by June Whyte
Ben gently removed Tanya from my arms, hugged her then steered her towards her ex-husband. “Dan, take Tanya home and look after her. If we haven’t found Erin by the time Lofty races tomorrow night, believe me, he will come in stone motherless last. Kat will see to that. But whatever happens,” he went on, his eyes bright as he watched the couple lean on each other and shuffle brokenly towards the door, “I promise we’ll do everything we can to find Erin and bring her home, unharmed. You have my word.”
“Mine too,” I added, scrubbing at my eyes.
“And mine,” put in Scuzz, his bottom lip caught between his teeth.
“Go home and stay by the phone in case we need to get in touch with you.”
There was no cheerful “Mary had a Little Lamb” toot from Tanya’s horn today. I imagined her driving home through a curtain of tears. She only lived in the next street, but even so, I worried about her safe arrival.
“Let’s listen to the slimy maggot again.” Ben reached for the play button on the answering machine. “Like Scuzz says, we might be missing something.”
It didn’t matter how many times we played the message the voice on the other end had the same effect on my bowels. After the fourth replay I shook my head and sighed. There was nothing to hear but a psycho, a terrified little girl, and a few scratchy background noises. We were wasting valuable time when we could be out searching for Erin.
“We know he used Erin’s mobile phone,” I said blocking my mind from the still playing message. “But is there any way to track where the call came from?”
“Yes,” Scuzz answered, nodding at me. “But there’s no time for that. And unless you know an expert in the field, we’d need to bring the police in on the case.”
Ben frowned. “No police.”
“Hang on dudes.” Jake, who’d been concentrating so hard his eyes were screwed shut and the tip of his tongue poked from the corner of his mouth, held up one hand to shush us. He moved his head closer to the answering machine. “Hear that noise in the background?”
I forced myself to listen to the message again, trying to disassociate myself from the chill it espoused and concentrate on background noises instead. Yes, there it was. A grunt? And was that a squeak during the pause before Erin spoke?
But who or what had caused the sounds?
Head tipped to the side, Ben absently stroked his chin. “Could be puppies.”
“Sounds more human to me.” Scuzz frowned in concentration. “Perhaps the kidnapper had the little girl gagged before she spoke on the phone.”
Jake, his eyes still closed, tugged gently on his nose ring. “That’s pigs,” he said. “I’m sure of it. My uncle owns a piggery at Port Wakefield and whenever we visit, it’s not only the smell that drives us home early—it’s the noise. Pigs never know when to shut up.”
Of course!
“Good one Jake,” said Ben doing a complicated dude handshake with my kennel assistant. “You’re the man!”
Scuzz set the tape back to the pause before Erin spoke and we listened to the background noise again. It definitely sounded like the grunt and squeal of pigs. Did this mean the kidnapper had Erin hidden near, or at, a piggery?
I scrabbled under the phone table until I found the Northern area telephone book and with Ben, Scuzz and Jake peering over my shoulder, flicked the book open to P—then Pigs—and finally, Piggeries.
“Bloody hell!” groaned Ben. He stood so close I could feel his warm breath fanning the side of my neck. “I didn’t know growing bacon was thispopular. Got to be at least thirty piggeries in the North.”
Scuzz pressed against me from the other side, his solid bulk comforting. “I think we should focus on the piggeries in a ten-twenty kilometer radius from home.”
“Why?” The inflection in Ben’s voice seemed to say, what-would-you-know-about-the-situation-when-you’ve-just-dropped-in-from-biker-land?
“Because the kidnapper is a local.”
“And how do you come to that conclusion?”
Scuzz lifted one great hand and started ticking points off on his tattooed fingers. “One…our kidnapper knows Kat has acquired a new racing dog. Two…he knows this dog will start favorite in its first race for her. Three…he knows Tanya is Kat’s best friend, otherwise why kidnap Erin to use as blackmail against her? And finally, he knew where Kat kept her spare key.”
Ben gave Scuzz a friendly punch on the arm then rubbed his knuckles. “Sorry, mate,” he said. “I shouldn’t have doubted you.”
“But why is this all about me?” I wailed. Since the moment I’d given in and let Matt stay the night, my life had been on the downside of a roller-coaster ride.
