Blood Tears (47 page)

“
Hello, Tessie,” he said softly.

“
Tommy,” I replied. Although he’d been responsible for the
death of Nana Fuller, we’d reached a rapprochement of sorts after
he’d recently sent me a heartfelt apology for it.

“
You
know him?” asked Arapeta, immediately suspicious.

“
Unfortunately, she knows all of them,” said the Sarge on my
behalf.

Arapeta swore under his
breath. “They never tell us anything. Is this going to be a
problem?”

“
I
don’t know,” I told him honestly.

“
No,”
assured the Sarge. “As long as they’re secured at all
times.”

“
We
know how to do our job,” Quentin bristled instantly. I decided I
didn’t like him much.

“
Wasn’t insinuating otherwise,” said the Sarge coolly, though
with the distinct undertone of suggesting that Quentin would have
trouble tying his shoelaces without his mother’s help. I really
liked the way he was able to do that.

“
You
can take him,” Arapeta said to the Sarge, handing Tommy
over.

The Sarge grabbed him
by the handcuffs, but there was no need. Tommy was acquiescent, his
eyes on the ground, his feet shuffling on the bitumen. He’d changed
a lot from the arrogant, angry, substance-riddled young man who’d
mown down Nana Fuller and me in his car that horrible day. I was
pleased about that.

Next out was Ritchie.
And while jail had been a good thing for Tommy, it had worn Ritchie
down badly. It had been a while since I’d seen him, not since Mikey
was a toddler, a good twelve years ago. A lifelong loser, he’d been
in and out of jail so often that they’d almost named their
revolving door after him. Hunched over, he didn’t acknowledge any
of us, staring at the ground.

I took him by the
handcuffs and he shuffled over to me. Though he still carried the
great beauty and strong build of all the Bycrafts, there was
something beaten about him, as if he’d given up completely on
life.

Third out was Karl,
almost as repulsive as his brother, Red. He’d been imprisoned for a
vicious assault on me and then for attempting escape from the
courthouse.

“
Bitch,” he said when he set eyes on me.

“
Hey!” Arapeta said, whipping out his baton and holding it
against Karl’s neck. “You behave yourself, buddy.”

I stood holding
Ritchie, trying my best to look unimpressed, but unnerved at seeing
him again. He stared at me sullenly and I stared back until,
sensing the hostility crackling between us, Arapeta forced Karl to
turn away by yanking on his handcuffs.

Then the moment I
dreaded, Quentin opened the fourth door. Red, the usual cocky,
self-assured grin on his beautiful face, sauntered from the
compartment. He didn’t say anything, just stood and contemplated
me.

Like the others, he was
dressed casually, this time in jeans and a t-shirt. His hair was
much shorter, probably in attempt to look respectable enough to
convince officials to grant him leave to attend Denny’s
funeral.

“
Oh,
Tessie,” he drawled. “Don’t you just look divine? Almost good
enough to eat.”

He bared his teeth and
bit them together, licking his lips.

“
Don’t talk to her, Bycraft,” warned the Sarge. “You better
take him away now.”

“
We
know our job, Sergeant,” said Quentin, with more than a hint of
haughtiness. “These men are our responsibility, and you’d be best
to remember that.”

“
I
can’t wait to tell you the dreams I’ve had about you, Tessie, my
lovely,” said Red.

“
I
can’t wait to tell you the nightmares I’ve had about you, Red,” I
replied, stony-faced.

“
Heard about you and Jakey. Such a shame,” he taunted. “Guess
that means it’s my turn with you now. Oh, the things I plan for
you, Tessie Fuller.”

“
Shut
up, Bycraft,” spat out the Sarge.

Arapeta stepped in.
“All right, that’s enough. It’s not a damn social club.” He looked
at me meaningfully. “There’s obviously not much love lost between
you and these guys. My advice is to stay away from them. We don’t
need trouble.”

“
No
can do, sorry,” I said. “We’ll be at the funeral. We have our
orders too, you know.”

