/warnings: blood. Everything else is in line with the show.
I didn't get far.
Not ten minutes after driving away from the house, Matthew's car threw in the towel. I had barely enough time to make sure I was on the side of the road, and not the middle. The engine was spitting thick black smoke into the air. Above me, thunder crackled in the sky. The stars themselves seemed to tremble.
I opened the door, perhaps a little roughly in my anger, and stepped out onto the road. There was a phone box out in the distance, but I couldn't be bothered, really, to go and call someone. I hooked my fingers under the bonnet, and flung it open. It was all for moot, I didn't know anything about cars.
"What sort of man doesn't know anything about cars?" I looked over to see Edward leaning on the side of the car, amused.
"What?"
"What kind of man doesn't know anything about cars. Didn't your dad teach you how to change the oil?" Pause. "Oh, that's right. He kicked it, didn't he? Poor baby, Charlie had to teach himself." I scowled at him.
"And your father knows a lot about cars, does he?" I inquired. Edward eyed me for a moment, then said
"You're a dirty cop." The revelation is as startling as it is horrific. He was right, I was a dirty cop. The one thing I had never ever wanted to be. I was no better than Munro. I was no better than any local criminal sitting in jail, rotting. I lowered the hood of the car. Edward waggled his eyebrows at me.
"It's true. You covered up a murder, for what?"
"To protect Lucien."
"Right. From what? Himself? When was the last time he did anything for you?"
"I live in his house."
"A house that has brought you nothin' but trouble." Edward, the bastard, was right. "Turn him in."
"I'm already dirty, Edward." Physically I feel dirty. Like I'm caked in a thick layer of mud and grime.
"Make a deal."
"For what?"
"My dad's got good lawyers. Get you out in five years." That was a good idea, damn him. I could hand the three of them in; make a deal and skip town. I could blow and never look back. Freedom. Clean country air.
"No." I reply, "They trust me." I'm horrified I could even consider turning on them. I am turning on the other policemen by not handing him over.
Above me, the skies broke open. A drop of red landed on the car hood, and rolled down the side, leaving a streaky tear line after it, before falling onto the bitchemen.
"Did you think it was going to make you clean?" Edward asked, finally, as the skies began to spit red at me. It came down in waves, sheets of it. Red, everywhere I could see. In my hair, my clothes and on my face. I should run for cover, but I can't breathe through the sticky copper smell of blood. I tried to open my eyes and look but all I can see is blood, thick and oozing.
"They'll find you." Edward taunted, "And you'll spend the rest of your life in archive at best, and at worst, prison. You, Matthew, Alice, and Lucien. You've fucked everything up, Charlie." God, he was right. I had. I'd ruined everything. I'd hurt everyone. This was all my fault. I should have been home, I should have watched him, I should have made sure he didn't do something so incredibly stupid. Oh, Lucien, I thought, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, please forgive me. I didn't know what to do. I was thinking it, trying to send it to him through my mind. I'm going to fix this, I will, I'll make this right.
Before I could make a move towards the road, I felt a hand on my arm that yanked me up onto the footpath before I could do anything. It took me several moments to register that I was being shaken backward and forwards with strength. Doctor Harvey was standing in front of me, and she was clean.
I've never had a sister. My mother has six children and all of them are boys. I've never had a sister but my best friend did.
Her name was Samantha and she smelled like flowers. Growing up, I didn't have much in the way of crushes, but I did have Samantha. I thought she was very cool. She used to hang around with us on occasion, much to my friend's disgust. I never minded. Of course, it never really went anywhere, how could it? Many years later, at a Christmas party, she gave me a handjob, and I thought that it was the greatest thing that would ever happen to me, after all: It wasn't really sex, right? Half sex. As I would have proudly told you, I was saving myself.
Alice is nothing like Samantha. Alice was sharp lines and hard edges. Samantha was soft on the corners and warm to the touch.
Alice does, however, smell quite pleasant. When I came back to the present, she was looking up at me, and let my shoulders go so I was no longer in danger of an Alice applied concussion. "What the Hell is wrong with you?" She demanded.
