Two Man Station Read online

  There was a television hanging from the ceiling above his bed. It was on, the volume muted. It was playing an ad for a rug warehouse, the salesman leering manically at the camera. Rugs! Rugs! Rugs! The address of the place was at Domain on Duckworth Street. Jason blinked at the screen.

  So he was in Townsville Hospital?

  There was a narrow counter on the wall opposite. It was bursting with flowers and balloons. How the hell long had he been out?

  When the nurse came in to check on him, Jason asked, “What happened?”

  “I’ll go and get the doctor, and she can—”

  He grunted. “No. What happened at the station?”

  Taylor was okay, but what about Gio? What about Sandra? And what had happened to Brian Howe? Because Jason hoped to hell that fucking arsehole was sitting in a cell somewhere. He thought Jason had ruined his life? Jason hadn’t even fucking started.

  The monitor beeped as his heart rate rose.

  “Take it easy,” the nurse said. “I’ll get someone to come and see you.”

  Jason closed his eyes for a moment and licked his dry lips. He was cold, and bone weary. He opened his eyes, and then wiggled his toes just to make sure he could.

  The door to his room opened, and a barrel-shaped middle-aged man stepped through. He was wearing a scowl, as though Jason had personally offended him by getting shot.

  “G’day, Jase,” he drawled.

  “Hey, Gordy.” Jason wet his lips again.

  “Well, look at you lying around, you lazy bugger.”

  “Yeah, that’s me. Lazy.” Jason fought for breath. “What happened?”

  “Sandra and Valeri are fine.” Gordy had dark bags under his eyes, and Jason wondered how long he’d been waiting around at the hospital. “Valeri shot Brian Howe. Fatally.”

  “He okay?”

  “Fatally,” Gordy repeated, deadpan.

  “Gio.” Jason tried not to laugh. It would hurt like fuck. “Arsehole.”

  “That’s Senior Sergeant Arsehole to you, thanks very much.” Gordy grunted. “I haven’t spoken to Valeri. His union rep’s got him locked down tighter than a nun’s knickers, which is a good thing. It’s a total clusterfuck, as per the standard operating procedures of the Queensland Police Service, but there’s no reason he can’t come out of this smelling like roses. They might be falling over themselves down south hoping this is what’ll fuck him up for good, but word has it the assistant commissioner is going in to bat for him with the commissioner.”

  “Good,” Jason said, pushing the word out with some difficulty. He pressed the button for more morphine. “Gotta have his back, Gordy. Someone’s gotta have his back.”

  And maybe Jason couldn’t be that guy anymore, but someone had to be.

  He dozed off into sleep.

  Jason was too tired to really care what the doctors told him. He had broken ribs and a collapsed lung, although of course the doctors gave it to him first in words that showed why they were the experts and Jason wasn’t: hemothorax, bruising of the lungs, subcutaneous emphysema, tearing of the thoracic wall, and a fracture of the breastbone. He was looking at a recovery time of between one and three months. Longer than that to be considered fit for more than desk duties.

  He was alive though. That seemed to be the thing worth focussing on.

  “Daaad!” Taylor screeched as he burst through the door to Jason’s hospital room. He flung himself towards Jason’s bed, and Jason braced for what was going to hurt like fucking hell, only to be spared at the last minute when the woman escorting Taylor caught him by the collar of his shirt and hauled him back.

  “Come here,” Jason said. “Gently, mate.”

  Taylor leaned over him, burying his face against Jason’s shoulder and sobbing quietly. “I thought you were dead!”

  “I’m sorry,” Jason told him, tears stinging his eyes. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  Taylor refused to leave his side for the next few days. He was staying with Melinda, Jason learned. Jason had met her on a few courses, and had liked her. She was a senior constable in Intel, and a peer support officer who’d put her hand up to look after Taylor while he was in Townsville. She lived close to the hospital, and had kids of her own. She was nice, and her husband was nice, but Taylor wanted to go home. Who was feeding the cat, Dad?

