A Cross to Bear: A Jack Sheridan Mystery

by Vogel, Vince

  “I was under the impression that I was to join 203 and 466 in Syria.”

  “No, you’re to come back, 192. There’s been an unforeseen development here at home.”

  “What unforeseen development is that, Mr. Foster?”

  “This is hard for me to say to you, but I’ve been informed that your sister is dead.”

  Alex’s head violently swirled like the russet air outside the car.

  “Alex!” a little girl’s scream rang out in his ear. “Come back. Come back.”

  He was eighteen again, his bags beside him on the back seat, looking into the wing mirror of the taxi and seeing his eight-year-old sister chasing the car down the street, her face red with tears. She didn’t disappear from that mirror until they’d traveled at least four blocks.

  “What happened?” Alex muttered.

  “She’s been murdered.”

  “By who?”

  “The police don’t know. You told me to keep an eye on your family, and I got an alert this morning saying that she’s been identified. Apparently it’s something to do with a killer here in London.”

  “Which killer in London?”

  “Some guy is nailing girls to crosses and—”

  The storm in Alex’s head exploded into violent life, and he could hear nothing of what Foster subsequently said.

  “When are you coming home, Alex?” his sister said down the phone.

  It was seven years ago. Alex was twenty-two, and Becky was twelve. He’d just finished recruitment training for the SAS. It had taken a lot out of him both physically and mentally. He’d spent three months of that training in isolation, being taken out of his cell every few days, blindfolded, and tortured. It was a constant testing of his mind and how it would hold up under extreme stress. He’d been given a code word and could stop the abuse at any point by uttering it, as well as ending his chances of recruitment. No matter what they put him through, he never did mention that code word. He spent his nights staring at the damp bricks, recording every detail of them, reciting stories to himself out loud as he paced the cold stone, listening to the sounds of the other men screaming in their cells. He learned afterward that their cries had been a tape played on a loop. But those screams still haunted Alex to this day.

  The morning they passed him, Alex had lost over fifty pounds in weight, some hair, and several teeth due to malnutrition. As well as that, he’d lost a part of himself, erased forever. He was a very different man to the boy who’d left for the Marines four years earlier.

  When Becky had begged him to come home, he’d assured her that it would be soon. But inside he knew that he’d never see his sister again. He knew he couldn’t go back. He was theirs now.

  “I’ll come back within the next six months,” he’d lied to her.

  “I can’t wait,” she exclaimed excitedly.

  He never spoke to her again.

  “192?” Foster’s voice rang out.

  “Yes, I’m still here.”`

  “My deepest condolences,” the handler said solemnly. “I can’t begin to understand how hard this is for you. I feel terrible for telling you over the phone like this. But I didn’t want you finding out through some secondary source and wonder why I hadn’t told you first.”

  “Thank you” floated hollowly from Alex’s mouth like an echo from a cave.

  “So you understand that you’re to stand down and come in? At least that way you can go see your mother and attend to things here.”

  “Yes, I’ll do that. Attend to things.”

  “So I’ll see you in a day, then?”

  “A day or two.”

  “Well, I better be going. I’ll go see Goldman now and clear everything. If it’s like you say and the police are covering up Ibrahim’s death, then I’m sure he’ll be okay about it all and call the mission a success.”

  “You do that, Mr. Foster.”

  “Okay. See you soon, 192.”

  Alex sat in the car, gripping the steering wheel and gazing out at the thick, endless copper air. He’d let her down. He was her big brother and he’d unforgivingly let her down. That day when he saw his father nailed to that cross, he’d sworn to himself that he’d never leave that girl’s side. He swore to be a father where one had so cruelly been denied her.

  And what did he do?

  Fled to the arms of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines the first chance he got. He’d then turned the Armed Forces into his world. His complete composure in combat had both alarmed and impressed his superiors, and he’d quickly climbed through the echelons of it all, working his way through the knotty bowels, first into the Marines, then the SAS, and finally to Uriel—international espionage, a clandestine wing of MI6. He was now a trained killer acting directly on behalf of Her Majesty’s government abroad. A deadly tentacle of the great beast of the British state, stretching out from London and across the globe.

  Alex knew what he would do. Already, he was certain of what he would do.

  Glancing sideways at the passenger’s seat, he saw the little girl, Katya, sitting there.

  “Where are we going, Papa?” she asked.

  “Home.”

  He started the car, put it in gear, and rolled it back onto the road, before continuing toward the border, the air thick with the red mist of sand, his head thick with the red mist of something wholly different.

  9

  Jack escorted Helen into the mortuary, the smell of disinfectant heavy in the sterile air. He had ahold of her elbow, scared she’d keel over on the yellow tiles the moment he let go. The trembling woman even leaned into him a little as they came into the electric-lit room of shiny tiles and metal tables. They walked between two lines of sheet-covered bodies, and, passing them, Helen’s sad eyes would flitter from one to the next. It was only Helen and Jack. Steven Cuthbert hadn’t wanted to see the body and was waiting outside in the corridor with Lange.

