Fifty Fifty (Detective Harriet Blue #2)(6)

‘That’s exactly what Judge Steiner said you’d do.’ Pops shook his head. ‘He wanted to lock you up instead. I said you’re not going to be on the courthouse steps. You’ll be out in the desert, out of trouble, just like you were after they picked Sam up.’

‘Nope,’ I said. ‘Not happening.’

I couldn’t find my cigarettes. My hands were shaking too badly.

‘Blue,’ Pops called as I walked towards the door, following at my heels. ‘This is not up for discussion. You get out of here or he’ll reverse his decision. And then you’ll be no good to Sam at all. You want to try working on his defence from a jail cell? You’ll be lucky if they give you paper and a pencil in there.’

I stopped by the big glass doors.

There was a certain appeal to what he was saying. I could go back out into the Australian badlands, out among the tiny towns where people who didn’t want to be recognised fled. I could run away from the horror of my brother’s situation. Blessed denial.

‘When does the order expire?’

‘Nine days.’

I bit my lip. I wanted so badly to cry. But I was not a crier. I was not weak. I squeezed the doorhandle, trying to hold on to some semblance of control.

‘You fucked up, Blue,’ Pops said. It was rare that he swore. I looked at his eyes. ‘You’re a hothead. And I love that about you. It’s half of what makes you a good cop. Your fearlessness. Your fire. But you need to get away from here before you do some real damage. This?’ He flipped the frilly collar of my blouse. ‘This is not working. When you’re not bashing prosecutors you’re standing around pissed as hell and doing a bad job hiding it. The princess get-up makes you look about as harmless as a hired assassin.’

I exhaled. I wanted a hug. But I was not a hugger, either.

‘It’s only nine days,’ he said. ‘How bad could things go in that time?’





Chapter 8


I LEANED MY head against the car window in the dark.

Beyond the glass, New South Wales desert rolled by, barren and hard. I was out here again. In exile for my own good, for the good of Sam’s case.

I was six hours from Sydney, four of them by plane, two of them by car, on the straight edge of the western border of New South Wales. Red dirt country. We were headed to a tiny, dim star in a constellation of sparse towns, most notably White Cliffs to the south of us (population 103) and Tibooburra to the west of us (population 262). My driver, a plump and pretty blonde woman wearing a dusty police uniform and standard-issue baseball cap, shifted uncomfortably behind the wheel. She’d been jibber-jabbering since we left the airstrip, about the region, its history, seasonal precautions about snakes. I was so angry at myself, so distracted, I’d hardly been answering her. I sighed quietly. She was gearing up to take a run at me about why I was there. How I could possibly explain what I’d done? I could feel it – the curiosity.

‘ So the papers said …’ She licked her lips, hesitated, as most people do. ‘They said that the lawyer made some derogatory remark towards you?’

‘My brother,’ I answered. ‘He made a joke about my brother being raped in prison. I work in Sex Crimes. Rape jokes aren’t funny.’

‘Struth! You’re right, they’re not. Plus, it’s your brother,’ the cop sympathised. ‘I mean, it doesn’t matter what he did. He’s still –’

‘He didn’t do anything. He’s innocent,’ I said.

I realised miserably that I didn’t even know this officer’s name. My mind was so tangled up in my personal life that I’d completely forgotten it as soon as she’d introduced herself. I reached down for the case file at my feet and pretended I was shifting it to the back seat so it wouldn’t get damaged. I glanced at the name on the cover. Senior Sergeant Victoria Snale.

‘I’ve got to say,’ – Snale’s voice was irrepressibly cheerful – ‘it made an amazing picture for the front pages. You standing over the lawyer. Him all splayed out on the concrete. It must have really been some punch.’

I felt microscopically uplifted. ‘It doesn’t have to be hard if it’s on target.’

‘And now you’re here,’ she sighed brightly. ‘I can’t say I’m sad about that. It’s pretty lonely out here, to be honest. It’ll be good to have some more cops around. Someone who can relate. You know?’

‘How many cops are there in town?’ I asked.

‘Active officers? I mean, we have one retiree …’

‘Active officers.’

‘Just me.’ She looked over, smiled. ‘Just us.’

I didn’t want to burst Snale’s bubble, but I didn’t plan on being out in the desert long. Nine days of ‘us’. Then it’d be back to Victoria Snale: Lone Ranger.

The moment Prosecutor Woolfmyer’s AVO expired, I’d be back – back in that jerk’s face, fighting him and the state’s crack team of lawyers about my brother’s innocence.

The empty desert around me was familiar. I’d been shoved aside when Sam had first been arrested, shipped out into the middle of nowhere, away from the public eye, away from my distinctly uncomfortable colleagues and their guilty looks after months of lying to me. Back then, I’d succumbed to the journey. I’d felt such shameful pleasure at having something to think about that was not Sam and what he was facing. Now was no different.