The Spider's Web

by Ben Cheetham

  ‘Nothing is true,’ Gavin stated with flat certainty. ‘That is the only truth.’

  Keeping an iron grip on Emily with one hand, he drove to the garage and pulled inside it. He shoved Emily out of the van and she saw that the garage sheltered a white motorhome. He dragged Emily through a door into the motorhome’s living area, which was kitted out with a right-angled sofa, an electric heater and a television on a wall bracket. To the left was a small kitchen with a cooker, fridge, cupboards and drawers. Beyond that a ladder led up to a bed perched over the driver’s and passenger’s seats.

  Gavin forced Emily down onto the sofa. From an overhead cupboard he took out a roll of duct tape and two pairs of plastic zip-lock handcuffs. Emily’s head was clearer now. There was a dead, throbbing sensation in her hip and leg, and her right wrist felt badly sprained from being bent back by the gate. With or without the injuries, she knew she had no chance of fighting off Gavin. Even so, she instinctively tried to push him away.

  ‘Please, Emily,’ he said. ‘Don’t make this any harder than it needs to be.’

  ‘Help!’ she screamed again as he flipped her onto her stomach and twisted her arms up behind her. The plastic cuffs bit into her wrists as he drew them tight. He pulled off her pumps and did the same to her ankles, then rolled her back over. She thrashed her head from side to side as he straddled her and strapped a leather gag with what looked like a red snooker ball at its centre across her mouth. The gag smelt like old spit. After several more minutes of futile struggle, she subsided into helpless, smothered sobs.

  Gavin looked down at her with a kind of mock sadness in his eyes. He stroked her hair back from her forehead, wiped away her tears. ‘Don’t cry, my daughter, my love.’ He bent close and breathed hotly into her ear, ‘My bride.’

  17

  When Jim reached the end of the track, he found that it was barred from the main road by a horizontal metal pole padlocked between low wooden posts. Breathing hard, a dull, squeezing sensation in his chest, he hopped over the pole and ran to his car. He glanced at the dashboard clock. It had been twelve minutes since he spoke to Reece. His colleague was still a quarter of an hour or more away. There was no time to wait for him. He floored the accelerator and swerved sharply off the road into the barrier. There was a metallic crunch as it burst inwards. Then he was juddering full-tilt along the corridor of trees, eyes peeled for turns in the track that matched Anna’s photos.

  After about a mile and a half, he passed a right turn. Shortly after that he came to a crossroads, beyond which the forest abruptly changed from birch and oak to pine. Another half a mile or so brought him to a T junction. A glance at Anna’s photo told him this was the turn he wanted. As with the first photo of the track, certain identifying features – a broken branch, potholes, the position of shadows – supported his deduction that she’d been facing backwards when she took it. The track descended to a curving right-hand bend, then another right. If he’d judged it correctly, somewhere up ahead was a sharp left, then a farm gate. Less than a minute later he found what he was looking for. Maybe twenty metres beyond the turn was a gate situated on the angle of another leftwards bend. A sign read ‘PRIVATE’. As he’d suspected might be the case, a couple of hundred metres beyond it was a house – a rundown place surrounded by an equally unkempt, junk-filled garden. A rusty white Transit van made him think of Jessica Young.

  Jim frowned. It was undoubtedly the same gate as in the final photo Anna had sent. But unlike in the photo, the gate was open and the padlock dangled, unlocked, from the end of a chain. Had Gavin left the house? And if he had, why hadn’t he locked the gate behind himself? Had he been in a hurry?

  A Land Rover hooked up to a tarp-covered trailer was parked in the dirt driveway. He guessed Anna must have hitched a secret ride in the trailer. His frown intensified. The house’s front door was open too. A cautious man like Gavin surely wouldn’t have left his door open. Not even out here in the middle of nowhere. What the hell was going on?

  His gaze combed the garden for Anna. She was nowhere to be seen. He tried phoning her. The call went straight to voicemail. Something’s wrong, his gut shouted. Why would she have turned her phone off? He took the Taser out of the glove compartment and approached the house, skirting through the trees outside the hedge. He paused briefly to peer through a gap in the hedge adjacent to the Land Rover. There was nothing new to be seen. The house’s windows were too small and dirty for him to get a good look inside them at that distance. He continued along the hedge until he came to a second gap that faced the house’s windowless side wall. To the rear of the house was a barn. He stood motionless for a few seconds, watching and listening. There was no Anna. No noise. Nothing.

