The Spider's Web

by Ben Cheetham

  Emily’s eyebrows tightened. She’d seen photos of her mum from when she was young, and the drawing instantly reminded her of them. The thought came to her. Was this woman a cop? She didn’t look like one. But then again, what did a cop look like? She’d never had any contact with the police. Nor to her knowledge had her parents. Were they in trouble with them? She found it almost impossible to believe. They were so strait-laced. So boringly honest. And yet, thinking back on it, her dad’s reaction to her questions seemed to suggest just that. She warily shook her head. If her parents were in some kind of trouble, she wasn’t about to help the police get them.

  ‘His name’s Gavin Walsh,’ continued Anna.

  ‘Gavin Walsh? You mean like he’s related to me?’

  ‘He’s your brother.’

  Her face puckering incredulously, Emily shook her head. ‘I’m an only child.’

  ‘You’re wrong. Gavin Walsh was born in Birmingham in 1968 and was supposedly murdered there in 1987.’

  ‘Murdered?’ Emily took a step backwards, unnerved by the word.

  ‘By the brothers of a girl he raped. Only he wasn’t murdered. He fled Birmingham and assumed a new identity.’

  Emily shook her head again, more vehemently. ‘You’ve made a mistake or you’re lying.’

  Sympathy softened Anna’s voice. ‘I’m sorry, Emily, I realise how difficult this must—’ She broke off at the sound of a car pulling in sharply alongside them. Urgency replaced the sympathy. ‘Listen to me, Emily. You’re in danger.’

  Emily’s eyes darted past Anna. A man in a crumpled grey suit was getting out of the car. He was heavily built with deep-set brown eyes and a salt-and-pepper moustache. He didn’t look happy. She took several more quick backwards steps. What the fuck was this? Were they going to force her into the car?

  ‘Please, Emily,’ continued Anna. ‘Your parents aren’t what they seem.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Emily’s voice was trembling, close to tears.

  ‘They’re not who—’

  ‘Anna!’ shouted the man. ‘That’s enough.’

  Emily turned to run, but Anna sprang forward to grab her again. ‘You can’t go back to them.’ Her eyes were bulging. ‘I won’t let you.’

  ‘You’re crazy! I’ll call the police!’

  Emily tried to wrench her arm free. This time Anna didn’t let go. She jerked her chin at the man. ‘He is the police. If you don’t believe me, ask him about your so-called parents and—’

  ‘I said, that’s enough,’ he interrupted again, catching hold of Anna’s hand and prising it off Emily.

  The instant she was free, Emily ran for home. Her satchel came open and a book fell out. She didn’t stop to pick it up. She didn’t look back until the house came into sight. The woman – what had she said her name was? Anna Young. Anna and the supposed policeman were nowhere to be seen. Breathing hard, Emily shoved her key into the front door. Slamming doors behind herself, she ran upstairs and fell face first onto her bed. Her mind was whirling like an out-of-control fairground ride. Anna’s parting shot still seemed to echo in her ears. Ask him about your so-called parents. Had she been suggesting that they weren’t really her parents? And what about all the other things she’d said? Was it possible they were true? Or was she just some madwoman?

  She stiffened at a gentle knock on her bedroom door. An equally gentle voice asked, ‘Emily, are you OK?’

  Emily opened her mouth to say no, but something – some shadow of doubt – made her say, ‘Yes.’

  The door opened and Sharon Walsh poked her head into the room. ‘You don’t sound it.’

  The sight of her mum’s soft, concerned face rammed home to Emily the craziness of Anna’s words. Her parents had never raised a hand to her. Her mum was a born-again Christian. Violence went against everything she believed in. How can I be in danger from them? Emily asked herself. Again, she made to speak, intending to tell her mum what had happened. And again, doubt stayed her tongue as she thought about how her dad had behaved that morning. His anger had been so out of character. Something was obviously bothering him. Surely it wasn’t a coincidence that this Anna Young had shown up the same day. A thought occurred to her: maybe Anna had something to do with the girl who was supposedly raped. Maybe she even was the girl. ‘I’m fine. I just wanted to go to the shops with my friends. That’s all.’

