Compulsion

by Shaun Hutson

  Her breath was coming in gasps. She felt angry with herself for allowing her mind to drag her along such a line of thought.

  A bomb in her car?

  Bloody ridiculous.

  So start the engine.

  Absolutely bloody ridiculous.

  She turned the key, heart thudding madly against her ribs.

  Too late now.

  The engine started first time.

  Ronni closed her eyes so tightly that white stars danced behind the lids.

  There was no bomb.

  She stuck the Fiesta in gear and guided it towards the driveway, the wheels crunching gravel beneath them.

  As she drove she glanced to her left and right, into the trees and bushes that stood sentinel there.

  Nothing moved except the branches, buffeted by the wind.

  If anyone was watching from behind those branches, she didn’t see them.

  “SHE’S JUST COMING out now.” Liam Harper spoke quietly into the mobile phone, watching as the Fiesta turned out of the driveway of Shelby House.

  “Follow her,” Carl Thompson told him, his voice sounding curiously metallic on the other end of the line.

  Harper dropped the mobile back into his coat pocket, then rode his bike out onto the road.

  Terry Mackenzie followed.

  “Don’t get too close or she’ll see us,” Harper instructed.

  “We should have done her fucking tyres too,” Mackenzie observed.

  “Next time.” Harper chuckled as the two boys rode on, never once letting the Fiesta slip from sight.

  As Ronni drove, she could feel a cold draft coming through the crack in her windscreen. She turned up the heating slightly.

  Tomorrow, before she arrived at work, she’d take the car into a local garage; get the windscreen and wing mirrors replaced and get them to check that nothing else had been tampered with.

  Like brake cables. Weren’t they sometimes cut?

  Ronni afforded herself a smile. Maybe her paranoia was getting a little out of hand after all.

  Nevertheless, as she drove, she couldn’t help but wonder who had damaged the cars. And why?

  She wondered if Faulkner had any enemies he hadn’t told her about. Perhaps that was why his car had been so comprehensively trashed while hers had just been knocked about a bit.

  Surely, if the perpetrator of the damage had been so hellbent on destruction, it would have been a minor step to have slashed her tyres too?

  Perhaps that was also why he didn’t want the police called.

  It might be something personal.

  Something he didn’t want to talk about.

  She began to consider exactly how much she knew about Gordon Faulkner. He was thirty-six years old. Lived alone. Used to work at the local hospital as a porter. Had never been married.

  That was it. The sum total of her knowledge about a man she worked with on an almost daily basis.

  She had no idea what kind of friends or enemies he had.

  One of them could quite easily have damaged his car.

  But why hers too?

  She slowed down as she approached a set of traffic lights stuck on red.

  On the road behind, Liam Harper also slowed down. He allowed his bike to roll alongside the Fiesta and sat waiting.

  Terry Mackenzie rode ahead on the pavement, bringing his own bike to a halt fifty or sixty yards further on.

  Ronni glanced at the boy on the bike beside her.

  He was staring distractedly at the lights, anxious for them to change. When they did he moved away first, then allowed Ronni to cruise past him again.

  She turned a corner and sought the lamp post outside the house where she usually parked.

  After what had happened outside Shelby House earlier that evening, she was glad that the street light was shining on the vehicle. It felt like a little extra security.

  Harper swung himself off his bike as he watched her bring the Fiesta to a halt.

  Ronni sat behind the wheel for a moment, then finally clambered out.

  From the back seat she took a small plastic bag full of shopping.

  She locked each door in turn, then double-checked the boot was firmly shut. Only then did she begin digging in her handbag for the house keys.

  She found them and made her way up the short path to the front door.

  Harper watched her enter, then pulled the mobile from his pocket and jabbed out the required digits.

  “She’s just parked the car,” he said as soon as the phone was answered.

  “Where?” Thompson asked.

  Harper told him.

  “All right,” Thompson muttered.

  “You don’t have to hang around.”

  Mackenzie joined Harper and both of them stood looking across at the house.

  “What are we going to do?” Harper wanted to know.

  “You’re not going to do anything,” Thompson told him.

  “Just leave it. Are you sure about that fucking address?”

  Harper repeated it.

  “What are you going to do?” he enquired excitedly.

  “I might pay her a little visit later tonight; maybe remind her old man not to get so mouthy. Who knows?”

  “If she looks after those old cunts she’s probably got money too,” Harper offered.

  “I bet when one of them dies they leave their money to her.”

  “I might find out later. Now just get away from there before someone sees you hanging around.”

  The line went dead.

  Harper pocketed his own mobile, then swung himself back onto his bike.

  “Well?” Mackenzie wanted to know.

  “What now? Do we finish the job on the car?”

  “Not outside her own house, you prick,” Harper sneered.

  “Not this time. Come on.”

  The two of them rode off.

  Ronni didn’t stay long at her father’s house.

  She unpacked the few items of shopping she’d got for him and stored each in its place. Then she made sure there was nothing else he wanted.

