A Cross to Bear: A Jack Sheridan Mystery

by Vogel, Vince

  “You did your best, Jack. You always did.”

  “But it weren’t good enough, though, was it? Seems like I’m always caught in sand. The harder I struggle, the faster I sink. After all that’s happened, this is going to be swept away. What justice has anyone gotten?”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. I keep thinking back to when me and Col were investigating John’s death. If we had’ve ignored the threats and gone all the way, we might’ve uncovered Tommy and we might’ve stopped the Doyles. Billy would have never had the chance to murder his sister and Roddy O’Brian, and Gemma would have never met Becky. Alex would have gotten justice and probably stayed with you both in England. You could have still been a family, and Becky would still be here now.”

  Helen turned sharply to him and looked at Jack with weeping eyes, her straight brown hair blowing slightly in the breeze and sparkles of sunlight reflecting off the flecks of gray.

  “You don’t ever blame yourself, Jack Sheridan,” she said firmly to him. “Don’t ever blame yourself. You did what you had to. I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for my family. You’re the only good thing in any of this, and don’t you ever stop thinking that.”

  She opened her arms and threw them around him. He took her and enveloped her in his own. She was still a mother, he said to himself. Still had that natural benevolence in her. He was grateful for her words. It appeased a part of his guilt. And for that small mercy, Jack was grateful.

  Jack arrived back home from Helen’s and passed the familiar car of Jonny Cockburn on the way to his driveway. It was parked up along the road with the journalist sitting in the driver’s seat waiting. Having turned the engine off, Jack waited for Cockburn to get out his car and come over. When he was at the bottom of the drive, Jack leaned over and opened the passenger’s-side door. Accepting the invitation, Jonny got in.

  “What’s goin’ on, Jack?” he asked once he was seated and had closed the door behind him. “Because none of this guff we’re getting from the Met makes any sense. Like, who the fuck are Gemma and Patrick O’Brian? They killed Becky. Okay. Then where are they and why? Then there’s all this stuff with the stepfather. Who glued him to the chair and forced him to confess to all those crimes? It’s nonstop and we just aren’t getting any answers. Like Tommy Bishop’s death. Who the fuck took out the deputy commissionaire? And I’ll tell you another thing, I’m not buyin’ this Doyle takin’ him out over a legitimate grudge bollocks. I’ve been hearing stories about that bastard for years. Only whispers like, but stories all the same.”

  Jack raised his hand to Jonny, signaling for him to stop.

  “Stop flapping your gums,” he said. “This time I’m gonna tell you everything. But first I need you to give me your phone.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want my voice recorded, and I don’t want myself quoted in anything. I’m giving you nothing official. Only a story. What you do with it is your choice. Only once I’ve told you, you may want to duck away from certain parts.”

  Once Jonny had handed him his phone, Jack did as he’d promised. He told the journalist everything. All the parts on Tommy. On the Doyles. John Dorring. The Buntingford gypsy fire. Billy’s killing spree. And the whole time, the journalist simply nodded along with a slightly incredulous frown, seeing so many of his own suspicions confirmed. Then Jack explained Alex Dorring’s part and how this was what he’d meant when he’d said Jonny may back away from certain elements.

  “I agree,” Jonny said afterward. “I’ll go after Bishop being corrupt, but I’ll leave MI6 out of it. And you say it was them that took out the O’Brian pair and kidnapped Alex?”

  “It was, Jonny. But I’d keep all of that out of it unless you want a bullet coming through your front window too.”

  “Duly noted, Jack. Duly noted.”

  Jack let the journalist go, feeling at least a little justice may be done. He’d given Cockburn enough to go after the Met and expose one of their most senior officers as a corrupt bastard, running the Metropolitan police like a cross between the American CIA and the Mafia.

  When Cockburn had driven away, Jack got out and went into Jean’s place, where she was awaiting him with Tyler. As he walked down her drive to her front door, he glanced up at the boarded front window of his own house and shook his head. He was still a little panicked by its sight, and since it had happened, he and the boy had been staying at Jean’s.

  “How was it?” Jean asked the moment the door was open.

  “A funeral,” Jack grumbled as he stepped inside.

  Having removed his coat and shoes, Jack came into the dining room where Tyler was already seated with his dinner. The boy was especially excited today as Carrie was due this evening to pick him up. After one week, he was going back to his mother having discovered a grandfather.

  As Jean and Tyler were about to tuck in, Jack reached an arm out to each of them and stopped their forks.

