A Cross to Bear: A Jack Sheridan Mystery

by Vogel, Vince

  I wanna tell you about the Beast. I wanna tell you about the one thing in my whole life that scares me more than anything else.

  Jack was intrigued.

  It comes at night, pouring in through the gap beneath my bedroom window. It can do that because it’s made of smoke when it’s out there in the darkness. That’s how it gets in. Black smoke seeps in through the gap and forms a huge shadowy beast that steps foot in the room. Lying in bed, I become paralysed and can’t move. Not even a scream comes out of my mouth. I try. With all my might. But no sound comes out. The Beast slowly creeps along the floor on its front like a snake, reaching my bed. It gets inside the covers with me, rolling its dirt-ridden fingers all over me, moving them down my body, to my thighs and on to my…

  Jack skipped over next part. It was too disturbing to spend any real time over. He just took in the odd part like penetrates and holds its hand over my mouth. It was clear that this so-called Beast was raping Becky. He read on, wondering if it was a dream or something else.

  Afterwards it seeps back out the window and I’m left with nothing but the hollow feeling it always leaves me with. I lie on my side holding my crotch, shivering and crying. I hate that creature with every cell in my body. I hate how it makes me feel. Even now, years after it disappeared out the window for the last time, I dream about it coming into my room and climbing into bed with me. I dream about what it does to me and what it wants from me. Its black eyes glistening in the dark, dragging its forked tongue over my…

  “We’re on for one tomorrow,” Lange suddenly said from beside Jack, making him jump.

  “Bloody hell,” the old detective gasped, grabbing his chest. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

  “Sorry, sarge.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “Is it interesting, then?” Lange nodded toward the journal.

  “Yes. Very.”

  “What’ve you read so far?” the detective constable wished to know, leaning in to have a look.

  Jack snapped the book shut in front of him, and Lange jumped back slightly.

  “That, George, you’ll have to find out tomorrow. I’m taking this home to read. But first I have to see my wife.”

  Jack got up, took his coat from the back of his chair, put it on, and walked to the office door.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, George,” he said as he left.

  “Yeah, see you tomorrow, sarge.”

  19

  Dorring stood in front of a large window that stretched from the floor to the ceiling inside an empty office building. He was looking through the long-lens camera that stood on its tripod. Everything behind him was bare columns and carpet tiles, not a desk or filing cabinet in sight. The building would once have been full of bustling employees going about their work, the place filled with the sound of general chatter, telephones ringing, and fingers tapping keyboards. But several years ago, the insurance company that filled it with their employees went kaput. Now it was nine stories of emptiness guarded by a single security guard working twelve-hour rotations. They were essentially guarding space, making sure no one got in and stole all the space.

  Where he stood on the fourth floor, Dorring had a perfect view through the camera of the building across the street, around which rose an eleven-foot fence of thick metal crowned with coiling razor wire. At widths of a few meters along it, CCTV cameras on tall poles watched the surrounding streets, and a huge metal gate was the only entrance into the place. Behind the unwelcoming fence stood a large three-story building that was once a small office block but now served as something wholly different. This was shown by the fact that all the windows on the first two floors had been covered with giant metal shutters that appeared to be permanently closed. There was no business sign out front and nothing giving off the building’s intentions. But it was a busy place, and the gate opened and closed for all sorts of vehicles to come and go.

  Dorring knew what was going on inside. He knew that this building was the main studio of “Sensual Sin.” It was possibly the same place that his sister had shot the video he had painfully found earlier. Alex wanted to see the building, wanted to know its habits and therefore know its weaknesses. He was collating data on the Doyles, and, whether they were responsible for his sister’s death or not, he felt them owed a much-overdue vengeance for all the other evil they had done his family.

