A Cross to Bear: A Jack Sheridan Mystery

by Vogel, Vince

  Tyler went back to his cartoons, and Carrie ushered Jack back through to the kitchen.

  “I need you to sit down,” she told him, nodding in the direction of the table.

  “I think it’s safe to say I need to sit down,” he replied, taking the proffered chair. “All this has come as a shock. I mean, I don’t see you for ten years. Ten years, Carrie.”

  “I know. You keep sayin’.”

  “And you turn up out of the blue with my grandson. I’m not ungrateful for that, darlin’. Don’t think that. I’m just a little stunned is all. I wrote to you. When you were in prison, I wrote.”

  “I know, Dad,” she said, taking her eyes away from him.

  “Did you even read them?”

  “No. They just gave them to me, and I gave them back.”

  “Then why now? Why come here now?”

  She looked at him with shimmering eyes, biting the thumbnail of her right hand and twisting the bottom of her jumper with the fingers of the other. It was exactly what she used to do when she was younger, when she had something to say but couldn’t bring herself to say it.

  “Can we just say I can’t tell you and leave it at that?” she eventually muttered, lowering her eyes as she did.

  “Sure,” Jack said, waving his hand.

  “I’m here now. Is that good enough?”

  Jack gave her a joyful grin and replied, “It is. I just worried about you all these years is all.”

  “Well, you didn’t have to. I can take care of myself.”

  “Is that why you ended up in prison three times?” he couldn’t help saying, regretting it the moment he did.

  Annoyance spread over Carrie’s features, and she shook her head.

  “I haven’t come here to have it all out,” she said sternly. “I’m here because I need a favor.”

  “What type?”

  She sat herself down at the table with him and readied herself to say the next part.

  “I need you to keep an eye on Tyler for a week.”

  “What?”

  “It’s only a week. I have some stuff to sort out.”

  “What stuff?”

  “I told you, I can’t say. It’s some things I need a week to get sorted, and then I’ll be back for him.”

  “You do remember I have a full-time job, don’t you?”

  “Does Jean still live next door?”

  “Yeah. But I don’t see what that has to do with it.”

  “Then he can stay with her during the day. She still don’t work, does she?”

  “No, but I can’t just foist a kid on her. I’m not you.”

  Carrie’s face contorted into an injured scowl, and she shook her head.

  “You gonna give me lessons in parentin’, Dad?” she put scornfully to him. “Because the last I recall, you weren’t the best parent. All the shit you brought down on this house. The way you—”

  “Don’t Carrie,” Jack interrupted. “You said yourself, you haven’t come here to have it all out.”

  Her eyes glared at him for several seconds but gradually relaxed when she saw the glint of sadness that had enveloped her father’s features as he gazed at her pitifully.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “You don’t have to be sorry. You’ve nothing to apologize to me for. Just lay off the past. You’re here now. In the present, you’re here. And that’s all that matters.”

  Carrie gently grinned at her father, and he, subsequently, grinned back.

  “So,” she began in a soft voice, “what do you think of your grandson?”

  “I think he’s got a little of his mother’s fire in his belly.”

  “Yeah,” she uttered dreamily. “He’s had to. It’s not been easy for him.”

  “Which begs the question why you never accepted any of my help? I’ve always been here. I got a little money tucked away. I can always change my retirement plans. Swap my beach villa in Barbados for a council flat in Peckham.” This made her smile. “All you had to do was ask—I would have given you anything. It’s all yours anyway. The house. Everything in it. I’m only keeping guard until you reclaim it.”

  “Don’t say that, Dad,” she said, her face clouding over. “This place holds too many bad memories for me. What with Mum doing what she did here, I don’t feel right in this place anymore. It don’t feel like home. It took a lot to get me to come. Even on the doorstep, I hesitated when I walked in. Felt like I couldn’t go no further. I’ve been working up to coming here for a week. Finally, yesterday, I couldn’t hold it off no longer.”