  “We should say grace,” he said.

  “What’s grace?” the boy asked with a bewildered look.

  “Like a prayer.”

  “You never wanted to say grace before,” Jean complained.

  “Well, I do now. So put your hands together the both of you, and I’ll take us through.”

  With gentle frowns, Jean and Tyler placed their knives and forks beside their plates and put their hands together.

  “Now close your eyes,” Jack added, and with groans they followed his wishes. “Dear Heavenly Father,” Jack began, “who art in heaven I ask you to bless this meal and also to bless the meek who you wish to leave this Earth to. For they suffer far too much iniquity and injustice under your watchful eye. Amen.”

  Jack crossed himself and picked up his knife and fork. While he began eating, Jean and Tyler looked at him oddly.

  “Okay,” Jean said slowly, before retrieving her cutlery.

  “Is that it?” Tyler enquired, not sure if he could attack his meal yet.

  “That’s it,” Jack said. “Now eat your grub. I don’t want you telling your mum we didn’t feed you.”

  Later that evening, Tyler sat in his coat on the couch, his Spider-Man rucksack packed and sitting on the floor beneath his feet. His mother was already an hour late, and Jack and Jean had been unable to get through to her phone. Jack stood at the window, peering through the curtains at the empty street outside, his heart flickering every time a car drove toward the house, before going hollow when he watched them pass by.

  “Is it still ringing out?” Jack asked Jean from the window.

  “Yep,” Jean said in an annoyed tone as she paced the lounge with the phone to her ear. “Just rings and rings and rings.”

  Yet another hour later and the two of them were seated on either side of the boy, who was still in his coat, Jean’s arm around his chubby little shoulders, Jack trying to explain the situation, the boy’s eyes beginning to flake with tears.

  “I’m sorry, Ty,” Jack was saying, “I don’t think Mum’s coming tonight. Maybe we got the day wrong. Maybe it’s tomorrow and she’s too busy to answer her phone now.”

  “No. It was today,” the boy said. “Last night when she called, she said she’d see me tomorrow.”

  “But it doesn’t look like she’s coming, mate.”

  “I wanna wait here,” he insisted.

  Jean rubbed his shoulders and leaned in, whispering, “Tyler love, Mummy’s obviously not coming. Come and take your coat off.”

  “I wanna leave it on.”

  “Okay. But you must be very warm.”

  “I’m okay.”

  For the next two hours, neither of them could budge the boy. He was determined to wait on the couch for his mother to return. Even if that took the rest of his life. When eleven hit, Tyler was showing signs of sleepiness, as were Jack and Jean, all three taking it in turns to yawn. The couple had spent the whole time watching the television while Tyler had stared at the window, almost zero cars going down the street now. />
  “Right, time for bed,” Jean said, switching the television off. “It’s well past your bedtime, Ty.”

  “I’m waiting for Mum,” he muttered for the innumerable time that evening.

  “But it’s bed now,” she said softly. “Your mum’s not coming, sweetie. Go to bed now, and we’ll call her first thing when you wake up.”

  “Can you call her now?” the boy asked.

  “I only tried ten minutes ago when you asked me before, and it was switched off. Remember?”

  “I know, but she might’ve turned her phone back on.”

  “Come on, Ty,” Jack pleaded. “For whatever reason, your mum’s not coming. In the morning, I’ll do everything I can to find out why. Okay? But for now we need you to go up to bed.”

  “I can’t,” he said in a pitiful voice, the tears threatening to burst from him.

  Jean looked at Jack and widened her eyes.

  “I guess we’ve only one choice,” Jack said to her.

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ll stay down here with him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll get some blankets and stuff and kip on the floor. He can stay on the couch.”

  “But I don’t want my lounge being turned into a bloody doss-house.”

  “Come on, Jean. He’s an eight-year-old boy waiting for his mum. Just indulge the poor little sod for the night.”

  She twisted her mouth but relented, scolding herself for letting Jack Sheridan get the better of her for the umpteenth time.

  Following that, Jack slept on the floor while the boy fell to sleep in his coat on the couch. When Jack awoke at some point during the dark hours, he saw Tyler snoozing away and decided to lift him up to bed. As he carried Tyler up the stairs, Jack looked down at the little boy’s snoozing face and felt so terribly sad for him. A part of Jack felt enormously angry toward his daughter. As much as he put on a brave face for the boy, he was livid that Carrie had essentially abandoned her son. In the morning, he would put a call into Lange and get him to place a search on his daughter, find out if she’d been picked up for anything. He suspected that she may be sitting in some police cell at the moment or at least wanted in connection with a crime. Looking down at that child in his arms, Jack shook his head and made a solemn oath to himself. He promised to be there for this boy no matter what. If Tyler didn’t have a dad, he’d be that for him. And if it turned out that he didn’t have a mother, then he would be that too.

