A Cross to Bear: A Jack Sheridan Mystery

by Vogel, Vince

  Chloe hated him with every cell in her body, every millimeter of skin crawling instantly away from him.

  “There’s a storm coming for you, Billy,” she said to him with spite. “A storm to wash you and that other bastard away.”

  “You mean your secret-agent friend?”

  “You know, then, do you?”

  “I have my sources. But you’ll find you’re quite safe here. We’re protected by twenty-five armed men, our own private army.”

  “Twenty-five is not enough, Billy. What is coming here will turn your twenty-five quickly to dust. And then I’ll get the pleasure of watching him kill you slowly. He thinks you murdered his sister.”

  “Huh!” Billy smirked. “Maybe I did.”

  “You’re about to pay for all of that, Billy. There’ll be no more crucifixions after tonight.”

  “We’ll see about that.” He stood up sharply, and the smile dropped from his face. He now looked down upon her with a cold look. “You’ll come to love me. One way or the other.”

  66

  “So let me get this straight,” Jack was saying, still holding the picture up to the old woman. “This is Gemma, the boy is Patrick, and that’s your son, Roddy O’Brian and his wife Julia O’Brian?”

  “Yes,” Moira O’Brian said. “Roddy’s my boy. But he was never married to Julia. They didn’t want the attention. She took his name but never official like. Didn’t even baptize the little ones. Gemma weren’t even registered. Her mam had her right at the camp. Me and some of the other ol’ gals helped her give birth.”

  “Why didn’t they want attention, Moira?” Jack enquired, placing the picture down on the coffee table.

  “Because of him.”

  “Who’s him?”

  “Look, I shouldn’t talk to youse about it.”

  “Why not?”

  “’Cause for one, you’re the filth, and for two, your lot didn’t feckin’ listen to me the last time.”

  “Listen when?”

  “When he came down here and killed them all.”

  “Who killed them all?” Jack let out in exasperation.

  “Feckin’ Billy Doyle.”

  The wrinkles on the old woman’s face creased up with anger, and her mouth silently muttered an innumerable volley of curses.

  “The Buntingford camp fire was Billy Doyle?”

  “Yeah. Though it were probably his father what sent him up here.”

  Jack was confused.

  “Why’d he burn the camp down, Moira?”

  “It was for her,” the old woman grunted with a wave of the hand.

  “For who?”

  “He wanted Julia back.”

  “Who was she to him?”

  “His sister.” When the old woman said this, she immediately crossed herself and looked away from them, her face going even redder, as though she’d said something terrible. “But he was no brother you or I would want, I can tell ya,” she continued. “If I weren’t sittin’ in my own living room, I’d spit on the floor at the mere mention o’ the bastard’s name.”

  “I don’t get it, Moira. What went on? Why did Billy Doyle kill his own sister?”

  “I better tell youse from the start, I guess. Though it’s a shitty tale if there ever was one. It started twenty year ago when my Roddy left our camp. We were Irish gypsies, me and his da. Brought him up in a caravan surrounded by the rolling hills. But Roddy wanted more. Wanted the big city lights of London. He was a mean bare-knuckle boxer, so he thinks he’ll make a bob or two down there. Starts boxin’ in the underground clubs. Gets on all right but realizes that eventually it’ll kill him. So he ends up gettin’ a job workin’ for the feckin’ Doyles as muscle. Gets a good wage. Enjoys himself. But then the soft sod falls in love with the boss’s daughter, Julia. And the worst of it, she falls for him too.”

  “I never even knew Jerry Doyle had a daughter,” Lange remarked in Jack’s ear.

  “I’d heard but never looked into it,” Jack muttered back.

  “He starts seeing her behind their backs,” the old woman was gabbling on, “because Jerry already warned that if anyone touched his daughter, he’d chop their balls off. But Roddy’s Irish blood got the better of him. He ignores it and keeps seein’ her. Only she starts tellin’ him things. Things that would make your skin crawl.” She crossed herself once more.

