The Crime of Love

By Till Noever

A funeral.
An illicit attraction.
A deeply-buried secret waiting to be unearthed.

 

When, years after being forced to leave home by a violent father, Jack returns for his funeral, it not just stirs up old resentments and enmities, but also rekindles an attachment that has refused to die.

 

The death: accident, suicide or murder? How could it be connected to an old secret

 

Jack and Jess are determined to unearth the truth; which might change their lives forever.

 

NOTE:

This short novel is not for those unable or unwilling to consider very uncomfortable subjects with an open mind.

It deals with:

Suicide

Murder

Domestic violence

Forbidden love

Sudden infant death

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Till Noever
• Release date: Feb 21, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224587964

Till Noever

For a detailed bio please go to => https://www.owlglass.net/about-me

Book preview

cover-image, The Crime of Love v.7.0 EPUBONLY

The Crime of Love

Till Noever

Copyright © Till Noever, 2022-2023. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval systems without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

The Crime of Love is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between the characters depicted herein and any persons living or dead should be coincidental.

Cover design by the author.

dedicated to all those

hoping against hope

that old prejudices

meaningless laws

and persecution

will be left behind

one day soon

Table of Contents

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 1

Jessica Gallagher normally hated funerals—but this one, on a dreary day under a leaden grey sky, with a fine drizzle, driven by errant gusts of wind, drifting under useless umbrellas and soaking the mourners standing around her father’s grave—this one she hated not at all. It had been far too long in coming.

Standing here, soaked by the drizzle herself, watching the priest holding a wet bible and his robes becoming a soggy, drooping mess, put a fitting full stop under the life of a man she had grown to despise. Never mind that the setting was Springvale Botanical Cemetery, Melbourne’s most expansive, expensive, rich-people-only graveyard. When you were dead you were dead, and you rotted away and got eaten by worms and decomposed by bacteria no matter where they interred you and no matter how much you were embalmed. In the end they got you. Unless you had yourself cremated, of course, which Arthur Gallagher would never have allowed to happen. Not even God could put back together Humpty Dumpty once he had been reduced to ashes, mixed in with the ashes of a coffin having cost thousands of dollars, in a hot furnace that would have done Satan proud.

Jess didn’t believe in God. Believing in that kind of nonsense made even less sense than the fact that men like Arthur existed. And even if God did exist, he—she, it, whatever-the-fuck-gender-identity God cared to claim, if any!—was just a narcissistic, egomaniacal, sadistic asshole who allowed people to suffer and tended to ignore their pleas for a better world. Certainly had ignored hers; uttered in silence and in those moments of existential and rational weakness when she had felt the need to ask someone for help. Because Jack wasn’t here, and she was all alone; despite Nana, the saving grace in this dysfunctional family, but she was too old to really understand.

Screw you! she thought at the coffin being lowered into the ground by electric winch at a carefully controlled rate, calibrated for the best balance between ‘dignified’ and ‘get-it-over-with’.

Jess had a notion to spit on the coffin, but controlled the urge. Arthur wasn’t worth even a waste of saliva. Not even another thought or emotion, really. Even brain-energy was wasted on the bastard.

The priest read tracts from the soggy bible over the too-slowly disappearing coffin. In Latin; because Arthur would have wanted it that way. Probably.

Jess glanced at the people beside her. Mother, one Vivian Gallagher, nee Danes, on one side, and Nana Eleanor Danes, whose relationship with her daughter was about as fucked up as it could get, on the other. Both soaked, just like everyone else, though Nana managed to look dignified despite it all.

Jess looked up, at the ring of trees surrounding the ostentatious gravesite. Fat drops cascaded from the branches in erratic rhythms. With a bit of luck, in due course, some of their roots would pierce the coffin and Arthur’s exquisitely embalmed leftovers. Jess just hoped that the toxins in that last resting place weren’t going to hurt either the trees or the worms coming to feast on Arthur.

The winch stopped. The priest intoned some more platitudes, before the attendant watchers, all but Nana in her wheelchair pretending to be mourners, threw a ritualistic handful of wet soil into the hole.

Jess didn’t. She wasn’t going to get her hands dirty for the swine in the grave. Instead she flicked him double middle-fingers, occasioning gasps from those who saw her do it.

Tough shit!

And then, as she was about to turn away to see if Nana’s wheelchair was being properly maneuvered back toward the waiting car, she saw him.

In the distance, leaning against a tree—

Jack!

CHAPTER 2

Hi, Jess, Jack whispered.

She had seen him, because she froze, with her face turned in his direction.

Four long years—

I’ve missed you so!

But now the man forcing their separation was in a cold, dark grave. Where he belonged. The world was better off without him. There was only one good thing he’d ever done in his life. Well, two things. Because without him and their dysfunctional mother neither Jess nor he would exist. Would never have—

How can we ever pick this up again?

Apart from the danger of even trying. The danger that had always been with them, ever since those days in Bora Bora. Since that third day.

Or maybe it had really started even before that, at the Year 12 Formal, when they decided, for reasons they at that time hadn’t even fully understood themselves, to forego the agonizing procedure of procuring dates and instead go with the one person they were actually comfortable with? The person they knew better than anybody; who had always been their refuge from the world and its vicissitudes and uncertainties.

And that certainly set tongues wagging, especially among the students at Highvale Grammar, which both of the twins had attended for their last four years—after an extended fight with their parents, who refused to take them out of the Catholic torture chamber they had been forced into from prep year.

For the males, landing Jess as a Formal date had been something akin to a sport. Significant amounts of cash changed hands, as bets were placed on whom she would choose from the final three considered, by peer assessment, the favorites: Jeremy Snyder, Frank Lister, and Joshua Feinstein.