"I don't…" I started, but didn't finish. I couldn't explain it without sounding like I'd lost my damn mind. "How did you find me?"
"I left my coat in Matthew's. I was driving over to get it." Alice apparently drives a two-tone blue. She is clean, and her hands a still tight on my shoulders. Her lipstick had bled out from her lips, and her eye make-up is running down her face in streaks from the rain. It was probably ruining her neatly curled hair but she didn't mind.
"It's raining." I said, pathetically.
"Yes." She replied, uncharacteristically gentle. She released my shoulders and let her eyes roam over my face for a few moments, assessing my state of mind. "You look like you could use a hot drink."
"I need to get to work."
"Don't make me doctor you." She warned, folding her arms tightly, giving me a more than expectant look. I looked back, but I didn't see any trick in her eyes, so I slid into the passenger seat.
"What about your coat?"
"I can get it tomorrow."
She left Matthew's car by the side of the road, and I wasn't compelled to do anything about it either.
…
Doctor Harvey kept a clean house. Not that I was surprised by this fact, but the place was so tidy it almost felt like no one lived there. No pictures of family, no hair from pets, no circles on her wooden coffee table. Her shoes sat on the rack, one after the other, in a rainbow of muted browns and leathers.
She hung her coat on a hook, I wasn't wearing one. She toed off her shoes, I did the same. I followed her to the neat kitchen, and she set little glasses that I'd only seen the likes of Mrs. Beazley use in front of me. My mother drank scotch and my stepfather drank nothing, so I have never had any need for them myself. I don't really like Sherry much myself but it seemed rude to turn it down.
And the two after that.
I felt calmer, though. But I knew it was just the alcohol.
We had moved to the living room and were seated on her plush couch. The house is tidy, but things are coated with a layer of dust, as though they don't get used often. Alice is more invested in her drink than conversation, which was probably a good thing. I wasn't much for talking either, never have been. I suspected she was the same.
"Do you think we did the right thing?"
"No."
"No?"
"He doesn't deserve it."
I don't know if I agreed with it. But I thought I understood where she was coming from. I would describe my relationship with Lucien like this: when I was fourteen, a water pipe burst in my house. My stepfather had to pull up the carpet in the hallways near my bedroom. So my room was guarded by tiny, rusty little nails that would very likely give you some kind of blood borne illness if you stepped on them. For three months, I had to adjust to these sharp objects. That's how I would describe my relationship with Doctor Blake. He's sharp, frightening and possibly dangerous, but I had gotten used to it and avoiding them became second nature.
"Ballarat needs him. He doesn't strictly need Ballarat." She was right about that. "What we did wasn't right. He's a murderer. But it was what had to be done. And sometimes, when something has to be done, it isn't always right." She made sense. I looked her up and down, not a spot of red, anywhere on her.
I had another drink. I was and still am something of a light touch when it comes to the drink, which isn't exactly my fault. Between work and running after my five brothers, I didn't have a lot of time for drinking and forming relationships with girls.
Alice was sitting close to me, and I could feel that she was warm to the touch. Her hand on my leg was comforting and she smelt like perfume and the damp that had clung to her clothes from the bush. She looked at me, and I looked back and for several maddening seconds, I wasn't sure what to think. I was desperate for some of her cleanliness to rub off on me. I've always been told I was a neat freak but this was more than that. It was overwhelming, my desire to be clean.
She was studying me, I suppose. Looking for permission. Looking for an opening. She poured another drink, and I knocked back the last of mine. My headache had intensified. I should call my mother. I should call Doctor Blake and let him know I won't be home. I should call Frank and tell him that I won't be coming in. I should call Lawson to tell him his car is broken down.
I don't do any of those things.
Instead, I kiss Alice Harvey.
The girl I had a crush on in my teenage years was a lot like me in the sense that she was very soft around the edges. Her eyes were soft, her skin was soft, her hair was soft, and her face was soft. Alice Harvey is very nearly her opposite. She is made up of angles fitted together with extreme precision. Like one of those old paintings where people have three faces and what have you. I thought she was a handsome woman.