  It was gazing across at the flat roof of the studio, however, that Alex saw a curious sight. A slender leg suddenly smashed through the glass of an upstairs window. He was further intrigued as he watched a young black-haired woman in matching leather jacket and tight skinny jeans crawl out onto the window ledge with what looked like a rolled-up rug over her shoulder. She gingerly stood up and, with all the might of her lean body, chucked the rug upward onto the roof. She then grabbed on to the ledge above and began hoisting herself up. But as her legs dangled precariously, a large man inside the room reached out and attempted to take her by the feet. With the furious anger of a tigress, she kicked out and caught him full on in the face so that he sprawled back away from the window. She then pulled herself up onto the roof, grabbed ahold of the rug, and began running toward the far edge where the building was closest to the fence. An access door flung open as she passed and another man came darting out, chasing after her as she reached the edge. The girl tossed the rug at the fence, so that it draped over the razor wire, gave a quick glance back at the approaching man, and leaped onto the rug before dropping down to the ground the other side with a thud, the man looking down and speaking into a walkie-talkie.

  Dorring folded up the camera, packed it quickly away into his rucksack, and left the building via the window he’d used to get in. With hurried movements, he climbed back down the building facade, his fingers gripping the brickwork with exceptional strength. When his feet hit the ground, he looked across an open area of asphalt bursting with great clumps of weeds, a tall chain-link fence running either length of it. He instantly saw the girl steadily making her way along the street the other side of the open ground, glancing over her shoulder as she went along, her movements stunted by a limp that she’d picked up from the fall off the fence. Alex then saw two large men following at pace.

  Briskly, he made his way along the street toward where it intersected with the one the girl was being chased down. Reaching the end, he turned right and saw that the girl had also turned right and was now jogging as best she could, dragging her left leg a little. She was making her way along the edge of a canal that ran through the end of the industrial area, the two men still in pursuit. Dorring put his head down and jogged after them.

  The girl turned onto a small rusted footbridge that went across the old canal, the men about five meters behind her. When she was halfway across, she climbed over the rail and stood on a two-inch ledge, holding on for balance. Shouting something back at the men, who had cautiously stopped and were signaling for her to get down, she made a crude gesture and jumped into the water several meters below.

  Dorring went into a sprint as the girl struggled in the thick brown water. Leaving his rucksack on the cracked pathway, he dived into the oily water and swam to where the girl was trying her best to stay afloat, her injured leg hindering her efforts. Reaching her, Alex took the girl from behind by the shoulders, and she immediately attempted to push him off, kicking out at him from under the water.

  “It’s okay,” he said to her. “I’m not with them.” She turned to him, and he saw the startled fear shimmering in her eyes. “It’s okay,” he added softly.

  She submitted to him, and he swam them both to the edge, where he lifted her up onto the pavement before hoisting himself up. The girl lay on her back, gasping for air and coughing out the filthy canal water she’d swallowed. Alex stood beside her and glimpsed in the direction of the bridge. He saw the two men eagerly approaching. Having turned onto her side and seen the same thing, the girl grabbed ahold of Alex’s leg, and he glanced down at her.

  “Don’t let them take me,�
� she pleaded in a trembling voice, her terrified eyes glaring meekly up at him.

  “I won’t.”

  He walked earnestly toward the two men, both of them barrel-chested and over six feet tall, one crammed in a blue suit and the other in a gray one.

  “Thanks, mate,” Blue Suit said, his flat, rectangular mouth resembling a flapping letterbox when he talked. “We’ll take her now.”

  “The girl says she doesn’t want to go.”

  Both men turned their eyes up to the sky and gave little smiles.

  “She’s sick, mate,” the man went on. “She needs help. We’re lookin’ after her.”

  “But now I’m looking after her.”

  They frowned and looked at Dorring as though they couldn’t gather whether he was being serious or not. Blue Suit leaned forward and opened his suit jacket up, displaying a handgun.

  “Look, mate,” he said in a hushed voice, “just fuck off.”

  In a split-second strike, Alex jabbed Blue Suit’s stomach, making him keel forward, removed the gun from its belt, and then headbutted him so that he flew back. With a deft movement, Alex used the man’s weight and motion to send him crashing into the canal.