Since Jess didn’t have a boyfriend, the competition was considered ‘open’. The three had tried their best to ‘score’ her; not only for the sake of winning the bet but even more so for the prestige that would have come with it. Jess had always been considered a hot item. As Jeremy Snyder had once put it, ‘a perfect package of hot lips, hot tits and probably a hot pussy as well.’ Of course they also considered her a stand-offish bitch; though such judgments were only uttered out of earshot of her, though not necessarily out of Jack’s—who duly reported them to her, much to her amusement.

Screw them, was her usual response.

That’ll be their dream come true, Jack had pointed out during one of their conversations about the subject.

Jess had been less than amused; though she had seen the humor once she’d gotten over the images that conjured up.

The school did, of course, frown on such competitive activities, especially if they were ‘sexist’ and involved money changing hands—which was like a total no-no—but could do little to stop them, as they were clandestine and conducted off-campus. But everybody had known anyway. And how could they not?

Jess, who wouldn’t have picked either of the three ‘final candidates’ anyway—not even for a million dollar reward—was so disgusted that she almost decided to skip the Formal altogether. Only family pressure—her absence was considered ‘unthinkable’, even though it wasn’t; not for her anyway—and only Jack’s gentle prodding and appeal to what he called ‘reason’ but she saw as ‘pathetic excuses’ made her acquiesce to attend after all.

Only if you’re my date.

What?

Well?

That would piss off a lot pf people. Parents included.

Screw them!

You wanna screw the parents now?

She gave him a dirty look.

Jess—

Please, Jack!

You just want to give everybody the finger.

Both fingers.

She looked at him pleadingly.

You haven’t got a date, have you?

"Don’t want one. Don’t want to go!"

If I’m going, so are you! she snapped. Softer: "Please, Jack. But you know that it’s not really about giving them the finger, right?"

He did.

They both did.

At least they thought so.

But until Bora Bora they didn’t know what it really was.

Bora Bora had been the ‘deal’ negotiated between Jack and Jess and their parents; meaning mainly their father, who ruled the household like a patriarch from another time, and never mind that the 21st century had started a long time ago.

Said deal had been that if both of them did status-conscious daddy proud and aced their curriculum with an ATAR of 95% or more, they would get an all-expenses-paid week at the Conrad Bora Bora Nui, with a luxury Deluxe Overwater Villa for each of them and enough spending money to go diving whenever it pleased them, and generally have a good time. A prize for kids of one of the rich crowd, but why the hell not?

Well, they aced it. Jess got 99.8%, while Jack had to content himself with 99.5%, which Jess hadn’t let him forget since. That and the fact that she had been born almost ten minutes before him—and even a few minutes more before their cousin Mary, who had been born in the same hospital and on the same day and almost at the same time to their mother’s sister, Jean.

And so they’d gotten their Bora Bora holiday, straight after the Formal. Which had been the beginning of their troubles.

We should have known!

Why hadn’t they?

Well, sometimes things just happened. And Jack knew that he at least had never felt the slightest regret.

I missed you so.

CHAPTER 3

4 YEARS EARLIER, BORA BORA

It was the evening of day three of their stay. They had spent most of it on a diving cruise, which had left their skins wrinkly and salt soaked as they immersed themselves in the 80+ºF waters around the islands.

See you soon.

Jess gave Jack a quick hug, then proceeded to her obscenely opulent ‘Deluxe Overwater Villa’ to have a shower and get dressed for dinner. Maybe have a glass of wine beforehand, sit with Jack on the deck of his unit and watch the water; chat about anything and everything, or maybe say nothing and bask in the simple pleasure of being around each other. Which was cool, because he was the one person she was comfortable with.

Even Nana couldn’t come close. Jack and her loved Nana dearly, but she was from another time and another world, and that created a distance that simply didn’t exist with her and Jack. It had been like that for as long as she could remember. Even their occasional fights—who didn’t have those?—were more like friendly sparring matches.

Jess entered her Villa. It was right next to Jack’s, separated from his by a walkway and water. It had been a waste of money to rent one for each of them. They had been greedy when asking for it, and she felt a touch of shame for being so shallow. She’d talked to Jack about it, and it sounded like he had had similar afterthoughts. But in typical Jack fashion he’d gone further and reminded her that it had been done more out of spite and the desire to score a couple of goals against their father than actual greed. Initially, they had thought of doing a trip to the French Riviera. Maybe Paris, too. But then they’d remembered the winter weather in Europe, which might not be that suitable for sunning on Mediterranean beaches or enjoying Paris in the sun. Besides, diving in Bora Bora—who could beat that?

Jess resisted the urge to check her phone. But that had been the agreement between her and Jack. Phones off at all times. No social media of any kind and no SMS for the duration of their stay; from the moment they got off the plane and informed Nana and the parents that they had arrived, to the moment just before boarding. No smartphone photos or selfies either. All photos to be done with their SLRs. Already they had taken lots, but they had agreed that these pictures were private and none of the world’s business. Except for Nana, who would get to see some of them; the ones that didn’t even hint at…

Whatever.

Besides. Nana was a special case.

Jess had a quick shower, started dressing in something suitable for dinner in the resort’s restaurant and bar, when suddenly she stopped.

Why go out? They had done it the previous two nights, but that novelty had worn off completely. She’d rather spend some quiet time with Jack, sipping wine, curling up on the bed facing the vast expanse of blue water, talking or maybe not talking, but just being around each other. If they wanted something to eat there was room service, and that was good enough.

Jess stepped out of the loose skirt and dumped it on her bed. The blouse also went. As did the bra, because she’d been wearing that bikini all day, and it would be nice just