“They’re winding me up.”
“Yeah, and if you go out there, there’ll be a fight and it’ll be you that gets in trouble. They’ll win. Just leave it.”
She had a point. As the logic of her words seeped into Adam’s consciousness, so his temper began to dissipate.
“Right, I’m calling the police. Let’s let them deal with it, not you.” Sarah looked Adam in the eyes until he reluctantly nodded in agreement. She went into the hallway, returning seconds later with the house telephone in her hand.
“Hello, is that the police?”
“It is. What is the nature of your emergency, please?”
“We’ve got a group of drunken youths outside our house causing a disturbance, smashing bottles and threatening to damage our van.”
“Have they actually caused any damage?”
“No, not yet.”
“So we’re talking anti-social behaviour then? What’s your address?”
Sarah told the call handler and could hear the tapping of keys as the information was typed into the computer.
“You do know that one of your officers was attacked outside here a couple of weeks ago? My husband saved her life. One of this group was there too, threatening him. It’s the same person at both incidents.”
“Hmm, I see. Are you sure it’s the same person?”
“Of course I’m sure.” Sarah was getting frustrated with the jobsworth attitude of the call-taker.
“But they haven’t actually committed an offence?”
“Well, no, not yet. But you’ve got to send someone, move ‘em on, do something, surely?”
There was a pause and Sarah could hear faint voices through the handset. The call handler was taking advice from her superior.
“I’m afraid I’m limited in what I can do for you as there are no offences disclosed at this point.”
“What? We’ve got to wait until they actually damage our van before we’ll get any response from you? Are you being serious?”
The call handler sounded flustered. “Look, I don’t have any immediate resources to send, it’s a Friday night.”
“Well, if you don’t do something, my husband will go outside and sort it himself.” Sarah looked at Adam and raised her eyebrows. He looked on, listening to one side of the conversation.
“It might help to actually talk to them...”
Sarah cut her off, “What? They might be carrying knives! Don’t you watch the news at all? Besides, if he goes out there, it won’t be to talk.”
“Now don’t do anything stupid.” She paused and Sarah could hear an audible sigh. “Look, he’s ex-job, he saved that PC too; I’ll try and get a patrol car to stop by and have a word, warn them off, give a bit of passing attention. How does that sound?”
“Maybe you ought to try a little harder. Adam didn’t have to help your officer. He put himself at risk to save her. The least you can do is get rid of these people. It’s intimidation, you know?”
With that, the conversation was over. Sarah looked at Adam, her blood boiling.
“Can you believe that?”
Adam smiled, careful not to annoy her any further, “I did tell you what they were like.” He then returned to the window to continue his vigil and await the arrival of a police unit – whenever that might be.
...
It took precisely one hour and forty eight minutes for a marked patrol car to arrive.
Adam knew because he had spent the entire time propped against the back of his armchair watching the antics of the group outside. He checked his watch again, and then exhaled loudly. What were they hoping to achieve? All they had done so far was to annoy him and prevent him from getting a good night’s sleep.
The young single-crewed police officer spoke to the gang members. From their body language, everything appeared good-natured. He noted their details, checked on his radio that none were wanted for anything, and then he inspected Adam’s van, jotting a few scribbles into his notebook. As the youths slowly dispersed, wandering down the street, occasionally stopping to look over their shoulders and laugh, the officer approached Adam’s front door and knocked gently.
“Good morning. Mr Greenwood?” Adam nodded. “They’re on their way, sir. I’ve had a word with ‘em and told ‘em not to hang around here anymore. Your van’s fine; I had a quick look. And I’ve recorded their details just in case there’s any reoccurrence. If I get any time later in the shift, I’ll give your address some passing...” Suddenly, his radio burst into life. He pulled a pained face as he turned down the volume, high-pitched voices audibly screeching from his earpiece. “Sorry, gotta go, there’s a fight outside one of the pubs.” With that, he sprinted towards his car and sped away, blue lights and sirens indicating the urgency of his response. Adam understood, only too well, the pressures that he was under - the lack of resources, and legislation hampering how he could deal with the gang - it was not the officer’s fault. Adam was still pretty angry about the delayed response and the attitude of the call handler, though, but now was not the time to vent his concerns.
He closed the front door and double-locked it. Before joining Sarah in the bedroom, he rummaged around in the cupboard under the stairs, emerging moments later to place a long forgotten baseball bat against the wall to one side of the front door.
“Just in case!” he told himself.
Adam had a restless night’s sleep, the events of earlier repeatedly playing on his mind. At about 03:30am, having become frustrated with all of his tossing and turning, he got up to visit the bathroom. As he passed the front window, he casually glanced around the curtains. They were back! Or at least, some of them were. Great! The police had told him to report any further disturbances to them immediately, so, being careful not to wake Sarah, he tiptoed downstairs and made the call. Coming as no surprise, the operator was quick to point out that there were no units available and that as no offences had been committed, it would be graded as a Low Priority job. Adam knew what that meant - it might be two or three days before anyone got around to visiting - if they bothered at all. Tiredness suddenly overcoming him, he returned to bed. I don’t know why I bother? he thought. I can’t be arsed dealing with them at this time of night. He was asleep within seconds, snoring loudly, but not enough to wake his wife.
