Written In Blood

12-1

12

Mitchell drove through the ruins of the gate Oliver Ryder had smashed and brought the car to a stop in front of the Wright farmhouse. Together, he and Melissa quickly got out and looked around; Ryder’s car was a short distance away, the driver’s door standing open, suggesting he had abandoned it the moment he reached the yard, but of Ryder himself, there was no sign.

“That didn’t sound like Ollie or Kieran,” Melissa said when a scream sounded from the house. Hurrying around the car, she could make for the front door, which stood ajar.

“I know, it sounded like a girl,” Mitchell said, unhappy with the development. “You take the front, I’ll go round the back; give me a minute to get there, then we’ll both go in.”

Melissa could not remember a longer minute. The moment she reached sixty she burst through the partially open door; she expected to find Oliver on the other side, instead she found an empty passage and had to hurry down it to the kitchen, from which the sounds of fighting were coming.

She threw open the kitchen door the moment she reached it, and heard a sudden cry of pain, high-pitched and obviously female. Melissa guessed that the person she had just hit with the door was one of Kieran’s sisters, the other being a short distance away, she didn’t have time to worry about her, though, for in the middle of the room was a wrestling match. One of the wrestlers was Oliver, Melissa could see enough to recognise him easily, the other was not so easy to see, but she guessed it was Kieran Wright.

Without waiting for Mitchell, who should have been there already, Melissa moved forward to try and break the fight up. If she didn’t, she suspected Kieran was going to be killed, or at least left permanently injured, given the energy and enthusiasm with which Oliver was smashing his head onto the floor. It quickly became clear that it was not a good idea for her to wade in; the moment she got within a foot of the fighting pair, she was caught across the cheek by a wild swing from one of Oliver’s fists.

She reeled away from the fight, but the moment she recovered her balance, she threw herself back into the fray. As best she could, she avoided the flailing arms as she sought to separate Oliver and Kieran, with only minimal success. Fortunately, Mitchell arrived before she could receive more than a few painful and annoying bruises, and between them they managed to drag Oliver away from Kieran and hold him long enough to get cuffs on his wrists.

“It might be a good idea if you take the girls into the living room, while I speak to Oliver and Kieran,” Mitchell said once he had the two young men on opposite sides of the kitchen.

“Okay.” It took some persuasion to get Emily and Tara, Kieran’s sisters, out of the kitchen and along the passage to the living room. Emily went willingly, but Tara had to be all but dragged away.

Mitchell waited until Melissa and the two girls had reached the living room, and then he turned to Kieran. “Are you alright?” he asked.

“What the hell are you asking him for?” Oliver demanded. “He’s the sick bastard killed Georgie.” He launched himself across the room, catching Mitchell by surprise, and threw himself on Kieran. The fact that his hands were cuffed behind his back didn’t stop him, he rammed into Kieran with his shoulder, driving him backwards into the upturned table. When he stepped back, Kieran fell to the floor, and there was just enough time for him to lash out with a booted foot, burying it in Kieran’s stomach, before he was dragged away.

“You okay?” Mitchell asked of Kieran, bending to help him to his feet after shoving Oliver across the room.

“Sure. That p***y couldn’t hurt a flea,” Kieran said dismissively, ignoring the fact that the so-called ‘p***y’ had just floored him.

Oliver sneered at that. “Who the hell are you trying to kid? If anyone’s a p***y here, it’s you, and you know it. You couldn’t fight your way out of a wet paper bag. If your daddy hadn’t been here with his shotgun last week, I’da had you in hospital, and if the pigs hadn’t turned up today, I’da finished the job I started the other month. You’re a sick sonofabitch, and you need to die.” As he raged, he struggled against the handcuffs that kept him restrained, even though he had enough experience with handcuffs to know that it was impossible for him to break out of them.

“Shut up, Oliver,” Mitchell ordered. He righted one of the upturned chairs that had previously been around the table and pushed him down onto it. “You sure you’re okay?” When Kieran nodded, Mitchell got down to his reason for being there. “I’m sorry to have to be the bearer of bad news, Kieran, but...”

“You never said you was sorry when you told me,” Oliver butted in angrily as he half rose from the hard, wooden chair he had been put on.

Mitchell pushed Oliver back down, glad of the handcuffs that made the violent twenty-year-old easier to deal with. “I would’ve said sorry, but you never gave me a chance,” he said, fixing him with a hard look. “You ran off the moment I told you what’s happened, before I could say anything else, so you could come here and attack Kieran, for no reason other than you don’t like him.”

“Don’t like him, I f*****g hate him,” Oliver snarled as he continued to struggle. “Uncuff me, I wanna kill that sick sonofabitch.”

“Shut-up and behave yourself,” Mitchell told him. He shoved Oliver down again, this time with enough force to rock the chair back on two legs momentarily. “If you don’t, I’ll have Melissa take you out to the car while I talk with Kieran.”

“f**k you.” Oliver leaned forwards to stop his chair falling over, and then surged to his feet so he could launch himself at Kieran. Before he could cover half the distance, he was dragged to the floor by Mitchell.

“Melissa,” Mitchell called out as he struggled to keep Oliver on the floor.

Melissa skidded to a halt in the kitchen, having run down the passage to find out what was going on. It didn’t surprise her to find that Oliver Ryder had been causing trouble. “What do you need?” It looked to her as though everything was under control.

“Take this pain in the ass out to the car,” Mitchell told her. “Lock him in the back; we’ll take him to the station once we’re finished here.”

Melissa nodded and moved to take charge of the prisoner. She got him to his feet, with help from Mitchell, and then led him from the kitchen.

**