I ran down somebody’s son.
The nurse led Andrew over to a grouping of cheap plastic chairs that were bolted to the floor in uniform rows. “Take a seat, sir. We’ll keep you updated on his condition. Is there someone you’d like us to call?”
Andrew thought about Pen and Bex, but then found someone else popping into his head. “I need to see someone else that’s already here, actually. A girl named Charlie. She got burned today by a deep fat fryer.”
The nurse raised an eyebrow. “I think I recall someone coming in with those injuries. What relation are you?”
Andrew looked down at the floor, examining the various old stains that adorned the beige tiles. “I’m…a friend, I guess.”
“Okay, I’ll see what I can find out for you.”
Andrew thanked the nurse and leaned back in the chair. The bruising on his ribs throbbed as his chest compressed against the hard, uncomfortable backrest. The small waiting room was empty of people and the other chairs contained nothing other than discarded magazines and folded newspapers. Apparently weekday evenings were not peak time for injures.
So the only two people recently admitted are probably both here because of me. Way to do my bit for national health.
Five minutes later, a young lady in a white tunic came and sat beside Andrew. She asked him a series of questions about the incident involving the boy and wrote down his replies on a printed form. Once she reached the end of the questionnaire, she smiled at Andrew and disappeared back into the staff-only areas of the hospital. Waiting for further news was a torment that he could hardly bear. For all he knew right now, the young boy he ran down could have permanent injuries.
The hands of the over-sized clock on the waiting room’s wall moved along almost one full hour before someone else came to speak to him. It was the same male nurse that had met Andrew in the car park.
He sat down next to Andrew. “How are you doing, sir?”
“Not bad, considering. Any news?”
“The boy you ran into is going to be fine; luckily you weren’t driving that fast. He has some mild bruising on his ribs and a concussion from where his head hit the car, or perhaps the road. Either way, he’ll be fine after an extended rest. He was awake for a while, but he’s sleeping at the moment.”
Andrew let all of the air out of his lungs in a great big hiss. “Thank God. Did you let his family know?”
“No,” said the nurse. “He wouldn’t give us anyone to contact. He just told us to let him know when it was alright for him to leave.”
“That’s strange,” said Andrew. “Well, when he wakes up let him know I’m happy to drive him home.”
“I’ll tell him. Now, about this girl you said you wanted to check on. I located her in the Burns Ward. She’s going to be okay, but the damage to her arm is…severe.”
“Permanent?” asked Andrew, not wanting to hear the answer.
The nurse nodded grimly. “She has second-degree burns from above her elbow all the way down her arm. She’s in a great deal of pain so she’s been put on morphine.”
Andrew found himself unable to swallow, his bodily functions temporarily halted by the horror he was feeling inside.
“She’s asked to see you,” the nurse told him.
Andrew looked at the man. “Really?”
The nurse nodded and stood up. “I’ll take you there now. She’ll probably be asleep once the treatment takes hold.”
Andrew followed the nurse. They passed through the waiting room for Regular Admittance, which was a great deal busier than the empty emergency room he’d been sitting in, and then continued on to the treatment wards. They took an elevator up to the second floor and passed by the mournfully-silent Oncology Department. Then they reached the Burns Unit.
The nurse pushed open one of the swinging double doors and stood aside for Andrew to enter. The first thing he noticed as he walked into the room was the suffocating odour of antiseptic creams and alcohol. The ward was cramped, divided into cubicles on both sides.
“She’s in bed number three,” said the nurse, pointing up ahead.
Andrew thanked the man and headed for Charlie’s cubicle – a set of canvas walls and a blue nylon curtain for a door. Andrew pulled aside the curtain and stepped inside. Charlie was staring right at him as he entered.
