Chapter Four Hundred and Eighty Three
Neither Charlie nor Joey had slept very well, cursed with the knowledge that the investigation into Penn Graham's disappearance was now a murder investigation. Charlie knew she shouldn't have broken confidentiality but everyone would know soon enough so it didn't seem fair to lie to the woman she loved.
"I still can't believe she's ditched Liam for Vittorio just because of a dig from April," Charlie said, trying to concentrate on anything but work, while she, Joey and Ruby ate breakfast together. "She seemed like she had finally made up her mind at last."
"I know," Joey said. "I am disappointed and frustrated in equal measure. Not least because we've got years ahead of us of listening to the same Vittorio complaints."
Charlie nodded.
"What are you up to today?" she asked Ruby.
"Claire, Nicole and I are hanging out together," her daughter replied. "We're waiting for Nicole's HIV results."
"Is that today?" Joey asked. "I didn't realise. Let us know as soon as you get them."
"I will," Ruby promised.
She finished her orange juice.
"I'll see you later."
"I'm heading to work now," Charlie said. "I can drop you off."
"Great!"
Dex was at home and he was feeling anxious. Tonight was his date with Detective Graves. However, there was one snag. She wanted it to be a double date with Romeo and Indi and neither of them had yet agreed to go with him.
Taking a deep breath, he entered the lounge and approached his sister and her boyfriend.
"So, about this double date tonight…" he ventured.
"There is no double date," Indi told him flatly.
"But…"
"I don't want to go on a double date with my annoying younger brother, Dex."
"Please! She won't go on a date with just me!" he begged.
"What does that tell you?" Indi said unkindly.
"Indi," Romeo said. "Do him a favour? It's not exactly a hardship to go out for dinner, is it? To help someone find someone to love? To give him what we have?"
Indi glared at both of them and then sighed dramatically.
"Fine," she said. "We'll do it. But not happily."
"Yes! Thank you! Thanks, Romeo."
Claire and Nicole were already on the beach when Charlie dropped Ruby there to meet them.
"Hey, guys," the teenager greeted her friends. "How are you, Nic?"
"Yeah, I'm okay," Nicole said. "No news yet."
"Well, we'll be here when you get it," Ruby said, sitting down next to Claire.
"Thank you both," Nicole replied.
Xavier and April met up with John in the Surf Club, where he was sat with a newspaper and a coffee. He looked up when they sat down at his table without an invitation.
"So?" Xavier said expectantly.
"So?" he echoed.
"So, do you know what you're going to say at the Council meeting today?"
John looked awkward.
"What?" Xavier queried.
"Look, I just… I'm not sure about the meeting or the campaign now," he said.
He, Gina and the kids had been talking about their water bottle ban campaign for weeks now. Xavier and April in particular were excited about it and John, with his clout on the Council, was supposed to be their mouth piece. But with everything falling apart with Gina, he wasn't sure he could be bothered with it all. He wasn't sure he could be bothered with anything.
"What do you mean, you're not sure?" Xavier asked, annoyed.
"This campaign is so important," April urged. "It could help save the environment. Did you know…?"
"Okay!" John said, holding his hands up. "I don't need you to pitch to me, April."
She looked affronted.
"I'm just saying that I've got a lot on and I don't know if I can go to the meeting," he lied.
He didn't have anything on all day. The only thing he had booked in was the meeting he couldn't be bothered to go to.
"Well, if you don't go, I hope you can live with the way you're letting us and your entire town down," Xavier said, standing up. "Not to mention the rest of the world."
"Spoken like a true eco-warrior," John said.
Xavier dragged April away.
At her desk, Charlie opened an email from Nick Parrish that startled her. Evidently, he had been informed that the quality of her work was too good to waste and have her sit out on the biggest case they were working. He believed that she was needed on the Penn Graham case on the proviso that she believed she could be impartial. Robertson had been copied in on the email.
"So, what's been happening with your driving lessons?" Nicole asked.
Claire held her breath, ready for a monologue about the heartbreak of Alex.
"Alex is a prick," Ruby informed her.
"I thought he was the most amazing guy on earth?" Nicole said.
"So did I," Ruby replied glumly.
"What happened?"
"He strung me along," Ruby said. "It turns out he had a girlfriend this whole time."
"Prick," Nicole said.
Ruby and Claire laughed.
Charlie allowed herself a small smile. It was nice to be recognised for the quality of her work, especially from someone so high up, someone so highly respected.
"So, you're back on the team."
Robertson's voice jolted her out of her thoughts.
"I guess so," she said.
"Congratulations."
"Thank you."
She knew he didn't mean it. She knew he found her to be an irritation. She felt the same about him. But they had to put their personal feelings aside and work together.
"So, what's the next step?" she asked.
"I'm going to ask Marilyn for a tarot reading."
Charlie wasn't sure she would ever be able to work with him at all.
"Maybe we should all switch to your team," Nicole grinned, giving Claire a cheeky nudge.
Claire laughed.
"Girls aren't much better than guys, I don't think," she said.
"No?"
"They mess you around just as much," she said.
"Maybe you haven't met the right one," Ruby said. "Charlie and Joey don't do that. I mean, they've got it sussed more than any other couple I know."
"That's very true," Claire conceded.
"Yeah, that's the kind of relationship I'm aiming for," Nicole said.
The other two agreed.
Marilyn was immediately anxious when Robertson showed up at her door, asking if she would do a tarot reading for him. Apparently he heard that she was fantastic at the craft and it was something he was personally very interested in. Very reluctantly, she agreed and they sat down at the dining table together.
"So, what has everyone's best and worst relationships been?" Ruby asked.
"Well, I think we all know my worst," Nicole said. "He's the reason we're sitting here, waiting for my HIV results and he's currently missing, presumed dead."
