Gripping Thrillers

by Iain Rob Wright

  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 idea 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 I 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.”

  “God,” Pen uttered, covering her mouth with her hand. “How did you get mixed up in all this, Andrew?”

  He felt a pinch of aggression, but managed to keep his anger from emerging. “I didn’t have much choice, Pen. I had to walk past him on the way to the chip shop. Apparently that’s all it takes to wind this guy up.”

  “None of this is your fault, sir,” Dalton said firmly, glancing at Pen as she spoke. “I’m afraid this is just the way some of today’s youth get their kicks.”

  “So what do we do?” asked Bex, sounding frightened. “How do we get this Frankie to leave us alone?”

  “I take it you’re going to arrest him?” Pen asked the officers.

  “We will question him, see what he has to say.”

  “What?” Andrew couldn’t believe it. “That’s it? You’ll go have a chat with him? He’ll deny everything.”

  “We will see what the forensic team brings up when they search the house a little later,” the man, Wardsley said. “If we find Frankie’s prints, then we will arrest him. Did anyone see him assault you last night?”

  Andrew shook his head.

  Wardsley stood up and patted Andrew on the back. “Okay, let me make a call to see what I can find out about this Frankie. In the meantime, pop the kettle on to calm your nerves. Things can all seem very overwhelming at this point.”

  “Okay.” Andrew nodded. “Thank you.”

  Dalton got up and went after her partner. They both went outside and returned to their squad car parked outside on the curb.

  Andrew joined his family on the sofa.

  “I can’t believe this has happened,” Pen told him. “That bastard was in my home.”

  Andrew put an arm around her. “It’ll be okay. The police will do something about it.”

  “Ha! You heard them, they probably won’t be able to do anything.”

  Andrew sighed. “Look, let’s just see what happens. No need to assume the worst yet.”

  “Are you okay, Dad?” Bex asked. “Did you get hurt when they attacked you?”

  “What do you think?” Pen snapped at her. “There’s nothing pleasant about being assaulted, is there?”

  Andrew hushed his wife. “Calm down. It’s not Rebecca’s fault. I’m fine, Bex, thank you. Just some sore ribs, but I’ll live. I’ll take today off work and rest up.”

  Pen shook her head at him angrily, yet the tears in her eyes betrayed the upset that she was really feeling. “Don’t you ever keep something like that from me again, Andrew.”

  “Yeah, never,” Bex added.

  Andrew reached over so he could hug them both at the same time. “I promise. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. What’s done is done though. You should go to work as normal, Pen. Don’t worry about me”

  Pen nodded then looked at Bex. “I’ll give you a lift to school, hun.”

  Bex frowned. “I don’t even get to have the day off school? Sucks!”

  Before any argument broke out on the subject, the police officers re-entered the room. Dalton was smiling politely, but Andrew could tell by her weary eyes that she didn’t have good news for them.

  “Mr Goodman,” she said. “Would you like to step outside for a moment?”

  “Why?”r />
  “Because we have information that you may wish to share with your family separately.”

  Andrew didn’t like the sound of that at all. He stood up and moved away from the sofa, following the officers out into the hallway. “What is it?” he asked, once they were out of earshot of his family.

  Wardsley looked down at his notepad and began reciting what he had written. “We weren’t personally aware of this individual when you first mentioned him, but then PC Dalton and I have recently exchanged from the Stratford branch. As it turns out, however, this Frankie is well known to the local branch.”

  “Who the hell is he?”

  “A scumbag,” replied Dalton, bluntly. “We shouldn’t comment on such things, but Francis Walker was put in a young offender’s institute at fifteen after stamping a fellow school pupil into a coma. When the police caught up to him, he had a grand’s worth of cocaine on his person.”

  Andrew couldn’t believe it. “What the hell was a kid doing with all that coke on him?”

  Wardsley shrugged. “Most likely he was selling it for a supplier. It’s common practise to get kids selling it–less suspicious. He obviously fell in with criminals at an early age, and he’s only gotten worse since being released.”