  There wasn’t.

  She didn’t mention the incident with the vandalized cars.

  No need.

  James Connor rebuked her gently for fussing over him. Then he thanked her and told her she’d inherited her caring nature from her mother.

  He told her he loved her.

  As he always did.

  She told him she’d call in again the following day.

  Ronni kissed him at the door, then walked back to the Fiesta and drove off.

  Ten minutes later, she was home.

  It was 9.46 p.m.

  THE NOISE THAT woke him sounded like a creaking board.

  James Connor blinked hard and propped himself up on one elbow.

  The sound came again.

  He murmured under his breath and swung himself out of bed.

  It could be a floorboard.

  The house was still settling. Timbers contracting, that kind of thing.

  As he wandered out of the bedroom he glanced at his watch: 1.32 a.m.

  He’d been in bed for more than two hours now, but his sleep had been fitful. He hadn’t enjoyed a good night’s sleep since his wife’s death. Tablets from the doctor, herbal remedies from the chemists; none seemed to have given him that peace he had always found so easily when she’d been alive.

  As he pushed open the door of the bathroom he was beginning to wonder if the noise he’d heard had been the residue of a dream.

  The tiles of the bathroom felt cold under his feet and he shivered as he stood and urinated as quickly as a suspect prostate would allow. He was about to flush the toilet when he heard the sound again.

  From below him this time.

  Radiators cooling down?

  He moved out onto the landing and looked down into the black maw that was the staircase.

  The street lights were out. There was little natural light seeping through the bevelled glass panel in the front door.
<
br />   There was a thud from below.

  Movement.

  He sucked in a deep breath and placed one foot on the top step.

  It creaked loudly and he cursed the sound.

  For interminable seconds he stood motionless at the top of the stairs.

  The house was again filled with silence.

  Perhaps the noise had come from next door, he reasoned. They had small children. One of them could be mucking about. Sound could be deceptive in the dead of night. Its source wasn’t always immediately obvious.

  He moved onto the next step, straining his ears.

  His vigilance was rewarded with more sounds.

  Low, occasional hissing. Like conspiratorial whispering.

  The sounds would come in short bursts, then the silence would return again like a cloak.

  This time he was certain the noises were coming from downstairs.

  Connor stepped back onto the landing, then crossed again into the bedroom. He reached beneath his bed and pulled out the cricket bat that lay there.

  As he straightened up he glanced at one of the photos of his wife propped on the bedside table. She watched him as he moved towards the staircase, clutching the bat before him.

  He paused once more at the top.

  Again he heard the low hissing sound.

  His heart was thudding hard against his ribs now.

  There could be no mistake.

  Someone was inside the house.

  As CONNOR EDGED slowly down the narrow staircase he wondered if there were better, more sensible options.

  Bang on a wall, attract attention from one of the neighbours?

  Call the police?

  Minor problem: the phone was in the living room.

  He was halfway down now, enveloped by the deep umbra.

  The sounds were clearer.

  There was movement from the living room and the kitchen beyond.

  He paused and swallowed hard. Perhaps he should just go back upstairs. Let them take what they wanted. He had nothing valuable. The most valuable thing he’d ever possessed was gone: his wife.

  Go back upstairs and leave them to it. What are they going to get? A TV, a microwave and a video.

  Nothing worth risking your neck for.

  He stood motionless, considering the options.

  His palms were sweaty around the handle of the cricket bat.

  His heart was hammering against his ribs so hard he felt sure the intruders would hear him.

  Intruders.

  How many were there?

  He drew in a shaking breath.

  Go back upstairs and wait for them to finish.

  It seemed the most sensible choice.

  Whatever was taken could be claimed back off the house insurance.

  And what if they came upstairs? What then?

  Confrontation might be unavoidable.

  Bang on the bloody wall. Get help from the neighbours.

  And what if they didn’t come? What if they just banged back? Shouted that he was disturbing the kids?

  Connor gritted his teeth.

  There were intruders in his house. Someone was on his property, trying to steal his belongings.

  If Margaret had still been alive he wouldn’t have thought twice about confronting these intruders.

  There should only ever have been one option.

  The bastards weren’t going to get away with it.

  He felt suddenly angry with himself for even thinking about hiding from them and that anger propelled him down the last few steps into the hall.

  He stood there silently, ear close to the door that led into the sitting room.

  The occasional flash of torchlight showed beneath it.

  Thieving bastards.

  He put one hand on the door handle and waited.

  There was a light switch just inside the room. If he could reach that and slap it on, he could catch them by surprise.

  They’d probably run for it. If they didn’t he’d lay into them with the bat.

  He sucked in a deep breath. Anger had replaced fear now.

  How dare they enter his house.

  Silence from inside the living room.

  Perhaps they’d already slipped out.

  He moved the door handle slightly.

  Had they heard him? Were they waiting for him?

  He heard that whispering once more.

  Now. Do it now.