“Hi, Charlie,” he said, searching left and right for a chair to sit on. Before he found one, though, his eyes fixated on the thick white bandages that covered the girl’s entire left arm beneath airtight plastic wrapping. He quickly broke his stare and perched himself down on a chair he found to her left. It was a lot comfier than the ones they’d had in the waiting room. “How are you doing?” he asked her, already dreading the answer.
She shook her head wearily, understandably tired and a little out of it from the morphine that flowed through the drip on her uninjured arm.
“I’m really sorry you got hurt,” said Andrew. “Are your parents coming?”
Charlie’s voice was croaky when she spoke. “Someone’s contacting them now. How come you got here…so fast?”
“I ran someone over,” said Andrew. “I was already heading here to see you, but I guess that made me drive a little carelessly. I knew you’d been hurt because I went to the chip shop just after it happened.”
“You hit someone with your car?”
Andrew chuckled at the irony. “Yeah, if you can believe it? He’s going to be fine though, thank God. Which just leaves the question: what exactly happened to you?”
Charlie turned her head and looked away from him, her eyes focusing on her bandaged arm. The sight seemed to upset her a great deal. “What you think?”
Andrew leaned forward on his chair. “Frankie?”
Charlie nodded. “He knew I spoke to you.”
Guilt took root in Andrew’s gut and started eating away at him with tiny little teeth. “I’m so sorry. I went and had it out with him this afternoon. Your friend was with him and I mentioned your name. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, you have to believe me. I was just trying to protect my…” Andrew’s voice trailed off. This girl in front of him would be scarred for life. There were no excuses she needed to hear from him. None would be good enough.
“I don’t want you to ever bother me again,” said Charlie in a voice that was forceful despite her dreary, drug-addled tone. “This happened because of you.”
“This happened because of Frankie. I know I dragged you into this, but it’s him that needs to pay. We need to tell the police.”
Charlie shook her head. “Frankie is a psychopath.”
“I know,” said Andrew. “That’s why I need you to have him arrested. I need to make sure he’s stopped before…before…”
“Before he does the same to your family?”
Andrew felt sick at the thought. Earlier on, he’d been convinced that Frankie’s bark was bigger than his bite, but after the callous attack on this innocent young girl, he knew it’d been a gross misjudgement.
“I’d get your family…and just move,” said Charlie, suddenly sounding very sleepy. “I’m not…getting…involved.”
Andrew sat for a few moments, trying to formulate a counter-argument in his head but came up blank every time. Before he even came close to having something pertinent to say, Charlie had fallen deeply asleep in the grasp of a morphine-soaked oblivion.
Andrew stood up. “I’m sorry,” he said as he left the cubicle.
Outside, the male nurse had been waiting for him. “Everything okay?”
Andrew shook his head. “Not at all, but for now can you take me to the boy I ran over. Seems I have a lot of apologising to do this evening.”
***
Andrew had to sit outside the Convalescence Ward for over an hour while Davie slept. He had sent a text to Pen during that time, letting her know that the girl was okay and that he would be home soon. He didn’t tell her that he’d run over a young boy on the way to the hospital. That was a conversation for later, in person.
A plump woman
came out of the ward and smiled at him on her way to the nurse’s station nearby. As she passed, she told him that, “The boy is awake now. You can go in.”
Andrew nodded his thanks and stood up. His knees clicked as they straightened out and he felt sixty years old as he headed for the ward. Inside there were a dozen separate beds, half of them empty. At the far end was the boy he’d hit, head wrapped in a gleaming-white bandage. Andrew walked over and stood at the end of his bed.
“How you doing? You feeling okay?”
The boy’s eyes went wide for a split-second, almost as if he recognised Andrew, but that seemed unlikely. “Y-yeah, thanks,” he said. “Was it you that ran me over?”
Andrew nodded.
“Did you do it on purpose?”
“What?” Andrew’s mouth fell open. “Of course not. I never meant it at all. I’m really sorry this happened.”
The boy was silent for a moment as if trying to work something out in his head. “Okay. So you never wanted to hurt me?”
