Spider's Web (28 page)

‘I think he saw me.’

That seemed to suggest the former was the case.

‘He came at me from behind,’ Anna went on raggedly.

‘Why didn’t he finish you off?’

‘Emily stopped him by—’ Anna choked off into an agonised gurgle.

Jim held her steady. ‘Save your breath now, Anna. Help will be here soon.’ His phone rang. It was Reece. He put it to his ear.

‘I’m at the visitor centre car park,’ Reece told him.

Jim quickly relayed the situation to him.

‘Fucking hell,’ exclaimed Reece. ‘How bad is she?’

Looking Anna in the eyes, Jim said with a sureness he didn’t feel, ‘It’s pretty bad. But she’s a tough girl. She’ll make it.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Head over here. Someone’s going to have to coordinate a search of the property.’ Jim eyed the metal tube protruding from the padlocked freezer Anna was propped against. ‘I’ve a feeling we’re going to find some interesting things.’

‘I’m on my way.’

Jim got off the phone and checked the padlock. Instead of a keyhole, it had a three digit combination set to 333. It came open with a tug. He flipped up the freezer lid. ‘Empty,’ he replied to Anna’s enquiring look. There were several dark, crusty smears on the underside of the lid. Dry blood? What he saw next seemed to confirm it was – two pink-painted broken fingernails. He thought with a cold twist of his stomach about what it would be like to be imprisoned in the coffinlike freezer sobbing, screaming and clawing in pure blind terror.

He heard the faint whoop-whoop of a helicopter. ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ he said to Anna. ‘You just hold on. Do you hear me?’

She gave a slight nod. Jim headed outside. The red and yellow air ambulance was approaching from the south. He waved his arms at it. The noise rose to a deafening level. The helicopter hovered over the house momentarily, before descending into the back garden. The hurricane blast of its rotor blades flattened the grass and a sapling tree. Covering his ears, Jim waited for it to set down then ran towards it. Four paramedics in luminous jackets and red jumpsuits climbed out to meet him. ‘She’s in the barn,’ he told them.

Grabbing a stretcher and medical bags, the paramedics followed Jim to Anna. ‘How long ago was she stabbed?’ asked one of them.

‘Maybe half an hour,’ said Jim.

‘And how long was the knife?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Anna.’

‘Anna, can you hear me?’ asked the paramedic.

‘Yes,’ she wheezed.

‘We’re going to examine you. Try to stay as still as possible.’

The paramedics gently manoeuvred Anna forwards, cut off her bra and removed the improvised dressing. Blood immediately bubbled from the wound. ‘Tension pneumothorax,’ said one of the paramedics. Another peeled open a circular plastic chest seal and applied it to the wound. As Anna inhaled, a whoopee cushion-like valve sucked shut, preventing air from entering. As she exhaled the valve opened.

‘Internal bleeding may be causing your lung to compress,’ a paramedic calmly informed her, placing an oxygen mask over her face. ‘We need to insert a chest drain. I’m going to give you some morphine for the pain first.’

The paramedic inserted a syringe needle beneath Anna’s right armpit level with her nipple and depressed the plunger, mercifully dousing the fire of pain. He swabbed the same area with iodine, before making a scalpel incision. Anna groaned as a plastic tube was pushed into the incision. It felt as though a thick rope was being forced through the eye of a needle. ‘I need you to take a couple of deep breaths,’ said the paramedic. ‘This will force out the air and blood trapped in your lung and expand it back to normal size.’

As, with great effort, Anna did so, blood drained into the chest tube. Jim’s phone rang again. This time it was Garrett.

‘Take that outside please,’ said a paramedic.

Jim hurried from the barn. ‘What’s the situation?’ the DCS asked.

‘The paramedics are working on Anna.’

‘Will she live?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Jesus Christ, Jim. This is exactly the kind of thing I was afraid might happen.’

This wouldn’t be happening if I hadn’t been put in a position where I felt compelled to leak information
, Jim wanted to retort. But there was no time for recriminations or guilt. Gavin was out there somewhere with Emily. And God only knew what plans he had for her. ‘Who’s in charge locally of the search for Gavin?’

‘DI Tim Atkins of the East Midlands Special Operations Unit. He’s assured me they’re putting every available—’

‘Hang on,’ interrupted Jim. ‘They’re moving Anna.’

The paramedics emerged from the barn with Anna on a stretcher. Jim was relieved to see that she was still conscious. Quickly and steadily, they carried her to the helicopter. Jim followed them. ‘Is she going to be OK?’

