Before Another War

Chapter Four

The damn birds woke Raf up at six again. He kept meaning to buy a pair of earplugs but never seemed to find the time. Instead, he made do by blocking off his ears with a pillow. Knowing he wouldn't get any more sleep, Raf crawled out of the covers and wandered through his poky flat in his boxer shorts. 

The apartment was a complete and utter mess. Plates piled up in the sink, clothes strewn across the floor, and God knows what that stain was on the sofa. Still, Raf didn't mind—he hadn't had visitors in a while.

There was a small yap behind him, and turning round, he watched Roxy bounding up to him. The small Norfolk terrier tried to jump up on his legs, but he stepped back quickly, wanting to avoid a muddy knee.

 She was a pretty dog with thick brown fur and a little round face, but Roxy made far too much noise for the neighbours. 

'Alright, alright. Give me a minute,' he muttered. 

Breakfast would have to wait. Going back to his room, Raf found a relatively clean t-shirt and jeans and threw them on. He resolved to tidy up later, just like he had yesterday, and the day before that...

Putting on his coat, Raf headed out into the hall. Much like his flat, it hadn't been looked after properly for a long time. The crummy carpeted floor hadn't seen a vacuum in a good couple of months, and the yellowing paint peeled from the walls. Raf didn't mind it. He preferred to live in cheaper places. It avoided suspicion.

 Technically, Raf had enough in his bank account to qualify him as a millionaire, but he didn't want to touch a penny of it. Not yet.

One drawback of the building was his neighbour, who Raf believed to be the most annoying woman on the planet. Martha was the type of person you met once and never wanted to see again. Sometimes, he considered that she might genuinely be trying to be nice, just in completely the wrong way.

A few years ago, Raf had caught a nasty bout of the flu and spent most of the night coughing and sneezing. Some of the kinder residents, like Melissa, had thought to pop round and ask if he needed anything. But any sympathy he got from Martha, however, was lost on him. One morning, on the second or third day of his illness, he'd opened the door to find a small packet of cough sweets placed on his doormat. No note, no letter, just a pretty clear message that someone wanted him to shut up. Of course, Raf couldn't be certain it was Martha who left them there. But no one else shared a wall with him, and besides, it was exactly her style.

As if on cue, as Raf strolled past her door, she stuck her head out into the hallway and stared at him with beady eyes.

 'Morning,' Raf grumbled, wanting to be amicable.

'Good morning.' She smiled, perfectly sweet. 'You're up early today.'

'Yeah, the birds woke me up.'

'Oh, I enjoy the birdsong every morning.' She grinned even wider, but there was a falseness in her eyes. 'Mind how you go now, you don't want to wake anyone else up with that noisy little dog of yours.' 

Having made her point, Martha disappeared back into her flat. Raf shook his head in disbelief and continued down the hall. That bloody woman. He could never quite work her out. It didn't matter, he'd be moving soon anyway. But only to another flat. Something he could believably afford with his salary. Hopefully, he'd have more courteous neighbours. 

Raf hoped he'd be fortunate enough to live next to a sweet old lady who dropped off cookies every week. But he knew, with his luck, he'd probably end up living next to the Grinch.

He reached the small garden outside of the flats and stood shivering in the cold Scottish air. He'd often considered moving back to London, at least it was warmer. But there was something about Scotland that you just couldn't get anywhere else. It was the people. They compensated for the weather with their warmth. 

When he first came up from the South, it had taken him some time to adjust. In London, Raf had become accustomed to icy smiles and cold glances.

Roxy was now dashing about the tiny green space in front of the flats, sticking her nose in everything. He was becoming impatient in the cold, half-wondering why he'd kept the dog in the first place. She had been a present from his sister. An apology, of sorts, for what happened.

Roxy spent a little longer scurrying around before becoming strangely interested in one of the bushes bordering the garden. Raf didn't pay it any attention until she pulled a half-eaten curry out from under it. 

Embarrassingly, he spent the next few minutes chasing her frantically in a circle around the garden. He couldn't let her eat it. The last time Roxy had gotten her paws on a curry, Raf spent the whole night getting up and letting her out. Even then, she had still left him a present on the carpet when he woke up in the morning. 

Eventually, after seizing the cardboard tub from her jaws, he chucked it into a bin, where it belonged. Before long, Roxy stood by the door to the flats, giving him frustrated glances. She was ready to go back inside. She must be feeling the chill.  He headed back inside.

Out of breath from the stairs and back in front of his flat, Raf fumbled around for his key, his cold fingers refusing to move. He noted that the number on the door, thirty-three, was looking rustier. Yet another job to add to his list. 

Raf was already in a bad mood. In fact, he'd been feeling awful all week, a combination of both the weather and the boredom. No one in the office had noticed, of course. They were all too caught up in their own lives, and Raf made a point of avoiding most of them. A few times, Matt had dragged him along to game nights or meals out, but Raf was uninterested. He preferred the quiet. Most of them are just old fogeys, anyway. 

Raf found his key and unlocked the door, getting inside as quickly as possible, and wanting to avoid another visit from Martha. Once inside, he rested his half-frozen hands on the radiator, feeling the painful heat rise through his fingers, and resolved to get breakfast. 

Of course, he'd have to feed Roxy first. Just last week, he had been tucking into some new halal beef sausages that he'd found hidden in the back of the Tescos, when she'd jumped up and snatched one straight off his plate. 

He found a clean-ish pan and set it on the stove. Then, Raf wandered over to the corner of the kitchen to grab the massive bag of dog food. As he bent down, from across the flat, his computer made a funny noise, similar to the sound of the buzzers on the X-Factor. 

He hoped it wasn't broken. It hadn't made a noise like that before. There was no way he wanted to waste an hour being talked at by some teenager in PC world. Knowing he should check, but not wanting to, Raf set the dog food back down and headed to his desk. 

Roxy, deciding she was far too hungry for anything else to be important, ran around his legs, yapping.

'Shush! She'll be knocking on the door in a minute if you aren't quiet!' he whispered, placing a finger on his lip. 

He almost fell over the little dog several times before reaching the laptop. It looked alright. Raf knew he hadn't split anything on it, which was the reason why three out of four of his previous machines had broken. The other time was when his sister punched a hole through the screen after a particularly vicious argument.

 Raf opened the lid and turned it on, praying that it wouldn't start smoking. But the laptop was fine. The screen lit up as normal. Actually, he could've sworn that it was booting up quicker than usual. However, it didn't take him long to realise that the screen wasn't quite right. 

There was no sign of the login button. It was just a glowing, disconcerting, dark blue, as if there had been some sort of error.

'What?' He said under his breath. Maybe it is broken. Yet, it wasn't. The computer was working fine. The only issue was that it wasn't his anymore.

Little white words began to appear at the top of the screen, written in menacing capital letters. It appeared like someone was typing them out as he watched on, helpless. When he read the words, Raf knew he wouldn't be able to touch that money anytime soon.

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID.