She Is Gone

by Ben Cheetham

  Run, run as fast as you can...

  The words seemed to echo in Butterfly’s ears at the sight of the mural. Jack directed her to a table and moved off to grab them both a coffee. As usual when she visited the HQ, Butterfly found herself glancing about uneasily. The glass-enclosed offices gave the feeling of being watched from all sides. Without thinking about it, she lifted a hand to cover her tattoo.

  “Don’t do that,” said Jack, placing a cup in front of her as he sat down. “You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.”

  Butterfly eyed him uncertainly. “Are you sure about that? What do you think your colleagues see when they look at me? They see a misfit. A potential criminal.”

  “I couldn’t give a toss what they see. All I care about is what I see. And I love your tattoo. It’s part of you. You wouldn’t be you without it.”

  Butterfly’s smile relaxed into something less forced. “Yeah well, let’s face it Jack, you’re not like most of your colleagues.”

  Jack smiled too. “I’m not sure whether to take that as a compliment.” His smile fading, he looked at Butterfly expectantly.

  Not wanting to keep him on tenterhooks, she told him, “The bullet has moved. Not much. Just two millimetres.”

  His brow furrowed. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “Doctor Summers didn’t seem sure if it was a bad or a good thing.” Butterfly explained the conundrum about whether or not to perform surgery, adding, “The doctor says I should focus on the positives.”

  “He’s right.” Jack rested his hand on hers. She tensed at his touch, thinking once again about the feeling that had reached out from that ‘unknown place’. The lines on his brow deepened. “What’s the matter, Butterfly? Is something else bothering you?”

  She heaved a sigh. “I’ve put so much on you, Jack. Sometimes I feel as if all I am is a burden to you.”

  “You haven’t put anything on me. You’ve given me a new life. After Rebecca died, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to love again. Then I met you.” Jack squeezed Butterfly’s hand. “Listen, whatever’s going on, just tell me and we’ll deal with it together.”

  She lifted his hand and kissed the back of it. “Sometimes I’m almost glad I got shot. Otherwise I wouldn’t have met you.”

  He laughed. “Now that is definitely focusing on the positives.”

  Butterfly said nothing for a moment. Jack didn’t press her further. He knew when to talk and when to let silence do the work. Sometimes a suspect who’d kept their mouth shut through hours of questioning would suddenly open up after being left in silence for a few minutes.

  “Yesterday I almost crashed into a car,” began Butterfly.

  Jack’s eyes widened in alarm. “What? Where?”

  “Outside the nursing home. A car pulled in front of me. A black Porsche 718 Cayman, to be precise.” Butterfly showed Jack the make and registration scribbled on her hand.

  He whistled. “That’s an expensive car. Whose fault was it?”

  “I thought at first that it was my fault. My head was killing me. I could barely see straight.” Butterfly put a hand to her forehead, rubbing the red indent. The new painkillers were kicking in, gradually silencing the drumming.

  “You thought at first?” Jack gently prompted.

  “This morning I saw the same car outside the house. And I saw it again at the hospital just now. Its driver was a man with a tattoo.” Her finger moved to trace the outline of the rusty red wing. “The same tattoo as mine only on the opposite side of his face.”

  Jack gave her a look that was equal parts troubled and intrigued. “Did he say anything?”

  Butterfly cleared her throat. It felt like a betrayal of Jack just saying it. “He said he loved me.”

  His face gave away nothing, but he drew his hand away from hers. “What else did he say?”

  “Not much. Some crap about us being two halves of the same person.” She added quickly, “That doesn’t mean we’re married or anything like that. He said his name was Karl and that he’d read about what happened to me in the newspaper. He called me Io.”

  “Io,” repeated Jack. “Not Tracy?”

  “No. Maybe I used an alias.”

  “Hang on, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. For all we know this Karl could be some nutter who’s become infatuated with you after seeing you in the papers.”

  “I don’t think so. I think he was telling the truth.”

  “How do you know?”

  Butterfly resisted an urge to drop her eyes from Jack’s keen gaze. “It’s difficult to explain. I just got the feeling that I’d met him before.”

  “But you don’t remember him?”

