn’t get a pass because of his job, or his personal circumstances, or because he made an effort to be a great dad the rest of the time. He didn’t get a pass for leaving his ten-year-old son alone in the house for hours some nights. It was neglect. Not the barefoot, dirty sort of neglect that the Ferguson kids wore, but neglect all the same, and nobody should get a pass on that.

  Jason spent all of Friday waiting for the call.

  He did a halfway meet with Charters Towers for the prisoner who’d assaulted Gio and Vicki the night before, handing him over on a dusty stretch of highway where there was room to pull over onto the shoulder. The air smelled of diesel fumes and dust. Insects chirped.

  The crew from Charters Towers loaded the prisoner into the back of their pod and then they stood around and talked for a few minutes while Paula, the sergeant, had a cigarette. She was middle-aged, bird-thin, and had short-cropped greying hair. Her partner—a fresh-faced guy in his twenties—towered over her.

  “So what’s the drum?” Paula asked, exhaling a cloud of smoke into the air.

  Jason thought of Gio sitting on the steps that night, and how lost he’d looked. “Same same.”

  Paula leaned on the side of the pod. “Living the dream, huh?”

  Jason snorted. “Something like that.”

  The hot breeze picked up dust and laid it down again in sheets across the highway, and Paula filled him in on some of the news from Charters Towers: transfers, retirements, and at least one messy divorce thanks to a messy affair.

  “So his wife’s fucked him off, and so’s his girlfriend,” Paula said, and let out a cackle. “The dickhead.” She tossed her butt into the dirt and ground it out with the toe of her boot. “That’s what you get for playing away from home.”

  Jason nodded.

  “Oh well,” Paula said at last, straightening up. “Drive safe.”

  “You too,” Jason said.

  He wondered if they would have been as sociable if Gio had been with him.

  He wondered how long it would be until he got the call from Gordy, letting him know just how fucked he was.

  The call didn’t come.

  On Saturday Gio had a day off, so when Janey Ferguson phoned the station that morning wanting to talk to the police, the details were passed on to Jason, who was starting at two. The call had diverted through to Policelink, and then Comms, and by the time Jason got the message, it had been through several layers of unintentional encryption. He sighed as he got the garbled incident details from an apologetic Comms operator, and as soon as he’d finished writing down the details, he changed into his uniform, dropped Taylor off at Kane’s house for the day, and headed around to Janey’s place.

  Janey was sitting at her rickety kitchen table, dressed in her ratty old dressing gown, with an overflowing ashtray in front of her. She put one cigarette out as Jason arrived, and lit another one straightaway.

  “I want to go to Gympie,” she said. “I want to get away from Harvey once and for all.” Her bottom lip, cracked and dotted with sores, trembled. “Being around Harvey’s not good for the kids.”

  Jason had been telling her that for years.

  He sat down opposite her. “Okay.”

  Janey crossed her skinny arms over her chest. “Mum said we can stay with her.”

  “That’s good.”

  Janey looked at him suspiciously, as though she thought he was going to pull the rug out from under her feet at any moment. “And that charity can get me and the kids bus tickets?”

  “Absolutely.” Jason reached into his pocket for his notebook. He set it on the table and flicked it open. “The woman at the DV Resource Centre I’ve been talking to is called Tracey. She knows all about you and the kids. I’ll give you her number.”

  Janey pressed her mouth into a thin line. “What about my furniture?”

  There was probably nothing in the house that was worth salvaging, but Jason kept that thought to himself. “Tracey said they can pay to get that sent down too. Janey, this is what Tracey does. She can answer all your questions if you give her a call.”

  “On a Saturday?” Janey scoffed.

  Jason wrote Tracey’s number on the back of one of his cards, and slid it across the table. “Call her. She’ll answer.”

  “It’s that easy, huh?”

