Read Spider's Web for Free Online

all over the country and scour the internet in search of the same keyring that had fallen from the man’s pocket. She’d never found an exact match. But if they even vaguely resembled a devil, she bought them anyway. Occasionally she would lay them all out in front of herself. It had become as much of a ritual as the yearly laying of roses at the tree. Yet another reminder, if one were needed, of what had happened and what needed to be done. She’d also spent many – too many – Saturdays and Sundays watching Man U supporters file in and out of Old Trafford and opponents’ grounds. All to no avail.
    Anna lit a cigarette and scanned through her emails. Over a hundred more had landed in her inbox during the afternoon. They came from all over the UK. All over the world. Many of their senders were people like herself. People whose loved ones had been abducted or gone missing. People stuck in a psychological limbo of endless suffering. People who spent their lives in pursuit of the truth about what had happened to their child, brother, sister, boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, husband or whoever. Most approached her for the same reason that she’d started up her blog – they wanted to raise awareness about a case, keep it from fading out of the public consciousness, as even the most shocking inevitably did. Others were seeking advice. And others still simply wanted to confide in someone who understood what they were going through. Not all the emails concerned abductions and missing persons. Over the years, her blog had grown to encompass almost every kind of crime and miscarriage of justice. In particular, she’d highlighted the cases of rape, abuse and domestic violence victims who’d been failed by the legal system, naming and shaming perpetrators who thought they could hide behind the law, encouraging her thousands of loyal readers to spread the word to every corner of the internet. And in doing so, she’d come into conflict with Miles Burnham and his ilk. They’d brought dozens of civil and criminal cases against her. The fines had piled up until she was forced to declare herself bankrupt. She’d even served a couple of short prison sentences. She didn’t care. All she really cared about was finding Jessica – or rather, finding her abductors, for Jessica herself was surely long since dead.
    Who were they? That question had possessed Anna for twenty years, and would continue to do so until she answered it.
    She opened a filing cabinet drawer. Inside were dozens of folders containing newspaper clippings, dossiers she’d compiled on potential suspects, transcripts of police interviews, and anything and everything else she’d managed to get her hands on relating to Jessica’s case. She withdrew two time-faded composite sketches. One was of the chubby-faced man. It was a good likeness, except for the eyes. She’d had the man’s face sketched many times over the years by different artists. But none of them had ever truly managed to capture the ugliness that had shone through his eyes. The second sketch was of a more slimly built figure in a parka with the hood up. She navigated to her blog, clicked on ‘new post’ and typed ‘Ten years ago today these men killed my dad’ into the title box. She scanned the sketches into the main body of the post, before continuing typing, ‘They didn’t put the rope around his neck, but they killed him nonetheless…’
    When Anna was done writing, she took out her iPhone and touched the photo icon, bringing up the photos from outside Police HQ – photos which had been wirelessly transferred to her phone the instant she took them. ‘Now,’ she said, studying Villiers’ sharp, hawkish face, ‘let’s find out who you are.’
    Jim rested back in his chair, staring at the names pinned to the board. There were forty-four – all those from Herbert’s book, plus the author and his wife’s. Beneath each name there was a photograph and a few particulars. An interlacing web of