Blood Sport (Little Town)

by JD Nixon

  “And with that final sentiment, my husband Ronnie and I thank you all for coming to our little soiree tonight.” And Fiona bowed her head humbly before taking Ronnie’s hand and starting some very dirty dance moves in the cleared space, their hips grinding together suggestively, lips locked, hands getting busy.

  The Sarge and I glanced at each other again. He pulled a comically appalled face and I giggled once more.

  “Ready to go, Tessie?”

  “Oh yeah! Definitely!”

  We sneaked out just in time before the place turned into a bacchanalian orgy. Cops really knew how to let their hair down, given half the chance. The Sarge took my hand and we rushed to his car in the teeming rain.

  I was suddenly exhausted and well on the way to being drunk after three glasses of wine, strapping myself in before leaning back on the seat. The Sarge looked over at me.

  “You okay, Tessie?”

  I decided to be honest for once. “No, Sarge. I’m very tired.”

  “I think you should have stayed at home.”

  “Don’t,” I pleaded. “I wanted to be there for Fiona.”

  “I know, but still . . .”

  He concentrated on guiding the car from the street crowded with parked cars. He drove towards Wattling Bay Road, which led to the Coastal Range Highway and onto Little Town.

  My phone rang. I scrabbled for it in my handbag. It was Dad. He proceeded to tell me that the leaks had become so bad with the rain that he’d gone to spend the night with Adele, inviting me to sleep on her lounge. She rented a tiny granny flat under the house of the owner of the bakery/cafe, Fran. As a checkout chick at the local supermarket, she didn’t earn too much.

  I wasn’t keen on that plan, needing some pampering after my ordeal. “No, Dad, I’ll stay at home. I don’t want to sleep on a lounge. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  The Sarge asked me immediately what was wrong, so I told him. “You’re not staying by yourself, Tessie. You’ll have to stay at my place. I have a comfortable guest bed.”

  “I’ll be all right,” I protested.

  “We’re not arguing about it,” he insisted firmly. “You’re going to do what you’re told for once. The Super would skin me alive and turn me into a pair of shoes and a handbag if she found out I left you alone tonight. You need someone close by, in case you start feeling sick or dizzy again.”

  “I guess,” I conceded. “But we’ll have to go to my place to grab some things.”

  “No, we won’t. I have a spare toothbrush and I can lend you some pyjamas. Okay?”

  “I’ll be a nuisance,” I said, glancing at him, unsure.

  “Probably,” he agreed heartily, which relaxed me. “You’ll even expect me to make you breakfast, I suppose.”

  I mock-groaned. “Not your horrible omelette?”

  “Only if you’re a good girl.”

  I didn’t bother suppressing a huge yawn and leaned back on the seat, wanting nothing more than to fall into bed and go to sleep. Suddenly, I sat upright again.

  “Do you hear that?” I asked him.

  He listened. “Yeah. A rumbling or something.”

  We listened as it grew louder and louder – a relentless deep, thundering noise that soon became deafening. The Sarge checked his rear view mirror.

  “Holy hell!”

  A few seconds later, lights swept dazzlingly across the interior of our car and we were swamped by motorbikes, thirty or forty of them, big mean mothers. The riders were all dressed similarly in leathers, jeans and boots, many with the same logo on their clothes – two black snakes on a red background, facing each other, tails intertwined and fangs bared, tongues out twisting together.

  The bikes overtook us singly and in pairs, each rider slowing down for a good look at us as they passed, before speeding off down the highway. It was quite an intimidating experience and I was glad I wasn’t in the car by myself.

  “Uh-oh,” I said.

  “Trouble for us?”

  “Possibly. It’s the Vypers – the gang who own the secret bikie retreat.”

  The secret bikie retreat was on Beach Road, near the nudist community. The Vypers didn’t advertise that they owned it, which was why it was supposedly secret. But it was hard to ignore a mass of bikes rumbling through town late at night a couple of times a year. I didn’t know why they gathered in Little Town and I didn’t know what they were up to when they did, but they usually kept themselves to themselves and hadn’t caused me too many problems. This would be the Sarge’s first encounter with them.