  “I never said it was easy,” Jason said. “When you talk to Tracey, she’s going to tell you that the most dangerous time in a violent relationship is when you leave it. So it’s my job to make sure that Harvey stays in line. It’s up to you if you tell him or not, but this is a small town. He’s going to find out when the removalists’ van turns up. So my advice is to let me tell him.”

  Janey snorted. “Youse still haven’t found him from the last time!”

  “Yeah,” Jason said, and held her gaze. “So how about you tell me where he’s laying low?”

  Janey jutted out her chin.

  “Come on,” Jason said. “You tell me where he is, and I can have him in custody for the last breach while you and the kids are getting on the bus.”

  She snorted again, and then stubbed her cigarette out. “I’ll think about it.”

  “You do that,” Jason said, rising to his feet. “And call Tracey.”

  Janey nodded at him warily as he left.

  Jason spent the afternoon coordinating things with Tracey. If they could get Janey to agree, they could get her and the kids on the bus as soon as Tuesday. Janey and the kids would be better off down south, and it’d certainly make Jason’s job easier if Janey and Harvey weren’t assaulting each other with depressing regularity.

  He picked up Taylor from Kane’s place at about three, and drove him to Sandra’s.

  Taylor chewed his thumbnail on the drive, his forehead creased.

  “What’s up?” Jason asked him.

  Taylor turned his face towards him. “Can’t I just go home?”

  “No, you—”

  “Or I can drive around with you!” Taylor exclaimed.

  “I’m working, Taylor.”

  “I’d stay in the car and everything, Dad! Please!”

  “No.” Jason swallowed. “No, mate, you can’t do that.”

  Taylor scowled and slumped in his seat. He refused to speak to Jason when Jason dropped him off at Sandra’s house, and Sandra herself gave him a narrow look as she ushered Taylor inside.

  Jason drove back towards the station.

  Taylor hated him.

  Gio hated him.

  And Sandra, clearly, was done with his bullshit.

  Gio’s lights were still on after Jason had finished work and collected Taylor, so Jason waited until Taylor was asleep before he walked over to Gio’s. He climbed the back steps and knocked on the frame of the screen door. The screen rattled.

  The television was turned off, and a moment later Gio appeared. He looked sleep rumpled and sore. Jason wanted to rub his thumb gently along his split lip and soothe the pain away.

  Gio opened the back door. “Sarge.”

  �
�Don’t,” Jason said. “Not that shit again.”

  Gio raised his eyebrows.

  “Two days,” Jason said. “For two days I’ve been waiting to get a call saying you’ve put in a report to Child Safety about me. But you haven’t put one in, have you?”

  “Why?” Gio’s expression gave nothing away. “You thought I’d do it because I’m a dog?”

  “No. I thought you’d do it because you have every right to do it. Everything you said was true.” Jason’s throat ached. “I’m fucking up. I can’t do it. I thought I could, but I fucking can’t.”

  He’d told himself he was ready. Told himself there was space in his life now for somebody new, after Alana. He’d told himself that Gio could have been that person. But maybe the timing had just been wrong. Or maybe it hadn’t, but the person had. Maybe he and Gio should never have tried to be anything more than colleagues. And the stupid thing was, he still wanted to reach out and touch him, to see if it would all somehow fall into place again if he did.

  “Not nice, is it?” Gio asked bitterly. “Knowing there’s a shit-storm coming right at you.”

  “I’m sorry.” Jason shoved his hands in his pockets. “I should have talked to you before putting in the report about the Ratsak. But Gio, Jesus, it’s not just that I have an obligation to report bullying, it’s that it made me bloody furious, okay? It made me furious that they’re still coming after you. You’re here now, and they’ve got no fucking right.”

  Gio was silent for a moment, and then he shrugged. “I don’t need you to fight my battles for me, Jason.”

  “I know that.” Jason drew a deep breath. “And I should have talked to you first. But I couldn’t ignore it, Gio. Not professionally, and not personally either.”