Karl reacted badly to
that, trying to spin around to see me.

“
You’re not going to Denny’s funeral, you fucking bitch. You
murdered him,” he frothed, forcing Arapeta to yank on the handcuffs
to turn him around again.

“
Watch your mouth, Bycraft.” He looked over his shoulder at
me. “Did you kill his brother?”

“
No,”
the Sarge and I said simultaneously.

“
If
it wasn’t for you, Denny would never have been up the mountain,”
Karl continued to rage.

“
He
was up there before we even ran into him, dipshit. It’s not my
fault you’re too stupid to accept that,” I retorted, not able to
help myself, feeling my anger beginning to build.

“
Very
professional of you,” scorned Quentin.

“
Take
these men upstairs,” directed the Sarge, trying to head off
trouble.

“
Come
on,” said Arapeta, yanking on Karl’s handcuffs. He was obviously
the sensible one of the pair.

“
Just
wait,” Quentin said, taking the men’s bags from the van, and
handing them to each prisoner. I could only hope they’d been
searched thoroughly.

The Sarge glared at me,
so taking the hint, I followed Arapeta and led Ritchie into the
pub, one hand on his cuffs and one on his shoulder. He offered me
no resistance.

Abe, who’d been
standing by watching, flanked by curious patrons of the pub, looked
worried, as if regretting agreeing to allow the prisoners to stay
in his accommodation. Corrective Services must have offered him a
packet to do so, but perhaps thinking he’d soon have another mouth
to feed, he decided he couldn’t say no. He handed out swipe cards
to the two officers and advised them which rooms they’d been
allocated.

On the top floor of the
pub were located three guest suites and Abe’s own flat where he
lived with Romi and Toni. It briefly passed through my mind that
with Jenny and a baby soon joining them, it would be quite a crush,
and I wondered how he’d cope.

“
Who’s going where?” asked the Sarge, shaking my attention
back to the job.

“
I’ll
be taking these two in my room,” said Arapeta, nodding to Ritchie
and Tommy.

“
What?” I asked. “You’re planning on having Red and Karl share
a room?”

“
That’s what I just said, wasn’t it?” he replied, a little
testy.

“
That’s not a good idea,” I said. “Those two should be kept
apart at all times.”

“
Look, Constable,” started Quentin.

“
Senior Constable,” I snapped at him.

“
Whatever. My colleague and I have discussed this thoroughly.
We have a game plan.”

“
A
game plan?” I snorted. “This isn’t some kind of game. These men
can’t be trusted, and they especially can’t be trusted together.
They committed a crime together, and they tried to escape from
custody together.” I wasn’t about to tell him they’d taken me
hostage as they did.

“
We
know everything about them, so don’t you worry about it,” he said
in a tone that indicated he would have dearly liked to add ‘your
pretty little head’ into that sentence. If he had, the Sarge would
have had to hold me back from kneeing him in the balls.

“
Cool
it, Quen,” cautioned Arapeta. Then to the Sarge, he said, “We’ll
get these guys sorted and then we’ll fill you in.”

We waited by the
stairwell for them to return, each closing their door behind them
and checking that it was locked. Even if one of the prisoners
managed to leave the room, with four of us standing near the
stairwell, all of us armed, he wouldn’t have stood a chance of
escaping.

“
So
what’s this brilliant ‘game plan’?” I demanded, earning myself a
gentle nudge from the Sarge as a warning.

“
We’ve done our risk assessment of the job,” Arapeta said in a
placating manner.
Not only the smart one, but also the
diplomatic one
, I thought. “We’re well aware of these men’s
backgrounds, and know that Red and Karl have been accomplices in
criminal activity. We’ve also judged that Ritchie and Tommy are the
lesser risk of the four.”

“
So
why put Red and Karl in the same room?” asked the Sarge before I
could.

