Bernie Crosthwaite has written plays for radio and stage as well as a crime novel, If It Bleeds, featuring press photographer Jude Baxendale. She has been a journalist, tour guide and teacher, and lives in Yorkshire.
I was peering down the microscope at the spinneret of the arrowhead spider, Micrathena sagittata, when the telephone rang. I picked it up reluctantly.
‘Professor Hannah Staples,’ I said, feeling the strangeness of that title, conferred on me at the end of the last academic year. It still made me feel both powerful and terrified.
‘My name’s Detective Inspector Croft. I’m in need of your expertise, professor.’
‘Concerning what?’
‘Concerning a suspicious death.’
‘I don’t see how I can help you.’
‘You’re an expert on bugs, aren’t you? There was that thing about you in the local paper recently.’
I grimaced slightly, recalling the headline ‘Spider Woman Made Top Prof’.
‘It depends what you mean by “bugs”. If you mean insects, then no, I’m not an entomologist. I specialise in arachnids, with a particular interest in—’
‘Apparently you’re the go-to person, so I need you here straightaway – before they remove the body.’
I was silent. I glanced along the cluttered bench to the tower of wooden racks containing specimens of every type of arachnid. In the corner a sweep net stuck out of a rucksack that I hadn’t had a chance to unpack after a recent field trip. The shelves above me were badly bowed with the weight of textbooks and files. The first semester, with its influx of new students and the creation of new courses, was always intensely busy. How could I possibly take time off? After all, I had lectures to write, a failing PhD student to deal with, not to mention my own research into the medical uses of spider silk that had reached a crucial stage.
‘Time’s passing, professor. Every minute counts in a case like this.’
‘I understand that.’ I thought about it. I’d never been part of a police investigation before. It might be interesting. I took a deep breath and plunged in. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll come.’
Blue and white plastic tape had been strung across the alleyway behind the row of shops on Victoria Road. When I gave my name, the WPC on guard lifted the barrier and I ducked under it.
‘Down the end,’ she said. ‘Back of the Turkish takeaway.’
I picked my way around discarded packaging, overflowing refuse bins and piles of rotting rubbish, trying not to stain the hems of my trousers. A man in white paper overalls came towards me. He was squarely built, with unruly blond hair. His forehead was furrowed into creases.
‘Professor Staples?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m DI Croft. This way.’
At the end of the alleyway there was more tape. This time it said ‘Crime Scene – Do Not Enter’. I was handed an anti-contamination suit, overshoes and gloves. I put them on and was allowed to pass through.
I could just see, sticking out from the space between a parked Vespa scooter and a crumbling stone wall, a pair of feet in trainers. As we drew level I saw the body of a man lying on the ground, his upper body in shadow. I thought fleetingly, inappropriately, that he had adopted the Pose of the Corpse, a yoga position I used for relaxation. Then I noticed the dark pool of congealed blood that had leaked from under him. A cigarette stub and a tiny pile of ash lay near his left hand.
‘Looks like he came out here for a smoke,’ said Croft.
‘Who is he?’ I asked.
‘Demir Kemal. He worked here. The last time the owner saw him was at the end of his shift last night, around midnight. He must have come out the back door to collect his scooter, stopped to light up a fag, and—’
‘And then he was attacked.’
‘Looks like it. The owner arrived mid morning, came out here with a bag of rubbish and there he was.’ Croft nodded towards a woman with a clipboard taking notes. ‘The MO reckons he was stabbed from behind. It’s like someone was lying in wait for him. We’ll know more when we do the post-mortem.’
‘Poor Demir.’
‘You knew him?’
‘No, not at all. It’s just that I use this takeaway occasionally – it’s on my way home. I had a very good lamb souvlaki only the other night – but I never knew any of them by name.’ This was all very interesting but I was growing impatient. ‘Why did you ask me to …?’
‘Take a closer look.’ He pointed to where the upper part of the body lay in shadow.
I edged my way around the scooter and squatted down. I recognised him. It had been a handsome face, olive skin, black hair. Late twenties, always ready with a flirtatious wink, a charming smile. But now his face was as pale as marble. Glancing down the body I saw that his heart was impaled by a thin spike like an old-fashioned hatpin, and under the pin lay a spider.
‘What is it?’ asked Croft.
I peered closely, not touching. A hairy long-legged specimen, yellowish-brown in colour. It was in a sorry state. The cephalothorax and abdomen looked flat and misshapen. Two of its legs were missing. ‘It’s Phoneutria nigriventer. Also known as the Brazilian wandering spider.’
