Who Is She?

by Ben Cheetham

  “That’s it, Jack,” said Ryan. “Show me how strong you are.”

  Jack gave no sign of having heard. Ryan wanted him to suffer for as long as possible. Jack was willing to oblige, but he was done giving the bastard the satisfaction of any response. His eyes lifted to Laura. She was shaking all over. The shaking subsided as she returned his gaze. A sense of stillness swept over Jack too. It was as if they were drawing strength from each other.

  “Shall we go for number three?” Ryan suggested as if Jack had a choice.

  This time Jack really didn’t hear him. His heart was banging out that crazy beat again. Something was moving in the shadows behind Laura. Or were his eyes playing tricks on him? He blinked to clear the tears from them. No. There it was again. The AFOs were here!

  A figure emerged from the shadows. It wasn’t an armed officer.

  Chapter 37

  It was all Jack could do to stop his jaw from falling slack. Butterfly! She was wearing the tracksuit he’d bought her. Her face was pale, but her eyes were gleaming with resolve. She was gripping an iron bar. As Ryan positioned the bolt-cutters against the next toe, she padded towards him.

  What the hell was she doing? Why hadn’t she called the police?

  There was no time to ponder the questions. Jack had to make enough noise to cover her footfalls. “Please don’t!” he cried. “Please, I can’t take anymore! Just finish me off. Put a bullet in my head.”

  A frown pulled at Ryan’s forehead. He gave Jack a reassessing look as if wondering whether he’d misjudged him.

  Butterfly was only a few steps away. She raised the bar over her head. It was steady in her hands.

  “Kill me,” continued Jack, “Just kill me.”

  Ryan shook his head, seemingly more in disappointment than in response to Jack’s plea. His gaze returned to Jack’s toe. Laura flinched but didn’t make a sound as Butterfly glided past her. Butterfly was close enough now that Jack could see wiry threads of muscle standing out on her neck. He tensed as the steel jaws closed against his toe. At the same instant, Butterfly brought the bar down swiftly and surely. There was a crunch as it connected with the crown of Ryan’s head. He dropped the bolt-cutters and staggered sideways, but managed to stay upright. Butterfly hit him again. This time he keeled over, blood streaming down his face. He crawled forwards, reaching for the table to pull himself up. Butterfly aimed a third blow at the centre of his back. He collapsed onto his face, straining to suck air into his winded lungs.

  “Don’t move or I’ll split your skull wide open!” warned Butterfly. Her eyes darted around as if looking for something and came to rest on the table. She grabbed the zip-ties and set about securing Ryan’s wrists and ankles with them.

  “Cut me loose,” urged Jack.

  Ignoring him, Butterfly moved away into the shadows.

  “What are you doing?” he called after her. “Talk to me, Butterfly.”

  She returned with a third chair. Jack had a queasy feeling that he knew the answer to his question as she struggled to lift Ryan into the chair. Head lolling, Ryan slipped through her grip like melted cheese. She gave up and plonked herself down on the chair, breathing heavily.

  “If you’re doing what I think you’re doing, please don’t,” pleaded Jack, trying to catch her eyes.

  Butterfly stared at her lap as if she couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze. “Why shouldn’t I?” she asked quietly.

  “He’s going to prison for the rest of his life. He’ll never hurt anyone again.”

  “What about Charlie?”

  “He’ll tell us where Charlie is. I’ll make him. But it has to be done the right way.”

  A knot formed between Butterfly’s eyebrows. Her gaze slid across to Ryan. He stared back at her with a blank challenge in his eyes. She shook her head. “You can’t make him talk, Jack, but I can.”

  Sucking in a breath like someone about to dive into deep water, she moved to untie Ryan’s shoelaces. He didn’t struggle.

  “Please, Butterfly,” said Jack. “This isn’t you.”

  “How do you know?” she asked without looking at him.

  “Because I… I…” Jack stumbled over his words, realising he had no answer.

  “But you know who I really am, don’t you?” Butterfly said to Ryan. “I can see it in your eyes. You know what I’m capable of.”

  Ryan blinked, just once, but it was all the answer she needed. She set aside his shoes and reached for the bolt-cutters.

  “You asked me to teach you to be good,” Jack said in desperation as she opened the steel jaws and slid them into place. “So let me show you there’s another way to do this.”

  Butterfly stared at Ryan. He returned her stare stonily as if to say, Go on then. Do it.

  “Where’s my baby?” she asked with only the faintest tremor in her voice.

  Ryan remained silent.

  “Where’s my baby?” repeated Butterfly. “I won’t ask again.”

  Silence.

  “Don’t,” implored Jack.

  “I’m sorry, Jack,” Butterfly replied and she brought the handles together.

  Ryan’s little toe popped off like a cork. He arched his back, letting out a high-pitched scream.

  “Oh Christ, Butterfly,” groaned Jack. He jerked his gaze to Laura as if she might be able to help him convince Butterfly to stop this madness. Seemingly reading the appeal in his eyes, Laura gave a sad little shake of her head.

