A Cross to Bear: A Jack Sheridan Mystery

by Vogel, Vince

  When Lange put the phone down, Jack turned to him.

  “What was that, George?”

  “Another body, sarge.”

  Jack’s eyes expanded.

  “Where?”

  “Epping again.”

  “Then start the car.”

  “Aren’t we gonna grab them two first?” Lange asked, meaning Pierce and Locke.

  Jack frowned at the detective constable.

  “No,” he said curtly.

  Lange started the engine and began driving them out of there, both men wondering what terrible sight awaited them in the woods this time.

  53

  Canvey Island dockland, ten thirty in the morning.

  At the gates to shed 98, a large warehouse close to the riverside, the security were being extra cautious, checking the cargo papers of the truck drivers extra vigilantly. Today would be the last working day for a while due to the place being closed down for the foreseeable future. War was on between the Earles and the Doyles, and this particular warehouse was owned by none other than Jacob Earle. It was a front for his smuggling empire. Seventy percent of the cargo that went through was legit. The other thirty, not. It was usually drugs and guns but could be anything from illegal ivory for the Chinese market to dangerous animal species for upmarket collectors. This part of the business was laundered by the lawful side and all the millions hidden by the murky waters of creative bookmaking.

  “You’re late,” the security guard at the entrance complained up to the driver as the latter leaned out of the window of his truck and handed down his papers. He had a forty-foot container on the back and was waiting for entry through the large metal gate at the front wall, three security guards stationed there.

  “Yeah, I got slowed down on the dock front, didn’t I,” came the man’s excuse.

  “But you was all told to be here sharp today. No pissin’ about.”

  “I can’t help it if there’s a delay on the dock. Anyway, why’s it so different today? You’re never usually bothered what time we get here.”

  The security guard didn’t answer, merely looked back down at the driver’s papers that he held in his hand.

  “We need to check your cab and then your load before you can come in,” he said, handing the papers back up through the window to the driver’s hairy hand. The man merely folded them up, shoved them in his shirt pocket, and shrugged.

  “Be my guest,” he said, before opening the door and jumping out.

  The security man climbed up inside the cab and began rummaging through things. The glove boxes, behind the sun shield, at the back of the seats, the little cabinet that sat in the middle, even the bedding at the back. Satisfied, the guard came out and signaled for the driver to follow him and another guard to the rear of the trailer. Once they were there, the driver opened up the container and they were met with a wall of television boxes. The security guard walked up to it and took a long look through the bottom of the pallets that held the cargo. All he saw was a row of similar pallets running all the way along the floor, presumably holding more televisions. If he was to do his work in the way it had been explained to him that morning by his superior, he would insist they got the forklift and removed the first few rows. But he’d already wasted enough of the day doing that, and it had never turned up anything. So instead, he instructed the driver to close it back up and then opened the gate.

  The truck moved slowly into a large area of cracked asphalt, weeds popping up out of it everywhere and the gray sky reflecting off the large puddles that had formed where it was completely worn away. The truck reversed up to the concrete loading bay and stopped. The driver got out, walked to the bay, and handed the paperwork up to the forklift man. Glancing about, he saw several men standing about as though they were on guard. They had large coats on that gave the impression they were armed underneath. The rest of the staff, including the forklift man who now inspected the papers, had disconcerted looks on their faces.

  The driver simply shrugged and, having given over his papers, got back into his cab. Once he was inside, he leaned his chair back so that he was lying at an angle, giving the impression to anyone passing the window that he was sleeping, a common occurrence with long-distance drivers when they drop off a load.

  Sleep, however, was not what he was about to do. Carefully, and out of the view of the windows, he was reaching behind him and unscrewing a circular panel situated at the back of the seat in the bottom of the bunk. Once the panel was off, he carefully placed it on the floor and reached into the hole that was left, slowly pulling out a Stags Arms featureless semiautomatic rifle, followed by an extended magazine. With the thing tight against his chest, he gave it a check to make sure it was ready and slapped the large magazine into it. On this particular rifle, the mag fitted into the back and doubled as the weapon’s stock.

  He felt the truck judder and, looking up into the wing mirror, saw that they were starting to unload him. It wouldn’t be long now. He sat up slightly, pushing the gun down his legs and into the footwell, and turned his eyes to the security guards on the gate. The boys on the loading bay were covered. It was his job to take out those at the front. The three men at the gate were loitering about, two of them on their phones, the other one leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets. He took his eyes off them and studied the view of the loading bay in the mirror again. That’s where his signal would come from. Any minute now.

