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  “That’s okay,” I murmured, feeling as if I could breathe again – as if I was back in control.

  Turning to face me, he said, “Look, I’m really busy right now...”

  “Busy doing what?” I sighed, just wanting to take down as much information as I could to complete the crime report back at the station.

  “Why don’t you come back another time?” Michael suggested, heading towards the back door.

  “Like when?” I asked, knowing now for sure that he was messing with me and enjoying it. Deep inside me, there was a part that liked the fact he was doing this. It kind of turned me on.

  “How about Wednesday, officer?” he said, opening the back door for me. “I’m free all day.”

  I mentally scrolled through my shift pattern and knew I was on a middle shift on Wednesday – two ‘til ten. “I could make the report out right now...” I started.

  “Wednesday will be good,” Michael smiled back at me, the door still wide open and the sound of the rain beating against the saturated ground outside.

  Raising the collar of my coat about my neck, and placing my cap on my head, I stepped out into the rain. I looked back again, but Michael had already shut the door. I hurried down the path, dodging the puddles as best I could, and climbed into my patrol car. Inside I sat and listened to the sound of the heavy rain drumming off the roof above me as it beat in time with my racing heart. I looked back at the farmhouse in the distance and pictured Michael in his spray-on tight T-shirt and scruffy jeans. With that picture of him at the forefront of my mind, I started the engine and drove the patrol car down the lane.

  Chapter Two

  Of course I went back to the farmhouse on the Wednesday – I had to. Since meeting Michael, I hadn’t been able to get him out of my head. I had never met a guy so in my face before. At first I wondered if I hadn’t imagined how he had come on to me; had I read too much into the situation? I knew I hadn’t. Michael had flirted with me – he had made it so obvious that he liked me, and I liked him, too. To be honest, since leaving the farmhouse on that bleak afternoon, I had been unable to stop wondering what it would feel like to have those short, sharp bristles and rough hands all over me.

  That very afternoon, after getting off from work, and unable to get him out of my head and shake off those feelings of wanting Michael, I paced between the bedroom, living room, and kitchen of my poky apartment. My skin felt hot and flushed, and I had a warm, needy, sensation in the pit of my stomach. I busied myself by ransacking my wardrobe, pulling out dresses and skirts for an evening of clubbing with my friends. In the end I didn’t go out, I had an early night instead, lying alone in the dark, one hand between my thighs, fantasizing about Michael.

  So on Wednesday, kidding myself that I would be spending my afternoon undertaking police work, I wrote in the office diary that I was out taking statements for the rest of the shift. Even as my patrol car lurched over the uneven dirt road which led up to the farmhouse, I told myself that my afternoon would be spent in the company of the disgruntled farmer and his son, completing the paperwork necessary to file my crime report. I climbed from the car. The day was cold, but not wet, so I left my raincoat on the backseat of the car along with my cap. I made my way up to the front door, utility belt with all of its equipment swinging about my hips.

  With my fist, I knocked on the door once before it swung open. Michael stood in the doorway. He wore a red checked shirt unbuttoned down the front and the same pair of faded jeans he had been wearing a few days before. Without saying anything, his eyes locked on mine. Michael stepped to one side, gesturing for me to enter. He closed the door behind me. I felt a nervous tension inside the cluttered kitchen. I turned to look at Michael. He stood with his back against the closed door, barring my exit, shirt open. I could see his well-defined stomach and chest. It looked rock hard, as if chiselled from stone. My eyes followed that sexy ‘v’ line that was such a turn on for me, a thin line of wispy black hair poking up from beneath the waist of his jeans. He caught me staring at him, that warm sensation spreading out from my stomach, downwards.

  Knowing the answer to my question before I even asked it, I said, “Is your father home?”

  “No,” Michael said with a shake of his head, his thick black hair spilling over his brow. “He won’t be back for ages, but you knew that already, didn’t you?”

  “Did I?” I asked back, the room suddenly feeling hot and claustrophobic.

