by JD Nixon
Back on speakerphone, she advised us to keep Annabel upright for as long possible.
“My baby. I need to push,” Annabel panted after a few extra long minutes of trying to coax her to walk around some more.
I panicked. “What do I do? She wants to push.”
“Tell her to get on all fours on the floor and bring her face to the ground. That might help stop the urge for a short while. Tess, by the sounds of it, this ambulance isn’t going to get there in time.”
“I have to push now,” Annabel cried.
“Let her push if she needs to,” advised Jacinta. “Make sure your sergeant is standing by with clean towels, and some kind of blanket for the baby. Oh yeah, and you’ll need something to put the placenta in.”
“Sarge, pull the sheets and towels off the bed. Looks as though it’s going to happen right here in the lounge room.”
I barely had time to slip on some gloves, and him to arrange sheets and a pillow, before Annabel started pushing in earnest. She grunted mightily, and the baby’s head crowned.
“Oh, God,” I muttered to myself, trying to position myself to ensure the baby didn’t fly out on to the floor. “The head’s out.”
“Excellent,” said Jactina. “She’s a natural.”
“The umbilical cord is wrapped around its neck.”
“Is it loose?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good. Slip it over the baby’s head, but be gentle.”
I did what she said, terrified I would make some mistake that would harm the baby.
“Done.”
“Good. You’re doing great so far, Tess.”
Annabel pushed a couple more times, making an animalistic noise that was difficult to hear.
“The baby’s body’s out. It’s out!” I shouted.
“How does the baby look? How’s its muscle tone? It’s not floppy at all?”
“No, it looks okay. I think.”
The baby gave a small wail, followed by a louder one.
“The baby’s crying.”
“Good,” said Jacinta. “Now we need to dry the baby.”
I was shaking a bit, so the Sarge kneeled next to me and took the baby from my arms.
“What about the cord?” I asked.
“Leave it. The paramedics will deal with it when they arrive. Is the baby dry?”
I checked to see the Sarge gently rubbing the baby down with a towel. “Getting there.”
“Okay, now place it on Annabel’s stomach for her to cuddle, and put a blanket over both to keep the baby warm. Get Annabel to let the baby nuzzle on her breasts, or even breastfeed it if she can, and it wants to. Is it a boy or girl? I don’t want to keep calling it an ‘it’.”
“A girl.”
“Oh, lovely. Now all we have to do is see if we can deliver the placenta. It could take up to about sixty minutes, but it could be sooner. Annabel will want to push again soon. That’s what we’re waiting for, but it will happen when it happens. We don’t want to rush her.”
“Okay, we’ll ring you back when that starts happening. Is there anything else we can do for either of them?”
“Keep both comfortable and warm. Give Annabel something to drink or eat if she wants. And try to encourage her to let the baby suckle. That will help the placenta deliver.”
The Sarge brought back a few more pillows for Annabel. It wasn’t ideal for her to be lying on the timber floor, but she didn’t seem to mind, completely absorbed in her baby.
We had a lot of questions to ask her, but after a brief whispered conference, the Sarge decided that this wasn’t really the time or place to start digging into her back-story.
The placenta still hadn’t delivered when the ambulance finally arrived. It was with incredible relief that I handed over the care of Annabel and her baby to their capable hands.
When Annabel and the baby had been thoroughly checked over, the ambulance making its slow way down the driveway back to Big Town, the Sarge and I looked at each other. I expelled a huge draught of air.
“Oh, man,” I said, feeling a huge adrenaline slump, and suddenly needing to sit down on the lounge.
He sat next to me. “You did a good job, Tess,” he said with quiet sincerity.
“We did a good job,” I replied. “But it’s not an experience I’m all that keen to replicate in the future.”
He smiled faintly. “That might be a bit difficult to avoid when you have your own children.”
“I think that’s turned me off childbirth forever,” I joked, stretching and yawning. I glanced around at the aftermath with no enthusiasm. “Let’s do a quick clean up job. Then do you want to drive to Big Town to talk to her when we’re done?”
His turn to yawn. “Nope. Let’s try to catch a few more hours sleep. She’ll need some too and she’s in good hands now. We’ll go visit her later today.”
“Okay.” I wasn’t going to argue.
We spent fifteen minutes cleaning up his house, leaving a pile of soiled linen in his laundry.
“I think I’ll just throw all those out,” he said, regarding them with a scrunched nose. He dug up a big garbage bag, and stuffed the towels and sheets into it.
When everything looked neat and unruffled again, I could barely contain my yawns. “That’s it for me. I badly need to hit the sack.”
He walked me to the door, and laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. “You really did a great job tonight, Tess. I mean that.”
Our eyes fixed on each other for a few ticks. And after so many months of being told how badly I needed discipline, what he said was a much-appreciated thing to hear.
“Thank you,” I replied quietly, and let myself out.
Chapter 13
The next morning, I didn’t make it to the station until about nine-thirty, having managed to catch a few extra hours of sleep, but skipping my morning jog. I let myself in, filled and turned on the kettle and dumped teabags into two mugs.