  The last bike sped off, leaving us in its exhaust, the quiet of the rain enveloping us again.

  “There’s never a boring minute in Little Town,” commented the Sarge dryly.

  I agreed fulsomely. “You can say that again!”

  We pulled into the driveway of his house. He lived, rent free, in the old timber police house adjacent to the old timber police station. He had filled the house with his sleek, expensive modern furniture and that touch of the city didn’t sit comfortably in the rustic surroundings.

  We dashed through the rain, up the stairs and inside. He dug up a spare pair of long pyjamas and some bed socks for me, and I went to the bathroom to wash my makeup off and change. The timber house wasn’t well insulated and had only a couple of old radiators, so it tended to be very cold during the winter nights. The pyjamas were too big and too long, but I tightened them as much as possible and rolled up the legs.

  A strange expression crossed his face when I joined him in the kitchen where he was making hot cocoa. “You don’t look a day over twelve wearing those.”

  “Remember I was in my pyjamas the first time we met all those months ago?” I reminded him, sitting down at his kitchen table.

  “God, of course I remember! You made an unforgettable first impression –barefoot in your little nightie, armed with a gun and a knife, so angry. You sure caught my attention.”

  I smiled. “Wasn’t the best way to meet my new boss for the first time though, was it? Trying to arrest you? You probably thought I was crackers.”

  He didn’t deny it. We finished our hot drinks companionably before I brushed my teeth with the spare toothbrush he handed me, fell into his very comfortable guest bed and straight to sleep.

  I dreamt of Red during the night. He grinned at me as he peered through my bedroom window, brandishing my hunting knife and promising to carve his name in my chest. I woke up with a start, heart pounding and shouting out in alarm into the darkness.

  The Sarge ran in from his bedroom down the hallway, fed me some more painkillers and soothed me back to sleep. He sat on the bed, holding my hand tightly until I drifted off again.

  Chapter 9

  It was late when I woke up, looking around me blearily. I didn’t know where I was for a few beats until memories of the previous evening flooded back. It was still pouring with rain. I was tempted to just curl up again and go back to sleep, except I could hear clanging in the kitchen and could smell something delicious wafting down the hallway.

  Reluctantly, I rolled out of bed and padded down the hallway in my bed socks to the kitchen where I flopped on to a seat at the table, propping my head up with my good arm, giving a huge face-cracking yawn. I could feel that my hair was a tangled rat’s nest, but I didn’t care.

  “You’re a vision of beauty this morning,” the Sarge teased as he poured some batter into a frying pan. I screwed up my face at him and poked out my tongue. “Geez, I’ve seen friendlier faces on gargoyles.”

  “I’m tired and I hurt. And I can look like a gargoyle first thing in the morning if I want to.”

  “Oh dear, she’s grumpy too,” he tutted, flipping the pancakes with skill.

  “There’s no law against it last time I checked.”

  “I can see why Jake prefers to live at the prison.”

  I pouted. “Aw, that’s just mean.”

  He poured me a coffee and slid it over to me. “Will this help?”

  “Yes,” I admitted and took a
sip. “I need to go home this morning for my girls. They’re not happy about the wet weather and I don’t want to keep them waiting for their breakfast for too long.”

  “You spoil those chickens,” he said and placed a plate of hot pancakes in front of me.

  “They deserve it – they’re wonderful chickens. They give both of us lots of delicious eggs.” I drenched the pancakes in maple syrup and started eating enthusiastically, if not too skillfully, with just one hand. “Yum! These are great, Sarge.”

  “Try calling me Finn for once, Tess. We’re not at work.”

  “Sorry, Sarge.” I looked up at him sheepishly. “Oops, Finn, I mean. Sorry.”

