Blood Sport (17 page)

The Super sprang from the passenger seat and Bum from the driver’s seat, eyes wide. Mr X and Zelda joined them, umbrellas jostling. Mr X whistled under his breath when he set eyes on the damage to the house.

“Oh fuck, Tessie. That’s a whole mess of paperwork right there,” Fiona complained, rubbing her forehead, her dark sunglasses back on again.

I turned to stare steadily at her. “I don’t know what you mean, ma’am. Red Bycraft went on a rampage last night. Remember?” She slipped off her glasses and we exchanged a measured glance. “First my house, then here.” I shrugged. “Or maybe the other way round? Who can tell?”

She regarded me thoughtfully for another minute, before nodding. “He did, didn’t he? Bad form of him to vandalise his own mother’s house. I thought that family was tighter than a fish’s arsehole.”

I shrugged again. “Maybe she’s the one who tipped me off and he was angry about it? You know what he did to his girlfriend when she tipped us off.”

“That sounds about fucking right, Tessie. I’m going with that.” She turned to the others. “Did you all hear that? Red Bycraft did this last night during a rampage.”

Three of them nodded obediently, but the Sarge was troubled by the decision. He was an honourable cop and stitching up a suspect, even someone like Red Bycraft, didn’t sit naturally with him. He scrutinised me intently, taking in my upset, angry features, my bedraggled appearance and the defiant tilt to my chin.

“Maguire?” asked the Super impatiently.

He glanced around at us all, his lovely ocean blue eyes darker than normal. But eventually he nodded as well.

“Good. That’s sorted.” Fiona returned her eyes to me and pulled a face. “You look like a savage – dripping wet, covered in mud, barefoot and bleeding. Get back to your place and have a shower. Now.”

Surprised, I looked down at my arm to see that, even though I’d favoured my injuries, my hard work had made both wounds start bleeding again. Damn! That would mean another trip to Big Town.

Judging that I’d finished running amok, Lola Bycraft stormed out to the veranda, spitting with rage. Her daughters, Rosie and Larissa, stood behind her, assorted other family members crowding around her in support as well. She yelled at me, she cursed me, she accused me of vandalism and violence. She was a vitriolic virtuoso, fists clenched, her face deep red with anger and hatred, white foam specking the corners of her mouth. It was an impressive performance, but the six of us regarded her rant impassively, none of us reacting.

However, something struck a discordant note with me as I watched her. I didn’t doubt for a second that she was genuinely pissed off with me, but she was overdoing it, putting on a show. She was too loud, too animated. She even took her cigarette out of her mouth to yell obscenities at me, which I’d never before seen. It was almost as if she was trying to distract us. A light bulb went on in my head.

Without any warning, I took off and sprinted around to the back. As I turned the corner of the house, I glimpsed the golden hair of someone bolting off to the right into the scrub next to which the Bycraft house was situated. I ignored that decoy, although it would have tricked most other people. I knew instantly from his height and body shape that it was Rick, Jake’s and Red’s brother. Instead I focused my attention on the familiar golden hair fleeing to the left.

“Oh Red Bycraft, you’re mine this time, matey,” I promised myself and sprinted after him, sloshing through the mud.

He was limping badly from the stab wound I’d given him at the hospital, throwing desperate glances over his shoulder as he tried to outrun me. But it was futile – Red Bycraft’s luck had finally run out.

I caught up and tackled him into the mud. He scrabbled in the soft, soaked ground with his hands and his feet to get away from me.

“
Sarge!
” I yelled and leapt onto his back, my knees pushing him further into the morass. I pinned his arms to his body with my legs and pulled out my gun, shoving it to his temple. I grabbed a fistful of his hair and dragged his head up, leaning down to hiss furiously in his ear, “Will I rip your head off too with my bare hands, like you did to my Miss Chooky?”

His beautiful face contorted in agony and he twisted around to look up at me. He made a valiant effort at bravado. “I wish you’d been home last night, Tessie. I had such plans for you. I was going to take my time. Those chickens were so . . . unsatisfying.” And he even managed a laugh.