  James Connor pushed the living-room door open and flapped at the light switch with one hand. The other gripped the cricket bat.

  “Right, you bastards,” he snarled, stepping into the room.

  As he did, he realized he’d made a mistake.

  THERE WERE TWO of them: one man, one woman.

  Although, as he looked at them, he realized the terms were barely appropriate. One boy and one girl would have been more to the point.

  In the split second he burst into the room to confront the intruders he could see that the would-be thieves were in their early teens.

  Still thieves, though.

  Time seemed to have frozen.

  In the glaring light they stared at each other. Then Connor saw the devastation in the room.

  Everything it was possible to smash had been smashed.

  Every ornament. Every picture frame.

  They’d all been shattered.

  Furniture had been overturned.

  The sofa and one of the chairs had been carved open. Stuffing and springs protruded like entrails from a gutted corpse.

  The television had been tipped off its stand, the screen splintered. A small plume of white smoke rose from the back of the broken set.

  As he stood there he felt a cold breeze blowing from the direction of the kitchen. There was a broken pane of glass in one of the windows. Doubtless how they’d gained entry.

  Gained entry to his house.

  He moved towards the boy with a speed that belied his years, swinging the bat around with tremendous power.

  The youth raised an arm to protect his head and the wood smacked against his forearm with a dull crack.

  Connor swung again, this time at the girl. She avoided the blow and backed off towards the kitchen.

  “Go on, get out!” Connor shouted.

  He turned on the boy once more, bringing the bat down again as he tried to sprint past him. It caught him across the shoulder blade and sent him sprawling.

  “Get out of my house!” bellowed Connor, reinforced by his success against the intruders.

  They were both making for the kitchen now, the boy rubbing his injured forearm.

  The girl pushed him into the other room and stood defiantly before Connor, who raised the bat again.

  As he swung she stepped back into the kitchen.

  Connor followed.

  They were both making for the back door now, anxious to be away from the savage blows.

  Connor almost managed a smile.

  Then he felt a crushing impact against the back of his head.

  White-hot pain filled his skull and he dropped to his knees, the bat falling from his hands.

  He realized the third intruder had stepped from behind the open kitchen door.

  Connor had no idea what had been used to fell him.

  It didn’t really matter.

  Carl Thompson gripped the length of piping in one hand and stood over the old man.

  Graham Brown snatched up the cricket bat and hefted it before him.

  Donna Freeman also took a step towards him.

  Connor knew he had to get up, but something told him it would be impossible.

  He was right.

  Thompson hit him again, splitting the back of his head open.

  Brown swung the bat and caught him across the side of the face with a blow that splintered one cheekbone.

  Donna brought the spike heel of her ankle boot down onto his outstretched hand, spearing the appendage and shattering several small bones. She then drove a kick into his ribs.

  Thompson too was
kicking hard into Connor’s stomach and sides.

  The old man tried to pull himself into a foetal position, hands clasped over his head.

  Brown hammered at those hands with the bat, breaking three fingers until Connor could protect himself no longer.

  The bat connected with his skull and effortlessly split the skin.

  Blood was spreading across the kitchen floor as the blows continued to rain down.

  Tucking old cunt,” Brown snarled, bringing the sole of his boot down hard on the old man’s face.

  His nose broke fresh blood sprayed into the air.

  Brown was jumping up and down, one foot always landing on the old man, ensuring that each impact caused the maximum damage.

  Thompson concentrated on the ribs.

  Old bones.

  They broke easily.

  Donna kicked at his arms and shoulders, the toes of her boots making red circular marks on Connor’s flesh.

  They seemed to be competing to see who could inflict the most pain; not one piece of skin was left unmarked, not one bone unbroken.

  Connor was lying on his back, eyes half open.

  Blood was running from both sides of his half-open mouth, mingling with the crimson fluid already pouring from the dozens of cuts disfiguring his face.

  His dentures dropped down and Brown dug two fingers into the blood-filled orifice to pull them free. He scooped them out onto the floor and crushed them beneath one foot.

  Connor was gurgling, blood filling his throat.

  “That’s enough,” snapped Thompson.

  “Leave him.”

  “What about the rest of the house?” Brown wanted to know.

  “What about that fucking bitch and her old man?”

  “Fuck it. Who cares? If she’s upstairs now she’ll be calling the law anyway,” Thompson told him, pushing his companions towards the back door.

  He was about to join them when he noticed Connor’s wedding ring.

  Old. Might even be antique. Worth a few bob to someone.

  He knelt beside the motionless man and tried to slide the ring free.

  It wouldn’t budge.

  He pulled harder; hard enough to dislocate the finger. It came free of the socket with a loud pop.

  Still the ring wouldn’t move.

  Thompson spat on it, using his saliva as lubricant.

  The ring came free at last and he pushed it into the pocket of his Levi’s.

  Then he walked towards the back door, stepped outside and gently closed it behind him.

  Lights flickered on in the house next door.

  SHE HEARD THE phone on the second ring.