  The HSO from District Office who came to check in on Jason made sure she spoke to Taylor as well, but Jason was fairly sure he didn’t need a trained psychologist to diagnose Taylor’s sudden clinginess, and his regression to almost babyish behaviour. And Jason didn’t do a lot to dissuade him either. He was feeling pretty bloody clingy himself. He convinced his nurses to put all the tubes and apparatus to his right side, so Taylor could cuddle up on his left.

  Things with his parents were awkward. While Jason was grateful they’d made the trip down from Cairns, he couldn’t help but think of the last time he’d seen them, after Alana’s funeral.

  “You can’t look after him on your own, Jason,” his mother had said, her face twisted with desperate hope. “Let us take him for a while.”

  “Get the fuck out of my house.”

  They’d never liked Alana. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. They’d liked her fine up until the weekend they’d surprised Jason with a visit to Townsville, and had walked in to find Alana in bed with Graham.

  “I just don’t know, Jason. I just don’t know why you’d want to go out with a girl who’s also sleeping with someone else.”

  “I’m sleeping with him too, Mum.”

  On his wedding day, his father had taken him aside and helped him adjust his tie. He’d smiled at Jason and patted him on the shoulder, and Jason had smiled in return, jittery with nerves.

  “It’s not too late to back out, son.”

  He hadn’t totally cut them out of his life. He’d sent birthday cards and Christmas cards, and received them in return. It had been enough. He’d had no intention of welcoming them back into his life until they showed his wife some respect. And then, when she was gone, they’d swooped in like vultures. Like the slate had been made clean now that Jason had buried Alana, and bygones could be bygones. He knew they blamed Alana for forcing Jason to take a side. It had never occurred to them to blame themselves.

  They were solicitous now, careful not to mention Alana. They bought Taylor presents, and fretted over his clinginess with Jason.

  “Dad, he doesn’t want to go to the park,” Jason said. Taylor was tucked in against his side, playing a game on his iPad.

  “Oh, he shouldn’t stay cooped up in here all day,” his dad said with a forced laugh.

  “He doesn’t know you.”

  His mother clicked her tongue. “And whose fault is that, Jason?”

  Jason raised his eyebrows. “You tell me, Mum.”

  She couldn’t answer that.

  Taylor set his game aside when his grandparents left, and reached for the controls for the bed. He eased them up slowly, and they watched the television for a while, and caught that same crazy ad. Rugs! Rugs! Rugs! Then Taylor shot Jason a worried glance.

  “Dad, if you’d died, who would I live with?”

  “Your mum’s parents.” Jason lifted his hand and scrubbed his knuckles gently against Taylor’s hair. “You remember visiting them that time? They live on the farm in Victoria.”

  Taylor wrinkled his nose. “I think I remember a cow?”

  “Yeah,” Jason said. “A dairy cow licked your face and you cried.”

  “I cried?”

  “You were four, and it took you by surprise.”

  Taylor’s expression grew anxious. “Dad, I don’t know them either.”

  “Mate, I . . .” Jason swallowed. “I can’t promise you that nothing bad is going to happen again. I wish I could, but I can’t. But it is my fault you don’t know Grandma and Grandpa O’Keefe as well as you should. When I get better, how about we go and visit them?”

  Taylor nodded solemnly. “What about Gio?”

  A jolt of surprise ran through
Jason. “What about him?”

  “Will he come with us? Is he your boyfriend?”

  “No.” Jason rubbed his hand carefully across his aching chest. “That didn’t work out.”

  Taylor chewed his bottom lip. “He’s still our friend though, right?”

  “Yeah,” Jason said, and hoped it was true. “Gio’s still our friend.”

  Jason thought a lot about Gio in that first week after surgery. Every time a stranger appeared in his room and introduced themselves as a fellow copper, bringing along books, or magazines, or stuff for Taylor, Jason thought of Gio.

