Andrew looked around and considered making a run for it. They seemed to be in a wood someplace. The cold rain, mixed with the late hour, made the whole area menacing like a scene from a horror film. If Andrew ran, he would probably end up lost and he couldn’t afford for that to happen. Besides, the time for running was over. Andrew had wanted Dom and now here he was.
“I’m going to kill you,” said Dom, rising to his feet, his jeans covered by mud.
“Going to have to disagree with you there, blud.”
Dom rushed forward like a wild bull, even snorting like one. Andrew met the charge head on and the two collided in a brawl, fists flying back and forth. Dom got in a couple of crushing blows to Andrew’s chin, but Andrew was prepared to fight dirty and jammed a thumb into his opponent’s eye, feeling it squelch.
Dom reeled backwards, swiping out blindly with both hands. Andrew seized the advantage. He grabbed the youth around the throat and kicked his legs out from under him. Dom hit the dirt on his back, twigs snapping beneath him. Andrew followed him down to the floor and squeezed at his throat, throttling and choking while bearing down with all of his weight. Dom struggled and clawed beneath Andrew’s weight, but it was useless. The electric fear in Dom’s eyes changed to a dull, far-off focus as his cheeks swelled and turned purple in the harsh glare of the car’s headlights.
Andrew was sure Dom was only seconds away from passing on to his next life – to burn in the fires of hell with his brother – but something else happened. A knife appeared and embedded itself into Andrew’s face. The blade entered his cheek and protruded into his mouth, pressing against his tongue. Andrew released his grip on Dom’s throat and seized the handle of the blade. He yanked it quickly, not wanting to prolong the experience of pulling a knife out of his face for a millisecond longer than necessary. Blood immediately filled his mouth, coppery and sweet.
Dom hadn’t managed to capitalise on his reprieve yet and was on his knees, wheezing and spluttering as his windpipe recovered from being constricted to the point of near-asphyxia. Andrew was in no state to launch another attack. Feverish shudders wracked his body and threatened to send him spinning into unconsciousness. If that happened he was as good as dead – Dom would slit his throat while he slept. Yet, even with his face torn up and bleeding, Andrew was still the one with the upper hand. He now had Dom’s knife now. The small rubber handle felt good in his hand. Its blood soaked blade glinted in the darkness.
Andrew didn’t get to his feet – was unable to in fact. Instead he crawled forwards on his hands and knees, attempting to reach Dom before the lad regained his focus.
Dom saw Andrew approaching with the knife and his eyes went wide. He managed to get to his feet quickly and immediately took off. Andrew was surprised and it took him a couple of beats to stumble back to his own feet and give chase.
Dom was young and quick, but he was also winded and half-blind from a gouged eye. Andrew struggled to keep pace, but every few metres Dom would stumble against a tree or trip over a root and Andrew would close the distance. The deciding factor now was stamina. Andrew’s lungs were already burning and his stomach was paving the way for an onslaught of retching. He wasn’t cut out for so much exertion on the best of days, let alone with a stab wound in his face, leg, and ribs.
But he wouldn’t quit. As long as he had control over his legs Andrew would keep running until he either passed out or caught up with Dom. The youth was just as tired as he was and had slowed into a desperate lollop. Andrew willed his legs to keep going, dodging between skeletal trees and fallen logs. His thighs pumped like pistons; his breath came out in gasps. Dom was losing steam; legs getting heavier, his strides shortening. The gap between them decreased with every stride.
Soon Dom was only an arm’s reach away. Andrew timed his strides and prepared to pounce.
He sprung forward and managed to grab hold of the boy’s sweatshirt. Dom’s legs tangled together and he tripped onto his face, sliding in the dirt. Andrew hopped aside and came to a stop beside him; standing over the boy and ready to use the knife to finish the job. But it was unnecessary. Dom was beaten; out of breath and injured.
Andrew pointed the knife downwards at Dom, making it very clear he was willing to use it. “Where’s Frankie?” His words were slurred, his mouth still filling with fresh blood. “Where?”