  “What things, Moira?” Jack was eager to learn.

  The old woman looked up at the dusty ceiling, as though she expected to see something other than the cobwebs hanging there, before returning her misty eyes back to the detectives.

  “The bastards were rapin’ her,” she announced in a rasping voice. “She were a sixteen-year-old girl, and both her da and bra had been takin’ it in turns to abuse her since she was a little girl. They made her life a living hell. Sure, on the surface she had a rich da and anything she wanted. But underneath she was a slave like all the other poor women that go through those pigs’ doors.”

  “So you’re saying that Billy and Jerry Doyle were sexually abusing Julia?”

  “Those bastards know nothin’ except abuse. But that weren’t the worst of it.” She looked Jack square in the face with her milky eyes.

  “What was the worst thing, Moira?”

  “Billy got her pregnant. His own darn sister. Think of the horror that a sixteen-year-old girl must feel to know she has the bairn of her own bra growing inside of her. Julia and Roddy weren’t in the family way yet, if you get my drift. So they figure it must be Billy’s.” Jack and Lange gazed in dismay at the old woman, listening to the horrific story that came flowing from her old lips. “Julia were so scared, she didn’t know what to do. She panicked and begged my boy to get her away. So he took her up here to the camp. She were so scared of her bra and da that she didn’t risk having it aborted in a clinic, because they might find out. So she had it here and hid away.” The old woman paused, leaned forward, and picked up the picture of the four smiling faces that Jack had placed on the coffee table earlier, holding it in her hand and gazing down with misty eyes. “They were real happy,” she said solemnly, a tear sprinkling down and splashing on the glass. “Real happy. They had Gemma and my Roddy treated her like she was his own.” The old woman grinned all over and rubbed her thumb over her son’s grinning face. “Such a good da. Then they had Pat, which was both of theirs, and lived together on the camp real happy.” She continued to smile at the faces.

  “Until Billy came,” Jack prompted her.

  Her eyes screwed tight, and she gripped the picture in her hand.

  “Yeah, until that Devil came. Some Judas tipped the Doyles off that they were up here, and three big ol’ cars came spillin’ into camp one night. They began hasslin’ people and eventually got to where Julia and Roddy was stayin’.” The old woman paused and placed her hand on her chest, dropping the picture into her lap, her mouth stuttering with emotion. “Gemma and Pat were there,” she said tearfully. “Those poor things were hid under the caravan and saw it all through a crack in the floor. They watched as Billy began askin’ about his daughter. Till then Gemma didn’t have a clue. Thought Roddy was her da. But Billy began askin’ where his little girl was and kept referrin’ to Julia as his sister. Gemma was confused, but she slowly gathered what this meant. That she were the produce of incest. Then those two children, only fifteen and eleven, watched as Billy nailed my boy Roddy to a feckin’ cross he’d brought with him. I mean, what kinda savage does a thing like that?” The old woman wiped another tear from her eye and looked at the detectives as though they could answer her question. “Poor Julia threw herself at Billy, tried to stop it, and he killed her too and began doin’ the same. Those poor little dears got to watch as their own parents were nailed to crosses, then set on fire. It makes you wonder what God exists up there.” She crossed herself for a third time.

  “Billy Doyle crucified their parents?”

  “Yeah. I mean, how can that level of evil draw breath in this world?”

  There was a hollowness
to her voice when she asked this, as though she already knew there was no answer.

  Lange looked at Jack and said, “Sarge, could Billy Doyle be behind this after all?”

  “I think so, George. Those girls were all blonde, just like his sister, and he certainly has a thing for crosses. Get on the phone to Pierce and Locke and let them know.”

  Lange got up and left the room. In the hallway, he dialed Chris Pierce of Scotland Yard and began speaking to him while Jack remained in the lounge with the old lady.

  “So where are Gemma and Pat now?” Jack asked.