  Tucking Tyler in, having carefully removed the coat, Jack kissed the sleeping boy on the forehead.

  “Sleep well, boy,”’ he whispered down to him. “Sleep well.”

  He left the room and walked across the landing to Jean’s bedroom. Sliding himself into bed behind her, Jack woke her up. She instantly smiled at her returning lover and turned around. They leaned toward each other, and their lips met in a sultry kiss, though neither had the energy to go any further.

  “Where is he?” Jean asked in a sleepy voice.

  “I put him up to bed.”

  “Not in that bloody coat, I hope.”

  “No. I got it off him.”

  “Good.” There was a short silence as the two held each other under the covers, before Jean asked, “What are you gonna do about Carrie?”

  “I don’t know. Get Lange to sort something. Keep calling her.”

  “What do you think it is?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “She could be in trouble.”

  Jack’s heart fluttered in his chest at her words.

  “I’d rather be mad at her than think that,” Jack said. “When I think of the possibility of her being hurt, it’s like I can’t breathe.”

  “Let’s hope it’s nothing too serious, then.”

  “Yeah.”

  They kissed tenderly, before slowly drifting to sleep in each other’s arms, Jack doing his best not to think too much about his missing daughter, as well as the fact that in the last week he’d once again come into irrefutable contact with the darkness.

  The worst part was, that in many respects, the old detective felt that it was the darkness who had once again won.

  Dorring watched the ripples move across the water between his dangling feet. Looking deeper into the lake, he saw the reeds gently swaying in the current and watched their movement for some time. It was as though the world were slowed down and he could count to two between each heartbeat.

  In his ears echoed the sounds of the birds chirping in the trees, the wind rustling through the leaves and grass, dog’s barks, Katya’s giggles, and Tatyana’s humming tones. Looking away from the water, Alex found his wife’s smiling face gazing up at him from his lap where her head rested. His fingers stroked her hair, and he leaned down, kissing her lips with his own.

  “Papa!” Katya cried from the barley, and he glanced over at her. The gray mutt was chasing her in the long golden stalks, the wind passing its fingers through it all and moving it like the surface of a sea. Alex watched the little girl play for some time until the sound of a door creaking open took his mind away and he looked up to see someone stepping into his cell.

  The lake, the dock he sat on, Katya, Tatyana, and everything else dissolved, and he found himself sitting on the edge of a metal bed. Glancing down at his hands, he saw that his love had gone and was now replaced by a pair of cuffs with a chain running down from their center, attaching him to the bed. The walls were covered in white padding, and Alex felt a deep sadness as he recalled where he was.

  “How are you today, 192?” asked a man in a white uniform, wearing glasses across the bridge of his narrow nose and a brown buzz cut on top his head.

  “What a stupid question?” Alex asked in a slurred voice, the result of the drugs they constantly had him on.

  “Well, we thought it would be good to give you a little tour of the facility. Meet some of the other residents.”

  The man moved out the way of the door, and another white uniform came in pushing a wheelchair.

  The next minute, Dorring was strapped at the arms, waist, and legs to the chair and being wheeled around the sparkling white interiors of the Pit. In the background, he heard the nurses telling him about the place, which room was which and things like that, but he didn’t listen to any of it. Instead, he stared out at the broken faces huddled around tables or strapped into chairs. Many of their foreheads displayed the scars of lobotomies, and Alex grinned at this sight. Perhaps that’s what they had in store for him, he imagined.

  With this sad thought, Dorring became aware of someone’s fingers entwined within his own. Slowly swiveling his head, he saw the figure of Chloe walking beside him, holding on to his hand as he was given this impromptu tour of his current hell. She looked down at him and smiled.

  All Alex did was look away, his face crumbling into misery and the tears welling out of his eyes. A part of him had fallen in love with that girl over the short time he’d known her, and for everything she’d done to him, it still pined for her. He had recognized something of himself in her. Whether that was the animal part or the last fragment of humanity, he didn’t know.

  He hoped that it was the latter.

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

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  Vince Vogel

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