“Bullshit,” said Davie, hoping there was no truth to his brother’s words. If there was then Davie was indeed responsible. “You told everyone you were going to kill the guy.”
“Course I did,” said Frankie. “I wanted Andrew to shit himself. I weren’t going to do it, though. You think I’m a complete muppet or something?”
Davie shook his head. He was feeling dizzy again and couldn’t wait to find his way to bed. Were his actions really the cause of what had happened? Davie wasn’t sure he could live with himself if they were. He stared at Frankie and concentrated on his brother’s reactions. “You were really just going to let them go?”
Frankie put a hand on Davie’s shoulder and looked him dead in the eye. “I swear! They were just at the breaking point where they would have been never said a word to no one. The pigs would never have ever known. Now though…”
“What are we going to do?”
Frankie patted Davie on the back and got them both moving again. Up ahead, the twins and a semi-conscious Michelle were waiting for them. “We’re going to go see a mate of mine and lay low for a while at his gaff. We’ll get our stories straight and decide what we’re going to do then.”
Davie nodded. “Okay. Who’s this mate? Can we trust him?”
“Yeah,” said Frankie. “It’s him I’ve been dealing product for. Well, his old man, really, but he’s in the nick for a stretch.”
“Maybe, we should just go home instead. Get mum to tell the police that we’ve been home all night if they ask.”
“You really want to rely on that drunken bitch to keep a story straight?”
Davie shrugged and looked down at the ground. “Guess not.”
They caught up with the twins and Michelle at the end of the street, just as they passed by a group of shops and a grotty old pub called The Trumpet. “My mate lives a few blocks up,” Frankie told them all. “It’s pretty late so he should be in. Mind your manners, though, because this guy would kill you as soon as look at you. In fact he’s the only geezer in the world that actually scares me. ”
Everyone nodded their understanding, then got going again, cutting through the paved-jungle of the housing estate and disappearing into the night.
***
Frankie knocked the door and shushed everyone. The house they were stood at was bigger than most of the others on the street with a long driveway and an overhanging porch with lamps lighting their approach.
“He going to be mad?” Davie asked, trying to fight away the feeling that things were somehow getting worse rather than better.
“Maybe,” said Frankie, “but once I tell him the deal, he’ll understand. Last thing he needs is his best dealer going away for a long stretch.”
A light came on in the hallway, shining through the frosted glass of the PVC door. After a few seconds of clinking sounds, of deadbolts and chains being unlocked, the door opened up. Blinking out at them through sleep-fuzzed eyes was a shaven-headed youth about the same age as Frankie. The lad was well-muscled and wearing nothing but a pair of designer boxer-shorts.
“Fuck, Frankie, is that you?”
“Yeah, Damien, it’s me. I need to lay low for a couple days. Some shit went down that’s pretty heavy.”
Damien glanced at a glinting watch on his wrist and narrowed his eyes beneath the glaring porch light. “Two-o-clock in the morning, mate. You pick your goddamn times, you know that? I ought to whoop your ass for waking me.”
“I know, man. If I wasn’t desperate, I wouldn’t be here.”
Damien opened the door wider and let them all in. “You’ll make this up to me, Frankie. We’ll discuss how later.”
They all entered and Damien closed and locked the door behind them. Then he ushered them through into the lounge. Davie peered around the room in awe. A plasma screen TV as big as any he’d ever seen hung from one wall, while opposite was a huge wraparound sofa deep enough to bury a body in. Everything in the room seemed expensive and tasteful; the fact that it belonged to someone only a few years older than Davie made it even more impressive. He could see why Frankie had allowed himself to get dragged down the same path of dealing drugs if these were the rewards.
“Take a seat,” Damien told everyone. “I’ll get some beers and put the heating on. They say it’s going to snow this year and it’s already getting too cold for my liking. Frankie you come with me and we’ll talk business.”