“
If
they both do cause trouble, and that’s a big
if
– because
they’ve been warned of the consequences of that kind of action by
the boss himself – then I know I can leave the other two secured in
their room while I go assist Quen in subduing them. If we split
them up and they both cause trouble, then we can’t help each other
and we’re basically stuffed. Our safety is a priority to us and to
the prison.”

“
That’s it?” I asked in disbelief. “That’s your game
plan?”

“
We’ve done a lot of these outside jobs. I’d wager we know
more about this than you do,
Senior
Constable,” said
Quentin.

“
Well, I’d wager I know much more about the Bycrafts than you
will ever know,” I bit back. The Sarge placed a restraining hand on
my arm.

“
And
besides,” hurried on Arapeta, sensing a coming storm. “Red has a
deep hatred of his father, and refused to be housed in the same
room as him. Said he’d hurt him if we did.”

“
Deep
hatred of his father, huh? First I’ve ever heard of it. In fact,
out of all of Ritchie’s children, I would have said that Red was
closest to him,” I said, firing up again.

Quentin made some
dismissive noise. “I think that just shows you don’t know as much
about them as you think.”

“
He
is conning you,” I insisted.

“
Look, I’m bored of this,” said Quentin. “We’re not country
folk where not much happens, we’re from the city. We know how
things work. We know about prisoners and all their tricks. This is
legit. You didn’t see Red talking about his father. We
did.”

“
We
couldn’t risk them being in the same room,” Arapeta said
apologetically. “Like I said, we’ve done our risk
assessment.”

“
This
is bullshit,” I said, turning away. I badly wanted to kick
something. And as I’d probably find myself in a load of trouble if
that something were Quentin, I had to bottle up my
anger.

“
Now,
if you don’t mind. Our prisoners need to prepare themselves for a
funeral,” dismissed Quentin, walking away back to his
room.

“
I
guess we’ll see you there later,” Arapeta said.

“
You
betcha,” I said, before the Sarge took me by the arm, virtually
dragging me down the stairs.

He made a detour over
to Abe to exhort him to ring us if anything, even something minor,
happened involving his unwanted guests.

I sat in the patrol car
fuming.

“
You
didn’t make any friends there, Tessie,” he rebuked
calmly.

“
I
don’t want to be friends with idiots like them.”

“
Look, it’s their problem. They’re armed and they’re
experienced. They’ve talked about it, and don’t seem oblivious to
the nature of the Bycrafts. I think that’s the best we could hope
for in the circumstances.”

“
Red
is
lying
to them. I know it. It’s just a trick.”

“
Do
you honestly think you’re going to be able to talk them
around?”

“
No,”
I reluctantly admitted.

“
Let
it go then.” He checked his watch again. “That took longer than I
expected. I think we should head over to the cemetery and get in
place. It’s going to be a long afternoon.”

Chapter
33

We parked in a
conspicuous spot at the front of the cemetery and waited. A
cream-coloured Morris Minor putted down Dead End Street and parked
behind us. An elderly man, dressed in priest vestments, stepped out
and approached us.

“
Uh-oh,” said the Sarge to me. “Your sins have finally caught
up with you.”

“
Hope
he’s got a couple of weeks to hear them all,” I laughed.

“
He’d
need a couple of years, wouldn’t he?”

I punched him in the
arm. “Shut up.”

When the elderly man
drew level with the window, we assumed our professional police
faces.

“
Hello, Father. Can I help you?” asked the Sarge
politely.

“
Yes,
thank you, Officer. Could you tell me if this is the correct
cemetery for the Bycraft funeral?”

“
It
certainly is.”

“
Oh,
excellent, excellent. I got terribly lost and was worried I would
be late. I drove out to a different cemetery.”

“
That
would be the new one. This old one’s closed now except for family
plots,” I informed him.

“
No
need to worry, Father,” assured the Sarge. “You’re the first one
here. Would you like us to show you where it will be
held?”

“
That’s most kind of you, Officer. Most kind.”

We locked the patrol
car and took a leisurely stroll down the main path, giving
consideration to his slow pace.