Gripping Thrillers

by Iain Rob Wright

  Frankie stormed off down the corridor and headed downstairs. Davie listened to the boy in the bathtub, still screaming, and stepped inside to help him. Frankie was his brother, and Davie loved him. He would always have his back, no matter what…

  But this is getting out of hand.

  Davie turned off the hot tap and looked down at the quivering boy in the bathtub. His face would never be the same again. Davie wondered how many more people would be damaged before his brother was through.

  Davie caught up with Frankie outside. He had joined up with the twins, Dom and Jordan, and the three of them were sitting, waiting for him on a small brick wall outside the house.

  “About time,” said Frankie. “What were you doing in there?”

  Davie shrugged. “Not in a rush, are you?”

  “Never in a rush, me. The world is my oyster.”

  Davie covered the distance between him and his older brother and took a deep breath. The fresh air of approaching winter was invigorating and chased away the fringes of his hangover.

  “That kid’s really hurt,” he said. “You’re going to go straight back inside for this.”

  Frankie spat on the floor. “I ain’t ever going back inside. I’ll die first.”

  “Then what the hell are you playing at, pulling shit like this? Kid you burned is going to go straight to the pigs.”

  Frankie laughed, apparently unbothered. “No way, little bro. You want me to tell you why that little piss-ant is going to keep his mouth shut?”

  Davie shrugged.

  “Going to keep his mouth shut for two reasons. Number one: I’ve already made sure I have a dozen people ready to swear-down that I weren’t nowhere near this house when the kid got burned. Number two: Dom and Jordan are about to go back inside and tell the kid that if he says one word to the pigs about me, they’ll visit him in the middle of the night and cut his face off.”

  Davie rubbed at his forehead. “Fuck man. This is so messed up.”

  “Stop being such a whiny little pussy,” said Dom.

  Frankie turned around and pointed a finger in the twin’s face. “Don’t be talking shit to Davie. That’s my blood, man. You get me?”

  Dom nodded and stepped backwards as if to yield to Frankie’s authority. Sometimes the respect his brother gained so easily from people left Davie in awe. It wasn’t a skill-set he himself possessed, or was ever likely to. Frankie was the strong one. Frankie was the one who people would always follow.

  Even if it was straight to a prison cell.

  Dom and Jordan went back inside to deliver their threat. Frankie pulled his brother aside, and the two of them started walking. “You got to chill out, little bro,” he said. “I know you’re just trying to watch my back, but things are sound, man. I ain’t going nowhere, you get me?”

  Davie let out a sigh and kicked at a loose pebble on the ground. It hit the curb before scuttling into a drain. “I just want you to be careful. Things were hard while you were gone. You know, with mom and everything.”

  “Let the drunken bitch rot. I’m looking after you again now, and this time it’s for good. I learned a lot while I was banged up, stuff about how to keep the pigs off your back while bringing in the big dollar.”

  “By selling drugs.”

  Frankie stopped walking and looked at Davie. His expression was one of understanding, and it reminded Davie of how kind-hearted his brother used to be–when they were both much younger. It seemed like ages ago now.

  “Yes, by selling drugs,” said Frankie matter-of-factly. “You and I are going to live the good life. Get ourselves out of the shit we grew up with. I got it all covered, little bro.”

  “If you go down for dealin’, you go down hard.”

  Frankie put his arm around Davie and pushed him back into walking. “Enough, man. Just chill out about it and leave the worrying to me. Got other things to be getting on with for now.”

  “Like what?” asked Davie.

  Frankie clapped his hands together and put on a big smile, stretching the scar across his lip. “We’re going to go and have ourselves some fun.”

  Davie smiled back, but secretly his empty stomach was churning anxiously. Davie was beginning to not like his big brother’s idea of fun.

  5

  At twelve-o-clock Andrew entered the chip shop and looked for Charlie. To his relief, she was there, standing alone behind the counter as she had been the previous evening. As always, she smiled at him as he entered, but this time, there was something a little apprehensive about her expression.

  “Hey,” Andrew said to her. “Working again?”

  The girl nodded. “Need the money. Saving for my sister’s hen party in Magaluf.”

  “Nice,” said Andrew, thinking he couldn’t imagine anywhere worse for a holiday.

  “What can I get you?”

  “Nothing actually. I’m here to see you.”

  Charlie looked worried, her mind perhaps jumping to conclusions.

  Andrew put his hands up to reassure her that he wasn’t after her number or anything else as inappropriate or weird. “I just wanted to ask you a question, that’s all. Nothing big.”

  She relaxed a little, her shoulders lowering. “You want to ask about Frankie, don’t you?”

  Andrew nodded.

  “He came in here last night, right before closing. Ordered fish and chips just like you did. I thought it was a coincidence.”

  “It wasn’t,” said Andrew.

  Charlie leant forward on the counter and let out a sigh. “I really don’t want to get involved. I told you to be careful.”

  Andrew stepped forward. “I know you did, because you’re a nice, caring person. I need you to keep being that way, because this animal is endangering my family.”

  Charlie looked up from the counter and made eye contact with him. Her eyes were blue and seemed to shimmer with sadness. “What do you want to know?” she asked.