  He shook his head in exasperation and sat down opposite me. We finished our breakfast and cleaned up. He leant me a long-sleeved shirt and one of his leather jackets to wear, which I was very excited about. Because it was too big on me, I was able to slip my bandaged arm through the sleeve before putting the sling back on again. The jacket smelled faintly of his elegant aftershave.

  We ducked through the rain back to his car and he had to put the wipers and lights on full again to see through the downpour.

  “This rain’s incredible. I feel like I should start building an ark in the backyard,” he said, nosing the car out of the gates onto the highway.

  I laughed. “Will you take a pair of Bycrafts onboard with you?”

  “No, they can all drown and do the world a favour.”

  “All except for Jakey,” I insisted.

  He remained silent.

  At my house, the gravel and dirt driveway was a sludgy mud pile and I was worried for a second that his little car would become bogged. I wouldn’t be much assistance in pulling it out with one arm out of action, and we’d probably have to call Abe to come and help. But luckily, he managed to manoeuvre it around the worst parts.

  We ran to the front verandah of my house and I fumbled in my handbag for the key. Inside, the house was quiet and freezing with a faint musty smell from water damage in the air. It smelt expensive.

  “Let’s have a look at your kitchen,” said the Sarge. “Maybe there’s something I can do today to plug the leaking at least.”

  “I hope so, Sarge. I don’t have any money at the moment. I spent all my savings on Jakey’s –”

  He stopped so suddenly at the threshold to the kitchen that I ran smack bang into him, crushing my sore arm against his back.

  “Ow,” I moaned. “That hurt.”

  “Shit,” he said in a low voice and I panicked then that the kitchen was flooded or a wall had collapsed.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked, pushing past him urgently, only to stop short myself.

  The back door was standing wide open, its lock splintered and broken, the rain blowing in with every gust of wind. But I ignored that, my eyes drawn instead to the far wall of the kitchen, closest to my battered, ancient kitchen table. Written on the wall, in large smeared red-brown letters, was a message for me.

  Tessie lovely

  I’m coming for you

  Red

  Lying discarded on the floor underneath the message was something my brain refused to identify.

  “Tessie, don’t look,” ordered the Sarge, sympathy evident in his voice, trying to push me backwards into the hallway. I paid him no attention and walked closer. It was a sad little limp body, its pretty golden-brown feathers still damp from the rain, lying in a pool of blood.

  “No,” I whispered to myself in horror, my voice catching. “Not Miss Chooky.”

  I knelt down and reached out my hand, stroking her. She had been brutally decapitated and her blood used to write the message. I stood up and went to the back door, walking out into rain, uncaring that I was getting soaked.

  The chicken coop had been smashed into a million pieces, the axe he’d used, my father’s, thrown casually to one side. Four little drenched huddles of feathers lay dotted around the wreckage, snuffing any hopes I’d had that he’d have spared one or two of my other girls. I stared at the scene silently for a minute before throwing back my head and shouting out into the rain, “I’m going to kill you, Red Bycraft! Do you hear me?”

  I collapsed to my knees in the mud, covering my face with my hands, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to engulf me. I don’t cry, I don’t cry, I chanted to myself desperately. It had been my lifelong mantra since I’d been a little girl. The Sarge came out into the rain, pulled me up off the ground and hurried me inside. Back in the kitchen, cradling me close to his chest, I stared over his shoulder at Miss Chooky’s tiny body, devastated but dry-eyed.

  With one arm around me consolingly, my face pressed against him, he took out his mobile and rang the Super. They spoke tersely for a few minutes before he hung up. “She’s sending the forensics guys plus a team of detectives.”

  “What’s the point?” I asked dully, my voice muffled into his shoulder. “Nothing’s going to bring my girls back to me.” I sniffed. “Those Bycrafts take everything I love away from me. Everything!”

  He rubbed my back soothingly for a few minutes while I struggled to control my overwhelming anger.

