Caught in the Web

by Emmy Ellis

  “Any ideas where you’re going from here?” Emerson asked, his question a clear sign he was definitely going home in a bit and not hanging around to help out.

  Marla turned the moth this way and that, seemingly fascinated yet horrified by it at the same time.

  Burgess sucked on his bottom lip. Thought for a moment, his eyes glazing. He blinked them back into focus along with his mind. “We’ll need to contact the zoo again and see if anyone there can identify which sort of moth that is. Might be significant.” He stared at the fat creature and suppressed a shudder of his own. It might not be a thing, and he might have convinced Marla he was okay, but fucking hell, that furry body… “It’s got to mean something, hasn’t it? The insects?”

  “I’d say so.” Emerson rubbed at his temples. “But buggered if I can work out what it is. Too tired—exhaustion’s just come over me all of a sudden.” He grinned as Burgess gave him a sidelong look. “There’ll be a link somewhere, I’m sure. And on that note…” He brought his watch up to his face. “By the time I’ve had a lovely coffee at the station and typed up my notes for you, it’ll be me going off home.”

  “See you soon,” Burgess said. “Enjoy the coffee.”

  “Oh, I bloody will.”

  Emerson left with the silent Flemmings in tow, and Shaw came out from behind Burgess to hand an open evidence bag to Marla. She popped the moth inside, and while she secured the bag, Burgess took a photo of it on his phone then grabbed the chance to scan the rest of the area.

  The canal path was tarmac, so no footprints there, and the banks either side of it didn’t seem to have had anyone trampling the grass down. The only trodden area was around the body, and Emerson had said photographs had been taken already, before any coppers or Marla had walked on it, plus it had been checked for evidence. Nothing found. No surprise there, considering the alley had also been clear.

  The swoosh of the tent cover going over the erected frame drew his attention back to the victim. The torch lit up the interior, and Burgess was more at ease now the body was hidden from the row of houses and anyone in them.

  “Can you do me a favour and check inside his trousers?” he asked Marla and turned to make sure the tent flaps were closed behind them. “That stain is bothering me. Seems too dark for piss.”

  Marla placed the evidence bag on top of her instrument case. “Doesn’t smell like urine. I hope this doesn’t go the way I’m thinking it’ll go.”

  “Hmm.” Burgess waited while she undid the man’s zip then popped the button out of the hole.

  “No underpants,” she said. “Which doesn’t surprise me—he looks homeless. Hardly a must-have accessory for the poor sod if he was.” She sighed and pulled back the material. “Oh.”

  Shaw clamped a hand over his mask in the mouth area.

  “Blood, not urine then.” Burgess stared at the dried redness on the skin just above the man’s pubic hair. “And farther down?”

  “Do you really need to see?” Marla asked.

  “No, I don’t suppose I do.”

  “Absence of a penis,” she said. “That puts a different light on it, doesn’t it.”

  Burgess nodded, his stomach cramping and, nauseated, he shifted his gaze away. Marla folded the material back over the victim’s…lack of a private part.

  “So Anita wasn’t sexually assaulted yet the man was?” he mused.

  “Might not be a sexual assault in the sense you mean. Butchered, more like.” Shaw lowered his hand.

  “Like Shaw said, not necessarily sexual.” Marla cringed. “It seems more of a rage thing, the way it’s been, um, hacked at.”

  “Jesus Christ, the poor bloke.” Shaw rolled his shoulders. “Before death?”

  Marla tilted her head. “No, I wouldn’t say so. Not enough blood. Perhaps immediately after. Cut off at this scene, too, I’d say. It’s…um…it’s still there in his trousers, the penis, just not attached.”

  Burgess fought the urge to clutch at his own and protect it. “Right, um… Right. Can you check in his hairline for me? See if there’s another needle hole?”

  Marla secured the man’s trousers again, switched to a clean pair of gloves, then pushed him onto his side so she could search for what Burgess wanted, using her magnifying glass.

  He looked at Shaw. “What the fucking hell have we got here?”

