Who Is She?

by Ben Cheetham

  Jack sighed again. “I hope you change your mind, Leah. Take it from someone who knows, it’s no fun bringing up children on your own.”

  They faced each other for another silent moment. Jack’s eyes were sympathetic, but Leah’s expression remained set like concrete. “Is there anything else you’d like to say?” he asked without expectation.

  Leah shook her head.

  “OK, so I’m now handing you the notice that explains what happens to the interview recordings.” Jack passed Leah a sheet of paper and glanced at his watch. “The time is three fifteen PM, the interview is concluded and Detective Inspector Anderson is switching off the recording equipment.”

  Jack stood to leave, but paused. “Gavin and his brother put a bullet in a new mother’s head. How can you love someone like that?” There was no provocation in the question, just curiosity.

  “I don’t know nothing about that, but if they did it, it was just a job,” Leah replied matter-of-factly. “They take pride in their work. They never let a customer down,” she added as if she was talking about a firm of plumbers or builders.

  Just a job. Jack gave a little shake of his head. People could rationalise almost anything if they wanted it badly enough. His thoughts returned to Butterfly. What if she had known what Dennis Smith planned to do? How would he rationalise that? He knew the answer because it had already passed through his mind. Whoever Butterfly had been back then, she was a different person now. Wasn’t she? Surely she couldn’t be held accountable for things she had no memory of. Could she?

  “Someone will be along shortly to escort you from the building,” Jack informed Leah.

  He made his way to a neighbouring room where Steve was lounging in front of a CCTV screen. “Where’s the DCI?” asked Jack.

  “He had to take a phone call.” Glancing at the grainy camera image of Leah, Steve gave a snort. “Maybe we should get a logo made up – Ryan and Gavin Mahon. Scumbags for hire. Guaranteed to get the job done or your money back!”

  Paul entered the room. “How’d it go?”

  Jack gave him a quick rundown.

  “Well we can be fairly sure of one thing,” said Paul. “The brothers aren’t hiding out on the Costas.”

  “The Force needs to be put on high alert. And I mean the entire Force, not just GMP. Armed response should be at the ready around the clock.”

  Steve snorted again. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting, Jack?”

  “Why don’t you ask Andrew Finch’s widow? Find out what she thinks?”

  “Jack’s right,” said Paul. “We have to take this threat seriously. I’d better let the Super know what the situation is. Jack, I need you to head over to the hospital.”

  “Butterfly won’t recognise the Mahons.”

  “Butterfly?”

  “That’s what the nurses call her.”

  “Well they can start using her real name. I just had a call from the DNA lab. We got a match. The victim is Tracy Ridley.”

  Jack winced internally. Although his instincts had told him this was coming, he’d held onto a slender hope that Butterfly had a loving family waiting for her somewhere. But girls with loving families didn’t tend to fall under the spell of charlatans like Dennis Smith. That fate was reserved for people whose lives were blighted by tragedy, people desperate for something to make sense of the world and their place in it. People like Tracy Ridley.

  “I can get someone else to do it if you’re too tired,” said Paul, mistaking Jack’s troubled silence for weariness.

  Jack shook his head. He would have taken any reason to see Butterfly – he wasn’t ready to think of her as Tracy – even if that reason was to tell her a pair of unidentified psychopaths had murdered her family.

  “Watch your back,” Paul cautioned as Jack turned to leave.

  “You too,” said Jack, wondering what Rebecca would think if she could see him showing concern towards the man she’d had an affair with. Would it make her happy? He hoped so. He would have thrown his arms around Paul and sworn undying friendship if it helped Rebecca find the peace that had eluded her in life.

  His thoughts moved from the past to the present. How would Butterfly take the news he had for her? Would it bring on another ‘event’? Maybe it would be enough to finish the job off for the Mahons. The possibility weighed on him as he headed for his car.

  Chapter 28

  Jack padded into Butterfly’s room as if trying not to wake her, but she wasn’t asleep. The sight of her eased the knot of tension in his stomach. Her cheeks were devoid of colour – except for the tattoo – but her eyes were the clearest he’d seen them. She granted him the briefest of glances before sliding her gaze away. The knot tightened again. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  She shrugged as if to say, What do you care?

  “Did Doctor Medland tell you what I said?”

  “You mean about believing me?”

  “Yes.” Jack approached the bed and tried to catch Butterfly’s eyes. “I’m sorry for doubting you.”

  She looked at him, her expression shifting from annoyance to uncertainty. “Do you really mean that?”

  “Yes,” he replied with absolute conviction.

  “I don’t blame you for doubting me, Jack.” Her eyes fell away from his again, this time wracked with guilt. “I can’t stop thinking about those poor children. What if I could have saved them?”

  “If you could have saved them, you would have.”

  “How can you know that?”

  There was a pained appeal in the question. “Because of who you are,” was the only answer Jack could think to give.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve got something to tell you, but I need you to stay calm.”