  Butterfly didn’t bother with the blowtorch. She simply moved on to the adjacent toe. “Where’s my baby?” There wasn’t even the faintest tremor in her voice now. There was only the promise of more pain.

  Clawing back his composure, Ryan fixed his eyes on her again. His face was a mass of agonised twitches, but there was still a challenge in his eyes. Butterfly’s thin arms flexed against the handles. Another scream raked the air as the jaws sliced through bone. A dark urine stain spread down Ryan’s trouser legs.

  “Stop!” shouted Jack. “Stop or we’ll never be together.”

  She met his gaze, her eyes deep wells of sadness. “I love you, Jack. But Charlie has to come first. You understand, don’t you?”

  “Yes but…” Jack trailed off resignedly. If it was Naomi missing, he’d have torn apart the world to find her.

  Butterfly returned her attention to Ryan. “Where’s my baby?”

  The question drew a whimper from him. Stifling it, he stared at the roof, his eyes glazed with tears. Butterfly reversed the bolt-cutters so that they rested against his big toe. She pushed the handles together, her arms trembling as the blades struggled to bite through the thicker bone. Ryan screamed and writhed, trying to pull his toe free. Butterfly held on with grim determination.

  The screaming seemed to go on and on without pause for breath, rising to an ever more excruciating pitch. If Jack’s hands had been free, he would have jammed his fingers into his ears. Butterfly’s tattoo was distorted into a meaningless shape. Her lips were compressed so tightly as to be almost invisible. But her eyes looked to have swollen to twice their normal size. He saw nothing of the woman he wanted to spend his life with.

  The scream formed itself into a just barely comprehensible word. “Kavanagh!”

  Butterfly released Ryan’s toe. It dangled by a few shreds of tendon and skin. “What did you say?”

  “Kavanagh,” Ryan repeated, spittle flecking his lips. “He… he’s the man we sold your baby to.”

  For a moment, Butterfly stood in stunned silence. “Who is he?” Now there was fear in her voice. Such fear that Jack could feel it radiating from her. “Is he… Is he a…” She couldn’t bear to say what was in her mind, but the words were etched into her eyes, Is he some sort of pervert?

  “He’s some bigshot businessman from London.” Ryan hauled in a ragged breath and went on, “He wanted a red-haired baby. That’s all I know.”

  Butterfly thrust the bolt-cutters at him menacingly. “You must know more. Where does he live? What’s his first name? Is my baby alive or
, or…” She trailed off again into agonised silence.

  “The only other thing I can tell you is your baby’s a boy.”

  “A boy,” Butterfly murmured to herself. In the space of a breath, her expression shifted from savage to tender and back. She put down the bolt-cutters and picked up a knife. “Tell me why I shouldn’t stick this in you?”

  “Because we’ve got a name,” put in Jack. “That’s all we need to find your son.”

  “In which case I don’t need this piece of shit alive any longer.”

  “But what if Kavanagh isn’t this businessman’s real name?” Jack jerked his chin at Ryan. “Or what if he’s lying?”

  “I’m not lying,” Ryan protested. “I swear on the lives of my kids.”

  Butterfly’s eyes flitted uncertainly between Ryan and Jack. She took out her iPhone and tapped at its screen. She showed a page of photos to Ryan. A Google search box read ‘Kavanagh + London businessman’. There were several photos of a thirty-something, trendily dressed man drinking champagne and stepping out of nightclubs with different women on his arm. “Is that him?”

  “No.”

  Butterfly scrolled down to an older, more conservatively dressed man outside a modern business premises. “What about him?” Another no. The next few photos were of a clean cut forty-something man, tall, slim and always smiling. He looked about as unlikely a criminal as was imaginable. In one photo he was perched on the bonnet of a flashy car. In another he was piloting a helicopter over a sprawling city. In a third he was wearing a dinner suit and bow tie. His arm was wrapped around the waist of a beautiful woman with long auburn hair who looked to be about a decade younger than him.

  “That’s him,” said Ryan.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  Butterfly slumped onto the chair again as if she’d reached the end of her strength. She followed a link to an article in a business e-zine and read aloud, “Say hello to Mark Kavanagh. The most successful entrepreneur you’ve never heard of. Mark, the owner of Kavanagh Limited, an international building materials company operating out of Guildford, admits he has always shied away from the public eye. But that all changed last week when he became a new entrant in our annual rich list with an estimated wealth of one hundred and eight million pounds.”

  “We’ve got him,” said Jack.

  Butterfly glanced at Ryan’s Range Rover. “Where are the keys?”

  “In the–” Ryan started to answer.

  Guessing her intention, Jack interjected, “There’s no need for you to do anything else, Butterfly. We’ll get your son back for you.”

  “Don’t trust them,” slurred Ryan, his eyes rolling as he floundered on the edge of consciousness. “They’re murderers.”

