Blood Tears (12 page)

“
Don’t you touch my son again or I’ll rip your fucking head
off, bitch,” she screeched.

“
Piss
off, Lola!” I shouted, ungently elbowing backwards, catching some
unknown part of her body I didn’t care enough about to
discover.

But like the eternal
pest she was, she soon recovered and relaunched herself on me. As I
had my arms full with Rick again, I couldn’t deflect her, receiving
blow after blow on my back from her.

“
If
you don’t stop that, I’m going to crack your head open with my
baton,” I threatened. I struggled to reach for my handcuffs,
managing to release them and snap one of them around Rick’s wrist,
quickly following with the other. I forced him down to the floor,
dragging him over to a wall where I released one wrist, and cuffed
him to the leg of a heavy table. It wouldn’t hold him for long, but
would give me a short breather to assist Baz, who struggled under
the fury of Mark’s anger.

A lucky punch from Mark
knocked Baz down and out. He lay on the floor moaning quietly.
Surrounded by angry Bycrafts, and with Rick freeing himself from my
ineffectual restraint, I pulled out my baton.

“
The
dumb bitch never learns she can’t win,” crowed Rosie with a huge
smile of delight on her face.

“
Piglet, you are
so
going to pay for this,” snarled a
heavily intoxicated Rick, shaking his ensnared wrist, the handcuff
rattling.

I backed up against the
wall, eyes darting back and forth from one inflamed pair of yellowy
eyes to another. And one thing I knew for certain at that moment
was that I going to end up in a whole world of pain.

“
Police!
” bellowed a loud voice from the
door.

The Sarge appeared at
the doorway to the lounge room, his Glock drawn, covering the
ground into the room.

Chapter 8

“
Back
away from the officer,” he instructed, sweeping the crowd with his
gun. “I mean,
now!
”

With hate showing
openly in their faces, the Bycrafts reluctantly gave me some
breathing space.

“
Who,
Tess?” the Sarge asked, pulling out his handcuffs with his free
hand.

“
Rick
and Mark,” I said, trying to calm down my breathing.

I grabbed Rick by his
dangling handcuff, and the Sarge shoved Mark over to me.

“
Handcuff them together, arms crossed at their
backs.”

“
Gotcha.”

With that tricky moved
completed successfully, the Sarge put away his gun, and pushed down
on the two men’s shoulders, forcing them into a sitting position on
the floor.

“
Cross your ankles and stay down, if you know what’s good for
you,” he instructed in a harsh voice.

“
What
the hell caused this?” I asked.

Mark nodded sullenly in
the direction of the Lebutt women who had carefully positioned
themselves away from the fray. “It’s her, isn’t it?” he
slurred.

“
Which her?”

“
That
slut, Dorrie.”

I groaned. “What’s
going on now?” As if I cared about their disreputable love
lives.

“
She’s only just gone and started fucking Rick again, hasn’t
she? Slut,” he spat out. “Makes me think the kid’s not really mine
after all.”

“
Don’t you call me a slut!” a newly delivered Dorrie
screeched. “You’re the one off fucking Stacey Felhorn behind my
back. Think I wouldn’t find out, didn’t you, you cheating bastard?”
That was a bit rich considering Dorrie had been screwing Stacey’s
boyfriend, Rick, behind her back when this infinitely boring
four-way soap opera started almost a year ago.

“
Look, I couldn’t give a shit about which of you is sleeping
with who behind whoever’s back, but you better all calm down now,”
I advised.

The Sarge said to me,
“Tess, see to Baz.”

I kneeled down next to
him, and shook him lightly. He moaned as his eyes fluttered open.
“Oh God, what happened?”

“
Mark
Bycraft king-hit you.”

“
Oh,
geez.” His eyes rolled back before focusing on me again. “Lock the
bastard up for the night, Tezza. He’s off for a trip to Wattling
Bay for this.”

“
We
will,” I promised, dabbing at his bleeding nose with the edge of
his going-out shirt.

