Spider's Web (32 page)

Shut up!
Emily screamed in her mind.
Shut up! Shut up!

After a while – she couldn’t have said how long a while, time seemed to be doing strange things – she glanced surreptitiously at Gavin. He was hunched over his notepad at the table, his tongue poking out in a look of idiot concentration. Her nose wrinkled. At that moment she didn’t fear him. She merely loathed him with an intensity she’d never experienced before. She wanted to cut off his stupid tongue. As though she was looking at herself from outside her own body, a vision appeared of her doing it with his hunting knife. Then she saw herself plunging the knife into him over and over again, a maniacal grin twisting at her mouth.
Oh my God
, she thought in horror,
I am like him!

She rolled back towards the cushions, trying to make her mind a blank space. But more images kept coming at her – fragmented memories from her entire life. Sometimes they flashed before her eyes as if she was on the brink of death. Other times someone seemed to have hit a slow motion button. She felt strangely disconnected from the memories, as though they belonged to someone else. They began to blur and flow into each other, like colours in a child’s painting. Nothing made sense any more. Nothing was true. The world was dissolving into one big brown mass of shit. It made her want to puke. Nausea pushed irresistibly from her stomach into her throat. Lurching upright, she vomited a sludge of half-digested food onto the floor. Not the floor of the caravan. This floor was grassy and strewn with daisies. Her gaze jerked around. She was in a small clearing, encircled by oak and pine trees. She was no longer wearing her jeans and sweatshirt, but a long green dress with flared sleeves and a jagged hem. And her hands were free! Her bewildered elation at the realisation was tempered by the thought,
This isn’t real. I’m tripping.

The feeling of unreality was reinforced by the music drifting into the clearing. It was the sound of a flute playing a slow, haunting melody. Emily scrabbled backwards on her hands as a figure, naked except for a leather belt strung with multicoloured ribbons, emerged from the trees. The figure had a red face and black-ringed eyes. Curling horns sprouted from its head. For a terrifying instant, she thought she was seeing the Horned God sprung to life. Then she noticed the spider’s web tattoo. It was Gavin!

In time to the music, Gavin pranced around the clearing, thrusting his hips in Emily’s direction. She watched as though mesmerised as the music and his grotesque dance gathered pace, gradually building to a shrill, frantic climax. The music stopped suddenly and Gavin dropped to his knees in front of Emily, bowing his face to the ground. ‘You are my goddess,’ he said breathlessly, ‘and I am your god. Today we become as one.’ He grabbed her hand, took a ribbon from his belt and wrapped his right wrist tightly to her left with it. He raised their bound hands to the sky. ‘O Horned One! We call upon you. O Dark One! We call upon you. O Lord of Life and Death! We call upon you. O, Cernunnos! Come to this sacred grove. Come to us who await your blessing. Come! Come! Join with us in the binding of our life forces.’

The clearing was silent a moment. Then a deep male voice boomed from amongst the trees. Emily stiffened. Was it a trick? Was someone else in the woods with them? Or was she going mad? Perhaps that’s what Gavin wanted. To drive her crazy. To break her and remake her in his own image. ‘Hear ye the words of he whose names are beyond count and comprehension,’ proclaimed the voice. ‘I am the fire that burns wildest, the flame that rages in the hearts of the free. I am death and rebirth, the night and the sun. Mine is the voice all must heed. And I bless this union with all earthly pleasures.’

‘Thank you, O Great Father!’ Gavin called back.

Emily shook her head violently. ‘This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening.’

The voice spoke over her. ‘Look deep into each other’s eyes now. Come together and let your vows be the entwining of your limbs and the intermingling of your sacred seed.’

Gavin turned to Emily. The paint on his face was streaked with sweat. Red dribbles ran down his chest and belly towards his penis, which poked like a third horn through the ribbons at his waist. ‘Yes, my Lord,’ he said thickly.

‘No!’ screamed Emily. ‘No! No!’

21

Jim drove fast, but the journey seemed to go by excruciatingly slowly. They passed the outskirts of Doncaster, Leeds and York, barely speaking except when Jim’s phone rang. It was Garrett. He switched the phone off. He didn’t want to have to lie about where he was and what he was doing. ‘Turn yours off too,’ he said to Reece.

‘What if Staci calls?’

‘Turn it off,’ Jim said with slow emphasis.

Reece reluctantly did so. ‘When she gets back from South Africa, I’m quitting the force. I don’t care about the job any more. All I care about is being with her.’