  “No I don’t.”

  Jack was thoughtfully silent, then he took out a pen and notebook. “OK, I want you to tell me everything he said.” He jotted down notes as Butterfly recounted her conversation with Karl.

  “What do you think?” Butterfly asked when she was finished.

  “I think this guy sounds like trouble. I’ve seen tattoos of clocks without hands on ex-cons who’ve done a lot of time. If this guy was recently released from prison that would explain why he’s only just come looking for you.”

  “What about the red rose?”

  Jack took out his phone and Googled ‘Clock and red rose tattoo’. “It says here that a clock combined with a red rose symbolises everlasting love.”

  Butterfly squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh Jesus, this guy’s not going to take no for an answer, is he?”

  “Do you want him to?”

  Hearing the tightness in Jack’s voice, Butterfly looked at him earnestly. “Yes I want him to, but…” Conflicting emotions pulled her face in different directions. “But I also want to ask him about who I used to be. Why did I call myself Io? What happened to Tracy?”

  “I think talking to this guy would be a bad idea. He could well be dangerous. I know one thing, he’s either a liar or he didn’t mean as much to you as he claims. He said you promised to wait for him, but while he was away you fell pregnant with another man’s baby.”

  The same thought had already occurred to Butterfly. If she and Karl had been so in love, why had she climbed into bed with Dennis ‘Phoenix’ Smith? Something about Karl’s story didn’t add up. And yet… And yet he might be her only chance to rebuild the shattered bridge between her past and present. Maybe he even knew something about what happened to her parents and sister.

  Looking into Jack’s eyes, Butterfly reached for his hand. “I want you to know that you’ve got nothing to worry about. Whatever there was between this Karl and me, well it simply doesn’t exist anymore. You, Charlie and Naomi are all I want.”

  “I sense there’s a but coming.”

  A smile fluttered across Butterfly’s lips at Jack’s intuition. “But if Karl shows up again, I have to talk to him. You understand, don’t you?”

  Jack nodded. “But I don’t like it. And in the meantime, I’m going to find out everything I can about the guy.”

  Butterfly kissed Jack’s hand again. “Perhaps we should get matching tattoos,” she joked.

  He couldn’t help but laugh. “Can you imagine what Laura would have to say about that? Bloody hell, I’d never hear the end of it.”

  The mention of Laura reminded Butterfly about Charlie. She felt a sudden urgency to see him. “I’d better get going,” she said, swallowing the dregs of her coffee. “Laura will be wondering where I am.”

  Jack walked her to the people carrier. She noticed him scanning the street. There was no sign of the Porsche. “Just do me a favour,” he said. “If you really must speak to this guy, make sure you do it in a public place. Or even better, do it when I’m around.”

  “Don’t worry. I can look after myself.”

  An uneasy smile creased Jack’s lips. The last man who’d forced Butterfly to prove just how well she could look after herself had ended up in hospital. “I’ll see you back at the house. I shouldn’t be late.”

  Chapter 6

  Jack wav
ed Butterfly off. After she was out of sight, he waited around for a moment, his gaze moving over the street. He went back inside, caught the lift to the Serious Crime Division’s floor and made his way past detectives chatting, tapping away at keyboards and making phone calls. At his desk, he logged onto the PNC and ran the Porsche’s registration through the DVLA database. He got a hit – the car was owned by a Mick Kelly. Jack’s eyes narrowed as they scanned the section of the database that was visible only to the police. Kelly lived in Peckham, North London. He had criminal convictions dating back to the early 1980s – burglary, robbery, assault with intent to rob, forgery, extortion… The list went on and on. He’d done time in HMP Coldingley, Wormwood Scrubs and Belmarsh. More than half his adult life had been spent behind bars. He was currently at liberty, but suspected of involvement in robberies, burglaries and racketeering across London. At the grand old age of 66, Kelly clearly wasn’t ready for retirement. The car hadn’t been reported as stolen. Perhaps Karl had borrowed it. If he’d just got out of prison, he most likely wouldn’t have a car of his own.

  “What are you working on?” asked Steve, peering over Jack’s shoulder at the screen.

