He waited outside that house for hours, not moving from the darkness of an alley opposite until he heard a powerful sounding car pull up at the end of the street. Quickly he looked around the corner of the alley, up the street where he saw a brand new Porsche had pulled up and in the passenger seat of the car was his partner of so many years, his Sally.
The shock and hurt that flowed through is body when he saw her lean across and kiss this man passionately was astounding in his power. He did not think he had any feelings left in him for Sally, but when he saw her openly kissing another man he thought his heart would break.
With a wave she started to walk down the street towards him and he was about to confront her when he decided he desperately wanted to know who this man was so instead he quickly ran down the alley, away from the house and Sally, picking up a small wire as he ran.
Frantically he searched the street at the other end of the alley for an old car and when he found one it only took him a moment to pick the lock of the car and using his mechanical skills he quickly hotwired the car and sped away in search of the man in the Porsche. Guessing correctly, David headed out of the suburb towards the city centre. It did not take him long to find the Porsche driving sedately along one of the main routes into the city. David maintained a gap of a few hundred yards and followed the car as it turned off the main road and entered a side street that led to a large industrial park. As he entered the park, David maintained the distance and he also turned off his headlights and followed the Porsche until it stopped outside a warehouse that had no indications on the outside of what went on inside.
For a few hours David watched the outside of the warehouse and it was late in the evening when at last a door to the building opened and he watched the man and other men leave it. One of the men locked the door and while David watched the men mingled for a few minutes talking amongst themselves before they all got into their cars and went their separate ways.
At first it was David’s intention to follow the man who had clearly been sleeping with Sally, find out where he lived and beat the living daylights out of him. But on second thoughts David decided that the warehouse probably belonged to him and he could do more damage by having a little fun in the building.
He waited half an hour before he approached the warehouse to ensure no-one returned and then David left the car taking the wire from his pocket. Again, with his knowledge of locks that he learned while he was a mechanic, it did not take him long to pick the lock and open the door. Carefully he closed it behind him, locking it behind him, and then he flicked on a light switch. He was expecting one light to come on after he flicked this switch but the whole place lit up like a floodlit football pitch which made David jump. Without hesitating he flicked the switch off deciding that there was enough ambient light coming through the windows high up in the walls for him to see what he was doing.
Slowly he walked around the large room, looking at the piles of chemicals laid all around the walls, curiously looking at the barrels of substances stacked in the room. On benches towards the middle of the room looked like some kind of production line. Here the chemicals had been placed into smaller containers and there were bottles of distilled water. Next to these were labelled glass beakers and David peered at them and read the labels. On one was written acetone, on another acid and he noticed that the labels were different colours that matched the colour of the containers. In a pot that he peered into was a powdery substance, red in colour and for the life of him David could not think what these ingredients could be used for.
Whatever it was used for it was clearly making the man with Sally very wealthy given his brand new Porsche and he was not dressed too shabbily either. As his thoughts returned to the man his stomach flopped over. She had been cheating on him and David in his drunken depressed state had not realised or noticed anything. Then his thoughts turned upon himself.
When was the last time he had shown any love towards her? One, two, three years ago? And this fact stung him because he knew the fact existed that she had stood by him for so long and he had treated her and the children like something he had found on the sole of his shoe.
With anguish etched on his face, through the tears that had welled up in his eyes he stumbled and slumped down a wall of the warehouse, crying, mumbling and muttering to himself. When was the last time he had made love to her? When was the last time he had held her in his arms and told her he loved her? Why would she want to be held in his fat, drunken arms? All these thoughts crashed through his head. The last one being is it any wonder that she has looked elsewhere for the love that he should have been giving her?
And then something happened to David that had taken too long to happen, and all the pent up frustration, grief and sadness that he had lived with for all these years collapsed his mind and he had a full mental breakdown. He had managed to avoid this happening to him by hiding away, drowning his sorrows with alcohol, but seeing the long, lingering, passionate kiss that Sally had given to that man was the final trigger.
For hours he lay slumped against the wall, his knees tucked under his chin, mumbling and muttering, tears, endless tears cascading down his face dripping on his curled up body. Slowly he rocked, rocking back and to with all these thoughts, all the misery that he had blocked out for so long overwhelming him.
To say he was not in his right mind when he stood up hours later and started to pour the acetone over the building would be a monumental understatement. He splashed and threw it everywhere he could, laughing occasionally as he watched it drip of the ceiling onto the barrels of chemicals. As he walked past the benches, almost unknowingly he grasped one of the containers of acid in his hand and then as he looked around the building he found a lighter on a ledge near the door. Shaking more acetone out onto the floor right up to the door, with another giggle that sounded like the laugh of an insane man, he stuffed an old rag he found into the top of the container and then lit it.
After making sure the flames had taken hold he threw the container deep into the depths of the warehouse, watching as it arced prettily over the benches, breaking as it hit the ground causing the acetone to catch light as it seeped out of the broken container. Sparks of the lit chemical sprayed out of the smashed vessel causing the acetone that David had thrown down to catch and the fire quickly took hold. Just as Peter had done, David watched the flames for a few moments as they quickly spread through the building, only fleeing to the safety of the stolen car when he felt the heat of the flames on his face. As he sat down in the driver’s seat he carefully laid the container of acid on the seat next to him and he patted it gently thinking about what fun he was going to have with it.
*
The next morning Peter surveyed the melted, molten mess of his warehouse from a safe distance not approaching too close because there were still police and fire officers present. The warehouse was registered to some phantom company that would never be able to be traced back to him so he was safe from any further investigation. What he was not safe from was the loss of income this fire was going to cause him and he swore his vengeance on whoever had done this.