Her lips were warm, and her hand grabbed my face and held tight. I kissed her back just as hard. I wasn't sure what to do with my hands, one ended up on her waist. After several moments she grabbed my other hand, which was sitting uselessly on the couch and she moved it to her chest where I presumed I was supposed to grope her. I didn't really know. I followed my gut and discovered that her breasts were soft and warm to the touch.
She pulled away to catch her breath and looked me up and down.
"You've never done this before."
"I was waiting for marriage." She pulled away.
"We shouldn't." I reached for her.
"Show me."
And she did.
…
I woke early the following morning in her bed with a neck ache. Alice was awake and smoking at the end of the bed. I was reminded that I hate the smell of them. She looked at me and then away.
"Good morning." I said, hesitantly.
"I ironed your clothes." She said, rather matter of factly, "We left them on the floor last night."
"Oh. Thank you." She didn't reply. She is still naked and for some reason, the idea of her ironing creases out of my shirt in the nude makes me laugh. She scowls at me in return. "Sorry." I muttered, "Have you eaten?"
"No."
"Would you like to?"
"No."
"I make good scrambled eggs."
"You should go to work."
"I still have an hour before I should head off."
"Go." She says, slightly harder than I had thought she would. I didn't fight her on this, I got up, and put my clothes on. Though ironed, they are still a day old clothes that smelt slightly bad. I had time to go home and change.
…
I took the bus home.
By the time I got to the door, I had just enough time to change and head in for the early shift. I was planning to deal with what just happened later on when I had more time. I opened the door with my key (the one I took when I realized Lucien was too drunk to let me in most nights and climbing in through Danny's bedroom window was undignified) and put my hat upon the hook.
"It's just me!" I called out in lieu of a greeting.
To my surprise, Lucien all but ran around the corner into the hallway and before I could even react, buried me into his chest with his arms. Ignoring that he smelt worse than I did, I hugged back trying to put as much of my heart into it as I could. I am not much of a hugger.
"Thank God you're alright." He said, putting a hand on the back of my head so I can't get away.
"What?" I asked, Using my hands to push up on his chest and make eye contact. Reluctantly, he lets me go.
"I'll make you a cup of tea, and call Frank." He said leading me to the kitchen by my shoulder.
"I don't want tea." I said, "I want to know what fresh Hell this is." He looked at me, with a slight frown and then nodded. I sat at the kitchen table and folded my arms. Lucien sat opposite me and picked up his cup with both hands.
"You really have no idea?" I nodded.
"We've all been looking for you, since last night. Frank called here looking for you, but I said you were out with Rose so he called Matthew who said he'd send you over when you got back, but as it turns out you didn't go out with Rose you went by yourself, so when you didn't show up after a couple of hours he wanted to know if you'd come home and you hadn't so we went looking for you, found Matthew's car but not you and we all thought that something must have happened to you. It's not like you to just vanish."
I let him talk. Seems he had a lot to say. I didn't (obviously) mean to make anyone worry about me.
"I talked Matthew into letting me use his car." I said, "Truthfully, I didn't go see any movie. I just wanted to drive around and clear my head. When the car broke down I just kind of wandered the streets and ended up at Doctor Harvey's place. I got some tea and spent the night on her sofa." Lucien looked at me for a moment and reached out to put one of his hands over mine like he was comforting a victim.
"I didn't mean to cause all this worry."
"I don't doubt it." He said, "You're very important to me." He told me, in what sounded suspiciously like a heart to heart.
"Okay. "
"You've been distant recently."
"You've been drunk recently, so I don't see how you would know anything about how I've been." I said, pulling my hands away. "I'm going to work."
"Charlie!"
"See you later." I stomped out of the front door. I didn't get to change my clothes after all.
…
I spent most of the day apologizing to the various people who had been called out for mission 'find Charlie' and explaining myself. Frank was doing that thing where he's very understanding and I hated it. I ended up staying at the station well into the night, leaving only when Frank nearly had to physically remove me from the building.
