The Webbed Heart

By Leigh Clarke

The genre is a fast paced and fairly complex murder/ legal thriller. The story is set against the backdrop of Sydney, using some Iconic landmarks.
Ultimately the plot surrounds a serial killer with a unique footprint. He murders his victims with an injection of funnel web spider venom (huge doses) from his own personal spider pharm and apparently leaves no trace. The villain is a sadist with a hunger for revenge since he was molested as a child. The novel features three main protagonists- two male and one female all of whom are young and attractive. Jessica Dark is at the core of this - a young solicitor new to Sydney, with an incredible memory and highly intelligent. Caster is her renegade friend, both hale from the UK and he is something of a minor criminal genius. Their friendship stems from loyalty, trust and also their general solitary natures. The final character is Muller, an extremely intelligent, analytical academic with a dry sense of humour.
It is a difficult case; the police and Jessica work together, and independently, through an array of witnesses, personal encounters and evidence. It is important to admire the killers operation, whilst at the same time being repulsed by his actions- this is enhanced by his spider fascination. Jessica is crucial to solving the crime through her memory talent after she engages personally with the killer before they are aware of his identity. He has a fascination with Jessica, and the reader fears for her throughout the book.
There is some element of romance and sex in the book, not just between the major characters as sex plays an important role in the thriller. This is due to the killer’s obsessive nature with it; there is a fragile relationship between sex and pain. An important minor character is Rosalind; Muller’s girlfriend but who Castor shares an attraction with. This works parallel to Jessica’s chemistry with Muller. These relationships are complex in keeping with the tone of the book; there are other minor sexual liaisons involved.
I have written it to be the first book in a trilogy; all described as ‘Jessica Dark thrillers', whilst each will be self contained they will all include these same three protagonists.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Leigh Clarke
• Release date: Mar 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9780992488413

Leigh Clarke

Leigh Clarke is the real deal a barrister in the UK and a solicitor in Sydney. The depth and breadth of knowledge about criminal procedure and court room drama is evident on every page. The author grew up in Cheshire England but now lives with family in Sydney, though still travels regularly to London to work as a barrister. The author draws on a wide experience of travel throughout Europe and Australia to create an informed images of such places for the reader.

Book preview

The Webbed Heart

Leigh Clarke

Copyright © 2014 Leigh Clarke

Smashwords Edition

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This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

About THE WEBBED HEART

I always like a good thriller so decided to give this one a go. Have to say I wasn’t disappointed! Great characters, I was drawn into their lives, which were far more realistic than the usual fairtytale relationships. The twists and turns kept me going until the end. A real page turner!

—Gabriella Mcnamee

Webbed Heart has it all. Fast-paced, seedy criminals, entangled romances and a true psychopath! Unputdownable

—Scott Randall

A fast paced legal thriller written with intelligence and style. Jessica Dark is a woman misplaced barely managing her own flawed history when she is thrown headlong into a murderous plot. The appeal of the book comes form many quarters, the interesting characterisations, the unique footprint of the killer leading to a sophisticatedly clever court room battle. The mood is alleviated by elements of romance and sexual encounters but most memorably by the novels ability to transport the reader right into the heart of Sydney.

—‘The Author, with gratitude’

Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

About LEIGH CLARKE

Prologue

I have no capacity for thought, I simply am. I am tranquil, untroubled by reflection, desire or remorse.

I lie here belly against the cool ground and wait. I don’t have memories, I don’t mark the passing of time, I don’t know how old I am. I am now and I exist.

Her slender fingers were spread so that she could feel the slightest vibration of the threads. The silken threads she had carefully laid out along the ground above her dark tunnel beneath. She quivered, there was movement, a mere tremor at first then a heavy tugging. Still she waited. Waited until the thrashing and tugging only served to pull the sticky threads tighter. She waited for exhaustion and surrender. She was patient, unaffected by anticipation or disappointment. Though there was hunger, a gnawing, bleak emptiness.

She finally emerged to find entangled a large, shiny cockroach. It was hard work, the spinning of a cocoon, the pushing and pressing of it down into her funnel. Once she had retreated back down into the dank earth, she was safe with her quarry. It would have been a time to relax, to enjoy a feeling of relief, safe home, larder full. But such thoughts are children of emotion.

For her there was only waiting, waiting for the liquefaction of the corpse and the sucking which would slake her hunger.

CHAPTER 1

If she half closed her eyes and squinted it did almost look like, where? the Yorkshire dales or the vale of Clwyd? Could she imagine the Brontes stomping through that landscape on one of their five hour hikes? The answer quite obviously was no, swamped in their victorian attire they would surely have melted. Never to pen Wurthering Heights or more importantly, at least to Jessica, Jane Eyre, a life long companion. No this was Razorback Mountain and at twenty eight degrees Celsius it was most definitely New South Wales, Australia.

