ASBO: A Novel of Extreme Terror (20 page)

Before Andrew had any chance to realise what he was doing, he’d thrown a punch at Jordan, hard enough to knock him off right off the bed.  He hit the floor and clutched at his already wounded cheek.  Andrew’s blow had spread open the bite mark and creamy pus trickled down onto Jordan’s chin.  The boy lay there for a moment, dazed, but then seemed to become possessed by a rage of his own.  “Motherfucker!”  He sprang up at Andrew, lashing out, not with his fists, but with a blade he had produced from somewhere on his person.

Andrew stepped forward to meet the boy and managed to get both hands around Jordan’s knife-arm.  A struggle ensued that sent the pair of them stumbling against the gurney.  Andrew had the advantage of leverage.  He managed to bear down on top of Jordan, forcing his back against the bed.  The knife pointed straight at Andrew’s face but it got no closer as Andrew fought against it.  In fact, the knife was beginning to move
away
from Andrew.  The tip of the blade twisted, gradually pointing back towards the opposite direction. 

Andrew felt Jordan’s grip falter – perhaps due to the weakness of his infection – and the knife began to travel away.  Andrew realised the weapon was now under his control and that it would head wherever he wanted it to.

But where do I want it to head?  What the hell am I doing?

Despite his weakening struggles Jordan still found the gall to spit in Andrew’s face.  “Fuckin’ white-boy!  You and your family are dead.”    Perhaps he thought the threat would get him back the advantage.  It didn’t.

Andrew leant down on the knife, pushing with all of his remaining strength and adding his weight behind it.

The tip entered Jordan just below his bottom rib.

All of the gangster-like aggression was suddenly gone, draining away and replaced by the whimpers of a child.  “P-please man…please don’t.”

Andrew pushed the knife further.

And twisted it.

Andrew leaned closer to Jordan and watched the life drain from the boy’s eyes.  If Jordan had a soul it would be extinguished within the next few seconds, but Andrew was sure that the boy had none to lose.  Despite the mortal terror and child-like pleading, there was nothing on Jordan’s face that expressed the slightest bit of remorse or regret – no understanding of pain or loss.  The only thing his expression showed was the selfish desire to hold onto his worthless life.  But that wasn’t going to happen.

Pen deserves to live a thousand times more than you do.

Andrew twisted the knife again and the final ethereal glimmers left Jordan’s eyes.  His body fell limp against the bed, knife jutting out of his ribs like a blood-soaked lever.

Andrew peered down at the blood on his hands and could barely acknowledge what he’d just done.  To murder a man was something impossible, yet it had just happened.  Even more disturbing was that he didn’t care one bit.  In fact he felt good about it: not exactly happy at what he’d done, but certainly positive.

Andrew felt the hairs prick up on the back of his neck.  There was a presence behind him.

He spun around to find the nurse standing behind him.  She’d returned with Jordan’s bandages and was now frozen in place.  Her mouth hung wide open while her eyes fixed on the dead youth laying on the gurney.

“I’m sorry,” Andrew said to her, “but he deserved it.”

Then he ran.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Andrew managed to sprint right through the hospital and into the car park without anyone stopping him.  Other than a few funny looks and people jumping out of his way, no one even seemed to notice him.  Now that he was outside he decided to slow down, though; to disappear casually into the night.

Just as the male nurse had informed him, there was a small taxi rank on one side of the car park.  It consisted of only two cars and Andrew wasted no time in heading for the one parked in front, but he stopped before he got there.  He realised that he was covered in blood.  Most of it was on his hands, but a small amount had spattered his shirt.  Andrew wondered how he would explain it to the taxi driver.  Would they be used to such things, picking up passengers from a hospital?  He couldn’t count on it.

Fortunately, as Andrew moved away from the street lamps that lit the entrance to the main building, the blood became less of an issue.  The blood stains were nondescript blotches in the darkness of the shadows and would be of no concern to a casual observer.  They could be paint stains for all anybody knew.

