Cross (14 page)

He smoothed his outfit, leaned against the wall.

'You really ought to check your facts, Jack.
Sunday night, I was on retreat in Limerick with fifty other people.'

I didn't know what to think.

'She committed suicide? Or someone helped her?'

He moved away from the wall, took up his frigging lotus stance again.

'You're the investigator, so . . . investigate.'

I was completely lost.

'I'm totally in the dark.'

He smiled, said, 'For many, that is the true beginning.'

I stormed out before I did serious damage to him.

'Mysterium iniquitatis.'

'The mystery of evil.'

St Paul

I needed to talk to somebody, to try and get some idea of what was going down.

Gina had experience of psychology, so I
gave her a call. She seemed delighted to hear from me. That anyone would be pleased to hear my voice was stunning. I fumbled a bit, finally got round to asking her out to dinner, and arranged to meet her at a new Mexican restaurant she was anxious to try.

What did I know about Mexican food? Then reprimanded me own self. Fuck's sake, this was not about food.

An hour before I met her, I was nervous, my heart hammering. Was this like . . . a date?

How the hell did you behave, and, worse, sober? It had been so long, I no longer knew the ritual. And in the days when I did date, I'd slam home a few Jamesons and not give a toss whether the woman showed or not. By the
time the evening was through, most of the women were sorry they'd showed.

I wore a blazer, tan slacks, comfortable shoes. For comfortable, read old. I debated a tie and then went with the open-neck gig, casual but cool. Checked my reflection. I
looked like a dodgy geezer selling property in Spain.

The restaurant was in Kirwan's Lane, just a pint away from Quay Street. My hands were sweating. Gina was waiting outside, wearing a dark suit jacket, skirt and heels, and looked terrific. Her hair was tied back, showing her strong features. I felt woefully inadequate. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and said I looked marvellous. I wanted to run.

A maître d' told us we'd have to wait ten minutes and might he bring us a cocktail?
Bring me a bucket, buddy.

We sat in the lounge. Gina had a Vermouth and soda and, yeah, I had a Pepsi. Rock 'n' roll.
Gina looked round at the white stucco walls, the cacti, the paintings of old Mexico and said it was very authentic. A couple next to us were lashing back tequila, the whole salt-and-lemon vibe, and having a whale of a time. I felt like a priest and that's about as bad as it gets.

The drinks came and we clinked glasses.

Gina said, 'I'm glad to see you, Jack.'

I wanted to cut to the chase, go, 'Look, I
want to pick your brains, can we just do that?
Forget all this politeness crap, and then I can go home, alone.'

Very worrying was the fact that I was more attracted to her than I expected. And to handle that without a shot of something, I hadn't a clue. Desperate for time, I asked about her work and she effortlessly talked on that. I tried to show interest. The sound ringing in my ears was the tequila bottle and a rage was building in me. How many fucking drinks were those bastards going to have? Didn't they have dinner to eat yet?

Then I registered Gina asking, 'Is it very difficult for you?'

What?

I gave a smile of tolerance, as if I was resigned to whatever fate had been dealt out to me.

She said, 'A social evening without alcohol, is it awful for you?'

Sympathy, just what I needed, fucking wonderful.

I lied, 'No, it's not so bad.'

The waiter came, said our table was ready and she was prevented from replying.

I let Gina order the food and she chose enchiladas, fritos, tapas, and lots of dips with very spicy origins. She said she'd have a glass of wine, and, me, mineral water.

We ate and stayed on neutral topics. I'm sure the food was good. Gina said it was first rate, but it all tasted like loss to me.

When the plates were cleared away and we settled to a coffee, she asked, 'What's on your mind, Jack?'

This was the reason we were there, so I laid out the whole series of events. And she was a good listener, only interrupted once to ask if Sean had turned up yet. I noticed she'd only had one sip out of her wine. Yeah, I counted, it's what alkies do. Me, I'd have been on the third bottle by now.

Go figure.

I can't.

When I was finished, she asked, 'What do you want from me, Jack?'

I framed my reply carefully, said, 'Give me your opinion of the family, and – here's the hard part – where would Sean go?'

She then asked a series of questions, mostly on Gail, and I told her everything – my encounter with her in the graveyard, then her visit to my apartment, the meeting she had
with Stewart. I described the father, Mitch, how I'd found him and how I thought he'd been involved.

