Lost in Shadows Read online

  Lost in Shadows

  by

  Alex O’Connell

  Lost in Shadows

  Smashwords Edition

  Alton, Hampshire, United Kingdom

  Copyright ©c) Alex O’Connell 2011

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All characters in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  Chapter One

  Time was up for Micky Johnston. All his tears, wailing and pleading – God knows there had been a lot – had been to no avail. He tried one last time to struggle. But he could manage no more than a half-hearted attempt to strain against his shackles and he knew by now that it was hopeless. He saw Death summoning him with a rapacious, all consuming intensity, a lascivious desire. Death’s name was Doyle. Doyle had listened impassively everything Micky could think to say, but he was not a man you could reason with; certainly not a man you could offer a cut of the money to. Especially when none was left. Micky was trying to reason, trying to buy him off would just make things worse and things were already more than bad enough. Such a short time before it had all seemed so easy to him. Safe as houses. Just collecting the cash from Bellini’s squalid little south London clubs and dive bars. Creaming a little, just a little, off the top. It was only a commission really. A sort of finder’s fee. Nothing wrong with that. Everybody did it. But what started as a little grew, little by little, and over the months a little became a lot. More than enough for Bellini’s accountants to become suspicious. Why the fuck did a gangster like Bellini need accountants, Micky thought? Bastards. Every one of them. Bastards!

  But this wasn’t the time for thinking and it was too late for action. An icy chill of fear and certainty coursed like an electric current down Micky’s spine and the sweat that ran down his brow stung his eyes, contorting his face in what was more of a spasm than a shudder. He had never been a brave man at the best of times, he knew that, and this certainly wasn’t the best of times. Doyle’s reputation went before him. It forced people out of his way and into the shadows, it made them avoid his impassive stare and concentrate on their shoes. He was a hard man of the old school. Well into a middle age that no-one had expected him to reach, he was gaunt but still quietly muscular and with a face bisected by an old bluish scar that ran from high on his right cheek, across his lips ending with a flourish low down on the left side of his chin. His nose looked like a second rate bare-knuckle fighter’s and his left eye could now barely open. There wasn’t much sight left in it anyway. His hair, its lustrous black once sleek with a swathe of Brylcream, was now grey and was cropped so close to the scalp that it looked almost translucent. Doyle didn’t believe in wasting money on barbers. He shaved it himself and the uneveness only added to the impression of menace. It was a face that had long ago purged itself of its last vestiges of humanity; it was a face that could make small children and Micky Johnston, prone on his bed in the seedy Clapham bedsit, cry. The damp ran down the faded, peeling wallpaper and the whole place smelled like shit. It took Micky a moment to realize that it wasn’t just the flat that smelled.

  “You dirty bastard”. It was the first time Doyle had spoken since he had pushed through the half opened door nearly breaking Micky’s hand in the process. His voice was harsh and threatening, nearly all resonances of the gentle brogue of his Irish childhood – many lifetimes ago – had long ago been exorcized. Now the accent was virtually pure south London. If pure is the right word. Try as he might, Doyle felt little that could be called resentment towards Micky. Admittedly, he shouldn’t have taken Mr. Bellini’s money. That was certainly not something that he would have ever dreamed of doing. But most of the cash had been recovered, one way or another, and he was being punished now. A just retribution. That was something Doyle understood only too well. Crime and punishment. He had followed both his brothers into borstal by the time he was fourteen and six weeks after his eighteenth birthday he began the first of several detentions at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Two years in the Scrubs for a violent assault. It was Doyle’s apprenticeship and he served it with the due diligence of a scholarship boy. His violence became more than just an inarticulate outlet for his none too latent aggression. It was honed into a delicate precision machine tool. One that could be controlled, if possible, and used to his advantage. With increasing practice, he became skilled in the art of violent persuasion. Very skilled. It gave him power that he had never imagined could be his, one that had invariably been denied him before. Doyle was never troubled by any pangs of conscience, he was totally amoral. His victims, if he thought about them at all were just the means to an end. Although nobody told him so to his face – that would have been very unwise – Doyle was, by any accepted clinical definition, a psychopath. All that is, though, is a word in a medical text book, widely used but rarely properly understood by laymen; a clinical diagnosis made by people who rarely see the real world, Doyle’s world, and have never been unfortunate enough to actually have to live in it.

