Blood Sport (42 page)

“Those fucking lights have been going on and off all night. We all know there’s nothing there. Rusty’s fucking paranoid,” opined one. It was heartening to hear that the lights kept being triggered by animals. If they’d already had a restless night of false alarms they might be slack about checking each time the lights went off tonight. Frankly it was my only hope of avoiding being shot at the moment.

Another offered his two cents worth. “Yeah. Nobody’s been sneaking around. Who in this shitpile of a town would have the balls? You see those shop owners when we come in? Half of them piss themselves at the sight of us.” They laughed dismissively at the townsfolk, making my blood boil. The shop owners were mostly good, decent people, trying to make an honest living. Not like this bunch.

“Who knocked over the drum then?” challenged Bear-wannabe. It must have been a subject of debate amongst the bikies.

“Animals, you dumb cocksucker! They’re
everywhere
around here. It’s the fucking country, remember?”

“The boss reckons someone took the ashes.”

“Rusty’s got his head up his arse. Who the fuck would steal ashes?”

“What happened to them then, smartarse?”

“How the fuck would I know? They probably melted away in the rain or something.”

Bear-wannabe considered that response for a moment. “Yeah, I guess that could happen. I never thought about that.”

A bellow came from deep inside the room. “Just shut the fucking window, Mr Grylls! It’s fucking freezing in here. My balls have shrivelled to marbles in that wind.”

“So nothing’s changed then, Spider?” joked Bear-wannabe before slamming the window shut behind him. I gratefully exhaled again. This was harder than I thought it would be. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how I’d drag an hysterical and traumatised young teen from the house when I finally found her, without us both being caught. And yeah, I’ll acknowledge that I probably should have thought about that
before
I set off from the Sarge’s house.

My back tight up against the house I slid, cautious step by step, down the side passage. It was agonisingly slow-going though, and each time I heard a window being opened I froze after clamouring into the nearest shadowy part.

I slid a few more steps and found that if I moved slowly but consistently, the lights stayed on, so they didn’t attract the men’s attention as much as they had when they were switching on and off all the time. A rustle in a tree nearby halted me in fear, eyes wide, hand on my gun. A possum stared back at me, eyes luminous and equally wide and afraid in the bright light. We eyeballed each other before it judged me to be no threat and turned to scurry away. I exhaled heavily again. I really missed the Sarge and regretted going on this crazy escapade without him. I was drenched despite my jacket, freezing. My left arm was reminding me unsubtly that it had twice been injured only a few days ago and it had been a while since I’d taken a painkiller.

Swallow
a teaspoon of cement and harden the hell up, Fuller
, I berated myself.
You’re the cop and there’s a young girl who desperately needs your help inside this house
. And with those inspiring words in my mind, I straightened up and glided along a few more steps. I’ve always been really good at pep talks to myself.

After a few further slides, I reached the end of the house where the patio was situated. They’d fixed the light I’d shot out the other night. It was switched on, even brighter than before, blaring unforgiving intense fluorescent illumination across the backyard. After a quick glance behind me to make sure nobody was sneaking up on me, I scoped the patio.

It was deserted, but the heavy odour of a greasy barbeque lingered in the air. I sniffed inquisitively. Beef sausages, overcooked steak and satay chicken kebabs by the smell of it. Accompanied by undercooked crunchy potato salad and coleslaw with a thick, unpleasantly acidic mayonnaise. And no, I wasn’t half-human, half-bloodhound, but I knew that those were the standard barbeque items sold in the local supermarket. And also, nobody had cleaned up afterwards and the containers still sat on the long table pushed up under the windows of the house. No wonder they had a problem with foxes and cats.

The lights were off in the room looking out directly onto the patio, which was one stroke of luck in my favour at least. But it didn’t mean there wasn’t someone sitting patiently inside, armed and waiting for an intruder. At that point, I patted myself on the back for wearing my bullet-proof vest even though it had POLICE written in bold white letters on the back and front. I wore it under my outer jacket so the writing was hidden, but if I had to take off my jacket for any reason, it would be painfully obvious to everyone that I was a cop.

A feral cat appeared out of nowhere from behind and streaked across the patio, nearly making me scream in fright. It brushed my leg as it ran past, before jumping onto the table, snatching an abandoned sausage from a plate and haring off into the darkness again. The momentum of its leap knocked one of the plastic plates to the cement floor with a clatter. I hastily moved back to the side of the house, expecting a rush of men to the patio to investigate the noise.

Nothing.

It was the sort of noise that would have had them running if anyone had heard it, so I felt safe in assuming that there was nobody in that room. Hoping that I wasn’t risking my life with unwarranted over-confidence, I moved onto the patio, now in full view of the back room. I tried the door handle. It opened and, not without some trepidation, I stepped inside the house. I’d already prepared my defence – the law allowed me to enter a premise without a warrant if I reasonably suspected a crime was taking place inside. Otherwise I’d just be a common garden-variety break-and-enterer. I wasn’t prepared to allow anyone to get away with thinking
that
about me.

It was warm, dark and quiet inside the house. The room was rectangular in shape and furnished with an odd assortment of old lounges and armchairs. The longer side of the room faced the patio, and a fireplace took up most of the short external wall, while a doorway filled the short internal wall. The embers of a dying fire showed that the room had been inhabited not too long ago. People must be asleep. I guess even bikies needed their eight hours a night.

Or not.

The faint murmur and laughter of men’s voices drifted into the room from distant parts. I moved quietly towards the internal door, mindful of the puddles I was leaving behind. It would be immediately apparent to anybody who came across my wet trail that there was an exceedingly damp intruder in the house. I was only going to get one chance to grab Kylie and escape before I was noticed, and I warned myself that I better not blow it.

