The Devil's House (Detective Jack Brody Book 1) Read online

  The Devil’s House

  A Detective Jack Brody Novel

  J.M. O’Rourke

  Published by Inkubator Books

  www.inkubatorbooks.com

  Copyright © 2022 by J.M. O’Rourke

  J.M. O’Rourke has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work.

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-83756-017-2

  ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-83756-018-9

  ISBN (Hardback): 978-1-83756-019-6

  THE DEVIL’S HOUSE is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Contents

  Inkubator Books

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

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  Prologue

  Ten Years Previously

  The nineteenth of September, the tail end of a long, unusually hot summer. On that night, the air held the first chill of an approaching autumn. The forest of densely packed conifers looked pretty from a distance, like a sea of shimmering green, but within it was an eerie world of shadows and whispering, creaking timbers, the floor a tangled web of dead, gnarled branches. This place had no name, not that anyone could remember, except maybe as Mick Dempsey’s place, before he sold it to the Forestry Company that is, a stipulation of the sale allowing him to live out his life in that two-room hovel without running water or electricity, the trees growing around him. But no one thought he would live for as long as he had. By the time he eventually died, the trees were towering above the cottage, as if slowly trying to devour both it and the man inside.

  After that night, the nineteenth of September, Mick Dempsey’s old place would be known by two words, two words that Jenny Rispin had written in dripping red paint across the walls, both inside and out: Devil’s House.

  Jenny didn’t mean anything by those words, except maybe to frighten off any wanderers who might have strayed across the place, their place.

  She needn’t have worried. No one strayed in here. Why would they? This was a place with nothing to offer anyone. Except, that is, for the Forestry Company, and a bunch of bored teenagers who’d hacked their way through the trees one afternoon and had found it. Those last weeks of summer, they had set about cleaning up the Devil’s House, sweeping the floors of the old stone dwelling, clearing out the broken furniture, the mattresses and clothes, the debris and bottles – yes, lots of bottles. When they’d finished, they had fixed candles to the walls, brought in beanbags to sit on, even a table that one of them had found in a builder’s skip. This was their place. This was the Devil’s House.

  They usually met a couple of times a week – to hang out, to be free from the censure of parents, to drink and smoke a little weed, to sing, dance, chant…to howl at the moon if they wanted to, and some did. Here they could do what they wanted; no one cared, not even themselves. Here was a place that they ruled. This was their world.

  On the nineteenth of September, they had gathered early. In a sense, that night marked both the start and the end of something. They all knew it.

  After this night, everything would change. The world of college dorms beckoned, of jobs, careers, and lost innocence. So on that night they would gather early, just after six o’clock, drinking beer in the strip of cleared ground about the cottage, the boom box playing low – for a while, that is. It would be a long night, after all.

  Eddie was the first one inside the Devil’s House, and already, he was drinking shots. He stood next to the boom box, so far resisting the urge to turn the volume up – all the way up, to have it so loud that he could feel nothing but the bass line thumping through his body, rattling his very bones. He envied his friends, the way they could measure themselves, with alcohol or anything else they were taking. He couldn’t. It was all or nothing with him, fast and hard, furious, or not at all. He’d been told more than once he was running his life on a meter. Fuck it. He didn’t care.

  He was about to fill another shot glass, but pushed it to the side. Instead he lifted the bottle to his lips and glugged a quarter of its contents down. It was not yet seven o’clock, and already he was wasted. He squinted, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, lowering the bottle, looking across the room and out through the open doorway where he could see Jenny Rispin and another girl framed within it. Jenny Rispin had those gold, limited-edition Nike shoes on. Cool. She and the other girl leaned into each other and laughed, like they were sharing a private joke. What were they talking about? Him?

  Fuck them. Well, he’d give them something to talk about. He took another long swallow from the bottle as everything began to fade, like a dimmer switch was being turned down on the world.

  Yeah, fuck them. Fuck them all.

  He knew it was morning, the cold light a smudge that filtered through his eyelids. But he was too afraid to open them. Then he felt it, that familiar sensation slithering into the pit of his belly, like a snake, coiling tighter and tighter, until eventually, he felt he could hardly breathe. He knew what it was, the Fear. It always came the morning after. The stifling, numbing Fear, as Eddie asked himself: What have I done?

  He’d done something. Just knew it. But what? Because he had no recall, nothing except for a mere scrap of memory, a vague recollection of music playing, of stumbling about amongst the trees, before sitting on a rock, thinking that his life was going to shit.

