A Cross to Bear: A Jack Sheridan Mystery

by Vogel, Vince

  “Sir, if you—”

  “Shut up, Mr. Foster,” Golding snapped, sitting forward in his chair. “You don’t talk anymore. No more. 192 has a history of disobeying orders. He has an attitude problem. He should have been pulled, and you should have never told him about his sister.”

  “But it was in the news the next day. He was going to—”

  “I said shut up. You should have kept him in Tunisia and had another agent pick him up there. We would have brought him here and kept him under lock and key. Once he was safe, then we tell him about his sister and assess the situation from the comfort of him being secure. But no. You informed a volatile agent that his sister had been murdered, and now he’s done the inevitable: he’s gone on the warpath. I suggest you get him back at all costs. I suggest you do that, Mr. Foster, or begin looking for a new career. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And I give you full authority on this, which I hope you’re not so incompetent that you don’t understand what I mean by that. Now fuck off. I don’t want to see your ugly face again until 192 is back with us.”

  Foster got up from his chair and left the room, catching a glimpse at the man in the corner before he did. The bastard was laughing.

  The moment he was walking across the lobby downstairs, Foster took out his phone and dialed a number. It rang four times, as always, and then answered.

  “Agent 442, I have an urgent mission for you,” Foster said as he made his way into a little recess in the far corner of the lobby.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s 192. He’s back in London. He was supposed to hand himself over but has gone AWOL. He removed his tracker and retrieved a cache from the Kensington site. His sister was murdered recently by this killer the papers are all talking about. I think he’s going after the killer. I’ll patch you across all the intel on it, and you can search the Metropolitan Police computers for any updates yourself. I’ll also patch you over everything I have on 192. Family. The lot. I need you to bring him back into the fold.”

  “Dead or alive?”

  Foster had to think about this for a second. Dorring had cost him so much, and his ego had just been bent over Golding’s desk and given a severe hammering.

  He groaned a little and replied, “Alive for now.”

  30

  As Lange drove him and Jack to Glenmouth Wood, he couldn’t help peering out the window at the long stretch of plush mansions that ran along either side of the road. Outside several of these stone-columned palaces, he saw beautiful cars on gated driveways, pristine house fronts that promised huge interiors, beautiful gardens of manicured lawns, and swimming pools. It was the life of others in this neighborhood. Looking into one particular garden at the twenty-foot yacht standing on its trailer, Lange shook his head.

  “You got teachers and nurses queueing for food banks,” he began complaining to Jack, who sat in the passenger’s seat with his nose in the diary, “you got more than half a million kids in this city living below the poverty line, a health service falling apart at the seams through underfunding, countless homeless on the streets, people working three jobs and barely able to survive, and here it’s like none of that’s happening.”

  “What’s your point, George?” Jack muttered, his eyes not leaving the pages.

  “My point is that a lot of these twats that live round here caused the mess we’re in.”

  “I don’t think you can blame any single person, George.”

  Lange shook his head and said nothing, seething at the apparent injustice of it all.

  Jack merely returned to the diary. He was reading a passage in which Becky described how she felt when she shot live-action pornography at the age of seventeen. Again, the ubiquitous Beast was there.

  Coop owed money to these really evil fuckers. They were gonna break his legs. Nothing was new. I’m surprised Coop still has legs the amount of times their bones have been threatened. I guess that always impressed me about him. How he always managed to worm his way out of things. Back then, it was me he used as his out. Anyway, the time I’m talking about, it wasn’t only gonna be with some guy in a room or in his car. This time I would have to have sex live on some website. The guy he owed money to worked at the place. So, like an idiot, I went. I loved Coop. Really loved him. I didn’t want to see the dopey bastard get his legs broke. Plus, they said that they’d give us several scores if we did it, and being that we were out of pocket and clucking for a fix, Coop convinced me to go along. It was at this place in some industrial area with empty office blocks and stuff like that all around. Inside was loads of rooms with cameras and stuff set up. On couches, beds, or simply on the floor, assorted mixtures of both sexes fucked while technicians recorded it all and sent it out live around the world. Walking through the place, all you heard was sex coming out of the rooms. They took me to a small place at the back to get changed. “You’ll be performing with another girl,” they told me in a voice that could as easily have been telling me I’d be working the grill tonight. All I did was nod. I’d never had sex with a girl before. As you can guess, when it came to it, it was very awkward, but the other girl had more experience and she drove. As I lay back on this sweaty leather couch that stunk of wet wipes, I looked toward the camera while she did things to me, and that’s when I saw his matted-hair face. He was there. Watching me with the rest of them. I felt so ashamed I wanted to cry. His black eyes wouldn’t leave me, and even though his body was made up of black smoke, I could tell that he was rubbing his crotch.