  “Tessie, you’re upset now and you’re missing an important fact. Red Bycraft came to your house last night expecting to find you. When you weren’t here, he took his rage out on your chickens instead.” He pulled away from me and stared down at me, serious and unsmiling. “If you’d stayed here alone last night like you were planning –”

  I butted in. “Then I would have killed him with my knife when he came for me.”

  “You’re injured.”

  “So is he.”

  “Tessie, your luck’s going to run out one day.”

  “So is his.”

  And seeing that there was no talking to me at that moment, he made me change out of my wet, muddy clothes and have a shower. I let myself cry when I was by myself, standing under the hot stream of water. They hadn’t been just chickens to me – they had been my pets, my friends, they had been my therapy, and sometimes they had even been my confidantes. It was cruel that they had suffered such a violent end. They would have been terrified and I hadn’t been here to protect them. They had died because of me.

  Wearing my bathrobe, I went to my bedroom to change into some dry clothes. I hoped I hadn’t ruined the Sarge’s jacket by wearing it out in the rain, but then didn’t cows stand around in the rain all the time? Surely a leather jacket would be waterproof?

  I stopped at my doorway. Red had been in my bedroom. My underwear drawer had been ransacked, and I was sick to my stomach at the thought of him pawing through my intimate clothes. I scanned the room quickly, my eyes screaming to a halt when I spied white stains splattered on my deep purple bedspread. I walked over to the bed and examined them closely. I was pretty sure it was semen, but I guess the forensics team could confirm that.

  Red would have laughed while he did that. And it didn’t look as if it was just one stain either, but maybe three or four. He’d really enjoyed himself in my bedroom last night.

  “Sarge?” I called out and he jogged down the hall. I moved out of the way to let him into the room and he surveyed the mess and the stains with stony grimness.

  “That’s disgusting,” he said coldly.

  “It’s his idea of a joke. Think about what he wrote in the message he left me on the wall,” I said flatly. “And all those notes he’s been leaving me. I’m nothing but a huge joke to him. I’m just something to help alleviate the endless boredom of his life. I’ve become his hobby. Hunting me is like a sport to him.”

  The Sarge swore under his breath in fury. “Is anything missing? Looks as though he spent some time in your house.”

  I hugged myself tightly. “Probably some underwear. I’m not really sure.”

  “Have a look around.”

  My heart froze when I thought of my gun and my spray. I usually kept my utility belt in a locked strongbox bolted to the bottom of my cupboard and was relieved to find it still safe when I checked. My jewellery box hadn�
�t fared so well though. He’d taken a few pieces, nothing especially valuable because I didn’t own any valuable jewellery. But Nana Fuller had given me a few nice necklace and earring sets over the years and he’d taken some of those.

  I kept a jar on the phone table for all my spare one-dollar and two-dollar coins, sometimes now and then even a five-dollar note. I saved the change up during the year and used the money to offset the cost of Christmas. There would probably have been about $200 in it and the bloody Grinch had taken that too.

  Dad and I didn’t own anything much of value. Our furniture had been new when he and Mum were married twenty-eight years ago. Our television was ancient. We didn’t have a computer at home. Our only set of wheels was his tank-like old workhorse Land Rover.

  “There’s nothing much anyone would want to take here, Sarge,” I said bluntly. “But there is something weird. He’s taken every photo of me in the house, including ones when I was a baby and a kid.”

  “God, talk about obsessive!”

  I dressed quickly in some jeans, long-sleeved t-shirt and a striped charcoal and purple hoodie, trying not to disturb too much evidence in my room. I spent the time waiting for the dees from Big Town to arrive sitting in my lounge room, staring blankly at the wall, hugging myself, my bare feet tucked up under me. The Sarge busied himself making notes of what we’d seen and what had happened, checking on me periodically. He needn’t have bothered. I didn’t move a muscle. I couldn’t motivate myself to help him and I couldn’t make myself go back into the kitchen. I wanted to remember Miss Chooky and the rest of my girls the way I’d loved them, not as they were now. I didn’t know what I would do without the soothing routine of caring for them.