Read Online Surrender by Donna Malane - Free Book Online Page B

brimful of punchlines.
    ‘The death squad boys are here to pick up the John Doe,’ he said, grinning at me. ‘You want to roll him round to the hearse or shall I just get the birds to fly him there?’
    Robbie obliged with his one-sided grin, despite no doubt tiring of this joke. I’d been around cops long enough to know he’d never shake this one off. Lou’s eyes shifted from my face to my chest. His tongue darted out to his lower lip and he gave himself a flick with the envelope. He was looking at my tits with the same beady avarice as the blackbird eyeing the bits on the fence.
    ‘McFay said you’d be coming out to look at the file. Robbie give you everything you need?’ He was one of those men who make everything sound sexual. The tongue darted out again, the pants were hitched. ‘I got one of the boys to run copies of the remains for you.’ He thrust the envelope at me. ‘They make pretty rough viewing.’
    This wasn’t so much deference to any sensitivity on my part, but more a pitch for him to act as comforter. I put the envelope in my shoulder bag.
    ‘Yeah, I’m good thanks, Lou,’ I said, knowing he’d hate me using his first name.
    The long black snout of the hearse crept into view down the side of the building. Robbie threw me an apologetic glance and set off towards the shed. Lou winked at me. There’s not much I hate more than being winked at.
    ‘Maybe you could put a call in to the ranger, tell him I’d like to see where the body was found and have a bit of a talk. It would helpif you could smooth the way for me there,’ I said, watching Robbie’s departure only partly to avoid looking at Lou.
    ‘Better still, I could take you myself,’ Lou said. I turned back in time to see his eyes shifting between my left and right tits.
    ‘Shall I bring these two along as well?’ I asked innocently.
    It took him a second, but when he got it he hitched his pants again and scowled.
    ‘If you’re accompanying the John Doe remains back to town, tell Tweety Bird he can stay here and clean out the shed. It doesn’t need the two of you guarding a wheelbarrow of bones.’
    I watched Lou head back into the station, safely removed from my dangerous mammary glands and even more dangerous smart mouth, and then I went to help Robbie.
    We found an old piece of tarpaulin to drape over the body. With one pushing the wheelbarrow and the other steering from the front, we managed to manoeuvre it across the grass. At the back of the parked hearse the two attendants sucked on their cigarettes and scuffed their leather shoes in the gravel. We squabbled a bit about how to best lift the remains from the wheelbarrow to the gurney without further destruction of evidence, and without drawing the attention of the kids splashing and squealing in the swimming pool next door. We might have gone on arguing for some time if circling seagulls hadn’t hurried us along. In the end we lifted the whole wheelbarrow into the hearse; the pathologist could sort it out at his end.
    Robbie and I washed our hands under the outside tap. It’s a ritual for me to wash my hands after being in the company of the dead. I suspect the hand-washing was more Lady Macbethian in motive for Robbie.
    ‘You said the ranger brought the body into the station in the wheelbarrow.’
    ‘Uh-huh. He had it on the back of his ute.’
    ‘So, who took the photos of the body? They were taken in situ , right? Where the body was found?’
    Robbie tore off a handful of grass sticking out from under the weatherboards and used it to scrub his palms.
    ‘Yeah, that’s right. The ranger took the photos then loaded the body into the wheelbarrow.’
    I wiped my wet hands on my jacket. ‘That was …’ I searched for the word, ‘helpful of him.’
    Robbie was too engrossed in his hand-washing to respond. I decided not to pass on Lou’s message about cleaning the shed. Robbie was still scouring as I went to the hearse.
    The two attendants were already waiting, engine