  “What are you into, Carrie?” Jack said, involuntarily narrowing his eyes. “Please, tell me. Let me help you and Tyler.”

  “I can’t, Dad. Just can’t. If you want to help, keep an eye on Ty for the next week. Then I’ll come back and take him back to Nottingham.”

  “What, and then I wait another ten years to see my daughter and grandson again?”

  “I’ll keep in touch. Just do this one thing for me, Dad. No questions. And I’ll owe you forever.”

  “Does that mean you’ll let me have something to do with you and the boy afterwards?”

  This last part came out like a plea, and Carrie balked at the desperation in his tone.

  “Of course,” she said softly, smiling tenderly. Before it dropped. “Now, I was looking for the spaghetti earlier,” she added, getting up from her chair. “Ty hasn’t had his tea yet.”

  Jack helped his daughter prepare spaghetti bolognese and soon the boy was languidly lumping himself down at the kitchen table, complaining about missing the first part of the match. Still grumbling, he began eating the meal, the food keeping his bleating mouth busy for the moment.

  As he and Carrie watched the boy tuck in, Jack asked, “So what’s the plan, then? You stay tonight and then leave in the morning?”

  Carrie turned sharply to him and widened her eyes, as if to say “shut up.” The boy momentarily looked up from his food and eyed them suspiciously, before returning to twisting spaghetti up with his fork. Carrie then led her father out the room and into the hallway, being careful to shut the door behind them.

  “No,” she whispered to him once they were on their own. “I have to leave as soon as Tyler’s eaten. And you can’t go mentioning it yet.”

  “He doesn’t know?” Jack asked, startled at his daughter.

  “No. If he had’ve known, he would have given me trouble.”

  “Because you’ve left him before?”

  Her temper flared up once more.

  “I’ve done my best,” she snarled through gritted teeth.

  Realizing he was unintentionally baiting her, Jack decided to drop it.

  “Of course you have, love. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve said that. Let’s just get though the next ten minutes without jumping down each others throats, yeah?”

  “Yeah.” Carrie nodded.

  Once Tyler had finished, the front of his sweatshirt sporting a constellation of spaghetti stains, Carrie sat opposite the boy and explained that she would be leaving him with his grandad, a man he’d first heard of twenty minutes ago, for one week. The boy immediately moaned and whined at the prospect, but Carrie talked to him softly and persuaded him that it would be okay, that he’d get to know his grandad, meet Jean, the lady who lived next door when Mummy had lived there, and she promised that she’d call every day until she came back next week.

  “You promise you’ll be back?” the boy pleaded.

  “Of course, Ty. I’ll be back in one week, and until then you get to stay with Grandad.”

  The boy begrudgingly relented, and Carrie knelt down in front of him. She kissed him goodbye, taking his pudgy little frame in her arms and squeezing it. Tyler held a sad look on his face as she did, and Jack felt somehow responsible for it. When she stood up from her son, a tear glistened like a star in Carrie’s eye.

  “Right,” she said, clearing her throat a little. “I put his bag upstairs in my old room. It’s got everything in there, including some mone
y for food. He doesn’t have school at the moment because they’re off for half term, so you don’t have to worry about that.” She paused and looked her father square in the eyes. “Just look after him.”

  “He’ll be safe with me, Carrie love.”

  She picked her handbag up off the table, kissed Tyler once more on the forehead, and walked out the kitchen. Jack told Tyler to wait for him there and then followed Carrie into the hall. When he reached her, she was putting her coat on and had her back to him.

  “Do you need money?” he asked, a frantic tone to his voice. “Because if this is about money, I can get it for you first thing in the morning.”

  She turned around to him, and Jack saw that her eyes were full of tears. It was like the time she’d fled from here all those years ago—a face full of wretched sadness.

  “I don’t need money,” she said in a trembling voice. “I just need to know he’s safe.” She nodded toward the lounge.