  “What’s in it?” Lange enquired, once more dragging Jack out of his read.

  “I don’t know. She talks of the things that she did. Tells about her hopes and dreams. About the shame she feels for the things she done in the past and talks about a beast terrorizing her.”

  “A beast?”

  “The Beast, she calls him.”

  “What type of stuff does this beast do?”

  “He abuses her sometimes. Other times he’s just there. Whenever she’s doing something she doesn’t like. For instance, I was just reading that she did a pornography shoot to pay off some debt that Coop had. She says that this Beast was there.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “Like a hairy tramp. But his body’s made of smoke.”

  “His body’s made of smoke?” Lange glanced incredulously at Jack.

  “Yeah. I think she’s afraid to reveal who it really is. It might even be more than one person. Or it could even be no one.”

  “And there’s no names in there.”

  “There’s names, just not the Beast’s.”

  “Sounds creepy to me.”

  “It is, and I’d like to get back to it, George.”

  Lange dismissed this with a frown and concentrated on driving.

  It wasn’t long before they hit the bumpy dirt track that led into Glenmouth Wood, and Jack could no longer keep the diary still in his hand. Unable to concentrate on the juddering text, he put the book down, lit a cigarette, and peered out the window at the never-ending rows of lifeless trees, the sky still gray but holding off.

  Toward the end of the track, they were greeted by police tape draped across the path and a checkpoint. Both men displayed their badges to the two uniforms there and were let through. A little farther on, they found a number of police vehicles. Lange parked next to them, and the detectives made it the short distance by foot until they entered the bowl and came across the three bullet-riddled black Hummers. Then they saw the first of the bodies and the blood-smeared mud leading across the dip to three large white Range Rovers on the other side, also smashed to pieces and surrounded by loitering dead bodies.

  “Bloody hell,” Lange muttered under his breath when they entered the scene, countless crime scene investigators in white suits listing and marking everything, and several cameramen taking pictures.

  They walked a little farther into the bowl’s center, Lange’s wide eyes darting from one broken body to the next, Jack calmer,
more experienced, an apparent indifference to him as he scanned the area.

  “What the fuck are you two doing here?” came a baritone voice some distance away.

  Glancing toward the voice’s source, Jack saw Detective Superintendent Don Parkinson of Scotland Yard bounding toward him, holding in his hand an open wallet inside a clear evidence bag. Don was a great burly bloke of Jack’s age with a permanent scowl on his pink face, a head of short curly brown hair that was as flaxen as a child’s, a large gut encased in a tight pinstriped shirt, and wearing a long diesel-green mack. He and Jack had once been colleagues and you could say friends. Now Don hated Jack. And Jack tried not to think about Don.

  “The call came in to Upper Hackney,” Jack began saying, but Don cut him off.

  “I don’t give a flying fuck who the call came in to. This is now Scotland Yard’s operation.”

  “It’s funny you should say that, Don. I was just this second saying that to the detective constable here. That this looks very much like the type of shit sandwich that Don Parkinson and the boys down at Tactical Crimes would like to munch on. And my word, Don—” Jack swept his arm around him to signal the encompassing carnage. “—this is a big sandwich. Who are they?”

  “None of your business. That’s who they are.”

