Blood Feud (36 page)

“We can’t search the whole town.”

“I’ll ring his niece. She might know.”

That ended up being a good call on my behalf, because not only did she know, but he was currently bunkered down on her back veranda. She confided that his encounter with the thief had shaken him badly enough to drive him to seek some security close to his only relative. The veranda was the nearest they’d been able to entice him to coming inside, but at least it meant she was able to feed him a decent hot meal and provide him with a new blanket and one of her husband’s old coats. However, her offer of a shower and a change of clothes had been firmly rejected.

I advised her we’d be there as soon as we could to talk to him, but the Sarge’s phone rang as we headed for the patrol car.

“Mrs Villiers, what can I do for you?” he enquired, polite but unenthusiastic. He listened, interjected once or twice and told her with a patient sigh we’d be there soon.

“More vandalism?”

“No. More complaints about her neighbours.”

“What are they doing this time?”

“Nude prancing, according to Mrs Villiers.”

“Oh, for God’s sake! I just told Mr Whittaker the other day to keep his clothes on in his backyard from now on.”

“Apparently he didn’t listen. We better head there first. Young Kenny’s not going anywhere.”

We affixed our utility belts and drove to the house next door to Mrs Villiers. The Sarge was forced to slam on the brakes as Mr Whittaker ran down the steps of his house right out in front of our car.

“How did you know? How did you get here so fast? I was just ringing you,” he wailed, breathless and distraught.

“Know what?”

“He took Phoebe! He had a knife and threatened us and dragged her away. My darling Phoebe. You have to find her. Find her!”

We sprang from the car, the Sarge with the torch in his hand and ran down the side of the house to the backyard.

I shouted at Mr Whittaker, “Was it a Bycraft?”

“No. Someone I’ve never seen before.”

“Which direction did they go?” yelled the Sarge over his shoulder.

“That way,” pointed a naked and shaken Philippe, clinging weakly to the trunk of a gnarled apple tree.

We crashed into the bushland behind the house that led up to the gentle lower slopes of the mountain range. The Sarge swept the darkened scrub with the powerful beam of the torch. He held a hand out to indicate I should halt and we stood motionless, listening intently. A rustling ahead of us had us sprinting off in that direction, fighting our way through the bushes.

A muffled scream was cut short in the distance, followed by what sounded like indistinct repeated murmuring. We were soon puffing from the effort of pushing through the narrow, overgrown path we vaguely followed, our exposed body parts scratched from branches slapping against us. The path was one of hundreds snaking through the bushland leading up into the mountains, created and mainly utilised by the Bycrafts. It surprised me that this man – assuming it was the same mysterious man who kept popping up all over Little Town – appeared so conversant with these mostly hidden and secret escape routes.

More noises ahead of us warned that the pair was on the move again. But when we burst through a particularly dense section, we stumbled onto a crouching Phoebe, hunched into a tiny shape, hugging herself. Her pitiful screams and crying almost drowned out the sound of our phantom man making a run for it.

I abandoned the pursuit immediately, dropping to my knees next to Phoebe and touching her gently on the arm, our only source of light disappearing with the Sarge. I worried she’d rear away from me in fright, but instead she fell on me, clinging to me as if I was a life preserver thrown to her in a tumultuous ocean. Fortunately, it was a clear night with a strong moon, so once my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I found enough light to see the outlines of objects.

“It’s okay. You’re safe. It’s okay. You’re safe,” I soothed, rubbing her naked back and letting her cry all over my shoulder.

I’d managed to get her tears under control and coax her to her feet when the Sarge returned, clearly pissed off and bleeding from a scratch on his neck. At my questioning glance, he threw his palms up in a gesture of frustrated helplessness.

Our man had outrun us yet again.

Chapter 24

Back at Len Whittaker’s house, the jacket the Sarge had draped over her nakedness now replaced by some warmer clothes, Phoebe stuttered out her story while I took notes. Despite my earlier warning, Mr Whittaker had been posing his naked young companions in a bid to finalise his current painting.

“I clearly directed you not cavort naked in your backyard where others could see,” I reminded him.

“We weren’t
cavorting
, we were working. And the only ‘other’ to see is Elenora and if you ask me, that woman spends far too much of her time spying on me,” Mr Whittaker sniffed peevishly, all his previous coquettishness about his neighbour gone. “I might be forced to make a complaint against her myself for her blatant and continual breach of our privacy.”

The Sarge cut in smoothly. “We are not having neighbours complaining about each other. It’s a waste of our time and resources. You both need to learn to live with each other. Now the Senior Constable warned you about persisting with this behaviour and you’ve ignored her. Give me a good reason why I shouldn’t be slapping an infringement notice on you for disobeying a police directive?”

“You don’t understand. I did listen to Officer Tess and I
tried
to find a similar place in the bush, but that tree is . . .” His eyes grew distant and misty. “Perfect. It’s just perfect for the piece I’m preparing. It simply can’t be any other tree. I’ve tried to accommodate Elenora’s fastidiousness by turning my painting into a night scene. Incidentally, that brought absolute magic to the piece, so I ought to thank her for that. But if she’s going to spy on me every hour of the day, I find that untenable. And I refuse to be oppressed in my artistic endeavours by the establishment, whether it’s the local council or the local police.”

“The establishment? Oh God,” sighed the Sarge. “I swear that if you start singing ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, I’m going to arrest you.”

“Can we please get back to Phoebe?” I snapped. “You know, the young woman recently traumatised by being abducted at knife point?”

“Of course. My Phoebe. My darling,” Mr Whittaker slid over to hug the young woman to his breast. She leaned against him and started crying again.

“Phoebe, sweetheart,” I said gently. “We’ve talked about how the man surprised you all by sneaking up and throwing his arm around your neck, dragging you into the bush. I know it was a terrifying ordeal for you and if you feel you want to talk to me in private about what happened next, without any of the men around, just let me know.”

“No, it’s okay,” she said in a wobbly voice, clutching Philippe’s hand tightly. “I thought he was going to kill me, but he didn’t really do anything to me, apart from scaring me. He just touched me and kept saying strange things.”

“How did he touch you?”

“He just sort of ran his hands over my skin. I mean he did touch my face and my breasts and my bottom, but it didn’t seem to be sexual in any way. In fact, he seemed most interested in my back. He kept running his hands over my shoulder blades.”

“Your back?” I scribbled furiously in my notepad.

“And he kept asking,
Where are they? Are you too young for them yet?
”

“Strange.”

“It sounded like the sort of thing a man might ask a young woman about her breasts, but he was touching my back when he said it. I didn’t know what he was talking about.”

“Did he say anything else, Phoebe?”

“He kept saying something about an angel promising him peace. I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Everything he said seemed like pointless rambling. None of it made any sense to me.”

“What can you remember about his appearance?”

“He was scruffy, dirty. He wasn’t wearing any shoes. His hair was a tangled mess. And he smelt disgusting. Really bad. Like rotting meat.” Quiet tears trickled down her cheeks. “I need to have a shower. I feel contaminated.”

“Soon, sweetheart. Let Sergeant Maguire and I take down all the details first and then we’ll leave you to recover. Unless you want us to take you to Wattling Bay to see a victim support counsellor?”

She shook her head and squeezed Philippe’s hand more tightly. “No, thanks. I just want a shower.”

But despite quizzing her for another ten minutes, we didn’t uncover any further details of her assailant. Ushered to the door by Mr Whittaker with impolite haste, I reached around him to hand Phoebe my card, having scribbled my temporary mobile number on the back. I told her she could contact me any time if she needed to talk some more about what had happened to her. A small unhappy smile was her only response as Mr Whittaker closed the door in our faces.

“And don’t cavort in the nude again!” I shouted through the keyhole. The key turning in the lock didn’t promise he’d paid much more attention to me this time.

Back in the patrol car, I insisted that the man who’d taken Phoebe had to be the same guy we were already seeking.

“What the hell’s this guy up to? I’m beginning to think we have a newcomer for the title of one-person crime wave in this town,” said the Sarge.

“What about this creepy touching stuff? And Phoebe said it wasn’t in any sexual way.”

“She’d know I suppose. Probably has that dirty old man touching her up constantly,” he said, deploring the unconventional household we’d just left.

“You don’t know that. You shouldn’t judge.” I said rather hypocritically. “Anyway maybe she likes it. They seem very fond of each other. All three of them.”

“Ugh. Too strange for me.”

“Really? And here I had you mistakenly pegged as a swinger,” I teased, smiling. I’d probably never met a more straitlaced man.

“One woman at a time is enough for me. Especially when I have to put up with you all day as well.”

“That’s not very nice.”

“It’s part of my new no-more-nice-guy campaign.”

“Aw, but I like nice guys.”

“Really? In that case, I’m cancelling the campaign.”

“Good. In that case, it’s your turn to top-up the Tim Tam supply at the station.”

“We were taking turns? Why does it always seem to be my turn?”

“Because it always is.”

“That figures.” We drove down Silky Oak Street where at the end he turned towards the highway.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Home.”

“No, we have to speak to Young Kenny first.”

“Can’t that wait until tomorrow?”

“No. Turn around now.”

Grumbling, he spun the car into Pine Street, pulling up outside the nicely kept house of Alice and Willy, Young Kenny’s niece and her husband.

“Sorry we’re late,” said the Sarge, as if he hadn’t intended on skipping the visit altogether. “We had to attend to an urgent matter.”

Alice led us down the hallway and through her impeccably tidy kitchen. “He’s out the back,” she informed us in her polite, educated voice. “He’s had a terrible fright. I’m not sure he’ll be able to sleep tonight.”

I lowered my voice to a confidential tone. “I’d feel better if he slept inside. His assailant is still out there.”

“So would I, Officer Tess. But he can be such a stubborn old thing. At least I was able to give him a wholesome meal for once and I’m trying to be grateful for that opportunity.”

“Maybe we might be able to persuade him.”

“Uncle Kenny,” Alice soothed as she opened the door, moving slowly so as not to startle the elderly man. But he still sat up in fright, gathering his replacement blanket around him. “Officer Tess and Sergeant Maguire are here to see you.”

He relaxed when he saw it was us.

I crouched down next to him. “Sorry to bother you at nighttime, Young Kenny. I just have one more question about what happened to you.” He nodded. “Remember you told me you couldn’t understand what the man was saying to you.” Another nod. “Why was that?”

“Confused me. All talk about angels and demons.” He sat up straighter and assumed an air of dignity. “Plain crazy talk.”

“So he wasn’t speaking in a foreign language?”

“No! Told you – crazy talk. Didn’t make sense. Couldn’t understand.”

Risking his displeasure, I persisted in my line of questioning. “You could hear what he said clearly?”

“Yes!” He began to become agitated, twisting the blanket in his hands.

“Officer Tess, I think that’s enough,” insisted Alice with soft firmness.

“Not deaf. Told you – crazy talk.” He started to shake at the memory.

“I’m sorry, that really is enough for tonight. You’ve upset him terribly. Now please, find your own way out.”

“I’m sorry, Young Kenny. I didn’t mean to upset you. We’ll go,” I said, feeling like a lowlife. The last thing I’d wanted to do was upset the old man again. He’d already had a big enough scare.

On the drive home I tried to think about how I could have handled the interview better.

“Did I go too far?” I asked the Sarge. “I didn’t ask him many questions. I just wanted to make sure there was no misunderstanding between us.”