“Sound,” said Jordan. “I’ll make sure I ask for you, darlin’.”
“If you wish,” replied the nurse, unable to sound any less-interested. “I’m just going to get a doctor for your prescription and then I’ll get you dressed up.”
“I like getting undressed better,” Jordan quipped, but the nurse had already exited the cubicle.
Now that Jordan was alone, Andrew froze. He hadn’t thought about what he would do next. So, without a game plan, Andrew allowed instinct to take over. He slipped inside the curtain.
Jordan’s bloodshot eyes went wide. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Andrew sneered at the boy. “You put my entire family in hospital. Where the hell did you think I’d be, you fucking idiot?”
“Man, you must be outta your mind, frontin’ on me!”
“How can you flirt with the nurse like nothing happened? After what you did. I’m not the one who’s out of my mind. You’re a remorseless psychopath.”
“That shit was Frankie’s deal. I was just along for the ride, blud. Nuttin’ personal.”
“Well you won’t have a problem telling the police what happened then?”
Jordan’s sickly face turned sour. “I ain’t saying shit to no one – especially the pigs. Frankie’s my boy and I don’t know what you’re talking about anyway. I ain’t seen him in weeks. If someone took it to your family then they must’ve had it coming.”
Before Andrew had any chance to realise what he was doing, he’d thrown a punch at Jordan, hard enough to knock him right off the bed. He hit the floor and clutched at his already-wounded cheek. Andrew’s punch had spread open the bite mark and creamy pus trickled down onto Jordan’s chin. The lad lay there for a moment, dazed, but then seemed to become possessed by a rage of his own. “Motherfucker!” he shouted as 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 Jordan and managed to get both hands around his knife-arm. A struggle ensued that sent the pair of them stumbling against the gurney. Andrew had the advantage of leverage and he managed to bear down on top of Jordan, forcing the lad back against the bed. The knife was pointing straight at Andrew’s face but it got no closer as he fought against it. In fact, the knife was slowly beginning to move away. The tip of the blade twisted, gradually pointing back towards the opposite direction. Towards Jordan.
Andrew felt the lad’s grip falter – perhaps due to weakness of 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, man. We gonna make sure of that.” Perhaps he thought the threat would get him back the advantage.
It didn’t.
Andrew leant down hard on the knife, pushing with all of his remaining strength and adding his full weight behind it.
The tip entered Jordan just below his bottom rib.
All of the testosterone-fuelled aggression was suddenly gone, draining away to be replaced by the whimpers of a child. “P-please man…please don’t.”
Andrew pushed the knife further.
And twisted.
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 own 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.
Good riddance.
The hairs pricked up on the back of Andrew’s neck. 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 trust me, he had it coming.”
Then he ran.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Andrew managed to sprint right through the hospital and into the car park without anybody 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, though, he decided to slow down; to disappear casually into the night.
Just like 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 quickly realised that he was covered in blood and bruises. 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 lighting the entrance of the main building the blood became less of an issue. The stains were just nondescript blotches in the darkness and the shadows of the car park. They 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 got inside.
“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 came suddenly as if it had been waiting anxiously for night to fall just so that it could begin its unrelenting 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 he 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 so 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. Guy I work with used to know him well.”
“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 anybody any good.” The driver changed the subject. “So everything okay at the hospital? You look very tired, my friend. 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 very sorry for you.”
“It’s fine. He’s very old and he had a good life.”
Wha
t am I saying? My grandfather died twenty years ago. I must be sick in the head.
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 abouts, 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. Now things looked different – felt different – its seedy underbelly exposed forever. An atmosphere of menace now hung over the street now. Perhaps Andrew was the only one to sense it, but it was there.
“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 thundering rain. The view of the street was a ghostly haze as the street lamps reflected off the rapidly-forming puddles. 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 into his jeans and pulled out his house keys, then headed down the path to his house. His hands were shaking as he unlocked the front door and stepped inside.
The blood stains were still visible, despite the all the lights being off. They led a gory trail all the way from the porch to the living room. Even after living through it, Andrew could not believe the carnage that had become his home. Blood matted everything, from the carpet and couch 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 bodily fluids.
My family’s blood…Frankie’s semen.
Andrew collapsed onto the sofa, avoiding the armchair that had once held him captive for so long. 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 have also 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, you get me?
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. I can’t let Bex grow up living in constant fear of Frankie, seeing his face every night when she closes her eyes.
Somehow Andrew had found himself considering murder again. Before this week he 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 while I can still make it happen.
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, pushing it to the side so the weapon didn’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 only feet away, 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 ignorance when I cornered him.”
“Cornered him and murdered him,” said Wardsley stepping up beside his partner.
Andrew examined both officers. If they were doing their jobs correctly, he would already be in handcuffs by now, in their squad car and on his way to the station.
But they’re letting me talk, which means they sympathise.
“Do either of you have children?” he asked the both of them.
Both of them shook their heads.
“Then you have no idea what you would you do in my situation.”
“Perhaps,” said Dalton, “but what I wouldn’t do is murder someone in a hospital in front of frightened members of the public.”
Andrew laughed. “Makes it sounds like you disagree with my methods more than my actions.”
The suggestion was met
with silence. Andrew looked into Dalton’s eyes and tried to read what she was thinking, but he couldn’t.
“You’re going to go to prison, Mr Goodman,” said Wardsley. “How does that help Rebecca?”
“It doesn’t help her,” Andrew admitted. “But maybe by killing Jordan I’ve helped other people’s daughters. He was just a teenager; plenty of years ahead of him for terrorising more innocent people.”
“Maybe, you’re right,” said Wardsley, “but we still have to take you in.”
“And I’ll let you. Just let me finish what I started first.”
Both of the officer’s eyes went wide, shining in the darkness. Obviously the request had shocked them.
“I’m already going to prison,” Andrew explained. “Let me do some good before that happens. Let me make the world a safer place for other families so that they don’t end up like mine. Frankie is a cancer and I have to cut him out.”
“You’re insane to even ask such a thing,” said Wardsley. “It’s ridiculous and I would suggest you don’t say anything else. We are officers of the law.”
Wardsley took a step forward, reaching for the handcuffs attached to his belt. Andrew stepped forward to meet him. “Don’t do this.”
“Andrew, you’re coming with us. Don’t make this harder on yourself.”
“I don’t have a choice.” Andrew swung his fist in a clumsy haymaker. It caught Wardsley under the chin and rocked him backwards, stumbling into the hedges that lined the path. The officer was stunned but his partner was still standing between Andrew and freedom. He didn’t know if he had it in him to punch her, too.
Dalton stepped aside, leaving the pathway open and clear. Andrew was confused. She motioned with an arm and pointed down the path. “You do what you have to do, Mr Goodman” she said, “but soon as you’re finished you hand yourself in and confess everything.”
ASBO: A Novel of Extreme Terror Page 16