Spider Read online

  How can you get your rocks off watching someone starve to death? What kind of warped mind finds that a turn-on?

  It’s been eighty-seven hours since Lu last had any sustenance, and even then it had only been a vanilla milkshake. The effects of starvation and dehydration are becoming more acute by the hour. As well as the onset of delirium and hallucinations, her body temperature is now sky high. Despite the lack of food she is vomiting a lot, dry-heaving doctors call it, because her stomach is completely empty and its lining is as dry as parchment paper. Each bout of retching brings spasms of crippling cramps and shooting pains through her abdomen and chest. She’s almost completely stopped urinating, but when she does, it’s like a burning trickle of acid that destroys the last shreds of her dignity.

  Maybe someone will find you, Lu. Maybe they’ve caught him and right now they’re on their way here and they’re going to break down the front door. Any second now you’ll hear them coming down those basement steps.

  And then what?

  Boom! That’s what.

  Didn’t he say the whole place was wired and that it would explode into a fireball and burn everyone alive? Well, better to be burned to death than go like this. But then others will die as well, Lu. Innocent people will be killed trying to save you – is that what you want? Is that how desperate and unworthy you have become?

  And so the thoughts torment her, never letting her rest, always crushing any sign of hope, always making her imagine the worst. And when they’re done with her, then the guilt moves in.

  You’re getting what you deserve; this is God’s way of punishing you for the sinful life you’ve led. Count them up, Ludmila, all the sins you’ve committed; the thefts, the lies, the adulteries, is there a single Commandment you’ve not broken? Murder was the only one that stood out, and right now she’d gladly kill the freak that was putting her through this living hell.

  Lu’s vision is now permanently blurred and her eyes are so painful that she can’t close them. The head restraint has come loose from her straining against it and it is possible to move from side to side, but the strap has badly chafed her flesh. Most of her skin is completely numb. It has lost its natural oiliness and elasticity and is starting to shrivel. At times the numbness fades and her skin tingles. Only this isn’t the pins-and-needles type of tingling that she’d experienced as a child. This is a high-voltage cattle-prod tingling, the type that stuns her so deeply she feels as if she’s going to croak.

  Lu wonders whether she is already so sick that even if the cavalry arrived right now, right this minute, she would still die from what he’s done to her. She’s fully aware that she’s being killed by her own body; that it’s been turned into a weapon to murder her.

  It’s justice, Ludmila, for the life that you’ve led. Sell your body to strangers and God will punish you appropriately – an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; you should have remembered that. You really should have remembered that.

  Lu tries to lick her lips but it’s an effort agonizingly beyond her. Her tongue has swollen and cracked painfully. Her throat feels permanently blocked and it is hard even to swallow air. In the last few hours her broken nose has started bleeding again. Part of the cause of the haemorrhaging is the beating that he gave her, but the continual rise in her body temperature isn’t helping matters, nor is the fact that the lining of her nose has completely dried up and cracked like plaster. The congealed blood almost blocks both nostrils and Lu feels as though she’s breathing through a damaged straw.

  She tries again to think positively. There is the cottage in the country, with the children playing by the river, and maybe there’s a dog too, a long-haired golden dog jumping and barking for its ball to be thrown.

  And then it happens.

  The cattle prods are at her again, sizzling into her flesh, stabbing at her nerves. This time, they’re stronger and more painful than ever.

  Lu’s entire body goes into convulsion.

  The world turns black.

  And she stops breathing.

  Spider sits by the monitor, watching the series of spasms with the wide-eyed excitement of a sports fan on the edge of his seat. He leans towards the screen, his chin resting on interlocked fingers. It looks as if she’s going to die much earlier than he’d wanted, but that’s okay, he can adjust his plans.

  He stretches out a hand and runs it gently over the screen and a crackle of static flows over his fingertips. He’d chosen her for a purpose, for a reason beyond lust or longing, but right at this moment he wants her, just as strongly as he’d wanted all the others. Give up the fight my sweet, sweet Sugar. Breathe out your final breath and go to the Better Place.

  He watches the screen as her body shakes uncontrollably, her muscles snapping tight and then relaxing just as suddenly. The camera’s wide shot shows her whole frame shuddering like a rag doll, bouncing up and down on the hard leather table in a fleshy muscular ripple from foot to head.

  She’s at death’s door and he wants to be there to press his lips and flesh against her and feel that precious last spasm of life spurt from her body.

  The shaking seems to become more violent and then Lu flops limply down on to the black leather of the bondage table.

  The overhead camera shows her face in close-up. It is motionless.

  Spider puts his hands tenderly on either side of the monitor, like a lover would hold a dying partner’s face. He stares intently into Lu’s eyes.

  Glazed and glassy, like the marbles children play with. Look how the orbits of her eyes are all sunken. See how her cheeks are hollowing out so nicely, so beautifully. And her skin – isn’t it gorgeous? So white, so beautifully pallid. Your mother would approve of her, Spider. Your mother would have picked this one too.

  Spider strokes her face with his damaged hand and then presses his cheek against hers. He holds the monitor for almost half a minute, feeling close to her, connected to her last moments.