  Looking at her now, shivering in front of him, Jack wanted to take her in his arms and comfort his little girl. Ever since he’d first laid eyes on her in the kitchen, this had been what he’d wanted to do more than anything else. He never did hug her enough when she was younger. Never placed his arms around her and soothed her worries.

  Was that why she had turned to the warm embrace of drugs for her comfort? he asked himself.

  Before he could bring himself to take her in his arms, though, she turned from him and went to the door. The opportunity was over, and he’d missed the chance to console his daughter once again.

  “Can I not give you a lift?” he offered as she opened the door into the rain.

  “Nah, it’s okay. I’ll get a cab at the rank round the corner.”

  When Carrie stepped into the mild drizzle outside, she turned to her father and smiled. “Thanks, Dad,” she said, holding the smile on him for several seconds before walking off down the wet street, the lamplights illuminating her in a ghostly hue as she stepped underneath them.

  Jack followed her with his eyes until she was out of sight. Once again his daughter had disappeared. But for how long this time, he didn’t know.

  25

  The girl stood looking out the window watching the night sky. The beautiful crescent moon she’d seen earlier was now shrouded in cloud, and all she saw was the black rain pouring down the pane, her own muddled reflection staring back. She took another sip of the harsh drink to calm her nerves and contemplated the night before her. She wondered if it would be kind—or cruel.

  Gazing blankly at the window, she began to feel light all over, as though the muscles of her body were putrefying. Her legs began to weaken, and the glass became heavy in her hand. The liquor had tasted funny, slightly bitter, but she knew too little about alcohol to really think anything of it.

  Feeling herself gradually pulled to the floor, she gingerly made her way across the thick cream carpet to the red leather couch and dumped herself down on it. Keeping her eyes open became burdensome, and the opulent room started to fade. The heavy glass trickled from her fingers and spilt onto the floor. She lifted her leaden head and saw someone standing before her. Understanding nothing of what was happening, she slipped easily into unconsciousness and was enveloped in darkness.

  The killer picked the glass up and placed it on the side. It then gently positioned the girl so that she was lying on her back along the length of the couch. Opening a small rectangular leather case held in its hand, it began removing the works inside and placing them on the glass coffee table. The so-called works consisted of a spoon, syringe, silver Zippo lighter, cotton wool, and a few other items needed for the intravenous application of drugs. The killer took a length of surgical rubber that had been tucked in its back pocket and applied it to the girl’s upper arm, tying a tourniquet about an inch above the elbow, pulling the ends tight so that the veins in the forearm swelled.

  It then knelt down beside her, glancing every so often at her sleeping face, her blonde hair draped slightly across her forehead, and removed a packet of rose-gray-colored powder from its pocket. It poured the powder onto the spoon and heated it with the Zippo. Soon the smack had caramelized, an oily brown substance bubbling away. Through the cotton wool, the killer extracted it slowly into the syringe. It stretched out the arm with the tourniquet on it and laid it by her side. Holding the hand, the killer pushed the needle through a vein just below the elbow. It pulled into the syringe a small amount of blood that resembled a blooming carnation as it entered the murky liquid and then slowly pushed the substance all the way into the vein, its eyes not leaving her silenced face the whole time.

  When it was done, it placed the emptied syringe on the coffee table and kissed the girl on the forehead.

  DAY FOUR

  26

  The three-vehicle convoy of mono-black Hummers splashed along the dirt track into Glenmouth Wood with apparent purpose. Bordering them on either side was a dense field of bare copse trees that leaned down on top of them. The rain had remained constant but gentle all night, continuing on in this fashion into the morning, and water trickled down the mossy banks at the edges, filling up the track. Under the wheels of the colossal four-by-fours, the red mud tore up and the sides of the vehicles were decorated in it.