“Fuck you man!” Dom spat.
Fighting words indeed, but Andrew could hear the fear in the boy’s voice. “Do you want to die here?” he asked. “Do you want me to gut you like I did your brother?”
“Go to Hell!”
Andrew could tell that Dom was only a sentence away from giving in to sobbing. Perhaps it was time for a modicum of compassion, Andrew considered, despite the fact that none had been shown to him one night previous. “Look,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you, Dom. I’ve already taken what you’ve taken from me. We’re even. I just want, Frankie. So, where is he?”
“He’s at the hospital. Doing your daughter like you did my bro.”
Andrew prayed it was just an idle threat, but there was every chance that Frankie would be intending to finish what he had started. Thinking about it filled Andrew with more terror than he could hold inside of himself. But he couldn’t afford to lose control; not now. He had to remain focused. “Do you have a mobile phone on you?”
Dom nodded. “Course I do.”
“Then use it,” Andrew growled.
“To call who?”
Andrew booted Dom in his side. “Who the hell do you think? Frankie! Call him and say that if he doesn’t leave the hospital right now to meet me then I will slice your throat.” It felt wrong to use such vile threats, but also quite liberating. Andrew liked the way the words felt sliding from between his lips.
“Okay, okay.” Dom made the call on a small black phone that he plucked from his jeans. He waited a few moments until someone on the other end answered. “Hey, Frankie. You got to come get me, man. That motherfucking psycho has me at knifepoint. I’m lying here in the mud like a sucker and he’s going to slice me like he did Jordan if you don’t come get me.”
There was silence in the woods for almost a full minute while Dom listened to Frankie’s reply. The whole time Andrew stood and watched, Dom’s face seemed to grow grimmer and grimmer. Eventually, Dom finished the call and put the phone away. He looked up at Andrew with a shocked expression. “Nigga put the phone down on me.”
Andrew had a bad feeling. Why would Frankie do that to his friend? “What did he say?”
Dom shook his head and seemed mortified. “He said I should deal with my own shit and if I was a man I should take you out for what you done to my brother.”
Andrew raised an eyebrow at him. “Want to try it?”
“No man, enough, enough.”
“Did Frankie say where he is?”
“The hospital. He said he’s just waiting for the coast to clear. There’re pigs about”
The barmaid must have done as I asked her and called the hospital. Thank you, Steph.
The police would buy Andrew some time. He could still make it to the hospital if he hurried back to his car, but first he needed to find out exactly where he was.
“What is this place?” he asked Dom.
“The woods at the back of Brockhill Farm.”
Andrew knew it. It was a rural plot of fields and woodland on the edge of town; a mile away from the nearest built-up area. Great place to murder someone.
“I ought to leave you here to die,” said Andrew, looking down at the cowering teenager at his feet. “But you’re too pathetic to waste my time on.”
Dom seemed to recover some of his lost confidence. Obviously he’d been expecting Andrew to kill him and was relieved to hear otherwise. “This shit ain’t over, man. I respect you letting me live right now, but if Frankie doesn’t finish you then I will.”
Andrew laughed at him. “I’m begging you to try. Then I’ll have a good excuse to send you to your brother. Right now, though, it wouldn’t be r
ight.”
It was likely a bad idea to leave Dom alive, but Andrew would be in jail soon, anyway, and unreachable for quests of revenge. Besides, he couldn’t just kill someone cowering at his feet – he wasn’t the type of killer that would make him. He wanted Justice, not revenge. Dom’s brother was dead and hopefully that was enough retribution to allow Andrew to sleep at night. An eye for an eye.
Andrew left Dom lying in the dirt and crunched his way back through the rain-soaked woods, trying to get his bearings by looking for the snapped twigs that marked the direction they’d come from. Thankfully, it wasn’t long before he saw the lights of his car in the distance, lighting up the rain as it fell in thick sheets.
With the engine still running, the keys would be inside, so Andrew wasted no time in heading for the driver’s side and hopping inside. He slammed the door shut beside him and looked out of the windscreen. Dom crawled around up ahead, but made no attempt to stop Andrew. The youth still seemed battered and beaten and as though it would take some time before he even had the energy to get up again.
