Waking up on a Saturday morning in this house is like waking up in a prison, I hate it. I look over to see Ian fast asleep in his bed next to me snoring through his ugly face. I lay there for a minute or two with yesterday’s shenanigans suddenly hitting me all at once. I remember killing Martin, wondering if his body had been found. I check my mobile and see its just gone ten so I leap out of bed get dressed and make my way down stairs into the kitchen where I find my mum.
‘Good morning mum!’
‘Morning dear, listen, sorry about last night Mark didn’t mean it you know what he gets like when he’s had a hard day at work.’ I can see her eyes filling up with tears.
‘It’s ok.’ Not actually caring at this point with my mind only focusing on Martins dead body.
‘Keep it to yourself though love ok?’
‘Yes mum don’t worry your psycho boyfriends secret is safe with me.’
‘John you don’t have to be like that, please?’ She looks at me with sorry eyes and I can see a hint of guilt deep within them.
‘Yes mum don’t worry, anyway I'm off out!’
‘But you haven’t had any breakfast yet?’
‘It’s ok I’ll grab something on the move.’
‘But where are you going?’
‘Going to see my friend Alex, I’ll be home for tea ok?’
‘Ok love, that’s fine give me a hug!’ She grabs me and whispers in my ear. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She kisses my head but I pull away quickly to exit the house not giving an emotion for her to read. Sadly I don’t feel close to my mum anymore, I resent her for bringing this man into my life and my little brothers for that matter. She only ever seems to care about herself now and has proven how much we don’t mean to her.
I head off in the direction of the train track bridge with no intention of going to see Alex as I don’t even have a friend called Alex. I don’t even have any friends. Normally on a Saturday I wonder around the streets and the shops all day, bored out of my head with no money, but beats being at home so can’t complain.
As I approach the bridge I can see police cars everywhere. The fear in my body hurts like a thousand pins pricking me all over at the same time. I freeze and feel faint and lean up against a house wall staring in the direction of the bridge lit up by the police cars. I've never felt the feelings I'm feeling right now, I wanted to run away and hide but knew if I was to do that then I would never survive and get caught anyway. But the fear of getting caught outweighs anything else and I make a quick, probably the most foolish decision of my life and make my way to the city centre.
Getting to the centre was a piece of piss as I've done it a million times. I walk round a few of the shops pondering about what my next move is going to be. I have no money to my name at all, no bank account and about two pound thirty on my mobile with very little battery charge.
I'm wearing a pair of blue jeans and a hoodie which doesn’t give me much warmth so I make my way into Peacocks clothes store to have a look around.
The store is big; I look up at the ceiling to see there are a lot of dome CCTV cameras. I look through a few of the coats at the same time looking all around as much as possible to see if anybody can see me. There is a security guard near the entrance to the store with the checkout to my left. I also notice a fire exit which is open and can see a member of staff smoking outside through the gap.
Looking round on the floor I find a half broken coat hanger. I pick it up slowly and cautiously make my way to the fire exit. By this point my heart is thumping with the palms of my hands feeling sweaty. I take another quick look around and place the half broken coat hanger in the gap of the fire exit on the floor, quickly moving away. Not actually sure where this idea came from but slowly make my way back to the coat area, I pick out a coat which looks as though it would fit me.
Patiently waiting for the fire exit to be clear and slightly wedged open by the coat hanger I slowly walk round more of the shop trying my hardest to look as casual as possible but can feel there are eyes on me.
I look over at the security guard and can see he’s talking into a radio and looking in my direction. I make a split second decision and bolt for the fire exit door with the coat. As I get to the door I kick it as hard as I can and it flies open knocking the girl on the other side over. She screams out in pain which I ignore and run off down the road as fast as possible trying to get as much distance between me and Peacocks.
I eventually get to a water fountain and decide to stop to take a breather. My lungs are burning gasping for breath and my mouth feels dry. I keep looking back in the direction I came from, there doesn’t appear to be anybody following me.
I sit on a ledge for a few minutes and continued to be observant of everything going on around me. I put on my new coat which was slightly big for me but didn’t really matter as the whole purpose was to keep me warm in case I was going to run away from home.
A few hours have past now and I'm still wondering through the city heading towards the docks. The area round here is rough and my mum has always told me to stay away from here however, I don’t think anybody is in a position to tell me what to do at this moment in time so I continue.
Every police car that passes I freeze with fear hoping and praying that they aren’t looking for me. I just know that my luck will eventually run out soon enough. I make my way down the ferry port which takes me over to Gosport. Having no money on me I'm not entirely sure how I can get on the boat but I take my chances at the ticket office.
‘Hi, my mum’s on the other side waiting for me but I have no money to get on the ferry because I lost my wallet.’
‘I’m sorry I'm not going to be able to let you on.’ She replies with a smug look on her face. Being my normal timid self I look at her with puppy dog eyes but she happily ignores more.
‘I’ll pay for you little guy,’ say’s a deep voice from behind me. I look round to see a tall stern man in a smart pinstripe business suit, silk tie and well-polished black shoes. He must have been in his forties and looked rich. He was a big man, with a kind look on his face. His hair was short and blonde with a good style.
