Written In Blood

22

22

Zack woke with a start. His eyes flew open and he sat bolt upright in bed. For several long moments, he searched the darkness of his bedroom for what had woken him. Just as he was about to give up and return his head to the pillow, he heard it, the sound of people moving around furtively downstairs.

He was out of bed and reaching for the torch on his bedside cabinet in an instant. The torch he snatched up was a foot long and heavy, perfect for either lighting up the darkness or using as a weapon, which was why he kept it close to hand.

He kept the light off as he crept towards the door on tiptoe and pulled it open as slowly and as silently as he could. He didn’t want to alert whoever was downstairs to the fact that he was awake until the last possible moment.

“What’s going on?”

The question startled Zack and he reacted without thinking. He spun round, his torch raised in readiness to strike. It was only at the last moment that he remembered he had a guest. He managed to stay his hand before the torch struck home, but it was a close thing.

“Dammit, Izzy,” he hissed in a voice that was made up of equal parts anger and fright. “You got any idea how close you came to being brained? I was half a heartbeat away from smashing you on the head with this thing.” He waved the torch in his friend’s face to emphasise his words, not that either of them could see it all that clearly, for the only light in the upstairs passage came from the moonlight shining through the small window in the bathroom.

“Sorry,” Isobel apologised in a whisper. “Didn’t mean to surprise you. Have you got burglars?” she asked as more noises reached them from downstairs.

“Sounds like it,” Zack said. “You go back to the room and keep quiet; I’ll be back as soon as I’ve dealt with whoever’s downstairs.” He was about to start down the stairs when Isobel caught his arm.

“Shouldn’t you call the police instead of putting yourself at risk?” Isobel asked in a barely audible whisper.

“It’s only a burglar, nothing to worry about,” Zack whispered confidently. “They’ll run off as soon as I give them a good scare.”

It was Isobel’s turn to hiss in a mixture of anger and fright. “What if you’re wrong? What if whoever’s down there isn’t frightened, or they’re not just here to rob you?”

“Why else would they have broken in?”

“That sergeant believes you killed those two girls, maybe someone wants to do something about that.”

Zack wanted to tell his friend that she was imagining trouble, but before he could do so, he realised that she might be right. He knew well enough from his time as a detective that the murder of someone, especially a young girl, could inspire strong feelings in people, even inspire them to acts of revenge.

“Okay, you go and call the police,” he told Isobel, “while I head downstairs; I’m not going to do anything,” he said quickly before he could be interrupted. “I’m just going to see if I can find out who it is and what they’re doing here.”

Before Isobel could stop him, Zack slipped down the stairs. He was stopped halfway down by a crashing sound; listening, he tried to figure out who had broken into his home, and what they were doing there. The moment he did, he had to stifle the urge to laugh – what he could hear was comical rather than threatening.

“Watch what you’re doin’, ya friggin’ moron.”

“You watch what you’re doin’; if I weren’t too busy tryin’ not to walk inta you, I’da seen it.”

“You’ve walked into everything else, you might as well walk inta me. Why didn’t ya bring a torch so you could see what you’re doing?”

“Why didn’t you? Here, I’ll pull the curtains so we can see what’s worth takin’, and be quiet, we don’t wanna wake anyone up.”

“You be quiet, you’re the one making all the noise.”

Zack could quite easily have believed that he was listening to a farce; the two men in his living room were clearly drunk, that much was obvious from their slurred speech, and the fact that their efforts to tell one another to be quiet were louder than the noise they were making stumbling into things. He should have been annoyed that they had broken in and were breaking his things, but the situation was too much like something from a Three Stooges film for him to be anything but amused, at least until another voice spoke up – the new voice sounded far more serious than the other two.

“Shut up, the pair o’ you. Jesus! Anyone’d think this is the first time you’ve broken in somewhere.” The new voice may have spoken in a hoarse whisper, but it contained a level of menace that silenced the other two immediately. “And we’re not here to rob the place, we’re here to kill the guy kilt Georgie and Lucy. I’m gonna slice the guy’s heart out. He’s gonna be upstairs, in bed, not in here, so come on. If you wanna take his stuff, you can get it after I’ve done what I came here to do.”

Zack felt himself go cold when he heard that, and he froze for several heartbeats. It was not the first time his life had been threatened, but all the previous occasions had been in the heat of the moment, and he had known that the people making the threats were not serious. As much as he wanted to believe otherwise, he knew that this occasion was different – whoever had come to his house had done so with the intention of hurting him, and he had brought friends, that made the threat a serious one.

The moment he recovered from his surprise, he turned and hurried back up the stairs as quietly as he could.

“Have you called the police?” he asked once he reached Isobel, who was still near the top of the stairs.