‘We need to move fast,’ came the telling reply.

The paramedics lifted Anna into the back of the helicopter and secured her stretcher. ‘I’m coming with you,’ said Jim, climbing in beside her.

She shook her head weakly and spoke through the oxygen mask. ‘Find Gavin. Don’t let him hurt Emily.’

‘Do you want me to contact your mother?’

Another shake of the head. ‘I—’ A groan cut off her words, then she managed to continue, ‘I don’t want to worry her.’

Jim passed a paramedic his card. ‘Keep me updated.’

He retreated towards the cottage. The sapling was bent flat once more as the helicopter’s rotor blades gathered speed. Jim noticed now that, like the Leeds tree, its branches were festooned with ribbons. Suddenly its roots tore loose and it tumbled across the lawn, taking a rectangle of turf with it. He watched the helicopter ascend into the clear blue sky and head south. His gaze dropped back to the garden. Something caught his eye where the tree had been uprooted. It looked like a stick poking up through the earth. But as he approached it, he saw it wasn’t a stick. It was a bone. And it clearly hadn’t been buried all that long. There were still tatters of dirty brown flesh clinging to it.

‘Jim, are you still there?’ Garrett’s voice came from the phone.

Jim returned it to his ear. ‘I’ve found a bone. It looks like a humerus.’

Garrett echoed the name in Jim’s mind. ‘Jessica Young.’

Jim turned towards the sound of approaching sirens. Blue lights were flashing in the lane. ‘The ground units are here.’ Wondering if he wanted Garrett to be right, he hung up and made his way to the front garden. At least if it was Jessica, Anna would finally have closure, if such a thing was ever truly possible. And assuming, of course, that she survived. He heaved a long sigh.

Several marked and unmarked vehicles pulled through the gate. Reece’s car was amongst them. Jim held up his ID and announced his name and rank. A middle-aged detective approached him and extended his hand. ‘DI Tim Atkins of—’

‘I know who you are,’ cut in Jim. ‘We need a pathologist here. There’s a body in the back garden. I haven’t been inside the house. I don’t think there’s anyone in there, but your men should proceed with caution. And once you’ve secured the house, there’s a freezer in the barn that you’re going to want to check out.’

Reece hurried across to the two men. He was wearing jeans and a shirt. There were sleepless bruises and anxious creases around his eyes. ‘How’s Anna?’

‘She’s alive. They’ve airlifted her to hospital.’

Reece blew out a breath of relief. ‘Thank Christ. So she’s going to be OK?’

Jim answered with a tense twitch of his shoulders. ‘This is DI Reece Geary,’ he told DI Atkins. ‘He’s going to stay here and help with the search.’

‘Where are you going?’ asked Reece.

‘To speak to Ronald and Sharon Walsh. Maybe they’ll be more forthcoming now that Gavin’s got Emily with him.’

‘Why would they be?’

‘Because unless I’m very much mistaken, they really love her.’

18

Bride.
The word kept drumming in Emily’s head as she watched Gavin apply a dressing to his injured ear. He was insane. He had to be. Why else would he want to marry his own daughter? When he was done with his ear, he set to work on buzzing off his hair and beard with clippers. Clean-shaven and bald, he looked more like his younger self, yet at the same time older. His cheeks retained some chubbiness, but the marks of a life on the run had etched deep grooves into them. He stripped off his clothes, exposing a lacy green spider’s web tattoo that spread outwards like a target from the centre of his hairless chest. Noticing her looking at his tattoo, he said, ‘Do you like it? Shall I tell you what it means? Life is a web that holds us all, Emily. What you’ve got to decide is, are you a spider or a fly? I know which one I am. What about you?’

I’m whatever you’re not!
Emily retorted in her head.

Panic squeezed her stomach as Gavin approached her.
He’s going to rape me!
her mind screamed. She fought the urge to close her eyes. She wouldn’t fight him. That would only get her hurt, maybe even killed. But she would look him in the eyes. She would make sure he saw her disgust, her loathing.

A muted sob of relief shook her as Gavin took some clothes out of an overhead cupboard. He pulled on a pair of beige trousers and a red-checked shirt. Tipping what appeared to be a bundle of blonde hair from a bag, he moved to stand in front of a mirror. He placed the wig on his head and carefully arranged it so that the mop of hair overlapped his ears, concealing the bandage. He turned to Emily. ‘How do I look?’

