"Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule" Anon..

He’s back. I can hear him, outside the door. Why is he coming back again? Why bother?

I can feel him; feel his presence on the other side of the door. I have that feeling in the pit of my stomach again, like someone has started kicking a football around it.

I will not be afraid, I will not be afraid, I……

I am afraid.

Why deny it? What good will it do? I’m dying. There’s no two ways of looking at it. My insides are crying out for water, for food, for sleep. My eyes are so heavy and yet every time I close my eyes I can feel his face beside me, and his breath on me.

These ropes are so sore, and these chains so tight. I just want to take them off and stretch out my legs and my arms, loosen the muscles and take out the cramps.

I want to be in Bayport at Christmas with Ness. We could go outside after the first fall of snow and make snow angels in the ground, lying there, side by side on our backs, our arms and legs outstretched.

I want to lie on the beach outside our apartment in the summer, the hot sun shining down on me, warm, safe….happy

I don’t want to die, not here, not like this. Not so as some madman can act out some stupid revenge scenario that’s been inside his twisted mind for god knows how long, some ex-con no doubt that Dad or Frank and I put away a few years ago, who got out on early release and is looking for revenge.

Or maybe it’s a son or a brother or a cousin, whose family we helped to jail, out to avenge the person that they think ruined their life.

There’s always someone out to hurt us, someone out for revenge. We have arrested so many people, even killed or been witnesses to killings.

Maybe they are right to hate us……

Maybe the person we threw in jail was a criminal but they might also have been a husband or a wife, a mother or a father, a son or a daughter. When you catch a killer, or even kill a killer there will always be someone to mourn them.

But that’s the risk Frank and I took, that’s the risk Dad has taken all his life, and that’s why I cant give up, not now.

I will sit here and face the door and I will look into his eyes. I will look into his eyes and show him that I won’t go down easily, that he hasn’t broken me yet.

He’s opening the door. What if he’s here to kill me? What if the only I thing I see when the door opens is the barrel of a gun, or the blade of a knife? What then? I can’t identify the suspect if I’m dead, can I?

Frank and I talked once or twice about the risks associated with our jobs, and the near misses we have both had in the past. We’ve been kicked, punched, stabbed, even shot, but we always survived.

We can survive anything once we’re together. Well maybe not anything, but you know what I mean. If Frank were here now, these ropes and chains would be long gone and we would be standing either side of the door, ready to attack whoever it was on the other side.

Now I can just sit here, helpless, like the victim in some twisted thriller, only it’s not a thriller on TV, its reality, and it’s walking in the door at this moment, and I can see his face.

And now I know that he’s not going to shoot me or stab me. He wants me to die slowly, and painfully. I’ve never seen so much hate on one persons face before, never, not even on Arnold Fraser as he tried to avenge his son’s death.

But this isn’t a psychotic serial killer……I can see his eyes, I know him.

Fenton Radley.

The only son of Dad’s long-time partner and best friend, Sam Radley. Dad’s namesake and godchild. The boy that Frank and I played baseball with and looked out for, the boy that was almost like a surrogate younger brother until the Radley’s moved away. But he’s just a kid. 17, 18 maybe? Old enough to hate it seems.

I haven’t seen him in what, eight, ten years? But I’d know that face anywhere, those eyes, like Sam’s, only Sam’s are always full of compassion, his are, well, full of pain. Pain that I’d say he’s been hiding inside of him for a long time.

Dad told us that he had gone off the rails a little. A little????? Huh, I’d say a lot. I don’t think someone who is only slightly mad would have come up with this idea and then been able to carry it through.

But why do this? Why kidnap the son of your father’s best friend? Why leave me here to die. What happened? Maybe if I talk to him……

"Fenton, can I have something to drink?" "I’m a little thirsty here."

Hmm, more silence. How unsurprising. How can he just stand there and look at me, and not say anything. If he would shout and rave, hit and kick me, at least then I’d know why, at least then it would all come out. But he just keeps standing there, silent. I can’t stand it!

"What’s this about, huh? Why are you doing this? Why do you hate me so much? My god, I played baseball with you, thought you the guitar, we were friends. Why WHY… dammit talk to me, TALK TO ME!"

"You know why, Joe? Because you and your brother ruined my life. Every day all I heard about was the Hardy’s. Did you hear Son? Frank Hardy got the highest marks the school in math’s this year? Did you hear that Joe hardy has been names as lead quarterback for the football team, Did you hear son, Frank and Joe both graduated college with honors, Did you hear son, Frank and Joe set up their own detective business, followed in their Dads footsteps."

"Did you hear, did you hear……every single day? And I was always compared to you and your stupid brother. Why don’t you play football Son, why don’t you like school son? Don’t you want to go to college like the Hardy’s? I’m sick of my father talking about you; he loves you more than he ever loved me. I’m sick of him, sick of you and your family having it all."

"It’s your turn to feel pain Joe, it’s your brother’s turn to be alone, and it’s my turn to ruin Sam Radley and Fenton Hardy, because at this moment I hate both of them"

"Fenton, wait, please!"………no… he’s gone, and the door is closed again.

What would I have said to him, what could I have said? What can you say to someone who is carrying around that much anger and resentment with them?

At least now this whole horrid situation is starting to make sense, although maybe sense isn’t the right word for it.

Fenton Radley has no brothers, and his sisters are all younger than him, and are his responsibility. Looking back I guess we were always close to Sam, he was around all the time, especially when Frank and I were small.

He and Dad were really close. They had worked so many cases together, gone through so much trauma, they are almost like brothers themselves. And Sam always took an interest in us, he came to our little league games, and helped us with our homework. Dad said that he was the happiest man in the world the night that his son was born.

So what happened? Sam Radley is a good man; I can’t believe that he would look down on his son. Maybe he just wanted him to succeed, wanted him to follow in his footsteps like we followed in Dads.

Lots of father’s push their sons, our father was pretty strict, and expected a lot. But I had an ally, a friend, a motivator and a mentor.

Fenton Radley didn’t have a rock, a rock that is always there when it’s needed, that’s solid and strong, and that will love him no matter what. He didn’t have a Frank.

It’s hard to believe that someone could be that messed up and no-one noticed it.

Now I know. Something has died in Fenton Radley, and I don’t think it’s ever going to come back. There’s good in everyone I know, but in some cases there is so much pain, so much anger that it overwhelms everything else.