Blood Tears (50 page)

I jumped up and
virtually ran from the room to change back into my uniform. I was
hastily fastening the last button on my shirt, when the Sarge
knocked on the door.

“
Tess, better get back in full uniform. Abe needs us at the
pub urgently.”

“
Okay.”

Five minutes later, we
pulled up in the pub carpark. An anxious Abe rushed out to greet
us.

“
What’s up, Abe?” asked the Sarge.

“
It’s
Room 1 upstairs. I took both rooms their dinner tonight personally
because I didn’t think it was fair to send up one of my staff. That
was fine, and they told me to leave the dirty dishes until
tomorrow. I knew they were heading off early in the morning and
just remembered I hadn’t asked them what time they wanted
breakfast. I can’t raise an answer from them. I was going to enter,
but thought it would be better for you to check it out.” He handed
the Sarge a card. “Here’s my master swipe.”

Not waiting to hear
another word, we stormed into the pub and up the stairs, Abe
hovering behind us. The Sarge banged on the door of Room 1.

“
It’s
Sergeant Maguire here. Can you let me in, please?”

He banged some more,
drawing a sleepy Arapeta from his adjoining room.

“
What’s going on?”

“
It’s
Sergeant Maguire. Open the door, please.” We looked at each other.
“I’m going in.”

“
Abe,
get down stairs,” I instructed.

He obeyed without a
word of complaint, hurrying away. Then I pointed at Arapeta.

“
You,
get back in your room.” When he hesitated, I said in my cop voice,
“Now!”

Reluctantly, he
returned to his room and closed the door. We drew our guns and the
Sarge used the swipe card to unlock the door, opening it with his
foot.

“
Police!” he yelled, swooping the room with his
gun.

Quentin lay on one of
the beds unresponsive to our voices. He wore a t-shirt and boxer
shorts, his hands cuffed behind his back. Two trays of used plates,
cutlery and glasses sat on one of the other beds; the third on the
room’s desk.

“
Shit,” said the Sarge.

“
They’ve gone,” I spat out. I kicked one of the beds in
fury.

We reholstered and went
over to Quentin. The Sarge bent over him and examined him for life,
which was unnecessary as that man was awake, but drowsy and
uncommunicative.

I went out to the
stairwell and yelled out, “Abe, up here.” He jumped up the stairs,
two at a time. “Call Dr Fenn. Tell him we need him here
urgently.”

When I returned to the
room, the Sarge had managed to uncuff the still sleepy Quentin.

“
What
happened?” he asked the man, but he drowsed and mumbled something
incoherent.

Arapeta poked his head
around the doorway, gasping when he saw his colleague. “Is he going
to be okay?”

“
How
would I know? I’m not a doctor,” I said brusquely. “Did you hear
anything?”

“
No,
we’ve had the television on all night. Didn’t hear a
thing.”

I looked at him with
contempt. “Congratulations, sport. You and your colleague have just
let two prisoners escape.”

“
Oh,
shit. Let me get dressed and I’ll help you track them down. They
can’t have gone far.”

“
No,
you won’t,” said the Sarge. “Have you forgotten about the other two
prisoners you have? You’ll stay here with them.”

“
I
don’t understand how this could happen. We searched them every
single time before they got back in the van.”

“
You
didn’t search them well enough after the funeral. Someone in their
family slipped one of them something. I warned you that these men
were devious and not to be trusted.”

“
The
doc’s on his way,” Abe told me.

“
Good. Abe, can you stay here and watch over this guy until Dr
Fenn arrives? His name’s Quentin.”

“
What
do you think happened to him, Tessie?”

“
Drugged. What else?”

“
I
can’t believe they just waltzed out of the pub and nobody noticed,”
Abe said.

“
Maybe they’re still here inside?” asked the Sarge.

“
They’re stupid, but they’re not that stupid,” I said. “We all
know where they’ve gone.”

