Spider's Web: A Collection of All-Action Short Stories

by Leather, Stephen

  He pounded his hand against his forehead. ‘Caitlin, that’s right. The Scouse hooker. My first. Did her with my bare hands, I did. Did her and then took her to a railway line and threw her down the embankment. Disorganised, that’s what they call that on CSI and whatnot. I was a disorganised killer.’ He grinned. ‘But I got organised, soon enough. You learn from your mistakes, you know? The more you do something, the better you get. And I was bloody good, lads. I was the best.’

  He laughed but the laugh turned into another coughing fit and he banged himself on his chest with his fist. ‘How many do you think I killed, lads? How many?’

  He looked at them expectantly as if they could answer but all they could do was grunt fearfully.

  t wn="justHe shrugged, not caring whether they answered or not. ‘Twenty-seven,’ he said slowly, as if relishing the number. ‘Nineteen women and eight men. Twelve teenagers. I prefer teenagers, but I tried to vary it.’ He chuckled again. ‘What, you don’t believe me? It’s as true as I’m sitting here. Twenty-seven. And I never got caught. Never even came close. I can prove it to you.’ He pushed himself up off the sofa with a grunt, then stood for a few seconds as he fought to steady his breath. ‘Have to be careful when I get up,’ he said. ‘I get dizzy. I’ve fallen over a few times and I’m lucky not to have broken a hip. You don’t want to go breaking a hip, lads, not with the way the NHS is these days. You have to wait a year to see a surgeon and then they give you that E. coli bug and kill you. Nurses don’t even wash their hands.’ He reached for his walking stick and hobbled over to an old wooden sideboard.

  He propped the stick against the sideboard and used both his hands to fumble open a drawer. He reached inside and pulled out a bulky photograph album that was bound in what looked like green leather. He shuffled slowly back to the sofa and sat down carefully. He placed the album on the coffee table and gently caressed the cover with both hands.

  ‘I never screwed them, the women. It wasn’t about sex. It was never about sex. It was about power. And control.’ He sighed and then arched his back and shuddered as the memories flooded back. He looked back at the album, opened it and flicked through the pages. Dobbsy could see that it was full of cuttings from newspapers and magazines. As the old man flicked through the pages, words jumped out at Dobbsy. MURDER. KILLER. VICTIM.

  ‘I started off disorganised,’ said Duns. ‘Even now I don’t know why I killed Caitlin. I think it was always in me, because nothing she said or did set me off. I just looked at her and knew that I wanted to kill her and so I did.’ He held up his arthritic hands. ‘With these.’ He chuckled. ‘It was only when she was dead that I realised I’d have to get rid of the body. I mean, I had a dead hooker in my car. What was I supposed to do with her? How stupid was that? I was so bloody lucky that the cops didn’t catch me. I didn’t worry about forensics or fingerprints or anything, I just drove to a railway line and tipped her over. I didn’t even take a souvenir.’

  He flicked back through the album and tapped a page, a cutting from the News of the World. ‘That’s her picture. She was pretty plain, it has to be said. She was a big girl, too. With a thick neck. It took all my strength to kill her. And it took her three minutes to die, maybe four.’ He flexed his fingers as if reliving the experience. ‘But I learned a lot from Caitlin. I guess you always learn a lot from your first.’

  He smiled. ‘I spent the week after I killed her in a state of terror. I was sure the cops were going to find me. Every time the doorbell went or the phone rang I thought it was them. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t think about anything other than being banged up for life. Then bit by bit I began to realise that they hadn’t a clue. Literally. It was the randomness of it, you see. In ninety per cent of murders, the victim knows the killer. All the cops do is to look for a relative, a colleague or a neighbour. It’s box-ticking, and there’s nothing the cops like better than ticking boxes. But if the killer is a total stranger then they have to work and they don’t like that. If it’s random and if there are no witnesses and no forensic evidence then it’s almost impossible for them to find the killer.’