Davie watched his brother leave and sat himself down on the extravagant sofa. The twins and Michelle did the same.
“What a fucking trip,” said Dom. “Never seen anything like what happened tonight.”
“We’re all screwed,” said Davie.
“Stop stressing, D,” said Michelle. “Frankie will sort everything out.”
Davie didn’t want to talk to any of them; he’d just be wasting his time. They understood what they had all just been a part of – and they simply did not care. Davie, on the other hand, couldn’t help but recall the images of Rebecca hitting the floor with scissors poking out her guts. She hadn’t hurt anyone and neither had her mother. Now they were both probably dead.
And I’m partly responsible.
Davie wondered what it was about Andrew that had consumed all of Frankie’s focus. The torture of that poor family had been like an obsession once Frankie had gotten into their house. Davie thought about Andrew now and considered the pain a man would feel watching his family get destroyed like that. Maybe it was the worst pain imaginable. It certainly seemed like it at the time as Davie had watched Andrew’s grief consume him.
“You think Frankie will let us score some more gear?” Jordan asked the group.
“I hope so,” his twin added. “I’m starting to come down big-style. My cheek is killing me. Can you believe that crazy fucker bit a chunk out of my face? It’s still bleeding now and I feel well-sick.”
“I just want to sleep,” said Michelle. “I’m knackered and my face is well mashed-up. Think I’ve lost a tooth. It’s pretty hardcore, though.”
“You ain’t getting no sleep tonight, sweetheart,” said Damien, re-entering the lounge. “You and me are going upstairs.”
Michelle frowned at him. “The fuck you talking about? I’m Frankie’s girl.”
“Exactly,” said Damien, “and Frankie owes me. Consider yourself rent for the bunch of you staying here tonight. You may be a bit of a bruised-up mess but you’ll do, I suppose.”
“No fucking way! Frankie wouldn’t let anyone else have me.”
Frankie entered the room and Damien winked at him. “Is that right Frankie? Seems your woman is playing hard to get.”
“Just get your ass upstairs,” Frankie told Michelle. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Michelle glanced around the room as if looking for someone to add something else to the conversation, but the twins just shrugged at her and Davie wasn’t about to offer any assistance either. Far as he was concerned, Michelle had done far worse in the time he’d known her.
Michelle stood up, looking confused but unable to find argument. She turned to Damien, raising an eyebrow. “You serious? You want me to go upstairs and fuck you?”
Damien laughed. “Oh no, sweetheart, I’m going to be the one fucking you.” He offered out his hand and Michelle took it. Damien turned to Frankie and winked. “I’ll see you in the morning. Oh, and that other favour you needed from me…you’ll find it in a box beneath the sofa. Have fun, kids.”
“You too,” said Frankie, although he didn’t seem to mean it.
“Oh, I will,” said Damien as he disappeared with Michelle.
Frankie collapsed down onto the sofa and kicked off his trainers – which once belonged to Andrew – and let out a loud sigh as a yawn escaped his lips.
Davie looked at his brother and waited for him to say something, but it appeared that he was quite content to go straight to sleep. Apparently murder and mayhem wasn’t enough to keep Frankie awake.
Davie asked a question. “Are you okay with that Damien
hitting your girl?”
Frankie didn’t move or even open his eyelids as he spoke. “I was the one that suggested it, bro. Easy way to settle a debt, innit?”
“She’s your bird, though.”
“Fuck Shell! She’s happy as long as she’s got coke in her nose and a cock up her ass. Who gives a shit?”
“Didn’t look like she wanted to go,” said Dom. “Look on her face was classic.”
The sound of frantic fucking suddenly emanated from above them. The ceiling began to vibrate and the light fixtures swung back and forth. Two voices could be heard moaning in ecstasy – both Damien’s and Michelle’s.
“She sounds alright to me,” said Frankie. “Now, everyone just get their heads down for a few hours. I can’t be doing with any more thinking right now. We’ll sort shit out in the morning. I’ll make some calls and get a few ears to the ground – see what’s happening.”