  “So why the hell is he back on the streets?”

  “Because he was convicted as a child,” said Dalton. “The courts take sympathy in such cases.”

  Andrew shook his head. “He should still be locked up. He’s a thug.”

  Wardsley cleared his throat. “Frankie Walker may well have been misled as an innocent child, but that doesn’t change the fact that since an early age, all he has been exposed to is crime and violence. There’s nothing else he knows, and it’s doubtful he’ll ever reform. I agree with you, Mr Goodman.”

  “So get him off the street.”

  “We intend to do that, but I’m afraid we can only do so with sufficient evidence.”

  “Well, what do I do until then? How do I protect my family?”

  Dalton handed him a contact card. “By locking up safe and calling us if anything else happens. We’ll be here, okay?”

  “We suggest keeping a diary,” said Wardsley, “of any further incidents. You could also install CCTV cameras.”

  “Cameras? A diary? Are you kidding me?”

  Wardsley shrugged. “May sound silly, but it will help support any cases we bring against Frankie in the future.”

  Andrew put a hand against his forehead. It was clammy. “I can’t believe this. It’s just a bunch of kids. Am I really in danger here?”

  “Probably not,” said PC Wardsley, “but Frankie is an unsavoury individual. It won’t hurt to be over-cautious. Take care and call us if anything happens. Anything at all.”

  Andrew let the police officers out of the house, locking the porch door behind them. He watched them drive off, and the whole time he was thinking: an unsavoury individual…

  Just how unsavoury are we talking?

  4

  Davie Walker awoke on an unfamiliar couch in an unfamiliar house. His back ached from his neck all the way down to his tailbone, and it took several confused minutes before he could remember where he was. There had been a party.

  How much did he drink last night? He felt like a lorry parked on his head.

  Several other people lay sprawled across the room, all semi-conscience and moaning in the same hung-over way that he was. Crumpled beer cans and empty bottles of vodka littered the floor, making it look more like a landfill than a home.

  It must have been one hell of a party.

  Davie rolled off of the sofa onto his knees. The carpet was wet beneath him, soaked with alcohol–or vomit. He felt it seep unpleasantly through to his jeans. Rising to his feet, he took a couple of unsteady footsteps, his vision struggling to focus as he moved across the lounge. A half-naked girl lay sprawled in his path, uncovered breasts pointing at the ceiling like beacons. Davie stepped over her like a speed bump and pushed through the door in front of him.

  It led into a kitchen that was as much a chaotic mess as the lounge had been; only this time, pizza and discarded snack food littered the floor in addition to all the beer cans. There was only one other person in the room–Dominic–passed out on the breakfast bar with his legs hanging off the edge. It was strange to see Dom without his twin, Jordan, but then Davie noticed him lying beneath the breakfast bar, as paralytic as his brother.

  Davie wondered where his own brother was. Frankie had disappeared around 3AM, but had promised to make it back to the party before daylight. Davie hoped he was okay and just shacked up with some bird–not seeking out trouble like he’d been doing non-stop since he’d got out the nick two months ago.

  Davie left the twins sleeping and exited into the next room. If his fuzzy memory of last night served him correctly, he would find a staircase that would hopefully lead him to a bathroom. If he didn’t piss soon, he was going to burst.

  Sure enough, Davie found himself in a beige-carpeted hallway with a staircase. He hurried up the steps two at a time, his bladder almost releasing itself as it anticipated imminent release. The bathroom was on the left. He pushed the door open urgently and dashed for the toilet. The bowl was already full of bright-yellow piss, but Davie was happy to add to it, sighing orgasmically as his bladder expelled its bitter contents.

  It was then that he heard shuffling beside him.

  Davie turned his head, still peeing too heavily to turn around fully. The noises seemed to be coming from the bathtub, from behind the shower curtain. There was someone there. He was powerless not to finish urinating, so that’s what he did first. Once he was finished, he hastily pulled the shower curtain aside.

