Her surgery had ended a couple hours ago and she was now lying deathly still. Stitches and gauze covered her throat while a drip entered the artery of her right arm, supplying her body with whatever it was that the Doctors thought it needed.
“I’ll make this right,” Andrew whispered to his dying wife. “I’ll make them pay for what they’ve done – for what they’ve done to you and Rebecca.”
Pen said nothing.
He sat for a while and listened to the silence, wishing beyond all hope that the woman he loved would sit up and say something. It wasn’t going to happen, though – might not ever happen.
Tears fell from his eyes and stained the thin white cotton sheets that covered his wife’s injured body. “I failed you, Pen. It’s my job to keep you safe. How can I ever forgive myself? If you die, how will I go on? I’ve loved you since the day we met. Life wouldn’t make sense without you. Please don’t go.” He leant forward and laid his head against her stomach. He could hear her heart pumping – slow and steady – the pause between each beat a balancing act between life and death. “Please don’t leave me, Pen. Our daughter needs you.”
“Sorry to interrupt,” said a young blonde nurse, entering the room, “but your daughter has just woken up.”
Andrew’s stomach churned and he had to swallow back a mouthful of stomach acid.
What the hell did he say to her? A kid shouldn’t have to deal with something like this.
Andrew got up, kissed his wife’s forehead, then followed the nurse out of the room. Both Penelope and Rebecca had been moved once their surgery concluded and were now in separate parts of the building. Pen was in ICU under constant watch, while Bex was in the convalescence ward. They were on separate floors and it took Andrew five minutes of marching through a maze of corridors to reach his daughter’s room.
Although obviously weak, Bex smiled at him as soon as he entered the room. his heart ached at the sight of her. Dark-brown hair matted her forehead and her usually rosy complexion had turned ashen. She looked like a zombie from one of the films she loved to watch.
“Hey,” Andrew said as he placed himself down on a cheap plastic chair beside the bed. “How are you feeling, sweetheart?”
“Like I got stabbed with a pair of scissors.”
Andrew grinned, happy that his daughter’s sense of humour had not been damaged despite everything. “Arts and crafts never were your strong point, Bex.”
“How’s mum?”
He had hoped the question would wait, that his daughter would not remember events so much as to realise that she was not the only one who’d been injured. Telling Bex that her mother might be dying would not be good for her own recovery.
But he couldn’t lie to her, not his own daughter.
“She’s bad, sweetheart. The doctors have told us to wait and see, but right now she’s not responding. Her surgery went okay, though, which is a good sign. We have to hold on to the positives.”
Bex looked her father in the eyes and wore an expression that seemed to hold more sadness than should have been possible for such a young girl. “Why did they do this to us, Dad?”
Andrew shook his head and looked down at the floor. “I don’t know. Really, I don’t.”
“They would have killed us all if you hadn’t done something.”
Andrew sighed. “I got you both stabbed!”
“It would have been worse if you’d done nothing.”
“I might not have gotten the chance if Davie hadn’t tried to put a stop to things first.”
Bex looked concern. “You think he’ll be okay? What if the others blame him?”
Andrew shrugged his shoulders and winced at the pain that shot through his ribs. “To be honest the only people I’m concerned about are you and your mother. Davie still sat and watched Frankie tortured us. He did what was right at the end, but it wasn’t enough.”
“Don’t be angry, Dad.”
Andrew looked at his daughter. “Don’t be angry. Are you joking?”
She shook her head wearily. “If you’re angry then you’re just letting them get away with even more. Of course I want them all arrested and sent to prison…for-like-ever…but I won’t let them inside my head. They don’t deserve to change who we are, Dad. You’re not an angry person, so don’t let them make you one.”
Andrew couldn’t believe his daughter was so willing to move on. Would she feel the same way if the doctors came in and told her that her mother was dead? Would she let anger into her heart then? Andrew understood what his daughter was saying, but it was too late to put aside his emotions – anger had already infested his soul and taken root. There was no going back to the man he was before. That mad was dead.
