The Spider's Web

by Ben Cheetham

  Gavin grinned. ‘I see right through you, Chief Inspector. I know what you’re trying to do and it won’t work.’

  The car climbed to the crest of a steep rise, beyond which the road dropped away even more precipitously towards a deep valley. Jim pulled into a small, deserted car park concealed from the road by bushes and a grassy mound. He got out of the car, retrieved a torch, a bottle of water and a plastic bag from the boot. Then he unlocked the handcuffs and pointed the gun at Gavin. ‘Get out.’

  Rubbing the circulation back into his wrists, Gavin said with mock casualness, ‘It’s a beautiful night.’

  ‘Start walking.’ Jim gestured towards a wooden gate. ‘That way.’

  Gavin’s grin remained in place, but a shadow of uncertainty flickered in his eyes. ‘OK, Chief Inspector. I’ll play along with your little game. But we both know where this is going.’

  With Gavin walking a couple of paces ahead, they passed through the gate. Jim was careful not to touch it or step in the patch of mud on its far side. The torch threw light on a boulder-strewn path running along the top of a broken, moon-washed crag. Beyond the crag, houses were strung out like fairy lights along the base of the valley. The air was heavy with the scent of peat. Gavin breathed it deep into his lungs. ‘Do you smell that? That’s his smell.’

  ‘No. That’s just the smell of what you are – dirt.’

  ‘We’re all dirt, Chief Inspector.’

  Jim heaved a breath. ‘I’ve heard about as much of your bullshit as I can take. Stop here. Turn to face me.’ He shone the torch in Gavin’s eyes. ‘Get on your knees.’

  ‘I don’t kneel for anyone except my God and Goddess.’

  ‘Jessica Young wasn’t your goddess. She was a thirteen-year-old girl you abducted, raped and almost certainly murdered. I was toying with the idea of trying to make you tell me where she is. But really I always knew I’d be wasting my time. You’ll never tell me. That’s the only power you’ve got left. So I suppose the secret will die with you.’

  Jim levelled the gun at Gavin’s chest. Gavin didn’t flinch. He lifted his eyes to the sky, spreading his arms as if to receive a benediction. Ten seconds passed. Twenty. Smiling scornfully, Gavin met Jim’s gaze again. ‘You see, Chief Inspector, I know you better than you know yourself. You didn’t kill Freddie and you won’t kill me.’

  Jim’s finger tightened on the trigger. There was a faint click. In that instant of realising his mistake, Gavin’s mask fell away and his fear was laid bare. There was no time for him to cry out. The muzzle flashed, the crack of the bullet exploded the silence, followed almost simultaneously by the bursting pop of Gavin’s fake breasts. He staggered backwards a step and stood swaying, a look of dumb animal disbelief on his face. Then he crumpled to the ground. Dead.

  Jim stared down at Gavin for a moment, his face as expressionless as a stone. Then, pulling on forensic gloves, he stooped to strip him naked. As he put the clothes and wig in the plastic bag, blood welled from the black hole in Gavin’s chest, obscuring the spider’s web tattoo. He poured water over Gavin’s face and wiped away the makeup with a wad of tissue. Then he headed back to the car.

  He drove over the moors into Sheffield, his mind a blank space, like an unwritten page. He passed through the sleeping suburbs into the city centre, mechanically shifting gears. His ears were ringing. The night-time sounds of the city seemed distant, muffled. He stopped on a bridge adjacent to a foaming weir. He tossed the gun and baseball bat into the river. He drove on until he came to another stretch of water. This time he got rid of the knife. No flicker of emotion showed on his face as it sank from view.

  Next he pulled into an all-night garage, bought some matches and lighter fluid, and hoovered and pressure-washed his car. He carefully cleaned the area of the front passenger seat with a cloth and spray cleaner. Then he drove to a patch of wasteland well away from any houses, squirted lighter fluid over Gavin’s wig, clothes and high heels and set them alight. He made sure they were burnt beyond recognition before leaving.

  As he headed for his flat, it occurred to him that there was one more thing he needed to do. He stopped at a row of shops with several big bins awaiting collection outside them. He untied a bin bag and put the handcuffs in it. By tomorrow morning they would be buried in a landfill and, no doubt, some unlucky hiker or climber would have stumbled across the body whose wrists the handcuffs had bruised.

