by Ben Cheetham
Phil lifted his beady eyes to hers. His lips curled contemptuously away from tobacco-stained teeth. “You’re one of them nutters from the manor house.”
A violent urge to smack the contempt from Phil’s face threatened to get the better of Butterfly. How dare this piece of shit judge her! Fear. That was what she wanted from him. Fear and the truth. “You and I have spoken before. A long time ago.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Neither do I.”
Phil’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “You’re off your bloody rocker.”
A razor-thin smile touched Butterfly’s lips. “Maybe I am. If someone murders your entire family when you’re only eleven, it tends to mess you up.”
“I‘ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Let me give you a clue,” Karl put in jauntily. “You two first met twenty years ago in The Rose and Crown.”
Phil’s confusion turned to narrow-eyed realisation. “Tracy Ridley?”
“Ding. Got it in one.”
“At least that’s who I used to be,” corrected Butterfly.
“I didn’t kill your family,” said Phil.
“Bullshit!” snarled Karl. “Your pal Dale told me the truth. That fat fuck spilled everything, including the contents of his belly,” he nodded at Butterfly, “before she put a bullet between his eyes.”
Phil’s jaw slackened in shock. “Dale… Dale’s dead?”
“Ding. Right again. And you’re next unless you tell us where the other half of the necklace is.”
“What necklace?”
Karl chuckled. “Not a bad actor is he?” he said to Butterfly. “Show him?”
Butterfly withdrew the ‘Little Sis’ necklace from beneath her vest. Phil squinted up at it. “I’ve never seen that necklace before. I don’t know what Dale told you, but it wasn’t true. If you stuck that gun in his face, he would have said anything to save his skin.” There was little fear in Phil’s voice. He’d swiftly overcome his shock at the news of Dale’s death and now his eyes were narrow and calculating again.
“You’re lying,” said Karl. “It’s written all over your ugly fuck face.”
Ignoring him, Phil fixed Butterfly with a steady look. “Yeah, I was in the Rose and Crown that day and yeah I thought you were a cheeky little bugger who needed a good hiding. But I didn’t kill your family. Like I told the police, after I finished my drink I–”
Karl stabbed the gun into the back of Phil’s head, silencing him. He turned bright, eager eyes to Butterfly. “It’s time to do this.”
Her forehead twitched. A familiar thud, thud was beating at her brain. “I want to see the necklace.”
“I don’t have it,” said Phil. “Go ahead shoot me, but you’ll be killing an innocent man.”
“Innocent?” scowled Butterfly, the drum upping its volume. “Your best mate was a child molester.”
“Dale made mistakes. We all make mistakes.”
“Mistakes?” Now it was Butterfly’s lips that peeled back in contempt. “Is that what you call raping a schoolgirl?”
“Dale didn’t rape that girl. The little slut knew exactly what she was doing.”
“She was fourteen!” exploded Butterfly.
Karl glanced around uneasily at her raised voice, but he didn’t try to quieten her. His eyes glowed with anticipation as he watched her anger swelling.
“But that doesn’t matter to men like you, does it?” she continued, a vein pulsing on her forehead. “All that matters is getting what you want. Fuck everyone else.”
“I’m not like Dale.”
“We’ve seen your computer and box of tissues,” leered Karl. “I bet if the coppers had a look at your hard-drive you’d be in deep shit.”
Pushing his chin out defiantly, Phil retorted, “I’m not the criminal here.”
Karl whipped his hand out, slamming the Glock into Phil’s jaw. The gamekeeper toppled sideways, spitting blood and shattered teeth. Karl caught hold of Butterfly’s hand and pulled it towards the pistol. Pressing his hands over hers, he took aim at Phil’s head. “Do it,” he urged.
The drum battered Butterfly’s brain as she stared into Phil’s face. She still saw no fear in his eyes. Why wasn’t the bastard scared? He should be grovelling, begging for mercy. She found herself thinking about Tracy’s police statement. The first man to appear from the woods – the one everyone believed was Phil – had been shaky-voiced with nerves. The second man – who, it followed, had to be Dale – had been much more sure of himself. But now the roles were reversed – Dale had fallen to pieces the instant the gun was pointed in his face, Phil was the one with nerves of steel.
