Spider's Web
Authors: Ben Cheetham
Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Crime, #Crime Fiction
14 February 1993
The whistles and chants swelled to a crescendo as Anna and Jessica entered the living-room. Rick Young was leaning forward on the sofa, hands clasped as if making a silent plea for help, eyes fixed tensely on the television. The stud-chewed turf of a football field filled the screen, punctuated by players wearing the familiar red and white stripes of Sheffield United’s home kit and the unfamiliar yellow and green halves of Manchester United’s away kit. The camera swung back and forth, chasing the ball with the same breathless urgency as the players. ‘Touched on by Giggs,’ came the commentator’s over-excited voice.
‘Just get hold of the bloody ball!’ yelled Rick, half rising to his feet as Manchester United drove forwards en masse.
‘Dad,’ said Anna. ‘Can we—’
She broke off as Rick gesticulated angrily at the television. ‘Come on, ref. Where’s the whistle?’
As if in response, the referee raised his whistle to blow for full time. ‘Sheffield United have won a famous victory,’ exclaimed the commentator, his voice half drowned out by the cheers that simultaneously tore from twenty-odd thousand throats. Laughing, Rick flung up his hands and danced a little victory jig, then sprang forward to embrace his daughters and rain kisses on their blonde heads.
‘Urgh! You stink of beer,’ said Anna, squirming out of his grasp. Her younger sister snuggled in closer, giggling with delight – Jessica had always been a daddy’s girl.
‘Can we have some money for the cinema, please, Daddy?’ Jessica asked in the wheedling voice she used when she wanted something.
‘Of course you can, love.’ Rick took two tenners out of his wallet and divided them between his daughters.
‘Ten quid! Thanks, Dad.’
‘Anything for my two favourite girls. Now give me a kiss.’
As the girls leant in to kiss their dad on opposite cheeks, he scooped them off their feet and twirled them around, singing, ‘Two–one, two–one.’
‘Hey, put me down,’ protested Anna, but with laughter in her voice.
Rick released his daughters, his gaze returning to the television. Home supporters were on the pitch, triumphantly mobbing their team. Anna and Jessica exchanged a victorious smile of their own. They’d hung around the house all afternoon, listening to the muffled sounds of the match, waiting for the right moment to pounce. Anna had made her move a fraction early, fearing a last-gasp equaliser would put a damper on their dad’s generosity. Jessica’s timing had been perfect. She knew how to play Dad like a finely tuned instrument. And he was happy to let her do so.
‘See you later, Dad,’ the sisters chirped together.
‘Take a key with you. I’ve got to pick your mother up from work in a couple of hours. We might not be in when you get back.’ As the girls turned to leave, Rick added as an afterthought, ‘Anna, promise me you’ll look after your sister. Don’t let her wander off anywhere alone. There’s going to be some seriously pis—’ he checked himself and continued, ‘seriously angry Red Devils supporters out there.’
‘I can look after myself,’ said Jessica, thrusting her bottom lip out petulantly. ‘I’m thirteen, not five.’
I promise
, Anna mouthed over her sister’s shoulder. There was only a couple of years between the girls, but it had always seemed like more. Jessica was small for her age and built like a doll. Straight blonde hair fell halfway down her back, framing big blue eyes, lightly freckled cheeks and lips that constantly seemed to be on the verge of pouting. She was what their mum called a girly girl. She liked nothing more than playing around with makeup and clothes. And she had a tendency to be kind of ditzy. Although Anna knew that was more of an act to get people to do things for her than a reality. Anna had the same colour hair as her sister, but hers was wavy and tomboyishly short. Silver-rimmed glasses, whose thick short-sighted lenses magnified her pale-grey eyes, lent her a serious air beyond her years. Ever since she could remember, she’d been labelled as the level-headed one. She didn’t resent the role – it had always come naturally to her to protect her little sister when they were out of their parents’ sight.