  Shaw shrugged. “No idea. It’s usually the women who are mutilated like that. And if these two people are linked somehow, as in, knowing each other… I can’t see that, can you? Unless Anita helped out unfortunates or something in her spare time. He doesn’t look the type she’d hang out with in her personal life. Professional female, trampy male. She was naked, he isn’t. Thing in one mouth, moth in the other. Are these cases really related?”

  “Yes,” Marla said. “Seems they are. Needle hole found.”

  Burgess shook his head in despair. None of this was making sense. Why would a killer choose two totally different people? And did he know the male victim like he’d known Anita? Or was this murder random? Had the male victim seen the killer putting Anita in the alley, was that it?

  “I’m at a loss. I need to think about this for a bit,” Burgess said. “We need to see if any of the streets around here have CCTV. And we’ll be bloody lucky if they do.”

  “This is the same as the female victim,” Marla said. “No evidence of strangulation et cetera. I’m willing to bet he’s got heroin in his system. Overdose. Of course, you’ll have my final assessment once I’ve had a chance to do the postmortem. Probably get back to you before your shift ends later if nothing more pressing is waiting for me back at the hospital.”

  “What could be more pressing than a murder?” Burgess asked.

  “Another murder?” Marla raised her eyebrows. “I don’t just deal with this kind, you know. People die in hospital, in their homes, and not all from natural causes. But if that’s a prompt for me to get this body seen to first, I’ll try my best. I’ll just have to call King in if I have a waiting list at the morgue and he’s been lazy overnight.” She stood. “And that’s a bitch because, you know, it’s King.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Burgess hated the arrogant prick. He’d hurt Marla in the past when they’d been in a relationship, and it took every bit of professionalism in Burgess not to lump the bloke each time he saw him. “Time of death?”

  “Estimate is after midnight.”

  “Interesting. Something to think about.” Burgess rubbed his chin. “I’ll leave you to it then.”

  Marla nodded. “Oh, and in case you were wondering, the couple in that book of mine… Wow, do I have some tips for you.”

  “I don’t need tips,” Burgess grumbled.

  “Don’t you?”

  “Pack it in,” Burgess warned. “Shaw, we need to get back to the station. Make sure Emerson hasn’t taken more than one coffee.”

  “Oh, the pressing things on your mind just boggle mine.” Marla rolled her eyes.

  “You don’t want to know what’s on his mind,” Shaw said. “He doesn’t even want to know.”

  “You two are pissing me off. Ganging up.” Burgess lifted a hand and waved. “Speak soon, Mar.”

  “We will indeed. Enjoy your day, Detectives.”

  Her tinkle of laughter followed them out of the tent, and Burgess gave Shaw a filthy look.

  “What?” Shaw asked.

  “You know what. Marla knows I have a past, but I don’t need her harping on at me to open up either.”

  “God, can’t I have a little joke while looking decent in my new suit?”

  Burgess led the way to his car. “You just had to remind me of the pain, didn’t you.”

  “The pain of what, giving it to me?” Shaw came abreast of him.

  “Get in the bloody car.”

  “Yes, sir.” Shaw laughed.

  Fucking bastard.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The sense of wellbeing wasn’t fully back. This was a concern, although maybe he just needed some sleep and when he wo
ke again, everything would be calm. Everything inside him would be calm. He knew why he wasn’t feeling as he should. That one extra thing he’d done to The Man Point Two—that was what had spoilt it all. That was what had denied him the wonderful release he’d been seeking.

  He hadn’t been able to help himself, though. And how silly that was, not having control. He’d ruined the next sixteen years and he’d have to suffer as he had been recently, all coiled up and out of sorts. Anita Jane Curtis’ expulsion from the world had meant he’d been halfway to feeling okay again, and he’d almost been able to touch the future with The Man Point Two until…

  Why had he done that…that thing?

  You know why.

  Rage.

  Rage.

  Rage.

  He closed his eyes, everything in him burning—burning so much he thought he might die from the heat. Would it be better if he did die? Would he join them in Hell, though, that was the question, one that worried him because, fuck, he never wanted to see them again.