Over the following few evenings, the anti-social behaviour continued intermittently. Sometimes there were just a couple of people, other times a large group. Sometimes they arrived early, other times later, or not at all. But they were careful - careful to make enough noise to announce their presence, but not enough to draw the attention of the police - and careful not to actually commit any offences that might land them in trouble.
Adam did as he had been instructed and noted the times of each occurrence with a view to reporting each one to the police. However, that was as far as it went. Having received a lukewarm response from them previously, his attitude was, ‘what’s the point?’ They were only kids, after all. They were simply doing what kids did in Barrington; hang around the streets, killing time. It was not as if they were an actual threat to him or his family. They had not threatened him personally or caused any damage. It was just annoying. Besides, he could only really identify one person - all of the others looked the same - and that one was not always present outside his house anyway. Whether he was being targeted specifically, whether it had any connection to the fight from weeks earlier, Adam had no idea. The more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed. However, it was annoying and stressful to him and his wife. She had seen a previously hidden side to his character, one that worried her, one that she did not like very much at all.
Chapter 10
08:40 – Monday 22nd October.
There were dark rings beneath both of her eyes, discretely camouflaged with a layer of makeup.
The lack of sleep over the weekend had begun to take its toll on Sarah. It was not that she was particularly worried about the group that had decided to make the street outside her house their hangout.
It was not even that they were especially noisy or causing her problems. It was more that she was concerned about her husband’s behaviour. Adam was like a different person, constantly on edge, spying on the goings-on outside. Was he becoming paranoid? Was he regressing to how he had been when he was a police officer years earlier? She remembered him telling her that back in the day, the moment that he donned his uniform, he switched into police mode, whatever that meant. Either way, he was not sleeping properly, and as a consequence, he was disturbing her sleep pattern too. Luckily Jenny was oblivious to it all. Having a room at the back of the house meant that she was shielded from the disturbances outside and from her Dad’s constant fretting.
As Sarah and Jenny stepped from the warmth of their home into the street, the crisp icy air hit them like a sledgehammer.
“Have you got your homework book?” Sarah asked, distractedly, her mind flitting from one random thought to the next.
“Yes, Mummy.” Jenny sounded bored by the question.
“Are you sure? What about your PE kit?”
Jenny smiled and with a hint of sarcasm, added, “You packed it; you know I’ve got it, Mum.”
Sarah smiled inwardly. Every School Run began like this, second-guessing her own preparations, convinced that she had forgotten something.
“Just checking, Jen.” She patted her daughter on the top of her bobble hat and continued walking.
It appeared somewhat busier than normal as they neared the school gates. There was the usual controlled chaos as familiar faces fussed around their children, packing them off for a day of play and education, followed by the almost audible sigh of relief as they slowly crossed the playground to become the responsibility of the waiting teaching staff - if only for a few cherished hours. But moving through this throng of parents and tiny tots, Sarah noticed four young men who stood out, completely alien to their surroundings. They were too young to be parents themselves (although nowadays it was difficult to be sure), and they certainly were not students. She watched them as they slowly moved through the crowd.
Beep! Beep!
The car horn caught her unawares. Where had it come from? She looked around to her left, and then up the side road to her right. There, in a queue of traffic waiting to enter the main carriageway, she saw her friend and fellow mother, Paula, waving madly from the driver’s seat of a white Corsa. Sarah raised a hand in acknowledgement, waved, and smiled at her.
“Look, Harry’s Mum is over there in that white car, can you see her, Jen?”
“Oh, yeah!” She gave an embarrassed wave and then turned towards her friends who were congregating by the school gates.
As Sarah turned back towards the school, she was faced with a wall of bodies clad in dark clothing and hoods. It took her by surprise, causing her to stop suddenly and then step sharply backwards to avoid bumping into them.
“Oops, sorry...” she began, more from shock than genuine regret.
Looking up, she noticed that it was the same group of men that she had seen moments earlier. She had become distracted by Paula and so had lost sight of them. The tallest one stood directly in front of her with the other three slightly behind, but spread out so that they completely blocked the pathway. Their hoods were up (not surprisingly, considering the low temperature), they had their heads bowed and their hands stuffed deep inside their pockets. They reminded Sarah of a modern-day group of monks, only with a sinister overtone.
She pulled Jenny close to her body, protecting her - from what, she did not really know. Having expected them to step to the side, to clear her way, she was annoyed to find them standing like a barricade before her. She was dwarfed by their sheer size and she felt a little intimidated.
“Do you mind?” she said, as forcefully as she could.
There was no reply, no acknowledgement that she had even spoken. They simply stared down at her.
