Maybe I can put a stop to this before anything else happens.
Andrew turned the corner. He lost his breath at the sight which met him. His bright red Mercedes had been modified. The expensive bodywork was 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’s voices was a distant droning, buzzing in the distance like irritated wasps. He was hearing their words but was unable to assemble them into cognitive meanings. Eventually he had to force 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 him 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, the police will have nothing to go on.”
Pen clicked her fingers at him and motioned for him to get up. “Well, bloody go find out if anyone did. Ask the neighbours.”
Andrew took another mument 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 Andrew 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 road had day jobs. The lack of parked cars only reinforced the assumption.
Next door, though, no 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.
Andrew started to turn away from the door and 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.
“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.