Andrew reached the taxi and pulled open the rear door.  The car was a featureless, silver saloon and the driver was a young Asian man who nodded at him as he entered the vehicle.

“Where to, my friend?”

Andrew gave his address and the driver set off, pulling out onto the main road speedily as if he had done so a thousand times before.  It had gotten dark outside and the weather had started to worsen, too.  The rain increased gradually as if it had been waiting for night to fall before it could get started on its relentless tirade.

“Bad winter this year, my friend,” said the driver, peering back into the rearview mirror to look at Andrew.

Andrew didn’t want to make eye-contact so looked down at his hands.  His fingers were stiffening under a thick cake of Jordan’s blood.  “Yeah,” he replied after a few seconds, deciding that making conversation would be less suspicious.  “A lot of snow coming apparently.  Hope there’s no accidents on the road like last year.  That was a bad one.”

The driver nodded.  “That poor man and his family?  Drunk driver killed his wife and child?”

I know how he feels,
thought Andrew, but then chastised himself for it.  Bex was going to be okay and he would not know the loss of a child.  He thanked God for that.

“The guy doesn’t live that far from me actually,” Andrew added.  “He drinks in The Trumpet, I think.”

“Rough in there,” said the driver.  “I’ve picked up some very nasty people.”

“Wouldn’t know,” said Andrew.  “Never been in there myself.  Not much of a drinker.”

“Best way, my friend.  Alcohol never did anyone any good.”  The driver changed the subject.  “So everything okay at the hospital?  You look very tired.  Hope it’s not bad news.”

“Just my grandfather,” Andrew lied, shocked at the ease in which it came.  “Cancer.”

The driver glanced back over his shoulder and gave the obligatory sad face.  “That’s not good, my friend.  I am sorry for you.”

“It’s fine.  He’s very old and he had a good life.”

What am I saying?  My grandfather died twenty years ago.

There was silence in the car for the rest of the journey.  Perhaps the driver had sensed Andrew’s discomfort in the way the conversation was going.  Reading people was something taxi drivers probably got pretty good at over time.

“Where about, my friend?”

Andrew looked out the window to see that they had entered his street.  It wasn’t the wholesome grouping of quaint properties it had been when Andrew purchased a house there several years ago.  Things looked different now; its seedy underbelly exposed forever.  There was an atmosphere of menace hanging over the street now.  Perhaps Andrew was the only one to sense it – but it was there alright.

“Just drop me here,” he told the taxi driver.  “Next to the red Mercedes.”

The taxi driver pulled up next to Andrew’s car and thankfully didn’t seem to notice the graffiti all over it.  The man requested fifteen-pounds for the fare, which was extortionate for the small distance travelled, but Andrew didn’t complain at the amount, and in fact paid twenty.  Making another enemy was something Andrew couldn’t cope with right now – regardless of how inconsequential.

He thanked the driver and stepped out into the cold air and drizzle.  The view of the street was a ghostly haze as the street lamps reflected off the falling rain.  For some reason the taxi driver felt the need to say goodbye by beeping his horn and the sudden sharp honk made Andrew jump.  His body still coursed with so much adrenaline that each droplet of rain that hit his skin was like a tingling pin prick.

He reached down into his jean pocket and pulled out his house keys, before heading down the path to his house and inserting them in the lock.  Even from outside, the blood stains were visible across the porch floor, leading all the way back down the hallway beyond.

Upon entering his house, Andrew locked the porch behind him.  Not something he would have worried about once, but the possibility of intruders had become a reality for him.  It wasn’t just something that happened to other people anymore.

Andrew stepped through into the living room and was shocked by the chaos that met him.  Despite being witness to how the room got into such a state, he still couldn’t believe the amount on gore that matted everything – right down from the carpet to several small spots on the ceiling.  The smell of mashed up fish and chips had been replaced by the far more noxious odour of metallic, tangy blood.

My family’s blood.

Andrew collapsed onto the sofa, avoiding the armchair that had held him captive for almost an entire night, and began to put his thoughts in order.  There was no way out of the mess he was in now.  He had murdered a teenager in cold blood and had been witnessed doing so.  At the time, the nurse had been transfixed by the sight of Jordan’s mutilated body, but Andrew had no doubts that she would also have seen his face.