He needed to change the subject, for dwelling on the subject was already making his heart grow heavy with rage. “Should I go home and get you some things, sweetheart? What would you like?”
Bex smiled at him, but seemed trapped in a constant state of drowsiness – as if she could not escape the fringes of sleep. “That would be nice,” she muttered. “Can you pick me up some magazines from the shop? Then I just want my iPod and my…phone.”
Andrew thought about his own phone. He had not called work in days and would probably not have a job to return to anymore. He put such worries aside, for now they seemed utterly unimportant. He gave Bex a warm smile to match the one she had given him. “I’ll go home now and get them for you. I won’t be long, but you try and get some rest in the meantime.”
Bex nodded and already seemed to be falling into a deep sleep, so he exited the room quietly and went out into the corridor that was bustling with staff and patients. An old man ambled past, trundling a drip-stand behind him, and said, hello. Andrew said it back to him and was surprised that pleasantries were still within his capabilities.
Andrew went up to the nurse’s station and asked a question. “Is there somewhere I can find a taxi?”
The nurse nodded. “There’s a small taxi rank on the east-side of the car park. Can’t miss it.”
Andrew hadn’t seen it when he’d entered the hospital, but then he had not been paying attention to such things. His plan was to catch a taxi home, get Bex’s things, then immediately return via taxi as well – he wasn’t up to driving with his nerves the way they were.
The corridor on his left had an EXIT sign so he took it. It led through to a waiting room and then straight out into the car park. Before he left, he noticed something and stopped. His heart rose up into his throat, filling his mouth with the taste of copper.
Sat in a nearby waiting room, looking extremely sorry for himself, was one of the twins – Jordan, if Andrew wasn’t mistaken. The bite wound on the boy’s perspiration-soaked face was glistening with pus and blood. Infection had set in and the boy looked in a great deal of discomfort. Andrew was glad.
But it wasn’t enough. Jordan would recover and put the whole thing behind him like it had all been one big giggle.
Andrew moved to the rear of the room behind Jordan, so that the youth would not see him. Of the options available, none seemed clear. He could call Wardsley and Dalton, but had little faith that they could do much other than hold the boy for a day or two. The twin’s parents would probably turn up and have him released. The other option was to attack the son of a bitch right now – to wring the little bastard’s neck – but that would result only in his own arrest. Andrew took a seat and decided to wait and think.
***
Twenty minutes later a nurse called out a name: Jordan Ebanks. Andrew watched the boy get up and then slowly followed after him, making sure to stay several steps behind. The nurse took Jordan into a consultation area that contained two rows of adjustable gurneys inside curtained surroundings. Jordan hopped up on one of the beds, but then the nurse pulled the curtain closed and Andrew lost sight of him.
He crept forward and tried to look inconspicuous by nodding hello to anyone who noticed him. Putting his head down, he hurried over to Jordan’s cubicle and stopped just outside of
it. He listened to the conversation coming from inside.
“How did it happen?” asked the female voice that belonged to the nurse. “Looks like a bite mark.”
“Got jumped by some nutter, innit; think he was a crackhead or something. Must have thought he was a zombie or summin cus he took a chunk outta me.”
Lying little shit, Andrew thought. Why don’t you tell her what really happened?
“Well,” said the nurse, “if that is what happened then you should inform the police.”
Jordan sucked at his teeth. “Don’t deal with the pigs, sweetheart. I deal with my biz’nis direct, if you get me?”
The nurse ignored the boy’s bravado and carried on with her job diligently. Andrew assumed she had heard such nonsense before and paid it little mind. “I’ll get this bandaged for you,” she said, “but then you’ll need a course of general antibiotics. If it gets any worse you’ll need to come back.”
“Sound,” said Jordan. “I’ll make sure I ask for you, sweetheart.”
“If you wish,” replied the nurse, unable to sound any less-interested. “I’m just going to get a doctor for your prescription, then I’ll come get you dressed up.”