The others nodded unhappily.
"My best? Aden, I guess. He was just… a great guy. And probably in a different time, a different place, we would have worked. But the love of his life was always going to be Belle. We both knew it. And it was too soon after she died. It was too much for him to try and love me. But we did have a connection and we did love each other in our own way."
She smiled out across the sea, thinking of him. They vaguely kept in touch now but it had been hard to let him go.
"What about you two?"
"My best was probably my first relationship," Claire said. "We were best friends, really. More than anything. It was just… special. My worst was just a brief thing. She was just… not very nice. A bit of a bully."
Ruby put her arm around her. She knew more about Claire and her past than anyone from their time in therapy. She knew her pain.
"And you, Ruby?" Claire asked.
"My best… Xavier, I guess," she said. "We had a good time when we were together. My worst… I mean, I haven't really had a bad relationship. I've had bad crushes that have got me into trouble. Liam. Alex. Miles. But if I had to pick a 'bad' relationship, I'd say Pat."
"Who's Pat?"
"Remember my boyfriend when I first came to Summer Bay?" Ruby asked.
"Vaguely…"
"Well, we were always getting into trouble then," she told her. "Charlie was always going off at me about it all. I mean, she was way more highly strung then but still, I was way more badly behaved then as well. So yeah, Pat."
Xavier and April were at the Council meeting. They'd told tales on John to Gina who had given him a lecture about letting them down and they'd hoped that it would make him change his mind. But now, here they were, sitting in the meeting on their own. They weren't qualified or capable to speak up themselves and they didn't have a representative anymore. John had failed them.
Charlie went into Yabbie Creek, where Joey, enjoying a Saturday off work, was out for the day with Bianca. She caught up with them in a café, eager to join them. If Robertson was off doing ridiculous 'police work', then she would happily take an extended lunch break.
"Guess what!" she said, when she was sat with her partner and her friend. "The top, top boss is apparently so impressed with me that I've been put back on the Penn Graham case."
"Really?" Joey said.
"I'm not entirely sure whether to be pleased or not," Charlie said. "I don't actually want to be on the case. But the compliment is… well, a massive compliment."
Joey put her arm around her.
"It really is a compliment," she said. "And one that is due to you, Charlie."
"It is," Bianca said. "Nobody ever wants anyone than you if they need a police officer. Everyone loves and trusts you."
Charlie blushed.
"I can speak personally when it comes to that," Joey said. "I would never have coped without you after what happened to me. You guided me through everything. You held my hand and not just personally but as a police officer. You saved me."
Charlie kissed her girlfriend's hand, touched by her words.
"Exactly. And with this case," Bianca said. "I know it's one of the toughest you've ever had to work but if this Robertson guy really is gunning for Alf, then having someone on the team who is looking out for him can only be a good thing, can't it?"
"I guess so," Charlie said.
"And you never know," Joey said. "If this Nick Parrish guy is watching you and you do good work, which you obviously will, who knows what promotions and things might come your way in the future?"
"And we all know how driven you are by your career," Bianca teased.
Marilyn was stressed. The tarot reading had initially gone well. But then Robertson had chatted to her about all sorts of things, getting her engaged in all the spiritual things she was interested in – dreams and auras the like. Then she had accidentally revealed that she'd been having dreams about Alf. That she had dreamed that Alf had killed Penn. She knew it wouldn't be admissible as evidence. It wasn't like you could bag it up and show it to someone. But if someone close to Alf was dreaming that he was guilty, it wasn't exactly a character reference, was it? She felt like she had completely let him down.
"I'm sorry," John said.
"You did your best," Xavier said.
John had shown up at the meeting at the last minute. He had given really quite an incredible plea to the Council about the bottle ban. They had voted against it but at least he had shown up and delivered. Xavier and April were pleased that he had tried.
"But we didn't get the result that we wanted," John said.
"We still tried," Xavier said. "And we can keep trying. The point is that you came."
John patted him on the shoulder, grateful that he wasn't disappointed in him.
Nicole jumped when he phoned rang, even though she had been waiting for the call all day. Claire and Ruby waited with baited breath and she spoke to the hospital for a few moments and then hung up.
"The results are negative," she said, almost unable to believe it herself. "I don't have HIV."
Claire and Ruby piled onto her, hugging her in sheer joy.
Xavier brought April home with him, eager to tell Gina and John had come to the Council meeting.
"How did it go?" Gina asked.
"They voted against it," Xavier said.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Gina said. "We can always try again though. Pester them until they give in."
She and April grinned at each other in female solidarity.
"John was amazing though," Xavier said, keen for his mother to know how hard John had tried.
He was desperate for them to get back together.
"Was he?" Gina asked. "Despite his attitude this morning?"
"Yep," April said. "He was incredible. They must have had hearts of stone to say no because his speech was insane. He was so passionate."
"Honestly, Mum. If you'd have been there, you would have been so proud of him."
Gina thought she was quite proud of him just hearing about it.
With Charlie having been sort of promoted at work and with Nicole having had the results she was hoping for at the hospital, Joey had gone home and cooked a special meal for herself, Charlie, Ruby, Nicole, Claire and also Bianca, who she'd spent the day with.
"This is amazing, Jo," Charlie said, when they all sat down at the table together. "Thank you."
"Well, it seemed like a good day to have a big family dinner," Joey said, stealing a quick kiss.
"A toast then," Ruby said, raising her glass. "To Charlie for being the best cop ever and to Nicole and her happy, healthy future."
Everyone clinked their glasses.
"To Charlie and Nicole!"
Next time… Dex finally gets his date with Graves, Marilyn feels guilty and Bianca makes a slip up…