  Beautiful, so amazingly beautiful.

  The body hangs limp on the table. He longs to remove the shackles from her arms and legs. He aches to wash her, to powder her all over and to dress her properly. And then he feels saddened. Saddened that the plan he has for her, the scheme he’s nurtured her for, is going to prevent him keeping her, and exploring her.

  Time was always a problem. Putrefaction: his least favourite word.

  Spider has kept diaries on what happened to the other Sugars and knows that within an hour from now those vivid blue eyes of hers will start to change as the blood vessels become lumpy and patchy and the red blood cells begin to clump together. Within two days, strange yellow, triangular spots will appear on her corneas and will then fade to brown and black. Spider has set the basement temperature at thirty-seven degrees, the same as body temperature, so he hopes to slow down the natural cooling process of her corpse but knows that this will prolong the state of rigor mortis to probably about forty-eight hours after her death. He also knows that there is nothing he can do to stop the gravitational slump of blood and other body fluids. They will flatten and settle against her back, shoulders and buttocks as she lies on the leather table and will leave ugly reddish-purple lividity marks that he will have to cover with concealment creams and powder.

  Adjust the plan. Find a way to spend time with her.

  Spider sits and fantasizes. He’s been lonely for so long and he yearns to have someone new by his side. If he could, he’d stay with her night and day, holding her, talking to her, sharing intimate moments with her, sleeping with her and waking with her. It could be perfect. But that’s not the plan.

  And then something on the screen catches his attention.

  Lu’s left hand twitches.

  Is it a cadaveric spasm, simply a dead muscle jerking as the body settles?

  Or is the little bitch really still alive?

  61

  West Village, SoHo, New York

  Jack never made it to bed.

  After drinking a few beers and popping an Ambien, he fell into a
sleep that was so deep and intense it could better be classified as a coma. Howie had thought about trying to shift him from the couch to the guest bedroom but then decided it was easier to shift the bedroom to him. He tucked a pillow under Jack’s head, threw a light blanket over him and turned in himself.

  Carrie was propped against pillows watching the end of Law and Order on TV, the last thing he wanted to see. He cleaned up in the bathroom and slipped into bed next to her, noticing how she seemed to look thinner every day.

  Okay, so she’d got the diet thing cracked, which was something he couldn’t do, but, man, all those creams and shit that she put on her face every night kind of defeated the whole point of losing the weight. The way Howie figured it, women lost weight and stayed trim to look more attractive for the guys in their lives. If that was right, then what the hell was the point of buttering your face with some snow-white poodle-crap cream and lying in bed in nightwear that wouldn’t give a mac-flasher from Riker’s Island a twitch in his pants? Unless of course, she’s screwing someone else. The penny dropped like a grand piano from the roof of the Chrysler building. Howie grabbed the remote and turned the TV off.

  ‘Hey, whatcha doing?’ squawked Carrie. ‘I was watching that.’

  ‘Tell me straight, Caz. Who the fuck are you fucking?’

  Only the white poodle crap cream hid the blood draining from her face.

  Carrie waited a couple of heartbeats, wondering whether to lie her way out of it, or feel grateful that the big ugly secret was finally out there for her big ugly husband to see. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she lied, trying to buy time.

  Howie had never considered hitting a woman, until now. Now he could happily punch her lights out. Not so much because she’d been balling some other guy, though for some members of his family that would be reason enough, or even because he’d been too stupid up until now to figure it out. Nope, what really pissed him off was that he’d dropped a whole twenty pounds in weight and missed all those meals in what was plainly a pointless attempt to stay attractive for her and keep her in his bed.

  Well, fuck her! He didn’t want her in his fucking bed anyway. Howie’s inner rage took over, and before he knew it, he was on his feet, giant hands grabbing and lifting his side of the bed.

  Carrie tumbled on to the floor and crashed painfully into the wall.

  ‘You cheating, cocksucking cow!’ he said, then banged the bed down, like a weight-lifter with his last lift.

  It hit the ground and made the noise of a small bomb as the wooden legs on his side splintered off.

  Howie looked at the marital bed and saw it metaphorically. ‘Well, it looks like it’s all well and truly broken.’

  PART SEVEN

  Saturday, 7 July

  62

  West Village, SoHo, New York

  As the last grey dregs of night filtered into the first warm reds of dawn Howie stretched out his aching bones on the couch opposite the one on which Jack was snoring. He and Carrie had screamed at each other in the bedroom, bawled at each other in the kitchen and even thrown things at each other in the back yard, until they finally ran out of fight-power a little after four a.m. The row had been enough to wake most of the neighbourhood, but Jack had slept all the way through the emotional earthquake. In the harsh light of morning, Howie felt as exhausted as he looked. His head hurt worse than any hangover he’d ever had and he felt more depressed, angry and humiliated than he’d done since someone at high school had stolen all his clothes and sports gear while he was in the showers.

  By the time they rode to the office, Jack knew something was seriously wrong. ‘So what happened to upset Carrie?’ he asked, yawning as he fought off the fug from the sleeping pill. ‘I noticed we both got the big freeze this morning.’