  “Of course you did,” he half-smiled, stepping away from the door and heading across the room. He stopped before the kitchen table, and picking up a bottle of whiskey, he poured two glasses. Michael came back across the room and offered me one of them.

  “I’m on duty,” I told him, refusing to take the glass.

  Slowly he raised the other glass to his mouth, taking a gulp. Michael peered at me over the rim of the glass. “Do you always play by the rules, officer?”

  “Yes,” I told him, as he continued to hold the glass of whiskey out before me.

  “That’s good to know,” he smiled wistfully at me, then emptied his glass. “So if I were to break the law, you would have to punish me, right?”

  “It wouldn’t be down to me to punish you...” I started as he waved the glass beneath my nose again. This time I took it and drank its contents straight down. The liquid scalded the back of my throat and I fought desperately not to cough and splutter.

  “But you would have to arrest me, right?” he said, heading back towards the whiskey bottle. He picked it up and poured another glass almost to the brim. Sipping it, Michael headed back across the kitchen towards me.

  “Whether I arrest you or not all depends on what sort of crime you committed,” I told him, placing my empty glass down and taking the one he had been drinking from. I gulped down the remains, and with a smile, I said, “Why? Do you have something you want to confess?”

  Slowly, Michael reached out and cupped one of my breasts in his large hand. I looked down as he gently brushed his thumb over my nipple. It felt good.

  “You’d have to arrest me for assaulting a police officer,” he smiled, taking his hand away.

  We stood and looked at each other in the quietness of the kitchen. The only sound was that of my racing heart.

  “Are you going to arrest me?” Michael dared, his eyes wide with delight.

  “This is insane,” I breathed.

  “What is?” he whispered.

  “This,” I said, reaching out for him and pulling him close.

  Our lips met as we kissed. Michael eased his tongue into my mouth, where it slid wildly about. I kissed him back with as much passion, my own tongue darting beneath his. He buried his hands in my hair, loosening the bun I had pulled it into. Once my hair was free, he yanked and pulled at my shirt, desperate to get at what lay beneath. I ran my hands down his back, his body hard beneath my touch.

  “I’ve got a good mind to take you into custody,” I whispered in his ear.

  “Do what you like, officer,” he said, pressing himself against me. I could feel his cock was hard beneath his jeans. He started to move his hips in a slow, deliberate, circular motion as he rubbed against me. I was tempted to unfasten his jeans and release it – take it in my hands. Before I’d had the chance, Michael was guiding me back towards the kitchen table, his rough hands now working their way down the back of my trousers and squeezing my arse. My utility belt came free, my baton, radio, and quick-cuffs clattering against the stone floor.

  I looked sideways at the front door. If I was going to leave, then I had to do it now. I knew that if I stayed, there was no going back. I would’ve crossed a line which I might never come back from. With Michael’s hands now between my legs and just wanting him, I closed my eyes on the door and on all of my reasoning.

  Chapter Three

  I lay on my back across the table. Michael ran the palms of his hands over my breasts, his fingers playing with the nipples. I moaned, as he lent over me letting the tip of his tongue flicker over the hollow
of my belly button.

  He moved lower still, and taking his hands from my breasts, he started to work my trousers down and over my thighs. I reached out, clawing my nails over his shoulders like a set of rakes. He groaned and pulled my trousers free. Michael climbed up onto the table, slowly pushing my legs apart with one knee. I buried my face into his bare shoulder, nipping at his flesh with my teeth. With one finger, he hooked aside my panties and let his fingers work slowly through the fine knot of hair between my legs.

  I shuddered against him, arching my back off the table, as his fingers began to slowly, gently stroke me.

  “Is this wrong, officer?” he whispered, glancing up at me from between my thighs.

  “Very,” I gasped, as his fingers quickened.

  With his free hand, I watched him fumble his jeans open and let them drop to the floor. His cock stood almost upright from the middle of his body.

  It was then that the dog started to howl.