  Upon arriving at his flat, Jim sat staring at it as though there was something in there he didn’t want to face up to. Finally, taking a breath, he made his way into its empty silence. He stripped in the hallway and bagged his clothes for later disposal. When he switched on his bedroom light and saw the photograph of Margaret, something seemed to pop in his ears and the world rushed back in at him. He suddenly began to shake. As though his legs could no longer support him, he dropped onto the bed. He clasped the photo to his chest, his face twisted in anguish. He remained like that for the rest of the long night.

  26

  The call Jim was expecting came before it was fully light. He dragged himself out of bed and answered it. ‘You were right,’ said Garrett. ‘Gavin hadn’t left the country. He was found early this morning in the Peak District.’

  ‘Alive or dead?’ asked Jim, not bothering to try and sound anything but what he was – physically and emotionally drained.

  ‘Dead. A single gunshot wound to the chest.’

  ‘Who found him?’

  ‘A farmer out tending his sheep. The nearest house is half a mile from the scene.’

  ‘Isolated spot. No witnesses. Sounds like an execution. Do you want me to head over there?’

  ‘No. You’re off the case, remember? In fact, the Chief Constable thinks it would be best if you took a few days off work altogether.’

  ‘You mean I’m suspended.’

  ‘No, not suspended. Think of it as an enforced holiday.’

  Jim held back the bitter laughter rising in his throat. What use did he have for a holiday, enforced or otherwise? ‘You should send someone to pick up Ronald and Sharon Walsh. They could be in danger.’

  ‘I already have done. Ronald Walsh is being escorted here as we speak to identify the body.’

  ‘What about Sharon?’

  ‘Hospital. She collapsed when she heard about Gavin.’

  Jim absorbed the news with mixed emotions. Sharon Walsh had lost her only child. In a different but equally permanent way, she’d lost her granddaughter too. It was difficult not to feel a trace of sympathy for her. But that sympathy quickly hardened into anger when he thought about Jessica Young and Alison Sullivan and all of Gavin’s other victims.

  A sheepish note came into Garrett’s voice. ‘Before I go, Jim, I… Well, I need to ask you where you’ve been for the past day and a half.’

  ‘Watching Emily Walsh.’ There was no point lying about it. Someone was bound to have seen him in the area where Emily was living. Besides, Garrett knew full well where he’d been.

  ‘Did you see anything of interest?’

  ‘No.’

  There was a slight but telling pause. Then Garrett said, ‘OK, Jim. I’ll let you know if there are any further developments.’

  Jim hung up, frowning. What had that pause been about? Did Garrett know something? He dismissed the possibility. There was just no way. Not unless Emily or the McLean brothers had blabbed. And that was hardly likely. His gaze moved to the bin liner of clothes. His stomach felt hollow, but breakfast could wait. He quickly dressed, snatched up the black bag and headed for his car. He drove with one eye on the rear-view mirror, watching for signs he was being tailed. A couple of miles from his flat he dumped the bag in a pub’s bin.

  He didn’t return to the flat. He couldn’t stand the thought of being there with only his thoughts for company. He found a busy café and tried to satiate the hollowness with an artery-clogging fry-up. But it wasn’t a void food could fill.

  He continued driving aimlessly around the city, watching people like they were part of a wor
ld he’d left behind. He found himself at the spot where Jessica Young had been abducted. Surely now the last place she would ever be seen alive. He got out of the car and stood with his eyes closed as though listening for some sort of sign. There was a lull in the traffic. The murmur of flowing water became audible. His eyes popped open as something Gavin had said came back to him. ‘Like a river from a tunnel,’ he murmured, turning to peer over the quarry-stone wall that ran alongside the pavement. Beyond some bushes, the narrow channel of the River Sheath flowed towards the city centre. A few metres to the right of where he was standing it disappeared into an arched brick tunnel beneath a small industrial yard. The tunnel, Jim knew, carried the river under the city centre to where it merged with the Don. More words came back to him. His own: Truth and non-truth. So what’s the truth about Jessica Young? Then Gavin’s: I’ve already told you, but your ears are as closed as your eyes.