I caught a ride home with him, and let myself in. Again. I was greeted by Rose, still sick, in the sitting room. Cautious of catching what she had, I didn't sit next to her.
"You're a dumbass." She told me.
"What of it?"
"Everyone was so worried about you last night. I don't think I've ever seen Matthew so concerned for a subordinate."
'Technically, he's not my boss." She scoffed and took a sip of something in a cup. "What do you want?"
"I need to…Change my statement. About Edward."
"You should have come to the station."
"I only wanted to talk to you." I sighed.
"What?"
"I was…There. When it happened."
"What." I was so fucked. "So you know who did it." She shook her head.
"I didn't see them. I was hiding under my desk.
"Why?"
"I thought Edward was..Stealing my notepads. Especially the green one you gave me for my birthday. Has all my contacts in it."
"Okay."
"There was two of them."
"Did you know them?"
"Yes. Well. One of them. Lucien was there, Charlie." I remained silent, and I implored her to continue.
"He came in late, when the other man was there just asking him what he did over and over again." Long pause, "He started changing and fixing things. He said he was going to fix it." My heart leapt up into my throat and was threatening to take my lunch and make a break for it. I can't believe what I'm hearing. She doesn't know what I've done, or if she does, then she doesn't care. My heart was still in my throat and I had to squeeze my words out around it.
"So Lucien didn't do it."
"No."
"Do you know the other man?" Rose shook her head and then looks pained.
"I think I was having a freakout and I didn't really listen." I put a hand on her knee.
"Thank you." I said, softly. She nodded.
"Now you just have to find the do-er." She was right about that.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" She sighed and reached out with one hand to adjust my tie.
"I didn't want Lucien to get into trouble."
"Bit late for that." She nodded,
"And….I tampered with evidence."
"What?!"
"I went through his desk for my book. Before any of you lot could take it." Pause, "Then I went home."
"And you left him there."
"I didn't want to get into any trouble." She said, and I stood.
"Unbelievable." Every time I feel like I could like Rose, she does something like this that makes me question her. She reached out to me, but I pulled my hand away.
"Don't touch me." I said, maybe a bit too loud. I hear Lucien's chair scrape the floor. I went up the stairs to my room and sat on my bed, face in my hands, I was so tired.
Eventually, I heard a knocking at the door.
"Piss off Rose!" I said voice tearier than I cared to admit.
"It's not Rose, it's Doctor Blake. Will you unlock the door?" I hadn't even realized that I'd locked it in the first place.
"No."
"Please?"
"NO!"
"I just want to check you're okay, then I'll leave."
"Fuck you!" I heard something thump against the door.
"Please." Softer. Too close to begging.
I opened the door only to have Lucien almost fall into me. He looked me over with the critical doctor eye that he has. I suspect this is more about him than me. I let him into the room and sat on my bed. He put a careful arm around him and it is so close to fatherly that it was suffocating me. We sat there for a long time, before I ended up holding him close.
"I was so scared last night. I thought however irrationally that I was never going to see you again." He murmured. "You are so important to me." He stressed, "I don't know how I'd cope if you weren't here to keep me on track."
"What about Danny?" He shook his head.
"Danny….Danny." He doesn't even have a reply for me, and I didn't push him. It's getting very close to weird for me. If there's something I've had too damn many of in my life, it's father figures. I let him fall asleep on my shoulder. I think I made the right choice.
…
I was out the door the next day before anyone could say anything to me. I was a man on a new mission. I was no longer interested in protecting Lucien, but rather, finding the real culprit and hoping that they plead guilty.
The office of the Curiour was still roped off. They hadn't even touched the now dry blood on the desk. First, I had to prove Rose's statement. I went to her desk and knelt on the ground next to it. With some effort, I managed to squeeze myself in the foot room of the desk. Well, if I could get under here than so could Rose. Then I saw them. Four, maybe five hairs caught in the tiny gap where the drawers reach the desk. Using my fingers, I pulled them free and looked them over. Red. Medium length. Rose. I put them into the tiny little paper pouch I had brought for buttons and other small evidence.
Well that was one thing.