“I’ve never even met you before. I’m really sorry, okay? I should have been paying more attention. I hope you can forgive me.”
The boy nodded. “I was probably to blame anyway. I was running across the road without looking.”
Andrew smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, whoever’s to blame it was just an accident. You’re going to be okay and that’s the main thing. I’m happy to give you a ride home when you’re ready, pal.”
“No, no, that’s okay. I’ll make it home on my own.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Andrew. “I hit you five miles from here. I’m not letting you make your own way home with a concussion.”
“But-”
“No arguments. I’ll go talk to the nurses now and see if we can break you out of here. Then we can go get a McDonalds on the way home or something.”
“They said I’m not allowed to eat for twenty-four hours.”
“Who’s going to know? It will be our secret.”
“Okay,” said Davie. “Thanks.”
“Sure thing. Where am I driving you to anyway?”
The boy hesitated before answering. “T-Tanners Avenue.”
Andrew raised an eyebrow. “Tanners Avenue? Yeah, I know the place. I’ll, er...be waiting for you outside, okay, buddy?”
Andrew left the boy alone and exited the ward, wondering the whole way whether or not coincidences really existed.
CHAPTER NINE
Davie was almost certain the man waiting for him outside the ward was the same one who’d been on his doorstep only hours before arguing with his brother. Davie recognised the man’s neat brown hair and spindly posture. Pulling on his jeans behind the plastic, wraparound curtain of the cubicle, Davie peeked out through the entrance gap. The man was waiting for him outside the long window at the end of the ward. He seemed impatient, like he had other things on his mind.
Like wanting to batter me to death and finish what he started when he ran me down with his car.
Davie didn’t know if he believed that though. The man – Andrew, was it? – didn’t seem dangerous. In fact it seemed as if he didn’t even know who Davie was – or who his brother happened to be. Davie thought about the word coincidence and decided that it might apply to this situation. Still, what would happen when the man dropped him off at the same house he’d been at earlier?
There was no chance of the man letting Davie make his own way home – he felt too responsible – so the best plan would be to have him stop at the end of Tanner’s Lane and drop him off there. He could pretend to walk to another house, and then go home when the coast was clear. Davie wrestled his feet into his worn trainers and suddenly felt dizzy. He fell back onto the bed and closed his eyes until the feeling passed. The bump on his head throbbed rhythmically and each time it did it brought a fresh wave of nausea. The thought of telling his mother, or Frankie, that he’d been in an accident made him feel even more ill.
Frankie will go mad when I tell him I got run over. Especially if I tell him who’s responsible.
Remaining still for a moment longer, the sickness slowly went away. Davie eased himself up and away from the bed before pulling aside the privacy curtain. The man still waited for him outside and even gave a little wave through the window as he spotted Davie approaching. There was a young woman in a nurse’s uniform standing right beside him.
Davie pushed through the ward’s double doors and the awaiting nurse held something out to him – a small plastic container. “Take these pills every morning,” she told him, “and at lunchtime. They should help with the headaches. You need absolute rest, so get yourself straight in bed, sweetheart, you hear me? You have someone to look after you?”
“Yeah,” Davie lied. “My mom.”
“Let’s get you home then,” said the man, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and ushering him away. It made Davie uncomfortable to be touched by an adult, but he did not resist.
“You really don’t have to take me, Mr…”
“Yes, I do,” he cut in, “and you can call me Andrew. You’re my responsibility until I get you home, so no more arguments. Still fancy that McDonalds?”
Davie thought about the recurring sickness rising in his tummy and shook his head at the question. “Thanks all the same, but I think eating would just make me feel worse. I just want to go home to bed.”
Andrew nodded. “Sure. I’m parked right outside.”
The two of them set off through the bleak corridors of the hospital, the silence growing more awkward with each passing step. Davie considered making a run for it, but knew he wouldn’t make it more than a few yards without having to throw up. Even this gentle strolling took a concerted effort.