“Maybe he’s not happy about you investigating your friend’s murder,” suggested Scuzz.
Ben shook his head. “I’ve been right beside Kat all the way. If that was the case, why isn’t he targeting me too?”
“Because he’s a coward?” proposed Scuzz.
“Would the steward on the starting box know Mr. Big’s identity?” Jake asked. “You know, man, the one they put in hospital?”
“Probably does.” Ben nodded. “But you won’t get him to talk. Barney’s scared shitless. And after the beating he took, who can blame him?”
“What about Big Mick Harrison, the bookie?” I mused. “I guess we can’t wipe him off our suspect list. His wife won’t corroborate his alibi for the time Matt was murdered. He swears he was home in bed with her at 3 a.m., but she says he didn’t get home until 4.” Funny thing, although Mick had threatened me, my gut told me he had nothing to do with Erin’s kidnapping. The man might be cheating on his wife or even a potential murderer but I couldn’t see father-of-the-year ever hurting a child.
“Or what about George Summers?” Scuzz rubbed at his wispy ginger beard, his dark eyes thoughtful. “He said Erin was gone when he came to collect her. Don’t you think that’s a tad suspicious? Should I go lean on him? See if he has a friend who owns a piggery?”
“You could, but I doubt Summers has the balls to be Mr. Big,” Ben told Scuzz.
“But he might know who is. Can’t leave any stone unturned, can we?” I said picturing George wetting his pants as he watched the giant biker approach. “Can I come with you when you lean on George?”
Scuzz’s lips twitched and then settled back to serious. “When you spoke to Erin on the phone, Kat, did you hear another voice in the background at any stage of the conversation?”
“Don’t think so. Although, at the time, she was making me so mad I probably wouldn’t have heard if a reincarnated Elvis started singing in the background.”
“Think hard. She told you someone was at the door. Did you hear anyone call out? If so, was it a voice you recognized?”
I shook my head. “No. Sorry.” And then I thought…maybe I’ll never hear Erin’s voice again. A steel band tightened around my chest threatening to cut off my air supply. Devil’s Spawn might be a pain in the butt—but she was ourpain in the butt. With her sassy mouth and the freckles she tried to hide under her mother’s foundation and that air of bravado she carried like a flag. The steel band tightened another notch as I imagined a psycho getting his kicks from carving out her tongue. Maybe not stopping at her tongue. Maybe going further and slicing the knife across her throat.
Who was behind all this? Who was the faceless monster holding the greyhound industry to ransom?
For a moment I removed my rose-colored glasses, narrowed my eyes and peered across at Scuzz. What did I reallyknow about Theodore Samuel Parkington the Third? The man-mountain with his shaved head and tattooed body. He’d arrived at Jake’s door out of the blue, supposedly on his way to meet a half-sister he’d only recently discovered.
What sort of a fishy story was that?
I met his dark eyes across the room. No. Scuzz was with me when Erin went missing. Although, on second thoughts, he could have arranged for an accomplice to do his dirty work. And then I remembered his kindness, his fierce protective snarl when he thought an intruder was
out to attack me.
Evidently unaware of the way my mind was defaming his character, Scuzz smiled at me, his gentle eyes showing concern. “Don’t worry, Katrina,” he said. “We’ll find your friend’s daughter. Even if we have to examine every inch of mud in every piggery listed in this telephone book.”
Out of the blue I remembered his hot, unexpected, stomach-clenching kiss and returned his smile.
Ben might be the handsome yummy one—but hey—it was Scuzz the Biker who actually cared enough to notice me.
25
It was nine o’clock the following night. Darkness had come early. No great hunk of a full moon guided our steps. Nope. Just a sliver of a first cousin, so skinny, it may as well have stayed home in bed.
As I crept on hands and knees through the last pen of the last piggery on our list, I felt a tug on the waistband of my jeans and jerked to a stop. Oh no! There was a sucking squelching sound as I plucked my silver Nokia from the bog and held it up for inspection.
Damn. Damn. And double damn.
