Blood Ties

by JD Nixon

  “Don’t even think about it, Sparkles, you pervert,” I warned. He settled back on his bed again and glared at me with undisguised hostility as I made my way down the stairs. I yawned hugely, stretched again and opened the car door to an indescribably obnoxious smell. I let my nose guide my way to the back seat.

  “Oh no,” I moaned quietly in disgust because the revolting odour was coming from a large stain on the seat where Des had been sitting. I didn’t want to investigate any further that evening, but wound down every window as I drove back to the pub, trying not to heave. It would require some intensive car cleaning the next morning, but not tonight – I was way too tired.

  Most of the guests had gone by the time I returned to The Flying Pigs. Abe’s half-sister, a pretty sixteen-year-old, was collecting empty glasses and wiping down tables.

  “Hey, Romi,” I called to her as I headed over to talk to Abe.

  “Hey, Tessie,” she replied affectionately, flashing me her devastating smile. She was a smart, lovely girl and a real heartbreaker, with big sky-blue eyes and light blonde hair. She had lived with Abe for the last ten years since their father, Abel, and his second wife (Romi’s mother), were killed in a head-on accident with a semi-trailer as they drove to the city to spend a weekend away for their wedding anniversary. Her dream was to head off to the city herself in a few years to study law at university, and I knew that Abe would miss her a lot. So would the teenage boys in town, although none of them had ever had a chance with her because Abe watched over her like a hawk. And you wouldn’t willingly tangle with him. He was six feet of hard muscle from all the heavy lifting he did in his job, with a shaved head, emotional dark eyes, deep growly voice, craggy features and had a reputation as a hard fighter. You couldn’t run a country pub without being able to sort out drunk, aggressive patrons when you needed to. He was a good man to have on your side.

  He was busy at the bar restocking bottles in the fridges and replacing glasses freshly cleaned from the dishwasher ready for the next day, when he finally noticed me.

  “Teresa, you’re back,” he smiled warmly.

  “I am, Abraham.” I leaned on the bar, not bothering to hide my huge yawn.

  We were old friends and had gone to school together. He’d been my first boyfriend but had dumped me towards the end of eleventh grade when he’d been seduced by Carole Smyth. She was in the year above me at school, the same year as Abe, and had decided that his well-muscled physique was very much to her liking. I still hated her for that. They’d had a hot and heavy romance over the summer and then she’d broken Abe’s heart in turn when she had left for Sydney, bragging to all of us that before long she’d be a top model and we’d see her face on the cover of all the magazines. None of us had ever heard a word about her since, though I believe her parents received a phone call from her now and then.

  Abe had moved on from her, but he had stayed in town and when his father was killed in that terrible accident, had taken over his pub and also taken up guardianship of his little sister. It was a lot of responsibility for an eighteen-year-old to bear, but Abe had always been a pragmatic kind of guy and didn’t waste any energy in bemoaning his fate in life.

  That same year he had met his wife, Marcelle, as she backpacked through town from her own little village in France, entranced by our nearby treacherous mountain and its beautiful lake. They knew they were made for each other the second their eyes met across the bar when she’d perched on a bar stool in front of him, flicking her shiny black hair behind her shoulders and showing off her long tanned legs. She’d teasingly asked him for a Pernod in her sexy accented English, not seriously expecting a country pub to have any. He’d swallowed hard and rolled his tongue back up into his head, but was able to produce it with a flourish and a devastating smile, cheekily telling her he’d been waiting forever for someone to ask for one. Abe loved foreign spirits and we had our fair share of international tourists in town throughout the year, so he took a risk and stocked up. Any that didn’t sell were enjoyed by him and me when I joined him for regular dinners in his flat on the upper floor of the pub. We’d travelled around the world together through exotic alcohol.

  Marcelle had been charmed and they ended up spending the night together. She stayed in town and soon after that first meeting, Abe and Marcelle had decided to marry, both still just eighteen at the time. They married out near the lake in a small but touching ceremony, with me as their bridesmaid and one of Abe’s school mates as the best man. They had called their only child Antoinette, a lovely French name, but it had inevitably been shortened to Toni by everyone in town since she was born. She was now ten, and at this time of the night was fast asleep upstairs in Abe’s flat.

