Who Is She?

by Ben Cheetham

  Jack’s reply was grimly deadpan. “A stab-vest and a Taser wouldn’t go amiss.”

  Chapter 21

  Water from the hoses fell like sheet-rain as Jack advanced along the driveway. Burning trees crackled, popped and sizzled. Despite the firemen’s efforts, the fire was spreading. The caravans were on fire too, belching black smoke out of their broken windows. ‘THE END IS NIGH LETS PARTY’ and the other apocalyptic slogans daubed over them were rapidly being scorched into oblivion. It wouldn’t be long before the Calor gas bottles started going off like mortars. There were no inquisitive, rosy-cheeked faces peering from behind the trees this time.

  The scene that greeted Jack beyond the woods was almost enough to make him wonder whether Dennis’s predictions were indeed coming true. The goats, cows, and ponies lay dead in their pens, their eyes bulging, their mouths ringed with bloody froth. Even the hens hadn’t been spared. Their decapitated carcasses were piled alongside the driveway. The dead pig had also been decapitated. Its rotting head faced Jack from atop a tall stick thrust into the driveway.

  A few metres beyond the pig, the double-decker bus had been positioned across the driveway. Someone had spray-painted it with ‘THIS IS THE END OF THE FUCKING WORLD’. Flames leaping from the manor house’s roof made it seem as if the sky itself was on fire.

  Jack peered inside the bus. It appeared to be unoccupied. He squeezed between its front-bumper and the pig-pen, pausing to take in the full scale of the fire ripping through the manor house. The right-hand side of the house was engulfed in flames. Large sections of the roof and walls had collapsed. The opposite side was intact, but tongues of flame were darting out of the tall windows. Even from that distance, the heat made Jack’s eyes water. Anyone still alive inside the house wouldn’t remain that way for much longer.

  Something nearby caught Jack’s eye. He broke into a run and dropped to his haunches at the side of a small, motionless figure. The girl couldn’t have been more than seven or eight-years-old. He recognised her from earlier in the day. Her name was ‘Star’ or ‘Moonbeam’ or some such thing. Her eyes gaped sightlessly. Blood stained her lips and nose. She lay horribly contorted in a slick of vomit and diarrhoea. Jack checked for a pulse in vain.

  Rage surged up his throat. Dennis fucking Smith and his wives, or whatever they were, deserved the same fate as the pig for this. He took a deep breath. He couldn’t afford to let emotion get the better of him. Not while other lives hung in the balance.

  His gaze swept the grounds and fixed on four figures in the shadows to the left of the house. He rose and strode towards them. The figures were naked except for animal masks. Jack had seen three of the masks before.

  The woman in the badger mask was short, skinny and flat-chested. She might have been mistaken for a boy if not for the absence of male genitalia. Blonde hair braided with multicoloured beads had found its way out from beneath the mask, identifying her as Willow. The woman in the fox mask was a few inches taller, with heavy hips and pendulous breasts. Her stomach was riddled with stretch-marks as if from multiple pregnancies. Dennis was wearing his sharp-beaked, red and brown plumed phoenix mask. A single eye was painted in what looked like blood on his scrawny, hairless chest. He was holding a knife to the throat of the final figure.

  Steve’s face was hidden behind a grotesque Orwellian pig mask – Jack knew it was Steve because of the grinning, beret-wearing skull on his colleague’s left bicep. The pig had wolfishly sharp teeth and a snakishly long tongue. A top hat was perched at a jaunty angle on its head. Steve’s hands were tied behind his back. Streaks of blood glistened on his neck and chest.

  “Steve, this is Jack,” said Jack. “Are you alright?”

  “Yeah, I’m alright. The fuckers jumped me from behind.” Steve’s tone suggested the only serious injury he’d suffered so far was to his pride.

  Jack turned his attention to Dennis. “What do you want?” He managed to keep his voice steady. It wasn’t easy. What he wanted was to tear off Dennis’s mask and pummel his fists into the murdering bastard’s face.

  “I want everyone to know the truth,” Dennis said in his infuriatingly Zen voice. “This world is a lie. Religion, government, the media – all of it a lie with one purpose, control. I tried to escape its corruption, but there’s only one way to truly be free.” He theatrically flung out a hand. “Fire! No lies can survive the purifying flames.”

  “Where are the other women and children?” asked Jack.

  “The same place I’ll soon be.”

  Jack’s stomach coiled into a sick knot at the thought of all those lives snuffed out to gratify Dennis’s fantasies

  “Prison’s the only place you’re going, you piece of shit,” shouted Steve. He flinched as Dennis pressed the knife into his throat, drawing fresh blood.

  “Please don’t,” exclaimed Jack. “I’ll make sure everyone knows the truth. But first you’ve got to do something for me, Phoenix. Let Steve go.”

  “I’m doing this for love,” said Dennis. “No father could love his children more than I do.”

  “I know.” Jack held up a pacifying palm. His other hand hovered near to the Taser in his pocket. He wondered if he could get off a shot before the blade plunged into Steve’s throat. He doubted it.

