by Unknown
‘And young people decay faster than old people,’ added Benito.
‘Why’s that?’ asked Roberto.
‘Because of the fat levels,’ explained Benito. ‘Fluid and fat accelerate decomposition. So if you want to hang around in life, or death, stay off the burgers and beer.’
‘Thank you, Benito,’ said Massimo, cutting off the start of his case coordinator’s streamof black humour. ‘Maggots, Orsetta. Jack will want to know about infestation. Were all the usual suspects present?’
‘Yes, they were,’ confirmed Orsetta. ‘Analysis revealed the presence of multiple fully formed Calliphora.’
‘Blue-bottle fly,’ explained Benito to Roberto.
Orsetta raised her eyebrows at him, making sure he’d finished with his interruptions, then carried on. ‘The larvae were mature, elderly, fat, indolent, third-stage maggots, not in pupa cases. The estimate was that they had been laid about nine or ten days earlier. The lab said we should allow an extra day or two for the original flies to have found the head. Sorry, Cristina’s head. So we’re back with the fourteen-day estimate.’
Massimo looked up from his desk top. ‘None of the progeny of the flies had themselves reached the breeding stage?’
‘No,’ she answered. ‘I asked the same question. Apparently that would have taken about a month.’
‘So again the timing coincides?’ checked Roberto.
‘Yes,’ Orsetta confirmed. ‘In the summary, the notes concur again that the head was probably kept in a lukewarm place for between ten and fourteen days.’
Massimo scribbled some words on his pad and the team waited silently until he had finished. ‘We need to have a stab at a timeline. Let’s look…’
Roberto interrupted him. ‘Direttore, I think I have a rough one.’
‘Go on,’ said Massimo, pleased to see the youngster had been thinking ahead.
‘Cristina was last seen alive on the ninth of June and was reported missing on the tenth. From what we’ve been told by the pathology reports, it’s likely that she was killed somewhere around the twelfth to the fourteenth. We’re told the corpse was kept for six days before it was dismembered and disposed of. This takes us to the twentieth of June as probably the earliest that he started disposing of the limbs. We have our first public finding of remains two days later, on the twenty-second.’
Massimo held up a hand. ‘That’s good, but let’s stop for a moment and back up a little. It looks as if this man held Cristina alive for between a minimum of two and a maximum of four days.’ He looked up at his team, and continued, ‘Then, when he killed her, he kept her body, or parts of it, for another six to eight days. Why? Why did he wait so long? What was he doing?’ He let the dates and questions sink in, swallowed hard and added, ‘Our killer then kept Cristina’s severed head for another four or five days, before it was delivered to us. Again, why?’
Orsetta made the sign of the cross and bowed her head; she could not begin to imagine what agonies Cristina had endured, or what kind of man they were hunting.
‘He has left us with many questions to answer, but let’s concentrate on the main ones,’ said Massimo, preparing to tick them off on his fingers. ‘How did he manage to abduct Cristina? Where did he hold her for those two to four days that she was alive? Did he keep her corpse in the same place, for up to six days, or did he move her somewhere else? Why did he wait so long before sending Cristina’s head to us?’
Massimo let his hand fall to his desk and glanced across at the framed picture of Cristina. She seemed not to have a worry in the world. Her face was unlined, radiant and full of promise. Her smile was so wide that the photographer had probably caught her just as a laugh was about to escape her lips. Massimo looked up again, and moved the conversation on to something he’d so far kept secret from Jack. ‘And the other big question is: what exactly did the killer mean to tell us by the note that he sealed in a plastic bag and left inside Christina’s skull?’
PART FOUR
Wednesday, 4 July
39
Rome
‘Jack King, you look magnificent!’ exclaimed Massimo Albonetti, throwing his arms around the former FBI agent as he entered his office.
‘And you – my smooth Italian friend – you still look like a polished cue ball,’ said Jack, playfully rubbing the top of Massimo’s bald head.
Massimo slapped his hand away and shut the door behind them. ‘They told me you were ill, but look at you. You’re heavier and healthier than I’ve ever seen you.’
‘Good food and a good wife, that’s the secret,’ said Jack, patting his stomach.
