Spider's Web (38 page)

With a trembling effort, Gavin sat up, one hand extended towards Emily. ‘I love you,’ he mouthed breathlessly through bloody teeth.

‘I hate you,’ she spat back.

Hate.
The word seemed to echo in Jim’s head. If Gavin died this way, Emily would never be free from hate. It would poison her whole life. No matter what, he couldn’t allow that to happen.

He advanced rapidly towards Kieran and fired the Taser, aiming for his exposed neck. As the prongs bit home, the shock caused Kieran’s finger to twitch on the trigger. A shot rang out as he crumpled to the grass. Patrick whirled around, wide-eyed. Jim bent to wrench the gun from Kieran’s grasp and took aim at Patrick. ‘Drop the bat!’

‘Who the fuck are you?’

Emily answered before Jim could do so, her voice shaking with surprise. ‘He’s the policeman I told you about.’

Jim kept his steely gaze fixed on Patrick. ‘Drop it.’

The big man lowered the bat, but kept hold of it. He jerked his face towards Gavin. ‘That cunt raped my sister.’

‘That doesn’t give you the right to beat him to death.’

‘Bollocks it doesn’t.’ Patrick flicked his eyes at Emily. ‘What about her? If you stop us, she’ll never find out what he did to her mum.’

Jim retreated a few steps so that both Patrick and Emily were in his line of vision. Gavin was groaning and struggling to get to his feet. ‘Stay down,’ ordered Jim. ‘Lie flat on your face with your hands clasped behind your head.’

‘But, officer, I’m not who they—’ Gavin began in his almost comical mock-female voice.

‘Do it!’ broke in Jim. ‘Or I swear to Christ I’ll take great pleasure in putting a bullet in you.’

Gavin cringed back to the ground. Jim glanced at Emily. ‘Is this really what you want? Can you live the rest of your life with his blood on your hands? Because if you can I’ll walk away right now.’

Emily’s forehead twitched. Her lips trembled as if to speak, but nothing came. With a shudder, she remembered something Gavin had said to her in the motorhome.
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?
She recalled too the retort that had rung out like a warning shot in her mind.
I’m whatever you’re not!

Her gaze fell away from Jim and she shook her head.

Relief surged through him. He’d meant what he said. He knew the only way to save the part of her she’d come so close to destroying was to give her the choice. His gaze returned to Patrick. ‘You can either go home or to prison. It’s up to you. If you want to go home, toss the bat and the knife.’

Suspicion narrowed Patrick’s eyes. ‘You’re not going to arrest us?’

‘If I arrest you, I’ll have to arrest Emily. And I don’t want to do that.’

Patrick eyeballed Jim a moment longer. With a ‘fair enough’ shrug, he tossed aside the bat and reached to retrieve the knife from his jacket.

‘Slowly,’ warned Jim.

Patrick drew the knife out by its blade and sent it the same way as the bat.

‘Help your brother up.’

Kieran groaned as Patrick pulled the Taser barbs out of his neck and lifted him to his feet.

‘Now get out of here,’ continued Jim. ‘And don’t let me see you again tonight. Because if I do I’m not even going to try to arrest you, I’m just going to start shooting. Am I making myself understood?’

The brothers nodded. Kieran shot Gavin a savage glare. ‘Don’t think you’ll be safe in prison, motherfucker, because you won’t be.’

Returning his stare, Gavin pursed the fat red slugs of his lips and made a kissy sound. For a second, Kieran looked as if he might lose control and spring at Gavin’s throat, but Patrick caught hold of his arm and drew him towards the hedge.

‘Walk where I can see you,’ said Jim as the brothers passed back through the gap. He watched until they faded from sight. Then he moved quickly to kneel on Gavin and handcuff him. He turned to Emily. She still couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze. Gently, he put his hand under her chin and lifted it.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, tears spilling down her cheeks.

‘There’s no need to be. Go home and don’t ever speak about this to anyone.’

‘I don’t have a home.’

‘Yes you do.’

Her eyes slid past Jim to Gavin.

‘You don’t need to worry about him any more,’ said Jim. ‘He won’t ever be able to hurt you again.’

With a sudden, trembling breath, she wrenched her gaze from Gavin. She looked at Jim for a brief instant as though there was something else she wanted to say. Then she turned and ran towards the park’s entrance.

‘I love you, Adaryn,’ Gavin called after her. ‘Nothing can keep us apart. Not prison. Not socie—’ The air whistled from his lungs as Jim pressed a knee into his back again. ‘You’re hurting me,’ he wheezed.