  The boy in the bathtub was bound and gagged, secured to the unit’s mixer tap by a series of linked-up cable-ties. A gym sock filled his mouth and that, too, was secured by a cable tie pulled sadistically tight around his head. Completing the boy’s restraints were several more cable-ties around his ankles. The boy looked weary–like he’d been there all night.

  Davie reached into his pocket and pulled out his knife. The boy’s eyes widened with fear, but it wasn’t his intention to harm him. He slid the blade beneath the cable tie around the boy’s face and began sawing back and forth.

  Eventually, the cable tie snapped free.

  “You’re all fucking crazy,” the boy shouted after spitting out the sock.

  “Calm down,” said Davie. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”

  “Who the hell am I? This is my house you’re in.”

  Davie found that surprising. “So what are you doing tied up in here then?”

  “Because some psychopath crashed my birthday party and beat me up.”

  It was then that Davie noticed the bruising around the boy’s face. Someone had given him a birthday to remember. “Who beat you up?”

  “I did,” said Frankie, entering the room behind him. “I told him to chill out, but he insisted on calling the police. Had to put him down.”

  The boy shook his head. There was fear in his eyes at the sight of Frankie. “You forced your way into my home. What did you expect I would do?”

  Frankie perched himself on the edge of the bathtub and looked down at the boy. “Me and my mates were just looking to party. We could have all been friends, but you had to be selfish and keep all the fun to yourself.”

  “You’re a monster. You won’t get away with this.”

  “We should go,” Davie told his brother. “Last thing we need is any more trouble. You only just got out.”

  Frankie put a hand on Davie’s shoulder. There was a strong smell coming off his hands–like vinegar. “You worry too much, little bro,” he said.

  “And you worry too little.”

  “Okay, okay, fuck me.” Frankie raised his hands up in front of his face and adjusted his beanie hat. “Just let me take a piss first, okay?”

  Davie nodded and stepped away from the toilet. Frankie stood in front of it and undid the buttons on his flies, popping
them free one by one. Davie turned around to give him some privacy, but quickly turned back when he heard screams from the bathtub.

  Frankie had moved away from the toilet and was now urinating all over the cable-tied boy, causing him to struggle and choke as the golden stream covered his face and mouth.

  Davie stood in the doorway, stunned. “Shit, Frankie, what are you doing?”

  Frankie laughed heartily. “Hey, when a man’s got to go, a man’s got to go.”

  “Just stop it. He’s already going to call the pigs, so stop making things worse.”

  Frankie finished pissing and turned to face his brother. “You’re right, Davie. You’re always right. I should probably help the poor guy get cleaned up. Make things better for myself.”

  Davie was suspicious. Frankie wasn’t prone to sudden bouts of compassion. At least not since he got out of prison.

  Frankie winked at Davie and turned back around. He reached up for the chrome shower taps that were set into the tiled wall above the bathtub and gave one of them a hearty twist. Water cascaded from the showerhead, soaking the boy held captive below. Davie watched him squirm, a little at first, but then more urgently. Eventually the squirms turned to full-blown thrashing and Davie realised why.

  Frankie had turned on the hot tap.

  As the water heated up, the boy began to wail. His face turned red as the cable ties held him powerless beneath the scolding embrace. Davie moved forward to help, but Frankie shouldered him out of the room, pulling the door closed behind them as they stood on the landing.

  “Leave it,” said Frankie. “Quit acting like a pussy.”

  Davie sighed. “You just got out of the nick. You’ll end up straight back there if you keep pulling this bullshit all the time. First you rob that guy’s trainers last night, and now you’re burning people’s faces. It’s messed up.”

  Frankie shot out his arm, shoving his smaller brother up against the wall. “I’ll decide what’s fucked up. Who feeds you, Davie? That’s right, I fuckin’ do. If you have a problem with how I roll, then you can piss off. I’ve looked after you long enough to deserve a little respect.”