by Simon Brown
Death of a Butterfly
THAMES RIVER PRESS
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company Limited (WPC)
Another imprint of WPC is Anthem Press (www.anthempress.com)
First published in the United Kingdom in 2013 by
THAMES RIVER PRESS
75–76 Blackfriars Road
London SE1 8HA
www.thamesriverpress.com
© Simon Brown 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher.
The moral rights of the author have been asserted in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All the characters and events described in this novel are imaginary
and any similarity with real people or events is purely coincidental.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-85728-003-9
Cover design by Adrienne Brown.
This title is also available as an eBook
This book was produced using PressBooks.com.
CONTENTS
Also by Simon Brown
Acknowledgements
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
Also by Simon Brown
The Healer (O Books)
Macrobiotics for Life (North Atlantic)
Feng Shui Life Coach (Godsfield Press)
The Secrets of Face Reading (Godsfield Press)
Practical Wabi Sabi (Carroll & Brown)
Modern Day Macrobiotics (Carroll & Brown)
The Feng Shui Bible (Godsfield Press)
The Principles of Feng Shui (HarperCollins)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Writing can be very personal and subjective. My words can be read in so many ways and the story may provoke an array of responses.During my writing, it is important to me to test the book out and understand how readers are responding. In this I have enjoyed the great help of several wonderful people who have read through various drafts and provided more objective comments. I would like to thank Tine Weis, who read through the whole manuscript and described how she responded to my writing on each page, to Klara LeVine whose attention to detail helped me create a consistent writing style, and Charlotta Andersson who provided insightful comments and suggestions. My agent Darin Jewell also arranged for several readers to make very helpful reviews.
Adrienne Brown gave expression to her amazing artistic talents to create a beautiful image and cover design.
The characters in this novel are created out of a blend of various people who have been influential on my way of living, and these include my mother Patricia, Dragana Brown, my children Christopher, Alexander, Nicholas and Michael, and Greg Johnson, along with all my students, clients and friends.
I would also like to thank my agent Darin Jewell for getting my writing published and everyone at Thames River Press for making this book a reality.
You can find out more about me at www.chienergy.co.uk and get in touch with me at [email protected]
CATERPILLAR
CHAPTER 1
The adult butterfly lays eggs which hatch in about 3–7 days. The young caterpillars start off eating frantically for 2–3 weeks. They grow quickly and increase their body mass by a few thousand times.
Caterpillars grow so much that they shed their exoskeleton several times, and can change their appearance through this process.
I watch my aunt pour the pearl jasmine tea. Her long fingers clasp the handle whilst her free hand gently touches the lid. I listen to the bubbling sound of the liquid falling into the cup. My eyes stare into the swirling steam. I see the reflection of the window in the surface of the tea. I pick up the cream china in my hands and feel the warmth. I lift the smooth curved handle and touch the rough unglazed surface underneath. I smell the sweet fragrance, letting the steam float across my cheeks. I tip the cup slowly until the liquid touches my lips and seeps into my mouth. The heat spreads across my tongue and gums. I taste the jasmine and slowly return my cup to its saucer.
I am living more of my life as it happens through my senses. I look up to see eyes, set within peaceful faces. My mind interrupts, grabbing an inherited judgement. Instead of beautiful, loving humans, I see a rapist, murderer and the woman my once beloved husband left me for. I wash those thoughts from my consciousness. This is my new family. These are the people I have chosen to explore the next phase of my life with.
I walked up the paved path to my front door. My mind turned to tea and biscuits, before marking Monday’s homework. It was late September, and dry brown leaves had blown up against my door forming a small pile. I brushed them to one side with my shoe, letting them spiral into the wind. I fumbled through my bag for my keys.
As I looked up I saw my reflection in the glass. My shoulder length hair had blown to one side creating a lopsided appearance. Long wriggling snakes fought each other. Their blond heads seemed to want to escape their darker roots. A few strands had stuck to my lip-balm. I unlocked the latch and pushed the door open, hearing the familiar sound of the draft strip brushing across the mat.
My new business cards were scattered across the black and white hall tiles. I squatted down to impatiently scoop then up. I held one up to the light. Oh fiddlesticks, the mauve background seemed a little too pale for the white letters.
As I walked into the living room, I was jolted out of my rhythm. I dropped my bag and keys. My eyes slid down Mathew’s body and froze on his left ankle. His skin was showing. Mathew hated his trousers being short.