The Sarge pointed at
Mark. “You’ll be spending the night in the lockup until we can take
you to Wattling Bay for assaulting a police officer. Consider
yourself under arrest, buddy.” We both knew that was the last thing
we wanted to do. A guest overnight in the lockup meant a long,
sleepless night for one of us, and it sure wasn’t going to be Baz.
The Sarge looked around him and shook his head in disgust. “You
people revolt me. Five minutes back in this town and I’ve already
had enough of you all.”

Lola stood near Rick,
unafraid of us, her customary cigarette dangling from the corner of
her mouth. She glanced down at her restrained son without much
interest, him not being one of the few favourites out of her brood
of children. She regarded her nephew, Mark, with even less
interest.

She rounded on the
Sarge. “One fucking second back in this town, and we’re all sick of
your face, copper. You never should have come back. You’re not
wanted in town, and you’re not welcome in this house.” She directed
her hate-filled eyes at me. “And neither are you, piglet whore. So
fuck off out of my house, you murdering pieces of shit,” Lola
demanded, so angry that spittle collected at the sides of her
mouth.

“
We’ll leave when we’re good and ready,” the Sarge retorted
harshly, stalking over to the two restrained men. “Either of you
want to file a complaint against the other?”

Both men sullenly shook
their heads. They might be fighting over the same woman – though
God only knew why, considering what an unremitting scrag she was –
but they were Bycrafts, and up against the police, they always
maintained a united front.

“
Good,” he snapped. “Tess, uncuff this one.” He not so gently
kicked Rick to indicate whom he was talking about. “This one’s
going to the lockup until the morning.” Mark received an equally
ungentle kick.

“
You’re not locking up my Marky,” Dorrie said, advancing on
me.

“
Your
Marky?” I sneered, uncuffing a hostile Rick.
“What a joke you are, Dorrie. It was only a few minutes ago you
were calling him a cheating bastard.”

“
You’re not locking him up. You heard them. They’re not
pressing charges against each other,” she sneered back, getting in
my face. “You’ve got nothing on him.”

“
Are
you so stupid that you haven’t yet realised he king-hit a police
officer?” I pretended to think about that. “Oh yeah, you probably
are that stupid. Brain as thick as pig shit, I reckon.”

“
Tess,” the Sarge warned.

“
So
what?” said Dorrie. “That fat bastard deserved what he got. He
shouldn’t have interrupted them. The guys were sorting it out
between them.”

I snorted in ridicule.
“Sorting it out? You probably think it’s romantic having a couple
of guys slugging at each other for the dubious pleasure of knocking
you up next. Not that he’d ever know for sure if it was even his
baby.”

“
That’s what real guys do, bitch. They fight over chicks. Not
that you’d know. You’d be lucky to end up with two scabby rats
fighting over your dead body.”

She stepped up closer
to me, so that our noses almost touched, and pushed me in the
chest.

I pulled out my baton
and brandished it at her. “You better step back right now, or
you’ll get a good dose of this, and I don’t give a crap that you
just had a baby.”

“
You
wouldn’t dare,” she mocked. “No one attacks a new mother. Not even
dumbshit bitches like you.”

“
Put
it away, Tess,” the Sarge instructed quietly. “We have more
important things to do right now.”

I glanced over at him,
noting his serious face and the quick, short shake of his head he
gave me. He didn’t want to be dealing with two people in the
lockup, especially if one was a new mother with a baby to feed.

Reluctantly, I went
over to Baz to help him to his feet, while the Sarge manhandled a
fairly legless Mark to the patrol car, shoving him in the
backseat.

“
You
drive the patrol car,” he said. “I’ll follow in mine.”

“
Okay.” I helped Baz into the front seat, handing him a wad of
tissues for his bleeding nose as I drove off. In the rear view
mirror, I saw the whole contingent of Bycrafts standing on the
front verandah watching us drive away, a malevolent miasma almost
visible surrounding them. I resigned myself to this evening only
adding to my troubles with them.