Like the fucking freak you are
, she thought. The wig contrasted oddly with Gavin’s dark eyes, giving him a camp look that Emily would have found comical if she hadn’t been so terrified. He approached her again and stooped to kiss her forehead. A repulsively tender kiss. He smelt her skin and sighed. ‘I haven’t felt this way since I met your mother. The instant I saw Jessica I knew we were meant to be together. And it was the same with you today.’

Gavin lifted Emily off the sofa and laid her on the floor. He flicked a couple of latches and upturned the sofa’s cushions, revealing a hollow space. He picked her up again and lowered her into the hollow. He retrieved a pillow from the bed and placed it under her head. ‘We don’t want you to be uncomfortable, do we? Now you just lie still and be quiet, like a good girl.’ He replaced the cushions, sealing her in darkness.

She listened to his footsteps moving away. The motorhome’s engine came alive. She squirmed against her bonds, but it was no good. The plastic cuffs were on too tight. She felt the motorhome move forwards a short distance. There came the muffled sound of the garage doors and gate being shut. Then the vehicle was moving again. But where was he taking her? Did he really mean to spirit her out of the country? And if he did, what was he going to do with her once they got to the Philippines? Would he force her to live as his wife? Force her to have his children? She suddenly felt like something was constricting her chest. Her head spun as though she was about to pass out. The blackness seemed to be getting deeper, sucking her in like a whirlpool. A familiar voice reached her faintly through it. At first she thought she’d imagined it. But then it came again. She latched on to it, used it to drag herself back from the brink of oblivion.

‘Where are you, Gavin?’ asked her dad.
No, not my dad, my granddad
, some distant, cruelly coherent part of her mind reminded her once again. She ignored it. It didn’t matter what he was. All that mattered was that he was there and he surely wouldn’t let Gavin hurt her. She banged her knees against the underside of the wooden base the sofa cushions rested on. Even as she did so, the same part of her mind told her it was futile. How could her granddad be there if he didn’t know where Gavin was? The answer was obvious. He wasn’t there. He was on the other end of a phone line and Gavin had him on loudspeaker. Moreover, the speaker was turned up high, like Gavin wanted her to hear what was being said.

‘It doesn’t matter where I am,’ replied Gavin. ‘There’s no need to worry about me. I’m fine. Emily’s fine. We’re both fine.’

‘What do you mean, Emily’s fine?’ There was a sudden tightness in Ronald Walsh’s voice.

‘I’ve got her with me. I’m going to be looking after her from now on.’

‘She… she’s with you?’ stammered Ronald. Emily had never heard him stammer before.

There was a sound like an impatient huff of breath. Then Gavin replied, ‘That’s what I just said, didn’t I?’

‘Can I speak to her?’

‘Not right now. She’s busy.’

‘Doing what?’

Another huff. ‘It doesn’t matter what she’s doing. What matters is that the time has finally come for me to be a father to her.’

‘A father?’

‘Christ, is there an echo on the line? Yes, a father. I thought you’d be pleased.’ There was an almost childishly petulant challenge in Gavin’s tone.

‘Oh I am pleased, Gavin.’ Ronald’s mollifying, hollow voice suggested just the opposite. ‘But are you sure this is what you want?’

‘Of course I’m sure. Why else would I be doing this?’

‘What exactly is it that you’re doing?’

‘We’re going away. A long, long way away. You probably won’t see either of us again.’

‘Now hang on, Gavin. Let’s think this through a minute. You can’t just take Emily away like this. She has a life here in Nottingham.’

‘Life!’ Gavin loaded the word with contempt. ‘Go to school, go to university, get a job, get married, have kids. You call
that
a life? I’ll give her a real life. I’ll show her things she could never have imagined. I’ll—’

Another voice came on the line and interrupted Gavin. ‘We’ve done everything you ever asked of us, Gavin,’ said Sharon Walsh, trembling on the edge of tears. ‘We’ve never asked anything in return except this one thing. Don’t take Emily away from us.’

Gavin sighed and in an overly patient voice, as though explaining something to a well-meaning idiot, he said, ‘Emily is my daughter. Mine, not yours. How can I take something away from you that never belonged to you in the first place?’

The tremors turned into sobs. Emily winced at the sound. Her grandmother was a liar and a hypocrite and she hated her for it. And yet she hated, too, to hear her in such pain. ‘Please, Gavin,’ wept Sharon, ‘I’m begging you not to do this.’