Pulling on coats and scarves, the girls headed out of the front door. The afternoon was as grey as the pebbledash of their small semi-detached house. Shoulders hunched against a bitter breeze, they descended a steeply sloping street. The sound of cheering carried on the air, like waves pounding a distant cliff. Half a mile or so beyond the foot of the hill, the red and white walls of Bramall Lane stadium loomed over a tangle of terraced streets. About the same distance again further on, a cluster of brutally angular concrete, steel and glass buildings rose like exclamation points marking out the city centre.
They crossed a bridge spanning a railway line and the River Sheaf, and turned right onto Queens Road, which was clogged with car- and bus-loads of supporters heading back to Manchester. At the end of Bramall Lane, police were directing traffic and keeping a close eye on the stream of away team supporters flowing along the pavements.
‘They look proper pissed off, don’t they?’ said Jessica, giggling at the supporters’ unhappy faces.
‘Shh,’ cautioned Anna. ‘You’ll get us in trouble.’
Jessica laughed carelessly. She’d never got into any trouble that she hadn’t been able to wriggle out of with a smile or some tears. As they neared the city centre, the stream thinned to a trickle. The sisters argued about what film they were going to see. Anna knew it was pointless – Jessica always got her own way – but the argument was like a ritual they had to go through every time they went to the cinema. And anyway, as much as she hated to admit it to herself, Anna took a guilty pleasure in watching the Hollywood fluff Jessica loved.
Jessica wrinkled her nose at Anna’s suggested film. ‘That sounds sooo boring. Who wants to see a film about someone killing people?’
Anna smiled. Jessica had a point. ‘OK, you win, we’ll—’
She fell silent as a dirty white van slowed alongside them. A chubby-faced man with crew-cut dark-brown hair was peering through its passenger window. Jessica followed her sister’s line of sight. ‘Who’s he?’
‘How should I know?’ Anna replied, frowning. She didn’t like the way the man was looking at her sister. There was a strange intensity in his eyes. ‘Don’t look at him.’
‘I think he fancies you.’
He’s not looking at me
, thought Anna, as her sister went on, ‘How old do you reckon he is?’
‘I dunno. Twenty-five or something like that.’
‘Urgh, imagine snogging someone as old as him.’
To Jessica, anyone over nineteen was old. The idea wouldn’t have seemed so bad to Anna, if the man hadn’t been so ugly. Not that he was particularly bad-looking or anything. Rather, there was a deeper kind of ugliness that shone through his close-set dark eyes. ‘Just ignore him and maybe he’ll go away.’
Catching the unease in Anna’s voice, Jessica said, ‘OK, Big Sis.’
The sisters quickened their pace, both staring straight ahead. The van continued to crawl alongside them. Anna walked as tall as she could, her expression calm although her thoughts were sliding towards fear.
What did this guy want? Did he or whoever the driver was think they knew them? Or were they deliberately trying to shit them up?
A car behind the van sounded its horn. To Anna’s relief, the van accelerated.
‘Yeah go on, sod off, weirdo!’ shouted Jessica.
The van’s brake lights flared and it screeched to a standstill, forcing the car behind to swerve sharply into the outer lane. The sisters stopped dead too. Ten, then twenty seconds passed. And still the van didn’t move. Nothing moved. To Anna, the world seemed to have been placed on pause. Thirty seconds. ‘Anna,’ began Jessica. Her voice was no longer cocky, it was small and held a slight tremor. Anna slid her arm protectively through her sister’s.
The van suddenly accelerated again. This time it didn’t stop until it reached the junction at the end of Queens Road. As it turned from view, Jessica’s cheeks puffed with relief. ‘My heart’s beating really fast.’
‘Mine too.’ Anna lanced a look at her sister. ‘One of these days you’re really going to get us in trouble.’
Jessica’s eyes widened apologetically. ‘I didn’t think they’d hear me.’
Anna sighed. She could never stay angry with Jessica for long – how could anyone when they looked into those big eyes? A thought came to her. ‘Did you see the registration number?’
‘No, did you?’
Anna shook her head. ‘Come on. We’ll miss the beginning of the film.’
