Blood Feud (18 page)

The Sarge looked them up and down. “Either of you ever done a road-block before?”

“No, Sarge,” replied the constable, Jarod, while the probie, Ellie, shook her head.

“Okay, here’s how it’s going to work. Tess, you’re the one in most danger, so I want you to stick close to me. We’ll take the north entrance to the town as that’s the direction Bycraft is likely to come from. You two,” he nodded his head towards our visitors, “can take the south entrance.”

I butted in, passing them printouts of one of Red’s mug shots. “His name’s Redmond Christopher Bycraft. He’s thirty-six years old and about one-eighty centimetres tall with golden hair and yellowy eyes. He has a ten centimetre scar on the left side of his neck.”

“I want you to check the identity of every single person entering town, even if they tell you they’re just passing through,” instructed the Sarge. “Keep a log of times, vehicles and people. Is that clear?” The two young cops nodded. “I have some bollards in the shed. Let’s go get them.”

We trooped around to the back of his house to the old ramshackle building that used to serve as the house’s garage before the more modern carport was added. Inside was a motley collection of broken furniture, superseded equipment and policing supplies which weren’t often needed. We used the bollards whenever we conducted random breath tests to create a safe area off the highway where we could order cars to pull over.

We split the bollards between us. The Sarge also hunted down some temporary road signs advising oncoming motorists of a police checkpoint ahead and warning them to prepare to stop. Our backups followed us in their patrol car to the southern end of town where we helped them erect their road-block. When the Sarge was satisfied with their set up, we drove to the northern end of town and did the same. By the time we finished, it was going on one o’clock, with at least another thirty minutes before Red could feasibly arrive.

After fifteen minutes of waving curious motorists through the bollards, we noticed something odd. Various Bycrafts began to drive back and forth through our road-block in their family fleet of old clunkers. Sometimes they’d be gone for a while and sometimes for less than a minute, suggesting that they turned around to return to town almost straight away after leaving.

“Something’s up,” noted the Sarge with suspicion, watching Lola and Rosie drive past us for the second time in Rosie’s yellow bomb, sneering grins on their faces.

“For sure,” I agreed.

“I think we’ll start checking cars, even though it’s a bit early.”

“Probably for the best if we do.”

For the next three hours we stopped every vehicle entering the town and checked the occupants and the boot. I carefully kept a log of the time, vehicle, driver and passengers. Fortunately, apart from the constant flow of Bycraft cars, traffic was light and we managed to keep disruptions to a minimum.

“Why are you driving in and out of town?” I asked Rosie on her third pass through the road-block.

“None of your fucking business, piglet.”

“Watch your mouth,” snapped the Sarge. “Or you’ll find yourself in the lockup for the rest of the night.”

“Sorry, Sergeant Maguire,” she smarmed insincerely, scratching her nose with her extended middle finger.

“Try that on again and you’ll definitely be having a visit to the lockup,” he warned. “Now, get lost. I don’t want to see either of you again today.”

“We can do what we want,” scorned Lola. “You can’t stop us from driving around our own town.”

“You want me to do a safety spot check right now on that shitbox you’re driving? No? Then do as I’ve directed and make yourselves scarce for the rest of the day.”

“Fuck you, arsehole pig,” we both distinctly heard Lola mutter.

“What did you say?” demanded the Sarge.

“Nothing, copper,” she said sullenly, shifting her cold, flat eyes to me. She smiled, a horrible twisted grimace. “Red’s coming for you, piglet. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“How do you know he’s coming for me?” I asked. “He’s been in contact with you, hasn’t he?”

“You’re wasting your time with this joke of a road-block,” she laughed and Rosie joined in. “He’s already here.”

“You’re bluffing.”

She laughed harder. “He’s outsmarted you, not that it’s much of a challenge to outsmart a couple of dumbarse coppers like you two.”

“Shut your face, you old cow.”

“He’s going to hurt you so bad. I’m looking forward to it.”

I leaned into the car and grabbed a fist full of her jumper, pulling her towards me. “Tell me where he is.”