Everyone seemed more than happy to oblige. It had been a long and frantic night for all of them and no one wanted to get some shuteye more than Davie. Before he did, though, he had one last question for his big brother.
“What’s in a box under the sofa, Frankie?”
Frankie’s voice was dreamy, already half-asleep. “You’ll find out in the morning, little bro.” Then he was fast asleep and snoring. It was a long time before Davie managed to join him. The sound of Michelle getting screwed upstairs kept him awake for hours.
Chapter Twenty
The nurses made Andrew wait outside in the empty corridor while Pen and Bex were rushed into separate operating theatres. Nurses flitted back and forth between the two rooms, glancing apprehensively at Andrew each time they passed him. Their expressions were always grim and pitying.
Andrew’s own wounds – serious in their own right – needed looking at too, but he had refused anyone that tried to take him away. He was unwilling to move until he knew the fate of his family. If only he could take their place. If Andrew died, Pen and Bex would still have each other, but if they died, then Andrew would have nothing to live for – his life would remain an empty husk till the day he died, nothing more than memories of the things torn away from him.
Frankie will pay for this, one way or another.
“Mr Goodman?”
Andrew looked up to see a pair of familiar faces. He smiled at them as best he could. “Officers, what are you doing here?”
“We had reports of multiple stabbings,” said Dalton. “A man, his daughter, and wife.”
“We were really hoping it wasn’t you,” said Wardsley, shaking his head solemnly, “but we had a bad feeling.”
“Looks like your feeling was right,” said Andrew.
The two officers took a seat on the bench either side of him and leant forward so that they could both see his face. For the first time since Andrew had met them, neither was taking notes. They weren’t here to take a statement; at least not right now.
“Was this all down to Frankie?” Dalton asked.
Andrew ran a hand across his forehead and rubbed at his tired eyes; they felt fuzzy and started to itch. It must have been getting close to dawn by now. He nodded wearily. “Frankie and his mates, yes.”
“You have names for any of them?”
“I got their first names but no surnames. One of the kids was Frankie’s younger brother, though. I know because I admitted the lad here at the hospital last night after I hit him with my car.”
Wardsley was wide-eyed. “You ran him over?”
“Not on purpose. It was an accident. A coincidence if you can believe it? I rushed the boy here straight away and gave him a lift home afterwards. Frankie found out about it.”
“He probably thought you did it intentionally,” Dalton suggested.
Andrew nodded. “Pretty likely. Didn’t matter that his little brother tried telling him the truth; Frankie wanted his fun. Now my girls are in surgery, maybe dying…maybe dead already.”
“We’ll get him for this, Mr Goodman,” Dalton assured him. “I promise you.”
“You think so? I mean, honestly, do you think you’ll put him away and keep him there? What if he has twenty people giving him an alibi?”
The look on the officer’s faces told Andrew all he needed to know. “Don’t worry about it,” he told them with a wave of his hand. “I know it’s not your fault.”
Wardsley sighed. “If it were up to us the scumbag would never have gotten out in the first place. Criminals like Frankie are beyond redemption.”
“But what made him this way?” Andrew asked, unable to fathom the answer alone. “Lots of kids grow up with bad upbringings, but it’s more than that with this kid. He’s rotten to the core. There’s a big gaping black hole where his heart should be.”
Dalton shook her head. “I wish there was an answer that made sense, but there’s not. We made some calls to the borstal that he was kept at. One of the guards there told us that during Frankie’s first year he was bullied severely by the other residents – maybe that has something to do with it. He certainly changed during the following years.”
“What do you mean?”
Wardsley took over from his partner. “This guard told us that by the time Frankie got out, he was completely running the show. Top dog. A complete turnaround. He also told us…well, I shouldn’t really say.”
“What?” Andrew demanded. “Shouldn’t say what?”