  He pulled aside a coil of barbed wire and slid through the hedge. Taser at the ready, he darted to the wall and crept along it. A glint drew his eyes to the ground. Scattered over the path outside the barn were the shattered pieces of two mobile phones. Was one of those phones Anna’s? Had Gavin discovered her presence? And if so, what had he done to her? His mind racing over these questions, he peered around the rear of the house. The back door was wide open too. Unlike the barn door. That was bolted and padlocked.

  He sneaked a look through the kitchen window. Empty. He moved to the barn, pressed an eye to a thin gap between the door and frame. It was too dark to see anything, but he caught a faint sound like someone fighting for air. ‘Anna,’ he hissed.

  ‘Jim,’ came the low, wheezy reply. The instant he heard Anna’s voice, it seemed obvious what had happened – Gavin had locked her in the barn and fled, most likely taking Emily with him. It was obvious too that Gavin hadn’t simply imprisoned Anna. She sounded as though she scarcely had sufficient breath to speak.

  The time for creeping around was over. Jim snatched up a stone and smashed it into the bolt until it broke loose from the frame. He yanked the door open. Sunlight streamed into the barn, and into Anna’s blinking face. He knew it was bad as soon as he saw her. Her cheeks were bluish grey. Bright-red blood was smeared around her mouth. He was already pulling out his phone as he rushed towards her.

  ‘Where are you hurt?’

  ‘Back,’ Anna gasped. ‘He stabbed me.’

  A quick look at the scrap of plastic suctioned to Anna’s upper back told Jim it could prove fatal to move her. The knife had punctured a lung. If the plastic came loose, inrushing air would collapse the lung. He turned his attention to his phone, praying for a signal. There was a weak one. He punched in a number. ‘Dispatch, this is DCI Jim Monahan. I have a medical emergency. A woman with a serious knife wound to her back.’

  ‘What’s your location?’

  Jim gave the dispatcher directions. The line was silent a moment, then the dispatcher came back on. ‘An air ambulance and ground units are on the way.’

  Jim repeated this to Anna. Gasping for breath, she said, ‘Gavin’s gone… I heard an engine. He took Emily with him.’

  ‘How long ago?’

  ‘Not sure. Maybe twenty minutes.’

  Jim clenched his teeth in frustration. They could be fifty or more miles away by now. ‘Do you know what he’s driving? There’s a Land Rover and a white van in front of the house.’

  ‘Red Escort van…’ Anna slurred, her glazed eyes rolling back in their sockets, her head lolling sideways.

  Jim caught hold of her. ‘No, no, keep looking at me, Anna,’ he urged. Her eyes came back down and focused on his. ‘That’s it. Good girl. Do you know the van’s reg?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Does Gavin still have long hair and a goatee beard?’

  ‘Yes, but he’s got a full beard now.’ Anna searched for oxygen and continued, ‘He was wearing camo trousers and a black t-shirt.’ She managed a small crooked smile. ‘I gave the fucker a lovebite on the left ear. Nearly tore it off.’

  ‘What about Emily?’

  ‘Black jeans. Hooded grey sweatshirt.’

  Jim got back on the phone to the dispatcher. ‘The suspect fled the scene some twenty
minutes ago in a red Escort van, registration unknown. He has a girl with him, possibly against her will.’ He gave Gavin and Emily’s particulars, adding, ‘Gavin Walsh is to be considered armed and extremely dangerous. I need you to inform DCS John Garrett of the situation immediately.’

  Jim hung up and gently took hold of Anna’s hand. It was cold and sweaty. Sweat lathered her face too from the effort of breathing. He knew it was touch and go whether she would live. And the thought of it filled him with a queasy sense that he was sliding back towards the pit he’d fallen into after Margaret’s murder. Still, his cop’s brain couldn’t help but fire questions at him. Uppermost amongst them was: had Gavin spotted Anna by chance or had he been warned of her presence? ‘What happened?’

  ‘I think he saw me.’

  That seemed to suggest the former was the case.