  At the end of the room, a female coroner’s assistant stood by a stainless steel gurney that had been separated from the rest, a body draped in a white sheet lying upon it. The moment Helen’s eyes took in the sheeted form and the assistant’s face as they approached, she stumbled a little and Jack caught her.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he said softly into her ear. “You do know that.”

  “I want to, Jack,” she said meekly. “I have to.”

  They went on, until they were standing before the body, Jack right behind Helen.

  “Are you ready?” he asked her.

  She didn’t say the word, just nodded tearfully.

  The assistant pulled back the sheet, revealing the face and shoulders, and Helen imploded into misery, crumbling into Jack’s arms.

  “My little girl,” she whimpered.

  Gradually she pulled herself away from Jack. With her whole body shaking, she stepped forward from him and reached her hands out to Becky’s face, the eyes now closed. The assistant gave Jack a look as Helen began running her hands down her daughter’s face, but Jack returned a look that told the woman to let it go. There were certain times when protocol could be relaxed.

  “My Becky,” the mother cried and bent down, kissing her little girl on the forehead for the very last time.

  Jack drove him and Lange back to the Cuthberts’, whose car traveled in front of them. The rain had eased off now, though it still came down in an even spread, and the sky was a dank watercolor of black and gray.

  “What did the husband say while you waited outside?” Jack asked Lange.

  “Nothing. He just sat there staring into space. Poor woman, hey.”

  “Yeah. Helen’s had to deal with a lot over the years. Too much for some people. I just hope she’s gonna cope with all of this.”

  Back at the Cuthberts’ home, Lange once again waited in the car while Jack sat inside with the couple. With the husband and wife side by side on the couch, Helen shivering in Cuthbert’s arms, Jack sat in an armchair that he’d positioned across from them so they could talk. There were questions he needed answ
ering.

  “I don’t want you thinking that I’m being insensitive,” Jack began, “but the sooner I get this out of the way, the sooner we start hunting for the person that did this. So I’m going to ask you some questions now. Do you think you’re both up for that?”

  “Yeah,” Helen muttered, wiping her nose with a tissue.

  “Sure,” Steven grunted.

  “You reported that you last saw Becky early Saturday evening before she went to a friend’s house. Can you tell me the exact time and the name of the friend?”

  “She left the house at around six in the evening,” Helen replied. “She was going to study with her friend Lauren.”

  “You don’t happen to have Lauren’s second name?”

  “Chalmers. She goes to our school. I can give you her telephone number and address.”

  “That’d be great. I’ll take it later. And I guess you’ve spoken with this friend?”

  “Yes. Saturday night an hour after Becky was due back. I called Lauren and she told me that Becky had left over two hours before.”

  “What time would that have been?”

  “She left Lauren’s at nine.”

  “Do you know the usual route she’d take from Lauren’s?”

  “She took her bike. Lauren lives off Devonshire Road, so Becky used to cycle across Arradine. It’s a bunch of woodland and fields. There’s a cycle path going through it.”

  Jack knew Arradine too well. Back in the late eighties, a notorious rapist had terrorized those woods for three years until he was caught. Jack thought of that now as he imagined Becky Dorring riding her bike in the pitch black through the avenues of tangled trees.

  “Could there have been anyone else that Becky would have met?” Jack asked. “A boyfriend maybe.”

  “She didn’t have one. Not for the past two years since Coop.”

  “Coop?”

  “He was some scumbag that latched on to her,” Steven interposed in a harsh tone. “He was five years older than her and got her into all sorts of stuff.”

  “He wasn’t so bad,” Helen protested gently. “He was troubled is all.”

  “He was scum, Helen. She was way out of his league. He dragged her down and was partly to blame for her breakdown.”

  “Breakdown?” Jack enquired with a widening of the eyes.

  “Nearly two years ago,” Helen informed him, “Becky had a breakdown and was admitted into a psychiatric facility.”

  “And where was this?”

  “Rampton. Do you know it?”

  “I do,” Jack replied, noting it down with the rest in his notepad. “Is that why she’s still in six form at nineteen?”

  “Yeah,” Helen said, and her face went instantly sad. “She was supposed to do her A-Levels this summer.”

  At the thought of such shattered promise, the mother broke down into tears once again, smothering herself into Steven. So much potential had been wiped from the Earth. The mother had dreamed of her little girl getting over her previous troubles and completing her English degree at university. Going on to be a professional journalist like she’d always dreamed of. Meeting someone who she’d want to spend the rest of her life with. Marrying. Having children. Coming over every other Sunday. Helen and Steven going over to their place the corresponding weekend. So much future happiness was due the mother, and now it had been cruelly stolen from her.

  “I know this is difficult,” Jack said gently. “But I have to ask. Ignoring this fella Coop, what do you think triggered Becky’s breakdown?”

  Helen pulled herself away and wiped her tear-sodden face.

  “Where to start?” she said in a quivering voice. “First, her father is killed and thrown on the street for her to see. That stayed with her. You know, she still suffered from nightmares because of it all.”

  Jack felt a pang of shame here for some reason.

  “It was a terrible night, Helen.”