  What? Have? I? Done?

  Oh Jesus.

  He tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry, his tongue sticking to the back of his teeth. Oh God, what have I done? Please…

  Still, he didn’t open his eyes. He listened. No sound. Only that of…what exactly? The wind? Yes, a gust of wind; it made him shiver. But he knew that must mean he was lying out in the open somewhere. But where? The Fear squeezed tighter still. Oh Jesus. He wanted to open his eyes. He really did, but they wouldn’t budge; it was as if they were clamped shut.

  Anyway, it was safer in here, in the washed darkness, hiding, not knowing, afraid to know.

  He stayed like this a little longer, until he felt he would die, like he would suffocate.

  What have I done? Oh, God.

&nb
sp; Then he opened his eyes.

  He was on his side, staring through high, weaving stalks of corn. A weak sun filtered through the corn, as from somewhere came the coarse clawing of a magpie, a rough, hobnailed boot of a sound that stomped through his head. He winced against it, closing his eyes again, and waited for it to pass.

  When he opened them again, he looked ahead and realised something was not right. The stalks of corn were mere feet away, yet they were no taller than his head; he could see the tassels on top. The realisation dawned on him that it was not corn he was looking through, but wild grass, of the type that was everywhere growing about the forest, wherever the sun could reach the forest floor.

  Slowly, he brought up his left hand and flattened the palm onto the ground next to his head, did the same with his other hand and began hoisting himself slowly up. A wrecking ball swung through his head, and the magpie made its horrible cawing sound again. He froze, the sensation like invisible hands were reaching inside his head and had begun to shred his brain. He resisted the urge to lie back down. The worst of the pain was always at the beginning of a hangover, he told himself. He waited for the pulsating thumping in his head to settle.

  It did, just enough, and with the awkwardness of a sea mammal manoeuvring on land, he slowly got to his feet, facing into the forest. His stiff bones cracked like breaking twigs, and he felt a cold weariness spring from every corner of his body.

  The sound of flapping wings and a blurred movement at the corner of his vision distracted him. He looked to see a solitary magpie fly above the trees and wheel to the left and away. He thought of the magpie rhyme: One for sorry, two for joy, three for a girl… The trees murmured, as if to say, What have you been up to, Eddie my boy? What have you done?

  Slowly, he turned and faced the Devil’s House.

  He blinked. Because everything was as it should be. What had he expected? Of course it is, he told himself. Nothing’s wrong except your hangover-induced paranoia, that’s all. Because that’s all that was ever wrong. Remember that time…?

  No, don’t go there!

  He released a long, slow sigh. It was so quiet and peaceful in here. Oh God, it was sooo quiet and peaceful. He’d been worrying about nothing. Fucking nothing! He looked at the words on the faded, whitewashed wall, written in dripping paint: Devil’s House. He gave a little chuckle. What had Jenny been thinking? Stupid, yeah, but effective.

  He patted down his pockets, suddenly remembering his mobile phone, but he didn’t feel the familiar outline. Instead, what he felt was unfamiliar. He took his hands away, and they were wet and viscous. He looked down in one sharp, quick motion, the wrecking ball swinging wildly. Somewhere in his head he heard a long, low, tortured, whining sound.

  What the…?

  His hands were covered in…what the…? So, too, his trousers. In fact, they were stiff with the rusty brown substance. His heart thumped inside his chest, faster and faster, like it wanted to break free, smash out of its ribbed cage. He reached into his pocket. What was in there? He felt it, cold and hard. In one surprisingly quick movement, he pulled it out.

  Jesus!

  It was a Stanley knife, the blade smeared in that same rusty brown substance, and broken too, nothing left of it but a sliver.

  He forgot about his headache; he forgot about everything, felt a nauseating sense of blind, suffocating, all-consuming panic instead. He stepped forward and stopped, took another step and stopped again, then ran wildly across the remaining narrow piece of ground and in through the doorway, swallowing down the bile bubbling up against the back of his throat.

  He stood, rooted to the spot, the sound in his head becoming a scream. He was losing it, that’s all, simply losing it. Calm down, he told himself, calm the fuck down. Suddenly he began to laugh. Because he could see there was nothing to worry about. Like a dam giving way, relief flooded through him.