“How the fuck would I know?” she lied.

“How do you know he’s here then?”

“Call it a mother’s instinct,” she laughed. Rosie sniggered. “I feel him close by.”

I shook her roughly. “Where is he?”

“I told you – I don’t fucking know.”

“I’m going to tear your house apart.”

“You think I’ve got him hiding under my fucking bed or something?” she jeered. “There are pieces of dog shit in this town smarter than you, piglet.”

I let her go, not wanting to waste another second on her. “Piss off and I don’t want to see you driving through again or we’re going to do your car over.”

“Don’t need to drive through anymore now,” she laughed as Rosie screeched off, burning rubber.

“It’s probably just a ruse to psych you out, Tessie,” the Sarge assured, his hand on my shoulder. “How could he get in? We had road-blocks at both ends of town.”

“I don’t know,” I despaired.

“Let’s pack up and check on the other team.”

We threw the bollards and road sign into the boot and drove to the southern end of town, where our two colleagues continued to industriously check vehicles. The Sarge called off their road-block and while Ellie waved cars through, we talked to Jarod. He told us they’d experienced the same parade of Bycrafts in and out of town multiple times.

The Sarge rubbed his chin. “But why were they doing it?”

“I don’t know, but if it was to annoy us, then they succeeded in spades,” smiled Jarod.

“No, it wasn’t for the pest factor,” I chipped in. “There must have been a reason for it. I think they were trying to confuse us.” I thought about it for a bit. “One car full of Bycrafts would be instantly noticeable. Right?”

“Correct,” agreed the Sarge.

I followed my line of thought. “But with lots of Bycrafts in lots of cars doing multiple trips, one specific Bycraft would be much less noticeable. Right?”

“Correct again. I think I can see where you’re going with this, Tess. You think that Bycraft waltzed back into town, lost in the crowd of Bycrafts.”

I addressed Jarod. “Let me see the vehicle log you kept.”

He handed it over and I ran my finger down the list of Bycrafts recorded on it, until I reached one name: Jacob Richmond Bycraft. I pulled my phone from my pocket and punched in his number.

“Jakey,” I asked urgently when he answered. “Have you visited Little Town this afternoon?”

“No, babe,” he said, yawning. “I’m doing a double shift today. I’ve been on duty since lunchtime and don’t get off until after midnight. Why do you ask?”

“Nothing, honey-boy. See you later.” I hung up, turning angrily to the Sarge, my stomach a knot of tension. “God damn it! He’s done it again.”

“What?”

“It wasn’t Jakey in the car –
it was Red!
” Furious, I turned on the hapless constables. They didn’t know what they’d done wrong, but they knew their nuts were in the fire. “You’ve let Red Bycraft back into my town!
God damn it!
”

Uncontrollable anger welled up inside me. I flung the clipboard which held their vehicle log into the surrounding bushes like a Frisbee. Then I directed my rage on the road-block, kicking over two of the bollards set across the bitumen. The constables watched in alarm as I lost it in public.

“Sorry, Tess. How were we supposed to know? That family all looked the same to us,” Jarod said unwisely.

“
They don’t look the bloody same!
” I shouted, making him flinch backwards and not endearing myself to anybody. “I told you that Red Bycraft has a long scar on his neck.”

The Sarge placed a restraining hand on my shoulder. “Calm down, Tess. There’s no need to take it out on these two. They did the best they could.” I tried to shake him off, but he tightened his grip, preventing me from kicking anything else. “And the Bycrafts
do
all look the same to an outsider. It’s only because you know them so well that they don’t to you.”

I gradually managed to compose myself, but he kept his iron grip on me. “They should have checked more carefully, Sarge. They should have checked his ID.”

“We did!” protested Ellie. “I remember him clearly. He had a driver’s licence with a photo of him on it. It said his name was Jacob Bycraft. He sat in the front seat, relaxed and friendly when he handed it over. He didn’t act like a fugitive. He even joked with us as we checked it, reminding us to search the boot.”

