Caught in the Web by Emmy Ellis (most read books in the world of all time TXT) 📗

him as a murderer. No matter how he was raised, it’s no excuse for what he’s done. And what you need to understand is that it isn’t just nurture that causes a man to kill. It’s nature, too. We have to see him for what he is—a bad person, either way.”

“Okay.” She got up, collected their cups, and went to the worktop to pour some more drinks. “What happens now? Do I need to give another statement at the station?”

“Nothing happens at the minute.” Burgess glanced at Shaw, who shook his head—at the sadness of it all, most probably. “No one knows we’re investigating this lead, and we’d like to keep it that way until we have solid proof. The reason we came here today was based on someone using Dad’s birthdate and seeing a picture of a man who resembles him. It’s tenuous—best we keep it quiet for the moment.”

“And Burgess will maybe get taken off the case once this comes to light,” Shaw said. “So because he wants to look into it himself… Well, you can see why it’s being hushed up.”

She handed them fresh cups but instead of sitting with them at the table again, she leant against the worktop. “Such a dreadful mess, don’t you think? Those poor people, killed like that.” She sipped and gazed at the ceiling. “And do you know, my first thought when the murders came on the news was that they’re similar to those committed years ago. I should have called you as soon as I saw the latest news but felt silly. Gosh, I remember it well, because I was working nights at the time—do you remember that, too, when I did evening shifts for the battered women’s society, taking calls? I’m surprised you didn’t recall these cases yourself.”

Burgess nodded, agreeing with her. Why the heck hadn’t he remembered them?

“I used to walk home late at night, and everyone was so afraid of being out after dark. Two people were killed, a man and a woman, the same as what’s going on now. Oddly, they were found in the same places as the recent cases, but one had a spider in her mouth and the man had a moth, so it’s nothing like this case, really. Just me being silly.”

Brain going a mile a minute, adrenaline surging through him, Burgess sat up straighter.

Spider. Moth…

“What year was that? Can you remember?” he asked.

“God,” she said. “Must be fifteen or sixteen years ago? I left that shift just after the murders and switched to daytimes—safer—so yes, sixteen years. That’s right, because I left there permanently two years later, early retirement.”

“Shit.”

“Burgess! Please.” She frowned at him. “I brought you up better than that.”

He didn’t say sorry. She might have brought him up better, but he was his own man and a product of a society she’d never allowed herself to be in. He’d run around the streets like other teens, smoked cigarettes for years and even weed once. He’d been pissed up and had staggered home, spewing into the sink when he hadn’t been able to make it to the toilet. All things his mother would consider foul. She didn’t know any of it—and didn’t need to. The harping on she’d employ if he admitted parts of his past wasn’t worth the hassle it would bring his way.

He picked up his cup, blowing the coffee then sipping. They should go back to the station and sort through his father’s old file, the files of the other two dead people, but he needed a moment to process what she’d said. Some bloke—his brother, it seemed—had killed two people, possibly four. If he was mid-thirties now, that would have made him twenty or so at the time of the first murders. A young age to be bumping people off, but not unlikely or unheard of.

Could he dare to imagine all four murders were linked, committed by the same person? Or had the killer read about the first two and copied them or Bethany Smith’s case? And of course, no member of the public would have called in about the insects this time round because they weren’t aware of the finer details of the latest kills just yet. And who the fuck hadn’t done a search on older cases to see if anything matched the recent ones yet? It was standard procedure. Did his team need him to action every little thing, for Pete’s sake?

Was it time to release the insect information at a press conference? If so, it would mean contacting the DCI and letting him know what Burgess and Shaw knew.

Bugger. Unless I ask someone to shift their arse, actually do what I asked in a timely manner and do that previous case check, make out I got the info that way?

Or could he just say his mother had mentioned it?

Yes.

“What I’ll need to do is make out you asked me to visit you,” he said to her. “And you told me about the similarities based on the locations of where the victims were found.”

“That’s fine. Absolutely fine.” She bobbed her head fast, the movement swaying her hair, not grey but blonde, courtesy of her hairdresser, who called at the house each Saturday morning, a tradition sticking around with her generation but basically unheard of these days for everyone else. “Because I was going to call, so we wouldn’t be lying.”

“That’s right.”

He drank more coffee, watching Shaw over the rim of the cup, trying to catch his attention. Shaw turned his way, gave a slight nod, and Burgess knew he’d be in on this with him. The lying. Not for the first time, Burgess was struck by how loyal Shaw was. To him. Their time together all these years as work partners had forged a tight bond, which wasn’t unusual between police officers, but with respect and caring added to the