Jim said nothing. Reece glanced across at him. ‘Well aren’t you going to try and convince me out of it?’

Jim shook his head. ‘I’d do the same thing if—’
If Margaret was alive.
That’s what he’d been about to say. But even after all these months it was still too painful for him to speak her name.

They passed through the quiet little market town of Pickering. The road undulated gently between drystone walls and hedgerows that enclosed grassy fields and pockets of woodland. The sun was softening in a big blue sky. ‘Where the fuck is this place?’ muttered Jim. Moments later he spotted a lane branching off the left-hand side of the main road. ‘Lockton ¼’ read a sign. To the right of it was an open farm gate. A dirt track led alongside a hedgerow towards a line of trees.

‘That’s got to be it,’ said Reece.

Jim turned onto the track. He drove slowly, keeping the engine revs low. At the far side of the field, the track dipped out of sight of the road and passed through another farm gate. This one was closed. A sign on it read ‘Private Woodland’. He stopped the car and scanned the woods. There was no red van or any other vehicle to be seen. He quietly got out and opened the boot. He lifted out a stab vest and a metal truncheon and proffered them to Reece.

‘What about you?’ whispered Reece.

Jim removed the Taser from his jacket. His eyes brooked no argument. Reece strapped on the vest, extended the truncheon and nodded to indicate he was ready. They warily approached the gate. A bundle of chain and a padlock lay at the foot of one of the posts. Reece stooped to inspect it. ‘Cut,’ he mouthed silently.

They opened the gate a little and slid through it. The trees instantly closed in, overshadowing the track. Jim pointed and Reece slunk into the shadows to the left. Jim stole along the track’s opposite edge. After three hundred metres or so, natural woodland of oak and other indigenous trees gave way to densely planted pines. Jim stopped abruptly and pointed again. Reece nodded to indicate he could see the motorhome parked in a space between the trees on his side of the track.

They moved from tree to tree towards the vehicle. The curtains in the back of it were closed. There was no one in the front. Jim noted down its reg, then darted across the track and peered through the windscreen. A curtain had been drawn behind the driver’s and passenger’s seats. He moved around to the back door where Reece was waiting. They stood listening. Not a sound, except for birdsong. Jim motioned to the door handle, and as Reece reached for it, he raised the Taser into firing position. Reece’s hand hesitated. He looked over his shoulder, mouthing, ‘Do you hear that?’

From somewhere amongst the trees, carried on the breeze, came the faintly audible sound of music. Jim pointed. ‘It’s coming from over there.’

‘Sounds like a flute.’

They exchanged a meaningful glance. During their research into the Horned God, they’d both come across images of the pagan deity playing a flute. They headed into the trees. The music grew louder and faster, echoing through the woods, bouncing off the tree trunks, making it difficult to pinpoint exactly where it was coming from. Suddenly it stopped. They stopped too. Then came a man’s voice, which, with its Brummie accent, surely belonged to Gavin. They moved towards it. A second voice rang out in reply, so close that both detectives dodged for the cover of an oak tree. They exchanged another glance. Did Gavin have an accomplice with him? Jim sneaked a look around the tree and got his answer. On the ground a short distance away was a portable CD player from whose speakers boomed the second voice.

‘Bless this union with all earthly pleasures,’ whispered Reece. ‘What the fuck does that mean?’

It was sickeningly obvious to Jim what it meant. Taser at the ready, he advanced past the CD player. Gavin replied to the supposed voice of the Horned God, his own voice thickened by lust. A distinctly female scream tore through the woods. Jim broke into a run. A bizarre sight greeted him as he emerged into a sun-splashed clearing. A stocky man wearing a two-horned skull cap and a skirt of ribbons was lying on top of Emily. The man had Emily’s wrists pinned and was prising her legs apart with his knees. He was so intent on what he was doing that he didn’t hear Jim’s approach. Jim took aim and fired. The Taser wires shot out and its hooks embedded themselves in the man’s back. There was a crackle of electricity and he cried out convulsively. Emily squirmed from beneath him. She fought to disentangle something from both their wrists. Then she scrambled to her feet, panting, sobbing.

‘Police!’ Jim made a sweeping motion. ‘Move away from him.’