She was silent for a second round of coffee, then said, 'Jack, it's almost impossible to make any diagnosis when you've never met the people, and anything I say is purely conjecture.
I want you to bear that in mind. It's purely guesswork.' Then she smiled. 'To let you in on a little secret, a lot of what we do is a shot in the dark at the best of times, but we don't advertise that.'

I assured her that I wouldn't be quoting her and that any help, any suggestion would be taken in that spirit.

Pushing her cup to one side, she leaned forward and asked, 'Are you familiar with folie
à deux?'

I wasn't.

She explained.

'It's a shared psychotic disorder. You get two highly damaged individuals who come to share the same psychotic belief, they become almost one person, with the same destructive aim. There is usually one leader, as it were, and the second person begins to take on board all the delusions, hatred and mania of the first. Fusing together, they form a highly
lethal relationship, for example the Hillside Stranglers in America.'

I thought about it, said, 'Gail and her father.'

She nodded, then again stressed this was pure speculation.

I asked about Sean.

She said, 'My bet is he would return to the scene where Gail was drowned, almost like keeping vigil. What are you going to do with him?'

I hadn't been really clear, but now it began to come together.

'If I find him, I'm going to let him go, tell him to get back to London, try and build a life.'

She was surprised, I could see it in her eyes, and she asked, 'Why, don't you think he should pay for his part in these horrendous crimes?'

I was close to telling her of the terrible mistakes I'd made in the past, when I let my madness for revenge override everything and innocent people had died. Instead I said, 'I
think there has been enough death.'

The waiter brought the bill and I paid.

Outside I hailed a cab and said, 'Gina, I'm so grateful.'

She was amused. 'I'd hazard another guess and say I'm going home alone.'

I muttered a whole range of nonsense about us getting together real soon and the wondrous help she'd been.

Shite talk.

The cab came and I held the door. She gave me a long look, then said, 'Goodbye, Jack.'

I should have said something, that it wasn't like that, that I'd call her real soon. She gave a sad smile and the cab pulled away.

I walked up Quay Street, telling myself I
would call her, course I would. Maybe if I said it often enough, I might actually believe it.

I began the ritual of walking the prom every evening. Gail had been taken out of the water at ten in the evening, so I aimed at that. Part of me saw it as a fool's errand. What if he never showed? Told myself, at least it's exercise, gets me out, gets me moving. And it sure helped with the limp. Her body had been washed up at Blackrock. Time was, that was a men-only bathing area. That had been overturned and women could now use the facilities.

On the beach, most evenings, I'd see groups of teenagers drinking Buckfast, with a token bottle of vodka to put the flourish on the whole deal of getting
wasted
.

My teenage years, it was a flask of cider, split
about five ways, and a packet of Woodbine.
Dope was unknown then. The new generation, they had lots of dope, from E to coke to crack. Crystal Meth had been showing its ugly dangerous face in more substantial quantities.
I'd talked to one of the teenage girls and she told me the deal: none of that slow burn, gradually getting a bit merry, having a rites-of-passage adventure; their whole aim was to get wasted, fast. No in-between time, no period of silly giggles, it was just get totally out of your head in jig time.

I'd asked, 'Why?'

Dumb, right? And old, fuck, oh yeah.

She'd given me that look of contempt with a slight sprinkle of pity and said, 'Cos life, like, sucks.'

She could have fitted right into Miami Beach or any American frat party. The government was trying to come to terms with the epidemic of teenage pregnancies, sexual diseases, and I
thought, one evening alongside the sea front, they could have seen the whole saga unfold.

I thought about Cody a lot: his wild annoying zest for life, his determination to be a private investigator and how my actions had got him killed. The weight of that was sometimes more than I could bear. Such
times, despite my limp, I'd walk like a man trying to outrun his thoughts.

A week went by, no Sean, and I was assailed by doubt. Was the whole plan an exercise in futility? I stayed with it. I enjoyed the walk, if nothing else. To be beside the ocean had always soothed me. And Christ, I needed all the help available. Mostly, on those walks, I
thought of all the people I'd known and why I was still above the ground.

Ten days into this deal, I met Jeff.

I was so convinced he was gone and I'd never see him again. He'd been my great friend and then I let his daughter fall to her death and he disappeared into the booze, last seen as a homeless person. His wife, Cathy, had been the one who shot Cody. She had known Cody was like my surrogate son.
Perhaps that explained why I never went after her for the shooting.

An eye for an eye.

I took her daughter, she took my son.

Fair trade?

The tenth day of my search, I was turning for the walk home when I saw a man sitting on a bench, staring at me, and, as I neared, I
recognized him.

Jeff.