“This way!” said Andrew, just as Davie was about to make a turn into the reception area. “I came in through the A&E, not General Admissions.”
Davie followed Andrew into a waiting room that was empty except for a bloke coming in with a thick clump of glass sticking out of his forehead. He was sobbing to himself quietly as he sat down alone, blood pouring down his shirt.
Someone’s bottled him, Davie recognised, knowing the type of injury well from experience. The scars never go away completely.
Davie and Andrew reached the hospital’s exit and stepped out into the cold breeze of the car park. There was a bright red Mercedes parked askew across several parking bays and, as Davie got closer, he could see that the vehicle was plastered in graffiti – the words PEDO, PEDO, PEDO, written all over it. Davie glanced at Andrew uncertainly.
Andrew seemed to realise the situation and immediately became flustered, waving his hands and shaking his head defensively. “No, no, no, you don’t need to worry. That’s just the work of some idiot that’s been terrorising the neighbourhood. His idea of a joke!”
“Ha ha,” said Davie without inflection, secretly thinking that Frankie had a weird sense of humour – it was now obvious what his brother had been doing with the spray paint that afternoon. “You must have laughed all night?”
Andrew looked at Davie and then broke into laughter. “Yeah, I had an absolute hoot! Now, come on, get yourself inside the pedo-wagon. I want to take you home to show you my basement.”
Davie joined in the laughter and pulled open the passenger door as Andrew disengaged the automatic locks. Despite the spoiled paintwork, it was the poshest car Davie had ever been in. The seats were soft and stitched from leather. The dashboard had a sleek metallic sheen that was peppered with chrome-plated dials and switches.
“Nice motor,” he commented.
“Thanks,” said Andrew, sliding into the driver’s seat and strapping himself in. “I only just got it, but I think it’s nice, too. Obviously someone felt it needed some custom paintwork, though.”
“Will it cost a lot to repair?”
Andrew started the engine and looked forward. He shrugged. “I imagine so. Hopefully my insurance will cover it, but then they charge you more every month to make up for it.”
“That sucks,”
said Davie, not really understanding the ins and outs of motor insurance, but assuming it was a big rip-off like everything else. “You know who did it?”
Andrew nodded but said nothing.
Davie shifted slightly in his seat as the car began moving out of the hospital car park. “You going to do anything about it? To the person that did it, I mean?”
“Don’t know,” said Andrew. “Don’t know if there’s anything I can do.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I’m a good man. I look after my family and go to work so that I can give them a good life, but what can I do if some bully decides to make my life hell? The police won’t help me, and I don’t know how to fight worth a damn. Seems to me that it’s all too easy to be a thug nowadays. No one does a thing.”
The car pulled onto a main road and picked up speed. The car’s powerful engine purred along proudly. There was no other traffic that Davie could see and the empty junctions and roundabouts made him feel melancholy. The digital clock on the car’s dashboard said that it was a little after nine at night. People were probably settling down in front of their TVs with their families.
Wish I knew what that was like.
“Maybe he’ll leave you alone once he’s had his fun?” Davie suggested.
Andrew glanced at him, before returning his eyes back to the road. “Sounds like you know something about it. You don’t go around terrorising people do you?”
Davie shook his head without even thinking about it. You always pled innocent, no matter what. “No, I don’t hurt anyone, but I’ve known people who do.”
The car sped up as it entered a slip-road to a carriageway. Andrew’s hands were gripping the steering wheel tightly and his knuckles seemed to turn white in the glow from the dashboard’s readouts.
“Really?” said Andrew. “Like who?”
The engine got louder. The vehicle picked up speed.
Davie shrugged, wondering why he’d even instigated this conversation in the first place. “Just kids I’ve hung around with,” he answered. “At school and that, you know?”
Andrew nodded as if he understood. “You enjoy school?”
ASBO: A Thriller Novel Page 7