“The necklace.” Butterfly’s voice was an insistent hiss.
“Forget the necklace,” said Karl. “We don’t have time to find it now.”
“I need to see it.”
“No you don’t. You need to do what you should have done years ago – kill this fucker. Finish this!”
Thud, thud, THUD… Butterfly ran a bone-dry tongue over her lips. Her finger touched the trigger.
“What are you waiting for?” urged Karl. “You know what he is. You said it yourself. He takes what he wants and fuck everyone else. Fuck your sister, fuck your parents, fuck you, fuck the entire world just so long as he gets his kicks.”
Butterfly grimaced. The drum was getting louder and faster. Her gaze moved over Beech. Six foot or more and thin. That was the description of the killer and that was Beech’s description. Louder and faster… Dale didn’t rape that girl. The little slut knew exactly what she was doing. Louder and faster… So what if he’s not nervous? It was him. He did it. You don’t need the necklace. Do it. Pull the trigger! Her finger tightened. Another sound vibrated painfully against her eardrums. She turned to look into the car. Charlie was crying again. Suddenly she couldn’t hear the drum. All she could hear were Charlie’s high-pitched wails.
Her finger slackened. “If I take his life, I’m no different to him.”
“Listen to me, Io,” Karl said loudly as if trying to make himself heard to someone a long way off. “This is your chance to make everything right. You won’t get another one.”
“I keep telling you, Karl. Io’s gone and she’s not coming back.”
He shook his head hard. “No. I saw her.”
“I don’t care what you saw and I don’t care what you say. I won’t do this.”
Karl’s face seemed to crumple beneath the resolve in Butterfly’s voice. He lowered his head. With a flicker of sympathy in her eyes, Butterfly rested a hand on his shoulder.
He jerked his head up at her touch. “Io!” he shouted, his voice shrill with desperation. “This is for you!”
He thrust a finger through the trigger-guard and squeezed against Butterfly’s finger. The trigger clicked. The muzzle flashed. Pain raced through Butterfly’s wrist as the gun recoiled. A swirl of crows fled the treetops as the gunshot echoed through the woods. Butterfly wrenched her hand away from the Glock, stumbling and falling to her backside. Her eyes bulged at Phil. The gamekeeper was lying on his back, clutching his chest. Blood was welling between his fingers. His breath was rattling like an empty spray paint can. His lips were working like a fish out of water. There was more than enough fear in his eyes now.
Karl stared at the wounded man as if mesmerised. Butterfly’s fingers closed around a tennis-ball sized stone. Almost before she realised what she was doing, she was springing to her feet and swinging her hand at Karl. The stone connected with the side of his head. His eyes widening in pain and surprise, he staggered and fell on top of Phil. He tried to get up, but Phil’s hands were suddenly on his throat, squeezing. Karl thrust the Glock up under Phil’s chin and pulled the trigger again. Phil’s head jerked back against the ground, a torrent of blood gushing from his nostrils.
Butterfly didn’t wait around to see what happened next. She dashed around to the far side of the car, jerked the door open and fumbled at the straps securing Charlie. For a second that seemed like
an eternity, the straps refused to click loose. Then, almost sobbing with relief, she was lifting Charlie into her arms, turning and fleeing through the farm gate.
“Io!” Karl’s voice rang out behind her.
She didn’t look back to see if he was chasing her. She concentrated on running and not tripping over. A footpath climbed a grassy slope, veering rightwards towards a line of trees. Upon reaching the trees, she saw another open expanse of grass beyond them. She left the track, working her way uphill, using the trees for cover. Charlie squirmed and cried in her arms.
“Shh,” she soothed breathlessly.
Sweat was stinging her eyes and her lungs were burning by the time she reached the brow of the hill. The trees led to a hawthorn hedge, beyond which there was a gravel farm track. Shielding Charlie from the thorns, she squirmed on her elbows and knees through a hole in the hedge.
“Io!” Karl’s voice echoed again, sounding farther away, but nowhere near far enough.
