Criminal Revenge by Conrad Jones

front door. She looked like a child peeking through the rails. Ashwan flicked a light switch near the door. Security floodlights illuminated the front lawn. To his left was the study. It had bow windows protruding out from the main elevation. Ash kept close to the wall as he crept into the study. He navigated his way across the polished oak floorboards, around the leather topped desk, to the widow. He moved the heavy velvet drapes a fraction and peered out onto the lawn. The curved bay windows allowed him a clear view of the garden, and the porch area. The front door was visible, and there was no one there. He swept the grassed areas and caught his breath. There was a rolled object dumped near the double garage, to the right of his vision. It could be a carpet, or a large refuse sack. It could also be a body. Ashwan thought about Mamood, and blood pounded through his brain. He gripped the baseball bat so tightly that his knuckles went white.
    “Who is it, Ash?” Lana’s voice made him jump.
    “For fuck’s sake, Lana!”
    “What’s going on, is it Mamood?”
    “Get back up the stairs, Lana!” Ash shouted at the top of his voice. “Get back up the fucking stairs!”
    “Don’t use that language with me, Ash!” Tears filled her eyes. Ashwan was secretive and sometimes moody, but he never abused her, verbally or physically. Something was very wrong. “Don’t ever swear at me, Ashwan Pindar!”
    Lana stared at her husband, and she didn’t recognise him. The veins in his neck were stretched to snapping point. His temples pulsed visibly with the pressure. She backed out of the study frightened; hot tears spilled over her eyelids and ran down her cheeks. She had never seen Ash this scared before. What had he seen through the window? Why was he acting so bizarrely? Where was her son? Lana sat on the bottom step and bit her fingernails as her husband opened the front door. He looked around cautiously, and then walked out into the night with the bat cocked ready to strike.
    Ash walked slowly towards the double garage. He looked left and right, scanning the dark beyond the reach of the security lights. Nothing stirred. The roll looked plastic, reflective in some way. As he got closer, the shape of a body took shape beneath the cellophane wrapping. There was blood pooled from the waistline down, blurring the outline of the legs and feet. He moved closer, praying that it was not his son. His life was a charade, a family man on one side and a gangster on the other. Ashwan’s enemies were many, and his biggest fear was that one day they might come looking for him in his family world. He was staring his fears in the eye as his two worlds collided. The time had come to reap the rewards for the suffering that he had sown over the years.
    Ash could make out a face through the plastic. The facial features were squashed and misshapen by the wrapping. The eyes were wide open, rolled backwards into the skull, only the whites showing. Ash lowered the bat as he stared at the dead boy. He was a boy, a teenager, certainly no older. The mouth was fixed wide open in a silent scream. It was a surreal sight to behold. There was a dead teenager wrapped in plastic, dumped on his driveway in front of his garage. Ash looked closer. His eyes widened as realisation struck home. It was Abdul Salim, one of his junior dealers. There was now no doubt in his mind, someone was sending him a message, a bad one, for sure. How had they connected a street dealer to him? It had to be a rival gang; no one else would pull a stunt like this. Abdul Salim worked the tower blocks in Netherley, and they were lucrative market places, constantly under threat from neighbouring crime families. It looked like one of them was making a serious bid to take over the area.
    Ashwan’s brain raced at warp speed. One of his dealers had been wasted and then dumped on his front lawn. Someone was sending him a message, but who? Perhaps it was another dealer? Ashwan was furious. It