I cautiously poked my head around the doorway. The room led out to a long hallway with a number of doors opening off it, most of them currently shut.
Probably bedrooms
, I reasoned to myself. The house was large and I wasn’t sure which would be the best direction to go. There was a darkened room with its door open on the other side of the hall, nearer to the front of the house than the room I was currently in. Listening carefully for any footsteps or voices coming closer, I dashed quickly to that room. I was grateful that every room I’d encountered so far was carpeted, hiding my path.

It was the kitchen, dark and silent except for the loud clanking and humming of an old fridge and the slow steady dripping of a tap that someone hadn’t turned off properly. Safely inside, I clutched the door jamb and surveyed the hallway again, uncomfortably conscious that I dripped copious amounts of water onto the linoleum flooring. Down the hall, between two rooms with closed doors, there was a staircase. About to run to it, I froze in place, heart thumping when a man, laughing loudly, burst from one of front rooms and rolled down the hallway towards me.

Shit!
I searched the kitchen quickly for a possible hiding spot and threw myself under the kitchen table, huddling in the darkest, furthermost corner. The guy flicked on the light and lumbered to the fridge, the door squeaking in protest as he opened it.

“Who drank all the fucking rum and cokes?” he shouted over his shoulder. Receiving no response, he muttered to himself, “Bunch of greedy wankers.”

He settled for a beer, popped the lid, threw it towards the bin and missed. It bounced under the table and landed next to my hand. I held my breath, hoping that he wasn’t going to be the tidy one in the house and lean under to retrieve it. Instead he burped with thunderous loudness, scratched his balls, groaning in delight as he did, and wandered back where he came from, leaving the light on.

I was about to climb out from under the table to turn the light off before dashing to the stairs, when another man came down the hall. When he passed the first man, they had a friendly bit of rough-housing, crashing against the walls of the hallway laughing and cursing each other, before continuing on their opposite paths.

The second man came into the kitchen and also pulled a beer from the fridge, flicking his top into the bin with more skill than the first man. He switched the light off as he left, but instantly spun around, returning to the kitchen and turning it on again.

“Who spilled something on the floor?” he yelled out, but also didn’t receive any response. Cursing to himself, he tutted, “Someone’s going to break their neck on that.” Curious, he started to follow the trail of puddles I’d left towards the kitchen table.

Oh great!
I thought with unhappy panic.
Out of all the bikies in this place, I had to run into the Vypers’ health and safety officer!
I slid my hand towards my Glock.

At that moment, a third man jogged down the hall and hurried past the kitchen.

“Gotta take a piss!” he shouted through the doorway in a slurred voice, as if the second man had asked him what he was doing.

“Good for you, mate,” the second man laughed and muttering under his breath that it wasn’t his job to do the housekeeping, he left the kitchen, switching off the light once more. Hunched under the table, wet, cold and cramped, I released my held breath with relief.

I waited until the third man finished in the bathroom and returned back to the room at the end of the hall. I cautiously moved towards the door and clung to the doorway nervously, ears straining. I waited another couple of minutes to make sure nobody else was in urgent need of a refreshment or bathroom break before I made my next move. Should I head for the stairs or not?

My mind was made up by two other men sauntering down the hallway from the opposite direction. They were laughing and joking with each other, not a care in the world.

“Time to wake the bitch up for some more action,” laughed one in a dirty way that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

“I don’t think this one’s going to last much longer. She’s given up already.”

“Yeah, Rusty picked a real dud this time. No fight in her at all,” said the first guy with conspicuous contempt.

“Not like the last one. Man! She was fun to do.”

Another dirty laugh. “You’re spot on there. She was a right goer, that one.”

“Yeah. She kept going and going and going.”

“Until she stopped.”

They laughed again as they climbed the stairs and I knew without a doubt which direction I had to go. Upstairs. With them. I’d recognised one of the men. Although I couldn’t see the tattoo on his back, he was still wearing the gold snake ring with the red stone eyes – the man from the film cell with his hands around Lucy’s neck.

I crept from the kitchen to the darkened staircase and slowly followed the men upstairs. They were so engrossed in their unsavoury discussion that they didn’t notice the shadow of me behind them. At the top of the stairs, they turned right towards a room that faced the back of the house. Blinding light streamed from under the door.

I thought about that for a moment. Such brilliant lighting should have been visible from the outside, but I hadn’t noticed anything. Which probably meant that they had light-blocking blinds on the windows. That was enough to set a cop’s radar beeping. What on earth were they doing in that room? But it didn’t take a genius to put two and two together. Burning film combined with bright lighting screamed one thing to me – movie-making. I was positive that Kylie was in that room.

But instead of turning right like the men did, I turned left. There were three other doors on the top floor, all shut. I needed to scope them before I made my move. I didn’t want any nasty surprises. What I was doing was already stupidly dangerous enough.

Tentatively, I turned the handle on the door to the far left and opened it, revealing a bathroom. A quick check from the doorway confirmed that it was empty, although not very tidy, wet towels and dirty clothes littering the floor. An economy-size box of condoms sat open on the vanity bench, a few wrappers carelessly strewn around.

The second door opened into an office of some sort. Boxes lined one wall and casually sitting on a desk, next to a phone and a laptop, was a small heap of five little plastic bags stuffed with a white powder.

Hmm, interesting, but not my concern
now
, I thought. I had only one goal and I was determined to remain focussed on that. I wasn’t here to arrest anyone, to search the premises or to investigate the bikies’ activities. I was here to rescue Kylie and to safely get the both of us out of this place as quickly as possible.

Reassured that the office was empty as well, I moved to the third door, the one closest to the room I’d soon be storming. I pressed my ear against the door and listened intently. I heard an indistinct noise, like a muffled whimper. I pushed my ear to the door again and heard the same noise. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound threatening.