Web of Darkness Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Lily

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Part Two

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Part Three

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  About the Author

  Also by Bali Rai

  Copyright

  About the Book

  How many ‘friends’ do you have online?

  Do you know who they really are?

  Lily needs someone to confide in more than ever before as a spate of apparent suicides rocks her school – and her group of mates.

  Benedict, her new online friend, is there for her. Lily finds herself opening up to him, telling him things she wouldn’t tell anybody else.

  But who is Benedict really . . . ?

  A dark thriller that will have you wondering if there is anywhere you can hide . . .

  To all the pupils, teachers and librarians who have been so wonderful over the past decade, in schools and colleges across the UK and beyond. A massive, massive thank you.

  Lily

  I used to be all the things that a teenage girl should be – normal, happy, outgoing. I had friends, and I had dreams. I did well at school, and I was popular. Everyone liked me, or at least most people did. My life was easy and I had my entire future to think about . . .

  I had this friend – more a sister, if I’m honest. She sparkled with energy and light and I would have done anything for her. Sometimes she annoyed the hell out of me. Other times she made me laugh so hard, I’d nearly wet myself. Every time, she showed me what true friendship was about. I loved her. I still love her . . .

  Only, I don’t see her any more.

  A predator walked into our lives. The sort of monster you never think you’ll meet. The sort that preys only on others. You see faces on the television news, and staring at you from under lurid, printed headlines – but you never think they’ll come for you . . .

  This man, this thing, did come. He brought shades of pain and evil into my life that I could not comprehend. He caught my life in his web and wrapped me up so tight that I will never be able to escape. It was nothing to him – just a game that he enjoyed . . .

  I didn’t understand true evil until he arrived in my life. I always thought such things had a reason for existing. He showed me how wrong I was. Sometimes there is no reason. Sometimes there just is . . .

  PART ONE

  Did you like the page?

  The Spider sits in his darkened room, his face the only thing illuminated by the stark glow of his computer’s monitor. He waits for his partner in crime – the OTHER – to respond.

  It was pretty special, comes the reply. You’re a twisted genius.

  It was nothing, the Spider replies. Remember the first girl – Emma Wallace?

  How could I forget her? She brought us together.

  The German boy too – what was his name?

  Lukas Adler, recalls the OTHER. He lasted about two weeks.

  Pitiful creatures, both of them, the Spider replies. This time will be different. Are you sure you wish to proceed?

  His accomplice takes time to reply. While he waits, the Spider logs onto another computer – a laptop.

  If we plan correctly, the OTHER eventually writes, we will be fine.

  The planning is my domain, the Spider tells him. Do not forget that.

  I won’t. You have your skills. I have mine. Talking of which – I have buyers for those photographs. They were very interested in the videos too.

  Then I will supply them. The price will be higher this time.

  Don’t worry, the OTHER replies. They will pay.

  So, the Spider asks again. Are you sure you are ready for this? The risks will be high.

  I know.

  The Spider chuckles to himself. High risks, he writes, bring high rewards.

  I can’t wait, types the OTHER.

  We should meet. Discuss our strategy.

  Is that wise?

  Have I ever let you down?

  No.

  Later, the Spider watches from the shadows, as Girl #1 sits at her desk, oblivious to his presence. Her webcam is on, but goes unnoticed. Her keystrokes are logged. He has access to her entire online world.

  Her life is caught in his web. Soon, he will devour her . . .

  1

  ‘Did you say summat?’

  I was sitting in the café of a local supermarket when the voice rang out.

  I looked over. Manisha Patel was doing her usual. She glared at Amy who was walking past their table. Both were almost sixteen; in my year at school. One used to be a friend, the other was definitely not.

  I watched Amy lower her head and walk on towards the exit. She slouched, like she was carrying rocks on her shoulders. My heart hurt for her.

  Manisha hadn’t finished, though. ‘I’m talking to you, lard ass!’ she yelled.

  I saw Amy shrink further down into her coat and felt a wave of anger. Next to me, I could tell that my best friend, Tilly, was like a tightly coiled spring.

  ‘Stop it, you nasty cow!’ she snapped. And before I knew it, Tilly had shot out of her seat and stormed across the café to Manisha and her friends.

  ‘Oh, look.’ A perfectly manicured finger pointed towards Tilly. ‘Hey, Amy. Here comes your super-hero.’

  Manisha was one of the rich girls. You know the type, always immaculately dressed – a different outfit for every day, complete with expensive bags, shoes and accessories. She was spoiled and self-obsessed. On the outside, she seemed to have everything – apart from intelligence, manners and a heart, that is. Her threatening eyes were narrow and set into a thin, bony face with a square chin. Her friends were almost as bad – like mini-me versions of Manisha. They sat now and watched Tilly with the same twisted, mean expressions their leader wore.

  ‘You leave Amy alone!’ my best friend screamed.