  Leaning back, I closed my eyes, trying to block out the sound of the dog. The noise of its barking, bringing me back to the sudden, unwelcome realisation that I was a cop who was still on duty.

  I screwed my eyes shut as Michael’s strokes grew faster and faster, as did my growing excitement.

  “Do you want me to fuck you, officer?” Michael teased.

  Beginning to feel more anxious than turned on, the knowledge of where I was, what I was doing, and everything I was risking, made me freeze up and turn cold. It suddenly all felt so wrong. But wasn’t that the whole point? Wasn’t the fact that everything I was doing was so forbidden the reason I was so aroused in the first place?

  Yap-yap-yap! The dog howled.

  I tried to block out the sound of the dog by concentrating on what Michael was doing to me.

  “So, are you gonna punish me, or what?” he whispered, reaching down and taking a condom from his jeans.

  “Stop,” I gasped. “I can’t do this anymore.”

  Michael glanced at me. “Is this part of the game?”

  “There is no game,” I said, pushing myself up onto my elbows and closing the front of my shirt.

  “You are kidding me, right?” he asked, sounding unsure as if I were messing with him.

  “No, I’m not kidding,” I said, sliding from the table and snatching up my trousers. As I tugged them back over my legs, all I could see in my head was my father’s disapproving glare. “This should never have happened,” I told Michael.

  “So you’re not going to arrest me?” he said, and I couldn’t tell if he still thought all of this was some part of the fantasy we had been acting out.

  “I don’t think so, do you?” I said back. “I’ve got to go.”

  Realising the game was over; he hurriedly pulled up his own jeans. “Perhaps we could do this again sometime – you know, when you’re not on duty?” he asked.

  “I doubt you would find it as much fun,” I said, tightening my utility belt about my waist.

  “I guess not,” he said thoughtfully.

  I looked back at him as I fixed my police radio to my belt. Before I could say anything back, my radio made a hissing and then a crackling sound. I snatched it from my belt and held it close to the side of my face.

  “Zulu-Control to Romeo-Three...” the voice of the operator in the control room came over the radio, then cut off.

  “What’s that...” Michael started.

  “Shhh!” I scolded him. “My control room is trying to get hold of me.”

  “Zulu-Control to Romeo-Three nothing heard from Romeo-One...” the radio operator cut in then died away again.

  “Shit!” I barked, heading for the door.

  “What’s the problem?” Michael called after me.

  “They’ve been trying to raise me on the radio but because there’s no bloody signal out here, they think I’ve had an accident or something,” I explained. “I need to get into an area where I can contact them before they send out the search party – if they haven’t already.”

  Reaching the kitchen door, I remembered I’d put in the office diary that I was out taking statements all afternoon. I only had one outstanding crime in my tray at the moment, and that was this so-called burglary at the farm. It wouldn’t take my father – Sergeant Hart – too long to figure out where I was and come in search for me – if he hadn’t already.

  Looking over my shoulder at Michael, I said, “If any cops turn up here, tell them I took your statement and left about an hour ago.”

  “Okay,” he shrugged, still looking confused at my sudden change of mind. He added, “Will I see you again, Officer Sydney Hart?”

  “Unbelievable,” I sighed under my breath and left the farmhouse.

  I raced down the path towards my squad car and didn’t look back once. With the engine roaring, I sped away and down onto the single-lane track. I pulled my radio from my belt, scanning the signal bar. It was blank. I pushed on, taking the tight bends in the narrow country roads faster than I knew was safe. I wanted to be as far away from that farmhouse as possible before I came across my father. Taking one hand from the wheel, I cupped it around my mouth and breathed out. I sniffed my hand.

  Whiskey!

  How had I been so stupid? I cursed myself.