  “You know you can trust me,” said Jack.

  Butterfly turned to him with those heart-breaking eyes he’d been falling in love with since the first time he looked into them. “I do trust you, Jack, but what if Kavanagh has sold Charlie to someone else?”

  “Kavanagh sells bricks not babies. Look at that woman in the photo with him. Her hair is almost identical to yours. I bet she’s infertile. Or he is. Either way, they wanted a baby they could pass off as their own.”

  Butterfly’s eyes returned to Ryan. “Is that why he wanted my baby?”

  “I told you, I don’t know,” he said. “He paid up and we went our separate ways.”

  Her eyes glittered as if she was reconsidering whether to stick the knife into Ryan. “That’s all that matters to you, isn’t it? Money. How much was my son’s life worth?”

  “Fifty grand.”

  “Fifty grand,” murmured Butterfly. “All this for fifty grand.”

  “It was just business. No one would have got hurt if you hadn’t done what you did.”

  Butterfly winced as if the words were knives slicing into her. “You’re saying I knew what you planned to do with Charlie. What type of person would sell their own baby?” The question was dripping with self-loathing.

  “But Tracy didn’t go through with it,” put in Jack.

  “Tracy,” Butterfly spat out the name as if it was too bitter to swallow. “Don’t ever say that name to me again. Tracy Ridley is dead. She wasn’t capable of love. I am and I will get Charlie back.” Her eyes jerked to Ryan. “Keys?”

  “In the ignition.” Ryan’s voice was faint. There was so much blood around him it was hard to believe he had any left in his body.

  “Gun?”

  “Glove compartment.”

  “Wait,” exclaimed Jack as Butterfly headed for the Range Rover. “You’re not strong enough to drive down to London.”

  “I made it here,” Butterfly replied over her shoulder. She ducked into the vehicle and emerged with the keys and Glock.

  “Do you even know how to drive?” asked Jack.

  “I guess we’ll find out.” She took out the gun’s magazine, checked it was loaded, pulled back the slide. A round popped out. She slid it into the magazine, reinserted the magazine and released the slide. “Seems like I know how to use one of these.” She gave a contemptuous laugh. “You find out something new about yourself every day.”

  “You don’t know where Kavanagh lives. People like him don’t put their address online.”

  “Which is why you’re going to find it out for me.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  Butterfly pointed the Glock at Ryan. “Because otherwise I’ll kill him.”

  Jack stared into her eyes. There was no bluff in them. “You’ll spend the rest of your life in prison.”

  “I’ll take that if it means Charlie’s safe. Please, Jack, every second we stand here arguing my Charlie could be…” Her voice snagged on the thought of what Charlie might be going through. “I’m going to count to three. One… Two…”

  Whimpering, Ryan curled into a tight ball.

  “Alright, alright,” exclaimed Jack. He heaved a sigh. “I need a phone.”

  Butterfly swiftly moved behind Jack and cut his hands free. Groaning with relief at the release of pressure on his shoulder, he rubbed the feeling back into his wrists. Butterfly proffered her phone. “Just find out the address. Don’t say anything about anything else,” she warned.

  Jack dialled Steve. It was nearly four o’clock. Only an hour had passed since he left the hospital. He’d been through a lifetime of pain in that short time. His thoughts suddenly turned to Naomi. Was she still waiting for him in the schoolyard? She wouldn’t have been allowed to leave on her own. Wherever she was, she would be worried.

  Steve’s gruff voice came on the line. “Hello?”

  Jack forced himself to focus on the task at hand. “It’s me.”

  “Jack. What’s up?”

  “Are you at HQ?”

  “Yeah, but not for much longer, thank fuck. I’m gasping for a–”

  “Listen, Steve, I need a favour.”

  Steve’s voice took on a note of concerned curiosity. “You alright? You sound stressed.”

  That’s because I’m in fucking agony, Jack felt like retorting. He was soaked through with sweat from the pain in his foot. “Yeah, I’m good. I need you to run a name for me. Mark Kavanagh.”

  “Who the hell is Mark Kavanagh?”

  “I’ll explain later.”

  “Does this have anything to do with–”

  “Just do it will you, Steve,” Jack interrupted sharply.

  “OK, keep your hair on. Bloody hell.” There was the sound of tapping keys. “There are one, two, three… Forty six Mark Kavanagh’s in the system.”

  “This one’s in his forties, Caucasian, brown hair, medium height, slim build. He might have previous.”

  There was another pause, then Steve came back on the line. “How about this? Mark Kavanagh. Forty-two. Lives in Carlisle?”

  “No. This Mark probably lives down near London. Possibly in Guildford.”

  “Erm… Ah, here we go, I think we’ve got a winner. Mark Kavanagh. Warwick’s Bench Road, Guildford. Forty-
seven. He’s clean except for a couple of points on his licence. Spouse: Suzanne Kavanagh, thirty-one and drop dead gorgeous. I’d say Mark’s batting well above his average.”