‘Six points,’ Stick informed Megan. ‘Let’s put them on the board, shall we?’ Megan did appear to be watching as Stick moved the marker to a new score and the cooing noise could easily be read as approval. Stick grinned. ‘She’s catching on,’ he told Jason. ‘Pretty smart, isn’t she?’
‘I like a girl who likes watching snooker.’ Cliff was lining up his next shot. ‘I reckon she should be the station mascot.’
Stick’s nod was enthusiastic. ‘I’ll bet Mrs Mack could make her a junior-sized uniform. That’d be cute.’
Jason could just imagine Megan as a toddler with a custom-made fireman’s jacket and helmet. He could even see her holding his hand as she tottered along beside the life-sized version. Hell, it
‘She’s due for a feed,’ he said. ‘I’m surprised she’s not yelling her head off by now.’
‘She likes us,’ Cliff announced.
‘Don’t get too attached,’ Jason warned. ‘I’m not keeping her.’
‘Might not be that bad, you know.’ Stick’s gaze slid away from Jason’s raised eyebrows. ‘Well, she is kinda cute. For a baby, that is.’
Absurdly, Jason felt proud of the fact that Megan was his daughter as he carried her away from the games room-cum-gymnasium towards the kitchen. She could certainly turn on the charm at times. His colleagues had no idea what she was like when she wasn’t happy, though. They wouldn’t be anything like as smitten if they had to endure an hour or two of grizzling ill humour.
As he had to that night. There was no pleasure in having a beer while he cooked dinner listening to that incessant squalling. She quietened down so that Laura could eat in peace, he noticed, but he felt obliged to keep walking round and round the living room in the hope of getting her off to sleep.
‘Did you end up getting any lunch?’ he asked Laura.
‘No. This is great, though. What is it?’
‘Goulash.’
‘Is it?’ Laura took another mouthful. ‘I can’t taste any paprika.’
‘What’s paprika?’
‘The red stuff that looks like pepper and goes into goulash.’
‘Nah.’ Jason skirted the couch and began another circuit. ‘Goulash is just what you make when you chop up all the leftovers, throw in some veg and cook it.’
‘Whatever. It tastes fantastic.’
Jason eyed his own plate, cooling on the bench, and sighed. ‘So what kept you so busy?’
‘We kicked off with a hypoglycaemic coma, had a heart attack around nine a.m., a kid fell off a climbing frame at play centre for morning tea and then we got stuck with an MVA and entrapment out on the motorway.’
‘Who went out to that?’ Jason watched carefully to see if he could detect any disappointment on Laura’s part that he hadn’t arrived. Surely, if she did fancy him, as his mates had suggested, he could pick up a few clues here and there.
‘A crew from Central station.’ Laura didn’t seem at all disappointed.
‘They could have called us,’ Jason grumbled. ‘We spent half the morning putting in smoke alarms for old-age pensioners, had a false alarm at a factory warehouse and then nothing for the rest of the day. It was dead boring.’
‘Our afternoon was a bit dull. Non-stop calls but none of them were very exciting. Sore backs, sore hearts, sore legs. You name it, we saw it.’
‘How long did the extrication for the MVA take?’
‘Two hours.’
‘What? We could have done it in less than half the time.’
‘So could they, but he wasn’t badly injured. We just didn’t want to do anything that might exacerbate his neck injury so we put on a neck brace and gave him oxygen and basically kept him amused while the fire boys cut up the car all around him.’
‘Still shouldn’t have taken two hours. What was it, an armoured truck?’
Laura laughed. ‘No, it was a Mini and he was a very large man. We ended up taking off the roof and lifting him out with a crane.’
‘That would have been embarrassing. Especially on the motorway.’
‘Quite a few people stopped to have a look,’ Laura said. ‘Maybe the embarrassment will motivate him to lose a bit of weight.’ She picked up another forkful of her meal and looked at it thoughtfully. ‘I’m a great one to talk, aren’t I? And here I am, stuffing myself.’
‘You’re not fat,’ Jason assured her.
‘I’m not exactly skinny either.’
‘Women who are naturally skinny are few and far between. The ones who are obsessed with being unnaturally skinny usually have a hell of a lot of other hang-ups as well. Believe me,’ Jason said firmly. ‘I’m speaking from experience here.’
‘So why do you always pick skinny girlfriends, then?’
‘Dunno.’ Jason tried to sound offhand. ‘Maybe I’ll go for curvy next time.’
Megan’s fractious cry distracted him from trying to assess whether Laura had responded to that fishing expedition. The quiet period was definitely over.
‘Maybe she’s got another ear infection.’
‘I think she’s just overtired,’ Laura said. ‘Maybe she should have been sleeping on station today, instead of being used for some pass-the-parcel game. Has it turned into some sort of competition to see who can spend the most time playing with the baby or something?’
‘If you ask me, we’re lucky that the guys are happy to have her around at all.’
‘It’s a night shift tomorrow. They won’t be so happy if their sleep gets interrupted.’ Laura stopped eating, her fork poised. ‘What will we do if we’re both called out at the same time?’
‘Mackie’s offered to sleep on station for two nights.’ Jason sighed heavily as Megan paused only long enough to take in a deep enough breath to raise her volume. ‘I’ve had about enough of this,’ he muttered. ‘It’s been a week, Peanut. Where the hell is your mother?’
‘Here, I’ll take her.’ Laura dropped her fork and her chair scraped as she pushed it back hurriedly. ‘That was really nice, thanks. You’d better have yours before it’s too cold.’
It was already too cold. Jason grimaced around his mouthful and eyed the microwave as he chewed, but he was too hungry to be bothered reheating his meal and the second mouthful didn’t taste so bad.
Megan grizzled on intermittently. Laura looked fed up but Jason stubbornly took his time to eat. Perversely, he welcomed the increase in tension because it made him forget any disturbing thoughts that Laura might be helping him because she wanted more than friendship from him. It also effectively blotted out any of the brief fantasies he’d been experiencing about still having the kid around when she was old enough to hold his hand and walk beside him. Or go off to school with a cute little backpack. Or smile when her front baby teeth had been purchased by the tooth fairy.
He didn’t offer to relieve Laura when he’d finished eating either. She couldn’t complain about him clearing the bench, could she? He knew he was pushing his luck when he popped the tab on a can of beer and turned the television set on, but what was the worst thing that could happen here? Laura would go home, he’d be left with a baby he couldn’t possibly manage on his own and he’d have to stop procrastinating and do something about finding Shelley Bates.
The scenario was unlikely, in any case. Laura seemed quite happy to do more than her share most of the time, and why not? She was female, wasn’t she? Didn’t they all get a bit clucky by the time they were pushing thirty? He was doing her a favour, really, by showing what that genetic programming could land you with.
Within a few minutes, however, it became apparent that a surprising hiccup could be occurring in Laura Green’s genetic programming.
‘What do you think you’re doing, Jase?’
‘Sorry. Did you want a beer?’
‘No.’
‘Come and watch this programme, then. This forensic pathologist is great at solving murder mysteries.’
‘There’ll be a murder around here soon and it won’t be at all mysterious.’