  Everyone always talked about how the police looked after their own. Jason had always seen that as something to be proud of, and his experience now was nothing but positive. Gio’s hadn’t been, though. Would these same men and women who were taking time out of their schedules to visit some guy they didn’t even know, just because he wore the same uniform, have turned against Gio down on the Gold Coast? Jason’s hospital room was full of flowers from people he’d never met, from all corners of the state, and all sections of the Service. Jason couldn’t help wondering if someone who’d thrown in a few dollars to brighten his room was the same person who’d sent him Ratsak in the mail. Because they’d been a united front on the Gold Coast as well.

  It was good that the assistant commissioner was willing to go in to bat for Gio, but Jason worried about more than his job. Was he okay? Was someone there for him? Listening when he needed to talk. Sitting with him when he didn’t. There were times when Jason clung to Taylor a little too tightly. When, out of nowhere, some switch flicked in his brain and he was staring at Brian Howe all over again. What did Gio see in those moments? And who did he have to hold on to?

  He wanted to call, but knew better. The shooting was still under preliminary investigation by Ethical Standards. Any phone calls now might look like they were getting their story straight. The old Courier Mail test, where perception was as important as truth.

  He missed Gio though. It would have been nice to tell him that.

  It was a week before Jason was even able to get out of bed, and that was with a nurse under each elbow. It took half an hour to walk the short distance down the hallway to the nurses’ station and back again. Jason had never felt weaker in his life, but he got his catheter removed after proving he could make the walk, and had his first warm shower that evening. The nurse who accompanied him was Kyle. He had glasses and a hipster beard.

  “So, this is cozy, hmm?” Kyle teased.

  “Please.” Jason gripped the handrail. “You think I’ve never showered with another bloke before?”

  Except last time Jason had showered with another bloke, he’d been the one holding him up.

  Kyle laughed. “Aren’t you just full of surprises?”

  The shower felt incredible. Jason’s ribs hurt like hell by the time Kyle helped settle him back into his bed, but it was a relief to be clean again, and not stink of antiseptic and blood. He watched as Kyle peeled back his dressing to check his wound. The skin around the sutures was swollen and bruised, in lurid splotches of black and purple, but the wound itself was clean. The drainage tubes still looked disgusting. It made no sense to Jason how there could be actual tubes stuck into his lung that didn’t cripple him in agony. They weren’t comfortable, but he found he could ignore them easily enough. He really only hurt when he tried to move.

  The morphine was very good.

  On Saturday, his parents went back to Cairns. A part of Jason was sorry to see them go. Another part of him was glad he didn’t need to deal with the associated stress anymore. His dad extended a half-hearted offer to come and visit Richmond over Christmas, and Jason agreed it was something they could talk about later. He didn’t hate his parents. It would have been easier on some level if he had.

  On Sunday, Jason had a rare Taylor-free morning. Melinda had got movie tickets for Taylor and her kids. Taylor fretted about going, but Jason was firm with him. Taylor needed a break. Hanging around the hospital every day was doing him no good.

  Taylor barged into Jason’s room that afternoon, pink in the face from running all the way from the lift, and climbed onto the end of Jason’s bed and gave him a scene-by-scene account of the movie.

  “We’re having Subway for tea,” he said. “Melinda’s getting it now. Did you know there’s a Subway here? In the hospital?”

  Like it was the height of civilisation.

  Melinda came by to collect him a few minutes later.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Dad.” He left the superhero cup he’d got at the movies for Jason to use.

  On Monday, Jason gave his statement to the investigators, in between his thoracic ultrasound and his latest blood work. He had a union rep with him as a matter of course, but it was obvious nobody was here to screw him over. They all wished him a speedy recovery before they left, and promised the Service would support him during his recovery.

  The nights were the worst. They were interminable. Jason dozed more than he slept. He was bored with being stuck in bed all the time, but at night there was nobody to help him get out of bed and walk up and down the hallway for a while. And if he tried it himself, he usually managed to tangle all his tubes up.