  “Well, maybe I’ll take a guess,” Jack said. “The big guy in the middle with the big hole in his big head would be big Stephen Decker, otherwise known as Deck, known right-hand man of one Jacob Earle. Me and him have a bit of prior, and his known choice of vehicle is a white Range Rover. Hence the three bullet-riddled ones behind you. Then I’d have to say that the Hummers on the other side belong to the Doyles.”

  “And what brings you to that, smart-ass?”

  “The fact that you’re holding Davey Doyle’s wallet in that evidence bag. Look.” Don glanced down at his hand. “You’ve got it open on his driving license.”

  Don’s face went the color of fire. He called over someone from forensics and handed the evidence bag to them.

  “So basically,” Jack went on, “this is a deal gone terribly wrong between the Doyles and the Earles. That would make this organized crime. Therefore, making it your shit sandwich. So enjoy the taste, Don. It always did suit your palette.”

  Having shown his former colleague up, Jack turned and began walking away through the scattered bodies back toward the car. Don’s eyes screwed onto the back of Jack’s head, his face looking like he was trying to defecate a melon. He always thought Jack a smart-ass. Even when he’d liked and respected him, he’d thought Jack a real smart-ass.

  Unable to control his anger any longer, Don blurted out, “You spoke to Col lately?”

  Jack instantly stopped in his tracks, Lange now beside him and also stopping.

  “That’s right,” Don went on, seeing that he’d struck a hollow bone. “He still rocking back and forth in a rubber fucking room, mate? He still taking forty milligrams of thorazine every day?”

  Jack turned back to Don and began stomping over, his feet crunching down on the leaves and mud. A sneering smile opened up on Don’s lips, seeing that the bull had reacted. Not knowing exactly what was going on, but seeing the fury erupting on Jack’s face, Lange followed his sergeant back over.

  “You don’t ever mention Col Baker,” Jack growled forcefully when he was a foot in front of Don. “You don’t ever mention him again.”

  “Bit protective, aren’t you?” Don spat back. “After what you did.”

  Out of nowhere two other Scotland Yard detectives sauntered over from among the trees and joined their boss, flanking him either side. Feeling the need to do the same, Lange came and stood right beside Jack.

  “I just think the man deserves more respect is all,” Jack replied, his eyes burning a hole into Don.

  “Respect?” Parkinson roared, his voice reverberating round the trees. “What would you know about respecting Col, huh?”

  “He doesn’t deserve this. That I know.”

  “What does he deserve, Sheridan? What does Col Baker deserve?”

  “You shut your fucking gob before I smash it.”

  “You threatening a superior?”

  “I’m threatening a twat.”

  Don shook his head, his jaw flexed, his fists clenched at his sides.

  “You talk about respect for Col,” he snarled, his eyes glowering. “Respect for him being in that place, not knowing what fucking day of the week it is. Respect for his missus being six feet under. Respect when it was you who fucking put them there.”

  He roared this last part at Jack, but no sooner was his last word bouncing off the trees than Jack had launched himself forward and butted Don Parkinson. Not having the balance of his youth, the Scotland Yard man bowled over and fell into the wet leaves and mud. Jack stood over him, scowling down.

  Lange, completely taken aback by the turn of events, took hold of Jack’s shoulder, but his sergeant shrugged him off.

  “We better get out of here, sarge,” Lange whispered into Jack’s ear.

  But the latter appeared not to hear him and looked down at the bloodied face of Don as if he were preparing to throw himself on top of him and kill him.

  “What the bloody hell is going on?” came the voice of Sylvia Warren, senior crime scene investigator.

  She’d seen it all from behind the Land Rovers, where she was compiling evidence for bullet entries on three dead men, and had marched over the moment she saw Jack strike Don. Warren was in her midforties, and all Jack and Lange saw of her was her pretty face sticking out the front of her white overalls. Jack, however, knew the smooth white skin and mousy brown hair underneath. He and Sylvia had had a thing, if that’s an appropriate word for it, a couple of years ago. Like Jean, it had been mostly sexual but had ended when Warren got back with her husband.