It wasn’t clear which direction the road would be in, so Andrew decided to manoeuvre the car around in a circle, between the trees, until he was facing in the opposite direction. He set off in a straight line, hoping that it would turn out to be the route Dom had taken them in on.
The automatic wipers switched on as rain bombarded the windscreen and Andrew had to squint to see. There were trees everywhere and it was a real effort to avoid them all. Several times Andrew had to brake sharply and make erratic steering movements. The uneven, bumpy ground didn’t help much either and the tyres barely kept their grip in the sliding mud.
But eventually the trees began to thin and then, finally, open out into a clearing. The car hit a water-logged field and the steering got heavier. Andrew clutched the wheel tighter and leant forward to examine his surroundings. The field stretched down a hill and was lined on all sides by a wooden-post fence. In the distance were the easily distinguishable lights of a house.
The Brockhill estate?
Andrew knew that the large Manor on the edge of town was roadside. If he headed for the building and it did turn out to be the Brockhill Estate then he could get back onto a main road and head back into town. He could reach the hospital in fifteen minutes.
Andrew put his foot down and the car careened faster down the hill. As the house below became clearer, it revealed itself to be just the building he was hoping for. Andrew wouldn’t have to cover the entire distance to Brockhill Manor because there was a steel gate about fifty-metres up from it at the edge of the field. The gate was hanging open, obviously left that way by Dom. Beyond it: the main road.
Andrew gripped the steering wheel tighter and sped up. I’m coming, Bex. Just hold on.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Davie tried calling his brother’s mobile several times but there was no answer. Same thing when he made a call to Dom. He began to worry. Frankie had been unstable before all the shit that had happened, but now he was borderline insane. Still, Davie forgave his brother’s faults even if he could not fully come to terms with them. He was determined to put a stop to the situation before it could escalate further. There was still a chance for Frankie to retain some shred of humanity if he were to just stop now.
No one else needs to get hurt.
Davie’s biggest concern was that Frankie would try to finish what he had started by going after Andrew and his family again. He had already made suggestions that he needed to deal with any loose ends.
The first place Davie visited was Andrew’s home. It was a possibility that Frankie would return there to resume his beef with the man. But as Davie rounded the corner, he saw that the house’s lights were out and that – even more tellingly – Andrew’s Mercedes was gone from its space at the side of the road. No one was there – neither his brother nor the man he may have been looking to kill. Davie started thinking about plan B.
Where else could they be? If Frankie’s still looking for trouble then he’ll be going wherever Andrew is. So where would Andrew be?
There was, of course, only one place Andrew could be. Davie had seen how much the man loved his family. There was little doubt that he would be at the hospital at his daughter and wife’s bedside, providing they were both still alive.
Which means Frankie will most likely be there too.
Davie jingled the change in his pocket. There was a bus stop nearby that went not too far from the hospital. If a bus came soon then Davie could be there within the next half an hour. He just hoped it would be soon enough.
He reached the bus stop at the end of the road and waited. The act of doing nothing was frustrating. Every part of his body urged for action but, with no other way of getting to the hospital, Davie had no choice but to wait. He concentrated on the noise of the heavy rain hitting the curved, tin roof of the shelter and sliding off in sheets. Somehow the sound managed to calm him slightly – enough that when the bus finally arrived, Davie didn’t even notice.
“You getting in or what?” asked the bus driver, pulling Davie out of his daze.
Davie looked up, startled. “Sorry. Had my mind on other things.”
“Nothing bad I hope?”
Davie stepped onto the bus and gave the driver his change. “I would settle for bad, right now. Things are way beyond that.”
The driver frowned at him. “Well, keep your chin up lad. Got your whole life to look forward to.”