"What do you think is going to happen when this goes to trial?"
"Hm?" Edward is sitting on his desk, leaning back on his hands when I untangle the pretzel that is my lower body and sits up.
"Yes I committed murder, but Lucien helped me cover it up."
"He's still going away. Probably for a long time."
"Not if I have anything to say about it."
"What do you have to say about it?" He inquired, "Not much, you're a sergeant. Not even a senior. No one wants to be around you, not even the woman who made love to you."
"Shut up, Edward. Lucien practically assembled a search team to look for me."
"They didn't find you."
"It's the thought that counts." I said, moving to stand in the middle of the room, looking for anything out of place. I picked up my luminol sprayer. I'd nicked it from Lucien's office. Rose said Lucien tampered with the scene, and I figured he could have cleaned up the hardwood. I sprayed, turned off the lights and shone the purple lamp I'd lugged in with me at the floor. It took a long time, but towards the door was a line of familiar looking footprints. Lucien? No. Not Lucien. His shoes were a size smaller than mine, and round at top while these ones, like mine, were square.
Edward pulled his legs up so they were crossed and looked me in the eye.
"You're not a particularly good investigator."
"I'm a copper, not a detective." I replied, eyeing the desk he was sitting on.
"Maybe, but you haven't even looked at the other people with motives."
"Half this town has motive."
"Hm. Maybe. Do half this town wear the same shoes as you?"
"…No. Only police wear the shoe as me.'
"Do all the police have Lucien Blake willing to cover for them, wear the same shoes as you and have motive?"
I didn't want to think it. I didn't want to think about the next best person. I didn't want to take the blame off of Lucien and put it onto the next likely person. The man who didn't come home 'till late that night. The one was struggling to deal with this death more than anyone else. The one Lucien can't talk about.
Danny. What did you do?
...
I went back to the station after taking some photos. I wasn't sure what I was going to do now. I'd solved this crime twice over. But I didn't want to throw Danny into it.
I suppose that was what Lucien meant, when he wouldn't talk about Danny. Of course Danny is someone Lucien would cover for, he was Jean's nephew. Jean was the love of his life. This really was a case of bad and worse, wasn't it?
I got to my feet, knees shaking, knowing what I had to do. No matter how badly I didn't want to.
…
I delivered my theory to Frank, leaving Lucien out of it.
"I don't know about this, Charlie."
"Think about it, Boss." I appealed, "He could have easily stolen the scalpel from Doctor Blake, he doesn't lock anything up when he's done with it." I produced a scalpel wrapped in a napkin. "This one was in the sink, Lucien would never risk contamination like that, he cleans them all himself."
"Okay."
"He has the motive, Edward was the prime suspect in Jean's murder, and he was really close to her."
"I need more."
"Shoe prints."
"You have those shoes."
"Yes but I know that I didn't do it."
"What do you propose we do?" He asked, looking at me slightly sideways.
"We bring Rose in, and she listens to Danny and some other officers. She tells us who did it."
"You don't need to do that." Danny said, from behind me. "I'm here to confess to the murder of Edward Tyneman." He continued, "and it was me alone. Lucien had nothing to do with it, I rearranged the crime scene to make it look like he was there, right down to the knife."
Frank looked at me. I looked back. He stood up.
"Are you sure?"
"I am." Frank led him away. I didn't follow.
Three hours later Frank approached me in the hall where I was rearranging the schedule to account for the loss of Danny.
"I know what you did."
"What?"
"covering for Lucien."
"You can't prove anything, even if I did." Frank kept looking at me.
"I'm gonna see to it that you spend the rest of your life working in archive." I smiled at him.
"I hope you do."
I promptly went into the mens room and dry heaved in stall three for the better part of half an hour.
…
I didn't sleep that night. For a variety of reasons.
Every nerve was stinging, and even hours later while Danny was in the station adrenaline was thudding in my veins. I have been having trouble sleeping since Jean died anyway. The house is too empty. Lucien is awake as well, but I wasn't interested in another heart to heart with him.
That's where I was when he slammed my door open in the wee hours of the morning.