  “Well, that started a lot of it really. I had to pick up the pieces of my children while struggling to pick up the pieces of myself. I was cold and for the next few years I wasn’t good to them. I’ll admit that I was a terrible mother.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for that, love,” Steven offered his wife.

  Helen turned to him with a gentle smile.

  “Anyway,” she sniffed, “that was when she was four. Then when she was eight, her brother left.”

  “I forgot to ask,” Jack interjected, the boy suddenly coming to his mind. “How is Alex?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “He joined the Marines eleven years ago and hasn’t been back since. The last time I saw my son was nine years ago when we went to Germany while he was on leave. He didn’t even want to come the short distance across the Channel to England to see us. We had to go out to him.”

  “And is he still in the Marines?”

  “Not anymore. We were still speaking to him by phone when he joined the SAS seven years ago. Although that was only occasionally.”

  “The SAS?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s impressive. I only ever made it to infantry, and even that was enough for me.”

  “I was really proud of him,” she said, the glint of pride lighting up her unhappy eyes. “Not that he ever wanted any of that pride. I always sensed he was waiting for a father’s pride.”

  “And do you know if he’s still in the SAS? If he hasn’t left, become a civilian, and gone on to something else.”

  “I wouldn’t have a clue. About two years ago, I went to the Ministry of Defence and asked about him. Wanted to find out where my son was. They told me that his whereabouts were confidential and that they couldn’t supply any information on him. I mean, I’m his bloody mum for Christ’s sake. I should have a right to know where my own son is, or to at least be able to pass on a message.”

  “So you’ve had no contact with him for how long?”

  “Seven years. It broke his sister’s heart. They were really close. She always looked up to him. I think a lot of her issues were in some way caused by the two main men in her life leaving her at such a young age. Steven did his best.”

  “I tried,” the husband threw in. “But I think she felt so let down by men that she always held me at arm’s length. Though I still loved her like she was my own.”

  “Getting back to Rampton,” Jack stated, eager to get on. “Was their anything particular that you think initiated her going inside?”

  “She was arrested for something silly,” Helen said.

  “Can you tell me about that? Of course, if it’s too hard, you don’t have to.”

  Helen waved her hand, passing on the task to Steven.

  “She was found in this guy’s car,” he said in a slightly defensive tone. “Apparently she was… well, she and he were… you get the picture.”

  “I do,” Jack rejoined, already knowing everything he needed from this particular episode in the girl’s life. Becky’s breakdown had followed her arrest, he noted down. “So you think this precipitated her breakdown?”

  “It was right after,” Steven answered. “As for the arrest, it was nothing really. The main charges were dropped, and they gave her a caution. Her mum went and picked her up that night.”

  As Cuthbert talked, Jack observed that Helen’s face had gone very pale, her gaze fixed to the carpet. There was something about the conversation that the mother found uncomfortable, and Jack felt it was more than just the talk of the arrest.

  “Well, when they got home,” Steven was saying, “Becky was screaming. She ran up to her room and smashed it up. After that she locked herself in, and we thought she’d calmed down. But later on… well, that’s when… I found her in the bath… after she’d used the mirror.”

  Steven went silent and a blankness swept over his countenance. His wife gripped his hand tightly in her own.

  “What did she use the mirror for, Steven?” Jack enquired.

  “She cut herself�
�� It was me that found her… all covered in blood…”

  Typically, Helen dug herself into her husband.

  “So I drove her to the hospital,” Cuthbert went on, “pissing blood everywhere in the car, her face as white as a ghost. I waited for her out in the hospital corridor. Waited as they stitched her up and brought her back to life. Then the next day, the doctors told us that she was suffering from a manic episode and needed to be taken to Rampton for psychiatric assessment. Within one week in there, she was committed indefinitely.”

  “That must have been very hard.”

  “It was. For nearly a year, we sat in this empty shell of a home wondering if she’d ever get out. Then she did. Nine months later. Got herself completely sorted. She’s had the odd down moment, but in the last year she’s been brilliant, on the cusp of university, achieving high, looking forward to a bright future.” His eyes went misty, and he muttered the next part. “Now look what’s happened.”

  Jack asked if he could see Becky’s bedroom, and Helen showed him the way, Steven Cuthbert following up the stairs. The mother proudly guided Jack into the well-kept room. The bed was made with white sheets covered in little stitched patterns of bluebells. At the foot of it a collection of teddy bears had been stacked neatly together, as though they were an audience awaiting someone who would never return to the stage. In one corner of the room was a desk with a laptop computer on it, and on the far wall was the only sign of disorder, though even this added character and life to the room. It looked like an installation art piece, the type that Jack often didn’t get. Pasted all over the wall were different items: murals of photographs—innumerable mates in differing poses, many of Becky, sporting a different hairstyle in almost every one—train tickets from days spent gallivanting with friends, a T-shirt covered in the felt-tip signatures of many people, the broken heel of a stiletto, a cracked CD, flyers from a dozen gigs pasted on with glue, a length of stolen police tape, bottle caps, a spray paint can, spare change, foreign coins, maps, and many other things gathered from Becky’s life, all of which meant something to her.