The Spider's Web

by Ben Cheetham

  ‘You look as though you found a turd in your cornflakes.’

  A cheerless smile pulled at one corner of Jim’s mouth. ‘Someone got to Heather Shanks. Anna hasn’t spoken to Jamal Jackson, but it’s a good bet the pressure’s been put on him too.’

  Jim’s office phone rang. He answered it. ‘Hello, this is—’

  Linda Kirby’s accusing voice cut him off. ‘I bloody well trusted you! I would’ve expected this of Mr Garrett, but not you, Jim. I thought you were different. More fool me.’

  Jim guessed at once what had happened. ‘You’ve spoken to Anna Young.’

  ‘That’s right and she told me all about how you’ve been protecting those filthy perverts.’

  ‘I’m just following orders.’

  ‘So were the Nazis when they murdered millions.’

  Jim winced at the comparison. Linda was right. Evil thrived on blind obedience. And silence. Two things she herself had been guilty of in the past. But no longer. He’d never seen such a change in a person as had come over Linda since her daughter’s death. Gone was the woman who’d mutely stood by whilst her husband physically abused their daughter. In her place was a bold, outspoken woman, relentlessly driven by rage. Not for the first time, Jim felt a sliver of sadness at the thought that it had taken something so tragic to spark Linda’s courage.

  ‘How many more children have to be abused, how many more people have to die before you bastards do something?’ continued Linda.

  ‘We already are.’

  ‘Oh yeah, you’re doing something, alright. Covering up the truth.’

  ‘I promise you, we wouldn’t—’

  ‘Save it. I’ve heard enough empty promises from you lot to last me a lifetime. Well here’s a real promise for you. I’m going to do something about Thomas Villiers. I’m going to make him regret the day he was born.’

  ‘Are you threatening him?’

  ‘Too bloody right I am!’

  ‘Listen to me, Linda, Villiers isn’t someone you want to butt heads with.’

  Linda gave a contemptuous bark. ‘Neither am I.’

  ‘Please, you could do more harm than good.’

  ‘How? How could I possibly do more harm than what you’ve already done? Shame on you.’

  With this last retort, the line went dead. ‘Linda Kirby?’ said Reece.

  Jim nodded. ‘She gave me an earful about protecting Villiers.’

  ‘She’s out of order. You don’t deserve that.’

  Jim pulled a face as though he wasn’t convinced Reece was right.

  ‘Why so gloomy?’ asked Reece. ‘Surely this is a good thing. If Linda Kirby kicks up a big enough stink, it might get into the news. I thought that’s what you wanted.’

  ‘It is. But what I don’t want is some kind of vigilante action being taken against Villiers.’

  ‘You must’ve known there was a chance of that when you put the list out there.’

  Jim accepted Reece’s words with another heavy sigh. ‘I’d better let Garrett know what the score is.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe you could try praying Anna Young comes up with something.’

  ‘I didn’t think prayers were your bag.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it’s amazing what you’ll try when you’re desperate.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  Catching the pained note in Reece’s voice, Jim asked, ‘How did it go in London?’

  Reece’s mouth twitched. ‘They want to send Staci to South Africa for treatment.’

  ‘Listen, Reece, if you need money—’

  Reece cut Jim off with a shake of his head. ‘Thanks for the offer, but it won’t cost anything. It’s an experimental treatment. They’ll be using her as a guinea pig.’

  ‘Sounds risky.’

  ‘It is, but it’s all we’ve got.’

  ‘Are you going with her?’

  ‘No. I need to stay here and…’ Reece trailed off for a second, his lips twitching again. ‘We don’t want to take Amelia out of school. We’re trying to keep things as normal as possible for her, but it’s hard.’

  ‘Does she know what’s going on?’

  ‘She knows her mum’s ill, but not that she might—’ Reece’s voice clogged on what could only have been the word ‘die’. His broad shoulders lifted as he hauled in a shaky breath.

  ‘When’s Staci going?’

  ‘We’re waiting to hear. It shouldn’t be long.’

  ‘If you need time off to take her to the airport just let me know.’

  ‘Cheers, Jim. You’re a good friend.’ For an instant, Reece looked like he wanted to say something more. Then, as though fearing he might lose control of his emotions, he turned quickly and headed into the main office.

