August 28^th 1997

   Geoff ignored the sound of the children's muffled cries and the pain-racked sobs of the young mother half-lying - half-slumped against the wall in the corner of the room.

   He ignored the grief stricken pleading fused with naked raw terror that radiated from every pore of the man kneeling before him in abject submission; hands bound tightly behind his neck, limiting movement to the barest minimum.

   He paid no attention as the noises inside the room merged with the sounds of an unaware world that filtered through the half open window and the gap at the bottom of the door; whose only purpose, it seemed, was to allow a constant cold draught to enter and assault the feet and legs of the occupants within.

   "Geoff, for Christ's sake Geoff.  Don't!"

   Geoff continued to stare blankly ahead, seemingly oblivious to everything both outside and here in the room.

   Outside, in the crisp heat of the afternoon sun, children could be heard laughing and screaming for joy; making the most of their last few days of freedom before they returned to the penal environment most considered an apt description for their school.

    A group of Rollerbladers, adept, but far from proficient, swept along the pavement like a dysfunctional serpent.  Their side to side movement exaggerated as ankles were forced to bend into positions nature never intended. The sound produced by the wheels as they clattered over the cracks between the paving slabs conjured up an image in Geoff's mind of a cartoon train bouncing disjointedly along a wobbly track; wheels and track randomly coming into contact in a haphazard clickety-clackety way.

   Ordinarily, this kind of image would have teased a wry grin onto his average sized mouth and sent rampant thoughts and scenarios screaming through his often over imaginative mind.  But the effort needed to perform the normally spontaneous act of smiling would have been just that little bit too much to handle right now.

   The Toy Town express rattled away along the cosy suburban street where bungalows and houses of varying shapes and colours casually intermingled with neatly manicured lawns and gardens awash with vibrant colour.

   All but a few gardens were decorated with an assortment of the obligatory, 'every home should have one,' smugly smiling gnome. 

   Some pushed brightly painted wheelbarrows overflowing with plants covered in delicate little pink, blue and white flowers.  Others sat resolute at the edge of a pond; ever hopeful of catching that elusive fish.  The majority, though, just stood, posing dubiously and grinning wildly, alone or in groups as if discussing the ever rising price of Petrol or the local football teams poor run of results.

   “Geoff, please!”

   Other sounds arose into prominence.  The monotonous thump, thump, thump of a football kicked repeatedly against a wall.  A bicycle bell being cheerfully rung and a lawnmower, an old non-electric type, distinctive by its rattly, mechanical whirring, being laboriously pushed up and down, up and down.  The whirring stopping now and again whilst the grass box was emptied and aching back muscles were given a more than welcome reprieve.

   Each noise intermittently rose above another as if vying for the listeners' attention.  "Football here!!  Listen to me!!!"  "Never mind him!  Doesn't my bell sound delightful!!"

   In the background, there was the constant resonating drone of traffic on the towns' western by-pass a couple of miles to the north.  Residents of this now quiet neighbourhood welcomed the by-pass with open arms as it eliminated almost overnight the temptation to use it as a short cut from the towns industrial and retail areas to the distant motorway.   Noise and pollution levels along with accidents were virtually wiped out.  In particular, accidents to children who on average were being seriously injured, or killed, at the rate of at least one a month.

   "Geoff?"

   He remained upright, solid, almost statuesque.  His eyes hardly blinked and the only clue to his being alive was the rapid, shallow rise and fall of his chest.

   “If he keeps that up for much longer he’ll hyperventilate……..and with a bit of luck, die!”  Joe thought to himself as he struggled to loosen the rope that bound his hands, “on second thoughts, if he died what would happen to me……and Karen?”

   The last child to meet a grisly end beneath the wheels of a speeding car on this street was six years old James Docherty from number 14.

   One Thursday, at about 4.30pm, he opened the front door of his parents detached, chalet style bungalow to wait for his father who normally arrived home from work at the local Post Office depot at around 4.45pm.

   No sooner had James pulled the door open then Magnet, the family cat, an overweight Persian with half it's left ear missing, its reward for trying to get one over on next doors Spaniel, shot through his legs and disappeared, with remarkable agility for one his size, down the drive and across the road.