Now it too stunk of pig shit. Just like the rest of me. I sighed in exasperation as I rammed the phone back into the waistband of my jeans and cringed when the cold grainy slime slid across my bare skin. After a day spent creeping through pig sties searching for Erin, I figured it would take at least half a bottle of coconut shower gel to make me smell human again. Even my favorite jeans would be relegated to the trash can after today’s adventure. No amount of scrubbing would remove that toe-curling stink from the denim.
There was a low oomph from behind me, and a soft, Get away from me, you bitch! I turned my head, and in the darkness could just make out the shape of my partner in crime sprawled in the mud, a fat mamma sow spread-eagled on top of him.
“No time for games, Pig Boy,” I told Ben. “It’s an hour to Lofty’s race and we still haven’t found Erin. Tell Doris you’ll come back and play with her tomorrow.”
There was another grunt, not sure whether it was Doris or Ben, so I switched on my torch. The face illuminated beneath the Akubra hat was streaked with mud and thoroughly pissed off.
“Pig Boy?” growled the muddy apparition with an indignant snort. “You’ll keep.” He let out another oomph followed by an anatomically impossible curse as the pig bunted him in the face. “Hey, McKinley,” he hissed. “For God’s sake get these bloody pigs off me before I turn them into bacon sandwiches.”
Squelching on hands and knees towards him, I struggled to hide a grin. By now six baby piglets had joined their mamma. They were having more fun climbing on and sliding off Ben than toddlers on a slippery dip.
Between Ben flailing his hat and me shooingand pushing, we eventually convinced the pigs that Ben wasn’t their new best friend. Doris, annoyed at the rejection, head-butted Ben in the groin before gathering her family around her. Then, with one last disgruntled grunt she waddled off in a huff to snuffle around in the feed trough.
It was time to regroup. After climbing over the sty fence, I peered suspiciously at a cottage huddled near the end of the driveway. No lights shone through the windows. No car parked out front. “What do you reckon?” I asked. “Are they asleep or have they gone out?”
Ben adjusted his hat and wiped at his face with the sleeve of his shirt. “Only one way to find out—but either way, mate, it looks like we’ve struck out again. If the kidnapper had stashed Erin here wouldn’t you reckon he’d leave at least one goon to guard her?”
A cold chill swirled in my stomach and settled like a lump of indigestible porridge in my chest. “What if that one goon is lying in wait for us? What if he has his night-scope binoculars trained on us right now? What if—”
Ben snorted, stopping me in mid-rant and effectively switching off the panic button. “Night-scope binoculars? Jesus, McKinley, you’ve been watching too many CSIshows.”
“Hey, don’t knoc Crime Scene Investigation, Benjamin. You learn more about solving crimes from watching that program than reading any dry-as-dust textbooks from the library.” I glanced down at the muddy tire iron in his hand. “All I’m saying is keep your weapon ready. Okay? You never know when you might need it.”
I’d brought along my own weapons of choice stashed in a side pocket of my back-pack. A can of heavy-duty hair spray to blind my opponent and a cute little knuckle duster I’d picked up for five bucks at the local church fete. Tongue in cheek, Ben pointed out there was only one hitch—both weapons necessitated I get within “hair-combing distance” to use them. But as I told him, it’s almost impossible to buy a designer gun or a Samurai sword at a church fete these days.
Anyway, my words of warning must have hit paydirt because Ben took a firmer grip on his tire iron before turning toward the cottage. “Ready?”
“Ready when you are.”
“If Erin’s not here it means we’re stuffed,” Ben admitted. “No one else had any luck and this godforsaken hole is the last piggery on our list.”
“Plus we’re running out of time.”
The night before, after a brainstorming session on how to stop Lofty from winning if we couldn’t find Erin, we’d come up with two options that didn’t entail injections or pills. The first included unobtrusively smearing Vaseline from human palm to dog’s eyes before placing him in the starting boxes. The second entailed lifting one paw on the pretence of checking a pad and inconspicuously swapping a wad of chewing gum from human mouth to canine toes.
We’d settled for the chewing gum.