  “Fuckin’ hell,” Davey Doyle complained from the front seat of the middle vehicle, almost hitting his head on the roof with each bump. “Why we have to meet here?” He was asking no one in particular and had repeated this question several times since they’d entered the mile-long track.

  Thankfully, it wasn’t long before they came to an opening and emerged into a small dip in the land shaped like a bowl, a kind of crater surrounded by hills and trees. When they came to its edge, they instantly saw that the Earles Crew were already here, their three mud-covered Range Rovers on the opposite side.

  Once Davey and his men were parked, they all got out of the Hummers. At the very same time, the doors of the three Range Rovers opened and out stepped nine men. Nine men meeting nine men, all of them wearing suits and all of them armed with pistols that sat in gun belts underneath. Every man there except Davey and his meet-up guy, Deck, were ex-military. It was the kind of enforcement you need when you’re this high up in the criminal pyramid.

  As Davey went over to the big figure of Deck in the center, he observed that one of the Earles’ men had a semiautomatic.

  “What the fuck’s that?” Davey said, nodding in the direction of the gun.

  “It appears to be a semiautomatic machine gun, Dave,” Deck replied in his deep baritone voice, glancing over his shoulder at the offending item.

  “I know what it is. What’s it doing here?”

  “I take it your men have more than just bananas in those holsters under their jackets.”

  “A pistol’s one thing, but that thing could cause a massacre.”

  “Chill out, Dave. It’s for show. We ain’t gonna use it.”

  Davey shook his head and looked away from the gun. Returning his eyes to Deck, he leaned forward and took the man’s huge frame in his arms, the two embracing cordially. Deck was a big fella, almost seven foot, of West Indian origin but born in London. His head was shaved completely bald, he had a single white-gold front tooth that glinted in his wide mouth, and his flat nose sat squashed to his big round face, a remnant of his bare-knuckle boxing days. He always wore a collection of weighty gold chains around his neck, three gold Rolexes up his right forearm, and as much metal as he could fit on his fingers. Like the rest of the Earles Crew he was flash, but out of all of them, Davey liked Deck the most and felt comfortable dealing with him.

  “How’s the Somalian?” Davey asked.

  “He don’t like being called the Somalian, Dave. You know that.”

  “Is he not Somalian, then?”

  “Not anymore. You’re offendin’ him. He was only a baby when he left Africa for London streets. Now he’s British, innit. Voted for Brexit and everythin’.”

  “Voted for Brexit? Fuck me, Deck. That is Britis
h. I take it back. So apart from the xenophobia, how is the good Mr. Earle?”

  “He’s good, Dave. How’s the big man?”

  “Big man’s good too.” No one ever called Jerry Doyle the Fat Man to the face of one of his men, especially not to his family. To their faces he was the big man. “Why we have to meet like this, Deck?” Davey added, holding his arms out and signaling the encompassing woods.

  “I don’t like it myself, Dave. It’s fuckin’ terrible, but boss man thinks it’s essential. He says, ‘In this game you don’t know when the rules will suddenly change.’ I think there’s some truth in that.”

  “I try not to see it as a game, Deck. I prefer to simply look upon things from a more business-oriented point of view. Look at myself as an entrepreneur. A bastard product of Maggy Thatcher and her beloved Thatcherism. I merely want to do business. Which is why I’d rather this was just me and you sitting in a plush office high up in some skyscraper overlookin’ all of glorious London.” He let this image sink in for a moment, before continuing. “Rather than in this pissin’ wood surrounded by guns.”

  Deck’s big frame rumbled with laughter. That’s why he liked Davey Doyle—because he had a way about him that seemed so ridiculous for a man with his reputation. A reputation less severe than his brother and nephew, it had to be said, but a reputation to be feared all the same.

  “Rules is rules,” Deck chuckled. “I gotta abide by boss man, innit.”

  “Which brings me to my next point of business—i.e. your fee.”

  “My what?”

  “Fee, Deck. Your price.”

  “Ah!”