“No,” Isobel said with a shake of her head that was only just visible. “I don’t know the number for the local police, and calling nine-nine-nine would be a waste of time, I doubt they could get anyone here in less than an hour. Anything could happen in that time.” She took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself, realising that she sounded panicky, and thought it ironic that for all the times she had represented criminals, both serious and petty, this was the first time she had been on the receiving end of a crime.

“Go into my room and get my phone, the local police station is on speed dial four. Lock yourself in and call them.”

“What are you going to do?”

More calmly than he really felt, Zack said, “I’m just going to wait here and keep an eye, or an ear, on what’s going on downstairs. Go on, everything’ll be alright, just go and call the police.” He was relieved when Isobel, after a brief hesitation, made for his bedroom.

Once Isobel had shut herself in, and he was sure she was as safe as she could be while still in the house, Zack tightened his grip on the torch and moved to a position near the head of the stairs. He was certain his friend would not approve of what he had in mind, but he had a plan for dealing with the trio who had come to kill him, or at least to assault him.

He remained tensed by the head of the stairs while he listened to the noisy intruders begin their ascent and draw near. How they thought they were going to be able to sneak up on him while he was sleeping, when they were making so much noise, he did not know – even the heaviest of sleepers would have been woken by their racket - but under the circumstances he was glad they were too drunk to be quiet.

When they were almost at the top of the stairs he jumped out, yelling, “What the hell are you doing in my house?” as loudly as he could. At the same time he flipped the switch on the wall, bathing the stairs and the upper passage in light.

The suddenness of his appearance, combined with the light and his shout, had the desired effect on the ascending trio. The foremost of the three staggered back a step from the noise and the light, lost his footing as he missed the step he had just left and fell. His arms flailed wildly as he sought something, anything, to keep him upright, but there was nothing, and after about half a second he succumbed to gravity. He collided with his friends, who were only a couple of steps behind him, and together the three of them tumbled down the stairs in a tangle.

Zack hurried down the stairs after the trio, jumping the last four steps so he could avoid the jumble of arms and legs at the foot of the stairs. He landed awkwardly and felt pain shoot up his leg as his ankle buckled, making him fall forwards and bang his head on the front door.

He shook his head to clear his vision of stars, as he got to his feet and checked on the downed trio of would-be killers. Two of the three appeared to be unconscious, they remained just as they had fallen, and showed no signs of moving. The third, however - Zack could not help thinking it annoyingly typical, that it should be the one with the knife, the one who seemed most eager to kill him - not only had his eyes open, but had disentangled himself from his friends and was most of the way to his feet, the knife in his hand moving threateningly.

Hurriedly, Zack brought his torch up to block the knife as it came towards him; he got it in the way just in time to keep him from suffering anything more than a slice to the finger.

He had no time to think of his injury, which was minor but bled profusely, for the knife came towards him again. Once, twice, three times, he blocked as the would-be murderer slashed at him again and again, attacking with such rapidity and ferocity that it was all Zack could do to get the torch in the way and keep the knife from drawing more blood than it already had.

When his attacker changed tactics, and lunged instead of slashing, Zack twisted aside, only just avoiding the point of the knife. His injured ankle buckled as he evaded the blade and he fell against the wall. Before he could recover, the knife came towards him again, this time in a wide sweeping arc that was aimed at his head, and which would have injured him seriously, perhaps even fatally, had it made contact.

There was only one way for him to avoid the danger and he took it; he fell, letting gravity pull him down and out of the way. Unfortunately, as he went down, his arm went up, straight into the path of the knife. Zack yelled in pain as the knife sliced deeply into his arm, making blood spurt. He cried out again when he hit his head on the door for the second time, though he maintained enough presence of mind to lash out with a foot to drive his attacker back, gaining him space to get to his feet.

The kick had an unexpectedly positive double result. He caught his knife-wielding attacker square on the kneecap, which made them both cry out in pain, and caused the intruder to stagger backwards into his still unconscious friends.

Zack saw his attacker catch his foot in the entwined bodies of his friends, stumble, and fall backwards onto the stairs and took advantage of the opportunity. He ignored the pain from his ankle and his arm, as well as the blood that ran from his injuries, and struggled up. On his way to his feet, he swung the torch in an overhead blow that proved to be far better timed than he could have anticipated; he intended simply to connect with his attacker, to injure him and put him off continuing the fight, or even to simply hold him off until the police arrived.

The heavy thud that sounded when the torch connected with his rising assailant’s head startled Zack; it was louder than he would have expected, and he worried that he had hurt him more seriously than he meant to, that he might have killed him.

Hesitantly, he moved forwards, stepping carefully over the two tangled figures on the floor so he could reach out and check for a pulse. The relief he felt when he discovered what he was looking for – the pulse was faint, but it was there - was overpowering.