  “They got away that night. Ran into the fields and hid. Watched the camp burn from there. After that, I never saw Gemma again, just got a letter telling me how she knew Billy was her da and all, and that she couldn’t cope with it. That she wanted to disappear. That she couldn’t even think of me no more because I weren’t her real gran.” The old woman looked Jack in the eyes. “But I loved her as my own. Still feel her here as my own.” She pointed to her chest, before taking a tissue from a box on the table next to her chair and dabbing away her tears. “Anyway, after that,” she went on, “there was nothin’ from her for her old gran. No more letters. Nothin’. Pat, well, he came back a year and a half ago. They caught him breaking into houses down London way. He was ordered to stay with me, but it weren’t a month before he was off again. Disappeared in the middle of the night.”

  “Did he tell you what he and his sister had been up to?”

  “He told me they were livin’ rough. Gettin’ by, he said. He was different though. Like the child had been drained outta him. I tell ya, even though he’s my own grandson, I was scared of him. Not that he threatened me or anythin’ like that. Just that he was a stranger to me in my own home. When he went missin’ again, I didn’t even call the authorities. I felt that he wanted to go back to London and it was no good stoppin’ him. He needed to be with his sister.”

  “And you have absolutely no idea where they could be now?”

  “None.”

  Jack narrowed his eyes and became thoughtful for a moment. Was there something more he needed to ask, something that this woman could tell him, that would bring him closer to it all? It appeared that he was down a blind alley again. He had to find this Pat and Gemma. There was something about them that explained everything. What that was, he had no real idea. Only that it would become clear when he found them.

  Then he was hit with a sudden thought.

  “Just out of curiosity,” he began, “you said earlier that you told the police before, but that they did nothing.”

  “I did. First and only time I ever went to the rozzas with somethin’. Waste o’ feckin’ time. Some guy came round my place about a week later. Dressed normal, gave me some guff about him being a detective called Parker. Came in all smiles and then began scowlin’ like a feckin’ fox once the door was shut behind him. Told me that if I repeated my story about Billy Doyle to anyone, then I’d be the next burned body they’d be pullin’ outta the fire. Said they’d finish the rest of us off.”

  “Was he from the Doyles?”

  “He was from the Doyles, alright, but he was still a rozza. Even if he was no Parker.”

  “What makes you so sure he was police?”

  “Because I seen the bastard on the telly since then. All high-and-mighty like his shite don’t smell.”

  “Who is he, Moira?” Jack asked impatiently.

  67

  “In a moment,” Billy was saying as he leaned over Chloe, lacing his fingers gently through her hair, “I’ll take you to someone who’s been waiting a very long time to meet you.”

  “You mean the fat pig with no arms or legs?” she retorted scornfully.

  “He’s not much to look at, I’ll agree. But he’s your family and you should respect him.”

  “What respect has he ever shown anyone?”

  “He loves his family.”

  “Then why’d he send his son to kill his own daughter?”

  “He didn’t. He sent his son to get his daughter back. But Roddy O’Brian got in the way.”

  “I watched you murder them.”

  “Then you know how much I begged your mother to leave with me. To take you with us. To be a true family.”

  “A true family? You’re sick, Billy. Sick, sick, sick!”

  “It would have been better. You could have gone to the best schools. Been looked after. Had a beautiful home. Instead of being a street urchin.”

  “I’ll take street urchin any day of the fuckin’ week over spendin’ my time in the company of you and that thing.”

  “We could have been happy together. Your mother and you were the only things I ever loved in my entire existence. I’m being dreadfully sincere when I tell you that the rest of my life is banal in comparison. Without my beloved Julia, I have become desensitized to feeling. I need you. I need you so that I may feel human again.” He looked her right in the eyes when he said this next part, a strange meekness adding itself to his features. “Lately I’ve been doing terrible things. It’s like I want to show the world something that even I don’t understand.”

  “You mean the girls on crosses?”

  “I do. There’s a thing in me. It wants to shine a light on the ugliness of the world. Show them how ugly mankind has become. This thing sees the world crucified, laid in ruins upon a cross. It needs redemption. I need redemption. We are sick. Mankind cannot survive within such abject shame any longer. Did your mother ever tell you about your grandmother?”