The Sarge and I
exchanged a glance.

“
Their mother’s place,” he said.

Chapter
35

We left Abe with the
drugged man and conferred in the carpark.

“
Think about it, Tess. As far as Red and Karl know, nobody was
going to bother them for the rest of the night. So their
disappearance wouldn’t be discovered until the morning, by which
time they’d have escaped far away from here.”

“
But
not before they attend a wild party.”

“
And,
even if they’re not at Lola’s, it’s probably a good idea for us to
remind them that we’re still on duty and keeping an eye on them.
But first,” he said, sitting in the driver’s seat, “I’m going to
call it in.”

And for once I agreed
with him, listening in as he gave the control centre operator the
details of the two escapees.

I quickly rang the
Super, but not finding her available, left a message for her.

“
Put
your bullet proofs on, Tess,” the Sarge said when he’d finished.
“Let’s not take any chances.”

We spent a few moments
donning those before facing each other at the back of the patrol
car.

“
They’ll probably be expecting us to turn up at some point
tonight,” I said.

“
Yeah, but we have the element of surprise about when we
will.”

“
Should we try the old decoy at the front door, muscle at the
back door trick?”

“
It’s
so predictable. And they’ll just escape through the roof, like Red
did last time.”

“
Brute force?” I asked.

“
What, with two of us against how many of them? Too
risky.”

“
Ask
the Super for backups? She’d have to give us some now.”

“
They’d take too long to get here. They’ll be long gone by
then.”

I drummed my fingers on
the boot of the car. “Sniper attack?”

“
Tess,” he said. “You can’t shoot them all.”

“
What
are we going to do then?” I demanded in frustration. “You come up
with something if you don’t like my ideas.”

“
This
will sound crazy, but how about a routine call?”

“
What
do you mean?”

“
Shh,
listen.”

I shut up and listened.
In the distance I could hear the distinct bass sounds of music
being played very loud. “Disturbance reported by a phantom
neighbour?”

“
Why
not?”

“
Okay. Sometimes the simple plans are the best.”

“
Ready?” he asked, holding out his fist.

“
Ready as I’ll ever be.” We knocked fists together in a show
of solidarity and climbed into the patrol car.

The music was deafening
long before we even reached Lola’s house.

“
Crikey, it’s making the car shake,” said the
Sarge.

“
My
ears are starting to bleed.”

“
I’m
surprised none of the neighbours have actually complained for
real.”

“
Too
scared. Especially tonight. Nobody wants to annoy them
tonight.”

“
Speaking of that, Tess, you really have to watch your mouth
here. They’re probably going to be extremely drunk by now, and most
possibly aggressive. It’s not the time to be taunting them.” I
didn’t say anything, not wanting to promise something I might not
be able to deliver. “Tess, did you hear me?”

“
Of
course I heard you. I’m sitting right next to you. Though it’s a
miracle to be able to hear anything over that noise.”

We pulled up in front
of Lola’s place, and went through our routine weapons check. Every
light was on in the house. Several of the Bycrafts and their
various hangers-on lounged on the front verandah, drinking straight
from spirit bottles and smoking weed, the smell wafting over to
us.

The only way the Sarge
and I could talk to each other was to virtually shout directly into
each other’s ears.

“
Better hold our breath,” I yelled to him. “Or we’ll end up
stoned too.”

“
We’d
probably end up joining them in their party,” he yelled back.
“Okay, let’s do this.”

We stepped out into a
chorus of foul-mouthed heckling and jeers. Undeterred, we strode
over the patchy lawn and up the saggy stairs.

“
Where’s Lola?” I shouted, cupping my hands around my
mouth.

“
Fucked if I know,” answered Jade, sipping from a half-empty
bottle of vodka before passing it to her cousin, Mikey, and taking
a huge puff on a joint.

The Sarge waved his
hand in dismissal to tell me to not bother with them, then pointed
at the front door. He banged on it to no avail. There was no way we
would catch anyone’s attention over the racket.