  A second after the initial jab, Dorring stood aiming Blue Suit’s handgun at Gray Suit, Blue Suit spluttering and splashing in the viscous water.

  “All right,” Gray Suit said, raising his hands in submission.

  “Fucking shoot him, Ralph,” Blue Suit said indignantly from the canal. “He don’t even know how to shoot that gun.”

  No sooner were these words out of Blue Suit’s mouth than Alex had fired a bullet straight down into Gray Suit’s foot. He screamed out and fell to the ground clutching it, the toe of his Italian leather shoe completely blown away, blood seeping out.

  “My fuckin’ foot,” he bellowed, his face going white.

  “So we’ve established I know how to use the gun. Shall I show you what else I know?”

  Dorring moved forward toward the man and, keeping the gun on him, dipped his hand quickly into the inside of the gray jacket and pulled the man’s gun out. He then disassembled both weapons and threw their parts and ammo into the canal.

  “My suggestion to you both,” Alex said, glancing from one to the other, “is the same as you gave to me: fuck off.”

  “You’re making a huge mistake,” Gray Suit snarled from the ground.

  “We’ll see.”

  Dorring turned to the girl and asked if she was okay to move.

  “Yeah, I’m good,” she replied.

  He offered her his hand, which she took with her ice-cold fingers, and he pulled her up, noticing that her whole body was violently shivering. He turned to Gray Suit.

  “Take off your jacket.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Dorring swooped down and grabbed the man’s foot, lifting it up and pressing his fingers into the hole in the shoe, harshly poking the wound. The man screamed out and immediately began removing his jacket. Alex snatched it off him and placed it around the girl, before ushering her along the path and away from the two men.

  Helping her along, Alex glanced every so often at the men behind them, the hobbling one lifting the wet one from the canal. When he and the girl reached his rucksack, Alex picked it up and the two continued along the path until they cut across a derelict area of broken tarmac and weeds. In his arms, Alex could feel how weak the girl was, and when he placed her in the passenger’s seat of his car, she collapsed into it.

  He then drove them out of there, wondering what it was that those men wanted with this girl. Taking a glimpse at her, he saw a slim young woman around the same age as his sister, her soaking shoulder-length black hair draped across a pale face of sharp cheekbones, nimble chin, and long lashes.

  He wondered if it had been the correct idea to go after her. His instinct had told him to follow. But his instinct had been wrong before.

  20

  As Jean had commanded in the note, Jack picked his suit up from the dry cleaners and then the flowers. They were a nice bouquet of blue orchids mixed with white lilies, Marsha’s favorite. He went home and changed into the suit, the first time he’d worn it since her birthday last year.

  It was Marsha’s favorite.

  Fourteen years before, she’d taken him to William Hunt of Savile Row to have it made, gleefully selecting all the materials herself. It was a three-piece affair of sky-blue flannel, with a double-breasted jacket, slim trousers, and waistcoat. He wore it with a matching tie and white shirt, even placing the silver tie pin on that she’d bought him for his fortieth birthday.

  Every time he slipped that pin on, his name engraved across it, he thought of that day seventeen years ago. It had been a surprise party, which Marsha had arranged for him. He’d come home from work to find his street full of cars and sworn as he’d attempted to get onto his own drive. When he entered the house, he’d found it oddly subdued. Walking around, he discovered his wife and daughter absent and couldn’t understand why. He’d then heard something in the back garden, and when he ventured out, he was hit with the typical cheer of “surprise!” Carrie, only ten then, had launched herself into his arms, and he always smiled to think of that occasion. They were such a happy family then.

  It was five o’clock and already getting dark by the time Jack reached Ebury Court Care Home in Romford. He parked his car up on the shingle car park and made his way through the light rain to the front doors of the modern redbrick facility, manicured shrubs and bushes adorning the front of it.

  “Hello, Jack,” came a familiar female voice as he stepped inside. It was Babs, one of Marsha’s carers, a large lady of Ghanian descent with pudding-bowl hair and big round eyes. “Are those for me?” she joked, nodding toward the flowers from behind the reception desk.