  “This is a crime scene,” Sylvia continued, “and you two are squabbling like children. Have some respect for the dead.”

  Her words appeared to wake Jack up out of his rage, and he glanced at the two dead men not three meters away from them. He instantly filled with shame and, without saying a word, walked out of there, something he now realized he should have kept doing the moment Don opened his mouth. Typically, Lange followed.

  31

  Neither man said a thing as they trundled back up the dirt track to the car. The moment they were seated inside, Jack lit a smoke, his hand shaking as he held it to the flame.

  “You wanna talk about it, sarge?” Lange asked softly.

  Jack turned sharply to him from the passenger’s side, the remnants of furious anger still glinting on his features.

  “No, I don’t, George,” he said irritably, before facing the windscreen again and taking another swift drag of his cigarette.

  The two sat in silence for a while, Lange not sure if he should start the car and drive them out of there, unsure where he should even drive them to. They were supposed to be at Rampton in three hours. Perhaps he could drive them slowly there. That is if they still had jobs. Parkinson was sure to call it in and have them thrown off the crucifix case. It made logical sense. Any minute now their phones would ring and it would be a fuming DCI Caldwell.

  “You know what?” Jack said blankly, staring out the window at the endless trees. Lange wasn’t sure if he was merely talking to himself, so he just gazed at him and said nothing. “I used to like that man,” Jack continued. “And he liked me. We used to go to each others birthdays, go for drinks, invite each other round for dinner parties. Used to work well on cases together. He’s got an eye for detail has Don.”

  “What happened, then?”

  “I did something terrible.” This last word echoed from Jack’s mouth, and he took another drag. “Something unforgivable. That’s why Don hasn’t forgiven me. And he’s right. I don’t deserve his forgiveness. I don’t deserve any of their forgiveness.”

  Jack went silent, his eyes narrowing as though he were peering through the keyhole of his past.

  “What did you do?” Lang
e felt impelled to ask.

  Jack remained impassive, his eyes pierced at the dank trees, seeing the wretched scenes of a former time played out before him.

  “You know what,” he began, “maybe I should talk about this. It’s been eating me away for so long that perhaps I should get it off my chest.”

  “Then get it off your chest.”

  Jack toked on his cigarette hard while he tried to think where best to begin.

  “Twenty-seven years ago, I met the best friend I ever had,” he eventually said. “We were promoted to Scotland Yard around the same time and ended up as partners. His name was Col Baker. He was the best. Into all the new policing techniques, profiling, psychological assessment, stuff like that. Really state-of-the-art policing. A brilliant mind. Not just a simple copper, but a criminologist to boot. We worked well together. Had an equilibrium. We went on my hunches and his impeccable police work. We were formidable. Back in those days, I felt like a king.”

  “I read about it, sarge. There’s several books written about you and Colin Baker. I was only a kid, but I became fascinated with some of your cases.”

  “Those books paid my mortgage off. But they also made me a cocky bastard. Did you ever read about what happened to Col?”

  “No. He just kind of disappeared. I didn’t really look into it.”

  “Well, that’s the part that shames me every day,” Jack said in a broken voice. He pulled extra hard on his smoke. “You see, over those years it wasn’t only Col I got to know. I got to know his wife too. Beth.” He paused. His throat tightened and he struggled to say the next part. “I… eh… I got to know Beth… and… She always had a smile for me. Do you know what I mean?” He turned to Lange, and the latter observed the tears swelling in Jack’s eyes. Lange merely nodded at the sergeant. “I really liked her,” Jack went on. “Even though I knew it was wrong. And she really… you know.” Jack turned sharply back to the wood, as if it had called out to him. “See, we fought it… we really did,” he continued in the dull echo of a voice. “But you know when two magnets refuse to be parted. That was us. Sometimes you’ve gotta fight it no matter what though. That’s what my old mum, bless her soul, used to say. Because Beth had Col, and I had Marsha.”