Jessica was on the last leg of of a triage interview process. She pulled into a neat car park with a small bandstand at it’s centre and a pretty church forming the background. The Picton office of Martinez & Fox was a rectangular, single storey building painted a muted hyacinth blue. She like it immediately. Within moments Jessica found herself sat opposite Robert Fox the senior partner of the firm, an expanse of dark wood separating them. During the interview they quietly assessed one another until Robert announced, well I’ve said enough, now let me show you around the office.

So that was how Jessica found herself flying out of Manchester airport on the 20th October and in practice as a Solicitor four weeks later in a small rural town South West of Sydney.

John’s words echoed in her head, the ability to adapt to change is key to survival. Well the change was seismic so she pondered she was going to have to be quick on her toes.

On her first day in the office Jessica found that as part of her induction she was to shadow Elena Leval when she attended the local Magistrate’s Court in Picton. As part of her requalification process in New South Wales Jessica had been required to study Constitutional law. In fact she’d achieved a strong merit in the examination but in practice she was still grappling with the niceties of State and Federal jurisdiction. So she mutely observed Elena as if she was once again a trainee.

When they turned up at the Court everyone was waiting outside on the street in the heat of the sun. The attendees here were not provided with the soft luxuries of a waiting area or conference rooms. A little after nine fifteen the Court house was opened and everyone was corralled inside. It was a small, old building, well certainly not old by European standards but it nevertheless represented a slice of local history. Picton was an early colonial settlement, the court room dated from 1860.

It was list day, meaning a day without trials but with numerous cases in for plea tendering or directions. The Court was presided over by a State Magistrate. In a lull in the proceedings Elena had whispered to her that the Magistrate was an avid surfer and NFL (national football league) supporter. If he ever achieved an early dart he went surfing in Wollongong and if you ever had the good fortune (from a lawyers perspective) of representing a football player before him, you automatically had the ear of the Court. The prosecution was represented by a senior Police Officer who conducted Court proceedings on a full-time basis. If anything more serious was before the Court a lawyer from the DPP (department of public prosecution) State or Federal as required, attended. The defendants either represented themselves or they paid for representation using local Solicitors or if they had limited means they qualified for legal aid and the duty Solicitor represented them. The local Solicitors operated a rota in relation to the duty Solicitor role.

When a case was called on either a defendant in person walked up to a microphone at the front of the Court and entered a plea or requested an adjournment perhaps to obtain representation. If represented the lawyer would say Mr Smith, or whomever is before the Court and the hapless defendant would walk up and sit behind his lawyer in the well of the Court.

Jessica sat amongst the throng of people in the Court room, defendants and their entourages and observed the proceedings.

Most of the cases were pretty run of the mill traffic offences. With or so it seemed to Jessica, much the same explanation and mitigation as in England. Elena had four cases to deal with and Jessica noted that she was an able advocate who had the respect of the Judge.

The morning slowly buzzed on and Jessica’s concentration began to shift. Sitting to her right she noticed a guy with a cast on his left arm, extending from elbow to just above his wrist. He was watching the proceedings intently but he must have felt her eyes on him and he turned to look at Jessica. Pale eyes she noticed, just then Elena stood up and started to address the Court on sentencing in relation to one of their clients and Jessica immediately refocussed.

By lunchtime they were finished and walked the sixty meters or so back to the office. Elena was eight months pregnant and about to finish work, the arrangement was that Jessica would take over her files and all new matters. Elena had just started to have that other world look in her eyes, those brief moments when she went into herself and thought only of the baby.

That evening Jessica drove the twenty kilometers North to Campbelltown a rough working town. A place you started off in and hoped to get out of if you could. Jessica had never been to it’s namesake in Argyll, Scotland and she wondered if it too was a hard, gritty town. The key to the fly screen door was stiff and she had to twist and jiggle the key until finally it swung open. She walked in and flung her bag down onto the wooden floor, so glossily varnished that she kept thinking it was wet. The rambling bungalow had belonged to her mother, that was what had brought her over in the end, her mother’s sudden decline and death. So she found herself in the house her mother had lived in for the last twenty years, the home she’d grown old in.

Jessica slumped down into one of the armchairs of her childhood. Her mother had just turned forty when she had Jessica, so a baby had been something of a surprise. She gave a deep sigh, Jessica was twenty eight years old, her mother had died too early when she was just sixty eight years old. John was dead too, dead for years but somehow she could always still talk to him which was a comfort to her.