‘Sounds exotic.’
‘They’re not uncommon in this country. They arrive in container ships, usually in crates of bananas. Extremely venomous, actually.’
‘The way it’s pinned to the body – what’s the significance of that?’
‘I’m not an anthropologist, I’m afraid. You could try the School of Social Sciences.’ I stood up, feeling dizzy. ‘Unless there’s anything else, I really must get back to work.’
‘That’s it for now. At least we know the species.’
‘Glad to help.’
‘Thank you, professor. I’ll be in touch.’
I’ve always loved spiders.
No, that’s not quite true. As a small child I was terrified of them – the plump bodies with their oddly human waists, the many legs bent like prongs, their rapid scuttling movements.
One day, when I was six, I was lying on my bed reading. Somewhere in the house Simon, my older brother, was playing his guitar, loudly and tunelessly. I looked up from my book and saw a large black spider working its way in around the skirting board. I started screaming and Simon burst in.
‘What the hell’s the matter?’
I pointed. He smiled, and bending down, deftly scooped the spider up in his bare hands and released it through the open window.
‘You’ve saved my life!’ I threw myself at him, clutching at his knees.
‘Don’t be so soft, Hannah.’ He prised my arms away. ‘It’s stupid to be frightened of spiders. They spin webs to catch their favourite food – flies.’ He put on a monster face and chased me round the room. I remember the delicious terror of it, the relief when he stopped, picked me up and swung me round, my legs flying out. ‘Flies are the nasty ones, not spiders.’
‘But flies are harmless,’ I panted.
‘What? They vomit on your food and give you diarrhoea.’
‘Yuk! Why did you have to tell me that?’
He plonked me on the bed, ruffled my hair, and went out grinning, back to his guitar. It was a shame he never made it as a musician. I regretted that we hardly ever saw each other these days, not since that last awkward occasion when he got drunk and asked me for money.
But I’ll always be grateful for the precious gift he gave me when I was six. The next time I saw a spider I remembered what he’d said and my panic disappeared. I became fascinated by these crafty industrious creatures. At that stage I still couldn’t touch a spider, but with the help of an empty yogurt pot and a postcard I could remove them to safety, hating the thought of them being trodden on.
As I learnt more and more about them I became hooked. Who wouldn’t be? There are over forty thousand different species and every one of them is extraordinary. The more bizarre they are, the better I like them. I have great affection for the bird dung crab spider that looks and smells like excrement to attract insects, and the Saharan rolling spider that cartwheels across the desert. I even admire the species where the young hatched spiderlings eat the mother; a practical and efficient use of resources. Perhaps my favourite is the Bolas spider that spins a line with a sticky ball at the end which it twirls to attract moths, then reels them in to enjoy them for dinner. Genius.
Then there’s my own area of expertise – spider silk. It’s a thin, tough polymer made up of the same three building blocks as human tissue. Already knee cartilage has been created from it and not rejected. We can’t be far off the next target – replacing damaged spinal cord.
Captivated when young, I’ve never faltered in my passion for spiders. What other creature is so useful or so amazing? A few years ago, in a museum, I saw a coat woven from the silk pulled from the abdomen of the golden orb-weaver spider, and stood for hours in front of the glass case, enraptured by its beauty. I heard a woman ask her husband why there wasn’t a spider silk industry, and I interrupted to explain that these creatures weren’t like silkworms: in captivity they eat each other – they’re cannibals. The couple didn’t stay long after that.
Early on in my studies I came across the idea that spiders cannot die. The theory is that they can be killed – crushed, drowned, starved. But if protected from outside dangers, they can, theoretically, live forever. Some say there are spiders in Chinese temples that are nearly three thousand years old. It’s a myth of course. Most spiders live less than a year, others take a couple of years to mature then die soon after producing young. A few, such as tarantulas in the family Theraphosidae, can live for several decades in captivity, but that’s it. It took me a long time and a lot of research before I finally accepted the truth. But there is still something in me that longs to believe that spiders are immortal.
When I got back to the lab after helping DI Croft, there was a student waiting for me. It was Jack Lomax, whose PhD thesis on spiders’ fangs – chelicerae – I was extremely concerned about. It was already overdue and of poor quality, and I was convinced that even if he completed it he would fail to gain his doctorate. I’d warned him on several occasions that I was unhappy with his work. Now I had made the difficult decision to advise him to drop out, saving him – and the department – the embarrassment of failure.