  Marcelle had slipped into life as a country publican’s wife with remarkable ease, and their marriage had been truly happy and fulfilling. But tragically, she had died three years ago in circumstances that were wrenchingly heartbreaking for both Abe and me. I’d loved her like a sister and missed her every day. I also felt an incredible weight of guilt about her death that I would never be able to shake off. I’m no stranger to anguish, believe me, but her death absolutely ripped me apart. To my stunned disbelief, life had gone on afterwards, and we’d all had to pick up the pieces of our shattered lives and carry on. Months later, I’d felt disloyal and heartless the first time I’d smiled again after her funeral. I often wondered if Abe had felt the same way, but Marcelle’s murder was a topic that we never broached. It was still too raw for both of us, even after this passage of time.

  “Any more trouble or can I head off home?” I asked him, barely suppressing yet another yawn.

  “It’s all good. Go home, sweetness. You look tired,” he said.

  “I sure am,” I admitted. “It’s been a long day. Do you want me to check on Toni before I go?”

  “Romi checked on her five minutes ago. Off home with you, Tessie. Your bed’s waiting for you.” His smile was poignant as he said that.

  He hadn’t dated much since Marcelle’s death and part of the reason for that was because my arrival back in town a couple of years ago had rekindled his amorous feelings for me. He definitely wouldn’t knock back an invitation to join me in my bed, but he wasn’t going to get one. He’d had his chance with me in high school, and I hadn’t forgotten the miserable tears I’d quietly spilled into my pillow every night for three months after he dumped me so cruelly. Maybe I would have got over him faster if I didn’t have to catch the same bus as him and Carole Smyth to and from school every day, pretending I didn’t care while they enthusiastically tasted each other’s tonsils in the backseat. So for now, I was content to keep him as a friend only, even though I’d be the first to say that I cared a great deal for him.

  I made one last check around the pub, rounded up a couple of stragglers and drove them home, ignoring their ungrateful complaints about the smell in the car. That done, I finally, happily, drove south out of town to my own home. I kept the patrol car with me at home and was responsible for detailing it every week. Officially, it should have stayed with the senior officer at the police station, but we were a bit slack about protocol around here, and Des had made it abundantly clear that he had more important things to do with his time than wash cars. I’d never worked out what those important things were, but they seemed to require an inordinate amount of time spent at the pub.

  I left the windows down in the patrol car after I parked in my front yard. I’d worry about that awful stain in the morning, but hopefully the fresh air would move the odour on during the night. I was tired. I’d been on duty since eight on Friday morning and now it was three in the morning on Saturday. That was a long shift for anyone.

  I kicked off my disgusting boots at the welcome mat, carefully and quietly opened the front door and tiptoed down the hall towards the bathroom.

  “Tessie, love?” a voice called from the front-facing lounge room. I detoured to the left immediately.

  “Dad,” I remonstrated, going over to kiss him on the forehead. “What
are you doing up so late? I told you I wasn’t going to be home for ages tonight.”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” he said and clutched my hand. He was now wheelchair-bound and was the whole reason I’d chucked in my promising city cop career to return home. I was lucky that the junior officer vacancy had come up in town at that time and was grateful every day for the chance to be here with him, helping him when he let me, earning the both of us some money to get by. It was the main reason I put up with so much from certain people in town.

  “Did the party go well?” He’d been invited but hadn’t felt up to going.

  “Des took all his clothes off and threw up on my boots,” I told him, flopping down on our saggy old lounge and pulling my hair from its tight bun. “I think he left me a ‘present’ in the back seat of the car too, but I’m too knackered to care about that right now.”

  He laughed. “Must have been a hell of a party. How was his speech?”

  “Can you believe that I missed it? Miss G called me out again.”

  “Another peeper?”

