Firebombed by neighbour!
Thursday 27th November 2008
When the phone rings first thing in the morning, it's rarely good news.
'Look out of your window,' my neighbour, Sue, said.
'Oh no,' I groaned. 'What's he done now?'
Pulling back the curtains, my stomach flipped. A 'For Sale' sign was planted in my other neighbour's lawn. To anyone else, it was just a bit of wood stuck in the ground. To me, it was like a huge sign spelling Freedom.
A grin spread across my face.
'The Browns are moving. It's over!' I yelled.
And about time, too. Back in September 1999, my husband, Brian, and I had fallen
in love with our three-bedroom semi in Fletcher Grove, Penicuik. In a lovely quiet cul-de-sac, near good schools for our sons, Brian, then 11, and Mark, 9, it was perfect for us. Even the neighbours seemed nice. I was proved right when, two hours after we'd moved in, one of them, Robert Brown, popped in.
'I'm a widower,' he confided. 'My wife passed away a few years back.'
Poor bloke. He was left to bring up his kids, Andrew, then 14, and Emma, 12, alone.
He must have been lonely, because after that, he'd often pop by for a cuppa.
'He's a nice bloke,' I told Brian. 'But there's something a bit weird about him.'
He was jumpy, edgy. And while his daughter, Emma, would happily play with
our two, you couldn't get a word out of Andrew. But then, he had lost his mum. What would you expect? To be honest, I felt sorry for them, so I made an effort to be nice. But after we'd lived in the house for two years, all that changed.
Brian was fitting a new laminate floor in the hall with the front door open. Suddenly, there was a racket. A car horn sounded, and I heard Robert shouting: 'Get out of the
f*****g way!'
One of our neighbour's kids, a 4-year-old girl, was playing in the way of Robert's drive.
'No need for that, mate,' Brian called out. 'She's just a little girl.'
Robert glared at him. So the next time I saw Robert and Andrew in the garden, I stuck my head over the fence.
'Everything OK?' I smiled.
But instead of taking my olive branch, Robert scowled.
'Put one on her, Dad,' Andrew said, swaggering towards me aggressively.
I couldn't believe it. Andrew was just 16. Brian heard and rushed out.
'Now see here…' he began, but I bundled him back inside.
'I'm not having him talk to you like that,' he ranted.
But whatever bee they had in their bonnet, I didn't want Brian retaliating. If only it was that easy.
The next day, the silent phone calls started, and soon, every morning, we would come down to find our doormat buried in a pile of junk mail.
'Who's behind this?' I sighed.
But it wasn't hard to work out. The cocky way Andrew walked past our house was enough to tell me it was him. One morning, a stack of porn magazines arrived in the post.
And things went from bad to worse. Scratches on Brian's cab, nails and broken bottles underneath the tyres and rude notes left on the windscreen. Andrew was even seen throwing stones at our ginger cat, Simba, and I found tuna laced with broken glass in our back garden.Disgusting.
But with the police unable to help, all I could do was add Simba and our westie, Angus, to the list of things to watch like a hawk. Andrew never said anything to us, but every time he passed the house, he'd look in our window and slowly run his finger across his throat.
'I'm scared,' I admitted to Brian.
Even when we fitted CCTV cameras to the front of the house, Andrew would mock us by dancing in front of them. But now, after six-and-a-half years, Andrew and his dad were finally moving.
'Just think,' I said. 'No more crunching around on broken glass, no more dreading what will come through the letterbox…'
Suddenly, I stopped and a chill ran through me.
'It's too easy,' I said slowly. 'There's no way he'll stop now.'
For the next few days, we waited. But nothing happened, and a month on, I returned from work, just in time to see the Brown's removal truck pulling out the cul-de-sac. Something told me this wouldn't be the last we'd see of them. Relax, I told myself later, as I sank into bed. But just a few hours later…Bang!
Brian jumped out of bed.
'What was that?' I gasped.
But he was already running down the stairs.
'Get out!' he bellowed. 'There's a fire.'
Suddenly, I could smell smoke. The boys and Brian joined me on the upstairs landing.
We dashed into Mark's room, where he yanked open the window. No good. Foot-high flames were leaping from the porch roof. Fear hammered in my chest.
'We're going to have to go out the front door,' Brian said.
It was terrifying. Brian had shut the door on the fire in the living room but the hall was filling up with toxic grey smoke and the heat was like nothing on earth.
'It's our only hope,' he insisted.
Covering his mouth, Brian went first, then me, then the boys. With each step down, it enveloped us like a giant blanket. Suffocating panic shot through me. Keep it together.
Finally, I felt the blast of fresh air. Collapsing, gasping, onto the pavement, I realised in relief we were all out. Including Angus and Simba.
'Thank God,' I gasped.
But just as I'd caught my breath Brian ran back in to try to put the fire out, followed by Mark. Things went blurry until the fire brigade arrived.
'My husband's in there with my son!' I screamed, just as the pair of them came coughing onto the drive. Mark was OK, but Brian was given oxygen. Thankfully, they'd managed to put out the flames. Then we were allowed back into the house.
'Our home,' I sobbed.
The living room was a black pit. In our bedroom, Brian put the CCTV video into the machine. Still dazed, I didn't know what to expect. But then I saw a young man in a white hoody swagger into shot. The cocky walk gave him away.
'Andrew,' I gasped. Who else? I watched, sickened, as he lit a cola bottle full of petrol and hurled it though our living room window. Hysterical, I broke down.
'I knew it,' I sobbed.
But at least now, we had evidence.
The following day, the police called to say Andrew had been arrested and charged with four counts of attempted murder.
'Attempted murder,' I echoed.
It was the first time it had dawned on me that he'd tried to kill us all. It was a year before he appeared at the High Court in Edinburgh. He pleaded not guilty, but thanks to the CCTV footage, he was convicted and sentenced to eight years. Judge Roger Craik QC said the footage was one of the most dramatic sequences he'd ever seen in court. But even that wasn't enough to shock Andrew, who smiled and winked at cameras as he was led away.
No explanations. No apologies.
A year on, I suppose that most people would think Brian and Mark were brave for doing what they could to save our home. I agree, but for me, that's not the bravest thing they did.
No, that was not rising to Andrew's poisonous bait. Well he's got his comeuppance now. Andrew's out of our life for good.
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