  Andrew scratched at his head. “I don’t know really. How do you know Frankie?”

  “Went to school with him.”

  “And?”

  Charlie shrugged. “And he was a nightmare. Beating other kids up, vandalising anything he could get his hands on, stealing, drinking, shagging. You name it and Frankie Walker did it. Eventually he went down for something or other. Assault I think.”

  “He just went to a young offender’s home?”

  “Yeah, he was only a kid at the time.”

  Andrew laughed. “That’s all he is now. They should have kept him locked up.”

  “I agree.”

  “So what is he doing around here? I’ve never seen him before recently.”

  “He lives around here now,” said Charlie.

  Andrew shook his head. “No way. This is a nice area.”

  “Used to be. Council bought some of the property around here for social housing. Remember my dad kicking up a big fuss at the time. Got a petition going and everything.”

  Andrew leant forward onto the counter and let the weight off his legs. “I can’t believe they would put someone like Frankie in a nice part of town.”

  “Where else should they put him? Keep the poor with the poor, right?”

  Andrew straightened back up. “No… I don’t know what I think at the moment. I guess I just thought all council houses were grouped together.”

  Charlie shrugged. “I think that’s how it used to be. My dad said the Government wanted to space out council properties to avoid creating ghettos. That’s the right word, yeah?”

  Andrew nodded. “Yeah, ghetto is right. Except now it seems that we’re all getting a little slice of ghetto to call our own.”

  The shop’s door opened behind Andrew. Charlie wore her greeting smile as a customer walked in.

  Guess everyone got the smile. Not just him.

  “Look,” said Charlie, leaning forwards. “Like I said, I don’t want to get involved. But I can tell you that Frankie lives somewhere on Tanner’s Avenue. I know because a girl who used to be my
best friend is now a drugged-up skank, thanks to him. I haven’t spoken to her in months, but that’s where she used to go see him when we were still friends.”

  Andrew nodded and said thanks, but the girl was already serving the new customer, acting as though the conversation had never happened. Probably for the best, he thought as he left the shop and headed for home.

  So Frankie has a home. Perhaps he has parents there? He’s still just a kid, so someone should be in charge of him. Maybe someone that has a little bit of control over him.

  Andrew didn’t hold up much hope, but it was an option. Maybe Frankie would leave him alone if his own family knew of his behaviour. Andrew considered making the journey to Tanner’s lane later this evening.

  Maybe I can put a stop to this before anything else happens.

  Andrew turned the corner and lost his breath at the sight that met him there. His bright red Mercedes had been modified. Its expensive bodywork was now emblazoned by coarse, black gloss-paint, spelling out words in several places.

  The words read: pedo.

  Pedo, Pedo, Pedo.

  Andrew fell back into his armchair in the lounge and stared into space. The sound of his family returning, their voices like the distant droning, of anxious wasps. He was hearing their words but was unable to assemble them into cognitive meanings. Eventually he had to will his mind to return back to reality.

  “…ell are they playing at?”

  Andrew looked up at his wife, standing before him and shaking like a leaf. “Huh?”

  “I said, what the hell are they playing at? Who behaves like this? Animals!”

  Andrew leant his head back against the armchair’s headrest and examined the ceiling. The wind in his lungs seemed to stick in his throat as he let out a breath. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. I still can’t believe any of this has happened.”

  “Why you though, dad?” Bex asked from the sofa. She was holding up well, but Andrew knew that deep down she was just as unnerved as her mother.

  Andrew lowered his head and shrugged at his daughter. “Don’t know sweetie. If it wasn’t me then it would have just been someone else.”

  “I still don’t understand why you won’t call the police again,” said Pen.

  “Because it won’t do any good. Unless someone saw it happen, they will have nothing to go on.”

  Pen clicked her fingers at him and motioned for him to get up. “Well bloody well find out if anyone did see. Ask the neighbours.”

  Andrew took another moment to stare into space, before eventually nodding his head. “Okay. Maybe someone did see something.”

  Andrew stood up and left the room. He was already wearing his shoes–not something he usually did indoors, but the carpet was already ruined with chip fat anyway–so he stepped through into the porch and opened the front door. Outside, his eyes again came to rest upon his vandalised vehicle and the disgusting words written all over it. There was no way he could drive to work until it was repainted. That led him to think what exactly he would say when he dropped it off at the garage.

  ‘Oh, I’m not a pedo. It’s just some of the local kids having fun.’ Yeah right!

  The street was deserted–the vandals come and gone without any remnant of their presence. It seemed unlikely that anyone had witnessed the crime. It was a Tuesday morning, and Andrew knew that most of the people on his street had day jobs. The lack of parked cars only reinforced the assumption.

  Next door, though–number 16–was home to an elderly couple. Most likely they would be his best bet as they were both retired. The chance of them being home during the day was a healthy possibility. Andrew pressed their doorbell and waited.

  It was a full minute later when he pressed the bell again.

  Oh well. There goes my best shot.

  He was just about to turn away when he noticed a twitch in the living room curtains. He couldn’t be sure, but it seemed as though there had been someone looking out the window at him. Now they had slunk away, ignoring him.