"Charlie! I need you to come out with me to the bush. A woman on a farm is giving birth." I sat up as fast as I could.
"What?!"
"I need an assistant You're the only one here." I was already halfway up, grabbing a shirt out of my dresser. I got dressed as fast as I could and hurried after him out to the car where he was waiting. I noticed only then that my shoes didn't match
Lucien was driving fast down the road, and we didn't really talk. I was tried as death and I was struggling to keep my eyes open. There's something relaxing about driving that I can't imagine. I was a tad worried, after all: What did I know about doctoring? All of my siblings were born at birthing houses for poor people, and I was never allowed in the room. As for my own birth, I don't think I have to explain that one. It's unusual for Lucien to be called out in the middle of the night. I don't remember that happening before, but after all: I was new here. Maybe it happened a lot in the last few years and I just wasn't here to see it. I didn't know.
As we drove further into the bush, Lucien pulled over to the side of the road. I gave him a confused look.
"There is no lady giving birth."
"Why are we here?" I asked, my mind running through the fact that Lucien has killed people, horror books I read as a teenager and the fact that I haven't written a will in quick succession.
"I wanted to speak to you alone." He said, "About Danny."
"I took your luminol and scalpel." I confessed. He appraised me.
"I know that. I want to talk about something else." Long pause. "You covered for me." I didn't confirm or deny. "Would you like to know what happened?" I turned to look at him and then to the lit up bush out in front of us. I wish I had a cigarette. I don't smoke, but I'd really like something to calm me down right now.
"Alright."
"That night, when I left the house, I had every intention of killing Edward Tyeneman."
"Okay."
"I was drunk."
"I know."
"When I got there, Danny….Danny had beat me to it. When I arrived, he was already dead. Nothing I could have done."
"So you covered it up."
"I wanted to protect him."
"So you cut his throat, wiped the place down and got blood all over yourself."
"I called you, thinking you would pick me up for murder. You were the last person I thought would do a coverup." I shrugged slightly.
"Ballarat needs you." A long pause. "And you're my friend. The closest thing I have to a best mate and I've let you down, over and over and this time…This time I wasn't going to." Lucien looked at me, eyes wide and so very blue. I looked back.
"Why me, not Danny?" I rubbed my eyes by burying the palms of my hands into my face.
"Because Ballarat needs you."
"It doesn't."
"I need you."
"You don't." I didn't know quite what to do but I wiped my hands on my face
"I just want things to go back to how they were."
"They can't." He said, rubbing my shoulder with one hand.
"I know." I whispered. He leant over and put an arm over my shoulder. I didn't push him away. We sat there for a long time. An hour or so. When I started falling asleep, Lucien revved the engine and drove us home.
If it was ever going to be a home without Jean and Danny.
…
Frank never made good on his threat. He was shot two days later by a man who he owed over five hundred pounds to. Interestingly, it was Terry Noonan who tipped me off. He didn't tell anyone what he was planning either. So I kept on keeping on and was sure to thank God before I went to bed at night.
Lucien and I adopted a dog with a bad hip from a local race course and we named him Randall, after Jean's maiden name. He was a beautifully friendly dog, Lucien even let him share his bed at night.
I made up with Doctor Harvey. I would even go so far as to call us friends. Eventually, she took a job out of state and moved away.
I went to see Danny every week in prison. He escaped the death sentence but just barely.
I made up with Rose and a few years later she published a piece on me in the paper. A nice little profile on me.
As for me? I stayed on in Ballarat, living in the same house for years, until I became the lone occupant.
..
"So that's the whole story?" Mattie asked, pulling the car into the graveyard parking lot.
"Yep," Charlie replied, smoothing the seam on his pants with his left hand. "Except that last bit. I made that up so it would seem like this story had a happy ending."
"I guessed." She replied, reaching into the backseat for her fascinator hat with the little bit of black lace on the front. Above them, the sky broke, and drops of red began to splatter the paving, the grass and the windshield of the car. Mattie reached for her umbrella.
Charlie thinks that he might laugh.
