Who Is She?

by Ben Cheetham

  The woman reappeared, motioning them inside. She led them along a hallway decorated with more apocalyptic paintings. Jack detected the sweet tang of cannabis underlying the incense. Steve gave him an I told you so nudge. The smell intensified as they entered a large, high-ceilinged room. Flames crackled in a tall stone fireplace. Chopped logs were stacked carelessly against the fireplace’s ornate wooden surround. Clusters of joss-sticks sent spirals of smoke into the air. The parquet floor was strewn with rag-rugs. Tie-dye throws and blankets were draped over a trio of shabby sofas. Sunlight seeped hazily through more tie-dyed sheets pinned over the windows. The music came from an old stereo system with tapes and records scattered around it. ‘PEACE? LOVE?’ had been daubed in six-foot-high letters on one wall and ‘The land will be REBORN from its own ashes’ on another.

  A man with a scraggly blonde beard and matching hair tied into a top-knot – perhaps to conceal the bald-spot Barbara had alluded to – was reclining on a sofa. A frayed dressing gown, loosely tied at the waist threatened to expose more than Jack wanted to see. The man’s scrawny legs were hooked over the back of the sofa. One of his paint-stained hands trailed towards an overflowing ashtray on the floor. He lethargically raised his other hand to wave hello, his lips curving into a smile that was neither friendly nor unfriendly. “Welcome to our waiting place,” he said. He wasn’t handsome – beaky nose, sunken cheeks, pock-marked skin – but neither was he as ugly as Barbara had made him out to be. His eyes were a warm brown and his Liverpudlian voice was soothingly mellow, more Paul McCartney than Cilla Black.

  “What are you waiting for?” Jack couldn’t resist but ask.

  “The end of the world. What else?” the man replied as if it was the most obvious thing imaginable, lazily lifting a rollup to his lips.

  Steve sniffed. “Is that a joint?”

  “No.”

  “Mind if I have a drag?”

  “Go ahead.” The man held out his roll-up.

  Steve stooped to take a drag. “Tobacco,” he said to Jack.

  “See, my friends, we have nothing to hide here.” The man wafted a hand towards the other sofas. “Sit. Relax. Would you like something to drink? Dandelion wine? Tastes like piss, but it’ll blow your socks off.”

  “No thanks,” said Jack, remaining standing.

  The man shrugged. “Suit yourselves.” He gestured languidly to the woman and she left the room.

  “Can I ask your name please?”

  “Phoenix.”

  “What’s your real name?” put in Steve.

  “That’s the only name I’ve got.”

  “Do you have any ID?”

  “ID?” Phoenix laughed as if the question was absurd. “ID is a badge of slavery. We’ve thrown off those shackles here.”

  “How many are there living here?” asked Jack.

  Phoenix puffed thoughtfully on his roll-up. “Twenty one... I think.”

  “You think?”

  “Hey man, I don’t keep count. People come, people go. You know how it is.”

  Jack eyed the reclining man intently. “Not really.”

  Phoenix laughed again. “You guys are all the same. So uptight. No wonder you all get cancer and heart disease.”

  “You’ve had dealings with the police before?” said Steve.

  “Sure. People like us make the authorities nervous. People who see the truth they work so hard to hide.”

  “And what is the truth?” asked Jack.

  “That it’s all ready to come crashing down. Not just this country. The entire world.” Phoenix broke off as the woman returned with a glass of misty yellow liquid. She handed it to him and sat down cross-legged on the floor. He sipped his drink and stroked her braided hair. “Tell them how it is, Willow.”

  “We’re building a better life away from the polluting influences of the corporate world,” she said, her voice soft and sure, as if she was reeling out a well-rehearsed speech. “Soon that world will eat itself. When the end comes, we’ll be ready.”

  “You don’t look very ready,” said Steve, glancing out of a window at the failed crops.

  “You’re not listening,” said Phoenix, sitting up, his voice suddenly taking on a deep, resonant timbre. “Open your ears. This is about purity. When the physical body dies, the soul must be pure so that the astral body can progress upwards to the next level. Do you feel what I’m telling you?”

  “Oh yeah, sure, I feel it,” replied Steve, sliding Jack a sardonic glance.

  Phoenix’s intensity faded back to a serene smile. “OK, my man, but don’t say you weren’t warned.” He lay down and resumed stroking Willow’s hair. The smile didn’t falter as Jack showed him Butterfly’s photo. “I’ve no idea who she is, but I dig her tattoo. What happened to her?”

  “Someone shot her and stole her baby.”

  Phoenix shook his head. “It’s a sick, sick world. What’s any of this got to do with us?”

  “The woman claims she was here. She mentioned someone fitting your description,” bluffed Jack, watching every movement of Phoenix’s face.

  Phoenix’s eyes widened. “Really? That’s crazy, man. What did she say about me?”

  “Not much.”