My dude helper, Jake, had the unenviable task of handling Lofty at the track. His instructions were clear. If he received three rings and a hang-up on his mobile before the steward called handlers to the kennel-house, Lofty ran on his merits. If not—Jake would shove the contents of two packets of bubblegum into his mouth and discreetly transfer the results to Lofty’s paws while lining up at the boxes.
I pressed the button on my watch to illuminate the dial. Twenty minutes to kenneling. Twenty minutes left to find Erin.
Both the front and back doors of the cottage were locked, so we shone our torches through the first window. With no blinds or curtains to block our view, we could see dirty dishes and empty beer cans completely covering a scarred wooden table and spilling over into the sink. One plate on a table near the window had green mould sprouting from a leftover chop and I bet if examined at close quarters, livestock would already be in residence.
The next window revealed a bedroom. A single unmade bed and two sleeping bags on the floor suggesting three people lived in the cottage. The only other item of furniture in the room was a large built-in wardrobe. Could they have tied Erin up and stashed her in there?
Flashing our torch through the next window we discovered a space double the size of the other two rooms. It was furnished with a clapped-out sofa, several armchairs and a battered table, all looking like they’d been rescued from a local dumpster. Incongruous amongst the mismatched furniture was a huge state-of-the-art plasma television that took up most of the back wall.
Either locked or gummed up with dirt, the only way in through the windows was to smash the glass. Not a wise move if the owners of the cottage were merely innocent pig farmers.
“What now?” I asked as we scurried around the corner to the rear of the cottage. Whatever happened to that lovely principle where people trusted their neighbors? The back door was locked.
And then I noticed Ben’s shrewd eyes assessing me.
“What?”
Oh no, he seemed to be comparing me to the size of a small open window high up on the wall at the back of the cottage and measuring me as a suitable breaking-in tool.
“Uh! Oh! No way, Benny boy! I amnot climbing through there.”
“Come on, mate,” he cajoled. “I reckon you’re skinny enough.”
I took another step away from him. “And I reckon you’re nuts.”
“It’s not like I won’t be doing myshare of the work,” he said, his voice put-upon. Even petulant. “I’m the one who’ll be pushing you through from this end.”
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“As I said—you’re nuts,” I told him, studying the width of the window and then the width of my hips. “The only way I’d fit through that window would be if I stripped naked and covered my body with Vaseline.”
His only answer was a choking sound and I swear something moved in the crutch of his jeans.
Pushing that interesting tidbit aside for later perusal, I shone my torch on the window, checked my watch again. “Okay, I’ll give it a go—but only because we’re running out of time.” I drew in a deep breath. This was such a bad idea. “You’ll have to give me a bunk up because Spiderwoman I’m not.”
To keep my mind off the fact that I was breaking and entering, while Ben elevated me toward the open window I focused on the image of me all slippery and naked and Ben in the same condition. And I didn’t lose this delightful fantasy until I poked the torch and my head through the open window.
“Get a wriggle on, Kat. We haven’t got all night, you know.”
“Okay for you, Taylor,” I hissed back at him. “You’re down there. I’m up here.And suspended head first over a toilet bowl.”
“As long as the lid’s down, it’ll be a cinch,” he assured me, a definite chuckle behind his words.
“Well, it’s notdown,” I snarled back at him. “And the smell’s making me gag.” I choked as another wave hit me. I turned my head away, tried to hold my breath.
“Mate, I promise on my brother’s life, I won’t let you go of your legs until you give me the signal. So there’s no way you’ll end up falling in.”
“Some promise. You’re always fighting with Nick.”
“Just hurry up!”
Hesitantly, reluctant to entrust Ben with my bottom end, I eased both shoulders through the opening, turned side on and wriggled forward a few inches.
That’s when my imagination took over….
What if I got stuck?
What if the police found me like this?
How could I explain to DI Adams that I wasn’t really breaking in—I was only looking for Erin?
And when I finally blanked out that embarrassing scenario, an even more heart-stopping picture popped into my head. What if the owner of the piggery returned home? What if he was the murderer? What if he had a gun? Stuck in the window, unable to move, I’d be toast. Hell, he could shoot me right between the eyes and all I could do was watch him take aim and hope the bullet didn’t disfigure my face so much my mother wouldn’t recognize me when they called her into the morgue to identify my body.