  Doyle was more than a simplistic medical definition. Greater than the sum of his parts or words on a page. He was real. For all practical purposes, Francis Doyle was pure evil, a devil sent from hell. They say that there’s evil within us all. Every one of us from Peter Sutcliffe to Mother Teresa. Perhaps that’s true, but for most of us its hidden, buried deep in the impenetrable vastness of our subconsciouses. Rarely or never articulated and always implicitly repressed. But for men like Doyle it infuses their being, barely below the surface, barely skin deep. All too ready to erupt. Like a volcano. Like Vesuvius, enveloping the serene normality of Pompeii on a sunny August morning nearly two thousand years ago. Evil like Doyle is old. As old as mankind, as old as the world; Satan the shining angel cast out from heaven, the serpent betraying Eve with the apple’s bitter kiss of seduction. Doyle was part of an eternal communion. He felt part of it. Sometimes it seemed he was even at its centre. At its very heart.

  During Doyle’s last enforced sojourn on the Isle of Wight, the two members of the prison’s psychiatric board who cared were certain of the dreadful extent of his mental condition, his illness as they insisted on calling it. But the third, the most senior, with a weather eye on the costs, reports to the Home Office and an ever growing administrative burden, refused to agree. On Rule 43, he could be kept segregated. In isolation he could cause no harm to either inmates or prison officers and, in any case, by the time they got round to seeing him he only had a month left to serve. After that it would be someone else’s problem.

  Right now, it was Micky’s problem. He had known Doyle for years. They were almost friends. Rather, what passed for their relationship came as close to friendship as Doyle could manage. But he knew that that would count for nothing. Micky knew that there was no way out. He was going to die and there was nothing he could so about it. It was just a question of how and how long it would take. Micky was no stranger to fear. It had been his close companion in one form or another for many years. But now he was gripped in a silent stranglehold of abject terror that was worse than anything he had ever felt before. Although by this time he made no sound, deep in the recesses of this pathetic parody of a man his soul screamed. The agonising, searing, burning scream of absolute torment. The cord around his wrists tightened and burned as it cut into his flesh. It seemed to flame as Doyle jerked it upwards and tied it roughly to the headboard. Micky’s whole body, bathed in a cold sweat, was shaking as Doyle took each of his feet in turn and lashed them to the foot of the bed. Ripping a piece off the soiled bed sheet he forced it into Micky’s mouth. There was really no need to. Micky was beyond screaming and the noise that was to come would take a lot more
than a piece of cloth to silence it. Doyle sat on the bed and looked dispassionately into the tiny pinpricks of Micky’s terrified eyes. He didn’t bother to try to explain. He didn’t see the need. He was right. Reaching to the floor he pulled up his old brown holdall and placed it gently on Johnston’s protuberant quivering stomach. From the holdall he pulled a sawn off shotgun wrapped in a well used Tesco’s carrier bag and his leather gloved hands caressed and stroked the tool of his trade more lovingly than any craftsman. Micky choked on his gag. The acrid gangrenous taste of bile soured his throat and wracked his body. He knew what was coming, he expected it, but to see the gun so close focused his fear and he began to desperately writhe and tear futilely at his restraints. A thick, creamy foam started to creep out insidiously from the corners of his gag. What a cheek. Doyle wasn’t the man to put up with this and his fist landed with tremendous force into what used to be Micky Johnston’s nose and smashed it beyond recognition. “Shut the fuck up”. The shock and sudden, terrible intensity of the attack silenced Micky and Doyle seized the moment. He rose to his feet and yanked the dirty, coverless pillow from behind the prone man’s head and placed it over his right knee. Micky looked down and for a moment was shocked and relieved that the gun was not pointing to his head but his respite was short lived for then came the explosion.

