“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. The man requested fifteen-pounds for the fare, which was extortionate for the small distance travelled, but Andrew didn’t complain at the amount, and in fact paid twenty. Making another enemy was something Andrew 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 street lamps 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 that hit his skin was like a tingling pin prick.
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 blood stains were visible across the porch floor, leading all the way back 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. 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 The smell of mashed up fish and chips had been replaced by the far more noxious odour of metallic, tangy blood.
My 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 also have seen his face.
Not to mention the amount of CCTV that a hospital is likely to have.
There was no getting out of the fact that very soon Andrew would be arrested and charged with murder. It likely wouldn’t matter to the police his reasons why, but the only vindication Andrew could hold onto was that Jordan was jointly responsible for the torture of his wife and child.
Jointly responsible…
What’s going to happen to the others that did this? Will they get away scot-free while I go to prison?
Andrew could take the punishment for what he’d done. What he couldn’t take would be if his actions somehow helped to exonerate Frankie and the others. They would be free to blame the whole thing on Jordan now.
He done the whole thing, yer Honour. I had nothing to do with it.
And that was if they even went to court. They would provide alibis for one another and deny everything. That was exactly what Jordan had done right before Andrew gutted him like the cowardly fish he was.
How good it would feel to do the same to Frankie.
Andrew passed over the thought frivolously but then backed up and reconsidered it.
What’s to stop me? I’m going down for murder anyway. Pen could die and this might be the only chance I get to punish the person responsible.
Somehow, Andrew had found himself considering murder again. Before this week Andrew had never had a fight in his life – rarely even went so far as swearing at another person – but now he was thinking about leaving his house and hunting Frankie down like a rabid dog and killing him.
What shocked Andrew the most was that he’d already made up his mind. Looking around his smashed-up living room covered in the blood of the people he loved, Andrew was absolutely adamant that Frankie and his friends needed to die.