  Amy looked at Tilly for a moment, before lowering her gaze again, embarrassed. I was so frustrated. Why didn’t she ever stand up for herself?

  It was January and dead cold so the warm café was packed. And we were making a scene. The adults around us mostly glared and shook their heads and I felt a surge of embarrassment. As Tilly and Manisha stared each other out an old lady got up to complain.

  Manisha didn’t look bothered. She grinned. ‘What you gonna do, Tilly?’

  Tilly had a thing about bullies – and I knew she wanted to protect Amy. It was just her nature, sticking up for the underdog. Her porcelain cheeks started to colour. Her icy-blue eyes were like melted Arctic water, and they drilled into Manisha’s face. I could see she was about to go crazy. Tilly was tall and skinny, with lo
ng legs and a tiny waist, but if it came to a scuffle, she could more than match Manisha, I knew. All the sport she did had made her strong.

  ‘You lot have gone too far,’ Tilly warned. ‘It’s time everyone left Amy alone. I’m telling you first.’ She jabbed a finger right into Manisha’s arm. The silver Sisters Forever charm that I’d bought her for her tenth birthday clinked against her Pandora bracelet. My matching charm hung from my left wrist.

  ‘If she lost some weight,’ began one of Manisha’s gang, ‘maybe she’d—’

  The girl who’d spoken, Ria Smith, didn’t get to finish. I watched in disbelief as Tilly grabbed her plate full of chips and beans, and dumped it on her head. It was something I might imagine doing but never would. I’d be too scared of the consequences. Tilly didn’t care, though.

  It happened in a flash. Every pupil in the café started to laugh or cheer – not necessarily because they disliked Manisha and her mates. They were just enjoying the drama.

  I saw the security guard approaching fast, and pulled Tilly away. ‘Come on!’ I said. ‘We’d better go.’

  Ria, Manisha and the rest started yelling and complaining. I thought of baby vultures, fighting with each other.

  As we made our way to the door, I looked for Amy, to see if she was OK. But she’d already gone . . .

  There are so many targets for a predator as skilled as the Spider. The virtual world is filled with easy prey.

  He finds the things that make them scream inside – the horrors that they fear most. The insecurities that they hide from the rest of the world. The overweight, the depressed, the pathetic and the mentally unstable . . . He exposes those secrets for all to see. He takes victims who are almost broken and pushes them over the edge. A degree of skill is required for this. An ability to pull apart the defences people erect to protect their inner selves.

  Girl #1 is a classic example. Too stupid to care about, too ugly to miss. She knows what she is; knows that her life will always be plain and humdrum. He has watched her fall apart – from the jibes on Facebook, to her search for like-minded people. Those looking for a way out.

  Most of his past victims have been random strangers – picked out in chat rooms and social-media sites around the globe. Technology has made the world so much easier to get around. The Spider has woven his threads in the USA, in Europe and in Asia, careful to maintain a geographical distance. Yet he has never received credit for his work – and he has not asked for it. He has been content to linger in the shadows – anonymous, silent, patient . . .

  But things have changed. The thrill needs to be reawakened. This time it will be different. This time will be like the first. He is crawling out of the darkness again. Moving out from the virtual and back into the real world. It will be a bigger test of his skills.

  2

  The ‘Diary of a Fat Bitch’ page had started a few weeks earlier. Someone had posted it on Facebook, and though we thought it was probably Manisha because she was the worst of the bullies, she was denying it. It was beyond mean, too far, as Tilly had said, and I just felt so bad for Amy – the subject of the ‘diary’. I couldn’t begin to imagine how it made her feel.

  Amy wasn’t exactly a close friend, but I’d known her for most of my life. Like Tilly and me, we’d met at junior school, and then later our mums had become friends.

  She’d always been a bit chubby as a little girl but back then she didn’t seem to care. The trouble really started when we got to secondary school. The boys were the first. A group of them, led by Jamie Walker, made up stupid rhymes about her size. Then Manisha and her bitchy gang joined in.

  And Amy reacted by shutting herself off. We grew further and further apart. Every time I tried to talk to her, she would just clam up and walk away. All her old friends, including Tilly, got the same reaction. As we made other friends it was like Amy had just given up, or something. And as she became more and more isolated she seemed to get bigger and bigger; now she spent most of her time alone.

  The Facebook page was the worst thing, though. It was public so that anyone could see it and comment, and full of really heartless jokes. Someone had even photoshopped a picture of a whale in a bikini, posted it and tagged Amy. It was so cruel.

  When Amy didn’t report the abuse, Tilly and I decided to instead. We found the violations procedure online and went directly to Facebook. It had finally been taken down two days before Tilly went mad in the café. Too late to help Amy. Her already shitty school life had been torn apart all over again.

  That’s what I considered as I knocked on her door, later that evening. She lived only three streets along from my mum and me so I’d decided to stop by there on my way home. I couldn’t get her face in the café out of my head and I wanted to check she was OK – even if she had pushed me away every other time I tried to speak to her recently.

