Bully For You

by Gary Kittle



  Bully for You

  Copyright 2016

  Gary Kittle

  Published by Gary Kittle (2016)

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to the vendor or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy.

  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Bully for You Copyright Gary Kittle, 2016

  This eBook is a work of fiction. While reference may be made to actual

  places or events, the names, characters, incidents and locations within are

  from the author’s imagination and are not a resemblance to actual living or

  dead persons, businesses, or events. Any similarity is coincidental.

  Dedication:

  To my wife, Kaushali.

  Cover design and illustration by John Wallett.

  (Email: john.wallett@livingmaps.org.uk)

  Contents

  Book Description

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  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

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  About the Author

  Connect with Gary Kittle

  BOOK DESCRIPTION

  When Chris Haynes is mugged one evening, a nightmare begins. Already struggling to cope as a single parent with his son, Bradley, Chris is attacked again – only this time the mugger uses his name and, more menacingly, hints at knowing something disturbing about Bradley.

  What is it that Chris feels so guilty about? Who is Bradley’s friend, Gordon and what is his relationship with the mugger? And what is hidden under the floor of the Haynes’ summerhouse?

  As the blackmail intensifies so does the violence, and with the stakes running high, someone stands to lose everything – even their life. 

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  Chapter One

  The house was full of shadows, but only one of them was his.

  Chris switched on all the lights but the brightness only made his headache worse. He closed his eyes and swallowed but someone had lodged a golf ball in his throat. He tried to shift it with gulps of sweet tea. Sicky tomorrow, he thought, as if this dark cloud had a silver lining. Or maybe it would be better to get an early night and from tomorrow pretend it had never happened. After all he’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He poked out his tongue and winced: the stiff upper lip was his already. Fatigue set him swaying, and in the living room glare he could smell again the mugger’s breath tickling his cheek, the fingernails skewering his flesh…

  Chapter Two

  ‘In… my jacket….’ Chris wheezed. ‘Wallet… mobile…’

  From behind his ear came a spray of laughter. A meaty arm curled around his throat and yanked his head upward as a knee pressed down into his lower back, stimulating the need to inhale whilst making it physically impossible.

  ‘What… do you… want?’

  ‘Your dinner money, of course.’ The contemptuous laughter came again. ‘So be a good boy and hand it over.’

  In an agony of stretching Chris slipped his hand into his trouser pocket and clawed its contents out onto the pavement. It wasn’t just the wallet and smart phone that were ignored; there was also a decent watch. Not a desperate drug addict, then. And certainly not a professional thief, not if he was only going to get away with £2.34 each time.

  ‘Take… it! Take it!’ And with a final yank of the forearm his assailant did just that…

  Chapter Three

  The sound of movement from above snapped Chris back into the present. Would Bradley even notice his cuts and bruises? Footsteps moved over his head and a door slammed. Here we go again, Chris thought. Just what I don’t need. The footsteps clumped down the stairs and Chris stared at the living room door. The handle bowed and the door crept open. It stopped, and for a brief moment Chris caught a phantom whiff of that fetid mugger’s breath. Then the door swept inward and there was Bradley. Does he even look like me? Chris wondered. It was hard to tell with that curtain of hair flopping about. Didn’t the school have any standards?

  ‘What happened?’ The tone of voice was flat, the facial expression neutral.

  ‘Tripped up,’ Chris replied. ‘Down some stairs.’

  Bradley grunted and headed for the television, sweeping up the remote as he fell into the seat.

  ‘I’m all right, though,’ Chris added to the back of the boy’s head. No response. ‘You hungry?’ Again nothing. ‘Brad?’ He caught what might have been either a grunt or a belch. ‘I thought maybe Chinese?’ The volume from the television climbed. ‘Chinese it is then,’ Chris muttered, turning away to the kitchen.

  Nearly a fortnight and she had hadn’t called him or even emailed. Tess was being deliberately cruel, and Chris was damned if he’d read those letters. They weren’t addressed to him anyway. It was a question of respect. He was still the man of the house, the head of the family. ‘You’re suffocating me,’ she’d complained. But the truth was their marriage had been a slow motion car crash for the past three years, with both of them grappling for the steering wheel.

  Snatching up the Chinese takeaway menu, he searched for something reasonably healthy. Telephone order completed Chris walked over to the kitchen window to close the blind. The moon cast its milky glow onto the lawn. Before he knew it the clocks would spring forward and he’d have to start mowing every fortnight. Not that Tess had ever done much in the garden except put the washing out. The garden fence was a wall of darkness; the summerhouse a solid featureless block staring back at him.

  Movement caught his eye. Frowning, Chris leaned forward, his nose close to the cold glass. Outside all was still. A cat, perhaps? Or one of those urban foxes monopolising the news? He stared into the darkness, but the throbbing behind his eyes intensified and with a curse he tugged down on the blind cord. ‘Jumpy sod.’ He put out the crockery and cutlery; then on second thoughts a couple of trays so that they could eat in front of the television together. Even if there was no conversation they could still share the same air, surely?