At first, I thought it was my mind playing tricks. I'd frequently seen someone who looked like him on the streets of the town.
This was no mirage, it was him, the long grey hair tied in a ponytail, a long leather coat and his eyes burning into mine. He stood and I didn't know if he'd attack me. Our last encounter, he'd spat in my face.

I stopped about five yards away, a tremor building in my body.

He said, 'I heard you'd been walking this way, same time every evening.'

I didn't ask who told him.

How do you greet a man whose life you've destroyed?
Good to see you
doesn't quite cut it. He looked well, certainly in comparison to how I'd last seen him, a drunk on a park bench, his eyes dead. His eyes now were clear, hard but clear. A fresh scar along the top of his forehead. You live on the street, it's part of the deal. His clothes were clean, and though he'd visibly aged, he seemed in good nick. His hands were deep in his pockets and I concentrated on them.

'Still investigating, Jack?'

I finally found my voice. 'It's all I can do.'

He looked out at the ocean, then said, 'Still wreaking havoc in people's lives then?'

No argument there.

He sighed, said, 'The Guards are looking for Cathy, in connection with that shooting.'

I said I'd heard that and then he asked, 'And you, Jack, are you looking for her?'

His tone was neutral, as if it didn't matter.

'No, I've caused her enough grief.'

He moved a step closer and I had to struggle to stand my ground.

He asked, 'You think that evens the score?
That what you think, Jack?'

His use of my name was like a lash. Each time I felt the sting, I said, 'No, I don't think anything can ever . . .
even the score
.'

He was right in my face now, snarled, 'You got that fucking right, pal.'

Then he backed off. I'd have been grateful if he'd walloped me, it would have been easier.

He asked again, as if he needed it in blood, 'Are you going after Cathy?'

'No, I'm not.'

I wanted to know how he'd turned himself round, how he'd come back from the streets, but I couldn't find the words.

He stared at me, as if trying to find out who I was, then he said, 'I loved you, man.'

And he walked away.

The use of that past tense lacerated my soul.

Double-cross.

Three nights later, I found Sean. As was my routine now, I'd walked the prom. It was a bit later than my regular time and darkness was falling. I'd reached Blackrock, was about to turn for home when I took a last look at the ocean. Down among the rocks, near the edge of the water, a lone figure. I nearly didn't see him. I took a deep breath and made my way down. He was sitting on a strip of sand and smoking a joint, a tiny cloud of smoke above his head.

Before I could speak, he said, 'Wondered when you'd show up.'

I moved to his right, could smell the strong aroma of the weed. I'd expected him to be like a vagrant, in terrible shape.

Wrong.

He was the picture of health and prosperity, wearing a new heavy coat and new faded
jeans. His hair had been cut and his eyes were alight. He offered the spliff.

'Not for me, thanks.'

This amused him and he looked at me. He was playing with the rosary beads that he wore as a bracelet.

He said, 'I went back to the house after my dad was gone and you know what, I found a wad of cash. So I searched some more in Gail's room, found a whole stash of it. They'd been holding out on me, can you believe it?'

I thought about that and then gradually it began to dawn on me, my whole reading of Gail's death was wrong.

'Must have pissed you off.'

He laughed, said, 'Taylor, they'd been pissing me off my whole life.'

His use of my surname was deliberate, letting me know the rules had changed.

Had they ever.

He flipped the end of the spliff into the water. It made a slight fizzle, like the end of the saddest, most worthless prayer, the one you say for your own self.

He said, 'They collected my mum's insurance money, never told me, and me, dumb fuck, thinking we were out of cash. What we were out of was time. At least, they were.'

I asked, 'So you were in the house and Gail came back?'

He stretched, as if this was oh so slightly boring, said, 'Yeah, I told her good old Dad was a goner and she'd killed him. She freaked, and then, the weirdest thing of all the fucking bizarre events in this mad trip, she retreated.'

I wasn't sure what he meant, so echoed, 'Retreated?'

He looked at me, asked, 'You deaf?' Then laughed, said, 'Oh, whoops, the hearing aid.
Yeah, she went back to how she was just after Mum died – a vegetable. Went to wherever it was she'd been before, and I figured, this time she wasn't returning. A one-way ticket, you know?'

I could see it. The two dominant figures in his life were gone, and instead of going to pieces, he'd adopted the personalities of both.

'What did you do with her?'

He was quiet for a moment, as if he debated telling me, then said, 'I helped her go swimming.'

And then, the worst sound of all, he giggled.
I told myself it was the dope, hoped it was.

