He would have to make up with Pen before he went to bed – apologise to her. Never going to bed on an argument was a wisdom he’d always abided by. Whether or not he shared the reasons why he had snapped in the first place was something he had not yet decided.
Didn’t want to worry her.
But didn’t want to keep things from her either.
Andrew used the toes on his left foot to turn off the hot water tap followed by the cold. He slid lower into the water, letting his chin touch the surface. If he could have, he would have gone completely under, accepting the warm and inviting embrace of the water like a protective womb, but he settled for dunking his head under briefly and soaking his hair. Wet, brown strands plastered his forehead when he came back up and he wiped them away with his hand. Relaxation approached at last, the tension flowing away into the bath water. Soon Andrew would be able to think things through rationally – to decide whether or not he would call the police, tell his wife, or just keep the whole thing to himself. With a calmer mind, he could at least console himself that things would work out one-way or another. He was a middle-classed citizen of the UK, not some impoverished Russian on the mean streets of Moscow. There was order and civility in England. Wretched little monsters like Frankie were punished for their crimes.
A knock at the bathroom’s door.
“Andrew?” It was Pen.
Andrew sighed, wishing that the water would swallow him whole. He still wasn’t ready to speak to his wife. But what choice did he have?
“Andrew, I ordered you some food as well. Just in case you change your mind. I’m worried about you. Is your stomach-ache really bad?”
“Yeah,” Andrew replied. “But I’ll try to eat something anyway. I’m sorry I shouted at you.”
There was a brief pause, but then an answer. “That’s okay. We all get grouchy when we’re not very well.”
Andrew suddenly felt teary. His wife’s compassion was such a contrast to the animosity of earlier events that it sent his brain into an emotional tailspin, but he fought back the tears and made himself smile. “I love you, Pen.”
“I love you too, hun. I’ll see you downstairs, okay? That film is about to start and Rebecca wants you to watch it with her.”
“Okay. Be right down.”
Andrew leant forward in the bath and winced against the stiffness and pain that bloomed in his ribs. He yanked the chain attached to the plug and listened to the gurgle as the drain began its suction. Then he lay back down and waited for the water to drain away around him, enjoying the sensual tickle of the water level dropping against his skin. When the tub was finally empty, he remained there for several more minutes, not wanting to move or face the chill of the air outside his ceramic cocoon.
When he did finally find the willpower to get out of the bath, Andrew quickly grabbed a towel from the warming rail and wrapped it tight around himself. There was a hidden breeze in the room that nipped at his shoulder blades in places the towel did not cover. He fought back a shiver and began to dry himself, taking care not to be too rough around his sore ribs. Not wanting to add needlessly to the washing pile, he gathered his clothes off the bathroom floor and decided to put them back on again. The jeans were comfortable and would be fine for sitting and watching a film. Perhaps he would get into pyjamas later, after dinner.
The plush carpet of the landing outside the bathroom felt good beneath his feet as he padded back towards the stairs and started down them. As he neared the bottom, he could hear the loud blaring of the television from the living room. For some reason, his daughter was unable to enjoy anything that didn’t carry the risk of hearing damage.
Andrew reached the downstairs hallway and was just about to enter the living room…
A knock at the door.
The Chinese is here. Andrew changed direction and headed for the porch instead. He stepped inside and tried to make out the figure behind the glass door, but it was too dark outside, so he opened the door.
There was no one there.
Andrew stared out into the darkness, straining his eyes for shapes in the shadows. All of the light was behind him, making the darkness in front of him deep and unending. He leant forward and focused his eye, but still he could see no one. He started to think for a moment that he’d just imagined the knock at the door.
“Alright, mate?”
Andrew jumped back as a figure appeared from behind the sidewall of the porch on the left and entered the bleeding patch of light from the hallway. It was Frankie.
Andrew’s eyes narrowed. “What the hell do you want?”
“Chill out,” Frankie replied, face twitching and scarred mouth grinning. “No need to shit your pants. I came to apologise, innit.”
Andrew’s eyes narrowed further. “What?”
Frankie moved forward and placed a foot onto the step of the front door. Andrew moved forward to meet him.
“I said, I’ve come to apologise,” Frankie lifted the brow of his red beanie hat in a way that was almost gentlemanly, “about tonight’s earlier…misunderstanding.”
Andrew laughed. “You mean when you assaulted me for no good reason?”
Frankie laughed back. “Yeah, I guess you could put it like that. No reason we can’t be friends though. You and me, we can be bros.”
“We’ll never be friends,” said Andrew, “and I already have a brother, so get the hell off my property and clear off.”
Frankie’s smile left his face and his twitch seemed to get worse for a moment. “Careful, mate. I don’t appreciate being told what to do, you get me?”
Andrew shook his head. “Look, what do you want? I’ve done nothing to you.”
“I know,” Frankie agreed. “Which is why I’m going to allow you to make peace.”
“Make peace? I didn’t do anything to breach the peace.”
Frankie sighed. “You going to fuckin’ listen to me, mate, or am I going to have to drop you again?”