  “Nothing much.”

  Steve smiled crookedly. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Jack. Why are you swotting up on north London scumbags?”

  Jack eyed him uncertainly. “It would be best if you don’t get involved in this, Steve.”

  Steve raised an intrigued eyebrow. “Now I really want to know what this is about. Come on, out with it.” He prodded Jack’s arm. “You know I’ll just keep poking away until you tell me.”

  His expression balanced between amusement and irritation, Jack swatted Steve’s hand away. “You really are a pain in the arse sometimes.”

  “Only sometimes?” smirked Steve.

  Jack rose, motioning for Steve to follow him into an empty office. “This is to go no further than us. And by that I mean–”

  “Don’t worry,” broke in Steve. “I won’t breathe a word to Laura. Now come on. Let’s hear it.”

  As Jack recounted Butterfly’s encounter with Karl, Steve went from smirking to tugging tensely at his moustache. “This is not good,” he said when Jack reached the end of his story. “If this Karl associates with scumbags like Mick Kelly, he’s not someone to be taken lightly. You know what we should do? We should track this guy down and tell him to get the fuck out of Dodge.”

  “What if he ignores us?”

  “We’ll put it to him in terms he won’t be able to ignore.” Steve cracked his knuckles meaningfully.

  Jack shook his head. “That could make things ten times worse.”

  “Well we’ve got to do something. This bloke’s not just going to go away. He wants what you’ve got, Jack, and he’ll do whatever it takes to get it. At the very least, let’s put his number plate into the ANPR. That way we’ll have fair warning if it flags up anywhere near your house.”

  Jack frowned at the thought of Karl snooping around near his house. “Maybe I should contact Mick Kelly. Find out what he has to say.”

  Steve wrinkled his nose dubiously. “I doubt he’ll tell you much. You know what these old-school scumbags are like when it comes to keeping their trap shut. It’s pathological with them.”

  “Yeah but this is different. And you never know, Kelly might have a beef with Karl. Perhaps the Porsche was a debt repayment.”

  “Maybe, but just in case I’m right, I’ll start looking into associates of Kelly and recent releases from south eastern prisons.” Steve clapped Jack on the back as they headed back into the main office. “One way or another, we’ll send this arsehole packing with his tail between his legs.”

  Jack returned to his desk and dialled the contact number on file for Kelly. A voice reduced to a hoarse rasp by a lifetime of smoking answered, “Hello?”

  “Is this Mick Kelly?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  The predictably cagey response told Jack that he was speaking to the very man. “This is Detective Inspector Jack Anderson of Greater Manchester Police, Mr Kelly. I’m calling in regard to a Porsche 718 Cayman. Registration number–”

  Jack broke off as wheezy laughter filled the line. “You’re him, aren’t you?” said Kelly. “You’re the copper Karl’s woman is shacked up with. I was wondering when I’d hear from you.”

  “Why’s that?” Jack kept his voice neutral. Career criminals like Kelly were like wolves. They would eat you alive if they sniffed out the slightest sign of weakness. The best policy was to treat them as impersonally as possible.

  Kelly’s laughter grew so loud that he began to cough. “You know why. I’ll bet you’re shitting your pants, aren’t you? You should be.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “I wouldn’t threaten a man like you, Inspector Anderson,” Kelly said in a faux-fawning voice. “You killed one of the Mahon brothers and put the other away for life. Oh no, Inspector, I’m much too old for those kinds of games. Mind you, I can’t say the same about Karl.”

  “What’s Karl’s full name?” Jack asked calmly, not rising to the bait.

  “Karl Robinson. He won’t mind me telling you that. In fact he wants you to know his name. You should know this too. I’ve never known anyone love a woman more than he loves her. He’d do anything for her. And I mean absolutely anything, if you get me.”

  “No I don’t get you, Mr Kelly. Why don’t you explain it to me in more detail?”

  Kelly’s wheezy laughter clogged the line for another few seconds. “Oh you’re a shrewd one. I can see Karl’s going to have his work cut out with you. You have a young daughter, don’t you? How old is she? Ten? Eleven?”