  Just for the briefest of moments an insipid shaft of the sun’s half-light broke free from its embracing mantle of shroudlike grey cloud and edged its way timidly through the partly drawn curtain. It haloed the remnants of a takeaway and empty cans of lager that lay on the threadbare, stained carpet and sent a lone cockroach scurrying for the safety of the skirting. The tin foil container held the festering remains of Micky’s dinner from last night. Or was it the night before? Then, as quickly as it had appeared the doomed shaft of light dimmed and was reabsorbed into the gloom.

  The roar of the shotgun’s single barrel discharging like a canon at Trafalgar could not conceal the medieval sound of shattering bone, tearing sinews and ripping ligaments. Nearly instantaneously, nearly but not quite, the blood began to appear through the tattered remnants of the pillow and to flow freely beneath, spreading insidiously like a sanguine crimson tide, rising to engulf the bed and Micky Johnston alike. The sweet, sickly stench of human blood invaded Doyle’s nostrils and for a moment only it all seemed so unreal. Perhaps the whole world wasn’t real. But that feeling soon passed. It was the smell of the blood itself that brought him back to his senses – it was not a smell that he was unused to, it was after all an occupational hazard, but he could never bring himself to like it. It was dirty, nasty and reminded him somehow of his marriage although he didn’t know why. But still, despite all this and even after all these years, it held a deep fascination for him. Doyle looked through the charred remains of the pillow, deep into the shattered shards of the kneecap. There was, he thought, something strangely beautiful about the inner workings of the human body. He saw no irony in the fact that Micky’s kneecap no longer existed in any meaningful form and, if it could be saved, his leg certainly would never work again. Maybe that was where the beauty lay. He pulled off his glove and ran his finger over the wound, stroking as would a lover, penetrating, insistently invading. Micky shuddered involuntarily. The wound was warm and inviting, demanding that Doyle should enter further. Micky screamed. The gag tried to mute the primordial noise, which rose up from the darkest pit of his existence, shrieking along with every soul who had ever been touched by the torment of such terror and agony. The noise played like a symphony in Doyle’s mind, with a refrain that underscored his tenderness and it was only the alien presence of the shotgun pellets that brought him back to reality. The purity of his invasion of Micky’s leg had suddenly vanished. He hated him for it with an intensity that he had rarely felt before. Now it had become as corrupt and degenerated as the rest of the world and he brutally hooked out his finger and closely examined the bloody residue of Micky’s limb, metal pellets mixed with splintered bone fragments, shining white through the blood drenched tissue. It became too much for the victim’s body to bear and he gratefully succumbed to the black, blessed numbness of coma and his brain shutdown all non essential functions.

  Doyle was suddenly overtaken by a sudden desire to taste he blood on his fingers and it took all his strength to fight the temptation. He wiped it instead on Micky’s already stained sweater. This profane act broke his reverie and he knew that he had to act quickly now. This may not be Knightsbridge or the flashy apartments on the Isle of Dogs, but even here a shotgun blast in the middle of a busy October morning would not go un-noticed. Not for long. Outside it might be mistaken for a particularly violent motor backfiring, but there were plenty of other bedsits around Micky’s and the tenants, Doyle guessed, were not the sort of people to have regular nine to five day jobs. His glove went back on and the gun was restored to its carrier bag gun-case. Working quickly now he pulled out the long black coat from his holdall, this would effectively conceal the worst of the splatter marks on his clothes. He pulled a black balaclava over his head to protect his anonymity from anyone in the building curious or brave enough to come and investigate. He took a final look at the unconscious wreck tied to the bed. “You’re a lucky man, Micky”, he bent and whispered in his ear “remember that.” Doyle didn’t run but he moved quickly down the three flights of stairs. His precautions were unnecessary; anyone who had heard had thought it wise to pretend they hadn’t, so the balaclava was pulled off and was thrust into the deep recesses of his pocket. As he left the gloom of the old house the cloud once more, momentarily cleared and for an instant the bright late autumn sunlight stabbed his eyes. Doyle had no doubt whatsoever that Micky Johnston would take his punishment like a man. The man who shot him wore a mask, no idea of who he was or why he did it. You read about things like this happening in the Sunday papers. That sort of thing. Not, of course, because of any fairy tale concept of honour among the criminal classes but through pure, unadulterated fear of a swift and permanent retribution. It was the safest thing to do. The only thing to do. Johnston would know that the police would have neither the inclination or resources to protect him and Bellini always looked after his own.