  Their Chinese meal arrived courtesy of a young boy who insisted on telling Chris he was Vietnamese. ‘That’s all right. I’m not planning on eating you.’ When he retold the gag his son accused him of being racist and headed for the stairs. If only Tess could see what she had done, walking out on an adolescent boy and his dutiful father. There had to be ‘someone else’.

  Feeling gloomy Chris watched the television alone, drifting in and out of a doze; but when Crimewatch came on it seemed a good time to cal
l it a night.

  Chapter Four

  Bradley Haynes hoped that flight of stairs was long and hard, the steps jagged. Over breakfast the next morning he’d noticed more bruising on his father’s face, and he seemed restricted in his movements. Good job. Since she’d been gone the house was drowned in silence. Mothers didn’t abandon their children, as Dad had claimed, no matter what they were going through.

  In the first few days of that unexpected quiet he thought about contacting the police, but realising his father would just turn on the charm - Brad hasn’t taken this very well. He’s in denial, officer - he remained tight-lipped. He didn’t want to be the next member of the family to ‘disappear’. Dad kept trying to reassure Bradley that Mum would call him up any day now, but every day that she didn’t his misgivings about the summerhouse grew stronger.

  When he wasn’t in school, Bradley took to his room, trying to figure out how he could get back at his father. Sometimes he felt as if the crown of his skull could blow clean off with all the rage bubbling away underneath. Several teachers had criticised his school work, and though he was trying to keep up appearances, he knew a ‘welfare meeting’ with Dad was inevitable. ‘It’s his mum, you see. She’s…gone.’ And she wasn’t coming back, Bradley knew. Thank God, then, for Gordon.

  ‘Hey, Gordon. Wait up,’ he called across the park.

  Gordon froze like a cat catching the scent of a very large dog. He was hanging about in the doorway of the lavatory block, as if he couldn’t quite make up his mind whether to pee. ‘Little freak,’ Bradley muttered. He started to slink inside, pretending he hadn’t heard his name, as Bradley strode across the grass towards him. Bradley decided to play Mr. Nice. Today it would be a bear hug; tomorrow, a rugby tackle.

  ‘Hey.’ Gordon didn’t turn around. If there was a hole nearby would he have stuck his head into it? Brad wondered. Pathetic. ‘I thought it was you. Didn’t you hear me?’

  Gordon spun round, wearing the least convincing smile Bradley had ever seen. It looked like someone had put fishing hooks into the corners of his mouth and pulled them back hard. Now there was an idea…

  ‘All right, Brad?’ Gordon bleated. ‘I was just on my way home.’

  ‘But don’t you live on the other side of town?’

  Gordon’s smile faltered. ‘You know where I live?’

  ‘Sure. East Street. Number fifty-three.’ Gordon’s despair was obvious as he tried to think how this could have happened. Bradley leaned forward and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper: ‘I followed you from school last Thursday.’

  Gordon’s shoulders slumped for a second, before he rallied himself. ‘Wow, I never even suspected. You should become a spy.’

  Or an interrogator. Boy, this was fun. ‘So what are you doing here?’

  ‘Um,’ Gordon paused before answering, as if to gauge the least harmful answer. ‘Just - you know - hanging out.’

  ‘I thought you said you were going home?’

  Gordon suddenly looked weary, like someone swimming towards a distant shore who realised he was never going to make it. Bradley stifled a pang of sympathy and reminded himself that Gordon was someone whose idea of a good time was to stick his face in a book till he ran out of pages.

  ‘I was hanging out… on my way home,’ Gordon stuttered.

  What, in the lavs? Priceless! ‘So let’s hang out together. I’m not in any hurry to get home, are you?’ No word of a lie there. ‘Unless you still need the…’ Bradley nodded towards the Gents.

  Gordon blushed. He actually blushed! Bradley laughed to himself as he draped an arm around the other boy’s shoulder and led him off in the direction of the park gates. Buy that man a tank top! ‘It will give us time to get to know each other better. You know, become proper mates.’

  ‘Really?’ Gordon asked.

  ‘Sure. And I never realised you collected coins.’ He’d brought them in to show the class the week before. T.W.A.T. ‘You got any brothers or sisters, Gordon?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  Sort of? What are they, rented? Virtual? ‘How do you mean, Gordon?’ Bradley let his arm fall away. Didn’t this guy ever wash?

  ‘Well, my dad’s remarried so I’ve got two step-sisters now. But they don’t like me.’

  You don’t say? ‘So, we’re both only children, then? See, something in common already?’ Bradley laughed. ‘Apart from collecting coins, of course!’

  ‘You mean you collect them, too?’

  Bradley laughed harder still. ‘You bet. I’ll show you some time.’

  Gordon’s eyes shone with excitement, and that pang of sympathy hit Bradley again, threatening to spoil his entertainment. He forced himself to take a long critical look at the other boy. Everything about Gordon Moore was obnoxious: his threadbare second-hand clothes, the way his nose seemed always to be dripping, his nervous ticks and awkward movements. Awkward? Watching him on the sports field was like watching someone with two left feet. Had he actually been born at all? Bradley wondered. Or was he some kind of six form biology experiment gone wrong? Do you know, Moore, I actually think I hate you? The sympathy vanished.