   James's only thought was to recapture Magnet before his mother discovered he'd got out.  Magnet was a house cat, James had been told, which to him meant it should never leave the house.

   The driver of the black 4x4, a big, brutish metal box with the obligatory wrap-around bull bars that proudly sneer at everything they see, was juggling a mobile phone from one hand to the other, his view of James's charge down the drive obscured by a four foot wall topped with two foot of neatly trimmed Privet hedge.

   James's mother, unfortunately for her, had a perfect view.  She'd just glanced out of the upstairs bedroom window in the direction her husband would be coming from very shortly.  She'd seen the cat making its bid for freedom and subconsciously thanked God there hadn't been a car coming when it hurtled across the road.

   A glint of sunlight reflecting off her husbands car's windscreen drew her attention.

   "He's early," she thought as James reached the end of the drive.

   In a split second, the worst of a possible 5 scenarios flashed before her eyes, causing her to react instinctively and pummel on the window with clenched fists screaming, "James, stop! James!"

   The combination of double-glazing and the sound of the cars engine meant his mothers screams never reached little James's ears.

   James's father had slowed down ready to pull into the drive just in time to see his son scythed down by the speeding black behemoth travelling towards him.

   The driver, a sales executive with a national tyre company, was preoccupied dialling the number of his next client and didn't feel the impact; just a slight jolt which caused him to mis-dial, as James' body was crushed under the wheels.

   Two months after James's funeral, his parents were found, hand in hand, sitting in the car in the garage; a hosepipe connected to the cars exhaust trailed through a hole that had been meticulously drilled into the front passenger door.

"Geoff?  I’m begging you, don’t do it!"

   Far off in the distant recesses of his mind Geoff could hear the birds singing cheerily and a dog, remote but distinct, barking a 'put one foot on my property and I'll rip your knee caps off' kind of bark.

   From the radio in the kitchen Phil Collins singing 'In The Air Tonight' was just audible, interrupted intermittently by the noises of children at play, or the rumble of a passing cars engine.

   "Geoff, put it down, please!  Karen needs..."

   The look he perceived in the cold, oddly vacant eyes tightly clamped shut Joe Farrons mouth mid-sentence.  The impassive stare coupled with the slight movement of Geoff's forefinger left him rooted, frozen to the spot.

    An uncontrollable desire coursed through every muscle and nerve in Joe’s body, urging, imploring him to get up and move the short distance to the telephone and somehow summon help for his girlfriend.

   'You gonna stand there all day with that gormless look on your face?'  The voice teased.

   The fingers' movement, which at first appeared to be caressing, then fondling, the steely curvaceous contours of the guns trigger made Joe twitch and shake as if he were receiving a mild but uncomfortable, electric shock.

   He hadn't quite worked out how he was going to dial the number with his hands tied as they were, but he remembered having seen it done in a movie he'd watched with Karen some time ago.  The main problem remained; how the hell was he going to get to the phone, never mind use it!

   “Ge….”

   "Joe, calm down,"  Karen implored, her voice thick with blood which had started to trickle from the corner of her mouth and drip relentlessly onto her white blouse forming an ever widening tear-shaped pattern, "remember your heart."

   'Huh!  The cheek of the woman.  The little tart!'

   The concern Karen showed for the man with whom she'd shared the last four years sent spasms of grief convulsing through Joe's body.  His sobbing blinded him, sending spittle flying from his nose and mouth as each surge threatened to dispatch him nearer and nearer breaking point; something he was desperately fighting to avoid for both Karen's and the children's sakes.  No matter what, he had to maintain a semblance of strength, self-control.  At least make it look as if he wasn't falling apart.

   That was easy to do if he forgot about the gun, but its presence, its smell, its purpose, were factors that couldn't easily be ignored.  It commanded almost as much attention and respect when silent as it did when it spoke; its muteness as loud as its ear-splitting report.

   He chanced a sidelong glance at Karen, hoping his face conveyed the right message.  He wanted to tell her everything was going to be OK, "just hang on in there, baby.  Joe's here, he loves you."

   What he saw in that brief second confirmed the fear he was subconsciously trying to ignore.

   Karen wasn't looking at him.  Instead she seemed to be intently watching something on the floor in front of her, her eyes glazed, mesmerised by an imaginary ballet being performed by the Royal Carpet and House Mite Dance Company.