  As he reached the street, the car that had been patiently waiting for him now moved quickly up from its parking place fifty yards away. Doyle threw the bag casually onto the back seat and sat beside the driver. “Done?” Doyle nodded once and turned the radio on as the car pulled into the traffic and headed north into the city.

  Chapter Two

  Doyle’s seedy two roomed flat nestled in the dark underbelly of shadow of Waterloo station. Every few minutes, with every passing train, it would shake and groan and the plumbing that seemed to work only intermittently would rattle with an incessant determination to break free of the walls. The place felt its age as well as looked it. The single exposed light bulb in his living room come kitchen, swayed violently at the end of its flex noose as the trains rumbled inexorably south towards the suburbs and a better life. It vainly tried to glory in the harsh illumination of its 100 watt bulb. Unadulterated by any light shade, Doyle didn’t believe in them, the bulb flooded the room with a burning bright intensity which magnified and intensified the shadows spreading from the odd angular recesses in the walls and the demons who lived within them. The contrast with the harshness of the exposed light made the shadow even darker, richer, more inviting. Doyle would sometimes stare directly into the bulb, its naked element carving deep through the pupil, into the retina of his one good eye, etching sharp green ghosts into his mind. They danced and turned and seemed to Doyle, quite, quite beautiful. In this flat, it wasn’t safe to leave any ornaments too close to the edge of the window sill, but as Doyle had no ornaments this did not present a problem. In fact, the room was remarkably similar to the shabby bedsit that Micky Johnston had been holed up in for the past two weeks. The wallpaper was pealing and it was no more often than once a month that Doyle could force himself to relocate the dust and drag his almost antique, second hand
Hoover across the floor. It’s not that he was a lazy man. He just liked it that way, unkempt, almost as if his flat was returning to a feral state in which the rules of conventional civilization found no place. It was infinitely better than his four years of ‘domestic bliss’ with Melanie. She had known about his lifestyle, his career. In fact it’s what attracted Doyle to her in the first place. Women like dangerous men. They do at first. The excitement is exorcized soon enough when it comes a little too close to home. It was the baby that had really ruined things. He was the one really to blame. Or so Doyle had been able to convince himself.

  He had never liked kids and he thought back to his own childhood on the brutal Irish west coast in a small village near Galway Bay. He remembered to his father constantly yelling at his mother. He remembered the old man’s vitriol exploding into dreadful, uncontrollable rage culminating in a crescendo of brief but shocking violence. He remembered the beatings most clearly of all. He remembered them too vividly. He remembered his abstract panic on the night when his mother could finally take it no more and she led him and his siblings on the long trek across Ireland to the ferry to Liverpool. He remembered the train ride down to London, the four of them huddled together for warmth and he remembered being met at Euston by Uncle Jimmy, who put them up and found his mother not one but three cleaning jobs. Some memories were bad, others were worse, but all seemed to be underscored by the threat or actuality of violence. That was what was indelibly etched into his memory. The sharp sting of his father’s belt across his backside when kicked his football through a window . The clubbing force of his Uncle Jimmy’s fist biting into the side of his head if he answered back. And, as is the way of such things, history was to repeat itself. His own marriage had been good at first, he thought. Well, not bad, maybe. But before little Frankie junior was two, Doyle had put both him and his mother in the emergency ward of St. Thomas’ Hospital for the night and on their discharge they began the second Doyle clan exodus, ending up in a council run shelter for battered women in Southend. The divorce was merely a formality, one Doyle would not have even bothered with if he had been given a choice. It wasn’t the last submerged vestiges of his Catholic upbringing coming to the fore. It was simply the fact that he had no intention of marrying again, of even pretending to the semblance of becoming close to someone again. In the end the parting was quick and surprisingly painless. There was no property, no hope of maintenance and neither husband nor wife wanted to retain any contact with each other. The last Doyle had heard, she was married to some printer. He thought little of his family and cared less.