‘Professor Staples …’ He stood up from where he was slumped at the bench. Long straight hair hung in an untidy curtain down both sides of his face, giving him a mournful look.
He took the news with an increasingly resentful expression on his face. ‘No, no …’ he muttered when I’d finished. His red-rimmed eyes burned at me. ‘You can’t do this.’
‘I can’t force you to stop, it’s true. But I’ve spoken to your second supervisor, and he agrees with me. Think about it, Jack – it’s for your own good. At our last meeting I gave you a detailed list of changes you needed to make to bring your thesis up to standard and you’ve merely tinkered with it. In its present state it has no chance of passing.’
‘I’ve worked so hard,’ he whined.
‘On the contrary, your research is derivative and lazy.’
He banged his hand down on the wooden bench. I flinched at the sharp sound but stood firm.
‘Don’t try to intimidate me, Jack. It won’t work. Now if you don’t mind …’
The look in his wild eyes narrowed into a beam of hatred. ‘You’ll be sorry, professor.’ He kicked stools aside as he stormed out, making a clattering sound that nearly deafened me. I waited until I heard his footsteps recede along the corridor, righted the stools, made myself a cup of coffee and got back to work.
A few weeks later I had another call from Detective Inspector Croft.
This time it was a middle-aged woman, a dental receptionist, murdered in Jubilee Park. Could I come at once?
Once again I hesitated. On top of my normal workload I was staying up late every night writing articles for science journals, and when I finally put my head down I was plagued by thoughts of Jack Lomax whose barrage of emails veered from pleading to vengeful. My sleep had been thin and broken for many days. I closed my eyes.
‘Professor? Are you still there?’
I snapped to attention. ‘I’m sorry, I was distracted for a moment. Can I ask if you’ve made any headway with the Kemal case?’
‘The investigation is ongoing. But now there’s another one …’ Croft’s voice dropped, almost as if he was speaking to himself. ‘God knows what we’re dealing with.’
How could I refuse?
Just as I was about to go my laptop bleeped. Another email from Jack. I skimmed it rapidly. The words ‘cow’ and ‘dictator’ leapt out. I shook my head. He seemed to be losing all self-control. I was about to delete it, as I’d done with all the others, then stopped. No. It was evidence. I might need it if this came to a bare-knuckle fight in front of the Dean of School. I shut my laptop and left the office, locking the door behind me.
She was lying behind the bandstand in the same supine position as the first. And just like the other one, a spider was impaled on a spike driven into the heart. Croft stared at the body intently as if willing it to give up its secrets.
‘Carolyn James,’ he said. ‘Divorced, lived alone. Wasn’t missed until she didn’t show up for work this morning.’
‘At the dental practice on Queen Street.’
He looked at me sharply. ‘Friend of yours?’
‘No. I’m just a patient there. I had an emergency appointment recently – an abscess – and she was on the desk. She was very … chatty.’ I looked away, remembering how she told me she’d seen the article in the local paper.
‘A professor – fancy that! Congratulations. What exactly do you study?’ she’d asked. I’d explained that I specialised in arachnids, creatures with eight legs and two body parts, like scorpions, ticks and mites, but my chief area of expertise was spiders. ‘Creepy crawlies, you mean? Yeuch!’
She’d shuddered so violently I didn’t go on. It was a reaction I was used to.
‘I’m sorry,’ Croft said quietly.
‘No, really … she wasn’t … I didn’t even know her name.’
‘And the spider?’
I knelt down on the cold flagstones and examined it. Dark brown body with pale brown lateral bands, squashed almost flat. Its once long slim legs had curled inwards; when spiders die it causes a drop in the pneumatic pressure in their leg joints, making them into shrivelled versions of their former selves. It was a sight that always filled me with sadness. ‘It’s a common house spider – Tengenaria domestica.’
‘Nothing special, then?’
I stood up. ‘All spiders are special.’
‘If you say so.’ He glanced around the park, at the ironwork bandstand, the rolling stretch of grass, the pond in the distance. ‘I can’t work out any connection between a man working in a Turkish takeaway and a dental receptionist. Why these two? It seems so random.’
I shook my head. ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you there. I only know about spiders.’
When I accepted a Chair in the Faculty of Natural Sciences I hadn’t quite realised how much my workload would increase. I was now responsible for making important departmental decisions, as well as the vital business of submitting grant proposals to funding bodies. A lot of time, thought and effort went into every aspect of my duties. It was hard work, but I was beginning to enjoy it. At the same time I was on the verge of an exciting breakthrough in my own research – the creation of artificial human nerves from spider silk.