  For the next two minutes, his gaze continually flitted between the gate and the mirror. Mirror and the gate. And then his signal came. The moment he saw the flash of light explode out of the back of the container and onto the loading bay, he gripped the semi in his hands. Men’s screams instantly filled the air, and another blast of flame came out and spread all around, covering everything, men immersed in blazing fire dashing about all over the place, flailing their arms around and jumping off the bay. The driver glanced over at the gate and saw the security guards become animated as soon as they saw the giant fire spreading along the front of the warehouse. The driver opened the door and sprung out. Instantly putting the semi to his shoulder, he sent several bullets into each of the guards before they’d had a chance to get their guns out. They dropped onto the dirt, and the driver turned around. The two men that had been hiding in the trailer had now gone in separate directions along the bay and were blasting giant pulses of fire out of their flamethrowers, engulfing the whole place in a raging inferno. The driver spotted a guard with a machine gun hiding behind some pallets a little farther on, out of the reach of the blaze. Taking aim, he shot a line of bullets into the man and he crumpled in a heap. Elsewhere, other men, laborers, and forklift drivers screamed and ran around on fire. As some escaped and ran across the yard in flames, the driver would pick them off for sport.

  Once the bay was clear of people, much of it on fire and covered in the dead, the men moved into the warehouse. They systematically began moving through the place blasting everyone they came across, most of the victims cowering or trying to hide. The driver followed the flamethrowers in and watched as they turned down aisles of racking and shot balls of fire down there, more screams shortly following. At the far corner, up some metal stairs, was a small office and the driver went toward it. When he reached the bottom of the steps, a man with a pistol came bursting out of the office at the top. The driver instantly caught him in the chest with a hail of bullets, and Pistol Man fell forward down the stairs. The driver stepped over his body on his way up and entered the office. At the far wall several people—three men and a woman—cowered.

  “Please” was as far as their pleads got before the driver gunned them down, splattering the wall behind them in blood. Satisfied they were dead, he turned and left via the stairs. When he reached the bottom, a man who had evaded the throwers came running past, oblivious to the driver standing to the side. He aimed his gun, followed the flight of the running man for a few seconds, and squeezed the trigger. The runner fell instantly, his body thrown forward into the ground with
his momentum, and the driver sent another couple of bullets into his sprawled body to make sure.

  He then waited at the bay doors for anyone else to run past, knowing that there were only a few fire exits at the back and people would most likely try to escape here. But no one else came running by, and eventually his buddies with the flamethrowers returned.

  “We all good, gents?” the driver asked.

  “Got them all, I think,” one of the men said.

  “Then I suggest we skedaddle.”

  Most of the inside of the warehouse was now on fire, and it was spreading fast, things constantly exploding in the background. It would only be a matter of minutes before the whole site was submerged in fire.

  The three men steadily jogged out of the warehouse, off the smoldering bay and across the yard. At the gatehouse, they pushed the button for the gate, and the moment it was open a crack, they continued out of there. Several people from neighboring warehouses were standing out in the road, watching the smoke and flames billow from the top of shed 98. Their gazes were then taken by the three men that ran out of there, especially the big weapons they had hold of. The second they saw this, the rubberneckers all ran back inside their yards, not wanting any part in this.

  The three men made it to a van parked around the corner out of the way. They threw their weapons into the back, got in the front, and roared out of there.

  The Doyles had taken a piece of their own.

  54

  Jack and Lange found themselves in the familiar position of traipsing down a muddy dirt track surrounded by leafless trees, following the uniform police officer who had met them at the entrance of the car park when they’d pulled into it. While they followed the woman, Jack studied the endless trees running along both edges of the pathway, a smoke dangling from his bottom lip.

  “These fucking woods,” he complained to himself. “I’m sick of them.”

  “It’s pretty bad, sir,” the officer was saying to Lange. She was midtwenties, fresh out of Hendon Police College, wearing a high-visibility jacket that consumed her small five-and-a-half-foot frame. Jack remarked in his head that she looked very young, and with the way her hands were shaking, he could tell this had been her first dead body. “The old lady who came across the body is pretty cut up,” she continued, her voice strung a little higher than usual. “Poor old dear. She was only walking her dog.”

  “It’s not safe to walk your dog through the woods these days,” Jack remarked casually. This certainly wasn’t Jack’s first body.

  “You say forensics are already here?” Lange enquired.

  “Yeah,” the officer told him. “She arrived on her own about five minutes before you lot. Says the rest are on their way. I left her with the old lady.”

  “What’s her name?” Jack wanted to know.

  “Who? The old lady?”

  “No, the forensics woman.”

  “Warren, sir. Sylvia Warren.”

  Jack groaned imperceptibly. It’d been bad enough seeing her straight after he’d had his run-in with Don Parkinson the day before. Now he’d have no choice but to spend time with her. His and Sylvia’s little dalliance had been two years ago. They’d known each other for many years before that, since Jack’s days in Scotland Yard, and had always remained friendly. At the time of their romance, Warren had been going through a bad divorce and was living separate from her husband. She and Jack had found each other like two moths meeting at a lightbulb. And Jack had ended with his wings singed.

  They’d spent six tender months meeting up, and then, just as Jack was becoming attached, Sylvia had dropped the bombshell that she and her husband were going to try again. So that was that. Jack was cast off on his own. To drift once more among the night air in search of the murky light.

  Coming over the crest of a small hill, Jack laid eyes on an elderly woman standing about fifty meters ahead. Alongside her was another woman, whom Jack instantly recognized as Sylvia Warren. The closer they got, the more Jack’s heart sank. Her straight, mousy brown hair flowed down to her shoulders, and he always found it cute the way she wore a hairclip to one side of her fringe to keep it out of her beautiful oval eyes. Glancing at her long olive raincoat, Jack shuddered a little when he recalled the supple body underneath.