“Oh, I bet he did,” I said bitterly. “That would have given him a huge belly laugh. He’s probably still laughing about it now. But why didn’t you notice his neck scar?”

“He had the collar on his shirt turned up as some men like to wear it,” explained Jarod. “And as he had photo ID, we didn’t think twice about it.”

“He must still be using that fake licence of Jake’s,” said the Sarge, taking a risk by releasing me.

“Didn’t you notice that he wasn’t in any of the cars that left town, which could have only meant that the family picked him up outside of town? Didn’t that make you suspicious?”

“We weren’t checking the occupants of cars leaving town – just making a note of their registration number. We only did ID checks on people coming
into
town as we were told to do by the Sarge. And who would expect a freshly escaped prisoner to have fake ID?”

The Sarge helped stow the bollards in the boot of their patrol car. “Someone in his family must have kept it for him and handed it over just now. They probably handed over that gun he had before as well.”

I stood staring into the bushland for a long moment trying to damp down my last remnants of temper. I knew I wasn’t being fair on the two young cops. They’d followed their orders and it wasn’t their fault that they didn’t know Red Bycraft by sight.

“Do you think there’s any point in conducting a search for him?” I asked the Sarge.

“Where were you thinking of searching?”

“Lola’s house. Sharnee’s house.”

“You don’t think they’re too obvious? Surely he wouldn’t be that bold, staying at his mother’s or his girlfriend’s place?”

I shot him a look. “Sarge, he just danced back into town right under our noses. There’s nothing he loves more than bold gestures, especially if he thinks he’s getting the better of us. And besides, out of everyone in town, they’re the two most guaranteed to shelter him.”

He eyed the two constables. “You two might as well make yourselves useful while you’re here. You can come with us. I’ll just clear it with the Super first. The last thing we need is more trouble from her.”

A few minutes later after a scorching blast of the Super’s tongue, he managed to also obtain her permission to conduct searches of the two properties. We tossed a coin and decided to comb Lola’s house first. Unsurprisingly, she protested our entry to her house with a vehemence that raised my hopes she was hiding something.

“You don’t have no warrant, so you can all just go fuck yourselves,” she spat out through her cigarette, blocking the doorway to her house with her scrawny body. Various Bycrafts ranged behind her, each as surly and immovable as the last.

“Don’t need one,” I said with a sweet smile.

“We have the right to search a property if we have reasonable suspicion of a crime taking place,” the Sarge told her in his bland cop voice. “Namely, assisting a fugitive.”

“There’s no fugitive here, so fuck off.” She tried to slam the front door in our faces, but we both instinctively wedged our boots in the gap.

“Be a good girl, Lola,” I smiled, my mood suddenly swinging upwards. “And I promise we won’t make too much of a mess. Not that you’d notice.”

The Sarge forced the door open and stepped into the hallway, his nose crinkling at the sour smell of unwashed dishes and clothes pervading the house.

“I don’t want my house stinking of bacon,” Lola sneered.

“It would be an improvement, trust me,” muttered the Sarge, shouldering his way through the Bycrafts. They didn’t try to stop him and I knew then that our search was futile. Red wasn’t here. The Sarge knew it too and we silently confirmed our thoughts with each other via eye contact. But as I lived to inconvenience the Bycraft family whenever possible, I happily spent the next thirty minutes crawling over every centimetre of each room.

We were thorough in our search, hoping at least to rake up some evidence that Red had recently been present in the house. Technically, we had no authority to do anything except search the premises for the man, but the Bycrafts knew it was pointless to remind us of that. They stood around watching us with a confident smugness that had my temper rising again, cracking jokes about dim-witted cops, a few even popping some beers. I was surprised nobody made any popcorn.

Lola, wearing a dung-coloured tracksuit frayed and stained with a hundred meals, laughed the loudest. She watched as we trawled through drawers and cupboards, her sun-spotted wrinkled hands on her bony hips, dry straw-like faded golden hair frizzing around her head. I had no doubt she knew exactly where Red was at this moment. Out of her ten children, he was her favourite, a fact that spoke volumes about the kind of woman she was.