   Her sobbing had diminished to a sniffling whimper interspersed with a gurgling, congested murmur that emanated from deep within her throat, causing her chest to jump erratically with each exaggerated intake of breath.

   And the blood!  So much blood!

   The front of her blouse had transformed from a brilliant white into a deep maroon that glistened in the light that filtered in through the lounge window.  Joe stared at it and pondered the thought that blood usually makes things appear worse than they actually are; the smallest cut often looking as if an artery had been severed.  He began to think, hope, that Karen had done nothing more than fall and hit her nose causing one of her infamous nosebleeds that didn't stop until just before the empty sign started flashing.

   He grabbed these ideas and held on to them firmly, dismissing any alternatives to Karen's condition that tried to invade his fraught and unbalanced mind.  Anything was better then having to face reality.

   Joe wished he could give that same reassuring look to the two children whom he remembered seeing lying together on the sofa behind him, watching television and laughing hysterically in unison at a Tom & Jerry cartoon.  Their faces, arms and legs had been as animated as the action on the screen.  He'd seen the cartoon at least ten times but it still amused him as much as it had the first time he'd watched it.

   The television now lay upturned against the wall, smoke wisping delicately from the void where, a short while ago, Tom was about to be hit in the face by a huge frying pan wielded with amazing deftness by Jerry.  Joe fought down the urge to laugh as the idea that Tom had been saved from another beating passed through his mind.

   “C’mon Joe, pull yourself together for God’s sake!”  He shouted to himself, “how can I get to the phone?  Think!”

   He glanced at the children who were huddled together, clinging to each other as if at the same time looking for, and receiving, the kind of protectiveness only the innocent minds of the young can proffer.  The 'I'll save you from the monster that lives in the toy cupboard' kind. 

   Joe thought he heard a faint sniffling sound from one of the boys. It was impossible to tell which one it was as the gags and hoods which had been put on them muffled almost any noise.  He guessed it to be Mark, the youngest.

  The smell of urine was beginning to fill the air; the acrid odour accentuated by the summer heat.  Mingling with the caustic, bite the back of your throat stench that drifted over Joe's left shoulder, was a fragrance of dubious delicacy that began to dominate his nostrils without the cloying excessiveness found with cheap perfumes.  This aroma would certainly encourage any hot-blooded male to act impulsively; dropping everything to grab the nearest bunch of flowers and pursue the innocent woman whose perfume had ignited his passion.

   Except this fragrant smell wasn't being worn by a woman.  It radiated from Geoff.

   Joe's initial surprise at the thought that Geoff was wearing perfume, women's perfume, heightened as the subtle hints and after-smells explored his nasal sensors sending ecstatic messages to his brain.  "This is gorgeous!"  He enthused as he was overcome by another waft of slightly spicy, slightly musky, fruity air.

   "Wha..?"  Joe strangled the word a fraction too late.

   A thin layer of cold sweat enveloped his face.  Fearfully he looked up at Geoff, not really knowing what to expect to see; a fist, a knee heading for his chest!  The barrel of the gun raised to forehead height and the bullet emerge a split second before darkness!

    Geoff gave no indication as to whether he'd heard Joe's outburst, didn't even raise an eyebrow.  He just stood solid, commanding, looking at Karen with the gun at his side, his finger still caressing the trigger.

   "I don't believe it, I almost asked what after-shave he was wearing!  What am I doing?"  Within the secure, soundproof confines of his head Joe reprimanded himself on his idiocy.  He blushed, feeling the hot rush of blood inflame his cheeks and evaporate the sweat.  "I hope Karen’s not looking at me!"

   She wasn't.  She seemed preoccupied elsewhere.

   Another muffled cry from one of the children reminded Joe that there were more important issues to be dealt with then discovering what brand of after-shave Geoff wore.  Strangely, the aroma had suddenly lost its appeal.

He wanted to look properly, make sure the children were all right but he couldn't, dared not, turn his head to face them.  The movement, slight but resolute, of the forefinger with its neatly filed nail, demanded Joe's full and undivided attention as it continued to play with the trigger.  He knew he had to conform to the digits silent command, knew that the slightest pressure applied in the wrong direction, would tender unthinkable consequences.