‘That’s the idea,’ said Jim, scanning his surrounds. The park was deserted but for themselves. Or at least what he could see of it was. The McLean brothers had chosen the spot for the ambush well. The trees, hedge and slope concealed them from view on three sides. ‘Don’t move and keep your gob shut.’

Jim collected up the baseball bat, knife, high heels, Taser and its spent wire. He stuffed everything but the bat into his pockets. Then he hauled Gavin to his feet. ‘I can’t breathe properly,’ grimaced Gavin. ‘I think some of my ribs are broken.’

‘I told you to keep your gob shut.’ Jim none too gently guided him towards the park’s entrance, listening and watching for police, aware that someone might have heard the gunshot.

‘I need a doctor. I know my rights, you have to take me to—’

Gavin’s words turned into a groan as Jim jabbed the baseball bat into his ribs. He doubled over, but Jim grabbed the scruff of his neck and dragged him onwards. When his breathing allowed him to speak, Gavin muttered, ‘I’ll have you for brutality.’

‘That wasn’t brutality.’ Another jab. Harder this time. Gavin’s mouth gaped in mute agony. ‘And neither was that. But keep talking and you’ll find out what is.’

The remainder of the walk to the car passed in silence, with Gavin darting malignant glances at Jim. Putting one hand on top of Gavin’s wig, Jim shoved him into the front passenger seat. ‘Remember what I’ve got in here,’ he warned, patting the pocket with the gun in it. He uncuffed one of Gavin’s wrists, fed the bracelet through the hand hold above his head and recuffed him. Shooting looks around himself, he hurried to get behind the steering wheel. He headed for the outskirts of Nottingham, driving fast but not conspicuously so.

‘You’re taking me to Sheffield, aren’t you?’ said Gavin. ‘I know all about you, Chief Inspector Monahan.’

‘You know nothing about me,’ growled Jim.

‘I know that my good friend, Freddie Harding, killed your wife.’

Jim’s voice tightened a fraction. ‘She wasn’t my wife.’

‘Maybe not, but you loved her. She’s not gone, you know. She’s been reborn. Life, death and rebirth are the eternal cycle. You can be with her again. I can show you how. All you have to do is open your heart to Cernunnos and he will—’

Jim drove his elbow into Gavin’s jaw, bouncing his head off the window. ‘You’re a slow learner, Gavin.’

Gavin’s head lolled, a thread of bloody spittle dangling from his lips. His eyes rolled back into focus and hoarse laughter grated from his throat. ‘Freddie phoned me from prison one time. Do you know what he told me about your wife? He told me she begged for her life, said she’d do anything if he let her live. Suck his cock. Anything.’

Jim slammed on the brakes. He glared at Gavin, his nostrils flaring with barely restrained rage. Gavin returned his gaze, smirking. ‘I’m not afraid of you, Chief Inspector. My eyes are open. I see the truth of you. You’re a coward.’

Jim blinked away from the taunting eyes. He stared out the window, not seeing the street, but seeing Margaret’s dead face. ‘You may well be right,’ he murmured and resumed driving.

‘I know I’m right,’ goaded Gavin. ‘You’re a coward and a liar. You lie to everyone, yourself most of all. That’s why your wife is dead. And that’s why you couldn’t see Detective Geary’s betrayal.’

‘Go on, keep talking.’

Gavin laughed again. ‘First you try to silence me, now you want me to talk. You’re even more confused than you look. I pity you. You don’t know what you want. You don’t know anything. You think you’ve saved Emily, but you’ve condemned her. I could have shown her a world without boundaries, without guilt and hypocrisy.’

‘Like you showed Alison Sullivan and that girl we found at your cottage. Like you showed Jessica Young.’

‘Every time you open your mouth, ignorance flows from it like a river from a tunnel. I could never show Jessica anything. She was my Goddess.’

‘
Was
your Goddess?’

‘Was, is, will be always and forever more. We were different parts of the same being. We brought balance to each other. Alison and that other girl were confused. But not like you. They were aware of their confusion and came to me for help.’

‘And you helped them by killing them.’

‘I returned them to the womb of nature so that they could be reborn. I gave them new life.’

Jim gave Gavin a narrow glance.

‘You look at me as though you’re trying to work out whether I’m insane,’ said Gavin. ‘But the truth is I’m the only one here who sees things as they really are. To deny yourself what you want, that is the one true crime.’

‘I’m not sure your victims would agree with you.’

‘There’s no such thing as a victim. No innocents, no guilty. No good, no evil. There is only truth and non-truth.’