  As she drove, Anna’s gaze was drawn to the vast, desolate sweeps of moorland that flanked the M62. Moors whose boggy depths concealed so many secrets. She found herself wondering whether Jessica was buried out there somewhere, waiting to be dug up like some archaeological artefact. The thought was as cold and lonely as a peaty grave. She didn’t believe in ghosts, but she could imagine the spirits of the wronged wandering those wild expanses. If Jessica was dead, there was only one place she should be – lying next to her dad in Norton Cemetery. She’d be able to rest then. They all would.

  An hour or so later, Anna was driving along Harehills Lane past street after street of terraced housing. She pulled over at a row of local shops. Her gaze came to rest on a sign that read ‘Tony Hulten Lettings’. She got out of the van, approached a window full of properties up for let and pretended to peruse them. Tony Hulten Lettings was little more than the front room of a terraced house converted into an office with a desk and chairs. A man was reading a newspaper at the desk. Not the man she was looking for. This one was late middle aged and overweight with a seedy, unshaven face. He smiled at Anna as she entered the office.

  ‘Can I help you, young lady?’ he asked.

  ‘Are you Tony Hulten?’

  ‘That’s me, or at least it was last time I looked.’

  ‘I’m looking for a man who used to live in one of your properties. I wondered if you had a forwarding address for him.’

  ‘Which property?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but this is its phone number.’ Anna showed Tony the number on her phone. His eyes returned narrowly to hers.

  ‘What’s the name of the person you’re looking for?’

  ‘I’m not exactly sure about that either. He might have called himself Clotho Daeja. I have a picture of him.’

  Anna took out the sketch. Tony gave it a perfunctory glance as though he already knew what he was going to see. And her heart was suddenly going fast again with the knowledge that the True Wiccan and Clotho Daeja were the same person.

  ‘That looks like a police drawing,’ observed Tony.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘So you’re a policewoman.’

  Careful to keep her excitement from showing, Anna tapped the sketch. ‘I’m just someone who wants to find this man.’

  Tony rested back in his chair, folding his arms. ‘Even if I had a forwarding address, I can’t go giving out that information willy-nilly.’

  Anna caught a note in Tony’s voice that seemed to suggest he wasn’t as inflexible as he appeared to be. ‘I’d be willing to pay for it.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘One hundred.’

  ‘Three hundred.’

  Anna didn’t have the time or patience to haggle. She peeled off the required amount from the money Jim had transferred to her account.

  ‘Yeah, I remember Mr Daeja,’ said Tony. ‘He rented a house off me on Cowper Road. Lived there from ’91 until… I think it was 2007. He was a funny bloke. And I don’t mean funny ha-ha. He never bothered me, but he put the willies up some people round here. He had this way of looking at you if you did something he didn’t like. You could tell he was thinking about doing something nasty to you.’

  ‘Did he work?’
>
  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Surely he had to provide some sort of proof that he could afford the rent.’

  ‘He had plenty of cash and he always paid his rent three months in advance. That was good enough for me. I was sorry to see him go.’

  ‘Why did he go?’

  Tony shrugged. ‘He didn’t say and I never asked.’

  ‘Did he live alone?’

  ‘As far as I’m aware. Look, all I’m concerned about is the rent. What my tenants get up to in the privacy of their own homes is nothing to do with me.’

  ‘What about a forwarding address?’

  ‘He didn’t leave one.’

  A rise of irritation came into Anna’s voice. ‘So that’s it, is it? That’s all I get for my money.’

  ‘Not quite all. There’s one other thing. I happen to know that Mr Daeja used to rent another property a few miles from here. Maybe he still does.’

  ‘A house?’

  ‘No. A lock-up garage.’

  Anna’s breath caught in her throat. She slid her hand into her pocket and gripped the key. ‘Where?’

  Tony rooted through a drawer, withdrew a business card and handed it to Anna. ‘Turner Storage Solutions’ was printed on the card along with a phone number and two addresses. Tony pointed at one of the addresses. ‘That’s where the garages are. I’ve no idea which garage Mr Daeja rented. You could try talking to Donald Turner. The bloke who owns them. I don’t think he’ll tell you anything though. Donald doesn’t like giving out information about his customers. The only reason I know Mr Daeja was one of them is because I recommended Donald to him.’