  ‘He came at me from behind,’ Anna went on raggedly.

  ‘Why didn’t he finish you off?’

  ‘Emily stopped him by—’ Anna choked off into an agonised gurgle.

  Jim held her steady. ‘Save your breath now, Anna. Help will be here soon.’ His phone rang. It was Reece. He put it to his ear.

  ‘I’m at the visitor centre car park,’ Reece told him.

  Jim quickly relayed the situation to him.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ exclaimed Reece. ‘How bad is she?’

  Looking Anna in the eyes, Jim said with a sureness he didn’t feel, ‘It’s pretty bad. But she’s a tough girl. She’ll make it.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Head over here. Someone’s going to have to coordinate a search of the property.’ Jim eyed the metal tube protruding from the padlocked freezer Anna was propped against. ‘I’ve a feeling we’re going to find some interesting things.’

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  Jim got off the phone and checked the padlock. Instead of a keyhole, it had a three digit combination set to 333. It came open with a tug. He flipped up the freezer lid. ‘Empty,’ he replied to Anna’s enquiring look. There were several dark, crusty smears on the underside of the lid. Dry blood? What he saw next seemed to confirm it was – two pink-painted broken fingernails. He thought with a cold twist of his stomach about what it would be like to be imprisoned in the coffinlike freezer sobbing, screaming and clawing in pure blind terror.

  He heard the faint whoop-whoop of a helicopter. ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ he said to Anna. ‘You just hold on. Do you hear me?’

  She gave a slight nod. Jim headed outside. The red and yellow air ambulance was approaching from the south. He waved his arms at it. The noise rose to a deafening level. The helicopter hovered over the house momentarily, before descending into the back garden. The hurricane blast of its rotor blades flattened the grass and a sapling tree. Covering his ears, Jim waited for it to set down then ran towards it. Four paramedics in luminous jackets and red jumpsuits climbed out to meet him. ‘She’s in the barn,’ he told them.

  Grabbing a stretcher and medical bags, the paramedics followed Jim to Anna. ‘How long ago was she stabbed?’ asked one of them.

  ‘Maybe half an hour,’ said Jim.

  ‘And how long was the knife?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Anna.’

  ‘Anna, can you hear me?’ asked the paramedic.

  ‘Yes,’ she wheezed.

  ‘We’re going to examine you. Try to stay as still as possible.’

  The paramedics gently manoeuvred Anna forwards, cut off her bra and removed the improvised dressing. Blood immediately bubbled from the wound. ‘Tension pneumothorax,’ said one of the paramedics. Another peeled open a circular plastic chest seal and applied it to the wound. As Anna inhaled, a whoopee cushion-like valve sucked shut, preventing air from entering. As she exhaled the valve opened.

  ‘Internal bleeding may be causing your lung to compress,’ a paramedic calmly informed her, placing an oxygen mask over her face. ‘We need to insert a chest drain. I’m going to give you some morphine for the pain first.’

  The paramedic inserted a syringe needle beneath Anna’s right armpit level with her nipple and depressed the plunger, mercifully dousing the fire of pain. He swabbed the same area with iodine, before making a scalpel incision. Anna groaned as a plastic tube was pushed into the incision. It felt as though a thick rope was being forced through the eye of a needle. ‘I need you to take a couple of deep breaths,’ said the paramedic. ‘This will force out the air and blood trapped in your lung and expand it back to normal size.’

  As, with great effort, Anna did so, blood drained into the chest tube. Jim’s phone rang again. This time it was Garrett.

  ‘Take that outside please,’ said a paramedic.

  Jim hurried from the barn. ‘What’s the situation?’ the DCS asked.

  ‘The paramedics are working on Anna.’

  ‘Will she live?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Jim. This is exactly the kind of thing I was afraid might happen.’

  This wouldn’t be happening if I hadn’t been put in a position where I felt compelled to leak information, Jim wanted to retort. But there was no time for recriminations or guilt. Gavin was out there somewhere with Emily. And God only knew what plans he had for her. ‘Who’s in charge locally of the search for Gavin?’

  ‘DI Tim Atkins of the East Midlands Special Operations Unit. He’s assured me they’re putting every available—’

  ‘Hang on,’ interrupted Jim. ‘They’re moving Anna.’