  Sharon’s concern turned into a sigh of weary relief. ‘There’ll be plenty of other days for you to go shopping. Are you coming downstairs?’

  Emily shook her head. ‘I’ve got some homework to do.’

  ‘I’ll give you a shout when tea’s ready.’

  Sharon looked at her daughter a moment longer, as if wondering whether to say something else, before closing the door. Emily listened for her mum’s footsteps on the stairs, then she propped a chair against the door handle – something she always did when she didn’t want anyone walking in on her. She flopped back onto the bed, closed her eyes and immediately opened them again. There were so many conflicting thoughts and emotions battling for space inside her. Her head felt ready to pop. She had to know whether Anna was telling the truth. She retrieved a laptop and flipped it open.

  *

  ‘Get the hell off me!’ spat Anna, struggling against Jim’s grip.

  ‘Not until you calm down.’

  ‘Fuck you. I am calm.’

  ‘Yeah, like a hurricane.’ Jim twisted Anna’s arm up behind her back and thrust her towards his car. ‘Do you want me to put the cuffs on you? Because I will do if you make me.’

  ‘I’d like to see you fucking try.’

  With practised ease Jim pushed Anna’s head down and into the car. He followed her onto the back seat. She glared at him like a cornered animal. ‘Why did you stop me?’

  ‘You know why. Just what did you hope to achieve by that little performance? Did you really think Emily would listen to you?’

  ‘She was listening until you showed up.’

  ‘Bullshit. The poor girl was terrified.’

  ‘Better that than let those people hurt her.’

  ‘Why would Ronald and Sharon hurt her? They’ve raised her as their own child.’

  Anna scowled. ‘Yeah, and who knows what their idea of raising a child is.’

  Jim heaved a sigh. Anna was right. Child abuse was cyclical. Victims often – although far from always – grew up to be victimisers. ‘Look, the best thing – the only thing – we can do for Emily right now is find proof that she’s not Ronald and Sharon’s daughter.’

  ‘And how the fuck are we going to do that without taking her DNA?’

  As if in answer, Jim’s phone rang. It was Janet Shaw. Had she found out something that proved Emily Walsh’s birth record was falsified? If she had it would almost be enough to make him believe in fate or providence or whatever you wanted to call it. ‘Something strange,’ said Janet. ‘I’ve been ringing around my colleagues. None of them remember Sharon Walsh either. But that’s not the strange thing. I always keep a diary. So I dug out my diary from 1998. And guess what. At the time of Emily Walsh’s birth I was on holiday in Turkey.’

  ‘Are you sure of that?’

  ‘One hundred per cent. I’m looking at the entry and exit stamps in my old passport right now. I was there with my husband from the twenty-sixth of May until the ninth of June. So you see I couldn’t possibly have delivered Emily Walsh.’

  Jim snapped his fingers triumphantly. ‘Thank you, Mrs Shaw. Myself or one of my colleagues will be in contact with you again shortly. In the meantime, please don’t mention this to anyone else.’ He relayed the conversation to Anna. ‘You see,’ he said. ‘Somewhere in the web of lies, there’s always something, some small detail that eventually catches up with the bastards.’

  ‘But is that enough to get a warrant for DNA testing?’

  ‘It’s enough to start working on getting one. So are you going to back off from Emily Walsh?’

  Anna nodded, although not very convincingly. Jim wrinkled his forehead
at her. ‘Maybe you should go back to Sheffield.’

  ‘No fucking way am I taking my eyes off the Walshes. You’d have to drag me away from here kicking and screaming. Look, I give you my word I’m not going to do anything for now except watch them. But you’d better come up with that warrant fast.’

  Jim got on the phone to Garrett and explained the situation. ‘Let me get this straight,’ the Chief Superintendent said doubtfully, ‘you think Emily Walsh is Jessica Young’s daughter.’

  ‘I don’t think it, I know it. And if you saw the girl you would too.’