The Sarge ambled in about ten minutes later as I sipped on my tea and read the news online.
“Did you manage any sleep?” he asked, making a beeline for the kettle.
“A bit. How about you?”
“A bit. How about we take a drive to Big Town this morning to chat to our young lady?”
“Yep. Sounds good to me. I think we both realise there’s a very strong chance that she’s our mystery teen.”
His blue eyes darkened with regret. “If so, we’re probably going to have to break the news about Jamie to her.”
“She might have already found out.”
“I don’t know which would be worse – us telling her, or her finding out when she was on her own and heavily pregnant.”
“His baby, do you think?”
“Who knows? Hopefully she’ll be able to tell us.”
“If she is Jamie’s little buddy, then she might also be able to tell us something about his mysterious ‘father’. That would surely make Mr X and Zelda’s day.”
“Because, as you know, we live to please the dees in Big Town,” he said dryly. “Have you started your report about last night yet?”
“Geez! I just got to work. Of course I haven’t,” I griped, taking another sip of tea and reading the sordid details of the latest celebrity scandal.
“Good to see you sorting out your priorities,” he reproved mildly, standing behind me, and leaning over my shoulder to read the news article. “Who are those people, anyway?”
“No idea,” I said, twisting around to look up at him. “I think she’s an actor and he’s a model. Or vice versa.”
“Why are you reading about them if you don’t even know who they are?”
“I like to see how the other half lives.” I shot him an archly calculated look. “Though I suppose I could just read the emails you sent me instead.”
“I’m not the other half,” he replied, refusing to rise to my bait.
“Well, you’re sure not in my half,” I retorted, flicking through the rest of the news, not finding anyth
ing of interest in the various tense international situations or tumultuous domestic politics.
“How are the chickens going?” he asked, deftly changing the subject.
“Good,” I said, taking my mug to the sink.
“I was worried the Bycrafts might get to them again in retaliation.”
I laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant or joyful sound. “I bet they wanted to, but none of them had the guts. They’re smart enough to know that I would have unleashed hell on them if they had harmed even one tiny little feather.”
“Worse than what you did last time?”
“Oh, yeah,” I laughed again. “Much, much worse. I wouldn’t have taken any prisoners.”
“Just as well they left them alone then.”
“Just as well,” I agreed.
“Otherwise Baz would probably have ended up with a permanent position here.”
“Nah. That would never happen. Don’t you know how many cops need to be wrangled in this state? I’m not the only one. Or so he kept telling me.”
“Probably not, but you’re the only one whose work situation I’m interested in.”
I frowned at him, not sure what that was supposed to mean. “You finished your tea yet? I want to get moving.”
“What’s the hurry?”
“From what my friend, Marianne, tells me, they don’t keep women in hospital long after having a baby these days. I don’t want Annabel to be released before we even get to talk to her, just because you want to linger over your tea.”
“Can’t a man even enjoy a cup of tea in peace in this place?” he grumbled, tipping the rest of his mug down the drain.
“You should have got here earlier, then you would have had time. And besides, you’re not paid to drink tea,” I said, waiting for him at the front door. “You’re paid to boss me around, make me horrible tuna salad sandwiches, buy me Tim Tams, and occasionally do some police work.”
He smiled. “I really am going to have to look at my job description again. It seems to have changed a bit since I last did.”
In the car on the drive to Big Town, there was only one thing I wanted to talk about.
“So, are you ever going to tell me about what happened between you and Melissa?” I asked, burning with curiosity, but trying not to be too obvious about it.
“What’s there to say?” he replied coolly. “We went our separate ways.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Does it matter?”
“I guess not, but I’d just like to know,” I confessed.
“Why?”
“What if you get back together and end up leaving here again? I don’t want a revolving door of sergeants in my life.”
“We won’t be getting back together again, and I won’t be going anywhere.” His eyes slid in my direction. “It’s well and truly over between us, and there won’t be any reconciliation.”
“You sound so sure.”
“I am sure.”
“Who ended it? You or her?”
“Does it matter?” he asked again.
I sighed. “Just answer the damn question, will you? Who ended it?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
He sighed, even more heavily than me. “Are you going to just drop this?”
“No.”
We drove for a while in silence, before he caved in. “I really didn’t want to go overseas, and I didn’t enjoy it. I suppose I wasn’t very subtle about hiding that, and it caused a lot of tension between us.”
“You didn’t enjoy spending that time together?”
“To be blunt – no. I was concerned about what was happening here, and I was concerned about my future. I didn’t have a good time at all. In fact, it was impossible to have a good time in those circumstances.” He spared me another glance. “Did you have a good time?”
“Of course I didn’t,” I scorned.
“Exactly. We were both being punished for something that we had no control over.”
I stared down at my hands, my mind whirling. “You and Denny saved my life, and I was angry that the brass wouldn’t acknowledge that. I’m still angry about it.”
“They left you to the mercy of the Bycrafts. I was furious about that.”