“How dare you threaten me in my own home.”
“Fuck your home. This whole neighbourhood is mine. You want to be left alone; you do what I tell you. Give me your trainers.”
Andrew was taken aback. “Sorry?”
“Give me them sweet-ass Nikes and you’ll be left alone.”
“Go away, you monster.”
Frankie grabbed Andrew around the throat and sneered. Andrew struggled back and managed to escape the grip, but his heart was now racing.
“Do you want to die?” Frankie asked coldly.
Andrew shook his head in disbelief. “You’re insane.”
“I’ll cut you up and snort your remains if I feel like it. Question is: are you going to behave and do as you’re told, or do I have to show you your own blood?”
Andrew went to reply but was interrupted.
“Who’s at the door, Andrew?” It was Pen shouting from the living room.
Frankie smirked, tried to move inside the porch.
“N-No one,” said Andrew, forcing Frankie back. “I’ll just be a minute.”
“I thought maybe it was the Chinese.”
“No, I’ll…I’ll let you know when it’s here.”
Frankie was still smirking. “Going to have a nice dinner with the missus? You go off the idea of chips then?” He pushed forward again, half-inside the doorway now. “Maybe I should join you? Say, don’t you have a fine ass daughter I’ve seen around here?”
Andrew pushed the youth back out of the door. “You leave my family the fuck alone.”
Frankie said nothing, just continued smirking, not leaving.
“What do you want?”
“I already told you.”
Andrew swallowed a lump in his throat, tried to maintain eye contact with Frankie, but failed. He sighed, picked up the Nike trainers from the shoe rack, and threw them out of the door. “Here! Now leave me alone, you vulture.”
Frankie sniggered. “You think I’m going to pick ‘em up off the floor? Go get ‘em and hand ‘em to me properly.”
“Are you serious?”
Frankie glared.
Andrew threw his hands up in the air. “Fine! It would be my goddamn pleasure.” He stepped outside and gathered up the shoes from the pavement. Then he returned to Frankie and thrust the trainers into the teenager’s arms. “Now leave me alone.”
“Deal’s a deal, mate. Have a nice life.” He walked away just as another figure came up the path, holding up a brown paper bag.
“Chinese delivery, sir?”
Andrew took the bag from the deliveryman and tried to smile, but found it impossible, so he just paid for the food and gave a good tip. The last thing he felt right now was hungry. In fact he felt downright sick.
Chapter Three
Getting to sleep was a long and lonely struggle. Pen had started her gentle snoring as soon as her head hit the pillow, but Andrew lay next to her for what seemed like hours, staring up at the ceiling, his head swirling with unwanted thoughts.
The movie Bex had made him watch was disturbing, full of monsters and giant insects feasting off the flesh of the living. The ending had been bleak and depressing, but Bex seemed to enjoy it, grinning between mouthfuls of noodles and chicken.
The film wasn’t what was kept Andrew awake though. Frankie haunted his mind like a relentless boogieman. Every time sleep came, the boy’s scared and twitching face would jar Andrew back awake. It was now 4:00AM.
Three hours till work.
Andrew’s job as an Ad Exec wasn’t physically taxing, but it did require a great deal of concentration and focus. The project he was working on at the moment for a Soda company was especially important – the rebranding of a nationally recognised product. The stress of last night’s events was a concern he could do without right now.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. If there were any chance of him getting an iota of sleep, he would need to clear his mind. He needed to forget that he’d let an adolescent bully him and take his trainers. It was done and he should forget it, but the humiliation weighed down on him so heavily that it felt as if his skull may split open on the pillow and spill out his cowardice.
4:40AM.
The minutes flew by and Andrew’s mind flittered between numb consciousness and troubled sleep. His waking thoughts were so vivid that they merged with his dreams to the point that he had no idea whether he was asleep or awake.
5:01AM
Noise.
From downstairs.
Andrew’s eyes snapped open. He was pretty sure the noises had been real, that he had been awake to hear them and not imagining things in his sleep. It had sounded like a door opening.
5:13AM.
Another sound.
Somehow Andrew had snoozed another ten minutes, the beckoning embrace of sleep managing to override his grasp on reality, but now he was awake fully.
Footsteps.
Someone was inside the house.
There was another sound, closer, but he quickly realised that it was Pen snoring. The noises downstairs, however, were less explainable.
Someone was inside the house. Or was it Bex?
Andrew summoned the courage to get out of bed. Chinese food worked its way up his gullet. His legs wobbled as he set them down on the soft carpet. There sounds downstairs had stopped now, but he was sure that there had been a break in. Bex would not be wondering around at this time in the morning. His mouth filled with saliva and he had to swallow several times as he exited the bedroom into the unlit landing. Bex’s door was open as usual, and he looked inside. His daughter was asleep, snoring softly in the identical way that he mother did, tucked up beneath her plush duvet. It wasn’t her making the noises.
Andrew reached the end of the hallway and looked down the stairs, cocking his head to listen for more sounds. He could detect nothing and a slither of hope suggested he’d imagined it all; that the scary movie – and his altercation with Frankie – had spooked his anxious mind.