  His foetal position wasn’t helping either. Nor were the quilt spiders, who weren’t hugging him as they should. Maybe because they were faded from so much washing over the years they didn’t have the strength. He’d climbed into bed earlier expecting their cuddles to soothe all his wrongdoing away, but instead…

  The hot chocolate on the bedside cabinet had long gone cold, him being too weary to reach out for it. And he had to be weary, didn’t he? All this time of fighting the whispering demons, of trying to be normal, and although what he’d done to her and The Man had meant he’d been calm for many years, because of one simple mistake with The Man Point Two he was back to feeling like that ugly little fucker again.

  Back there.

  He swam in it—in desperation and loneliness, not even having Gran to speak to anymore. She’d have put things right. She’d have told him how to deal with it. She’d have even, he was certain of it, forgiven him for what he’d done had he confessed.

  Did he need to see his therapist again? If it still bothered him that The Man had put his penis where he shouldn’t, wasn’t it better to seek help about it?

  It had been difficult to keep The Man Point Two occupied before he’d given him his dose of drugs. The time had to be right, just after midnight, and the tramp had continually queried why they weren’t going back to have that shower and the hot meal. Excuse after excuse had been given, and eventually, the hands of the clock had reached the correct point and he’d been able to offer The Man Point Two his fix.

  Opening his eyes now, he studied the city through the window. Another cold day. He didn’t have enough money in his savings to pay the zoo man for a second moth. How was he supposed to replicate killing The Man again now? Because that was the only way to solve this. Kill The Man and do it properly this time, without the rage forcing him to cut and hack. And there was all that searching he’d have to do for another lookalike. Why hadn’t he had people in reserve? Why had he only chosen one of each? Had he been that sure of himself that he’d thought he could pull this off without a hitch, the same way he had the first time?

  The Man would have to be killed today, too, before midnight, so the date was exactly the same as the first time.

  Shit.

  His father entered his mind then, a man she had been with while young and reckless. That was how Gran had put it anyway. A mistake, his father had been, and he knew he was also a mistake, a result of an immature coupling on her part, an error on his father’s.

  Resentment soured his mind. He closed his eyes again in an attempt to shut it all out, but it was still there, all of it. Swirling. Tormenting. Laughing at him. He concentrated on his breathing, the sound of it, how much air it took to fill his lungs. It worked, that simple form of therapy, to push back the looming panic that teetered on the edges of his psyche.

  His muscles relaxed. His heart rate slowed. His mind drifted.

  “Happy birthday!” Gran swept him up in a hug. “Twenty-one years old. I can hardly believe it. Where has all the time gone?”

  It had gone in a drawn-out slog of years that felt like fifty instead of twenty-one. The only saving grace was that her and The Man weren’t here to spoil it for him. They’d been sent packing last year, their bodies discovered and the resulting murder inquiries now cold cases that most likely sat in files gathering dust. He’d never worried about being discovered. He’d used gloves, had covered his tracks well with alibis, and he’d played the distraught son as best he could. His tears had been ones of relief that it was all over, but the police hadn’t seemed to realise that. All they’d seen was a young man upset, an orphan.

  Such a tragedy.

  Except he wasn’t an orphan. His father was still out there somewhere, and one day he’d find him. Turn up on his doorstep and receive the love he’d been denied from a parent so far.

  “God, I remember the moment you arrived clear as day.” Gran sighed, tears in her eyes. “You were so small, and oh, the smell of you. All newborn and wonderful. I was there, you know, at the hospital.”

  He didn’t know that. Didn’t know anything about himself prior to his own first memory, which was of him playing with some lad in the park and she’d dragged him away, her cheeks red and her fingernails biting into the soft skin of his inner wrist.

  What had he been then, about four?

  “The day you came made up for everything,” Gran went on, hands clasped to her chest. “Your mum, she’d been through a difficult time, but you made it all better.”

  “For you maybe, but not for her. I made things worse in her eyes. She wasn’t a nice mother,” he said, finally feeling he could be more open now there was no fear of reprisals. “She…she didn’t love me like you do.”