Not to mention the amount of CCTV that a hospital is likely to have.

There was no getting out of the fact that very soon Andrew would be arrested and charged with murder.  It likely wouldn’t matter to the police his reasons why, but the only vindication Andrew could hold onto was that Jordan was jointly responsible for the torture of his wife and child.

Jointly responsible…

What’s going to happen to the others that did this?  Will they get away scot-free while I go to prison?

Andrew could take the punishment for what he’d done.  What he couldn’t take would be if his actions somehow helped to exonerate Frankie and the others.  They would be free to blame the whole thing on Jordan now.

He done the whole thing, yer Honour.  I had nothing to do with it.

And that was if they even went to court.  They would provide alibis for one another and deny everything.  That was exactly what Jordan had done right before Andrew gutted him like the cowardly fish he was.

How good it would feel to do the same to Frankie.

Andrew passed over the thought frivolously but then backed up and reconsidered it.

What’s to stop me?  I’m going down for murder anyway.  Pen could die and this might be the only chance I get to punish the person responsible.

Somehow, Andrew had found himself considering murder again.  Before this week Andrew had never had a fight in his life – rarely even went so far as swearing at another person – but now he was thinking about leaving his house and hunting Frankie down like a rabid dog and killing him.

What shocked Andrew the most was that he’d already made up his mind.  Looking around his smashed-up living room covered in the blood of the people he loved, Andrew was absolutely adamant that Frankie and his friends needed to die.

And they need to die tonight.

Andrew leapt up from the sofa, the pain of his wounds forgotten as focus and determination became his sole emotions.  He headed to the kitchen and straight for the drawer beneath the microwave.  He took out the longest blade he could find – a 9-inch carving knife.  He wrapped it up in a tea towel and then stuffed the whole thing down the waist band of his trousers at the side so the weapon wouldn’t dig into him.  Then he stood for a few moments, wondering if he should take anything else with him, but there was nothing more lethal inside the house than the knife he now possessed.  He didn’t need anything else.  Just something he could kill Frankie with.

Time to go…

Andrew let out a long breath and enjoyed the calm it brought to him.  Stepping back through into the living room, he took one final look at the mess of his home to reconfirm his intentions of going through with what he was planning to do.  There was still no doubt in his mind.

Into the hallway and through to the porch, Andrew unlocked the front door.  The rain was falling even harder now, hitting against the glass windows with the same ferocity that Andrew felt pumping through his veins.  He stepped out into the downpour and felt instantly refreshed as it cleansed his flesh, washing away the dry blood from his skin.  He ran his hands through his hair and slicked it back, squeezing away the excess moisture.

“Mr Goodman.  Stay right where you are.”

Andrew looked through the darkness and spotted two figures at the end of his path.

Officer Wardsley and Officer Dalton were there to arrest him.

***

“I don’t have time for this,” Andrew told the officers.  “I need to go.”

“Not going to happen,” said Wardsley.  “We need to ask you a few questions up at the station.”

“I did it, alright?  I murdered that kid.  You want to know why?”

The officers had closed the gap between them, without Andrew even realising it.  Now they stood staring at him like he was a wild animal.  They did not answer his question, but Andrew decided to tell them his reasons anyway.

“I murdered Jordan because he was one of the bastards that shaved my wife’s head, snorted coke off her naked body, and then stabbed her and my daughter.  I couldn’t give him the chance to finish what he’d started.  I couldn’t let him walk around free to do it again, to someone else.”

Dalton stepped slightly ahead of her partner and looked at Andrew pityingly.  “You should have left it to us, Andrew.  They’ll pay for what they’ve done, I promise.  But now you’re in a lot of trouble, too.  There’s better ways to deal with people like Frankie and his friends. ”

“Bullshit,” Andrew spat.  “You don’t really believe that.  They’re all going to cover for each other and nothing will stick.  Jordan was already pleading ignorant when I cornered him.”