  He grinned slyly. ‘Once I’d realised that, I knew what I had to do. I had to keep moving. Because if you keep moving and choose your victims at random there’s almost no way they can catch you.’ He swallowed and rubbed his throat. ‘I’m parched. All this talking. You know, you two are the first people I’ve spoken to in weeks. No one wants to talk to you when you’re old, you know that? Even in the post office. You talk to them but they look right through you as if you’re not there. I was a good-looking sod when I was your age, I was fighting birds off with a stick. I could pick and choose.’ He grimaced. ‘Now it’s like I don’t exist. It’s like I’m not a human being any more. I’m an embarrassment, a reminder of what lies in store for them. For everyone.’ He shook his head sadly, then stood up and reached for his stick. ‘I’m going to make myself a cup of tea. Now don’t you boys go anywhere.’

  He shuffled out of the room, muttering to himself. Dobbsy struggled with his bonds but the washing line wouldn’t give. He tried rocking from side to side but the chair was heavy and barely budged. After a few minutes he was exhausted, and he looked over at Jacko, gasping for breath.

  Jacko’s face was bathed in sweat and his eyes were wide and fearful. He tried to say something to Dobbsy but the gag muffled it to a series of grunts.

  Dobbsy shook his head, trying to let Jacko know that he couldn’t make out what he was saying. Tears began to run down Jacko’s face. Dobbsy tried to scream but whatever the old man had stuffed in his mouth meant he couldn’t do more than groan. He tried flexing his arms again but no matter how hard he strained, the bonds held fast. He slumped in the chair, panting.

  Eventually the old man returned, holding a blue and white striped mug in his left hand and his walking stick in the right. He walked slowly over to the table, carefully put down the mug and stick and then sat down. ‘Now where was I?’ he said. He looked at the two boys in turn as if he expected them to answer. ‘Oh yes, keep moving. I had to keep moving. And changing. That’s the important thing. You boys watch television, don’t you? Of course you do. That’s all you lads do these days, isn’t it, you watch TV and you play video games. Because there’s nothing else, right? No bloody jobs, not any more. Not for the likes of you. So you watch all those detective shows? CSI? Criminal Minds? Silent Witness? You know what they always talk about?’ He nodded expectantly.

  Dobbsy looked over at Jacko. The old man was crazy, no doubt about it. Tears were streaming down Jacko’s face and his head was bobbing up and down.

  ‘Profiles,’ said the old man. ‘It’s all about profiles. That’s how they catch serial killers. They look at the victims and they look at the way the killer kills them and they build up a profile. Like the Yorkshire Ripper. He killed hookers in Leeds. Or that Fred West. He killed young girls. Once the cops work out the profile it helps them narrow down the list of suspects. That was my epiphany. If I kept it random, I’d never fit a profile.’ He chuckled. ‘It was as easy as that. I preferred to kill young women – I mean, that’s only natural, isn’t it? You want them pretty and you want them young. But I killed men. And middle-aged women. And pensioners. And I did it in different ways. I liked to use my hands, I always preferred it to be up close and personal, but sometimes I’d use a knife. Or a hammer. Sometimes I used a tie and once I used a dog’s lead. And I moved around. I never killed in the same city twice. That was my goldeon,was my n rule. Once I’d killed I’d move to another city. I was a chef. Well, that’s what they call it nowadays. Back then I was a cook. A cook can always get work. You turn up in a town, any town, and you can get a job the next day. So that’s what I did. I moved to a town, got a place to live, got a job, and waited for the urge.’

  He sipped his tea. ‘That’s what it is, an urge. And the urge gets stronger and stronger until you can’t resist it. The longest I ever went was three years. I had a girlfriend then and I guess that’s why, but eventually
the urge got the better of me. I didn’t kill the girlfriend, of course. I killed a traffic warden. A black guy. Killed him with a knife. Killed him and disposed of the body and left town.’

  He reached out to the collection of rings and pulled out a gold band. ‘This was his,’ said Duns. ‘He had a wife and six kids. Six, can you believe that? That’s just stupid in this day and age. Even back then.’ He looked at the ring and shuddered and Dobbsy instinctively knew that the old man was reliving the killing.

  After a few seconds Duns put the ring down. ‘I know that was risky, taking souvenirs. That’s another way that serial killers get caught. If anyone found those rings then I’d be done for. But you need something to remind you of what you did. The cuttings aren’t enough. And memories fade. But when you can hold something that was physically there when you did it, then all the memories flood back. The sounds, the smells, the feelings.’ He shuddered again.