  Thank Christ, oh, thank Christ, there’s nothing to worry about…

  Because now he could see he wasn’t the only one to have crashed out. He looked across the cut-stone floor in the dim morning light, taking in the empty cans and bottles, and laughed again. His pal, Peter, was still here, too. And he wasn’t alone either. Naughty boy. Although he could only see the outline of her back, Eddie felt certain it was Hillary Kissane. The two of them were lying together, curled up, face to face. How sweet. But he didn’t really like Hillary.

  He looked along the wall. There, curled up in the other corner, all alone, was Jenny Rispin. He was surprised, because Jenny, despite having dubbed the place the Devil’s House, and once colouring her hair purple, wasn’t the type to stay out all night. In fact, Eddie couldn’t remember her ever having done so before. He laughed once more. There was always a first time for everything, he supposed. Eddie didn’t really like Jenny either, come to think of it. But hey, after this, maybe he might.

  ‘Pete…’ he began, calling out softly to his friend, but falling silent when he noticed that Jenny’s eyes were open, and that she was staring at him. ‘Jenny, didn’t realise you were awake.’

  She said nothing, her eyes unblinking, just staring at him.

  He coughed, clearing his throat. ‘I crashed out, too.’ He pointed vaguely towards the front door. ‘Out there. Hey, you know what time it is?’

  She didn’t answer, those eyes of hers frozen, just staring, like she was…

  He felt something, a trickle, run through him, ice cold and sharp. He stood stock-still, only his eyes moving, sweeping across his line of vision, processing everything. This time, he noted that one of Pete’s arms was at an odd angle, slightly raised, and Hillary’s head was slumped to one side, too far forward for it to be comfortable. A shaft of light came through the trees and entered the cottage, illuminating the corner of the room where Peter and Hillary lay. The wall behind them was the same rusty brown colour as his clothes and the knife blade; so too the ground beneath them. He knew now what it was, as if he could finally admit it to himself. The blood was everywhere. Something fell from his hand, and he heard it bounce on the floor. It was the Stanley knife. He’d been holding it the whole time. He looked at Jenny, those dead eyes of hers staring back at him in the murky light.

  And then Eddie turned and ran.

  By morning, the story was on the front page of every newspaper in the country:

  Eddie D’Arcy, Devil’s House Killer.

  1

  Present Day

  Detective Sergeant Jack Brody of the Major Crimes Investigation Unit at Garda HQ in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, looked at the evidence bag on his desk. Inside it was a small, flat piece of metal with a hole punched in its centre, a raised lip on one side. Written in black marker on a white label across the front were the words:

  Jewellery Clasp, FSI 23/09/2021, case #324564, DNA J Rispin.

  His eyes moved from the evidence bag to his computer, where the case file was open. He knew the details, so skipped to the end:

  Edward D’Arcy convicted of three counts of murder. Insanity plea not entered (see relevant court outcome), and following persistent erratic behaviour at Midlands Prison, transferred indefinitely to Rose Hill Mental Hospital pending annual review.

  Brody looked for a more recent update, but there was none. He sat back in his chair and tapped a finger against the armrest. Across from him, next to the door, was a freestanding punchbag taking up the entire corner of the small office. He’d never had an office before. At Pearse Street, the busiest station in the country, where he’d spent fifteen years of his seventeen-year career, no one below the rank of inspector got to have one. He even had his name on the door, stencilled on a plastic, copper-coloured plate. He was indifferent to it all, but what he did like was being able to hit the bag without an Ops Room full of mules taking the piss. On his desk was a picture of him holding the International Police Brotherhood middleweight title belt at the Cox Pavilion in Las Vegas, five years before. His opponent, a small, powerful Peruvian named Miguel Portilla, nicknamed the Lima Lion, had been the winner of the title
for the previous three consecutive years. It had been one of Brody’s proudest moments.

  He picked up his desk phone and dialled an internal number. It was answered on the third ring.

  ‘Hello, Lab.’

  ‘DS Jack Brody. That you, Mary?’

  ‘Yes, it is. How’re you, Jack?’

  ‘Good. I just got something back from yourselves. I can’t find an update for it on Pulse.’

  ‘The clasp?’

  ‘I see someone’s written that on the bag. So that’s what it is? Doesn’t look like any clasp I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘That’s what it is, Jack. A clasp, a necklace clasp, missing the closing lever. Looks a little odd without it. I was just about to update the system.’

  ‘OK. And Jenny Rispin’s DNA is on it, according to the label.’

  ‘It is, and a partial print too, but on such a small piece, it was indeterminate.’

  Brody took a slow breath, thinking it over.