Emily looked at him as though she doubted he was real. The man tried to push himself upright. Another jolt of electricity flipped him onto his back, teeth clamped together, arms bent and rigid. His face was painted red and beardless, but his eyes were unmistakable. ‘It’s our man!’ Jim called to Reece. He pointed to the scabbard on Gavin’s belt. ‘Get his kni—’ He was cut short by the breath rushing between his lips as someone slammed into him from behind, sending him sprawling. He released the Taser and tried to scramble to his feet. A knee drove into the small of his back. Powerful hands twisted his arms up behind him. As he fought to force enough air into his lungs to shout a warning to Reece, he felt the bite of steel handcuffs on his wrists.

‘What… what…’ stammered Emily, her eyes bewildered saucers.

‘Stay where you are,’ ordered Jim’s assailant. ‘You’re safe. No one’s going to hurt you.’

Jim’s mouth gaped wordlessly. The sound of the voice left him even more breathless than the blow to his back had. It was Reece!

Gavin climbed to his feet, reaching around to yank out the Taser prongs. He stared nervously at Reece. ‘Are you one of
us
?’

‘No,’ Reece stated coldly. He gave a jerk of his chin. ‘Get the fuck out of here.’

Gavin glanced at Emily.

‘Don’t look at her,’ snapped Reece.

‘She’s mine.’

‘Not any more. Now go on, move your fat arse.’

Gavin darted his tongue uncertainly across his lips. With a sudden movement, he drew his knife and sprang at Emily. Reece sprang forward too. He was faster than the older man whose central nervous system was still reeling from being zapped by hundreds of volts. As Gavin reached to curl his arm around Emily’s throat, Reece hit it with the truncheon. Gavin gave a yelp, but didn’t drop the knife. He lunged at Reece’s midriff. The blade deflected off the stab vest. Reece whipped the truncheon down again, catching Gavin a heavy blow on the skull cap. There was a crack of breaking bone and one of the horns shattered. Gavin’s legs wobbled. He dropped to one knee and thrust the knife upwards. Reece grunted as the blade sank into his inner right thigh. He staggered backwards, catching hold of Emily and dragging her with him.

Gavin straightened groggily, still clutching the bloodied knife. Reece pushed Emily behind himself and raised the truncheon.
Fucking try it
, his eyes said to Gavin.

Gavin’s tongue flicked across his lips again. He gave Emily a look of pained longing. ‘We will be together, my love.’ He paused as if for dramatic effect, before adding, ‘By the horns of Cernunnos, I swear it!’

He retreated to the edge of the clearing, turned and ran.

When the sound of Gavin’s footfalls had faded into the distance, Reece turned to Emily. ‘Are you OK?’

She looked at him as though he was speaking a foreign language. He swayed suddenly then regained his balance. He felt his injured thigh and looked at his hand. His fingers were soaked with blood. He unbuttoned his jeans and gingerly slid them down. Blood jetted from the red slit of the wound. ‘Oh shit,’ he said, vainly trying to stem the bleeding with his hand.

‘Uncuff me,’ Jim said urgently. ‘We need to get a tourniquet on that leg.’

Reece stripped off his shirt and tied the sleeves around his leg a couple of inches above the wound. Blood spurted fitfully from it as, with his jeans around his ankles, he staggered towards the trees.

‘Don’t be foolish, Reece,’ continued Jim as his partner stooped to search the ground. ‘Let me help you.’

Reece picked up a stick, slid it under the knotted sleeves and began to twist. The blood slowed to a steady stream, then a trickle. Suddenly, the knot came loose. He tried to retie it, but his fingers were fumbling and clumsy as though numbed by cold. He swayed again, fell back heavily against a tree and slumped to the ground.

‘Emily!’ Jim shouted. She stared at Reece blankly, showing no sign of having heard. ‘His femoral artery’s been cut. If you don’t do as I say he’ll be dead in minutes.’

Blinking as though coming back to herself from some far-off place, she turned to him. ‘You need to retie the knot and twist the stick in it,’ he continued. ‘Quickly now.’

As Emily knelt by Reece, Jim rolled onto his side and used his elbow to push himself to his knees. He rose to his feet, hurried to peer over Emily’s shoulder and saw that she’d managed to stop the worst of the bleeding. ‘Well done, Emily,’ he said, dropping to his haunches. ‘Now keep one hand on the tourniquet and put the other in my right jacket pocket. There’s a bunch of keys in there. Take it out.’ Emily did so and Jim added, ‘You see the small black key. Use it to unlock the handcuffs.’