The only downside was the constant stream of Jack Lomax’s emails, growing steadily more offensive and menacing. Now he had lodged a complaint with the Dean of School about my behaviour and a date had been set for a preliminary hearing.
I was fully stretched. Perhaps that was why my heart sank when I heard DI Croft’s voice on my office phone.
‘There’s been another one.’
It felt odd to be driving along my own street in the early afternoon. Even odder to see police cars and crime scene officers in white overalls clustered round a dense copse of trees fifty metres from my house. Tape barriers had been erected, and when I’d covered up, Croft ushered me through.
‘It’s a bad one,’ he said, staring at the body lying on the ground, almost hidden in the undergrowth.
I reluctantly followed his gaze. A young boy. The Pose of the Corpse. A spider impaled on his heart. I leaned over to inspect it.
‘Family Lycosidae. A wolf spider. Female.’ It was easy to identify from the egg case attached to its spinneret. It had lost all eight of its legs.
‘You live on this street, don’t you?’
I nodded.
‘I expect you know the child?’
‘By sight, yes. Not by name.’
‘He’s called Scott. Aged ten. He was supposed to be sleeping over at a friend’s house around the corner last night. The other boy says they argued and Scott came home before bedtime. But he never made it. His parents went off to work this morning, thinking the boys had gone to school together. Mum texted him at lunchtime, got no reply, spoke to the school. He’d been marked absent. She rushed home, started searching. Found him here.’
‘That’s terrible.’
‘Have you ever met him, spoken to him?’
‘Once or twice.’
‘Recently?’
‘No. The last time was weeks ago. He wanted me to identify a spider he’d found. I thought he was taking a real interest but I don’t think it was genuine. To be honest he was a bit wild, noisy. I avoided him.’
Croft massaged his creased forehead. ‘Why are they doing this – this – spider thing?’
‘I suppose it’s a way of leaving a mark, a signature.’
‘But what does it mean?’
I shrugged.
He looked at me intently. ‘I’m beginning to see a link.’
‘What link?’
‘You.’
I almost laughed. ‘You think I …?’
‘What I’m saying is that you knew all of them. They’re all in some way associated with you.’
‘Very tenuously.’
‘Then how do you explain the spiders?’
‘I can’t.’
Croft turned, walked a few paces away from me, strode back.
‘You bought a takeaway from Demir a few days before he was murdered. You saw Carolyn at the dentist’s, then shortly after that, she was killed. And now this poor little boy … OK, you haven’t spoken to him recently, but you have done in the past. And then there are the spiders …’ He began pacing again. ‘I’ve checked the distances. Prestige Takeaway is about three-quarters of a mile from here. Jubilee Park no more than half a mile. And here we are on Langley Road – the street where you live.’
‘What are you implying?’
‘These murders … it’s almost as if they’re closing in on something … or someone.’
‘On me?’
‘I think that’s the meaning of the spiders left at the scene. A warning.’
‘Of what?’
He looked at me thoughtfully. ‘I think you’re next.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Is there someone with a grudge against you? Someone who’s out to get you?’
I felt a strange sense of calm, the way I always do when a scientific problem is solved.
‘Actually, yes. There is someone.’
We sat in my front room, drinking tea. Croft sat forward on his chair as though afraid of breaking it. He was trying to persuade me to accept twenty-four-hour protection. I refused.
‘I spend most of my time at the university where I’m surrounded by students, colleagues, admin staff. If I stay late, there are janitors and nightwatchmen. I’ll be perfectly safe.’
‘All the same I’d like to put surveillance cameras in your lab and office.’
‘Absolutely not. I couldn’t bear to be under scrutiny all the time. How would I get my work done? How would I think?’
Croft frowned, looking doubtful.
‘I’ll be fine. I’ve done many field trips in inhospitable places. I’ve learnt to look after myself.’
He ran both hands through his thick fair hair. ‘At least let us put a watch on your home at night. I’d say that’s when you’re most vulnerable.’
‘All right, agreed.’ I offered the plate of biscuits but he shook his head. ‘Any news about Jack?’
‘He’s not at his flat and no one seems to know where he’s got to. A bit of a loner, I take it?’
‘I imagine so. He’s certainly obsessive and unstable.’ I nodded towards the open laptop on the coffee table. ‘You can tell that from the emails I showed you.’