After a while her neck started to feel stiff, she looked at the time ,it was nine o’clock and the evening had drawn in , she realised with a jolt that she’d been sitting, just thinking for almost three hours. She got up, stretched went into the kitchen and poured herself a double vodka straight from the freezer. Jessica liked drinking, not too much but regularly, without it she couldn’t shut her mind off, it just went on and on over thinking every detail of every damn thing that crossed her desk (metaphorically speaking). She just needed to tone the colours down. The alcohol washed through her and dulled the edge of her mind. Australians she had found were a pretty fit lot, joggers, gym bunnies, surfers, swimmers kayakers the list went on. There was the merest hint of paternalism about it that was not quite like the European attitude. She gave a wry smile imaging how that finger wagging would go down in France. Jessica took the view that it was her life and all life was short, some lives, she knew all too well were shorter than others. Thin, she liked to keep thin too, she didn’t like that softness of flesh. She often liked to feel empty. If she needed extra energy she drank coffee and ate chocolate. She reviewed her lifestyle, caffeine to speed up, alcohol to slow down choices that would get her a ticking off but on the plus side, not too much food and ten to twelve kilometer runs four times each week. Not great, but she really didn’t see herself living to be a little old lady, and that was just fine with her.

She had a shower, she looked at the cubicle through narrowed eyes so that she didn’t notice the accumulating mildew too much. How she hated housework, but really she cautioned herself, she was going to have to do something before the wildlife moved in. Later she flopped into bed and flicked on her i-pad to read. This was the second occasion since her arrival that she had felt homesick. It was odd she mused, that people’s experiences are so similar, because it really was that, a feeling of sickness like sea sickness an acute emptiness and a feeling that you were adrift. It had happened before and she knew that if she just fixed her gaze (metaphorically again) on the horizon she’d be fine soon.

The next morning she was in work as normal by eight, by mid morning she went out for her usual take away coffee. She was wearing a light dress and grabbed her jacket as she went through the door. Dumbass she thought to herself, the office was air conditioned so it was actually warmer outside, she just ended up carrying her jacket. Jessica wondered if she’d ever get used to that.

Back in the office she was gently shifting through e-mails and her saved tasks pondering which to embark on next when Jenny on reception put through a call from Bryan Andrews. Bryan was a client she was due to represent at the Campbelltown Local Court. He’d been charged with multiple offences of violence and disorder in his home over a public holiday weekend. The Police fact sheet presented an appalling catalogue of alcohol induced mayhem, yet the Bryan she had met was a gentle rather shy man. People are flawed, good people can behave badly, he’d had a session and every pent up emotion had come raging out. Bryan had five children with his wife Jo, he worked long, hard hours and just about made ends meet, but he was okay with that. Then one quiet Monday Jo had told him that she had ‘feelings’ for another man, well not so much a man rather a boy, some one Bryan knew. Bryan didn’t have a counsellor on speed dial, he didn’t have sympathetic friends in whom he could confide over a bottle of chilled Pinot Grigio. So he did nothing, he suppressed all his hurt feelings for months until the weekend when he drank a bottle or more of Jack Daniels, and gentle, patient Bryan became a fury ripping through his own home.

Jessica pressed line one:

Hello Bryan, it’s Jessica Dark how can I be of help?

Look Jessica I’ve been asked to attend at Narellan Police Station to help out with some questions.

O.K normally we don’t attend at the Police Station, generally because we can’t value add.

Yeah but with the other matters outstanding, I’m pretty strung out, plus, as you know I have trust issues with the Police.

Do you know what it’s in connection with?

That’s the thing I’ve heard it’s serious, Kiel from the garage up at Wilton said he’s heard they found a body in Menangle.

You mean like a dead body? In Menangle? Jessica rolled the thought around her head.

I’ve just been told, can’t say whether it’s true, but supposedly a body’s been found and people are saying it looks suspicious.

Jessica paused whilst she considered this information. Menangle was a tiny, one street town she drove through each day on her way from Campbelltown to Picton. It was the type of place that when you drove through it you felt the backing track was definitely banjo music . She snapped her concentration bak to the matter in hand.

still why do they want to question you Bryan?

apparently they want to question every one who was in the town in the week of the 12th November. I have a good mate who lives there and I’d gone round on the Wednesday of that week straight after work.

Jessica could hear the anxiety in his voice,

O.K Bryan I’ll come with you. What’s the name of the officer who spoke to you? I’ll ring the station and arrange a date and time to attend

Thanks Jessica.

no worries.

She put the call through to the officer and arranged to attend with Bryan on the afternoon of the following day.