  Taking my eyes off the road for just a moment, I leant forward and pulled open the glove box in search of some chewing gum. I hadn’t even opened it when I felt the car lift off the road. The world seemed to spin and turn all around me. There were scraping and tearing sounds, like branches being dragged down the side of the patrol car. There was another sound, too, and it was awful – it was the sound of an animal screaming in pain. The patrol car flipped over more times than I could truly know, until it settled on its side in a narrow ditch. The seatbelt was tight across my chest and I gasped for breath. There was something hot and wet dribbling into my right eye and turning the world crimson. I knew I was bleeding from the head – how badly, I didn’t know. The mewing and screeching sound came again, filtering into my mind as if I were hearing it from underwater. I looked to the right, a sudden splinter of pain knifing its way through my shoulder. The windscreen was a spider web of cracks. Even so, I could see the bloody devastation spread along the road before me. A horse lay on its side, its giant head twitching left and right on its long, veiny neck as it fought to stand. From where I lay trapped in my crumpled squad car, I could see that the horse would never stand again. Further along the road, crushed against a bracken-covered wall, I could see what looked like a wagon. There was a giant wheel which spun lazily around and around. At first I couldn’t make out what I was looking at. With a set of trembling fingers, I clawed the blood from my eyes. It was then I saw what looked like a series of jet-black sheets billowing in the wind. But they weren’t sheets, flags, or sails. They were the dresses and clothes of the family who had recently moved onto old Farmer Moore’s land. The family which the locals had named the witches now lay scattered, bloody, and lifeless along the remote country road. I closed my eyes on the nightmarish scene.

  Blindly, I fumbled for my radio and pressed the talk switch with my thumb. Please let there be a signal, I whispered to myself.

  “Zulu-Control from Romeo-Three,” I gasped in pain and shock. “Urgent assistance...I need urg...”

  My world went as black as those witches’ robes fluttering around the dead bodies in the road.

  Chapter Four

  The whoop-whoop sound of approaching sirens faded in and out, like waves crashing over me then retreating again. A dull thud beat at my temples and I just wanted to throw up. My eyelids flickered as I peered through the broken windscreen of my patrol car. The world looked as if it had been tipped over onto its side. There were congealed pools of black blood beneath the spinning wheels of the overturned cart, and its occupants, who now lay lifelessly, their black clothing fluttering in the breeze.

  Had I caused this? My mind screamed.

  The world started to fade again, part of me relieved that I didn’t have to look at those bodies, th
e mewing horse, and the spinning wheels of the cart. I wanted the darkness to come and take me again. I wanted it to drown me, wash me away from here and never bring me back. I closed my eyes, drawing deep, shallow breaths into my chest, which was crushed flat against the steering wheel.

  Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!

  The sound of the sirens growing closer now, bringing with them my father. In the darkness of my own semi-consciousness, I could see him, stiff-backed behind the wheel of his immaculate squad car. His uniform, crisply ironed, the creases down the sleeves and across his broad shoulders, sharp as razors. His keen grey eyes staring straight ahead, finely cropped hair and bushy moustache making him look more like an army sergeant major than a cop. I could picture him stepping from the car, his black boots so highly polished that they glinted like diamonds in the winter sun. I could see the disappointment – the anger – in his face when he surveyed the scene and realised what I had done. It wouldn’t take him long to figure this mess out – he would know this was one of my fuck-ups. But I had done nothing like this before – this was the fuck-up of all fuck-ups!

  I glanced once more through the web of cracks in the windscreen, hoping that perhaps the dead and the horse and cart had somehow magically disappeared. They hadn’t, and in those cracks, which did little to mask the carnage spread across the road, I saw the flicker of luminous blue lights as my father’s patrol car arrived on scene. I could see the word ECILOP written in blue across the bonnet, and through the cracked windscreen it looked distorted out of shape. Over the sound of the squealing sirens, I could hear his boots pounding quickly over the gravelled road as he raced towards my upturned patrol car. Today his boots weren’t glistening with polish, but with flecks of blood. I closed my eyes against the pain in my head and chest. I couldn’t bear to look into his eyes. I didn’t want to see the disappointment I knew would be in them.

  “Sydney! Sydney!” I heard his deep voice thunder.

  A hand grabbed my shoulder. Without having to open my eyes, I knew it was my father’s. I knew his touch.