  “Well we’ll send her some meta.”

  “Meta?” said Steve.

  In reply, Phoenix closed his eyes and took several slow deep breaths. He stretched a hand towards Butterfly’s photo, saying softly, “May she be safe from further harm. May her injuries heal swiftly. May she be filled with peace and happiness.” He inhaled deeply again, then opened his eyes and explained, “It’s the energy of change. We all have a limitless supply of it within us. You’ve just got to break through the blockages of anger and fear and set it free.”

  “Set it free,” Willow parroted like someone listening to an evangelical preacher.

  Jack showed her the photo. She shook her head.

  “Who knows, maybe she passed through here once,” said Phoenix. “Like I said, people are free to come and go as they please. All are welcome so long as they leave the world at the gates.”

  “We need to speak to everyone who lives here.”

  Phoenix sighed, betraying the faintest trace of annoyance. “Gather them together,” he said to Willow.

  She rose to leave the room again. As they waited, Phoenix drank his dandelion wine and rolled another cigarette. Steve seated himself on an unoccupied sofa. Jack wandered around, listening to the silence. You could learn a lot from silence. Phoenix looked relaxed, but there was a restless intensity about the way he rolled his cigarette. As if he needed to keep himself busy. Jack noticed too that the glass of wine was nearly empty. Was Phoenix trying to lubricate away anxiety?

  Steve lit a cigarette of his own. “You don’t mind do you?”

  Phoenix made a go ahead gesture. He seemed to have lost his taste for sermonising. Perhaps his nerves were getting the better of him.

  Jack chanced his hand at another bluff. “Several people in the area say they’ve seen the woman hereabouts.”

  “You keep calling her the woman,” said Phoenix. “Doesn’t she have a name?”

  This one’s not only a cool customer, he’s got the nous to back it up, thought Jack. “Her injuries have affected her memory. But it’s returning, little by little.”

  Phoenix flopped back against the cushions, puffing on his roll-up. “Did you know The Lake District is the most visited national park in Britain? Over twenty million people a year come on holiday here.”

  Steve smiled humourlessly. Jack could see his colleague was itching to make some retort along the lines of, Clever bastard, aren’t you? “Quite the pad you’ve got here, Phoenix.” Steve said the name with a faintly mocking emphasis. “Is it yours?”

  Phoenix stared at Steve as if he was well aware the detective wasn’t playing straight with him. “We’re just travellers passing through.”

  “So in plain old English, you’re renting this place. I’m curious, how does someone like you afford a gaff like this?”


  “It’s mind-blowing what can be achieved if people come together in pursuit of a single purpose.”

  “Tell me about it.” Steve held Phoenix’s gaze. “Right now there are about thirty detectives and god knows how many constables and forensic officers putting their heads together to try to crack this case. I say try, but really there’s no doubt about it. We will crack this case. And the scumbags responsible are going to prison for a long time. And they’ll count themselves lucky.” Steve leant forwards, his eyes flat and hard. “Because if I had my way I’d put a bullet in each and every one of them and bury them in an unmarked grave. Just like they did to that woman.”

  Staring straight back at Steve, Phoenix shook his head slowly. “It fills my heart with sadness to hear you talking like that, Steve.” There was something so soulfully earnest about his words that Jack momentarily found himself wondering whether he truly meant them.

  The illusion was dispelled as Phoenix asked somewhat disingenuously, “Is it OK if I call you Steve?”

  “I don’t care what you call me,” replied Steve. “As long as you tell me the truth.”

  “The truth. That’s what we’re all about here, Steve. Do you wish me to tell you the truth about yourself?”

  Steve made a be my guest motion.

  “You’ve got children, haven’t you?”

  Steve’s silence was as good as a yes.

  “You’re a good man, but you’re full of hate,” continued Phoenix. “Hate for yourself for letting your children down. Hate for your ex-wife for leaving you. But most of all, hate for what society has done to you. You’ve given your life to your job and what has it given you in return? A broken family. Loneliness. The sins of the father shall be visited upon the children. That’s what your God says. Is that what you want for your children? Do you want them to feel that same hate?”

  Steve raised his hands, knuckles outwards. “You’re right, there did used to be a ring on my finger. And you’re right about some other stuff too. But you’re wrong about my job. There’s nothing I find more satisfying than getting these hands on lowlifes. Especially the kind of lowlifes that would steal a baby from its mother’s arms.”

  Steve’s voice was controlled, but Jack could tell Phoenix had got to him. He sensed that one or two more well-aimed observations might provoke Steve into doing something rash. His mind raced for something to say to diffuse the situation. All he could think of was, “What happened to your pig?”

  Phoenix either didn’t hear or simply ignored him. “You’ve been sold a lie, Steve. There’s no such thing as God or justice. Once you open your eyes to that truth, you’ll see there’s no need for judgement. And where there is no judgement, there is no hate. There is only love.”