At the station, we
virtually had to drag Mark to the lockup, his inebriation catching
up with him.

“
He
won’t be any trouble,” assessed the Sarge as he closed the barred
door on him.

“
Probably won’t even remember it tomorrow,” I said.

“
I
better take Baz to the prison so the doctor can check him. He’s not
as young as he used to be.”

“
No,”
I said firmly. “
I’ll
take him. You can stay here to watch
over Mark.”

We stared at each
other, both of us remembering only too well what had happened to me
the last time I’d been left alone to guard a Bycraft in the lockup.
He had no choice but to agree.

Despite Baz’s protests,
I drove him to the prison to see Dr Fenn, rousing that rather
grumpy gentleman from his slumber. He whinged about the Little Town
police force, and its use of him as their personal doctor the
entire time he examined Baz.

After checking his
pupils, his pulse, and his blood pressure, feeling around Baz’s
neck and head for any injuries, applying a cold compress to stop
the nose bleeding, and making him swallow a couple of painkillers,
he declared that Baz would survive. But he wrote him a medical
certificate for the next few days off work.

I took Baz back to his
room at the pub, settled him into bed, leaving Abe’s mobile number
on his bedside table.

“
You’re a good girl, Tezza,” he said, snuggled under the
blankets, his nose already bruising up.

“
Make
sure you tell the Super that, will you?” I said dryly. “I need all
the brownie points I can get with her at the moment.”

“
You
didn’t tell me Finn came back today.”

“
I
only found out late this afternoon when he turned up out of the
blue. You knew he was coming though, didn’t you?”

“
Oh
now, no third degrees while I’m feeling low, love.” I snorted,
rolling my eyes. “It’s lucky he turned up, because it looks as
though I’ll be out of action for the next couple of
days.”

“
I’m
sure I would have coped.”

“
Tezza, you know how vengeful those Bycrafts can be, and after
tonight . . . Well, I’m glad you’re not by yourself.”

I sat on his bed. “Baz,
I might have learnt something today about the boy who was killed.
Someone who was possibly his father came into the station. He was
really upset about his missing son, and the photo he showed me
looked a lot like the boy I chased. His son’s name is Jamie
Mansfield.”

“
Did
you let the dees know?”

“
Yep,
I left messages for both of them.”

“
Have
you written a report about it?”

“
Yep,
it’s in your in-tray.”

“
It’s
Finn’s in-tray, love,” he said gently. “He’ll be the dees main
contact from now on. Brief him about the case when you see him
next.”

“
Okay.” I walked to the door. “Are you sure you’ll be all
right? I feel bad leaving you alone after such a punch.”

“
I’ve
got a tough noggin, and that Bycraft had a bad aim.” He yawned
hugely. “I need to sleep, love. Foxy takes it out of a man, I can
tell you that. I’m going to miss her and some of her techniques.
Sheer dynamite.”

After hearing that, I
couldn’t escape fast enough. As I walked to the car I sent Abe a
text message asking him to check on Baz in the morning, though I’d
do the same.

At the station, the
Sarge was sitting in his old seat, his feet up on the desk, reading
my report about the visit from Mr Mansfield.

After I finished
telling him about Baz’s condition, he waggled my report around and
asked, “Do you want to fill me in on this case?”

“
Now?” I complained, yawning. “No.”

“
Are
you honestly going to be able to go back to sleep?”

I checked my watch.
Just going on four-thirty. I looked out the window. The faintest
hint of summer dawn lightened the sky, and the early chorus of
birds had begun. “Probably not, but I’ve left Jakey asleep at
home.”

“
Oh,”
he commented neutrally, turning his eyes back to my report. “Still
together?”

“
Yes,” I replied, a little defensive. “Why wouldn’t we
be?”

“
I
thought his brother’s murder would have caused a lot of problems
for you with his family.”

And yet you still
left me here alone
, I thought bitterly.

“
It
has,” I said quietly, turning on my computer, my turn to look away
from him, though I could feel his eyes resting on me.