“Well,” Wardsley continued, “all of the youth offenders who had bullied Frankie in his first year were murdered – one by one throughout the course of a few months. Every one of them was…impaled. There were four in total.”
“Impaled?”
Wardsley nodded. “At the time of death they were violated by a blunt object – typically a pool cue from the Rec Room.”
Andrew grimaced. “Jesus Christ.”
“We think that perhaps these other residents of the offender’s home abused Frankie during his first year and he took a fitting revenge on them all. To say it left him with some severe emotional problems is an understatement to say the least.”
“That’s horrible,” said Andrew, “but it doesn’t make what he’s done okay. He’s still a monster, whatever he’s been through.”
“I agree,” said Wardsley. “He’ll never change now.”
Andrew shook his head. There was nothing to say.
“We’ll get him,” said Dalton. “We’ll charge him with attempted murder and do everything we can for you and your family. He won’t get away with this.”
“But even if he goes away, it won’t be forever; even if my family die?”
Dalton swallowed a lump in her throat. “That will be the court’s decision.”
Andrew had heard enough. “This is such bullshit.”
Wardsley and Dalton both put their hands up to calm him. “I know, Andrew. There’s nothing about this situation that is right. Do you needed anything right now? Can we help?”
Andrew looked at the officers, examined the concern on their faces and looked for gaps. They seemed genuine, though, and Andrew was left with little doubt that these two police officers were just people like anybody else. They emphasized with his pain and despised the fact that demons like Frankie could walk the earth unobstructed. Their offers of assistance were real, but right now Andrew had no clues what to ask for – or if he even needed anything from them at all.
A surgeon in full scrubs stepped out of one of the operating theatres and approached Andrew. “Mr Goodman?” he asked.
Andrew stood up, his knees shaking uncontrollably. “Yes, that’s me.”
The surgeon nodded and smiled. “Your daughter has been stabilised for now. There is some damage to the digestive tract that could possibly cause complications later or some minor lasting damage, but we’ve managed to stem any internal bleeding and she’s no longer in critical condition.”
Andrew didn’t absorb a single word. None of what the doctor said had informed him with absolute certainty what he really needed to know. “Is she going to be okay?”
/>
“Barring anything unexpected your daughter should make a full recovery. As I said, the damage to her large intestine could cause some issues, but nothing that can’t be managed. You’ll be able to see her in a few hours when we move her somewhere more comfortable.”
Andrew let out a sigh of relief that seemed to go on forever. He heard similar sounds from the police officers beside him. “What about my wife?” Andrew asked the surgeon, moving on to his next concern now that the previous one was over.
The surgeon shook his head apologetically. “I’m afraid Dr Kilkarny is the attending for your wife, so I can’t give you much information. From my cursory examination of her wounds, however, I would not be optimistic. I’m sorry, Mr Goodman.”
Andrew felt all the blood in his body drop to his feet, threatening to tip him over like a statue in the wind. The surgeon turned and walked away, back towards Bex’s room. Andrew collapsed backwards and officer Wardsley caught him, directing his fall towards the bench and setting him down.
As Andrew fought to get his breathing under control, he looked the officers dead in their eyes and said, “I need a favour.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Sunshine crept into the room and smothered Davie’s face. His eyelids fluttered as his pupils adjusted and it took him a few minutes to open them fully. Once a little more awake he looked around himself to get his bearings. The living room was foreign and bizarre but, after a few moments, Davie recalled the memories of the previous night. This was Damien’s place; the current location of his on-going nightmare.
No one else inhabited the room currently and Davie had the entire plush sofa to himself. He was alone in someone else’s house and suddenly felt very vulnerable.
“Everyone’s gone back to their own gaffs,” said Frankie from the doorway. He must have been standing there unbeknownst to Davie for a while.
“Didn’t you want us all to stick together?”
ASBO: A Novel of Extreme Terror Page 14