There were small white feathers on our beige carpet.
I knelt and pulled the charcoal grey fabric down to his shoe. I touched his cold hand and straightened it so I could tidy his sleeve. I smelt Mathew’s cinnamon fragrance. I started to adjust his tie, and then felt helpless. The end of the tie seemed to have been sucked into a hole in his chest. The maroon silk blended into the wound. The fabric was matted to his shirt and skin by dark coagulated blood. Nausea rose and I instinctively put my hand over my mouth. Slumping back against the side of our blue sofa, a shaking consumed me. Tears ran down my cheeks. I pulled my knees to my chest and rocked back and forth.
The feathers blew around me as I swayed.
I could not trust my senses. The image in front of me was all wrong. There had to be some way back to my normal sensations. I wanted to shout out that there had been a mistake. Yet I was too numb too act, too anaesthetised to feel any emotion. I had been struck dumb.
I still had my old red coat on when I opened the door to a uniformed policeman. I was aware of a peripheral commotion, blue flashing lights, cars pulling up, a large woman opening the gate but it was the constable’s face that held my gaze. He held my arm, gently leading me back into my home.
“Is there another room you can sit down in?”
&nb
sp; We passed the living room door and I sat at the kitchen table. I looked at a circle of crumbs on the bare wood surface.
The constable put the kettle on.
I looked back down the corridor and could see men and women sealing themselves into zip up protective clothing. Two strode into the living room. Flash, flash, flash. A man knelt to examine the front door. There was banter, organisation and familiarity to their routine.
“Here you are, Mrs Blake.” The constable placed a cup of tea in front of me. An orange Bart Simpson stared at me with an inane grin, jolting me into a different reality for a split second before the numbness kicked in again.
A large sky blue, nylon-suited woman spread out on the chair opposite me. Her rose perfume was overwhelming. She took a chocolate bar out of her bag broke it in two and put half in front of me.
“I’m Inspector Pride. How are you?”
“Confused, shocked, disorientated.”
Pride looked at me sympathetically.
“I’ll find someone to help you. Do you feel ready to just go through the events?” She took a bite of her snack.
I held my half and looked at it.
“Hey ho, life’s a box of chocolates.”
I immediately regretted saying that. It was a saying my mother used a lot. Dad used to say it completely out of context to make me laugh. Mum’s face, lined with a deep frown, made it all the funnier. As I got older I inherited the expression and it would appear in my head whenever life took a difficult turn. My mother explained it as meaning life was full of surprises. Sometimes you bit into a chocolate and enjoyed the filling whilst others tasted disgusting. Dad extended the expression to include random objects. Life’s a bowl of fruit, life’s a shop full of clothes, life’s a cupboard with three pairs of shoes. The more obscure the context, the funnier my silly expression became. Those words had become so ingrained in me that today they flew out of their own volition.
Pride looked at me with a quizzical expression for a moment.
“Yes, well, right now I need to hear what happened when you came home.”
I nodded. I wanted to talk. I wanted someone to help me make sense of it all. I hoped the inspector would drag me back to normality. My skin crawled as I considered she might join me in my nightmare.
After I described my homecoming, there was silence. The inspector looked a little confused. She finished her mouthful.
“So you came home from school at four-fifteen, found your husband dead on the floor, but did not call us until six?”
I nodded. I felt a pang of guilt. The thought flashed through me that this made me a suspect. I had a history of feeling nervous around authority. I remember feeling tense around my teacher, the odious Mrs Maddox, as a child. Even as an adult, I am self-conscious when in the presence of the head teacher. Now I felt a need to persuade the policemen and women in my home that I was innocent.
“I just couldn’t believe it. I just froze.” And then as an afterthought I added, “He doesn’t usually come home until six.”
I put my hand over my mouth in an attempt to stem the stupidity coming out of it.
“There is no obvious sign of a break in. Do you know anyone who might have done this? Any enemies he has upset?”
I shook my head.
“I keep asking, Why? Why my Mathew?”
“Your husband’s wallet was on the table, does he usually keep money in it?”
I nodded.
“It was empty when we checked.”
A policewoman took me to our neighbours, Edward and Edwina Edwards. Mathew and I used to laugh about their names trying to imagine Edward’s parents snorting with laughter as they wrote Edward on the birth certificate. We later found out that Edward changed it himself, by deed poll. He used to be called Peter. Edwina was her original name. We assumed they got drunk and thought it would be a hilarious wheeze to get married and be Edward and Edwina Edwards. They even shared the same birthday, although Edward was two years older than Edwina’s thirty-five.