Later the day muted into a beautiful evening, balmy, the sky was streaked with pink. As she ran Jessica could smell the the frangipani, it was an exquisite scent that was released only once it was dusk because the plant relied on being pollinated by moths and other night flyers. She spread her arms out as she ran feeling the air through her fingers, she smiled to herself sometimes it really was like playing in paradise.

She ran for fifteen kilometers and when she fell back in through the door she was covered in sweat she grabbed a cold beer and slumped down against the wall, she didn’t want to stain the chairs. Plus she knew better than to shower straight away, if she didn’t cool down first she’d endure that odd experience of water sliding over sweat on skin.

CASTER, IN MANCHESTER

Fuck he thought it’s cold. A couple of weeks ago he’d managed to break into a council flat in Levenshulme. After the last tenants had vacated the Council had boarded it up and had the utilities cut off. The whole block was being emptied so it could be knocked down and redeveloped to create sleek inner city units. Caster had jemmied off the boarding nailed across the window with a bit of old iron piping he’d found, once inside he’d pulled it back into place so it still looked unoccupied. Not that he was worried about the Council discovering him squatting, no rather he was worried about the others, the area was swarming with rival gang members, and they did scare him. Just then his stomach rumbled and he pressed his fist into it to stop the ache, he’d not eaten in two days, well unless you counted a couple of tabs of gum. There was no doubt about it Caster was down on his luck. But then again he hadn’t seen much luck in the last six years not since he’d finally lost his mother. He pinched his eyes together tightly trying to prevent the flashback. It didn’t always work. It didn’t work tonight.

He was back there again, fourteen years old, he’d been out with his mates on the estate and when he came back he’d found her beaten to a pulp lying in a pool of blood and piss on the kitchen floor. He alway remembered seeing a little creamy white stone by his feet as he walked in and then later realising it was one of her teeth. She’d spent two weeks in hospital, with cracked ribs, facial fractures, fractured knuckles were he’d stamped on her hands, they’d even had to remove her spleen. From there the police had arranged to move him and his mum to a refuge for abused women. Turned out the refuge was in North Wales in a kind of old vicarage, so remote that you had to catch a train into the nearest town. They’d enrolled him in a school, well in Welsh it was called Ysgol, almost an anagram he always thought. Ysgol John Bright in Llandudno. It was alright actually, he’d started to study, he discovered a talent for mathematics and the teacher Mr Ap-Dafydd had taught him how to play chess. He’d even been selected for the lower school football team.

He had one perfect memory, he liked to pull it out like an old photograph only this one was from the back of his mind. He and his mum had climbed up the Great Orme, they’d set off early on a clear Autumn day, she’d even packed some sandwiches and a thermos. They sat there at the top looking at the panoramic view eating cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches, and he was, well happy he supposed.

Weeks later he’d started to hear her phone ping with incoming text messages late at night. She’d tried to keep it all from him of course, but he was savvy, it was easy to look at her phone when she was in the bath or the lavatory. There he was that scary, violent bastard telling her how much he loved her, how he’d completed an anger management course, how it would all be different if they got back together. Caster trusted her though, surely this time, after this beating she would never go back.

His Mum had asked Rhian to bring them back fish and chips from Llandudno, and they’d sat together on that Sunday evening eating their supper, a bit cold because Rhian had had to bring it back in her clapped out car, but still delicious. Caster could remember he was sat on the floor his back against the sofa. His mum had reached out and stroked the back of his head. He’d noticed it, she wasn’t an affectionate woman. The next morning when he awoke she had packed and left, not even leaving a note for him.

So that was it, he couldn’t stay alone in a women’s refuge and he knew their next move would be to contact the Children’s Services Department of the Local Authority. So he packed up and left too…

And that was the story that had brought him to this place and time.

He looked at his phone it was eleven forty in the evening, he needed to go and find something to eat, he had a tenner rolled up and stuffed into a slit in his trainers, he could buy a feast in the right area of Manchester for that. He decided to walk, it was a cold, clear night and he enjoyed walking, dressed in black, hood pulled up, pressed close to the inner city walls, he knew to some he looked intimidating. That wasn’t his purpose though, he just wanted to be anonymous. He walked along Deansgate and turned into St Anne’s Square, there was a casino just off the square. A concealed door, secret, well discrete he supposed. As he got nearer to the door, he saw a guy come out, fat, florid, a bit drunk, he could see a massive gold Rolex weighing down his right arm. A girl tottered after him, she was really skinny wearing sky high heels, she could hardly keep up with him as if she was struggling to lift the weight of the shoes off the floor, it made her look pathetic, totally vulnerable. The guy stopped at the cash point and she caught him up, she was saying something to him in a reedy Manc accent which Caster couldn’t make out, the guy pushed her away roughly, she swayed and it looked like she was going over but rather impressively she managed to regain her balance. Caster was as close to them as he could get without being detected, he stood in the shadows flat against the wall. slowly he took out his phone and videoed the man’s hands as they moved across the keypad of the cash dispenser.