  The tattoo fluttered as Butterfly’s eyes flew wide. “Have you found my baby?” Her voice was anything but calm.

  “No, it’s not that,” Jack said quickly. She released a breath that mingled disappointment with relief. He got the easy part out of the way first, bringing up a photo of the Mahon brothers on his phone. “Do they ring any bells?”

  Butterfly’s eyebrows pinched together. “They’re the men who shot me, aren’t they?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because they look like killers. Who are they?”

  Not wanting to make Butterfly any more agitated than she already was, Jack limited himself to saying, “They’re small-time gangsters.”

  “Gangsters.” Her voice was tight and low, as if constricted by the thought of such men laying their hands on her baby. “Have you spoken to them?”

  “We don’t know where they are.”

  The lines between Butterfly’s eyes sharpened. “I don’t understand. How does this prove I didn’t abandon the children?”

  Now came the hard part. “There’s something else.” Jack swiped to the photo of eleven-year-old Tracy – wavy brown hair, freckles, smiling eyes. “You remember I showed you this photo before? Her name’s Tracy Ridley.” He readied himself to pull the emergency cord if necessary. “Your name’s Tracy Ridley.”

  Butterfly looked from the photo to Jack and back as if struggling to comprehend what he’d told her. She reached for the photo, but drew her hand back as if it might bite her. “Are you sure?”

  Jack nodded. “We ran a DNA comparison.”

  Her gaze flicked up to his, hopeful now. “On who?”

  “Shirley Ridley. Your grandma. She’s in a care home in Rochdale. She has no memory of you.” By way of explanation, Jack added gently, “Alzheimer’s.”

  “No memory.” Butterfly’s lips curved into a sadly ironic smile. “We should get on well then. What about the rest of my family?” When Jack didn’t reply, her eyes searched his face as if looking for an answer. “Surely there are others?”

  Jack shook his head. “I’m sorry, Butterf–” He broke off and corrected himself, “Tracy.”

  “How’s that possible? How can I not have a mum and dad?”

  Drawing in a long breat
h, Jack swiped to a photo of Tracy standing alongside a slim woman with curly brown hair, a similarly built man with receding red hair and a young girl beaming cheekily into the camera. He pointed. “That’s your mum Andrea, your dad Marcus, and your younger sister Charlie.”

  Butterfly stared at the photo for a long moment, then said, “They’re dead, aren’t they?”

  “They were murdered.”

  She closed her eyes as if shutting out something she couldn’t bear to see. “By who? Those gangsters?”

  “Their killers were never identified… Are you sure you’re up to hearing this right now?”

  “Just tell me, Jack.”

  He took another breath. Then he recounted how two men wearing balaclavas tied up the Ridleys and sexually assaulted Charlie. And how when the men dragged Marcus into the trees to cut his throat, Tracy got free and ran away. All the time he watched for any sign that Butterfly was about to suffer another seizure. But her face remained strangely serene, like a patch of smooth water on a windy day. When he was finished, she said in a fatalistic, matter-of-fact way, “So I ran away and left them to die. Just like I did with the children.”

  “No. You tried to free them and when you couldn’t you ran to get help.”

  “How do you know I tried to free them? Maybe I lied to the police.”

  “What reason would you have had to lie? You were eleven-years-old. You’d have been terrified. In shock.”

  Butterfly’s face twitched with uncertainty. “When I look at that photo all I see are strangers. People who mean nothing to me. Perhaps they never meant anything to me.”

  “You’re wrong. How do you think you got involved with Dennis Smith? You were searching for the place where your parents and sister were killed. You must have bumped into Dennis. He saw how vulnerable you were and exploited it. That’s how people like him operate. It wasn’t your fault. None of this is your fault.”

  Guilt flowed like tears from Butterfly’s eyes. “I wish I could believe you, Jack.” Her fingers traced the outline of her eleven-year-old self. “Who are you?” she murmured.

  “I’ll tell you who she is.” Jack took Butterfly’s hand. It was cold and clammy although the room was warm. “She’s someone who lost her way. That doesn’t make you a bad person. It just means you’re human.”

  Butterfly withdrew her hand from his, turning to the wall.

  “Look at me, Tracy,” said Jack.

  “Don’t call me that. I’m not Tracy.”

  “You’re right about that. Maybe your amnesia is a blessing in disguise. You don’t have to be Tracy anymore. You’re free to be whoever you want to be.” Jack touched her chin, gently angling it towards him. “Butterfly.”

  “Butterfly,” she echoed, lacing her fingers into his.

  They stayed like that for the space of several breaths, looking into each other’s eyes. When they drew apart, Jack knew there was no point fighting it. He didn’t care who Tracy had been. All he cared about was Butterfly.

  A clock on the wall caught his eye. It was past five. Time to pick Naomi up from Laura’s. Naomi. He noticed the knot in his stomach again. Could it work? The three – hopefully four of them – together. A family. You can make it work, he told himself with as much conviction as he could muster.