During the remainder of the walk Anna kept an eye out for the van. It didn’t reappear. By the time they reached the cinema, Jessica was back to her usual giggling, teasing self. Despite – or maybe because of – Anna’s protests, she bought enough popcorn, chocolate and sweets to make herself feel sick. Anna struggled to follow the film. Her thoughts kept returning to the man in the van. It gave her a crawling feeling to think of how he’d looked at Jessica as if he was sizing up a piece of meat. When they left the cinema, it was dark outside. Anna hesitated at the entrance, faint lines forming between her eyes as she scanned the quiet Sunday evening city streets. ‘I’m going to phone Dad and see if he’ll pick us up.’
‘Why?’ asked Jessica. ‘Are you still worried about that stupid van?’
A defensive note came into Anna’s voice. ‘No. I just don’t feel like walking.’
Jessica cocked an eyebrow knowingly. Ignoring her, Anna slotted a coin into a payphone and dialled home. She let the phone ring five, six, seven times. ‘No one’s answering.’
‘Dad said they might not be in, remember. They’ve probably gone for a drink or something. We could catch the bus.’
Anna briefly considered the suggestion, then nodded. They crossed a road lined by tall unlit office buildings, heading for a bus stop. Anna squinted at a timetable dimly illuminated by a streetlamp. ‘The next bus isn’t for half an hour.’
‘We could walk it in less than that.’
Anna glanced back towards the pyramidal roof of the Odeon cinema, wondering whether they should wait for the bus within the safety of its confines.
‘Come on, Anna, let’s just walk it,’ persisted Jessica, tugging at her sister’s sleeve. ‘I need to get home. My tummy’s hurting.’
‘Well you shouldn’t have been so greedy,’ snapped Anna. Seeing the scolded puppy look in her sister’s eyes, she sighed. ‘OK. Come on then.’
They started walking, Jessica with her arms hugged across her stomach, Anna peering uneasily into the headlights of passing traffic. The streets were pretty much deserted, except for occasional groups of Sheffield United supporters, crawling from pup to pub, rowdily celebrating their team’s victory. Anna’s pace quickened as they passed along the lonely lower end of Queens Road. To their right, beyond a stone wall about the same height as them, a thin curtain of bushes and trees lined the near bank of the faintly murmuring River Sheaf. To their left, an identical wall ran alongside the opposite pavement, terminating after some eighty or a hundred metres at the local ice rink – an almost windowless rectangular concrete and brick building.
‘Slow down, will you,’ complained Jessica. ‘My tummy—’
‘Hurts. Yeah, I know, you already told me,’ cut in Anna, her voice quick with nervousness. They were nearing the place where the van had slammed on its brakes. ‘And I told you that you shouldn’t have—’
Anna broke off as Jessica suddenly doubled over, retching. Rolling her eyes, Anna rested her hand on Jessica’s back while she vomited. Jessica straightened, wiping a hand across her mouth. ‘Please don’t tell Mum and Dad about this, Anna.’
‘Do I ever tell them anything?’
Genuine gratitude and affection gleamed in Jessica’s eyes. ‘Thanks, Big Sis. You’re the b—’ Her voice died and her eyes sprang wide at the sight of something over Anna’s shoulder.
Her heart giving a quick thump, Anna started to turn. An arm snaked around her midriff from behind, pinning her right wrist and lifting her roughly off her feet. She started to scream, but the sound was muffled by a gloved hand pressing over her mouth. A man ran past Anna. The man from the van! He wasn’t much taller than her, but he was far more heavily built. He was wearing a black jacket and matching jeans that, along with his dark hair, gave him the look of a living shadow. He was moving fast, but not fast enough to reach Jessica before she could scream. The quivering high-pitched sound split the night air for a second, before being suddenly silenced by the man’s fist slamming into Jessica’s chin. Her slender frame crumpled like a broken flower under the blow. The man caught her as she fell back against the wall. He scooped her off her feet and started back the way he’d come.