  ‘Hey!’ I tried to sound cheerful as she opened the door and saw me standing on the step.

  Amy didn’t look happy. Her brown eyes narrowed. ‘Why are you here?’ she almost whispered.

  She’d grown her light brown hair – long enough to cover her pale brown eyes. Her clothes were loose and baggy so you couldn’t really tell what size she was any more, but actually she was really pretty. Only now you had to look past the misery and her hair to see it.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I asked. ‘You know – after earlier?’

  Amy shook her head. ‘Don’t care,’ she told me. But her shoulders seemed to curve inwards, telling me otherwise. ‘I don’t need your help. Or Tilly’s. I’m fine.’

  I shook my head. ‘But you can’t let Manisha keep speaking to you like that,’ I replied. ‘Or anyone else.’

  ‘Too late for that,’ she told me flatly.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  She looked down at her feet. ‘Oh, nothing . . . Well, I better go back in – homework to do and stuff.’

  She was pushing me away again. ‘Can’t I come in?’ I suggested brightly. ‘Maybe we could have a proper catch-up? Or do you want to nip to Costa or something?’

  Amy shook her head. ‘No thanks. I’m OK,’ she replied. ‘I’ve got other friends now. People I’ve met online. People like me . . .’

  I shrugged. I wanted to know what she meant; which people like her? I let it go, though. She really didn’t seem to want me around. Well, I’d tried my best. But when she looked at me, the sadness in her eyes made me want to cry and I couldn’t leave.

  ‘Amy . . . I’m sorry.’

  ‘Why are you sorry?’ she replied. ‘You’re one of the few people who isn’t mean to me.’

  ‘Because you have to deal with this,’ I told her. ‘You think you’re alone, but you don’t have to be. I know we haven’t been that close for a bit, but you can hang with Tilly and me. Like we used to.’

  Amy shook her head again. ‘Listen, I’m fine,’ she said with more conviction. ‘Honestly, Lily – it might not look like it but I’m dealing with things . . .’

  ‘But . . .’

  Amy just repeated herself and then shut the door in my face.

  ‘Aargh! I get so angry,’ Tilly said.

  She lounged on her purple Ikea duvet as I told her more about my earlier visit to Amy’s.

  ‘I just want to slam Manisha’s head into a table whenever I see her,’ she added.

  Tilly only lived in the street behind mine, so after remembering that Mum was going to be late, I’d gone over to hers. We were like sisters. Mum called us the Lily and Tilly Show. I loved my best friend more than anyone, but she could be seriously fiery. If you messed with her, or people she liked, she would snap and do silly things. Like dumping a plate of food on your head. She could be kind too, but she defended her friends like a lioness with new-born cubs.

  ‘How does hurting Manisha help anything? You’ll just get yourself into trouble.’

  We were in her bedroom, messing about online. Her Facebook page was open. In a second window, so was mine.

  Our friend, Danny, was fending off comments about hi
s sexuality. Danny was openly gay, and most of the lads at school didn’t even pretend to be OK with it. The Asian lads were the worst. Vicious. I think it was because Danny’s from the same background as them. It was like they couldn’t handle the idea of a British Asian gay boy.

  Even though he didn’t seem to need it, Tilly was always ready to step in and defend Danny. He was my favourite person online – funny, savage, rude. He was like a caricature of a bitchy gay man, with bells on. Seriously, that boy had a put-down for every occasion. We were quite close, having met at junior school, and behind the bravado, I was one of the few people who Danny really spoke to. For most people, he wore a mask, sometimes even with Tilly – who often got irritated by him. He guarded his real emotions like they were jewels, but I knew that secretly all the horrible comments were wearing him down.

  The lads saying stuff online were wannabe bad boys with homophobic issues. They didn’t quite dare do it at school, but saying it online – not right to his face – was easier for them, the cowards. They called him all kinds of names. Tonight, Danny had just effortlessly confirmed how stupid they were.

  Yeah, he’d written. I’ve seen you eye my ass when your boys ain’t with you. Pop over and pop it out, babe. Lemme see what you got. #pencildick.

  I saw it and burst into giggles.

  ‘What?’ Tilly asked, looking up from the text she was sending.

  I pointed at the screen. ‘Look at how Danny’s just dissed this idiot!’

  When she saw Danny’s reply, she sniggered too, and for a moment we forgot about Amy. But only for a moment.

  ‘I’m going to write something nice about Amy,’ Tilly said.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘After earlier,’ she replied. ‘What do you reckon?’

  I smiled at her – the lioness defending her cubs again – and I wanted to hug her. But Ria Smith had got there first, and she wasn’t defending Amy. She was slagging Tilly off, and had compared Amy to a baby elephant.

  Dunno where the Fat Bitch page went but someone should bring it back. That was the best laugh ever. Like, seriously! PMSL every time!

  Tilly almost growled at the screen.