  He thought a lot about Gio at night. He thought about how Gio had felt skin to skin. He thought about how Gio had kissed like he was asking a question Jason didn’t know how to answer. He thought about how every step had been something of a misstep, a stumble, a mistake—not because they’d taken those steps, but because they hadn’t figured out how to move without tripping one another up. They hadn’t talked enough. Neither of them had been brave enough to ask if it was more than physical.

  He’d been like this with Alana too. When the thing with Graham had fallen through, he’d been afraid to lose her as well. She had always been able to read him like a book though. She’d laughed and told him that he wouldn’t get rid of her that easily.

  He’d spent too many hours in hospital rooms like this one.

  “Please don’t leave me,” he’d whispered to her towards the end, clutching her hand.

  Her fingers had been thin and cold, her bones as brittle as a bird’s.

  “Please don’t leave me.”

  He still hated himself for having said it. It had been selfish. Cruel. But Alana had only smiled, her eyes shining with tears. “I love you.”

  She hadn’t wanted him to be lonely. She’d told him not to be. Made him promise, although he’d hated saying it, that he’d find someone else when he was ready. And Jason thought that maybe he had been ready, except then he’d gone and fucked it all up. He’d been too afraid of losing Gio to lay everything on the line, and then he’d gone and lost him anyway, before they’d even really started.

  Jason closed his eyes briefly, rubbing his hand gently across his aching chest.

  He fucking hated hospitals.

  He wanted to go home.

  Jason’s house was empty, and Gio hated it.

  Richmond had never felt more suffocating than it did following the shooting. Gio wanted to drive to Townsville to see Jason, but he was on lockdown until Ethical Standards was finished with him. He couldn’t go back to work until they cleared him either, and he was stir-crazy within a matter of days. Chris had advised him not to leave the house until the media left town, but it wasn’t the media Gio was most anxious about. A simple “no comment” could shut them down. He wasn’t sure that would work for the lady on the checkout at the supermarket, or the man from the newsagency. These were people who had known Brian Howe as well.

  He was told not to think about contacting Patricia Howe. Gio wondered if she hated him. She’d loved her husband, even though she’d made the right decision to leave him. And now Brian was dead. Did she blame Gio for that? Did she blame herself? Gio didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. What were the chances, after all, that she blamed Brian for his own death? Buckley’s and none, probably. He wondered if she lay awake at night, wishing she’d never gone to the polic
e in the first place.

  It was a mess, he was a mess, and Jason’s house was empty.

  A constable from Mount Isa and a senior constable from Julia Creek were brought in to cover Gio’s and Jason’s absences. Sandra hated them.

  “They’re hopeless,” she grumbled when she visited Gio a few days after the shooting. “The tall one, the ranga, has set the alarm off at least twice a day. How bloody hard is it, Gio?”

  Gio nodded sympathetically.

  “I mean, what the hell is he even doing?”

  “His best?” Gio suggested.

  Sandra levelled a stare at him. “I liked you better when you weren’t a sarcastic shit.”

  “Liar.”

  Sandra pressed her mouth into a thin line for a moment. “Anyway, I hear Ethical Standards is packing up and leaving in a few more days, so they won’t be bothering either of us anymore.”

  “Yeah?” Chris hadn’t mentioned it, but Gio knew that Sandra had her methods. “They’re almost done?”

  It felt like they’d interviewed everyone Gio had ever had contact with since coming to Richmond. It was difficult to judge if they were just being thorough, or if they were actively building a case against him.

  Her gaze softened as she looked at him. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Gio. Don’t let them tell you otherwise.”

  Gio wasn’t sure if he believed that—he replayed a thousand different scenarios in his head every minute of the day, and twice as many at night—but he appreciated the sentiment. And if he was no longer to be at the beck and call of Ethical Standards, he would actually be able to get out of town for a while. And he had to do that. He couldn’t stop thinking about Jason. He was okay, people kept telling Gio, but Gio needed to see that for himself. Because it felt like every time he closed his eyes, every time he so much as blinked, all he could see was Jason lying on the floor of the station with blood pumping out of his chest.