Butterfly peered through the hedge. Her heart kicked hard as she caught sight of him staggering through the trees. One side of his face was streaked with blood. Staying hunched low, she ran along a lane that cut a straight line between fields of grazing sheep. She’d gone maybe eighty metres when she came to a farm gate on her left. Karl would be in the lane any second now. She clambered over the gate and made her way along the inside of the hedge.
Charlie let out another wail. Butterfly shushed him, but it was too late.
“Io stop!” yelled Karl, leaping over the gate. “I love you.”
Butterfly desperately scanned her surroundings. Fifty or sixty metres away, trees marched along the far side of the field. It looked to be the edge of a larger wood. If she could make it there, maybe she could lose Karl. Fighting for oxygen, she put on a burst of speed. Halfway across the field, she threw a glance over her shoulder. Karl was about twenty metres behind her and, unburdened by a ten-month-old child, gaining fast.
Panic pounding in her chest, Butterfly veered towards a hedge on her right. She aimed for a gap, spotting at the last instant that it was filled by a sagging barbed wire fence. She scissored her legs over the wire, twisting an ankle and falling. The breath whooshed from her lungs as she landed on her back in the lane. She lay too winded to move. As Karl tried to hurdle the wire, his jeans snagged on a barb. He grimaced, exclaiming, “Fuck.”
Charlie kicked his legs, bawling at the top of his lungs. The sound crackled through Butterfly like an electric current, giving her the strength to clamber to her feet. Pain speared her ankle as she set off in a limping run. The lane curved towards a farm gate that led to a dusty, mud-encrusted farmyard. A tractor and a Landrover were parked between a white farmhouse and a stone barn with a sagging slate roof. A sense of déjà vu struck Butterfly so powerfully that it almost stopped her in her tracks. She’d been here before. She knew it with absolute certainty.
The next second she saw the sign on the gate – ‘Bray Farm’. A gasp of relief escaped her. It seemed the Brays were destined to always be her saviours.
She pulled a loop of rope up over the gatepost, shoved the gate open and ran for the farmhouse. A collie dog nosed open the front door. Was it the same dog that had run out to greet Tracy? No, that dog would have died years ago. The dog skittered off to one side as Butterfly staggered into the house. She slammed the door behind herself, frantically looking for a key. There was a bolt! She slapped it into place and allowed herself a second to haul in a ragged breath and shush Charlie. She flinched as the collie jumped up to press its nose against a window, barking furiously.
She turned and found herself in a kitchen with a rectangular scarred wooden table surrounded by four mismatched chairs at its centre. The table was laid with cutlery and plates for two. Wellies were lined up on the flagstones next to the door. Flames flickered in a stone fireplace. Logs were stacked in a wicker basket on the sooty hearth. A threadbare armchair and a dog basket were drawn up to the fireplace. Clothes hung drying from a ceiling airer above the mantelpiece. Dozens of red-white-and-blue rosettes were pinned to the ceiling beams. Pans of vegetables and potatoes bubbled atop a big old Rayburn. The sweet aroma of roasting lamb filled the air.
“Hello,” shouted Butterfly, heading for a door at the far side of the kitchen. “Is anyone here?”
The question met with silence.
The door led to a gloomy hallway wallpapered with more rosettes and photos of prize-winning sheep and lambs. To Butterfly’s left, uncarpeted stairs rose into gloom. To her right was a closed door. Ahead, an open door looked onto a living-room with a beamed ceiling. A shabby three-piece-suite strewn with multi-coloured woollen blankets faced an ancient-looking television. The late afternoon sun slanted into the room through small windows deeply recessed in thick exposed stone walls.
Butterfly tried the closed door. A breath of cold, damp air caressed her face. The door opened onto steep stone steps leading down into a dark basement. Her eyes darting around in search of a phone, she went into the living-room. Her gaze lingered on a mug of steaming tea balanced on an arm of the sofa. Someone had recently been in the room.
“Hello,” she shouted again, turning to climb the stairs. The thick walls seemed to swallow her voice.