  Fox suddenly crumpled to her knees. She pulled up her mask and a torrent of blood spewed from her mouth. Her eyes goggled towards Dennis, seemingly ready to pop out of their sockets.

  “What’s going on?” demanded Steve as Jack instinctively made to go to Fox’s aid.

  “Stay where you are,” warned Dennis, applying more pressure to the blade.

  “She’s dying!” retorted Jack.

  “Her body is dying,” corrected Dennis. He gave Fox one of his soulful looks. “Goodbye for now my beautiful Vixen. Don’t be afraid. We’ll be together again soon.”

  A final gout of vomit darkened the grass, then Vixen pitched face-first into it.

  “What have you taken?” Jack’s question was directed at Willow. “Tell me and we might be able to save you.”

  “I’ve already been saved,” she retorted defiantly.

  “OK then,” Jack said to himself as much as anyone else. He mentally wrote off Willow. Now it was all about Steve and the missing baby. “Where’s the baby?” he asked Dennis.

  “What does it matter? This is the beginning of the end. The fire I’ve started will spread across the entire world.”

  Jack had expected some such response. For a narcissist like Dennis, the world began and ended with him. Appealing to his conscience was clearly a non-starter. Maybe appealing to his vanity would be more productive. “You’re right, Phoenix. What you’ve started here is too big to be stopped. So what difference will it make if you let your child spend the little time there is left with its real mother?”

  Dennis laughed, a sound that was all the more chilling because of its warm, rolling quality. “You wouldn’t think the child was better off with her if you knew who she really is.”

  “So tell me.” There was an edge of uncertainty in Jack’s voice. As if he wasn’t sure he wanted to know who Butterfly really was.

  “Enough talk. The time has come!”

  Prompted by Dennis’s proclamation, Willow picked up a canister. Jack smelt petrol as she poured the canister’s contents over Dennis. Steve squirmed as it splashed over him too. Jack glanced nervously at the glowing sparks drifting down around them.

  “Don’t do it,” he pleaded.

  Dennis no longer seemed to hear. He spread his arms like a bird taking flight. His voice rose feverishly. “The bird of paradise. Born in flame, ending in flame!”

  As the blade left his throat, Steve threw himself forwards. Willow sparked a lighter and held it to Dennis. The petrol ignited with a whoosh. Jack sprang forwards too, grabbing Steve and dragging him clear. For one second, maybe two, Dennis stood motionless, his skin sizzling like roasting pork. Then a scream of unimaginable pain tore from his lungs. He whirled around and sprinted towards the house, flappin
g his arms wildly. All three onlookers watched as if mesmerised as Dennis disappeared through the flaming arch of the front door.

  There was a moment of silence almost as loud as the scream, then Steve said, “Take this fucking mask off me.”

  As Jack did so, Willow sat down cross-legged on the grass. She closed her eyes, rocking gently and humming to herself. Steve’s hair was matted with dry blood. Jack untied his colleague’s wrists. Steve tentatively felt at the cut on his throat. It wasn’t deep. Jack took off his jacket and offered it to him.

  Steve shook his head. “I’ll look more ridiculous with that on than without it.” He glanced at the house. There was a glazed, haunted look in his eyes, as if he’d seen things that couldn’t be unseen. “Mad bastards,” he murmured.

  Jack got on the radio and relayed the situation. “We’re on our way to you,” replied Eric.

  Jack handed Steve the Taser and pointed at Willow. “Watch her.” He started towards the house. Its left side was fully ablaze now. Fingers of flame were pushing through the roof and pulling it down. There didn’t seem much chance of anyone being alive in there, but he had to make certain.

  “They’re all dead,” said Steve, guessing Jack’s intention.

  “Are you sure?”

  Steve nodded. Tears were streaking through the soot on his cheeks. He swiped at them as if they annoyed him, repeating, “Mad bastards.”

  “Are they all dead?” Jack asked Willow.

  She either ignored or didn’t hear him. Blood was trickling from her nostrils. Her fingers were convulsively flexing.

  From the direction of the woods came the sound of approaching vehicles. Blue flashing lights competed with the flickering red flames. Steve lowered his head. “I could have saved them.” He pounded a fist into the ground. “I could have fucking saved them.”

  Chapter 22

  It was getting light by the time the firefighters got the multiple blazes under control. A state of numbed calm had descended over the scene. People were getting on with their jobs as quickly but quietly as possible, as if in reverence for the dead. Steve, Willow and Vixen had long since been whisked away to hospital. A sweep of the grounds had revealed the bodies of three more children. A pair of large barns had been found in woodland to the rear of the house.

  Jack hitched a lift to the barns in Eric’s Land Rover. They arrived as officers were cutting the padlocked doors of the windowless, breeze-block and corrugated steel structures. The barns looked as if they’d been built during Dennis and his tribe’s tenure of Hawkshead Manor. Their roofs were covered with a thick layer of cut pine tree branches, camouflaging them from sight from the sky. A large extractor fan on the wall of one barn gave a clue as to what it might contain.

  Between the barns was a minibus also camouflaged with branches. The bus’s paintwork was a mess of psychedelic swirls. The number plates were missing, but this was surely the same bus that had been caught on CCTV on the M61 slip road.

