Blood Feud (46 page)

“Jesus, Tess,” he muttered, moving over to Kieran. “Look kid, you can’t come inside with us. We don’t know what we’re going to find. So just wait here at the door and hopefully we won’t be long.”

He pushed ahead of me, cautiously approaching the gaping doorway to the first shed. Another scream resounded from inside, followed by indistinct talking, one voice pleading in tone, the other angry.

Feeble light streaked across the concrete floor through gaping holes in the roof. From the doorway, we scanned the gloomy depths of the first shed. Nothing moved inside. I kept my hand on my sheath, ready to whip out my knife in a second, but wishing I had my Glock with me. The Sarge silently pointed to the doorway leading into the second shed and I nodded to show him I understood. We crept across the first shed, trying to avoid stepping on or kicking any of the detritus littering the floor. We flanked the doorway, listening intently.

Though we could hear voices, we weren’t close enough to determine what was being said. Not until a begging, sobbing voice raised itself, “Please don’t. Please let me go. I promise I won’t tell anyone.” That plea was followed by a loud slapping sound and jagged crying.

The Sarge pointed a couple of times towards the doorway to the third shed. We edged over towards it. Visibility inside the second shed was poor, the street lighting barely penetrating the greenery that virtually formed a canopy over the skeleton framework of the crumbling roof. I stumbled over the edge of an old mattress, barely managing to right myself before I crashed to the ground. The Sarge glared back at me in annoyance and we stood still, waiting for any sign we’d been noticed.

Instead we heard a sickening thud and low groans of sobbing pain. My stomach lurched. The Sarge gestured to continue and we inched towards the doorway.

An enraged, cruel voice spoke from within the darkness of the third shed. “I told you to shut the fuck up. You’re just making it worse for yourself.”

It was Red. Our anonymous tipster hadn’t let us down.

A woman’s shriek pierced the gloom and he spoke again, “Get back on your knees, bitch. And keep that mouth open.”

A loud yelp of agony was swiftly followed by the sound of someone scrabbling towards us, crying.

“Get back here!” yelled Red.

A half-dressed woman, hysterical and bleeding, flew through the doorway. As soon as she saw the Sarge, she flung herself on his reassuring bulk.

“Oh God, help me. Please. Please help me. There’s a man in there . . .”

She clung to him tightly as he tried to soothe her and calm her down. While he attempted to simultaneously assure her of her safety and extricate himself from her barnacle-like grip, I crept into the third shed without him. I spotted a figure fleeing through the doorway into the fourth shed.

Not wasting my breath on directing him to stop, I sprinted after him, almost tripping again on the rubbish strewn over the floor. Lighting in the third shed was patchy, illuminating sections where roofing metal was missing, leaving other parts in complete darkness.

I hesitated at the doorway to the fourth shed. It was so dark inside, the structure almost swallowed up by the invading vegetation. I held my breath, listening for any indication of whether Red was still inside or whether he’d escaped to the fifth shed.

“Congratulations. You found me, Tessie,” said an amused voice to my right.

Somehow I suppressed my squeal of fright. “Give yourself up, Red. This game’s over.”

“Screw you. I’m not going back to jail.”

“Yes, you are. That woman you just attacked is going to help that happen.”

“Don’t know what you mean. We were having consensual sex. If she says differently, she’s a lying bitch.”

“Sure it was consensual. That’s why she was screaming.”

“What can I say? I’m a great fuck. I guarantee I’d make you scream too.”

“You’ll be the one screaming if you lay one hand on me.”

“How about two hands?”

He pounced on me, knocking the knife out of my hand and pinning my arms to my side before I had a chance to react. Furious for letting myself be so badly distracted by his taunting, I struggled in his hold. But he drew me up tight against his body, wrapping his arms around my torso, immobilising me.

“That was too easy. You’re losing your touch,” he laughed, his breath tickling my ear. I thrashed around fiercely to no avail. He crushed me to him.

“The Sarge is here with me.”