  Jim clambered over the wall, scrambled down to the water’s edge and stared into its muddy depths. There was, of course, nothing to be seen. But he knew with the certainty of a man who’d spent most of his life fighting to see through darkness that Jessica Young was down there somewhere. Gavin would have taken great pleasure in knowing that she was so close yet so far from her family.

  His face furrowed in thought. The question was: how the hell could he direct Anna or his colleagues to Jessica without revealing his guilt for Gavin’s murder? He could send an anonymous letter, but that would make it obvious the murderer wasn’t on the side of Villiers and his accomplices. He could plant some evidence. But what kind of evidence? A photo of the river? A map of Sheffield with X marking the spot? Again, too obvious. An idea came to him. It was possibly a bit too subtle. But Anna had proved herself extremely adept at picking up on subtle clues. He drove into the city centre, found a shop that sold what he wanted, then returned to the river.

  When he’d finished what needed to be done, he headed for his flat. A familiar Volvo was parked in the street. He pulled up facing it. Ronald Walsh stared back at him from behind the Volvo’s steering wheel, his face colourless and immobile. With a sudden marionette-like movement, Ronald got out of the car. Jim reached for his extendable baton and did likewise, his own movements wary. ‘Stop there,’ he said, when Ronald was a couple of metres away. Ronald’s eyes were glassy and bloodshot. Even at that distance, Jim could smell the sour stink of his breath.

  ‘My son is dead,’ Ronald said, as he had done so many times before. But this time his voice was slurred with alcohol and grief. ‘Do you have any children?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re lucky.’ Ronald’s eyes grimaced away from Jim. ‘All they bring is worry and pain.’

  ‘Why are you here?’ asked Jim. He thought – but barely dared allow himself to hope – he knew the answer to that question.

  ‘I’m not blind. I know what Gavin was. I know he got what he deserved. But no parent should ever have to bury their own child.’

  Jim’s expression remained granite-hard. ‘At least you can bury your child.’

  Ronald’s thin old face twitched. Lips trembling as though he was speaking to himself, he put a hand in his pocket. Jim tensed to move, but Ronald withdrew an envelope, not a weapon. ‘Gavin said that if anything ever happened to him I was to give this to someone who could be trusted to make sure the truth came out.’

  Jim reached to take the envelope, but Ronald didn’t let go of it. His eyes met Jim’s again, burning with a kind of bleary, despairing hate. ‘I’m going to find who killed my son and I’m going to kill them.’

  Jim gave a little nod as if to say, You do what you feel you have to do.

  Ronald released the envelope and, lowering his eyes, turned to shuffle to his car. ‘I wouldn’t go home if I were you,’ cautioned Jim. ‘There could be dangerous people looking for you.’

  ‘Let them look,’ Ronald fired back dismissively. ‘I’ve got some looking of my own to do.’

  And so it goes on, thought Jim as he watched Ronald drive away. On and on…

  He opened the envelope. Inside it was a key with a keyring attached to it. On the keyring was written ‘40’, ‘Big Blue’s Self-Storage’ and a Stockport address. There was a squeal of tyres. Spinning on his heel, he saw a familiar black BMW speeding towards him. He made to duck back into his car. The BMW screeched to a stop and two suited men leapt out of it. One was middle-aged, maybe in his forties. Thinning blonde hair. A heavy-set face and body. The other was equally well-built, but younger and dark-haired.

  As Jim jerked his door shut, the older man caught hold of it. ‘We want to talk to you,’ he said, his tone businesslike.

  ‘Who the fuck’s “we”?’ Jim demanded to know.

  ‘You know who we are. Now put down the truncheon and get out of the car.’

  ‘Not until I see some ID.’

  The man drew his jacket open just enough for Jim to see the handgun holstered against his ribs. Jim stared at him as if weighing up his options. ‘Don’t do anything foolish,’ warned the man. ‘There’s no need for anyone to get hurt here.’

  Slowly, Jim put the extendable baton and the ‘Big Blue’s Self-Storage’ key on the passenger seat.