Before the guy turned, Caster had melted away to re-position himself between the guy and the Casino doorway. Now Caster walked swiftly and directly towards the guy, as he neared him he put his foot out and the guy tripped slightly causing him to bump into Caster.

Hey watch it mate!

sorry mate I’ve had a couple

you’re alright Caster said seeming magnanimous.

The benefit of the location of the cashpoint was that it was one of the few in the Country and only one of two in Manchester, which allowed certain clients to make cash withdrawals of up to five thousand pounds. Caster figured this guy was one of those clients.

Caster watched him disappear back into the Casino. When it was dark once again and he had checked that no-one was in the vicinity he approached the cashpoint. He took out the bank card he’d pulled out of the guy’s jacket pocket. He reckoned that the guy had taken a thousand out, he replayed the video on his phone. This was were some skill was required but Caster had pretty well perfected the art. He was fairly certain that it was two, six, three, three, he had some reservations about the six, it might be a five. Double numbers made it easier and it was amazing how many people used double digits in pin codes, even though it reduced the security element by twenty five percent. Still it made things easier for people like him, and what was that he thought a thief? In the event he was right on both counts, it was a six and the guy had a five thousand pound per time withdrawal limit. Though capriciously the guy had withdrawn twelve hundred pounds out, which meant that Caster had to take a couple of goes to get the maximum balance out. Once achieved he stood in the street with three thousand eight hundred pounds in cash in his hand and not much else in the world.

Caster went to a twenty four hour McDonald and bought a cheese burger, chips and a coke. Nothing was as bleak as the clientele of McDonalds in the early hours of the morning. He ate his food greedily, then hunched his shoulders against the cold for the long walk back, all the while quietly sipping his coke.

As he crossed Myrtle Street on the outskirts of the inner city he could see a light on in a shop window. As he got closer he could see that it was a rather shabby looking travel agency. Almost without meaning to he slowed down and his eyes were drawn to a faded poster, it showed an expanse of aquamarine sea, a nordic blue sky and white sands. He pressed his head against the glass and could make out in small lettering at the left hand base of the poster it said, Hyams Beach, NSW, Australia. He remembered his mum with a pang, had always wanted to go to Australia, there she had said they could start a new life together, a safe life. He didn’t suppose she would ever make it now. But it had lasted with him somehow, this notion of Australia as a safe haven, somewhere you could start again a clean sheet. He didn’t like what he was, he’d never been caught, too cute for that but he was a thief all the same. He knew in his bones if things stayed the same, his future wasn’t looking any brighter than the inhabitants of the McDonalds he’d just left.

Four weeks later, after a little creative forgery, he’d just finished a fine arts degree at Bristol University, he’d figured if any one asked about his studies he could surely bullshit that one. He’d obtained a student visa and a fast track passport that had seen him attend at the office in Liverpool and pay an increased fee. He’d booked a flight online and got a pretty good deal, particularly as it was apparently just coming into the popular season for Australian travel. His flight was with United Emirates from Manchester going via Dubai. He’d done it all on his phone, then worried as he couldn’t print off his e-ticket, so he’d bought a blue tooth printer, a great piece of kit. He’d paid a little more and bought a compact version so he could take it with him as hand luggage, the only type he had.

It was an odd feeling, one he’d not felt in years, at first he could hardly recognise it, then he did he was excited! A genuine feeling of looking forward to something. He’d only ever flown once, when he was young, it was a difficult memory, slippery, when he tried to focus on it, to remember the details it swam away from him. It was to somewhere in Spain he was sure, he could only have been four or five, his grandma had travelled with them, she probably paid for it he thought with hindsight.

He was being frugal with the money but he had bought some new clothes, and so he stood queuing at the check in, clutching his sleek claret coloured case with it’s little wheels, dressed like a young George Clooney. Charcoal slacks, black leather shoes and a charcoal round necked pullover, all from Zara. Looking down at his hands, anxious independently of him, he noticed his coffee toned skin. Odd to think of all that unknown ethnicity flowing through his veins. Caster’s mum had never told him anything about his real dad, just some mush about it being a one night love affair. The truth was he suspected that she actually didn’t remember much about him herself. Some drunken tumble outside a nightclub, he surmised. With his skin tone and wiry curled hair, it wasn’t much of a leap to know that his dad was of