‘Truth and non-truth,’ Jim repeated quietly. ‘So what’s the truth about Jessica Young?’

‘I’ve already told you, but your ears are as closed as your eyes. If we had more time, maybe I could help you open yourself up to my words. But we’ll be in Sheffield soon.’

‘I never said we were going to Sheffield.’

Small cracks of surprise broke the surface of Gavin’s makeup. ‘So where are we going?’

‘You’ll see.’

Jim’s reply silenced Gavin. They headed north on the M1 for a few miles, before turning east into a countryside of dark lanes and silent villages. The landscape became hillier, more isolated. Rolling expanses of moorland rose and fell on either side of the road. ‘I used to love it out here when I was a child,’ said Jim. ‘I don’t any more. People like you ruined places like this for me. You turn everything that’s beautiful into something ugly.’ He pointed towards a hump of heather. ‘About ten years ago a dog-walker found a body over there. A young woman. She’d been beaten to death and buried in a shallow grave. Turned out her husband had done it. They’d only been married a month. He never said why he killed her.’

Gavin grinned. ‘I see right through you, Chief Inspector. I know what you’re trying to do and it won’t work.’

The car climbed to the crest of a steep rise, beyond which the road dropped away even more precipitously towards a deep valley. Jim pulled into a small, deserted car park concealed from the road by bushes and a grassy mound. He got out of the car, retrieved a torch, a bottle of water and a plastic bag from the boot. Then he unlocked the handcuffs and pointed the gun at Gavin. ‘Get out.’

Rubbing the circulation back into his wrists, Gavin said with mock casualness, ‘It’s a beautiful night.’

‘Start walking.’ Jim gestured towards a wooden gate. ‘That way.’

Gavin’s grin remained in place, but a shadow of uncertainty flickered in his eyes. ‘OK, Chief Inspector. I’ll play along with your little game. But we both know where this is going.’

With Gavin walking a couple of paces ahead, they passed through the gate. Jim was careful not to touch it or step in the patch of mud on its far side. The torch threw light on a boulder-strewn path running along the top of a broken, moon-washed crag. Beyond the crag, houses were strung out like fairy lights along the base of the valley. The air was heavy with the scent of peat. Gavin breathed it deep into his lungs. ‘Do you smell that? That’s
his
smell.’

‘No. That’s just the smell of what you are – dirt.’

‘We’re all dirt, Chief Inspector.’

Jim heaved a breath. ‘I’ve heard about as much of your bullshit as I can take. Stop here. Turn to face me.’ He shone the torch in Gavin’s eyes. ‘Get on your knees.’

‘I don’t kneel for anyone except my God and Goddess.’

‘Jessica Young wasn’t your goddess. She was a thirteen-year-old girl you abducted, raped and almost certainly murdered. I was toying with the idea of trying to make you tell me where she is. But really I always knew I’d be wasting my time. You’ll never tell me. That’s the only power you’ve got left. So I suppose the secret will die with you.’

Jim levelled the gun at Gavin’s chest. Gavin didn’t flinch. He lifted his eyes to the sky, spreading his arms as if to receive a benediction. Ten seconds passed. Twenty. Smiling scornfully, Gavin met Jim’s gaze again. ‘You see, Chief Inspector, I know you better than you know yourself. You didn’t kill Freddie and you won’t kill me.’

Jim’s finger tightened on the trigger. There was a faint click. In that instant of realising his mistake, Gavin’s mask fell away and his fear was laid bare. There was no time for him to cry out. The muzzle flashed, the crack of the bullet exploded the silence, followed almost simultaneously by the bursting pop of Gavin’s fake breasts. He staggered backwards a step and stood swaying, a look of dumb animal disbelief on his face. Then he crumpled to the ground. Dead.

Jim stared down at Gavin for a moment, his face as expressionless as a stone. Then, pulling on forensic gloves, he stooped to strip him naked. As he put the clothes and wig in the plastic bag, blood welled from the black hole in Gavin’s chest, obscuring the spider’s web tattoo. He poured water over Gavin’s face and wiped away the makeup with a wad of tissue. Then he headed back to the car.

He drove over the moors into Sheffield, his mind a blank space, like an unwritten page. He passed through the sleeping suburbs into the city centre, mechanically shifting gears. His ears were ringing. The night-time sounds of the city seemed distant, muffled. He stopped on a bridge adjacent to a foaming weir. He tossed the gun and baseball bat into the river. He drove on until he came to another stretch of water. This time he got rid of the knife. No flicker of emotion showed on his face as it sank from view.