  “I’ve got to go,” he said. “I have to pick up my daughter Naomi.”

  Butterfly’s eyebrows lifted. “You have a daughter.”

  Jack smiled. “Why is that so surprising?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t suppose it is.” A faintly fearful note came into Butterfly’s voice. “Do you have a wife?”

  Jack’s smiled faltered. “I did. She died.”

  “Oh. I...” Butterfly seemed uncertain how to respond. “I’m sorry to hear that. How did it happen?”

  “I’ll tell you another time. It’s a long story. I’ll come at the same time tomorrow and you can ask me as many questions as you like.”

  “Same time tomorrow,” Butterfly echoed as if making certain Jack’s words were imprinted on her mind.

  On his way out of the ward, Jack spoke to the firearms officer – a young man with eager-to-impress eyes. “Craig, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You don’t leave this doorway, Craig. Not even for a second. If you see anything that strikes you as odd – and I mean anything, like if someone sneezes funny – you contact me at once. Understood?”

  Craig nodded.

  Jack returned to his car on feet that felt light. One word kept replaying in his head – tomorrow. Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough.

  Chapter 29

  As usual, Naomi was waiting for him with a hug at Laura’s little house. “Hi Dad! Have you had a good day?”

  Smiling into her blue eyes, he replied, “Yes.” Relative to the previous two days, almost anything would have qualified as a ‘good day’.

  Naomi gave him one of her looks that always made him feel as if he was the child and she the parent. “What was good about it?”

  Jack’s mind raced for a reply that didn’t involve Butterfly. He was a long way from ready to negotiate that minefield. To his relief, Laura approached saying, “Hello little brother. Are you two stopping for tea? It’s spaghetti Bolognese.”

  “Yay, my favourite,” exclaimed Naomi.

  Jack laughed. Naomi never seemed to get bored of spaghetti Bolognese. “We’d love to,” he gladly accepted the invitation. As Naomi skipped into the kitchen, he added, “Thanks, Laura.”

  “What for? It’s only spag bol.”

  “I’m not talking about the spag bol.”

  Laura looked at him curiously. “Then what are you talking about?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  Jack wasn’t sure how Laura would react to learning that he’d fallen for a woman with no memory and, to say the least, a chequered past. She was intensely protective of Naomi, but she’d also been encouraging him to dip his toe back in the dating pool. Most likely she would try to convince him Butterfly was bad news. And she’d be right. He knew that. But he also knew that he hadn’t felt this way about anyone besides Rebecca. How many chances did life give you to meet someone you had that kind of connection with? Not many. This might be the last one he got.

  He ate quietly, content to listen to Naomi and Laura chatting. His mind kept drifting to Butterfly. He knew she was safe, yet he had a strong urge, almost a compulsion to go to her. He became aware that Laura was talking to him.

  “Hello, earth to Jack, are you receiving me?”

  “Sorry, I was miles away.”

  “I can see that. What are you thinking?”

  “That I need a good night’s kip. It’s been a long week.” Jack’s phone rang. He took it out. “It’s Steve.” He pushed back his chair, moved into the hallway and put the phone to his ear. “What’s up?”

  “Are you near a TV?”

  Jack’s stomach lurched. Steve’s voice was shaking. He’d never heard Steve like that before. Had something happened to Butterfly? “Yeah why?”

  “Turn on the news.”

  Jack quickly did so. The screen displayed a street of terraced houses and small shops cordoned off by police tape. Beyond the cordon, armed officers were standing guard while paramedics worked on a figure on the ground. A swatch of bloodstained skin and a limp hand were visible between high-vis jackets. A few metres away a police car with a shattered windscreen appeared to have reversed into a car parked outside a café. A table and chair were overturned on the pavement. A handbag lay next to them. Whatever had happened, it hadn’t happened long ago.

  Jack felt a rush of relief and guilt. It wasn’t Butterfly lying there, but someone – from the looks of it, a fellow officer – was fighting for their life on that street.

  “Have you seen the video those fuckers made?” asked Steve.

  As if responding to the question, a reporter appeared on-screen and said, “I must warn you, the footage we’re about to show contains extremely disturbing images. The police have asked us
to keep showing it in the hope someone comes forward with information that leads to the capture of the perpetrators.”

  “No, but I think I’m about to,” Jack said as the news cut to shaky footage that appeared to have been shot on a mobile phone from the front passenger seat of a fast-moving vehicle. Built-up streets swept by the windows as the lens panned across to the vehicle’s driver – a well-built figure in black combat fatigues, a balaclava and a bulky bulletproof vest. A soundtrack was provided by a constant murmur of voices and beeps from a police scanner on the dashboard. The car suddenly braked. The driver reached to retrieve a sawn-off shotgun from the backseat before getting out. As the passenger got out too, Jack glimpsed what looked to be a Glock 9mm in their right hand.