  ‘Not the key,’ said the man. ‘Bring that with you.’ He retreated several steps as Jim got out of the car. ‘Now place it on the roof and step away from the car.’

  Jim closed his hand tightly around the key. He knew it was pointless. What could he do against two armed men? But even so he was damned if he was going to give up the key without a fight. Not after everything he’d been through to get it.

  ‘You’ve got five seconds to do as I say,’ the man continued in a calmly threatening voice. ‘Then I’m going to take the key from you.’ He began to count. ‘One… two… three…’

  ‘What are you going to do, shoot an unarmed man in the street?’ said Jim.

  ‘I should do for all the aggravation you’ve caused us. But police killing police is bad for everyone.’

  Jim’s lips curled with disdain. ‘You’re not police. You’re fucking scum.’

  The man took the insult without a flicker. He made a quick, discreet signal to his colleague. The younger man snatched out a Taser and fired. Jim tried to dodge aside, but the man’s aim was too good. The barbs snaked out to bite into him. Then it was like an explosion had gone off in his chest. Somehow managing to keep hold of the key, he dropped to the ground with the burnt metallic taste of electricity filling his mouth. The crackling of the Taser stopped, but the pain in his chest continued. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath. The older of the men loomed over him, reaching to try and prise away the key. Jim threw a futile rubbery punch. The man easily blocked it and returned a far harder one of his own, bouncing Jim’s head off the Tarmac. Blood immediately gushed from Jim’s nose. Straightening, the man stamped once, twice, three times on Jim’s hand, forcing him to finally let go of the key. The man scooped it up and dodged away as Jim made a weak grab for his ankle. ‘You’re one stubborn bastard, Monahan,’ he said in a tone somewhere between irritation and admiration.

  ‘Fuck you,’ Jim rasped.

  The man gave him an ironic little salute and returned to the BMW. As the car raced away, Jim worked himself into a sitting position. His breathing coming a little easier, he yanked out the Taser prongs with his uninjured hand. The other rested in his lap, two of its fingers bent at unnatural angles. To have come so close only to have it end this way. It made him feel like he was the butt of some sick joke that everyone was in on except him. He would have cried out in frustration if he’d had sufficient air in his lungs.

  The BMW jammed on its brakes at the end of the street as an unmarked car pulled in front of it. A second car angled in behind it, boxing it in. Armed police piled out of the cars, semi-automatic weapons aimed at the BMW. ‘Put your hands on the dashboard and don’t fucking move!’ shouted the AFOs, wrenching open the BMW’s doors. They hauled out its occupants, threw them to the ground and cuffed them.

  Another car pulled
into view. An AFO handed something through its driver’s window. Then it accelerated towards Jim. As Garrett got out of it, a grimly bloody smile formed on Jim’s lips. ‘It seems the joke’s on them for once, eh?’

  Garrett looked at him as though wondering what he was going on about. With a slight grimace, Jim found himself thinking, Reece would have got what I meant. Scott Greenwood’s voice crackled through the car’s radio, relaying the whereabouts of Ronald Walsh. Ronald was drinking from a bottle and driving erratically. Garrett spoke into the receiver. ‘Get him off the road before he hurts someone.’ Then he held up the key to Jim. ‘Is this what I think it is?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you up to finding what it fits?’

  Jim extended his hand, palm up. ‘What do you think?’

  Garrett placed the key in Jim’s palm. Grunting with the effort, Jim rose to his feet. ‘I’ll drive,’ said Garrett. ‘It looks like you’ve got a couple of broken fingers. If it was anyone but you I’d suggest we stop by the hospital.’

  Reflecting that Garrett had begun to read him a bit too well for comfort, Jim dropped heavily into the passenger seat. As they passed the cuffed men, Garrett said, ‘If those bastards think they can get away with coming to my city and assaulting one of my officers, they’re going to find out they’re very wrong.’

  Jim made a low murmur of approval at the new-found steel he heard in Garrett’s voice. He rested his head back, wadding tissue against his nostrils. As they made their way out of the city, he noticed Garrett casting him occasional sidelong glances. He knew exactly what topic Garrett was working his way up to broaching. ‘Any more thoughts on Gavin Walsh’s mur—’ the DCS started to say.