Chapter 47
Sally did not show any concern that David had not returned home the previous night. She was quite relieved actually because for once she could get the children ready without having to keep them quiet and tip-toe around David. Sophia and Jacob felt there was something different about their mummy too. She seemed happier, especially this morning when their daddy was not there. This rubbed off on them and they ran around the apartment, for once being children as their mummy chased after them, laughing at their antics as she tried to get them ready for school. Eventually they were all ready and she left the apartment with her beautiful children holding a hand each, and as she walked along listening to the birds sing and her children natter away to each other, she breathed in the fresh air and sighed a sigh of contentment.
She was due to see Peter tonight and after making love to him, when they were curled up in his apartment, she w
as going to tentatively broach the subject of her moving in. She knew what his reaction would be at first, one of complete and utter fear, but she would give him time to get used to the idea and she was sure because she now knew him so well that he would say yes in due course.
As she walked to the school she had no idea that David had returned home and was now searching through the wardrobe for the shoebox that contained his passport and a large bundle of cash he had kept stashed there for a long time without Sally knowing about. Stuffing both into his pocket he exited the apartment and ran through the streets quickly finding Sally and he followed her just to make sure she was not doing anything else that day and was indeed taking the children to school. Satisfied as he watched his children run into the school, for the rest of the day he followed her around. A dry smile crossed his face as he watched her buy some sexy lingerie and another one crossed his face as he watched her spend some more of their precious money taken from their joint bank account on a new skirt and top.
When she was done with shopping and blowing more of their money on an expensive coffee and sandwich, he followed her as she walked back to their apartment, but instead of following her in he waited down the street knowing she would pass this way when she went to collect the children. He did not have to wait long and as he watched her walk past the end of the alley were he stood hidden in the shadows, he noted that there was a glow about her, a spring in her step as she walked along in her new skirt and top, the strap of which had slipped a little revealing the strap to the bra of the lingerie he had watched her buy.
Watching her from a discreet distance while she walked along, his thoughts took an ironic twist as he could not help wonder at how she had ruined their lives by cheating on him. Never once that day did the thought enter his head that he had not contributed at all to the success of their relationship with his appalling attitude towards her and the children. This thought never entered his head because his mind was solely set on exacting his revenge for her cheating on him.
*
From where he was stood in the shadows he heard the school bell ring for the final time that day and following that the squeals and shouts of the children as they ran out of numerous doors from the school. He could still see Sally as she held her hand up against the glow of the sunlight looking for Sophia and Jacob and with a wave he saw her beckon them over to her.
When he saw his children approaching their mother he stepped out of the shadows at a quick walk, one of his hands he slipped into one of the pockets of his jacket seemingly fiddling with something in there. As he continued to walk he pulled a container out of his pocket and cursed as some of the liquid spilled out onto his hand burning it. Discreetly he poured some of the liquid on the floor, hearing it sizzle as it burned through a piece of paper that was lying there. Quickly he approached her and when he was nearly at her side she heard footsteps quickly approaching so she turned.
‘David? What are you doing…’
But she never finished the sentence. With a movement of his arm David flung the acid into Sally’s face, watching with glee as the liquid instantly started to burn the skin off her face.
With a scream that would haunt her children forever, Sally clutched at her face as she slumped to the ground, screaming and screaming as she felt the acid eating away her facial flesh, then screaming even louder as she tried to wipe the acid off her face and in doing so it burned her hands, ripping her skin away.
The other parents heard her screams and they ran over, covering their children’s eyes as they saw the woman rolling on the floor in burning agony. One of them acted quicker than the rest and pulled Sally’s children away from the sight of their screaming mother and another reached for her mobile phone and called for an ambulance. By the time the emergency call was connected Sally had stopped screaming. She had passed out from the pain, her face badly burned.
*
As he ran away from the school down the alleys to where he had left the stolen car, David approached a figure slumped on the floor of the alley, sitting in the dirt. Totally out of breath now he had to stop running so he approached the person with care, walking quickly on the other side of the alley.
He noticed the needle hanging out of her arm, and when he passed the woman she slowly lifted her head and for a moment their eyes met. A flash of disgust passed across David’s face and then their eye contact was broken as he exited the alley and found the car where he had left it, quickly driving to the airport, using the cash to buy a one way ticket on the first available long haul flight, his thoughts never once returning to the figure he had encountered in the alley.
By the time the police at the school had taken the witnesses’ accounts of what had happened, David was sat at the back of a plane staring out of the window at the passing clouds, relaxed and contentedly sipping on a beer.
*
The woman in the alley near Sophia and Jacob’s school tried to stand but she was too weak. With one almighty effort she tried again only to collapse in a heap into the filth of the alley, the needle still hanging out of her arm.
Unable to move, her head slumped onto her chest and her weakened heart finally broke after all the years of misery and anguish it had witnessed. She suffered a massive heart attack, her whole body going rigid for a few moments before relaxing.
After so many years of heartbreak and desolation, Sarah was finally at peace.
An Acknowledgement
The ending of this book was decided a long time before the author had ever heard of Katie Piper, however, an acknowledgement should be made to the real life horrific burns injuries she, and others, have suffered.
If you wish to make it easier for people to live with burns and scars please donate to The Katie Piper Foundation at www.katiepiperfoundation.org.uk.
As noted at the beginning of this book, all characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Everything to Nothing Page 48