Croft stood up and reached for his raincoat. ‘Be careful, professor.’
‘Don’t worry about me. I know what I’m up against now.’
I followed the detective’s advice, taking extra care locking doors and windows, not going out alone at night, getting my assistant to vet anyone who came to the office to speak to me.
Jack’s emails stopped coming. He wasn’t answering his mobile. The police kept an eye on his flat but he didn’t re-appear, and there was no sign of him at his parents’ house. I didn’t like it. Despite what I’d said, it unnerved me. I wanted to flush him out in the open where he could be dealt with. But there was nothing I could do. It was a waiting game.
One night, when I was working late in the lab, I heard noises – a door opening and closing, footsteps. I raised my head slowly from the microscope. The nightwatchman doing his rounds? But his tread was heavy and slow. These footsteps were rapid, and as they came nearer I heard laboured breathing.
I slid silently from my stool. Again I felt that sense of icy calm. I could deal with this. Through the glass panel in the door I saw a shadowy shape, then the door was flung open and Jack Lomax stood there, breathing in shallow gasps. He looked ill. His long hair was scraped back into a ragged ponytail, revealing sunken cheeks. His eyes had lost their wildness. They looked blank, like dead men’s eyes.
‘Good evening, Jack. Where have you been these past few weeks?’
‘On my hols.’ He tried to smile. ‘Lying low – literally – in a tent by a lake, very remote, very quiet – I didn’t see a soul.’ His face crumpled like a child’s. ‘I had to get away – I tried to go home one day and there were policemen outside my flat. I ran.’ His expression switched in a moment from bewilderment to anger. ‘It was you who put them on to me, wasn’t it? What did you accuse me of? Stalking? Harassment?’
‘Hardly the worst of your crimes.’
‘What?’
‘How long have you been back?’
‘A few days. I’ve tried to see you, but there’s a policeman outside your house all night. I’ve tried to get into the department several times but they’ve changed the security code. Every evening, if your light was on, I’ve tried the basement service door. No good. Then tonight, for the first time, it was unlocked.’
‘That was me. I thought you might come. Tomorrow is your big day after all.’
‘My meeting with the dean, yes. I’ll tell him how you’ve treated me.’
‘Up to now, Jack, I’ve treated you very fairly.’ My voice was calm but my palms were clammy with sweat. ‘But I’m afraid that’s about to change.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Three murders, Jack. You must be called to account. You must pay for your crimes.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Murders …?’
‘Your campaign against me has been very useful.’ I reached into my pocket for the smooth familiar handle of the bowie knife I used on field trips. ‘The police believe the others were a warning, a premonition if you like, that I was your real target, your final victim.’
‘You … a victim?’ He tried to laugh, but only managed a rattling cough.
I closed the short space between us, sliding the blade into his chest. It went in easily, between the ribs and into the heart.
As he staggered and folded to the floor I felt a pang of sorrow for Jack. After all, he had never killed a spider.
I’d seen people destroy spiders before and it had always made me angry. But that was nothing compared to the fury I felt when Demir, shouting absurdly with panic, picked up a huge sauce dispenser and crushed the beautiful Brazilian wandering spider that scuttled across the counter, then flung it out of the back door. Something inside me splintered and a desire for justice overwhelmed me. As a newly-appointed professor I was growing used to making important decisions. Choosing to kill Demir was one of the most crucial. It was like crossing a boundary from one country into another, where the rules were different and I was the one who made them. Jack was right – I was a dictator.
Carolyn had stamped on the spider harmlessly traversing the grey carpet at the dentist’s. As for Scott, I’d noticed him acting suspiciously from my window. I fetched my binoculars and saw what he was doing – plucking the legs from a live wolf spider before throwing it on the ground and hitting it with a stone. I knew the research – boys who perpetrate unspeakable acts of cruelty on animals eventually become serial killers. I was doing the world a favour.
Each time, I had rescued the corpse of the spider, planned my revenge and carried it out without a moment’s regret. Impaling the dead spiders on their black hearts was a private gesture, of meaning to me alone. Now I saw that it forged a suspicious link between the killings, a link that would now end. In future there would be no connections. The deaths would appear random and inexplicable.
Jack’s blood was seeping across the floor. I stepped around him and reached for my phone.
‘Detective Inspector Croft,’ I said when he answered. ‘It’s Professor Staples.’ I let my voice shake. ‘Something terrible has happened.’