“I like getting undressed better,” Jordan quipped, but the nurse had already exited the cubicle.
Now that the boy was alone, Andrew found himself frozen. He hadn’t thought about what he would do next, and without a game plan, he allowed his instincts to take over. He slipped inside the curtain and faced Jordan.
The boy’s bloodshot eyes went wide. “Jesus Christ! The fuck you doing here?”
“You put my entire family in hospital. Where the hell did you think I’d be, you moron?”
“Man, you must be outta your mind, frontin’ on me!”
Andrew took a step closer, a snarl on his lips. “You almost kill my family, yet you can flirt with the fucking nurse like nothings happened. You think I’m the one who’s out of my mind? You’re a monster.”
“Hey, that shit was Frankie’s deal. I was just along for the ride, blud, you gte me?”
“Well you won’t have a problem telling the police what happened then?”
Jordan’s sickly face turned sour. “I ain’t saying shit to no one – especially the pigs. Frankie’s my boy and I don’t know what you’re talking about anyway. I ain’t seen him in weeks. If someone took it to your family then they must’ve had it coming.”
Before Andrew had any chance to realise what he was doing, he’d thrown a punch at Jordan hard enough to knock the boy right off the bed.
“Motherfucker!” Jordan sprang back up to his feet immediately, lashing out at Andrew, not with his fists, but with a blade that he had suddenly produced from somewhere. “You lost your mind, whitey?”
Andrew didn’t retreat. He rushed foreard to meet the boy and managed to get both hands around his knife-arm. A struggle ensued that sent the pair of them stumbling against the gurney. Andrew had the advantage of leverage, and managed to get above Jordan and forced him down against the bed. The knife pointed straight at Andrew’s face but it got no closer. In fact, it began to move away. The tip of the blade twisted and shook, gradually pointing itself in the opposite direction. Towards Jordan.
Jordan’s strength began to falter and the knife moved faster – perhaps it was the infection making him weak. Andrew realised that weapon was now under his control.
But what exactly did he want to happen? What the hell was he doing?
Despite his weakening struggles, Jordan still found the gall to spit in Andrew’s face. “Fuckin’ white-boy. You and your family are dead.”
Andrew pushed down on the knife, applying all of his remaining strength and weight until the tip entered Jordan just below his bottom rib. All of the aggression disappeared and was replaced by the whimpering cries of a child. “P-please man…please don’t. Don’t!”
But this was no child in front of him. It was a monster.
Andrew pushed the knife in further and twisted it.
He watched the life drain from the Jordan’s eyes.
He twisted the knife again. The last glimmers of life disappeared from the boy’s eyes and his body slump against the gurney.
Andrew peered down at the blood on his hands and could barely acknowledge what he’d just done. To murder a man was something impossible to him, yet he had just done it. Even more disturbing was that he didn’t care about it one bit. In fact, he felt good about it. Not happy exactly, but at least satisfied.
Andrew felt the hairs prick up on the back of his neck. There was a presence behind him. He spun around to find the nurse standing behind him in shock, her mouth hanging wide open while her eyes fixated on the dead youth laying on her gurney.
“I’m sorry,” Andrew told the woman, “he deserved it.”
Then he ran.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Andrew managed to sprint right through the hospital and out into the car park without anyone stopping him. Other than a few funny looks, no one even seemed to notice him. Now that he was outside, he decided to slow down and disappear casually into the night.
Just as the male nurse had informed him, there was a small taxi rank on one side of the car park. It consisted of only two cars but he wasted no time in heading there. He realised that he was covered in blood, but most of it was on his hands, and only a small amount spattered his shirt. He wondered how he would explain it to the taxi driver, but wouldn’t they be used to such things, picking up passengers from a hospital?
He reached the taxi and pulled open the rear door. The car was a featureless, silver saloon and the driver was a young Asian man who nodded at him as he entered the vehicle.
“Where to, my friend?”