  Howie let out a long pained grunt and turned down the radio. ‘She told me last night she’s been fucking someone else. We spent most of the night rowing around you, but you slept through it.’

  ‘Sorry, buddy. I hate sleeping pills, but every now and then I have to take one just to get a decent eight hours.’

  ‘Sorry what? That you slept through it? Or that she’s been balling someone?’

  They both laughed. Jack started thinking about practicalities. ‘I guess you’ve got round two coming up tonight, so I’ll fix a Holiday Inn or somewhere else to shift to.’

  ‘Might be an idea,’ said Howie. ‘In fact, maybe we can get a two-room discount; I’ll probably need to check in as well.’

  ‘It’s that bad?’

  ‘Maybe. The sad thing is, I really don’t know if I want to fix things. Could be that we’ve had our time. Perhaps we’re all burned out anyway.’

  ‘You want my advice?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Don’t rush it. Maybe you’re right, the best might be behind you, but you’ve got the kids to think about. It could turn out to be a wake-up call for both of you.’

  ‘Man, right now the last thing I want is a wake-up call, I’d rather have eight hours of zedz,’ joked Howie. A news jingle trickled out of the speakers and he turned up the radio. ‘Let’s see what the friggin’ press know that we don’t.’

  From the sombre tone of the newscaster’s voice Jack and Howie gathered that the first story was a tragic one, and they rightly feared that the subject matter might concern them. ‘Some breaking news, just in. The controversial news channel Pan Arabia this morning showed more disturbing footage featuring a young woman who it claims is being held captive and is being slowly tortured to death somewhere in America. The video released half an hour ago on the English-speaking version of the Arab-owned news network, shows the woman, believed to be white and in her mid-twenties, tied naked to some form of restraining table. Pan Arabia’s crime editor Tariq el Daher defended his channel’s decision to broadcast more footage –’

  ‘The fuckers must have disconnected our trace equipment,’ said Howie, slamming his hand on the steering wheel.

  Tariq’s voice was calm and unemotional. ‘Pan Arabia believes it is in the interest of both the American public and the victim involved to have broadcast the footage. Not only are we upholding the democratic principles of freedom of speech and the right to uncensored news, but we are broadcasting this material to ensure that the complacency of the FBI and the police services across America is brought to a rapid end. If this young woman dies, then her blood will be on their hands. We urge all law-enforcement officials everywhere to make her survival a priority. If, today, America puts the same money and resources into finding this woman as it does into fighting foreign wars, then by tonight she will be home safely with her loved ones.’

  ‘Son of a bitch!’ cursed Howie, banging the steering wheel again.

  The newscaster came back to round the report off. ‘The terrorist organization al-Qaeda has already released a statement saying that it has no knowledge or involvement with the kidnapping or the video footage being exclusively screened on Pan Arabia. It went to great lengths to stress that it has always condemned any torture of individuals.’

  Howie turned the radio down. ‘A veiled reference to Abu Ghraib?’

  ‘Not so veiled,’ said Jack.

  Howie flicked on the indicator, checked his mirror and squealed the wheels as he spun the car around. ‘Let’s go see our friend Tariq. He might just be the perfect outlet for all my pent-up anger.’

  63

  Rome

  Orsetta Portinari was furious. She’d rung Jack King’s cell phone a dozen times and the pig hadn’t even had the courtesy to return her calls. Screw him! Massimo said he hadn’t heard a word from him either, but that was no comfort to her. Although in Orsetta’s mind that proved that Jack was being unprofessional, rather than just blanking her out because she’d made a fool of herself by flirting with him. As far as she was concerned, Jack King might be attractive and clever, but at times he was also a pig-ignorant fool.

  Orsetta slammed the door of her car; it made her feel better. His quick departure had enraged her. The Italian p
olice had asked for his help, he had promised them his time and cooperation, and then all of a sudden he’d flown off to his precious America.

  She felt betrayed. She felt rejected. More than anything though, she felt he was wrong to have gone.

  Did he really think flying to New York was going to save this kidnapped woman? What evidence was there that she was even in America? As Orsetta had already said, anyone anywhere in the world could buy a copy of USA Today. Video footage of the paper was no proof, no proof whatsoever that the girl was American and was being held in America. The crime scene could easily be in Italy. Maybe that black hellhole was the very same room in which Cristina Barbuggiani had been killed. Maybe it was just a few miles from Cristina’s home in Livorno. Maybe it was in Rome, right under the noses of everyone at their HQ. Orsetta thought Massimo was absolutely right. Screw the Americans. She’d carry on working the case as though they didn’t exist, carry on working every bit as hard as possible because another innocent woman’s life might well depend upon her efforts.

  64

  FBI Field Office, New York

  Special Agent Angelita Fernandez handed over the necrophilia research to the Task Force’s newest recruit, Sebastian Hartson. Straight out of the Academy, he was so wet behind the ears Fernandez wanted to towel him dry. Incidentally, those ears stuck out like jug handles and weren’t helped at all by the military-style haircut he’d ill-advisedly chosen. ‘Grow it long, man, cover up those trophy handles,’ she had told him.