“Baz helped.” I admitted quietly. “He’s very calm. He helped defuse quite a few volatile situations that I probably would have made worse.” I looked at him. “You didn’t seem angry to me. You were very accepting of being suspended. I couldn’t believe it.”
“I did what I thought was the best at the time for the both of us. I could have appealed my suspension, sure, but that would have just dragged the whole process out. And I would still have been made to leave town until the appeal and the original investigation were finalised. If I’d done that, I still wouldn’t be back here.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. “You looked as though you were enjoying yourself in the photos you sent.”
“I did that for my mother. She was very upset about me being suspended. I didn’t want her to worry about me while I was gone.”
I’d ponder on all that he’d said later tonight in bed, but for now I returned to the original topic. “Melissa wasn’t happy you weren’t enjoying yourself?”
He laughed quietly. “That’s putting it politely. Well, you know Melissa. She wanted to party and shop and dine and meet up with her friends who’d decided to join us, mostly with me paying for everything. I wanted to visit my father and my other family. I wanted to lay low. I wasn’t really in a partying mood.”
“Guess you wouldn’t have been.”
“I suppose I found myself feeling increasingly distant from her and what she wants in life. And we haven’t spent much time together since I first moved here, so the strain of being together twenty-four seven, and trying to make it work was too much for me. I knew that it was never going to work anymore. So I called it off.”
“Just like that?” I asked, feeling a bit sad that a longish relationship could end so simply. I wondered if Jake’s and my relationship would end in a similar way. I wondered how we’d cope being together twenty-four seven for several months.
“Not quite. There were other things too. She wanted me to stop doing something that was incredibly important for me to do while I was away.”
“What was that?”
“I’ll tell you one day, Ms Nosy,” he smiled briefly. “But also . . .” He hesitated, as if unsure whether to confide or not. “I found I’d lost interest in her physically.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say.
“Yes, it was . . . awkward. Especially when you’re travelling with someone and you just don’t want to . . . Well, you know. It was hard to keep coming up with excuses. It put a lot of stress on our relationship. I felt as though I was disrespecting her by not being honest about how I felt.” He was quiet for a while. “We were engaged for a long time. Honesty was the least she deserved from me.”
“Oh.” I peered up at him. “I thought that with you two hardly seeing each other for so long, that you’d jump at the chance to be together for such an extended period.”
He laughed quietly again, seemingly not too upset with talking about the breakup. “No. I’ve chosen to live like a monk again. Funny how life turns out sometimes, isn’t it?”
“Did you end up visiting your father and family?”
“Yep. Spent the last month with them. It was good to catch up with everyone. Now, that I did enjoy.” He arched an eyebrow. “Which you’d know if –”
“Yeah, yeah. If I’d read your emails,” I interrupted, bored of the admonishment.
“And how have you and Jake been getting on?” he asked casually.
I shrugged off-handedly. “Not great, if I’m being honest. Things are a bit tense between us. He hasn’t taken Denny’s death well. Jakey’s not good with negative stuff at the best of times. He feels guilty about using Denny as a spy for so long.”
“How do you feel knowing that your boyfriend actively recruited his brother to sp
y on you?”
I shrugged again. “I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it. Denny probably would have spied on me, regardless of whether Jakey asked him to or not.” I gave a small laugh. “It’s almost weird him not being around, I’d grown so used to him. These days I see something move out of the corner of my eye, and I spin around ready to tell him off. But he’s not there, of course.”
“Have you had any further letters from Tommy Bycraft?”
“No, but I’m glad about that. He said what he needed to say. And it’s not like I want to become pen pals with him.”
“Any more letters from Red?”
“What do you think? I’ve got a whole drawer full of them. He’s coming to Denny’s funeral.”
“Of course he isn’t.”
“He is. Lola told me. That means that Tommy and Karl will probably be allowed to attend as well. I mean, Denny was their brother too.” I thought for a moment. “I suppose that means that Jakey’s father will be let out for it as well.”
“What’s his name?”
“Ritchie.”
“Haven’t heard much talk about him in town.”
“What’s to say about him? He’s virtually spent his entire life in jail. About the only relationship he’s had with his family is to knock Lola up. I know Jakey has nothing to do with him. Not sure about his other kids though.”
“Makes you proud to have a family like them in town, doesn’t it?” he said, pulling into the carpark of the hospital.
“Look on the bright side,” I said. “It keeps us employed.”
Fortunately for us, Annabel was still in the maternity ward, sharing a room with three other mothers, all of who appeared older than her. Her curtains were extended around her bed, and from within, we could hear soft voices. We stood around waiting patiently for them to finish whatever they were doing.
Noticing our uniforms, a nurse hurrying past with an armful of fresh linen enquired of our business. She poked her head between the curtains and conducted a short conversation, before advising us it wouldn’t be too long.
We leaned against a wall, trying to ignore the curious glances of staff and patients. The maternity ward wasn’t a place you’d normally expect to see a couple of police officers.