“I don’t care. Let’s just enjoy this moment together.”

“Piss off.”

“Don’t worry, I will be pissing off in a minute. I just want to savour you while I have you. It’s a real shame you’re not wearing a skirt tonight, because I have a boner that didn’t receive the loving attention it needs and I don’t have time to deal with your jeans.”

“I have a knife to help you with that boner.”

He laughed. “I’d risk your knife to fuck you, Tessie. Jakey tells me all about how tasty you are in bed.”

“He does not,” I scorned.

“That’s what we talk about when he visits me in jail.”

“He doesn’t visit you. You’re an embarrassment to him.”

He squeezed me uncomfortably tight. “Watch what you’re saying. Your smart mouth will get you into trouble. Didn’t you know Jakey visited me twice when I was in jail?” A cool night breeze ruffled our hair. “Aw, you didn’t know that, did you?”

I didn’t respond.

“He didn’t tell you. He must have lied to you.”

“Jakey doesn’t lie to me.”

“I’m afraid he must. Let me think. He visited me once in July and once in August.”

I remained silent, but my mind was whirling. Jake had been busy on a weekend in each of those months. But he’d told me he’d gone to a conference in Big Town in mid-July and had pulled a weekend of shifts in late-August to help out a work colleague whose wife was in hospital. He hadn’t been visiting Red in jail, had he? The thought that Jake might have lied to me about what he was really doing on those weekends hit me hard.

“You’re lying,” I accused.

“I’m not the one lying to you, Tessie.”

Heavy footsteps approaching signalled the arrival of the Sarge.

“Pity,” said Red, a tinge of regret in his voice. “But I value my freedom more than boning you.”

He held the back of my head so I couldn’t move and leaned down to kiss me. I tried to twist my head away, but he held it still and his lips pressed gently on mine.

Robbed of my ability to deal with his unwanted caress, I resorted to childishness. “Yuck!” I spat.

In the weak glow of the street lighting, I imagined I saw hurt flicker across his face, gone before I could convince myself it had really been there. His smile tightened.

“Our time will come one day, Tessie.”

“That will be the day you die, Red Bycraft.”

He released me and sprang away, sprinting towards the fifth shed where the broken double door facing the bay allowed for an easy escape route into the wilderness. I bolted after him only to collide with the Sarge who barged through the door into the fourth shed. The impact sent us both reeling backwards, losing precious seconds and momentum.

“Are you okay? Did he hurt you?” he asked anxiously, reaching for me in the darkness. His fingers grasped my forearm.

“I’m fine.”

“Which way?”

“Into the fifth shed. You go. I’ll catch up. I have to find my knife first.”

While he hared off in the same direction as Red, I dropped to my knees and felt around on the filthy floor for my knife. When my hands closed over it, I snatched it up and ran after the Sarge.

I recognised his silhouette standing at the gaping double-door exit, peering out into the darkness, his hands on his hips. Overgrown vegetation encroached at the doorway to the shed, making tentative inroads inside. In a few years, this shed would be almost invisible under the green growth.

I felt my way over to him.

“What did you do with the woman?”

“I left her with that boy.”

“Oh God.” I rubbed my face. “Could this get any worse? The Super’s going to kill us. We
have
to catch Red.”

“I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t want to leave you alone with Bycraft and I didn’t want to abandon her. I managed to get hold of the Super. She’s sending us a couple of uniforms and a patrol car now we actually have Bycraft in our sights. But we need to get that girl to hospital for forensics as soon as possible.”

“Did he . . .?”

“Partially, I think. I could barely understand what she was saying, she was crying so much. But he definitely assaulted her physically. Punched her around a couple of times. Tried to choke her to subdue her.”

“Bastard.”

He concentrated on peering outside. “I can’t hear anything. Surely if he’d escaped out into that wilderness we’d hear him moving about?”