Tutting under her breath, Sarah ushered Jenny around the group and moved towards the gates. As they passed by, other parents that had witnessed the confrontation commented.
“It’s disgusting, the youth of today.”
“Are you alright, love? What was that all about?”
Crouching down to face her daughter, she adjusted Jenny’s hat and tugged on her coat’s zip, pulling it up to her neck to ward off the chill. “You alright, love?” she asked, a hint of concern showing in her voice. Looking over Jenny’s shoulder, she watched as the four men vanished into the thinning crowd.
“Yes, Mummy, those men were very RUDE, weren’t they?”
“They certainly were, dear. Don’t you worry though, have a lovely day.” She kissed her on the forehead and watched as she skipped away with her classmates.
Once Jenny was safely ensconced inside the school building, Sarah began walking to her place of work; the Travel Agents in the centre of town. As she did so, she phoned Adam on her mobile.
“Hi, Sarah, what’s up? Is Jen safely at school? She’s not ill or anything is she?”
“No, she’s fine. I’m just a wee bit pissed off and wanted a quick chat, that’s all.”
Adam started to worry. “Why? What’s happened?”
“Oh, it’s something and nothing really, it just annoyed me.”
“What did?”
Sarah briefly explained the details of what had happened.
“Are they still there?”
“No, they’re long gone.”
“Did you recognise any of ‘em? What did they say to you?”
“Never seen them before, and they didn’t say a word, just blocked my way.”
“Could it just be ignorance on their part? They probably weren’t brought up with good manners, knowing what kids are like nowadays.”
“I would imagine so.”
“It wasn’t any of that lot who’ve been hanging around outside our house, was it?”
“Nah, I doubt it. I wouldn’t recognise any of them again anyway; they all look the same with a hood pulled over their head.”
“Look, shall I come out to you? We could drive around, find them, and maybe have a few words with ‘em”?
“No. Like I said, it’s probably nothing. It’s most likely got nothing to do with the group outside our house. I’m just being silly.”
“Well, if you’re sure?” Adam was not so convinced. “I might just mention it to DS Carmichael when I phone her. I’ve been meaning to give her a call to let her know about the gang’s antics over the weekend.”
“I really wouldn’t bother, Adam. If it was connected, they’d have said something, made threats, or whatever. I reckon they were just being rude.”
“Maybe...”
“If it wasn’t for the lack of sleep over the last couple of nights, and if you hadn’t just mentioned it, I wouldn’t even have made any connection. Are we getting paranoid? It’s just a coincidence, surely?”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” said Adam, but in his mind he was thinking, I don’t believe in coincidences. His dormant police instinct was telling him otherwise. “Anyway, I’d better get going. I’ll give her a call - let her know what’s been going on. If she thinks it’s worth pursuing, she can contact you herself to find out more details. But, like I say, it’s probably got nothing to do with the hassle at home.”
“OK, see you later. Love you.”
...
Later that evening, Adam returned home to find Sarah folding the now dry washing that had been hanging on the radiators all day. He gave her a hug.
“Where’s Jen?”
“She’s upstairs. She had a drawing to do for her homework. I think she’s still working on it.”
“Cool.” In a hushed tone, Adam continued so that his voice would not carry upstairs, “I had a word with DS Carmichael just after I finished talking to you this morning.”
“OK, what did she say?”
“Well, in simple terms, she said that the anti-social behaviour was nothing to do with her case. I may have seen Vid Boy in the group outside, but that didn’t mean that ther
e was any connection to the business with PC Johnston being assaulted.”
“I thought as much.” She raised her eyebrows in dismay. “What about the men blocking me this morning? Did you mention that?”
“Yeah, I did. She couldn’t see the connection.”
“See, that’s what I said would happen. It’s just us putting two and two together, and making five.” She began putting the folded washing into the laundry basket ready for ironing.
“She said that the town patrols would keep an eye on the group outside here, overnight, as and when they got any spare time. She did raise a valid point, though. If the two things were connected, what do they hope to achieve by hanging around outside, or by blocking you on the way to school, for that matter?” Sarah shrugged her shoulders. “Exactly! They would’ve said something, made threats, or made it clear what they wanted. They haven’t, so it must just be bad luck on our part that they chose now to loiter outside our house.”
“I guess so.”
“Think about it – they’ve made no demands, they’ve caused no damage, there’s no actual evidence linking one event to the other, and apart from one person being involved in both incidents, there’s nothing connecting them together at all.”
“When you put it like that, it makes a lot of sense. No wonder the police are doing nothing to help other than giving us a few passing patrols. I guess, to them, this is just trivial stuff, not proper crime.” They both laughed, feeling a lot happier about the whole situation.
As Sarah carried the laundry upstairs, Adam could not shake the thought that despite what he had just told his wife, there might still be a connection between both events. He could not prove anything, but his instinct told him that there was more to it than they were currently aware. This might just be the start of something.
...
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