  “She only wishes,” I smiled tiredly. He smiled too, but there were lines of pain and weariness in his face. I stood up. “Come on, let’s get you off to bed,” I insisted. He only stayed up because he worried about me, even in this quiet mountain town where we’d both been born. But he had good reason to worry, not that we ever spoke about it much.

  Dad had been a seasonal mixed farmer in his prime, delivering quality produce to the nearby farmers' markets and to the Big Town restaurants. He had practised organic farming, had been meticulous with his soil improvement and his planting, fertilising, cultivating and harvesting, but had to give it away when he’d been diagnosed with a rare form of fatal lymphatic cancer over two years ago. I’d been on the brink of breaking it big in the city when I’d heard the awful news, but dropped everything to come back to the small town I couldn’t wait to escape from to look after him. He was the world to me. Nothing else mattered. Nobody mattered more. He was my only family.

  He waved away my help as usual, being a proud and independent man, and wheeled himself off to bed in our modified house. I spent a few moments in the bathroom, splashing my face, running a comb through my long, straight dark-blonde hair, and brushing and flossing my teeth. Peering in the mirror, I frowned when I noticed the purple smudges of tiredness under my dark grey eyes. I was in desperate need of a solid eight hours sleep. Wearily, I changed into the longish Powerpuff Girls t-shirt that I wore as a nightie. Romi had given it to me for Christmas last year as a joke because I was always banging on about girl power to her. Then I strapped on to my right thigh the leather sheath holding the viciously sharp hunting knife that I carried with me everywhere when I didn’t have my gun on me.

  I preferred to be armed at all times.

  I was on-call day and night, which was part of the trade-off for the supposedly quiet country life, so I hung a fresh uniform close by, secured my Glock and utility belt within easy reach, left my phone in its charger on a loud ringtone, set out a clean pair of boots and socks and fell into bed, groaning with happiness as my head hit the pillow. I soon fell into a deep sleep, utterly exhausted.

  *****

  A stealthy noise woke me less than an hour later. I sprung upright in bed on full alert, my ears straining into the darkness, holding my breath.

  I heard it again – a soft crunching sound from the front of the house, drifting through my open bedroom window. Someone was approaching up the gravel driveway. They were trying to be quiet, but I was finely tuned to the house’s myriad noises, as you would expect having lived in it most of my life. It could just be Denny Bycraft spying on me as usual, I rationalised to myself. Or it could be Red Bycraft, brooding over our earlier encounter and deciding that he wasn’t finished with me for the night. It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened. All things considered, I’d much rather it was Denny.

  I patted my knife and slid out of bed, slipping my police utility belt around my hips as well. I didn’t bother wasting time changing out of my nightie or to don shoes. I moved silently, not wanting to wake Dad. He had probably taken a sleeping tablet, as he did most nights now, but sometimes they didn’t work. He didn’t get a lot of sleep anymore, so I was very protective of the little he had.

  At my bedroom window, I listened intently again. Nothing. Whoever my mysterious nocturnal intruder was, they’d stopped momentarily. A minute later, the footsteps started again, less perceptible this time as the intruder left the driveway and walked across our patchy lawn. They were heading down the side of the house, past the lounge room towards my bedroom window.

  “Oh, no you don’t, sunshine,” I promised under my breath and tiptoed out of my room, down the hall to the front door. Slowly I opened it and stepped out on to the front verandah.

  A refreshing ocean breeze had sprung up since I’d returned home and the surrounding gum trees rustled gently. A semi-trailer hauling petrol, its lights blazing in the darkness, flew faster than the speed limit along the Coastal Range Highway that fronted my property, before snaking its way through town. It lit up the yard brilliantly for a few seconds and I could see that my intruder had definitely left the front yard and had moved down the side of the house.

  I ran down the stairs lightly and crept to the corner, not minding the cool dampness of the dew on my bare feet. I peered cautiously around the side of the house. A silhouette was in the distance, disappearing around the back of the house. Damn! They were moving faster than I had expected.

  I picked my way carefully down the side, using the bright moonlight to avoid all the rusty, broken farm machinery and piles of timber that Dad had dumped there over the years. One day I’d get around to hauling it away.