I jerked his head up by his hair again and he gasped.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t just plug your brain with a bullet right now, Red Bycraft.” I ground the muzzle of my Glock viciously into his temple.

He grinned, his white teeth bright in his muddy, brown face. “Too many witnesses. You wouldn’t get away with it. Maybe next time, lovely.”

The others ran over to me, the Super complaining loudly about the mud on her expensive Italian leather shoes.

“Teresa Fuller, have you gone completely batshit insane?” she shouted at me. “Haring off when I just told you to get home, like a fucking –” She stopped abruptly when she saw who I had.

“Red Bycraft,” she laughed, turning to the others. “Look and learn, officers.
That
is how you catch a fucking fugitive – by going completely batshit insane. Well done, Tessie. Brilliant work.”

I pulled out my handcuffs, clapped them onto Red’s wrists and climbed off his back. The Sarge and Bum hauled him to his feet. He was covered in mud, his face clenched with pain. I checked him over quickly. The stab wound I’d given him in the back of his thigh was bleeding profusely, leaving a large, red damp spot on his dirty jeans. Whatever his family had done to patch it for him hadn’t worked.

“I can’t walk,” Red groaned, his leg collapsing under him.

“Try harder,” said the Sarge nastily, dragging him upright again.

“I need an ambulance, you stupid fucking pigs.” His leg gave way again and he fell to the ground again, moaning in agony. He squinted up at me between eyelids half-closed with pain. “Oh God, it hurts so bad. I’m going to kill you for this, you bitch.”

“Shut up, deadshit,” scorned the Super, kicking out at him as he laid in the mud. “Tessie, where’s the nearest doctor?” She looked down at Red with hatred. “Or vet.”

“The prison, ma’am. Dr Fenn.”

“Ring him and tell him we’re bringing a prisoner in for treatment. You can come too and get yourself fixed up at the same time.”

“Yes ma’am, but perhaps the Sarge could ring because I don’t have my phone on me. I left the house in a bit of a hurry, you might remember.”

“X!” she snapped, jolting him awake. “Take over from Maguire.”

It was a telling pointer to just how precarious life in Little Town was for me on occasion that the Sarge had Dr Fenn on speed dial. While he explained our situation to the doctor, I noticed the crowds of Bycrafts gathering at the back door.

“Ma’am, we have to move Red out of here fast. His family’s real angry that he’s being arrested. They’ll turn ugly any minute.”

But it was sooner than a minute that the first projectile was thrown at us. The empty beer stubby missed Zelda’s head by millimeters. She jumped in fright.

“Get him to the car,” Fiona instructed, copping a rock in her back. “
Fuck!
” She spun to Bycrafts. “Don’t any of you wastes-of-oxygen even think of obstructing us arresting this fugitive.” An empty Coke can hit her in the arm. “I will order a truckload of cops down here to bust your fucking heads in, if you don’t stop doing that right now!” she shouted at them in the voice that always loosened the bowels of every cop in the vicinity. It didn’t faze the Bycrafts though.

We moved quickly around the house towards the vehicles. Mr X and Bum propped up Red with their arms, virtually dragging him to the car. The single projectiles became a hail of all sorts of things – cans, bottles, rocks, bits of brick, shoes, fruit, plates, dirty nappies, basically anything the Bycrafts could get their hands on.

A putrid tomato hit me hard in the side of the head, knocking me off balance and causing me to slip over in the mud. The Sarge gave me a hand up and sheltering me under his arm, rushed me to the front of the house. The crowd of Bycrafts followed us there on the inside and continued to bombard us with detritus from every available broken window.

“Put Bycraft in the back of your car,” Fiona directed Mr X and Zelda. “Maguire, you get in the back with him and give him some first aid. Make sure he doesn’t fucking bleed to death on the way. Tessie, you get in the back of my car.”

“No,” I defied. “I’ll drive my Land Rover. I’m not leaving it here with them. They’ll trash it. And I’m going home to have a shower first. I’m dirty and freezing.”

But before I did any of that, I had some things to retrieve. Taking a deep breath, I dashed back towards the house, shoulders hunched. I threw one arm over my head to protect me from the rain of rubbish while I held my gun in the other hand.