  “Oh.” The sunshine fled from Gran’s face, replaced by clouds of doubt—or was that guilt? “She did the best she could, I think. I hope.”

  “It wasn’t good enough, Gran, you know that. There was no excuse for how she treated me. But still, you tried to make up for it, didn’t you?”

  “I did, but I wasn’t good enough either. I should have… There were so many things I should have done. Said. And I didn’t. I kept my mouth shut when—”

  “It doesn’t matter now.”

  He lowered his head so he didn’t have to look at her. He hated seeing her so upset. She’d had such a hold on Gran that the poor old dear must have been scared of her, that was why Gran had behaved as she had.

  “She threatened to give you to your father once, you know.”

  He snapped his head up at that. “Why didn’t she? Fuck, why the hell didn’t she? I’d have had a better life, no doubt about it.” Had he just heaped another pile of guilt onto Gran by saying what he had?

  “Um, it was…difficult. Impossible.”

  “Why? Didn’t he want me?”

  Gran’s face whitened. “He had his own family when you were born, a wife and child. The wife didn’t know about you at the time. He…um…he had an affair with your mother, see.”

  He imagined his face went as pale as Gran’s. “Oh. For some reason I was under the impression that because she was so young when she got pregnant that it was some crush she’d had on a schoolboy and they’d…done things and whatever.”

  “Unfortunately not.” Gran wrung her hands, still holding them at her chest. “He was older than her. Much older. She lied to him about her age. It was all such a big mess. He was afraid of his wife finding out.”

  “So he was an arsehole then, to have had an affair. No better than her in my book. Look at how she behaved, sleeping around with anyone and everyone until that husband of hers came along.” The Man. The horrible, horrible man.

  “Things have a way of happening, love. They get out of control. Life gets out of control. I think she slept around because her head was fudged up. You’ll maybe understand more given time, life experience.”

  “So are you condoning what she did? What my father did?”

  “No, but I can see how things can spiral. And your mothe
r was a… She had her own way of dealing with things. I think she was in love with your father, and once he ended their affair, she couldn’t handle it. She had a way about her. She could get whatever she wanted, usually, so when he cut her off, she didn’t understand why she wasn’t good enough for him, why she wasn’t enough to take him away from his wife. And as for her going with him in the first place… Your mother…like I said, she had a way about her. I don’t think your father stood a chance.”

  “He could have walked away from her, like he did with me. Why was it easier to walk away from a child than her?”

  It had him feeling not good enough, not important enough—again. Anger built inside him—not at Gran, it wasn’t her fault she’d been made to keep such a secret—but at his parents. A mother who, it seemed, had used her charms and body to lure a man away from his wife for a few fucks, and a father who’d succumbed, weak-willed and ruled by his cock, one he hadn’t been able to keep in his pants, then hadn’t faced up to his responsibilities.

  “He didn’t know about you, I don’t think,” Gran whispered.

  Oh. That changed things. Not changed that his father had been a bastard by shagging her—he was still a bastard for doing that—but if he hadn’t known she’d been pregnant…

  “I see.” He plonked himself into the chair he’d sat on so many times in his childhood, the one in Gran’s kitchen, where she’d tried to feed him up and find out how his life was going. Him not telling her, pretending everything was fine. “I’m glad you told me. Do you know who he is?”

  Gran sat opposite. “I know his name, yes.” She picked up a white fabric napkin and scrunched it, opened it out, scrunched it again.

  The action grated on his nerves.

  “Will you tell me?” he asked. “Now she’s gone?”

  “Oh, love, I don’t know if it will do you any good knowing his name.”

  Hope surged inside him. Was this his chance to have a parent who cared? A chance at the rest of his life being good, where he was wanted, loved by someone other than Gran? Or would his father deny his existence, making things a million times worse? He might still be with his wife, and what the hell would he tell her after all these years? And there was a sibling out there. All right, it was a half-sibling, but that didn’t matter if they shared blood, did it? It was someone to call family. Someone to build a relationship with that might turn into the bond he craved.