  “Only that she was very religious and died when you were both little.”

  “My mother would take us to church every Sunday,” Billy said softly. “I would sit beside Julia and spend the whole time gazing at the great statue of Christ the redeemer upon his giant cross, the minister’s words nothing but a faint echo in my ears. That image never left me. I see Him in my dreams. Hanging there. I was never better to anyone than I was to those girls before they died. Those girls were meek and will surely inherit the earth.”

  “You’re sick, Billy,” she said, shaking her head. “A sick animal. You need putting down. Fumigated like some insect. You and that pig. That’s why I’ve brought your end. I’ve wanted to see you suffer for so long. Suffer and die.”

  This angered Doyle and he struck her on the cheek with the back of his hand, sending her sprawling off the end of the chaise longue. At the realization of what he’d done, his scowling face abruptly softened and took on an expression of concern.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, getting up from the chair and coming over to her.

  From the ground she looked up at him with a burning glare, her right cheek bleeding from a cut. Shaking her head, she continued to stab her dagger eyes into him.

  “I can’t wait to see you die,” she snarled. “Can’t wait till he comes here and guts you. Did you wonder who it was that called you to tell you where we’d be?”

  “No one is coming,” Billy said softly down to her. “No one.”

  But at the drop of this last word, a huge explosion rang out from outside and Billy rushed to the window. Ripping apart the curtains and glaring outside at the gate situated at the end of the long shingle driveway, he immediately saw smoke billowing high into the air and watched as several security men were gunned down on the lawn. Following this, three black vans came speeding through the gap left by the blown-up gate and down the driveway toward the house.

  “It’s all over, Billy boy,” Chloe cried from the floor.

  At the window, Billy angrily dashed his gaze onto her, his face contorted into an evil grimace. For a second or two, Chloe thought he was going to jump on top of her and throttle her to death. But instead, he shook his head and turned his death stare onto the man by the door.

  “Make sure she stays here and away from the window,” he ordered.

  Having said this, Billy fled from the room, slamming the red door behind him. Chloe merely lay on the floor with a cat’s grin spreading her cheeks.

  She was loving
every second of this.

  68

  On the outer edge of the Doyle estate, there was a back road that took you into the surrounding woodland, a car park close to its edge. It was the same place Alex had parked last time and where he parked now, though this time it was fast becoming one giant puddle under the perpetual cloudburst. The moment he switched the engine off, he and Danny heard the sounds of gunfire and explosions echoing through the furious rain.

  “Looks like our friends the Earles are already here,” Alex remarked, before stepping out of the car and into the torrent.

  The skinny bones of Danny jumped out too and followed Alex to the back of the car, lifting his filthy green coat up over his head for protection from the elements.

  “It sounds like there’s a war goin’ on in there,” Danny said while Alex opened up the trunk. “Do you think she’s safe?”

  “I hope so,” Alex replied, grabbing his mono-black Paraclete advanced tactical vest and placing it over his body.

  “Which one is mine?” Danny enquired, nodding down at the selection of weapons.

  “You’re not coming with me.”

  “Like fuck I’m not.”

  “I’ll arm you, Danny. But you have to wait at the car. I work much better on my own, and I can’t be worrying whether you’re going to get shot every five seconds.”

  “I’m not just some kid, you know.”

  “I’m sure you’re not, but you’re also not a trained soldier. I need you to stay with the car and wait for us to come back. Have you ever fired a gun before?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What type?”

  “Shotgun.”

  “That’s good, because that’s what I’ll leave you. This shotgun here—” Alex picked up the Tactical DT short-nosed 12 gauge shotgun and held it out to him. “—is perfect. It has limited kickback, making it ideal for you, easy pump action, and an incredible spread, meaning it’s basically a point-and-shoot. Take it.” He handed the gun to Danny, and the boy’s waif arms struggled to hold on to its weight.