“What are the hell are you doing?” yelled the Sarge in a panic after me, the others echoing his call.

The Bycrafts never expected me to do something that incredibly stupid, so I took them all by surprise when I ran up the rotting veranda stairs into the midst of them.

“Tessie, for
fuck’s
sake, get back here!” screeched the Super in fury.

I knew she was going to hand me my arse on a plate after this little stunt. I didn’t want to be disobedient, but the Bycrafts had some things of mine that I wanted back. I wasn’t going anywhere until they were returned.

I was totally focussed on my goal and when I saw her, I wasted no time heading straight for her. Someone tried to grab me and I elbowed them fiercely in the face, feeling something crunch as I did. I kicked out at someone else, making them fall backwards into a couple of the others. I reached Lola Bycraft at the doorway, easily seizing the little woman around the neck with my right arm and holding my Glock to the side of her head with my left. I was a passable ambidextrous shooter, as the Bycraft clan all knew.

Her cigarette fell from her mouth to the ground as I tightened my grip on her neck.

“Teresa Fuller, you are in
such
a shitload of trouble!” screamed the Super, turning to the others. “What the fuck is the crazy bitch doing now? Is she deliberately trying to get herself killed? Who has weapons? X? Bum?” They both nodded. “Good. X, you and Bum go and cover Tess. I’m going to kick that girl’s arse from here to fucking Timbuktu when she gets back out of that house.” She exhaled heavily. “Maguire and Zelda, take Bycraft to the prison doctor. Now! Full speed with siren before he exsanguinates in the car.”

“Ma’am –” the Sarge protested, itching to be heading into the house as part of my back-up team.

“Don’t argue with me, Sergeant!” she interrupted him, bellowing. “Just do what you’re fucking told!”

“But I want –”

“I couldn’t give a bee’s dick about what you fucking want, Maguire! Get that fucking prisoner to a fucking doctor now or you’ll fucking find yourself as a fucking constable again doing fucking school crossing patrols for the rest of your fucking life!
Do I make myself fucking clear?
”

He glared at her for an instant, before jumping into the back of the unmarked car where Red laid groaning on the seat, slamming the door with unmistakable attitude. They sped off, siren and lights on.

The Bycrafts jeered and cursed me loudly but they had no choice except to admit that I held the upper hand. I was soaking wet, muddy, barefoot with wild hair, a dirty face and a bleeding arm, but I was in control of the situation. The Bycrafts were very protective of Lola and would never do anything to endanger her. She was the powerful and influential matriarch of a rotten family where most of the men were dead or in jail.

“I want my photos back, Lola. Be a good girl and show me where Red was sleeping, and nobody will get hurt. Not even you, no matter how tempted I am.” I poked her in the temple a few times for emphasis.

“Look at yourself, piglet,” hissed Rosie Bycraft, Jake’s eldest sister. “You’re fucking insane.”

I considered her statement, head to one side. “Mmm, probably. But I still want my things back. Red stole them from me and I want them back. I’m not leaving here until I get them.”

“Give her what she wants then we’ll all get the hell out of here,” recommended Mr X soothingly from the bottom of the stairs, his gun sweeping the crowd. He sure was wide awake now. Bum looked confused as usual – he wasn’t sure what was happening, but copied Mr X slavishly.

“Rosie love, show the crazy slut where Red’s stuff is,” croaked Lola, not putting up a fight for once. Well, my grip around her throat was unnecessarily and life-threateningly tight, I’ll confess. And I was much taller and bigger than her. We both knew I could snap her scrawny neck without too much effort.

Keeping her as my hostage, we shuffled into the house together. It was a pigsty inside. Admittedly, the broken glass didn’t help the ambience much, but there were dirty clothes and dishes piled everywhere, battling with the rank odour of used nappies. It didn’t look as if anybody had cleaned for years. I wrinkled my nose at the fusty smell and tried to block out the sounds of half-a-dozen young children screaming and crying. Everyone else in the house seemed to have no trouble doing that, but I supposed they’d grown used to the racket over time.

We entered one of the three bedrooms, which was even messier than the lounge room. A triple bunk-bed took up one corner and three single mattresses on the floor filled the rest of the small space.