He pressed the switch at the bottom of the stairs and blinked as the light filled his adjusting eyes. The downstairs hallway was clear, untouched. The photos on the wall were still in place and his grandmother’s bureau was undisturbed. So far so good.
He moved over to the living room door and paused outside of it. This was the room with the television, Blu Ray player, and other things worth stealing. If anything were missing, it would likely be from this room.
And if anybody was still inside, they were most likely inside in this room.
Andrew took a deep breath and pushed open the door, clutching the handle tightly as he turned it. A smell hit him as he entered the darkness – a bitter, salty odour, along with something else that was more acrid.
Vinegar?
Andrew reached along the wall and found the light switch, familiar enough with his own home to find it in the dark. His finger lingered over the switch for a moment as his stomach performed somersaults. As much as he needed to see the state of his living room, he also wanted to delay things for as long as possible. Once the lights were on, he would be forced to deal with the situation. Right now, he was safe in the dark and oblivious.
Couldn’t put things off forever, though.
He switched on the light.
The room came into view in a flash, and at first presented too much visual information for his brain to interpret all at once. One thing, however, slowly became clear. There was nothing missing.
Thank god.
But a few moments later it also became clear that something had been added. All over the room was a mulched-up mess of what looked like…
Fish and chips.
A cod had been stamped into the carpet, while dozens of loose chips had been mashed against the sofa’s upholstery. Even the walls were smeared in deep-fried potato. The smell of salt and vinegar enveloped the room, pungent to the point of making Andrew’s eyes water. It wasn’t long before he put two and two together – that he realised the fish and chips were a message from the person responsible for knocking them out of his hands several hours before.
Frankie had done this.
***
The police arrived within the hour, just as the sun rose. The light coming through the window bathed the living room in an orange ambience that seemed unsuitable in the presence of such mess. Pen and Bex sat, huddled together, on the sofa in their nightgowns. Andrew sat at the dining room table with the two police officers – a straight-faced man and an amiable blonde woman, PC Wardsley and PC Dalton.
“What time did you hear the noises, Mr …?”
“Goodman. Andrew Goodman. And I don’t know exactly, but it was around 5AM, I think.”
“Okay,” said the female police officer, PC Dalton, whilst PC Wardsley took notes. “What exactly did you hear?”
Andrew felt like he was going to have a breakdown, so exhausted from lack of sleep. He did his best to answer calmly, though. “I’m pretty sure that I heard doors opening and closing and somebody creeping around.”
“Did it sound like just one person?”
Andrew nodded. “I suppose so.”
Dalton smiled warmly, performing the gestures she’d doubtlessly learned through sensitivity training. “Do you have any ideas how someone could have entered your home, Mr Goodman? Were all the doors locked?”
Andrew shrugged and looked down at the table, not wanting to make eye contact with the female officer. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Before tonight, I never really worried about locking everything up at night. It’s a nice neighbourhood. The front and back doors were locked, of course, but may have left a window open.”
“We won’t be doing that again,” Pen added tersely from the sofa, before returning to the dazed silence she’d displayed since waking to this mess.
“No,” said Andrew. “We won’t.”
PC Dalton asked her next question. “Do you know anyone who would want to do this to you? Nothing was taken, so it seems causing upset was the main motive for the break in.”
Andrew listened to the sound of his own breathing for a
few seconds, wishing the whole thing would just go away. But it wasn’t going to, was it, no matter how much he wanted it to. So he gave his answer: “Frankie.”
The male police officer, Wardsley, raised an eyebrow then and looked surprised. “Frankie?”
Andrew nodded. “There’s a gang been hanging around the last few days. I think their leader is a lad named Frankie?”
Wardsley scribbled down some notes eagerly, whilst his partner, Dalton, resumed questioning. “Why do you think this Frankie would want to target you?”
Andrew glanced over at his wife and daughter. Both were now looking at him with great interest. He turned back to the female officer and sighed. “I know, because the bastard assaulted me yesterday evening – punched me in the stomach. I was carrying fish and chips at the time and they spilled all over the road.”
“What?” Penelope shouted. “Why on earth did you not tell me? You sat with us all night and you didn’t think to tell us that you’d been attacked?”
Andrew looked at her and felt shame. Bex started to cry, which only made the feeling worse. “I’m sorry,” he told them both honestly. “I didn’t want to worry you.”
Pen folded her arms and shook her head at him. “Worry me? What do you think all this is doing?”
“Okay,” Dalton said, sliding a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “Can you describe this man, Andrew?”
“Teenager,” Andrew corrected. “Barely past being a kid.”
“Okay. What else?”
“He’s muscly – like he works out a lot. Red beanie hat. Has a scar across his lip and a weird facial tic thing.”
“He has a twitch?”
“Yeah,” Andrew confirmed.
“Anything else?”
“The girl who served me at the chip shop said Frankie had just gotten out of a kid’s prison, and that he’s a complete psycho.”
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