  Armed police entered the barns first. Jack and Eric followed when they were given the all clear. The pungent, sickly sweet scent that flowed out of the first barn confirmed Jack’s suspicion. He stepped blinking into the brightly lit interior. Rows of high-wattage bulbs dangled on wires from the roof, bathing hundreds of neatly potted cannabis plants in warm white light. Silver venting ducts snaked their way between the wires. Hoses fed a sprinkler system. The floor and walls were insulated with white plastic. Bags of fertilizer and peat were stacked against the walls.

  “Someone’s been hard at work in here,” commented Eric. “No wonder they didn’t have time to look after their other crops.”

  “It would cost serious money to light and heat this lot too,” said Jack. The plants hadn’t yet come into bud. In order to do so, they required thousands of watts of light running twelve hours a day. Maybe Butterfly’s baby had been sold to tide the operation over until the harvest came in.

  They moved on to the second barn. Jack’s eyebrows lifted when he saw what it contained – eight high-end cars. There were two BMWs, four Mercedes, a Porsche and an Audi. Number plates, spare parts and tools were laid out on workbenches. One car was shrouded in a respray tent. “This doesn’t look like the sort of operation a burnout like Smith would run,” said Eric.

  Jack made a noise of agreement, moving in for a closer look at the Audi. It was a black hatchback. Registration MA13 SOR. His heart quickened. Same colour, same make and model, same registration. Surely this had to be the car that was driven by PC Andrew Finch’s killer.

  “Come and have a look at this,” Eric called from the far end of the barn.

  The sergeant was squatted next to a deep bed of soil dotted with conical white mushrooms that gave off a faint ammonia aroma. “These are death caps,” he said. “Just half of one of these would be enough to kill you.”

  “You’d better call the hospital.”

  Eric was already pulling out his phone. Jack ushered everyone out of the barn. A Forensic team were on the way from Manchester. He didn’t want anyone even breathing on the Audi before they got here. He phoned Paul and brought him up to speed. “Well, well,” Paul said upon hearing about the Audi. There was no triumph in his voice. Even such a major breakthrough paled into insignificance next to the children’s deaths.

  “How’s DI Platts?” asked Paul.

  “He’ll be OK.” Physically at least, Jack added to himself. Mentally he wasn’t so sure. He’d never seen Steve so broken up before. Jack had tried to tell him that none of this was his fault, but he hadn’t wanted to hear it.

  “What about the unaccounted for women and children?”

  “We’re still searching.” There was little hope in Jack’s voice. According to Steve, the manor house’s lounge had been littered with the dead and dying. That part of the house was now nothing more than ash.

  “Dennis Smith was some piece of work. Makes you wonder about our nameless victim, doesn’t it? Seems convenient that she has no memory of being involved with him. What do you think, Jack? Is she pulling the wool over our eyes?”

  Jack was thoughtfully silent. He hadn’t seriously considered the possibility that Butterfly was lying. His instincts told him she was telling the truth. But instincts could be wrong, especially when emotions became involved. If Butterfly’s memory was intact surely she would have an idea where her baby was. And if she’d fled Hawkshead Manor to protect her baby, then pretending otherwise would make no sense. But what if she hadn’t fled to protect her baby? What if she’d fled to protect herself? Maybe she’d discovered Dennis’s crop of death caps, guessed what he was planning and it panicked her into running. “I don’t know,” he admitted reluctantly.

  “Listen, I know you’re exhausted, but I need you to get back here and talk to her again. I think it’s time she got the full story.”

  Jack got off the phone, heaving a sigh at the thought of telling Butterfly that she was mother to a missing baby. How would she react? How was she supposed to react? The sight of Eric approaching with a sickened expression pushed the questions to the back of his mind.

  “I was too late,” said Eric. “The last of the children just passed away.”

  “What about the women?”

  “They’re all dead too.”

  Jack put his head down, closing his eyes and pressing his fingers to his forehead. With a sudden movement, he dialled home. Laura picked up and said in a voice heavy with sleep, “Morning, Jack.”

  “I need to speak to Naomi.”

  “She’s asleep.”

  “Then wake her.”

  He knew it was selfish – Naomi didn’t have to be up for another hour – but he needed to hear her voice. A moment later her soft little voice came down the line. “Hi Dad. Are you OK?”

  “I am now. I love you, sweetheart, more than anything.”

  “I love you too, Dad.”

  “Go back to bed.”

  Laura came back on the line. “What’s going on, Jack?”

  “I’m heading back to Manchester. I sho
uld be able to pick Naomi up from school. I don’t think I’ll be coming up here again. I’ll call you later.” As an afterthought, he added, “You know how much I love you, don’t you, sis?”

  “Now you’re really starting to worry me, Jack.”

  He smiled at Laura’s dryly concerned reply. The smile vanished as someone nearby said, “They’re bringing out the bodies.”

  Chapter 23

  Jack swallowed the dregs of his coffee as he entered Intensive Care. He told the duty nurse why he was there and she went off to check whether Butterfly was awake. The armed constable approached him and said, “I heard about what’s going on in The Lakes. Is it as bad as they’re saying?”