I used to smirk in their company when they mentioned each other’s name, but not today.
Edward stood by the window adopting a martial arts style stance. He looked athletic and rooted to the ground.
“Oh Amanda, you poor thing. You must feel like you’re whole world’s fallen apart. Who would have thought the grim reaper would visit our quiet street.” Edward continued his karate kata with a series of strikes and blocks. Then he took off his glasses and shook his head with a look of resigned disapproval.
“If I get my hands on the culprit, I’ll…”
Edward spun round and executed a sidekick, catching the sofa with his foot. He lost balance, hopping on his standing foot until retrieving his striking limb. He must have injured his groin, as he limped back to the window pressing his hand into his hip.
Edwina made a point of ignoring him and sat next to me on their brown leather sofa. She put a glass of red wine in front of me.
“Well, I hope they catch whoever did it.”
“Live by the sword, die by the sword,” Edward muttered.
Edwina put her arm around me. I felt the softness of her body.
“Don’t worry, Amanda, we’ll look after you. Eddy can get your things and you can stay the night.”
I wobbled emotionally and started sobbing again. I didn’t want them to see me like this. Edwina led me to bed and left some sleeping pills on the bedside table.
When I woke, I cried my heart out. Edward came in with some tea and sat on the side of the bed. He put his broad hand on my head and gently moved my tear soaked hair to the sides of my face. His skin felt warm. I smelt orange scented soap. He pulled a tissue from the box on the bedside table and dried my face. Edward sighed.
“Once more unto the breach.”
Edward left. I looked at my phone. Tuesday 7.45.
Inspector Pride came round later during the morning. She collapsed into a plump black leather chair opposite me. There was an initial thud followed by a slight wheezing as the fabric of her clothes adapted to the shape of the chair. These small, obscure details occasionally broke through the heavy fog pervading my mind. Edwina offered to make some tea. I began to smell the inspector’s fragrance.
“Do you feel ready to talk?”
“No, not really, but if it would help…”
“So far we know your husband died between one and two yesterday afternoon. He had just eaten some salami, salad, bread and water. We think he opened the door to someone and that person came into the living room. It would appear that your husband was kneeling when he was shot, as though he was executed. He was shot three times in the chest from about two metres. The assailant was standing. One bullet pierced his upper left ventricle. He would have died very quickly. The killer used a cushion to help silence the shots.”
“I just don’t understand why someone would want to kill him.”
“Apart from the money in his wallet, have you noticed anything else missing?”
“In the night, I remembered Mathew’s watch was missing.”
Pride wrote on her pad.
“Can you describe it?”
“Black face, orange hands, chrome body and black leather strap. I bought it for his forty-eighth birthday.”
Edwina came in with the teas. Pride looked at the three cups of steaming tea and, I thought, gave a little sigh.
“I think I have a little treat in here.” Pride rummaged through her bag and produced a packet of chocolate biscuits. Pride offered me a biscuit and I took one even though I did not particularly like them. I didn’t want to offend her.
“Okay, so far we have no motive other than an unknown sum of cash and wristwatch. Let’s try and explore some possibilities. What was your husband’s work?”
“Mathew ran a men’s clothing shop with James Harris in Welwyn Garden City. It’s called Stiletto. They had been working together for four years.”
Pride looked up from her pad. She frowned and I thought a shadow crossed her face.
“Jam
es Harris.”
She said the words with a hint of menace as she wrote them down.
“And how did they get on?”
“Fine, I think. They had minor differences, but nothing serious.”
“Did your husband have any close friends?”
“He liked social events, parties, dinners and playing his guitar, but apart from James he did not have any close friends.”
“Did he go out on his own much?”
“Just up to London to play at various blues jam sessions.”
Pride raised an eyebrow.
“He would go to a club with his guitar and they would each get called up to play a couple of songs.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“Since we were married five years ago, just after my thirtieth birthday.”
“How long did you know Mr Blake before your wedding?”
“About a year. My mother died in a car accident and in an effort to stop moping about the house, I went to tango classes and met Mathew. My father died of a heart attack five years earlier, so Mathew became my new family.”
I swallowed hard to contain a rush of sadness that threatened to spill over. I did not want to cry in front of Pride. I certainly did not want her to comfort me.
“Do you feel able to go back to your home? I would like you to see if anything has been disturbed.”