  ‘If you’re right, it would mean…’ Garrett’s breath filled the line. ‘Christ, I don’t even want to think about what it would mean. OK, we’re going to need to put more evidence together. Go back to the hospital, make sure this isn’t some computer mistake. Speak to everyone you can who worked there in ’98. And when you’re done with that, start speaking to the Walshes’ neighbours and relatives, see if any of them remember Sharon Walsh being pregnant. I’ll put a request in to the NHS information centre for her health records. And I’ll have DI Greenwood get on to social services in case Emily Walsh has ever come onto their radar.’

  ‘How’s the search and seizure going?’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell. We haven’t turned up anything incriminating yet. And here’s some more bad news. Miles Burnham has managed to get a court injunction preventing the media from publishing Villiers’ name.’

  Jim’s mouth drew into a tight line. The news disappointed but didn’t surprise him.

  ‘There is one bit of good news,’ went on Garrett. ‘The Craig Thorpe Youth Trust has suspended Villiers pending the outcome of our investigation.’

  Jim made a dubious noise. The operative words were ‘suspended’ and ‘pending’. If the investigation went south, no doubt Villiers would walk straight back into his job or another like it. He got off the phone and said to Anna, ‘I need to head over to Queen’s Medical Centre. Are you coming?’

  Anna shook her head. ‘I told you I’m not taking my eyes off the Walshes.’

  Jim eyed her uncertainly. ‘Can I trust you?’

  ‘Relax, I won’t go kicking their door down or anything like that.’

  ‘And contact me at once if—’

  ‘I will,’ Anna cut in impatiently. It made her uneasy having Emily out of her sight. At the very least she wanted to put her eyes on the Walshes’ house. ‘Now come on, let’s get fucking moving.’

  Jim drove her back to the camper van. He gave her the Walshes’ address and a lingering glance that said, Don’t let me down, before accelerating away. Anna headed to the house and parked a few doors down. Her lips curled. It was a nice-looking place. And, no doubt, Ronald and Sharon Walsh were nice-looking people. Nice like shiny apples, rotten at the core.

  The curtains were drawn in one of the upstairs windows. She wondered if it was Emily’s bedroom window. She thought about Emily. Her straight blonde hair, her blue eyes, her delicate features. And she thought about Jessica, superimposing the images. They fitted together perfectly. Like two halves of a puzzle. She wondered what Jessica looked like now. What would twenty years of being kept prisoner have done to her? She slipped into the old fantasy of finding her, rescuing her, taking her home to their mum. But this time she imagined Emily with them. She imagined them all together. Something broken but whole. A real family.

  Emily Googled ‘Anna Young’ and got thousands of hits. The top one was for a blog called ‘The Truth’. She clicked it and an ‘Error 404 Page Not Found’ appeared. She tried several of the others. Each led to the same reblogged article by Anna about some sort of paedophile ring. Many bloggers praised Anna for her bravery in pursuit of the truth. But there were also anonymous commenters who accused her of being a liar and a fantasist. Emily took it all in with a growing tightness in her abdomen. What did any of this have to do with her and her family? Surely nothing. The thought was reinforced by the fact that she could find no mention of ‘Gavin Walsh’. She Googled the name along with ‘Murder, 1987’. It turned up no relevant results. She tried again substituting ‘Rape’ for ‘Murder’. Still nothing. She brought up a list of Birmingham newspapers and clicked the top hit. She navigated to the ‘contact me’ page and scrolled through a list of editors and reporters, wondering who would be best to contact. She stopped on ‘Crime: Lindsey Allen’. She punched the reporter’s number into her mobile phone. A woman with a Brummie accent came on the line. ‘This is Lindsey Allen, Birmingham Evening Post.’

  ‘My name’s Emily Walsh,’ Emily began nervously. ‘I… er… I’m trying to find out about a crime that happened in Birmingham.’

  ‘A crime we ran a story about?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m calling.’

  ‘Have you searched the online version of the newspaper?’

  ‘Yes. I couldn’t find anything. The crime happened in 1987.’

  ‘Ah, well, the online archives only go back a year. For something that long ago you’d have to search through the microfilm archives. They’re kept on file here and at the Birmingham Central Library.’

  ‘But I don’t live in Birmingham. Could you look for me?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I—’

  ‘Please, Miss Allen,’ broke in Emily, a note of desperation in her tremulous teenage voice. ‘I really need your help. I think someone might be trying to hurt my family. And it’s got something to do with this thing that supposedly happened in 1987.’