We both stood silent for a moment straining our ears, hearing nothing for our troubles but the normal sounds of nocturnal animal activities – scuffling from the undergrowth, the squealing of fruit bats, the lonely call of a distant owl. It would be impossible to leave this shed without making a lot of noise.

“So, if we can’t hear him outside . . .”

“He never left the building.”

We spun around. A figure darted from the far corner of the shed towards the inner door, back the way we’d come.

“Hey!” the Sarge yelled, pounding after him.

I ran close behind, trying not to trip over his heels as we pursued Red. Back inside the fourth shed the Sarge stopped suddenly and I smacked into the back of him.

“Ooof!”

“Shh,” he whispered and we listened intently. Again no noise.

“He’s here in this shed.”

“Damn these dark corners.”

A pinging noise sounded near us. “Hit the ground,” the Sarge shouted urgently, pushing on the back of my neck to force me down to eat cement.

A laugh rang out from the furthest corner. “You of all people should have remembered my gun, Tessie.”

“You’re under arrest, Red Bycraft. Put your weapon down and turn around, hands against the wall,” instructed the Sarge.

“Suck my dick, copper.”

“You’ll get plenty of that when you’re back in jail,” I taunted, making sure I kept myself a small target.

“I’ll kill all of us before I go back to jail. And you better believe that.”

Using my elbows and knees, I began to creep across the dirty cement floor to where Red stood, keeping to those sections with dim lighting.

“What’s that noise?” Red demanded. “Is that you, Tessie? Stop moving or I’ll shoot.”

I laid motionless on the floor, calculating the distance between us and trying not to gag on the smell of the urine-soaked, rotting rubbish invading my nostrils. Not having a chance to discuss my brilliant plan with the Sarge, I could only hope he felt a little psychic energy tonight and could read my mind.

I crawled on my belly another metre forward.

“I know you’re there, Tessie. I can hear you. Where are you? Show yourself.”

“You’ll be going back to jail, for sure,” provoked the Sarge, in an attempt to engage Red and distract him from my whereabouts.

Red may have been an evil man, but he wasn’t stupid. He declined to take the Sarge’s bait. “Where’s Tessie? I can’t see her.”

The Sarge jumped in again. “You can’t see anything in this light.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s over near the door,” the Sarge lied.

I quietly picked up a rock that was currently and painfully wedged underneath my elbow and tossed it towards the door leading to the third shed. It bounced across the floor. Red immediately spun in that direction, shooting off his little gun.

“Where you going, Tessie? Get back here!” he shouted.

I felt around for something else and found a stick. I threw that over in the same direction and it clattered loudly on the concrete.

“Get back here! Or your copper friend will end up with some holes in his head.”

While he yelled at the phantom me, I used the cover of his voice to advance further. It was impossible to see in this darkest corner. He held the advantage of looking out into the dim light, but I wasn’t able to make out much looking into the darkness. My only advantage was the element of surprise.

“Where’s she going?” he demanded of the Sarge.

“She’s worried about the girl. I had to leave her alone to come after you.”

“I have my gun on you, copper. You better not be lying to me.” He took a step out from the corner, tantalisingly close to where I lay. “You’ll make a good hostage. If anyone tries to arrest me again, you’ll get a couple of slugs through your brain. Now get up off the floor and if you’re not quick enough about it, I’ll give you a taste of this gun. Tessie knows how much it hurts.”

He shouldn’t have said that. God knows I had a lot of built up grudges against Red Bycraft and him shooting me a few months ago with his embarrassing pink gun was just one of them.

He stepped towards the Sarge again. I sprang forward, wrapping my arms around his ankles and pulling back with all my force to yank his feet out from under him. He crashed down on his butt, his gun rattling away from him.

The Sarge scrabbled towards us, pinning Red to the ground with his knees on his chest. Though he thrashed around, trying to push the Sarge off and kick out at me, between us we managed to flip him over and pull his arms behind him. I hunted in my pockets for some quick restraints and handed them to the Sarge. He tightened them unmercifully around Red’s wrists.