  ‘So where shall we ‘hang out’, then?’ Bradley grinned.

  ‘Well…’ Gordon looked uncomfortable again, as if he suddenly did need the toilet after all. ‘I… I guess I could show you my secret place.’

  Oh, Jesus, a den! Only six year olds have dens, you cretin. ‘Great! Sharing a secret would really make us mates.’ Which potentially was not so great. ‘Lead on, my friend.’ Bradley didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Talking to Gordon was like being trapped in an R.E. lesson forever.

  For a second Bradley was convinced the stupid freak was going to start skipping. They called in at a newsagent for sweets, and then Gordon led him away from the town centre towards the industrial estate. Sometimes Bradley came up here to skateboard with his real friends, so he was relieved to see there were no other kids about to witness him in the company of creepy Gordon. They walked over to the wire fence holding back the wilderness beyond.

  ‘Here,’ Gordon said, scanning in both directions to make sure no one was watching.

  Bradley noticed a tear in the wire close to one of the metal support poles. As he watched Gordon grabbed the lower corner and peeled the wire up, producing a corner just wide enough for them to squeeze through. Once on the other side they had to skirt the length of the fence for a short distance before turning into the wood proper. This was obviously ancient woodland, like they’d learned about in Geography. After a few minutes they came to a clearing, at the far side of which was a small concrete hut.

  ‘Now do you know where we are?’ Gordon chirped, full of himself.

  Of course, the railway embankment, the grey rails describing the cut below. And this building was an abandoned signalman’s hut or something. Gordon scuttled over to the entrance which was covered by two rusty corrugated metal sheets. He moved one of these aside and motioned for Bradley to enter.

  ‘Hey, this is… nice,’ Bradley smirked, poking his head inside. ‘How did you find it?’

  ‘I just got lucky, I guess.’

  ‘Does anyone else know about this place?’

  ‘Oh, no. Just you and me, Brad.’

  The interior was a bare concrete shell in the centre of which was an old faded rug, a Seventies coffee table and a camping chair. ‘Home sweet home,’ Bradley muttered. Hanging from a nail was a faded picture of two adults smiling.

  ‘Joseph and Mary?’

  ‘They’re my parents - my real parents, I mean. Before Mum… you know…’

  Bradley’s attention was immediately captured by the father. There was something about the way his arm fell across the woman’s shoulder – as if he were not just holding her but holding her still - that unnerved him.

  ‘You won’t tell anyone?’ Gordon whispered.

  Bradley turned to look into those frightened, dull-witted eyes and felt a welcome surge of disdain. ‘No. Course not, Gordon. Like you said, this is our
little secret.’

  ‘Perhaps we should give it a name?’ chirped Gordon.

  Bradley surveyed the interior again, noticing how the rubbish and dirt had all been pushed up into one corner. ‘Sure. And maybe put some more pictures up.’

  ‘You think so?’ Gordon gushed.

  Bradley took a step towards him, anger suddenly coursing through his veins. ‘Of course not, you moron. I’m taking the piss!’

  Gordon’s jaw dropped a good two inches, his shoulders by nearly as much. He tried to smile but it looked more like another nervous tick. His eyes flitted towards the gap between the tin sheets that served as a door, then back to Bradley.

  ‘So only you and me know about this place, right?’ Gordon could only nod. ‘Then it’s perfect. Give me your mobile number. I’ll text you when I want to see you here again.’

  Gordon’s face blanched with dread. Bradley leered and patted his trouser pocket. ‘You can help me with my coin collection.’

  Chapter Five

  The walk home took fifteen minutes, but to drive it would have taken Chris twice as long with the temporary traffic lights in the High Street. His nerves had tightened before he’d even left the office. The night air was sopping with the occasional flap of wind. From the front entrance to his office he was able to survey both ends of the road, crawling with cars and pedestrians alike. And though there was nothing he could identify as threatening or out of place, neither could he shake off the feeling that somewhere in that puddled vista was a pair of eyes staring directly at him.

  He pulled up his coat collar and stepped down to the pavement to merge with the masses. But if anything that sense of being watched intensified. And he’s following you now, too. He bit his lip as the urge to look behind him tapped him on the shoulder. Feeling exposed he put up his umbrella; but that only made him feel worse. A furled umbrella would make a useful weapon, he thought as he took it back down. He wouldn’t be caught off guard this time. Oh, just listen to yourself! You don’t even know there’s anyone there. But that was a lie.

  He turned left up a short hill, which was well lit and still busy with pedestrians. But the crowd was thinning, and the night was getting darker. He quickened his pace, despite the gradient, and felt his thighs warm beneath his damp trouser legs. At the crest of the hill he crossed over and took the next right. Chris tried not to stare back as he crossed, but was unable to resist a furtive glance.

  His stomach gurgled as the knot there tightened. He glanced back again, this time to see a slim shadow dart behind a tree. For God’s sake, get a grip! But that tree was thick enough to conceal two people. No, no. He works alone. The shadow did not reappear. ‘Because there’s no one there,’ he said aloud, and was relieved to find no one had heard him.