  Duns took another sip of tea, then put down the mug, picked up the album and slowly turned the pages. He found a newspaper cutting from the Sun. TRAFFIC WARDEN KNIFED. The old man tapped the cutting. ‘I stabbed him in the neck and stayed to watch him die. I didn’t bother trying to hide the body, he was walking down an alley in Birmingham and I came up behind him. One cut, across the throat, that’s all it took. He gurgled for almost a minute before he bled out. If I hold that ring and close my eyes I can still hear the sound. Like a babbling brook.’

  Dobbsy strained at the washing-line bonds and rocked from side to side, but even as he struggled he knew that he was wasting his time.

  ‘I was an equal opportunity serial killer,’ the old man continued. ‘That comes down to the profile. I did two black men, and three black women. I did a Pakistani and a Chinese girl. I made sure that the cops wouldn’t think that I had a type. In fact I did. I preferred young women and I preferred blondes. But I couldn’t let them know that.

  ‘The last one I killed was fifteen years ago,’ said the old man. He opened his eyes. ‘It was a girl. A shop assistant in Cardiff. I had a van. A rental. I did a Ted Bundy, put my arm in a sling and asked her to help me lift a table into the van. Tied her up and took her to a cottage I’d rented. Miles from anywhere it was. I spent three days with her. Three wonderful days. Then I strangled her with my bare hands.’ He held up his gnarled hands and smiled ruefully. ‘Couldn’t do it now, of course. But back then … there’s no feeling like it, boys. To put your hands around a soft, warm throat and to squeeze the life out of a girl, to watch as the eyes glaze over and the body goes still. Sarah, her name was.’

  He turned over the pages until he found the cutting he was looking for and he tapped it. It was from the South Wales Echo. He held it up so that they could see a photograph of a smiling blond girl, a sprinkling of freckles across her upturned nose. ‘She was lovely, was Sarah. She even said that she loved frat she me. She didn’t, of course, she was just saying that because she thought it might stop me killing her. Silly cow.’ He chuckled throatily.

  ‘I cut her up in the bathroom. That’s always the best way. You cut the body up into manageable bits and then you dispose of them in places where they’ll never be found. Burying them is best, but you have to bury them deep. There’s a knack to cutting up a body, you know that? You don’t just hack away. You cut the tendons at the joints and pop the joints out. The knees, the elbows, the shoulders, the hips. That gives you eight manageable pieces right there. Then you work the spine out of the skull and the head pops off. It literally pops off. Sounds like a balloon bursting. Then all you have to worry about is the torso and there’s no way around it, the torso is messy. But at the end of the day you can get any body into two small suitcases. Toss them into the boot of a car and Bob’s your uncle.’

  He put the open album back on to the coffee table and sat looking at the photograph of Sarah. ‘She was a student. Studying economics. Her parents spent years looking for her. Every anniversary they go to the papers. They do that computer stuff to show what she’d look like today. But she’s not getting any older. She’s buried out in the Black Mountains. Buried deep.’

  He sighed and closed the album. It made a dull thudding sound, like a coffin lid falling into place. ‘Why did I stop, is that what you’re thinking?’ He looked at Dobbsy and Jacko in turn, nodding slowly as if they were replying.

  ‘I got old, boys. I got slow. I lost my strength. There comes a point when you can’t strangle with your bare hands and you don’t have the strength to tip a body into a car boot.’ He grimaced. ‘They took my licence away four years ago. And who ever heard of a serial killer using public transport? Can’t be done. I had to stop. What is it they call it? A hiatus. That’s it. I’m on hiatus.’ He laughed without mirth. ‘That’s why I’m so glad that you two lads popped around. I always tried to tell myself that eventually I’d get back into the saddle. But I never did. It’s no fun getting old, boys.’ He grinned and then cackled. ‘Mind you, it’s better than the alternative, isn’t it?’

  He scratched his bald head and frowned. ‘Now, where’s my kit?’ he muttered. He stood up, scratched his head again, and left the room.

  Dobbsy and Jacko strained at their bonds but the knots held them fast.