‘Thank you that’s very kind of you.’ He leant forward past me, paid the two pound fifty ticket price on my behalf.
‘My conscience wouldn’t allow me to leave you here stranded, my name s Mike,’ holding out his large hand which looks like a bunch of bananas.
‘My name’s John.’ I shook his hand with the tightest grip I could manage which was no match for this man.
We boarded the ferry together and sat on seats next to each other on the outside deck. Mike pulled out a cigarette, he lit it taking a deep long drag really looked as though he enjoyed it. Smoking has never appealed to me, my mum always said that if she ever caught me smoking she’d make me smoke a whole pack until I was sick.
‘What do you do Mike?’
‘I'm an accountant, really boring stuff but pays well, this day and age that’s what matters, money makes the world go round,’ looking down at me taking another long drag on his fag. ‘How about you, why are you on here today?’ I felt obliged to tell him the truth seeing as he kindly paid for my ferry ticked, I will miss out a few bits of important information.
‘Well to be honest with you, I’m running away from home. My mums got this new boyfriend, I hate him he beats her up all the time, also me and my brother get a right hand from time to time. I just want to get away from it all.’
‘Do you think running away is the best and the most grown up option. What are you, thirteen, fourteen years old?’
‘I'm fourteen and yes I'm not happy there anymore and want to get back to Wales and be with my dad. That’s where I think I'm going to head to.’
‘You know John running away isn’t always the best option you should talk things through with your mum if you ask me?’
‘Trust me that it’s not that easy as she puts her boyfriend first every time, I've had enough.’
‘Did he give you that black eye?’
‘No that was one of the kids in school; he beats me up almost every day!’ I find it hard to hold back the tears but manage to control my emotions with this stranger.
‘You’re having a tough life aren’t you mate, tell you what why don’t you come back to mine with me and I’ll cook you some dinner?’ smiling at me.
‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea, I need to get to Wales and see my dad.’ Not sure whether to take the offer as I wondered what this man’s motives were however; there was something very calming about him.
‘Listen to me John, if you try to make your way up to Wales now it’ll be dangerous, you’d be better off staying with me tonight and head off in the morning. I’ll cook you anything you want? We can watch films until you fall asleep there’s nothing to worry about I promise,’ he places his hand on his heart. I felt as though I couldn’t say no, I have a gut feeling something wasn’t right, but decided to go with him.
‘Ok Mike sounds nice.’ Couldn’t believe I'm actually agreeing to go back to a stranger’s house for the night. Surely it was safer than sleeping out on the streets though, I kept repeating in my head reassuring myself.
We get to the Gosport side of the trip and exit the ferry. We walk up through a tunnel out into the docks area where I can see a line of taxis. We head straight for the first one in the queue and get in.
‘Hastings Avenue please driver.’ said Mike.
‘No problem sir.’
We sat there in silence for the whole trip with a big part of me wanting to exit the taxi on the move as this turning feeling in my gut gets increasingly stronger. I always remember my mum saying to me ‘always follow your gut feeling because it will always be right.’ This occasion I decided to try to ignore it but the closer and closer we got to this man’s house the more I felt sick.
The taxi driver pulled up at the end of Hastings Avenue about a fifteen minute drive from the ferry port. We got out the car and I followed Mike down the road.
‘Which house is yours?’ I ask.
‘Just over there,’ pointing at an attached terrace house which looks clean on the outside with nice white walls and a red brick wall out the front. All the curtains on the house were shut which seemed strange and I notice someone was peering out of an upstairs window from the house next door to Mikes.
‘We need to go round the back, my front door is broken.’ I just looked up at him feeling this sudden urge to try to run for it but it was getting dark now and had nowhere else to go. I have no money on me it’s getting pretty cold and to top it off I'm absolutely starving. Being drawn in by the prospect of warmth and dinner I follow Mike down the alley way, we went into what I assume is his back garden.
The garden is not well kept, has tall grass like you see in a field and an apple tree with fallen rotten apples on the floor. I slip on one while walking through but manage to keep my balance. This path looks as though it hasn’t been used in a while; it suddenly dawned on me that he’s taking me this way so no one can see him taking me into his house.
‘I think I'm going to make my way back home please Mike?’ Feeling terrified at what he might do.
‘Ok John you sure, I have plenty of food though?’ speaking in a calm manner.
‘No its ok I feel uncomfortable, I just want to go home.’
‘Ok, take this then it should be enough to get a taxi back to your mums,’ handing me a twenty pound note. ‘If you wait out the front I’ll call the taxi for you from inside, that way there’s no need to come in,’ making me feel reassured, thinking he’s not so bad. I decide to follow my gut feeling; I take the money turn my back and make my way back down the rotten apple path. All of a sudden I feel a sharp blow to the back of my head; it was so hard I felt like I was being hit by a car. I fall onto my front, face down in the rotten wet apples, I couldn’t move. I lay there clenching my fists with pain, I could hear foot steps behind me, and before another thought could even enter my head I felt weak and tired. I started to vomit and my eyes feel heavy everything becomes a blur and I fell into daze, then sleep.
***
Chapter 4