  Gio huffed out a breath. “And around and around we go.”

  “I’m sorry.” Jason wanted to card his fingers through Gio’s curls. He wanted to suck up marks on his skin and drag his mouth against the scrape of his stubble. He wanted to listen to the way Gio laughed and squirmed under Jason’s touch, but he kept his hands by his sides. “Maybe . . . maybe there was no way this was ever going to end well. I’m sorry. I hope we can still work together.”

  Gio’s dark eyes were unreadable. He jerked his chin in a nod. “Yes, Sarge.”

  Jason had no right to ask for anything more. He nodded, and then turned and walked away.

  Monday morning dawned overcast, and Jason wondered if they had more flooding to look forward to. He got Taylor off to school, and spent the morning getting the house into order: vacuuming, scrubbing the grout in the shower, replacing the washer in the leaking tap in the kitchen sink, and getting some washing done. The cat glared at him malevolently from the top of the tool cupboard.

  He went and bought groceries, and a ten-dollar iTunes card for Taylor. Ten dollars in a vain attempt to assuage his guilt.

  The kid had to get armour for his dinosaurs, right?

  Jason started work at two. He arrived at the station a few minutes early. Gio was sitting at his desk, and Sandra was leaning over his shoulder pointing at something on the screen. Google maps.

  “Hey.” Jason nodded at them.

  “Jason,” Sandra said.

  Gio nodded. “Sarge.”

  “I was just showing Gio where Dingo Creek Station is,” Sandra said.

  “They’ve had a break,” Gio said. “Weapons’ safe broken into.”

  “Huh,” Sandra said. “That’s what they say, but half these cockies don’t even lock the damn things in the first place.”

  “True,” Jason muttered. “Dingo Creek’s right next door to Windermere, the Howes’ property.”

  “Next door in this place can mean a hundred k’s though,” Gio said. “And I’d rather not get lost on my way there and become the subject of a search and rescue.”

  Sandra snorted and patted him on the shoulder. “It’s important to keep your goals realistic, city boy.”

  Gio laughed. He had a beautiful laugh. Jason had missed it.

  “If you want some company, I’ll head out with you,” Jason said.

  Gio’s laugh faded. He looked faintly surprised that Jason had offered. “Sure. I was just going to call them this afternoon, and leave it for tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” Jason said. “Well, the offer still stands for tomorrow.”

  Gio nodded, a faint flush of colour rising in his cheeks. “Thanks, Sarge.”

  Jason went to his office and opened his email. He glanced up when Sandra entered and set a cup of coffee on his desk. She peered at him over her glasses.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with you,” she said at last, “but I would very much appreciate it if you sorted it out.”

  “Yeah, I—”

  “Oh, Jason, that ‘you’ was plural.” She raised her eyebrows. “As in, you and Gio both. I’d tell you not to shit where you eat, but I have a feeling I’m a little late when it comes to dishing out advice, aren’t I?”

  Jason froze. “Was . . . was it obvious?”

  “Drink your coffee,” Sandra said, “and give yourself an uppercut in the meantime. I know you, Jason. Of course it was bloody obvious.” Her expression softened. “You looked almost happy for about half a second there. It’s been a while.”

  Jason swallowed around the ache in his throat.

  “Drink your coffee,” she repeated, and left the door ajar when she walked out.

  Jason stared at his emails, wondering vaguely at the wisdom of marking them as read when he wasn’t actually taking anything in, but experience had taught him at least ninety percent of them were bullshit. He closed his email, opened QPRIME, and checked his outstanding tasks. Tick-and-flick stuff, mostly, but nothing he felt like tackling quite yet. There were some new tasks that had been generated overnight and sent to Jason as the OIC. Jason went through them, and forwarded several to Gio. There was nothing too complicated in them. Finalising crime reports. Chasing up overdue statements or withdrawals of complaint. Tracking down a witness for an incident that had occurred in Blackall several months ago, who had now moved here. Admin stuff.