He added, 'Thing was, get this, she forgot she couldn't swim. And you know, the crazy
bitch, she kept asking me if I saw the flames. I
doused them for her.'

I thought of the Glock, sitting snug and useless in the top drawer of my desk.

He said, 'So, Jack, what's your thinking, you going to let this slide? You can walk away, we'll forget we ever had this conversation.'

He was literally measuring me up, and, alas, I knew what he saw: a broken-down middle-aged man with a limp and a hearing aid. If I
said I couldn't let it go, how hard was it going to be for him to . . .
deal
. . . with me? He was strong, young and had nothing to lose. He'd drowned his own sister, crucified a young man, burned a defenceless girl in her car. Was he going to worry about me?

I said, 'If – and it's a big if – I walk, what are your plans?'

He was surprised, and to my horror I recognized the expression in his eyes. It was like Gail's, and for one eerie moment I wondered if evil could be transmitted thus. He moved real close to me. Was it my imagination or had his shoulders become broader? What had happened to the Kurt Cobain harmless boy I'd met in the coffee shop?

A half smile curled on his lips and he said, 'Hmmm, good question, Jack-o. You know, I
think I like it here, but what I wouldn't like is the thought of you shambling round, maybe getting a sudden burst of – what's it you Catholics call it? – conscience.'

And he lashed out with his right fist, knocking me on my back. He walked round so he was standing at my head. I noticed he was wearing Doc Marten's, well-scuffed ones, and I hoped to fuck they weren't the steel-toed variety. My jaw hurt like a son of a bitch and I
understood he was going to kill me but was in no great hurry. He had discovered the greatest, most potent aphrodisiac on the planet – power.
I moved to try for some distance and he kicked me on the back of my head.

Hard.

I saw stars. Not the spangled variety, but the ones that tell you you are in deep shit and it's not going to get any better.

He asked, as if he actually cared, 'Did that hurt, Jack?'

Then two more swift kicks to my side and chest, and I felt something give – a rib, perhaps.
My breathing tightened.

He said, still in that pleasant conversational tone, 'I've often wondered what it's like to kick the living daylights out of a person. All my life, I've been the one getting kicked, and you
know what? You know what, Jack-o? It's kinda neat, as the Americans might say.'

And that galvanized me. America . . . my new life, Ridge's tests, not being there for her, all because of this – pup?

I groaned, 'Sean, one thing.'

He hesitated, and I kept my voice low so he had to bend over. He still couldn't hear me and bent real low. His face was in mine, I
could smell garlic off his breath. I clamped my teeth on his nose, bit down with all the ferocity I've ever known, and swear to Christ, I
bit clean through.

He staggered back, blood pumping down his face, going, 'What the fuck did you do? You bit me!'

I managed to get up on one knee, saw a clump of driftwood, hoped the water hadn't softened it.

It hadn't.

And I blasted it across his skull, saying, 'Don't call me Jack-o.'

A few more wallops of pure, unadulterated rage and his face and head were mush.

I muttered, 'We don't want you in our town, we have enough garbage as it is. How do you think we're going to win the tidy-towns competition?'

Had I gone insane? I can only hope so.

I gathered some stones, a lot of very heavy ones, piled them into the pockets of his new smart coat and dragged him to the water.
Then, to my horror, he groaned, and I don't know for sure but it sounded like, 'Please, Dad, don't.'

It took a while but eventually he was struggling no more. I took him way out, as far as I
could manage without going under my own self. It was cold. With the amount of rocks in his pockets, it was hard work and I nearly abandoned it, but I had to be sure he wouldn't surface. When I was sure he would stay down, I took a deep breath and went under with him, his eyes staring at me like a mild reproach, and added more stones from the bottom of the sea bed. My teeth were doing a fandango of fear and shock. I felt that seeping numbness that whispers to you, 'Rest, let the water soothe you.'

The temptation was massive, but with a supreme effort I put the last of the rocks on him and broke the surface, gasping for air. I
looked at how far I'd come and wasn't even sure I'd make it back to shore, then muttered, 'Just do it, stop whining.'

I came out of the water and the inclination
to lie down was overpowering, but I managed to keep going. The pain in my head, chest and side was beyond belief. I swallowed a whole shitpile of Stewart's pills, kept moving.

I was nearly home when I realized something from Sean had snagged on my jacket: the rosary beads he'd worn as a bracelet. It had that tiny cross on it.

I was passing a litter bin, put it in there.

I was all through with crosses.