  The paramedics emerged from the barn with Anna on a stretcher. Jim was relieved to see that she was still conscious. Quickly and steadily, they carried her to the helicopter. Jim followed them. ‘Is she going to be OK?’

  ‘We need to move fast,’ came the telling reply.

  The paramedics lifted Anna into the back of the helicopter and secured her stretcher. ‘I’m coming with you,’ said Jim, climbing in beside her.

  She shook her head weakly and spoke through the oxygen mask. ‘Find Gavin. Don’t let him hurt Emily.’

  ‘Do you want me to contact your mother?’

  Another shake of the head. ‘I—’ A groan cut off her words, then she managed to continue, ‘I don’t want to worry her.’

  Jim passed a paramedic his card. ‘Keep me updated.’

  He retreated towards the cottage. The sapling was bent flat once more as the helicopter’s rotor blades gathered speed. Jim noticed now that, like the Leeds tree, its branches were festooned with ribbons. Suddenly its roots tore loose and it tumbled across the lawn, taking a rectangle of turf with it. He watched the helicopter ascend into the clear blue sky and head south. His gaze dropped back to the garden. Something caught his eye where the tree had been uprooted. It looked like a stick poking up through the earth. But as he approached it, he saw it wasn’t a stick. It was a bone. And it clearly hadn’t been buried all that long. There were still tatters of dirty brown flesh clinging to it.

  ‘Jim, are you still there?’ Garrett’s voice came from the phone.

  Jim returned it to his ear. ‘I’ve found a bone. It looks like a humerus.’

  Garrett echoed the name in Jim’s mind. ‘Jessica Young.’

  Jim turned towards the sound of approaching sirens. Blue lights were flashing in the lane. ‘The ground units are here.’ Wondering if he wanted Garrett to be right, he hung up and made his way to the front garden. At least if it was Jessica, Anna would finally have closure, if such a thing was ever truly possible. And assuming, of course, that she survived. He heaved a long sigh.

  Several marked and unmarked vehicles pulled through the gate. Reece’s car was amongst them. Jim held up his ID and announced his name and rank. A middle-aged detective approached him and extended his hand. ‘DI Tim Atkins of—’

  ‘I know who you are,’ cut in Jim. ‘We need a pathologist here. There’s a body in the back garden. I haven’t been inside the house. I don’t think there’s anyone in there, but your m
en should proceed with caution. And once you’ve secured the house, there’s a freezer in the barn that you’re going to want to check out.’

  Reece hurried across to the two men. He was wearing jeans and a shirt. There were sleepless bruises and anxious creases around his eyes. ‘How’s Anna?’

  ‘She’s alive. They’ve airlifted her to hospital.’

  Reece blew out a breath of relief. ‘Thank Christ. So she’s going to be OK?’

  Jim answered with a tense twitch of his shoulders. ‘This is DI Reece Geary,’ he told DI Atkins. ‘He’s going to stay here and help with the search.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Reece.

  ‘To speak to Ronald and Sharon Walsh. Maybe they’ll be more forthcoming now that Gavin’s got Emily with him.’

  ‘Why would they be?’

  ‘Because unless I’m very much mistaken, they really love her.’

  18

  Bride. The word kept drumming in Emily’s head as she watched Gavin apply a dressing to his injured ear. He was insane. He had to be. Why else would he want to marry his own daughter? When he was done with his ear, he set to work on buzzing off his hair and beard with clippers. Clean-shaven and bald, he looked more like his younger self, yet at the same time older. His cheeks retained some chubbiness, but the marks of a life on the run had etched deep grooves into them. He stripped off his clothes, exposing a lacy green spider’s web tattoo that spread outwards like a target from the centre of his hairless chest. Noticing her looking at his tattoo, he said, ‘Do you like it? Shall I tell you what it means? Life is a web that holds us all, Emily. What you’ve got to decide is, are you a spider or a fly? I know which one I am. What about you?’

  I’m whatever you’re not! Emily retorted in her head.

  Panic squeezed her stomach as Gavin approached her. He’s going to rape me! her mind screamed. She fought the urge to close her eyes. She wouldn’t fight him. That would only get her hurt, maybe even killed. But she would look him in the eyes. She would make sure he saw her disgust, her loathing.