  They could work together still.

  Jason could be Gio’s boss and his friend without needing more.

  Jason worked until he heard Taylor’s voice coming from the dayroom. He walked out to meet him, and found him seated at the spare desk, unzipping his backpack and pulling his homework out. Taylor was chattering away at his usual rate of knots, and Gio was listening with a faint smile on his face.

  “And then Cassidy’s friend Becky told Kane that Cassidy likes me,” Taylor said. “But Cassidy’s the one I threw up on that time, so that can’t be right.”

  “Well, Cassidy probably knows that was an accident,” Gio suggested.

  “I dunno.” Taylor chewed his bottom lip. “If someone threw up on me, I’d be pretty annoyed about it still.”

  Jason snorted. “Clearly Cassidy’s a better person than you are.”

  “Dad!” Taylor exclaimed, obviously caught between outrage and delight. “You’re supposed to be on my side!”

  Gio laughed.

  “Jason.”

  Jason wasn’t sure what it was about Sandra’s voice that immediately caught his attention. Her tone was low, almost whispered, as if she couldn’t push out enough air behind the word. He didn’t even know how he’d heard it over Taylor.

  “Jason.”

  It caught him because he’d never heard Sandra sound afraid before.

  Jason held up his hand to forestall whatever Taylor was going to say next, and stepped through the open doorway into Sandra’s workspace behind the front counter.

  The grill was locked open. It didn’t matter, because it was a fucking grill. Open or closed, it wouldn’t have provided any protection at all against Brian Howe and the Tikka T3 Lite he was currently pointing at Sandra from the foyer.

  Brian turned as Jason appeared, swinging the barrel of the rifle around to face Jason.

  “You cunt,” Brian said. “You fucking cunt.”
r />   “Put it down, Brian,” Jason said, and how the hell was his voice so calm? How was it, when Sandra was right there beside him, when Taylor was only metres away?

  “She’s gone! Patricia’s gone and left me!”

  The most dangerous time in a violent relationship.

  “Put it down, Brian,” Jason repeated, his heart pounding.

  “You ruined my fucking life!” Brian said, his voice hardening, and in that moment, Jason knew there was nothing he could do to stop this. His blood turned to ice.

  No.

  No no no.

  Taylor.

  Brian fired.

  “You ruined my fucking life!”

  Gio grabbed Taylor by the wrist, and thrust him behind him. “Get under the desk. Stay down.”

  Taylor scurried to obey. Gio unholstered his Glock, and held it out in front of him. He couldn’t see into the foyer from the dayroom, and he could only see a fraction of Sandra’s workspace behind the counter. He couldn’t see Jason or Sandra.

  A shot rang out.

  Gio heard a body hit the floor.

  He stepped into the doorway.

  Brian Howe with a rifle. Sandra standing there. And Jason was on the floor, blood pumping out of his chest. It took a fraction of a second to take it all in, and to act, while at the same time his brain was making the connection between the stolen firearms from Dingo Creek Station and this moment.

  Gio fired. Once. Twice. He aimed for Brian’s body mass, just like he’d always been taught. Once, twice, and then Brian was down, screaming and moaning and bleeding everywhere, and Gio vaulted over the counter and into the foyer, because Brian was down and he had to stay down. He kicked the rifle out of Brian’s reach, watching his hands, not his face. Hands.

  The Glock was shaking in Gio’s grasp. He grabbed his radio.

  “VKR, Richmond Station. Urgent.” He sucked in a shaking breath, gaze still fixed on Brian’s hands. Brian’s fingers twitched. “Urgent!”

  “Richmond Station, go.”

  “I have—” His hand shook so much his thumb slipped off the microphone button for a second. “I need an ambulance, VKR. The sergeant’s been shot. The offender’s been shot too. Oh fuck.” A sound like a sob tore out of his throat. “I need help, VKR.”