  Even before Tony had finished speaking, Anna was heading out the door. She punched the address into Google and brought up an aerial view of the garages. They were on the south-eastern edge of the city, sandwiched between a housing estate and a thick band of woodland. Twenty minutes or so later she was driving through a relatively affluent-looking area of detached houses and bungalows. A narrow lane enclosed by hedges and shadowed by trees dead-ended at a padlocked wire gate. Two signs on the gate read ‘Turner Storage Solutions’ and ‘Warning! CCTV in use. Trespassers will be prosecuted.’ Beyond the gate, three parallel rows of flat-roofed breezeblock garages with blue roller-doors sloped gently towards the woods. Anna sized up the fence. It was topped with razor wire. There was no way she was climbing over it without tearing herself to shreds.

  She clambered over a hedge into a grassy field and skirted around the site, searching for a gap in the fence. She hadn’t gone far when she came to a place where the wire curled up at the bottom. Lifting it, she crawled through the gap. She made no attempt to avoid the CCTV cameras as she hurried to the garages. Let them prosecute. What did she give a fuck? Quivering with nervous energy, she tried the key in the first garage she came to. It slid easily into the lock, but wouldn’t turn. She moved onto the next garage, and the next, and the next… Then the second row of garages, then the third. Her trembling intensified as she checked out the final few garages. Only three to go… two… one. Her tongue flicked dryly over her lips. This had to be it! She inserted the key and twisted. Nothing. She applied more pressure. Still it refused to turn. She hammered her fist against the door, hissing, ‘Fuck.’

  She closed her eyes, exhaling her disappointment. The lead wasn’t dead. Donald Turner probably had other lock-up garages in the city. She would simply have to wheedle their locations out of him. As she turned to leave, her gaze lingered on some bushes that extended from the woods through the fence. She glimpsed something reddish beyond them. Brickwork! Her eyes traced the outline of a sloping roof, so overgrown with ivy and moss that it was difficult to recognise it for what it was at a glance. She started towards the structure, slowly at first, then breaking into a run. As she rounded the bushes, she saw that it was another garage, but standing on its own and obviously far older than the others. All that was visible of it was part of a windowless wall and a heavy-looking, flaky painted wooden door – a door, she noted, that had been fitted with a much newer lock. She inserted the key into it. Even before she twisted it, she knew – just knew in her gut – that it was going to turn.

  The click as the lock opened sent an electric jolt through her. She reached for the handle, but hesitated. If Spider’s fingerprints were on it, she didn’t want to smudge them. She prised her fingers under the door and strained to lift it. The hinges reluctantly whined into motion. It had clearly been some time since it was last opened. After maybe half a metre, wisps of spiders’ webs floating from its underside, it ground to a halt. A musty, oily smell tickled her nostrils as she peered inside. Empty. She wasn’t surprised. Spider had probably cleared the garage out at the same time he vacated the Cowper Road house. Still, she couldn’t help but feel another sharp pang of disappointment. She slid beneath the door and walked slowly around, squinting through the gloom at the bare walls, the ivy curling under the roof tiles, the dusty concrete floor. She dropped to her haunches at the rear of the garage and ran her fingers along a thin gouge in the floor a couple of centimetres deep and maybe a metre long. Two metres or so to the left was an identical parallel gouge. Something heavy had been dragged along the floor.

  She straightened, her gaze roaming the garage again. Had Jessica been brought here? Had she died here? She drew in a deep breath through her nostrils as though trying to detect a familiar scent. Then she headed back outside. She’d followed the lead as far as she could. She saw little point in talking to Donald Turner herself. He almost certainly knew no more about Spider’s whereabouts than Tony Hulten. No, it was up to the police now. Surely, between the garage and Cowper Road, their forensics people would turn up something of interest.

  She took out her phone to call Jim, but her gaze strayed down the side of the garage to where the fence had been neatly cut from the bottom up to half its height. Beyond it, a faint overgrown path disappeared into the trees. She ducked through the fence and followed the path. Brambles snagged her trousers. She snapped a branch off a tree. The sound echoed like a gunshot through the gloomy tangle of tree trunks. A flock of rooks rose from the treetops, wheeled around several times cawing furiously, then settled back down. There was silence – a deep, watchful silence, as if the wood and its inhabitants were suddenly alert to her presence. She stared uneasily into the trees for a moment. Then she continued on her way, pushing the brambles aside with the branch. The further she went into the woods, the more densely packed the trees became, until the leaf canopy was so thick it almost blotted out the sky. Occasional shafts of sunlight illuminated a carpet of mosses, dead branches and rotting leaves. The air was cool and earthy, like a cave. At any moment, she half expected to catch a glimpse of a horned head. Not that she believed for one second in all that crap about the Horned God. But she could all too easily picture Spider prancing around here in pagan get-up, perhaps imagining himself as sexually potent and uninhibited as the deity he worshipped, instead of the simple pervert he was.