“
Police!” he shouted, but even with his loud voice, nobody
could hear.

The room was smoky, and
stank of weed, cigarettes, strong spirits, greasy food, and dirty
nappies. It was difficult to see through the crowd, some of whom
danced or staggered to the music.

Spotting someone, I
clutched the Sarge’s sleeve in excitement and pointed.

“
Karl!”

We pushed through the
crowd towards him. He, and most of those around him, was oblivious
to our arrival, so he made no attempt to escape. He stood leaning
against a wall, puffing on a joint with evident pleasure, holding a
can of rum and cola in the other hand.

By the time people
started noticing us, the Sarge had his handcuffs out, and I had my
gun pressed against Karl’s belly.

“
Hello!” I bellowed at him with a smile. “Fancy meeting you
here.”

Angrily, he tried to
push me away to run, others in his family pulling me backwards, but
the Sarge had already flipped him around and, with a knee in his
back, cuffed him.

I elbowed off the
people around me, and we dragged Karl out of the house. He didn’t
go without a fight though, dragging his heels and screaming every
abuse he could think of at us. Well, at least that’s what I presume
he was yelling because I couldn’t actually hear a word he said.

We were soon engulfed
in a sea of anger that only grew the more people noticed our
presence. Fists rained down on us from every direction. I was
feeling pretty pummelled by the time we dragged Karl down the
stairs and across the lawn to forcibly shove him in the back seat
of the patrol car. The Sarge and I conferred.

“
Should we take him back or go in again?” I yelled into his
ear. “If Karl was in there, Red has to be too.”

“
He
would have bolted by now.”

“
Maybe. Let’s do a search. We have a sound reason now that
we’ve recovered Karl.”

“
You
sure you want to go back in? They were getting a bit
violent.”

I smiled at him, and by
the drawing together of his eyebrows, I knew that it wasn’t a nice
smile I’d given him. “You bet I do.”

“
Okay. Let’s do it.”

We ran back inside,
pushing away anyone who approached us. The Sarge could get by with
his size and strength, but I had to pull out my baton to keep my
enemies at bay.

We didn’t dare split
up, as we’d normally do in a regular house search. I was sure he
would have been okay by himself, but suspected he was worried about
leaving me on my own. But, whether that was for my benefit or the
Bycrafts, I couldn’t say for sure.

The house wasn’t big,
so we managed to sweep through it scoping each room fairly quickly.
And though the crowd surged and moved continuously to put us off,
none of them was smirking or showing any signs that our efforts
would be fruitless, as they’d normally do in a situation like this.
That gave me hope that we’d still find Red inside.

We didn’t have any luck
until we reached the last room, a bedroom. Several Bycrafts banged
on the door, looking over their shoulders at us in panic. The Sarge
and I looked at each other. He nodded.

“
Get
out! Get away!” I said, indiscriminately whacking Bycrafts left and
right, as the Sarge muscled his way through them.

The door remained
closed, and presumably whoever was in there couldn’t hear the
banging over the music. I put away my baton and drew my gun, the
Sarge with his out as well.

He tried the handle,
but the door was locked. So he kicked at the door and as it was so
flimsy, it splintered on the second kick. He shouldered his way
through its remains.

“
Police!” he shouted.

Red, startled,
scrabbled up from the dirty mattress on the floor where we’d
interrupted him humping his timid
de facto
, Sharnee, both of
them completely naked. Sharnee, some fresh bruises already starting
to show on her pale neck, screamed and reached for an equally dirty
sheet to cover herself. Red, still fully erect, made a run for the
window.

I grabbed for him and
he swung out at me with his fist. I ducked and his punch flew over
the top of my head. The Sarge ran into him, forcing him against the
wall. Though I couldn’t hear anything, there was no doubt that
Red’s open mouth meant he was suffering immense pain from having
his genitals squashed up hard against a wall.