  “I wish they were, my love. But these are for the birthday girl. How’s she been today?”

  “She’s been peaceful.” This was the best to be hoped for, Jack thought. “She ate most of her lunch, and she slept all afternoon.”

  “She up now?”

  “Yes. She’s awaiting you. Sue is in with her.”

  “I’ll sign in and join her, then.”

  Jack joined Babs at the counter, and she pushed the signing-in book toward him. He laid the flowers to the side and signed his name and everything else that was needed to see his own wife. Having finished, Babs walked him to Marsha’s room along the aseptic-smelling corridor of plain colors and continuous landscape paintings dotted along the walls, seemingly in lieu of windows. Jack guessed they felt it made the place feel more like a home to the patients, but he always wondered whether it really mattered.

  Like always, Jack’s heart skipped a beat when the door to Marsha’s room was pushed open, and he took in a gulp of dry air as he stepped inside.

  “Look who’s here to see you, birthday girl,” Babs said enthusiastically.

  Like the rest of the place, the room was all pastel colors of yellows and light blues, the walls adorned with sterile watercolors of green fields, sailing boats, and beach scenes.

  Having first glanced around the room, as he always did, Jack’s attention settled upon the tangled form of his wife in her chair, a twisted expression on her gaunt face as her head constantly writhed about on its neck. Her legs were bound together by elastic strapping to stop her moving them and kicking the nurses, and her chest was strapped to the long leather-padded wheelchair holding her in place. It had been specially designed so she could be held at an angle on her side. Two years earlier, she’d been dropped during a shower and broken her hip on the wet tiles. Because of her condition, the bone wouldn’t heal properly and they’d eventually had to remove it. This was the reason she sat in such an awkward position.

  Kneeling beside her was the bleached-blonde hair of bulky Sue, another nurse.

  “Look, it’s Jack,” Sue said to Marsha as though speaking to a child. “How are you, Jack?” she added, turning to him.

  “I’m good, Sue,” he said, gazing into his wife�
�s green eyes, which showed only a fraction of their former glory.

  Some distant recognition appeared to flicker in Marsha’s contorted face. That pained, distorted expression of hers always gave Jack the haunted impression that she was trapped in her final agonizing moments of sentience ten years ago. Stuck in that awful pain that had brought her to this.

  “Happy birthday, love,” Jack said, bending down and offering Marsha the flowers.

  A tooth-filled smile grimaced her jittery lips. But no sooner had it appeared than something else took her fragmented mind, and she turned her face away, giving Jack the feeling that she was recoiling from him. The nurses left the room, and he was all alone with his wife, taking a seat by her chair, the flowers placed in water and now standing on the bedside cabinet.

  Jack did what he always did when he visited Marsha, the only thing he could ever think of. He took one of the books from the bookshelf and read to her. Today he read her favorite, Wuthering Heights. A tale of jealousy, vengeance, and ultimate heartbreak. Whenever he read it to her, she seemed at peace, and something in the words appeared to console her. She wouldn’t be so animated, wouldn’t make those terrible gurgling sounds that unsettled Jack so much, and her face would contort less, settling into a gentle countenance. It also gave Jack the impression that at least the two of them were sharing some kind of bond, however faint and diaphanous. He sensed that their fingers were reaching out to one another across a great void, almost touching, and it gave him respite from his overhanging guilt surrounding his wife’s predicament.

  Having read to her for an hour, Jack heard the sound of her snoring and looked up from the pages. She was sleeping. So he silently closed the book and placed it on the bedside cabinet next to the flowers. He then turned back to his wife, brushing the gray hairs out of her face. If only she could see that hair now, he thought. She used to spend an utter fortune on it, and now it was cut by nurses for the simple task of keeping it out of her food. It was all uneven with a childish fringe framing her forehead, a shoulder-length bob sticking out the back. Jack gazed at his sleeping wife for a moment and wondered if she truly knew what her life was. He’d wondered that ever since he’d given permission to switch the machine off and Marsha had pulled off the miracle of living.