  “Hello,” Andrew shouted, stepping back to try and get a better view of the window. The shifting silhouette confirmed to him that someone was indeed inside. “Excuse me,” he said. “I need to talk to you, if that’s okay?”

  Nothing.

  Andrew stood motionless, at a loss for what to do. Why wouldn’t they talk to him? Why would a nice elderly couple that had said hello to him for years not want to open the door to him? When he turned around, he realised the reason why: the words written on his car.

  Pedo, pedo, pedo.

  It was becoming clear that whatever happened from now on, no one was going to help him. The panic-inducing power of the words on his car was enough to turn his neighbours against him. Innocent or not, he would be seen as a deviant in their eyes. No smoke without fire.

  They think I’m a pedophile.

  Tanner’s Avenue was a quiet cul-de-sac of terraced houses, lined on either side by leafless trees that towered above Andrew like judgemental skeletons. One of the homes belonged to Frankie, if what Charlie had told him was correct, but as for which one Andrew had no clue. There were at least twenty identical properties—each with the same drab lawns and featureless facades.

  Andrew decided the best thing to do would be to just pick a house at random and ask the occupants if they knew which house was Frankie’s. He chose a house with a green-painted door and a brass number plate: 17.

  Upon knocking, it took about fifteen seconds for the door to be opened. A diminutive gentleman, at least in his early sixties, appeared in the doorway. His hair thinned above his delicate round spectacles, and he seemed withered and stressed-out.

  “Can I help you?” the man asked him in a tone that was in no way friendly.

  “Hello there,” said Andrew. “Sorry to bother you, but I was hoping you could tell me if you knew where a young man named Frankie lives.”

  The old man’s eyes narrowed and he took a half step backwards.

  “You know him?” asked Andrew.

  “Who wants to know?”

  “I do. He’s been causing problems outside my house and I wanted to speak to his parents.”

  “Ha!” the man laughed so hard it sounded like something tore loose in his throat. “Good luck! There’s only his mother to talk to, and she’s just as bad as him. Ruined this street that bloody family have. A plague on all our houses.”

  “The family?” asked Andrew. “The whole family is a problem?”

  The man nodded. “That Frankie is an evil little bleeder, no argument about it, but you’ll hardly blame him when you meet his degenerate mother. Never seen the woman sober the whole time she’s lived here. Even passed out in the middle of the road once. Lucky someone didn’t run her over… more’s the pity.”

  Andrew shrugged his shoulders and already felt like the whole thing was a bad idea. It was the only option he had right now, though. “Can you point me to the right house please? I have to at least try to speak some sense to them.”

  The man sighed. “Like I said, good luck. They live at number 8.”

  Andrew thanked the man and moved away from his door. Number 8 was directly behind, and he turned and made his way over to it. Reaching the house a moment later, he was surprised he hadn’t realised sooner that it belonged to Frankie. The front door was chipped and dented, the paint peeling away in great chunks, whilst the path leading up to it was overgrown with weeds and discarded beer cans. One of the upper windows of the house was boarded-up, while another was emblazoned with a faded England flag. If it were not for the bushes outside of the property, it would have stuck out like a sore thumb—a dilapidated slum amongst a row of far better kept properties.

  Here goes nothing, Andrew told himself as he made his way up the path, having to step over what looked like a rotting condom on one of the slabs about halfway up. There was no buzzer on the door–no knocker either–so he was forced to rap his knuckles against the sharp splinters of the rotting wood.

  No one came to answer, but Andrew cou
ld hear commotion from somewhere inside of the house. It was the sound of someone clumsily making their way through the reception hallway, bumping into any nearby furniture en route. He held his breath and suddenly realised that his stomach was deeply unsettled. Having to wait so long for the door to open made the feeling even worse.

  It was a full minute later when a dishevelled woman appeared. Her hair was wild on one side, but matted and damp on the other, as if she had been lying in a puddle.

  “Wahya wan?” she asked.

  Andrew smiled at the woman who, he now noticed, was wearing nothing but a flimsy nightgown that was a size too small. Her shinbones were covered in bruises. “Are you Frankie’s mother?”

  She gave Andrew a drilling stare. “Who are ya? Don’t look like yer from the social.”

  “That’s because I’m not.”

  “So wahya wan then?” The woman was shouting now, her words coming out in aggressive slurs and bad breath–alcohol and smoke. “Wahya wan with my Frankie?”

  “So you are his mother? I was hoping you could have a word with him for me?”

  “Talk to im about wah?”

  Andrew took a deep breath and tried not to let the woman’s inability to have a polite conversation deter him. He still believed that everyone had the capacity for rationality–it was just deeply buried in some people—especially when they were drunk and possibly stoned.

  “He’s been causing me some problems,” Andrew explained. “He broke into my home last night, and today he vandalised my car.”

  The woman snorted back a nose full of snot. “Got proof?”

  “Do I need it?” asked Andrew. “I’m simply asking you to talk to him. I don’t wish to cause any trouble for you, ma’am. I just want Frankie to leave my family and me alone.”

  The woman huffed. “He don’t listen to me, mate. Does wah he wans, that boy.”

  “But you’re his mother.”