  As for the old lady, she had long white hair, a troubled look on the creases of her face, and was dressed in a long green wax coat with black wellingtons poking out the bottom. On the end of a leash held in her hand was a reddish-brown greyhound sitting on its hind legs and shivering mercilessly.

  “I asked her to wait with the old lady,” the uniform officer informed the two detectives in an apologetic tone when they reached them.

  “Maybe get the lady to the squad car,” Jack said. “Get her in the warm and take her details. The dog looks like it could do with warming up too.”

  “Okay, sir.”

  She went up to the old lady and took her gently by the elbow.

  “If you’d like to come with me, ma’am,” she said. “We’ll go back to the car.”

  “It’s so terrible,” the woman muttered as she went by with the officer, her milky eyes filling with tears. “How someone could do such a thing.”

  A few seconds later, Jack, Lange, and Sylvia Warren were alone. Jack hadn’t made eye contact with her yet and had been waiting for the officer and the old lady to leave before saying anything.

  “How are you, Jack?” Sylvia said, breaking the ice.

  “I’m good, Sylvia,” he replied, looking up from the ground at her.

  “In a better mood than yesterday?”

  “Much better.” He grinned. “And thanks for covering me with Scotland Yard. I mean it.”

  “It’s okay. What are friends for? Anyway, Don Parkinson is a prick.”

  Jack chuckled and nodded.

  “He is, Sylvia.”

  “And are you gonna introduce me to your friend?”

  “This is DC George Lange,” Jack told her, nodding in the detective constable’s direction. Lange stepped forward and shook her hand. “This is Sylvia Warren, George,” Jack added.

  “Right,” Sylvia announced when she and Lange had finished their handshake, “shall we go see the body? It’s down this embankment here, straight ahead. At the bottom apparently.”

  “After you, then, Sylvia,” Jack said with a sweep of the arm.

  The three of them began making their ways down the embankment, flanked all around by an endless ocean of trees. The ground was thick with leaves and shrubs, and they found the footing hard as they stumbled through the dense brush. The air was alive with the sound of crows, and the farther they went, the louder the cawing became, until it filled their ears. Looking up, Jack saw several of the black birds sailing through the air overhead, flying in the direction they were walking.

  “They called me on this one,” Sylvia began saying as they made their way along, “because Shiva Patel is busy at some house they found hair fibers belonging to one of the girls.”

  “Yeah,” Jack replied. “We came from there. There’s a genuine hope we can get something on this guy from the house.”

  Following that, the three were silent a little longer, concentrating on getting through the crowded vegetation of the forest floor.

  “How’ve you been, Jack?” Sylvia eventually asked in a soft tone that made Lange glance over at the pair. He’d already recognized a little tension between them, and this piqued his curiosity.

  “I’m good, Sylvia. How’s Henry?”

  Lange observed Sylvia Warren’s cheeks flush scarlet, and he smiled to himself. He was pretty sure he’d gathered where the tension had come from. For the rest of the journey down the bank, the three stayed silent.

  When the cacophony of barking crows was at its loudest, they looked ahead and saw where the birds were all flying toward. At the bottom of the bank was a large oak tree. In the center of its twisted bare branches, innumerable crows writhed over something and Jack instantly knew what.

  “Haw!” he sho
uted out, running down the last few meters of the bank and waving his arms at them. The birds immediately scattered, and their cawing interspersed with the sound of a hundred flapping black wings. A few remained behind, more daring than their mates, and Jack picked up some stones and threw them. This did the trick.

  When the birds had dispersed, they all stood still a moment and took in what they saw. This one had been hoisted into the bow of the tree and rested there. The crows must have been on it for some time, because most of the face was now pink bone, the eyes long gone, the crows having bored their ways into the sockets with their thick beaks, and the eternally screaming mouth wide open with the tongue missing. On the scalp most of the hair had been torn out and there were only wisps of blonde shooting out from the bloodied skull. The body was stripped to the bone in places, and the soft flesh around the upper arms, thighs, hips, and breasts was almost completely gone. Added to that, she was nailed to a large crucifix, and Jack noted that the killer had returned to his earlier design of rounded edges.

  Having looked up at the body for a short while, Lange turned away from it, unable to stomach another second. Jack gazed on with sympathy for the poor girl and the terrible humiliation that her body had suffered. It made him wonder about her life. That too, he gathered, had been full of humiliation. He felt compelled to make the sign of the cross. Standing next to him, Sylvia Warren was looking up at the body with a professional’s concern. How the hell would she get up into that tree?

  Twenty minutes later, the rest of the forensics team arrived and began work on gathering evidence, the crows circling overhead, waiting for a chance to return to the carrion. Jack and Lange weren’t needed and returned to the car, which was located in a small muddy lot at the edge of the forest. Like always, Jack was having a fag and gazing out the windscreen. Again he saw before him rows and rows of lifeless trees, and again he held that same foreboding feeling in him.