  When I reached the back, again I peered around the corner. My intruder was standing in the yard, hands on his hips, staring at the house. I couldn’t see any of his features as the moonlight was highlighting him from behind, but could tell it was a man from his broad shoulders and narrower hips, and his height, which was definitely over six feet. There was one thing I was positive about though – he sure wasn’t a Bycraft.

  So who the hell was he?

  He moved towards the house, stalking up the ramp and testing the back door handle. Finding it locked, he turned and headed for the other side of the house. That instantly angered me. What made this complete stranger think he was entitled to loiter around my property in the middle of the night, trying to break in? If he was some lout from Big Town thinking that my humble home seemed a likely place to burgle, then he could think again. He’d sure picked the wrong woman to mess around with tonight, I thought, enraged. I had a very low tolerance for trespassers.

  Silently, because I was barefoot, I rushed up behind him and threw myself on him in a fierce tackle, my arms tight around his lower body. He fell heavily, his arms flung out in wild panic, grunting when he landed as my momentum forced the air from his lungs.

  “What the . . .” he spluttered as I straddled his legs and drew out my handcuffs. “Who the fuck are you? Get off me!” He struggled against me, trying to buck me off his back.

  “Police! Don’t move!” I instructed in my loud cop voice.

  “Like hell you’re the police!” He groaned as I grabbed his left arm and twisted it unkindly behind his back so I could clap on the handcuffs. He immediately flailed his arm about to escape my hold. “I know how cops operate and that’s not –”

  “Oh, I bet you know how cops operate,” I interrupted heatedly, labouring to maintain my grip on his arm. He was strong. “A creep like you who sneaks around people’s houses at night is bound to come into contact with them all the time.”

  He moved his right hand to reach around to his back pocket. “I can –” he started to say, even as he arched his back again in an attempt to throw me off.

  “I said don’t move!” For all I knew, he had a weapon in his pocket. Maybe even a gun. I pulled out my knife and ground his face into the dirt with my forearm across the back of his neck. His result
ing moan was muffled by the soil. “Keep still!” I shouted, touching the blade of my knife to his neck. “I have a knife at your throat and you better believe that I won’t think twice before using it.”

  “For God’s sake,” he mumbled into the earth, ignoring my threat and thrashing his body around, trying to free his face. I had to quickly re-sheath my knife, not wanting to accidently stab him or, even worse, myself. It was all I could do to stay on top of him. He reached for his back pocket again, so I pushed his face further into the ground, virtually lying on top of him in an attempt to subdue him.

  “Stop moving!” I yelled in his ear. It was impossible to cuff him while he was struggling so much.

  “I can’t breathe,” he gasped, trying to twist his face to the side.

  “I’m not falling for that one, buddy.”

  I managed to clamp one handcuff around his left wrist and vainly reached for his right. His body twisted, curved and bowed in a frantic last-ditch effort to dislodge me from his back. It worked.

  “Get off me,” he snarled, showing teeth as he flung me off him. His voice sounded smothered, like he did have a throat full of dirt.

  He staggered to his feet, coughing, and made a run for the side of the house.

  “Hey!” I shouted and leapt from a crouching position to grasp him around his calves, bringing him down again. I scrabbled to move up his body, stretching my fingers out to clutch at his arm.

  He grabbed my shoulders and flipped me on my back, looming over me in the darkness. “Are you crazy or something? Give me a chance to –”

  “Escape? I don’t think so, matey.”

  I clutched his upper arms and endeavoured to roll him on to his stomach again so I could finish handcuffing him. But he wasn’t interested in that plan, and pinned me to the ground by my shoulders. In a flash, I raised my knees to my chest and propelled him backwards with my feet. Surprised by my sudden move, he tumbled, losing his balance. I sprang up and pushed him prone to the ground with my foot between his shoulder blades, his face back in the dirt. I dropped to my knees on to his back, causing him to yell in pain, and reached for his right arm, yanking it ungently behind, fully cuffing him.