The stairs led to a rectangular landing with five doors. Two were open. She glanced into a dated but clean bathroom with a deep cast-iron bath, a ceramic sink and a toilet with a high-flush cistern. Beyond the second open door was an unused-looking bedroom – metal-framed single bed with a bare mattress, blank bookshelves and an empty dressing table. There were faint, dusty outlines where pictures had been removed from the white plaster walls. It was as if the room had been stripped of every trace of occupation after someone died in there.
Butterfly opened the neighbouring door and squinted into a darkened room. Sunlight probed at the edges of closed curtains, dimly illuminating floorboards partially covered by a sheepskin rug. The room was stuffily warm. Embers glowed in a cast-iron fireplace. In front of the fireplace was a double bed draped with blankets and a pink eiderdown.
Butterfly’s heart gave a lurch. There was someone in the bed! The shape of their body moulded beneath the sheets was visible, but their head was hidden from view.
“I’m sorry to come into your house like this,” she said, stepping into the room, “but I need to phone the po–” She broke off, her forehead furrowing.
She recognised the man in the bed from the case file photos, but only just barely. The years had not been kind to Alistair Bray. His once dark hair was now grey. His hollow, clean-shaven cheeks were almost as ashen as his hair. His eyes were so sunken that Butterfly thought at first that they were closed. As she neared the bed, she saw that he was staring at the ceiling. His pupils were so blank that she might have mistaken him for a corpse if not for the faint rise and fall of his chest.
“Mr Bray.” She spoke quietly, like someone at a dying man’s bedside.
He showed no sign of having heard. She moved her hands over his eyes. He didn’t blink. His pupils remained fixed on the ceiling or, perhaps like her grandma’s, on some place that only he could see. She stared down at the catatonic man, wondering what had done this to him. A stroke? Some sort of breakdown? Her gaze travelled around the room – no phone – before coming to land on Alistair again. Sadness glimmered in her eyes for the man who had once helped her.
She left the room, crossing the landing to open one of the final two doors. Her forehead creased again, this time with bemusement. A single bed was made up with a faded Transformers duvet and pillowcase. A gang of worn-out teddy bears occupied the pillow. The walls were plastered with posters of muscular action heroes – Rambo, Rocky, Conan the Barbarian – and cartoons – Duck Tales, Rugrats, The Simpsons. Occupying pride of position above the bedhead was a picture of a pointy-hatted silhouette flying through a moonlit sky. ‘Never Grow Up’ was emblazoned across a huge moon.
In contrast to the childish décor, the clothes strewn over the bed and floorboards appeared to belong to an
adult male – long-legged jeans, XX-sized chequered shirts. Butterfly almost tripped over a set of dumbbells as she approached a dark wood wardrobe. She opened the wardrobe. It too contained a man’s clothes.
It was as if the room was simultaneously occupied by a young child, a teenager and an adult.
Her gaze shifted to a bookshelf. Books on sheep farming – ‘The Veterinary Book for Sheep Farmers’, ‘Sheep Farming for Meat & Wool’ – were mixed in with children’s books – ‘The Wind in the Willows’, ‘Winnie the Pooh’, ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit’.
Her eyes stopped on a well-read book. The lines on her forehead intensified. Slowly, almost reverently, she traced a finger down the book’s cracked spine. She withdrew it and looked at the picture of the running gingerbread man on its cover. Something fell out from between the book’s pages and landed with a metallic clatter on the floorboards. Nestling Charlie against her hip, she crouched to retrieve the object. Her eyes grew as big as the moon on the poster. In her palm lay a silver necklace with a jigsaw piece shaped pendant on it. ‘Big Sis’ was engraved into the pendant.
Her fingers cold with sweat, Butterfly took out her ‘Little Sis’ pendant and put the two puzzle pieces together. They fitted perfectly!
Her head snapped around at the sound of a floorboard creaking. Before she could see who was creeping up on her, something slammed into her head. Pain exploded in her temples. Then she was collapsing down into darkness as deep as a mineshaft.
Chapter 24
“They’re just dragging the bottom of the pond,” Eric informed Jack upon picking up the phone. “Nothing to report as yet.”
“That’s not why I’m calling,” said Jack. “I’m on my way to Bray Farm. I need you to meet me there ASAP.”
“Why?”
“I think it was Neal.”