  Anna stopped at the edge of a grassy clearing. At its centre was a squat, thick-trunked oak tree, obviously of great age. A scattering of leaves clung to its branches, which twisted outwards as if in some kind of agonised appeal. Its partially exposed roots curled into the earth like clutching fingers. But it wasn’t the tree’s eerily human appearance that raised goose-flesh on Anna’s arms. At roughly head height a circular area of bark had been cut away and a face had been etched into the exposed wood. It had a flat, inexpressive mouth, a broad nose, deep, squinting eyes and a wrinkled forehead out of which protruded a pair of curved, tapering horns. It was simply, even crudely carved. Yet that only gave it a sort of primitive authenticity most of the images of the Horned God she’d viewed online lacked.

  She advanced with the stick raised defensively, as if afraid the tree might suddenly come alive and attack her. Dozens of different-coloured frayed and faded ribbons were tied to its branches. Some of them held feathers. Others scraps of fur. A metallic gleam caught Anna’s eye. One ribbon was threaded through a
tarnished silver ring with an interlacing Celtic design. Her eyebrows pulled together. The ring was small enough to fit a girl’s finger. Not far from it a cheap-looking bead necklace encircled a branch. What were they? Offerings? More importantly, who were their owners? In another context their presence would have seemed perfectly innocent. But here they exuded a sinister significance.

  The carving drew Anna’s gaze again. Without thinking, she stretched out a hand to trace its outline. Its surface was uneven but smooth, and darkened by exposure to the elements. She snatched her hand back as though she’d been burnt, reminding herself sharply that with every touch she could be obscuring vital forensic evidence. She began to circumnavigate the tree, stepping over its gnarled roots. She stumbled and almost fell as her foot disappeared through a mulch of leaves into a hollow at the tree’s base. She stooped to clear away the leaves. They’d been piled on top of a layer of woven together sticks. They concealed a circular hole that angled gently downwards underneath the tree. She wondered if it was an animal burrow, but dismissed the idea. It was too large, even for a badger. She directed her phone’s flashlight into the hole, palely illuminating a beard of wispy roots dangling from its roof. Brushing them aside with the stick, she spotted what looked like a little bundle of rags about a metre down. She snagged them and carefully drew them to the surface. They unravelled, leaving a trail of old brown bones. Not human bones. They were much too small and delicate. Most likely a bird, she decided, turning a tiny skull over. They’d been wrapped in what looked like a mouldy teacloth. She used a tissue to gather up the bones and return them to the cloth. Then she peered back into the hole.

  There was something else down there. Beyond the reach of the stick. Anna lowered herself onto her belly. Her shoulders brushed the sides of the hole as, with the stick and phone extended in front of her, she squirmed into it. She blinked as tendrils of roots tickled her eyes. The earthy smell of the woods was much more intense there. It had a richness, a darkness that was almost primeval. When she was immersed up to her waist, she stopped and stretched the stick out. Its tip snagged another bundle of rags, larger than the first. She tried to draw them towards her, but they seemed to be caught on something. She wriggled further forwards. The hole broadened and steepened. Her entire body was inside it now. She glanced back towards the light, a feeling of claustrophobia rising in her chest. Fighting it down, she released the stick and reached out with her hand. The bundle was maybe twenty centimetres beyond her fingertips. She inched herself towards it. Suddenly, she began to slide. Instinctively, she braced her hands against the walls of the hole, blotting out the phone’s flashlight. For a fleeting instant she had the sensation that she was being sucked in and swallowed up by the earth. Then her face butted up against something. She refocused the light on what appeared to be green and purple worm-eaten fabric. A couple of black plastic buttons suggested the fabric had once been an item of clothing. It was wrapped around a hard object. Carefully, she undid the buttons. As the fabric slipped aside, she sucked in a sharp breath. The object was a skull – not an animal skull, a human one.