  ‘How old are you, Emily?’ asked Lindsey, suddenly sounding interested.

  ‘Fifteen.’

  ‘Well, Emily, if someone’s threatening your family you should call the police.’

  ‘She’s not actually made any threats. She’s just saying these… these horrible things.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘She says there was this man, Gavin Walsh. And that he raped someone and was murdered because of it, only he wasn’t really murdered.’

  ‘Who’s Gavin Walsh? A relative?’

  Emily hesitated to reply. What if Anna Young wasn’t a liar and a fantasist? Emily didn’t want some reporter getting hold of the story and putting it in a newspaper. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, what about the person who’s been saying these things, do you know who she is?’

  ‘I… er… no,’ Emily lied, not very convincingly. Her parents had always drummed it into her how important it was to tell the truth.

  Lindsey was silent a moment, then she said, ‘OK, Emily, I’ll take a look for you.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, Miss Allen,’ Emily exclaimed gratefully. ‘How long will it take?’

  ‘I should be able to get back to you some time tomorrow. Is there anything else you can tell me about Gavin Walsh?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s OK. It should be enough to go on. Do you want me to contact you on the same number you’re calling from?’

  Emily replied yes and thanked the reporter again. From downstairs her mum called to her, ‘Tea’s ready.’

  ‘I’ve got to go.’ Emily cut off the call. She deleted her browser history, then made her way to the kitchen. Her parents were already at the table. Her dad treated her to a searching look as she sat down. Avoiding his eyes, she began picking at her food.

  ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’ Sharon gently chastised.

  ‘Oh, sorry, Mum.’

  ‘Don’t apologise to me.’ Sharon rolled her eyes at the ceiling. ‘Apologise to Him.’

  Emily looked up. ‘Sorry.’

  Sharon folded her hands together and closed her eyes. As her husband and Emily did likewise, she began, ‘Bless us O Lord and for these thy gifts which we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen.’

  ‘Thank you, Emily,’ Ronald said, reaching to give her forearm a squeeze. She thought he meant for humouring her mum – he knew she didn’t share her mum’s faith – but he continued, ‘Thank you for coming straight home. Your mum and I were just saying how lucky we are
to have a daughter like you. So many teenagers don’t listen to their parents these days.’

  Emily blinked guiltily. It suddenly felt like a massive betrayal having contacted Lindsey Allen. Her entire life her parents had lavished her with as much attention and love as any child could want. And how had she repaid them? By doubting them at the words of a stranger, that’s how.

  ‘Your mum and I have got an optician’s appointment first thing in the morning,’ said Ronald. ‘Do you need anything from town?’

  Emily shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Dad.’

  ‘What for?’

  She gave an awkward little shrug. ‘You and Mum are so… I mean you do so much for me. I sometimes feel like I don’t deserve it.’

  Sharon took Emily’s other wrist. ‘You’re the best daughter we could ever have, Emily. And nothing you do will ever change the way we feel about you.’

  That was too much for Emily. She stood up. ‘I’m not really hungry. Can I go to my room?’

  ‘Are you OK, love?’ asked Ronald, his eyes concerned but also curious once more. ‘Is there anything you want to tell us?’

  Emily shook her head, her lips compressed.

  Ronald motioned to the door. ‘Go on then.’

  Resisting the urge to break into a run, Emily left the kitchen. She threw herself onto her bed, tears welling in her eyes. She’d almost blurted it all out – her encounter with Anna, the phone call to the reporter. But something still stopped her from doing so. She couldn’t bear the thought of the hurt she knew her parents would feel. That was part of it, but not the main part. Even their loving words hadn’t been able to extract the splinter of doubt lodged in her brain. And she hated herself because of it.

  12

  Anna’s eyes blinked open at a soft knock on the van’s side door. She lifted her head and looked at the dashboard clock: 11:35 p.m. ‘Shit,’ she muttered. She must have fallen asleep without realising it. Cautiously, she peered between the curtains drawn across the windows. Seeing Jim’s grizzled face, she opened the door.