  After a few minutes, Duns returned holding a black plastic roll. He sat down, took a couple of deep breaths to steady himself, then opened the roll to reveal a dozen knives of all shapes and sizes. ‘This was my play kit,’ he said. His eyes sparkled as he stared at the knives. ‘I put this together after my tenth. A hooker in Durham. I knifed her but she bled out so quickly that it took the fun out of it. I used a kitchen knife, you see. It was too big. Went straight through a major artery and she was dead in seconds. I realised then that I was a professional and that like all professionals I needed to use the right tools.’

  He pulled out a knife with a serrated edge, studied it and then put it back. ‘Too much blood,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Better to start small.’

  He looked over at the two boys. ‘You need your strength, of course, to be a killer. You have to be able to overpower your victim and control them. And the older you get, the weaker your muscles become.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s just the way it is. And you shrink. Did you knoett Did yow that? I’m three inches shorter than I was when I was in my prime. Everything shrinks, except your ears. They keep growing, even after you’re dead. An undertaker told me that once.’

  He sighed. ‘You know, I was thinking of ending it myself. A small nick in the jugular, that’s all that it would take. But you boys, you’ve given me a reason to live. Really. I can’t thank you enough for that.’

  He took out a scalpel and smiled at it as if it were an old friend. He ran the blade slowly across his thumb and then jumped as it pierced the skin. Blood blossomed over his thumb and he put it to his mouth and sucked on it like a feeding baby. He held up his injured thumb so that they could see it. ‘Look at that. That’s as sharp as a blade gets.’

  He stood up slowly and steadied himself. ‘Right, let’s get started. You can scream all you want, I enjoy it so much more when you scream. And beg.’ He smiled. ‘And just so you know, it’s going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me.’ He chuckled at his own joke. ‘That was my catchphrase, towards the end. That’s what I always said just before I started torturing them.’ He laughed again, and then shuddered. ‘I just want you two lads to know how much this means to me, you coming around like this. You’ve made

  an old man very happy.’

  He licked his lips and walked towards Dobbsy, swishing the scalpel back and forth, a hungry look in his cold, blue eyes.

  HARD TARGET

  It was a normal day in Bond Street with high net worth shoppers strolling past shops filled with stock of such value that even the richest would-be customers could enter only once they had been ‘buzzed in’ by the security guards inside the doors. Traffic wardens moved along the pavements, peering through windscreens to check tax discs and dishing out tickets, trying to keep the traffic moving, though a £60 parking fine was litt
le deterrent to those whose wealth was counted in eight or nine digits. In the polyglot babble of this richest of London thoroughfares, there was scarcely an English accent to be heard.

  Sergei Ilyushin was making his way down the street, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine. Like another oligarch and London resident, Roman Abramovich, Ilyushin was the peasant son of a peasant father from Russia’s Far East, who owed his fortune to the happy chance of having worked his way up the ranks of the Party to become an area governor in the Far East at the time when communism collapsed. When the chaotic, drunken Yeltsin years allowed anyone with the right connections and a sufficient degree of ruthless self-interest to plunder the state assets at giveaway prices, Ilyushin made his move and seized control of vast oil and gas reserves.

  Unlike some of his fellow oligarchs, he was shrewd enough both to have courted Putin as he rose to power and also to have stayed well clear of politics himself. As a result his fortune had grown still more. He had moved to London a few years previously and now lived in a St John’s Wood mansion with his wife and three children, though he had also installed a beautiful and much younger mistress in a Mayfair apartment. He had spent the afternoon in Sotheby’s Bond Street auction rooms, bidding for several Russian icons and buying three of them at a total cost of £8 million. The irony of spending that kind of money on things that he had been able to buy for a few roubles in the chaos and anarchy of the early post-communist days did not escape him.

  He smiled to himself as he looked around. Life was good. His wife, Ludmilla, might still pine for Russia and their lavish dacha outside Mosst cow with its tennis courts, stables and indoor swimming pool, but Ilyushin was in London to stay. She still spoke virtually no English and spent hours every day on the telephone to her mother or one or other of her five sisters back in Russia but, however much she pleaded with him, Ilyushin had no intention of returning there. ‘You want to go?’ he would say, knowing that, however much she loved her mother and her sisters, she loved his wealth even more. ‘Then go, but I’m staying here.’