Andrew gave his address and the driver set off, pulling out onto the main road speedily as if he had done so a thousand times before. It had gotten dark outside and the weather had started to worsen too. The rain increased gradually as if it had been waiting for night to fall before it could get started on its relentless tirade.
“Bad winter this year, my friend,” said the driver, peering into the rear-view mirror to look at Andrew.
Andrew didn’t want to make eye-contact so looked down at his hands. His fingers were stiffening under a thick cake of Jordan’s blood. “Yeah,” he replied after a few seconds, deciding that making conversation would be less suspicious. “A lot of snow coming apparently. Hope there’re no accidents on the road like last year. That was a bad one.”
The driver nodded. “That poor man and his family? Drunk driver killed his wife and child?”
I know how he feels, thought Andrew, but then chastised himself for it. Bex was going to be okay and he would not know the loss of a child. He thanked God for that.
“The guy doesn’t live that far from me actually,” Andrew added. “He drinks in The Trumpet, I think.”
“Rough in there,” said the driver. “I’ve picked up some very nasty people.”
“Wouldn’t know,” said Andrew. “Never been in there myself. Not much of a drinker.”
“Best way, my friend. Alcohol never did anyone any good.” The driver changed the subject. “So everything okay at the hospital? You look very tired. Hope it’s not bad news.”
“Just my grandfather,” Andrew lied, shocked at the ease in which it came. “Cancer.”
The driver glanced back over his shoulder and gave the obligatory sad face. “That’s not good, my friend. I am sorry for you.”
“It’s fine. He’s very old and he had a good life.”
What was he saying? His grandfather had died twenty years ago.
There was silence in the car for the rest of the journey and perhaps the driver had sensed Andrew’s discomfort in the way the conversation was going. Reading people was something taxi drivers probably got pretty good at.
“Where abouts, my friend?”
Andrew looked out the window to see that they had entered his street. It wasn’t the wholesome grouping of quaint properties that it had been when
he’d the house several years ago. Things looked different now; a seedy underbelly exposed forever. There was an atmosphere of menace hanging over the street. Perhaps Andrew was the only one to sense it, but it was there now. An echo of violence.
“Just drop me here,” he told the taxi driver. “Next to the red Mercedes.”
The taxi driver pulled up next to Andrew’s car and thankfully didn’t seem to notice the graffiti all over it. He requested fifteen-pounds for the fare, which was extortionate for the small distance travelled, but Andrew didn’t complain at the amount and paid twenty. Making another enemy was something he couldn’t cope with right now – regardless of how inconsequential.
He thanked the driver and stepped out into the cold air and drizzle. The view of the street was a ghostly haze as the streetlights reflected off the falling rain. For some reason the taxi driver felt the need to say goodbye by beeping his horn and the sudden sharp honk made Andrew jump. His body still coursed with so much adrenaline that each droplet of rain hitting his tingling skin was like a pinprick.
He reached down into his jean pocket and pulled out his house keys, before heading down the path to his house and inserting them in the lock. Even from outside, the bloodstains were visible across the porch floor, leading all the way down the hallway beyond.
Upon entering his house, Andrew locked the porch behind him. Not something he would have worried about once, but the possibility of intruders had become a reality for him now. It wasn’t just something that happened to other people anymore.
Andrew stepped through into the living room and was shocked by the chaos that met him. Despite being witness to how the room got into such a state, he still couldn’t believe the amount on gore that matted everything – right down from the carpet to several small spots on the ceiling. The smell of mashed up fish and chips had been replaced by the far more noxious odour of metallic, tangy blood.
His family’s blood.
Andrew collapsed onto the sofa, avoiding the armchair that had held him captive for almost an entire night, and began to put his thoughts in order. There was no way out of the mess he was in now. He had murdered a teenager in cold blood and had been witnessed doing so. At the time, the nurse had been transfixed by the sight of Jordan’s mutilated body, but Andrew had no doubts that she would have seen his face.
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