  A rush of heat hit Jack’s face. It was all he could do not to spit fire into the phone, but there was only the faintest tremor in his voice as he said, “Can I ask what your relationship is to Mr Robinson?”

  “You can ask what you like, copper. Doesn’t mean you’ll get an answer.”

  Jack held his anger down. Kelly had been in the system most of his life. Dealing with the police was second nature to him. He knew how to flip questions back on his questioner, push their buttons, divert them from what they were trying to find out. That might have worked with a rookie detective, but Jack had been in the system most of his life too. Dealing with pricks like Mick Kelly was second nature to him. The key was not to play their game. And if you did play, then go all in. Catch the fuckers off guard. “When you call Karl, tell him Jack says hello. And if he ever wants to meet up for a chat or whatever, he knows where to find me.”

  Jack’s voice was relaxed. Anyone overhearing him might have thought he was chatting to a friend, but his dark eyes told a different story.

  A small space of silence passed, as if Kelly wasn’t sure how to respond. There was no laughter in his voice as he said, “Oh I’ll tell him alright. What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall when you two meet.”

  “Thank you Mr Kelly.”

  “My pleasure, Inspector Anderson.” Kelly couldn’t resist a parting shot. “By the way, you want to know what they called Karl in the nick? Smooth-talking donkey. And that’s not just because the bloke’s got the gift of the gab, if you catch my drift.”

  So you’ve done time together, thought Jack. He cut off the call with Kelly’s laughter echoing in his ears. He sat grinding his teeth for a moment before typing ‘Karl Robinson’ into the PNC search-term box. A mugshot came up of a square-jawed man with a razor-sharp beard and equally sharp-looking eyes. Jack stared at the butterfly wing tattoo. He’d thought it was unique to Butterfly. More a work of art than a tattoo. Seeing the same tattoo on a stranger’s face somehow seemed to cheapen it.

  “Bollocks, I thought I’d beaten you to it,” said Steve.

  Jack’s eyes shifted darkly to his colleague.

  “You look as if you’re ready to knock someone’s block off,” observed Steve. “I take it you managed to contact Kelly?”

  Jack nodded. “Don’t ask me what he said because I don’
t want to talk about it.”

  “Have you had a chance to read Robinson’s rap sheet?” When Jack shook his head, Steve continued, “It’s a big one.”

  Jack gave a humourless little laugh. “So I hear.”

  “What?” Steve asked bemusedly.

  Jack made a dismissive gesture. “Let’s hear the good news then.”

  “This Robinson guy is a major piece of shit. He was released from Wormwood Scrubs two weeks ago. He did two-and-a-half years for credit card fraud. Between January and July 2016, he used stolen chip and pin machines and credit cards to make fraudulent transactions to the tune of £126,750.”

  “Not bad work if you can get it,” Jack commented sardonically. “Is Wormwood scrubs where he met Kelly?”

  “No. That was in Belmarsh in 2009. Robinson was doing five years for his part in robbing a house in Kensington. He and an accomplice tied up the couple who lived there and made off with £75,000 in cash, jewellery, antiques, paintings and get this,” with an amused shake of his head, Steve added, “a silk duvet cover and two pillow cases. They must have needed a new bed set, eh?”

  “Who was the accomplice?”

  “We don’t know. Robinson never gave her up.”

  Jack’s eyebrow pinched together. “Her?”

  Steve glanced around furtively. His voice dropped low. “The burglars were wearing masks. But the house’s owners were convinced Robinson’s accomplice was a woman of slim build, about 5’5. Sound familiar?”

  Jack closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “How was Karl caught?”

  “The MET picked up the guy the stolen antiques and whatnot were fenced through. He gave up Robinson. Robinson was offered a reduced sentence in return for naming his accomplice. He kept shtum. Seems like he really loves her.”

  Jack shot Steve a sharp look. “If it was her.”

  “I know you love her too, Jack,” said Steve, his craggy features softening. “But don’t let that blind you.”

  Jack wrestled with Steve’s words, remembering his own of the previous night to Butterfly – It’s important to see things the way they are, not the way you want them to be. “Say it was her, what do you expect me to do about it?”