She nodded and swallowed hard. Realising she was indeed close to tears, Dave went to her and put his arms around her.
‘It’s okay.’
Melinda rested her head against his chest and muttered something.
‘What’s that?’ He leaned down to hear what she was saying.
‘I’m sorry,’ she gulped. ‘I’m being a cow.’
Dave smiled. ‘Look, all of this is new and I know it’s a long way from your mum and dad, but you’ll settle in quickly. If Kathy is anything like Spencer, she’ll be warm and friendly. In a couple of months you’ll have new friends and a new job. We’ll both have new friends and new jobs.’ Dave’s tone was earnest, as if he were reminding her he was new here too. ‘Spencer said Kathy had a bit of a hard time settling in too—maybe you guys could chat about it.’ He hoped those words would bring some kind of comfort.
‘I know, I know,’ she nodded and Dave felt hot tears on his chest.
‘Look, I know Barrabine seems a little…’ He paused, not wanting to say rough or backward and give her more reasons not to like the place; finally, he settled on ‘…isolated. But we’ll both get used to it.’
‘What if I can’t get a job?’
‘I’m sure the hospital couldn’t say no to a paediatric nurse as good as you.’
‘They can if there aren’t any vacancies.’
‘We’ll work it out, Melinda. I promise.’
‘And this, Dave,’ Spencer said in a loud voice, ‘is Plenty Street. There’s always plenty on offer here.’
Dave looked around at the buildings trying to work out what the plenty on offer was. They were plain and without signage.
‘They’re the brothels of Barrabine,’ Spencer explained with a flourish. ‘Now, what you need to know is brothels are an important part of Barrabine—single men make up the larger part of the population and there’s a need for sex workers here. As a copper, you have to understand the history and why we leave them to their own devices. If they weren’t here there’d be trouble, if you get my meaning.’ He looked over at Dave and raised his eyebrows. ‘There are only five left. Used to be ten. We have a great working relationship with the madams in Barra. They come to the police first if anything goes wrong. Us. The coppers. And we need that. Sometimes they can give us the heads-up if someone is odd or causing trouble, and vice versa.’
That certainly is different to the city, Dave thought.
They drove in silence for a while, Spencer taking quick turns here and there before saying, ‘Down here is the jail.’ Spencer listed the number of criminals incarcerated; it was more than Dave had expected. ‘I had one bloke put away last week. I’ve been chasing him for years.’
‘What’d you get him on?’ Dave asked, his eyes running along the razor wire at the top of the fence as they drove slowly by. You’d have to hope no one ever got away because the jail was almost in suburbia. It seemed to go from houses to jail without any land or break in between.
‘I’d known for ages he’d been illegally prospecting on mine leases—ones that didn’t belong to him—but I’d never managed to get there quick enough to catch him in the act.
‘We had a bit of rain last winter and the dirt gets real slippery out here—even after a small amount. Well, Clever Clogs managed to get himself bogged on someone else’s lease, with ten ounces of gold in his pocket.’ Spencer let out a laugh and his large belly jiggled, touching the steering wheel. ‘Of course, he tried the oldest trick in the book: he’d found it elsewhere. Trouble was,’ he turned to Dave gleefully, ‘I got a search warrant for his GPS and, after a little more research, I managed to come up with a wit who had heard him bragging in the pub the night before, saying he was heading back out to the same spot as the GPS had shown he’d been because he’d clean up out there! He’s gone inside for a couple of years. Pretty happy with that result.’ Spencer gave a bit of a laugh. ‘Now if he’d kept his mouth shut, I doubt I would have been able to get him put inside. I’ve found that people who’ve found gold can’t help but brag.’
‘That’s a good thing for the gold squad, I guess. Anyway, well done. Always a great feeling when you get a result like that. Especially if you’d been chasing him for a bit.’
‘Dead right, my man, dead right. Proving where gold has been stolen from can be a bit of a problem sometimes. It doesn’t come out of the ground with an address or GPS coordinates.’
‘Other than gold stealing, what other type of crime is most prevalent here?’ Dave asked. Just then he saw a group of young boys with a shopping trolley running down the street. There were two inside the trolley, one pushing it and the others yelling encouragement.
‘Look at those little buggers! Kids making their own fun. We don’t interfere with that type of thing too much, although they should take the trolley back.’ Spencer shrugged. ‘We have a lot of break and enters, alcohol-related crimes and DV.’ He paused. ‘It’s the domestic violence that gets me,’ he said. ‘I hate it when uniforms go out to a job, come back with the perp, lock him up and when we’re ready to throw the book at him—or her—then the vic decides they don’t want to press charges and the lowlife walks. Trouble is it happens again and again and again. You start to recognise the address when it’s called out over the radio and know what’s been going on.’
‘I get what you mean. When I was in uniform, same thing used to happen. It’s awful.’
They drove in silence for a little while and Dave contemplated what he was seeing. The main street had lots