Davie moved to take a seat as the hydraulic doors pumped closed behind him. The bus was completely empty save for a couple of homosexual Black men on the back seat. They weren’t doing anything to draw attention to themselves – at least nothing that bothered Davie – but he could tell they were a couple by the way they were sat close and cuddling. One of the men, older, with short black hair and grey sideburns, nodded at Davie warily as he moved down the aisle. Davie nodded back to him and took a seat midway down. Maybe being gay was wrong – Davie knew plenty of people who would certainly think so – but there just seemed like so many other things more worthy of worrying about in life. He didn’t know what could be offensive about something that caused him no harm at all. People were entitled to do whatever they wanted as long as they didn’t hurt anybody else.
I just wish my brother felt the same way, thought Davie as the bus headed towards the hospital.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Andrew parked his car at the very back of the hospital. It would take longer to reach Bex, but he couldn’t risk running into any police that might be at the entrance. Wardsley and Dalton may have been on his side, but they were not the only officers likely to be at the hospital and, as a man wanted for murder, Andrew was certain that a description of both him and his car would have been issued to the entire local police force.
Andrew moved between cars, glancing left and right for any law enforcement. Sure enough, there was a plain-clothes officer at the entrance to A and E, taking shelter from the rain in the doorway. Andrew could tell the man was police by the stiff way he was standing and by the constant tilts of his head. The man was speaking into a microphone on his collar.
Andrew stuck to the edge of the car park and headed around the side of the hospital to look for a less conspicuous entrance. There was a fire exit near the rear of the building and it was open – a member of staff standing in front of it with a cigarette. Andrew approached with his head down, not wanting to draw attention.
“Hey, man, you can’t come through here. Use the front.”
Andrew looked up and smiled. The man was wearing chef’s whites and obviously worked in the hospital’s canteen. Bex’s room wasn’t far from the canteen.
“You mind if I just sneak through? I won’t tell anybody.”
The man shook his head. “You need to use the front entrance, pal. What you doing around here anyway? It’s raining cats and dogs. And what the hell is with your face?”
Andrew had to think fast. He’d totally forgotten that half his face was ripped
to pieces. He must have looked like an extra from a zombie-movie. “Trying to avoid my mother-in-law,” he said out of nowhere. “My wife and I have been in a car accident. Her mother just turned up to see her. I was out the front having a fag when I saw her heading my way. I dashed around the back because I don’t want to have to deal with her right now. She’s a total bitch and I know she’ll blame me for the crash. In fact, I blame myself.”
The chef stared Andrew in the face, trying to work him out. Andrew stared right back, sweat and rain beading on his forehead.
“Okay,” the man said eventually. “I hear you on that. My mother-in-law is an old dragon, too.”
Andrew thanked the man and went to walk past, but didn’t make it through without being stopped first. “There a problem?” he asked.
“Just wondered if you had a spare cigarette. This was my last one.”
Of course I don’t. I don’t smoke…but that’s what I told him I was doing.
Andrew shook his head. “Sorry, mate. I just smoked my last one as well. Need to go the gift shop soon as the old witch leaves.”
The chef laughed. “No worries, man. Hope you’re wife recovers well.”
Andrew patted the man on the back. “Thanks, buddy. Guess I’ll go get my face stitched up while she’s with her mum.”
Andrew made it through into the hallway and, as he’d expected, he was near the hospital’s canteen. If he remembered correctly, Bex was just a couple wards down from there. Without any interference Andrew would reach her in minutes.
But there’s going to be police.
Andrew decided he was happy to be arrested if it meant seeing that Bex was okay and that Frankie was not nearby. He could tell the police Bex was in danger and they could protect her. At the start of the night Andrew had been set on murder – on ending Frankie’s life – but right now all that mattered was his daughter’s safety. Revenge was something that would have to take a backseat. Whether he liked it or not, he had no choice but to leave Frankie’s fate in the hands of the courts now. At least he’d made the rest of them pay. Some worse than others, he considered as he thought about stabbing Jordan to death but leaving his brother alive. The act still brought Andrew no remorse – he was still content in his vindication. The only regret he felt at all was that he would not have the chance to exact the same revenge on Frankie.
ASBO: A Novel of Extreme Terror Page 19