Snapshot

14

‘Let me drive,’ said John Tankard after the near miss with the Subaru.

He didn’t expect Murph to accede, and she didn’t. The incident hadn’t rattled her, and hadn’t been her fault in the first place, but he felt in a take-charge mood suddenly, in reaction to her superior attitude, the particularly girlie quality of the wave she’d exchanged with the Kane woman, his cramped seat and the job itself. He felt rage building, fine and liberating. Sometimes he worried that his six months of stress counselling hadn’t worked; sometimes he was glad that it hadn’t.

And now some prick was tailgating them, flashing and tooting. He turned around in his seat and saw the Passat that had been waiting to merge with the traffic passing the detention centre. A woman was driving, and he felt obscurely satisfied by that. ‘What’s her problem?’ he snarled.

‘Keep your shirt on, Tank,’ said Murph, pulling over to the side of the road.

‘Stay here,’ he said, getting out.

He adjusted his gun belt, jacket and cap, and advanced grimly on the Passat. The driver, spotting his uniform, blanched, then looked sulky, and began to open her door.

‘Lady, get back in the car,’ he said.

She complied. He stood beside her door, gestured for her to wind down her window, then stood there, crowding her space. It felt great. They were near the Fiddlers Creek pub and patrons were streaming in for the all-you-can-gorge buffet lunch, which finished at two. ‘Got a problem?’ he said.

‘I didn’t know you were the police.’

‘Well, now you do.’

She recovered some of her composure, a woman in her forties with dark hair and a narrow face. ‘I would like to get out of the car,’ she said.

‘No.’

‘Do you know who I am?’

‘Don’t know and don’t care,’ said Tankard.

‘You’ll need to know my name if you intend to warn or fine me,’ the woman pointed out.

That wasn’t what her question had meant and they both knew it. Tankard decided to call her bluff and got out his citation book. ‘Fire away,’ he said.

‘My name is Lottie Mead.’

‘So?’

‘My husband is director of the detention centre,’ she said.

Tankard was filled with emotions: a natural obedience towards authority figures, fear and resentment of stroppy women, and respect for those, like Charlie Mead, who did their bit in the war against terror. He wanted to charge Lottie Mead with something, but feared a whole heap of trouble if he did.

To make it worse, Pam Murphy joined them. ‘Is there a problem, madam?’

Lottie Mead took that as permission to get out of her Passat and cross to the front of the car. She was a lean, springy figure in tailored pants and a black woollen jacket. ‘There,’ she said, pointing.

A cracked headlight. ‘Your car did that,’ she said. ‘I saw and heard it.’

‘How?’ demanded Tank, wishing Murph would get back in the Mazda and leave him to deal with it. To make it worse, she seemed to know what the Mead woman was on about. ‘A stone,’ she said apologetically.

‘Exactly.’

‘You can’t prove it was us,’ Tank said, trying to wrestle something back. ‘That could have happened yesterday, last year.’

He felt Murph’s hand on his arm. ‘Leave it, Tank, all right? Madam, if you’d care to make a formal report I’m sure we can-’

The woman back-pedalled and Tank was glad to see it. ‘That won’t be necessary,’ she said. ‘It’s my husband’s car, and his company will take care of costs.’

‘Then why,’ sneered Tank, ‘did you cause such a fuss?’

‘I couldn’t allow you to just drive off without acknowledging that something had happened,’ Lottie Mead said, as though there were lots of things she didn’t allow.

‘Duly acknowledged,’ said John Tankard through gritted teeth.

‘Tank,’ warned Murph, and he got back in the Mazda feeling that he wanted to sort her out as well.