  Steve’s lips twisted. “And you certainly like to spread your love around, don’t you? How many women have you got living here? One for every day of the week, is it?”

  Phoenix gave another sympathetic shake of his head. “There you go again, Steve. Judging.”

  Steve’s voice jumped up a few notches. “You’re damn right I’m judging. Shack up with as many women as you want. I couldn’t give a toss. But when you start–”

  Jack opened his mouth to interject. Throwing around accusations they couldn’t back up with hard evidence was ammunition for a defence lawyer to claim the police were personally biased against the suspect. Before he could speak, the house’s other inhabitants trooped into the room. First came Willow, followed by thirteen silent children. At the back of the line were six more women wearing homemade-looking clothes, their hair braided and dreadlocked, their faces free from makeup. They were an assortment of sizes – short, tall, slim, chubby – but all of them wore the same deadpan expression. Two were heavily pregnant.

  They lined up behind Phoenix in two orderly ranks of ten. Laying his hands on their heads like a priest giving absolution, he reeled off their names, “This is Peace, Sky, Dharma, Krishna, Rebel, Rowan, Freedom, Star, Sun, Moon...” When he’d introduced them all, he added, “Children, these two men are detectives from Manchester. That’s a big city far away from here. They’re here to ask us some questions. There’s no need to be afraid. Just tell them the truth.”

  Jack watched for any little signals Phoenix might give the children. There was nothing that he could see besides the laying on of hands. The detectives worked their way along the lines, showing Butterfly’s photo. In response, they received twenty shakes of heads. Jack looked intently into each woman and child’s eyes, but saw nothing to suggest they were nervous or hiding something.

  “Have there been any additions to the household this week?” he asked them all.

  A collective shake of heads.

  Jack smiled at a girl who didn’t shy away from his gaze. “A new little brother or sister?”

  She stared at him silently, her eyes as unblinking as a rabbit’s.

  “Not that I’m aware of,” Phoenix answered for her. He cupped a hand against one of the pregnant women’s bellies. “But there will be soon.”

  “And is that a good thing?” asked Steve. “I mean if the world’s such a terrible place, why would you want to bring so many children into it?”

  Phoenix swept a hand towards his brood. “These children will populate the new world. They will show the way to those who are lost.”

  Lost. There was that word again. Had Butterfly been lost? wondered Jack. If so, and assuming she’d come here, she seemingly hadn’t found what she was looking for.

  Openly rolling his eyes, Steve took out his phone and made to photograph the group.

  His smile faltering, Phoenix put up his palms. “No photos”.

  “Why not?”

  “Because my children are not and never will be tracked by your databases. And because this is my house and what I say here goes.”

  Steve lowered his phone. Smile returning, Phoenix made a gentle shoo motion. The motley platoon filed from the room.

  “Those are well-behaved kids,” said Steve. “You’ve got them under your spell. That’s for sure.”

  “There’s no magic to it, Steve,” said Phoenix. “Society teaches that if you give children too much freedom they will never learn to respect one another. But in truth it’s the other way around. It isn’t possible to have too much freedom. Just like it isn’t possible to be half-free. You’re either a slave or not. Which would you rather be?”

  There was no irony in Phoenix’s voice. He seemed to either not care or be unaware of the glaring contradiction between his homespun philosophising and his words of a moment earlier.

  “I’ll tell you what I know is true, Phoenix. If someone tells you something is free, you can bet your right bollock they’re scamming you. Everything costs something.”

  The two men stared at each other. Neither was smiling now. “Do you need anything else from us?” Phoenix asked, keeping up his friendly tone.

  “Not for now. Thanks for your time.”

  “No problem, my friends. I’ve enjoyed speaking to you. I hope you find whoever or whatever you’re looking for.”

  Phoenix showed them to the front door. He filled his lungs with the chill November air. “What a beautiful day for the world to end.” He looked from Steve to Jack, saying, “Peace and love. Peace and love.”

  As the detectives returned to the car, Steve showed Jack the sly photo he’d taken of Phoenix and his brood. Not bothering to conceal what he was doing, he photographed the house and gardens too, ranting, “Peace and love my arse. Fucking charlatan hypocrite. God, I would love to slap the bullshit out of him. And what about those women? Why do they fall for that shit? Are they all morons, or what?”

  “They’re just people like you and me,” said Jack, Butterfly’s face rising into his mind. “They’re looking for the same things as all of us – friendship, security, a purpose in life.”

  “Then join the fucking army, not some batshit end of the world cult.” Steve glanced from side to side. The children were back amongst the trees, darting from trunk to trunk.
“The way those kids behaved... Brainwashed, the lot of ’em.”

  “They were expecting us. That whole scene in there felt rehearsed.”

  “Too bloody right it was rehearsed. I’ll tell you what we should do. We should get a search warrant and turn this place upside down.”