ASBO: A Novel of Extreme Terror(10)

Thankfully, his daughter was still asleep, snoring softly in an identical way to her mother. She was tucked up beneath her plush duvet and had not been woken by the noises downstairs.

Good. Maybe I can get everything cleaned up before she wakes up. I can reduce some of the shock.

Andrew reached the end of the hallway and looked down the stairs, cocking his head to listen for more sounds. He could detect nothing. A slither of hope told him that maybe he’d imagined it all, and that the scary movie – and his altercation with Frankie – had just spooked his anxious mind into creating yet more scenes of danger.

He jabbed the switch at the bottom of the stairs and blinked as the light filled his adjusting pupils. The downstairs hallway was undisturbed. The photos on the wall were still in place and his grandmother’s bureau was still locked tight.

So far so good.

Andrew moved over to the living room door and paused outside of it. This was the room with the television, DVD player, and most other things worth stealing in the house. If anything was missing, it would be from this room.

And if anybody is still inside, then they’re most likely to be in this room, too.

Andrew took a deep breath and pushed open the door, clutching the handle tightly as he turned it. A smell hit him as he entered the darkness of the room: a bitter, salty odour along with something more acrid. Andrew wrinkled his nose and tried to identify it.

Bleach…vinegar?

He reached along the wall and found the light switch, familiar enough with his own home to find it without the use of sight. His finger lingered over the switch as his stomach performed somersaults. As much as he needed to see the state of the living room, he also wanted to delay things for as long as possible. Once the lights were on, he would be forced to deal with the situation. Right now he was safe in the dark, oblivious.

Can’t put things off forever...

Andrew switched on the light.

The room came into view and at first presented too much visual information for his brain to interpret all at once. One thing slowly became clear, however: Nothing was missing.

Thank god!

But a few muments later it became clear that something had been added. All over the room was a mulched-up mess of what looked like…

Fish and chips.

A battered cod fillet had been stamped into the carpet whilst dozens of individual chips had been mashed against the sofa’s upholstery. Even the walls were smeared with deep-fried potato. The smell of salt and vinegar enveloped the room, pungent to the point of making Andrew’s eyes water.

It wasn’t long before he put two and two together – that he realised the fish and chips were a message from the person responsible. They had knocked them out of Andrew’s hands only several hours before.

Frankie did this.

***

The police arrived within the hour, just as the sun rose and the birds began singing. The light coming through the window bathed the living room in a pleasant, orange glow which seemed unsuitable in the presence of such mess. Pen and Bex sat, huddled together, on the sofa in their night gowns. Andrew sat at the dining room table with two police officers – a man and a woman; PC Wardsley and PC Dalton.

“What time did you hear the noises, Mr …?”

“Goodman. Andrew Goodman. And I don’t know exactly, but it was around 5AM, I think.”

“Okay,” said the female police officer, PC Dalton, whilst PC Wardsley took notes. “What exactly did you hear?”

Andrew felt like he was going to have a breakdown, so exhausted from lack of sleep. He did his best to answer calmly. “I’m pretty sure I heard doors opening and closing, and somebody creeping around.”

“Did it sound like just one person?”

Andrew nodded.

Dalton smiled and nodded, performing gestures she’d doubtlessly learned through sensitivity training. “Do you have any ideas how someone could have entered your home? Were all the doors locked?”

Andrew shrugged. He looked down at the table, not wanting to make eye-contact with the officer. “I don’t know. Before this, I never worried about locking everything up at night. It’s a nice neighbourhood. The front and back doors were locked, I know, but I probably left a window or two unlocked.”

“We won’t be doing that again,” Pen added from the sofa, before returning to the dazed silence she’d displayed since waking.

“No,” said Andrew. “We won’t.”

PC Dalton asked her next question. “Do you know anyone that would want to do this to you? Nothing was taken, so it seems that causing upset was the main motive for the break-in.”