‘Jack, please, I am Italian – these things you do not need to tell me.’ He waved a hand towards a chair on the other side of his desk. ‘Please, please sit down. Can I get you a drink? Coffee, water?’
‘Just some water, please. I’m trying to fight the caffeine.’
‘Me too,’ said Massimo, ‘but the caffeine is always winning.’ He pressed his desk intercom. ‘Claudia, two double espressos and some water, please.’
Jack shot him a disapproving glance.
Massimo shrugged his shoulders. ‘If you don’t want it when it comes, then I will have yours as well.’
Jack took the seat and leant on the desk. ‘Benedetta and the kids good? Did they get away on holiday okay?’
‘Yes, fine, thank you,’ said Massimo. ‘Though there was another terrorist scare at the airport and the children were disappointed at not being able to take certain toys on the plane. No toy guns, no water pistols – how does a young child cope these days without them?’
‘Air travel will never be the same again,’ said Jack. ‘Pretty soon you’re going to have to empty your body fluids, then zip yourself up in a clear plastic bag before they’ll let you board. The boys and girls in the anti-terrorist units certainly have their work cut out for them.’
‘si,’ said Massimo, smiling. ‘I thank God every night that I managed to avoid being drafted into that particular war.’
The small talk had come to an end, so Jack asked the question that had been preying on his mind ever since they’d last spoken. ‘So, Mass, are you going to tell me what you couldn’t tell me on the phone?’
The Italian sat back and his old chair creaked so loudly it sounded as though the joints might break. The question was far from unexpected, and the answer was simple, but he still hesitated to break the news. ‘Jack, you know how much I respect you and treasure our friendship, so forgive me for this. Before I tell you everything, I have to look you in the eye, man to man, friend to friend, and ask you: are you really all right now? Are you really strong enough mentally and physically to face up to what we are asking of you?’
It was the same question that Orsetta had alluded to, and one which Jack had been repeatedly asking himself over the last few days. ‘I am,’ he said forcefully, though deep down he still had his doubts. ‘From what you’ve said, your murder, if it is not a copycat killing, may be the work of a man who killed at least sixteen young women in America. Now, I’ve tracked this bastard for close on half a decade, and the effort and strain damned near killed me. But I’ll tell you this, Mass, watching him kill again and again, and being unable to try to stop him, well, that would be the worst thing in the world for me. For the sake of my own sanity, I have to be involved in this with you. I must, one more time, try to do everything I possibly can to get this guy off the streets.’
‘Bravo, my friend,’ said Massimo, relieved that he’d got the answer he’d been hoping for. ‘I’m very proud that you have decided to work with us.’
‘Okay, cut the gushy stuff,’ said Jack light-heartedly. ‘What is it you haven’t been telling me?’
Massimo leant forward on his elbows and let Jack read the serious look on his face. This wasn’t going to be easy. ‘The report I sent you mentioned that Cristina’s body had been dismembered, but some things were left out.’
Jack said nothing; his eyes asked the question for him.
‘Cristina
had been decapitated. He dismembered her body and severed her head. After he disposed of the other parts, he sent her head to our offices, here in Rome.’
There were a dozen questions Jack wanted to ask, but he started with the most obvious one. ‘Why wasn’t this in the confidential briefing notes? If I remember correctly, they’d gone to your Prime Minister’s office.’
Massimo smiled. ‘There is nothing confidential in Italian politics, especiallyin the Prime Minister’s office. Send something confidential to the highest level and you merely push up the price at which an aide or civil servant will sell the document to the press.’
Massimo opened a long drawer that ran the full width of his desk. ‘There’s something more,’ he said, determined to address all the outstanding issues with Jack as quickly as possible. He pulled out a thin file marked ‘Barbuggiani/Confidential’. He handed it across the desk, adding, ‘This is a copy of a note found inside the mouth of Cristina Barbuggiani. Forensics have the original.’
‘Inside her skull?’ checked Jack.
Massimo nodded. Jack slowly opened the file, his mind trying to put the various angles together. A pattern was clearly starting to emerge in both the US and Italian cases and he suspected he was about to see more links and similarities. Jack looked down at the photocopy. It was of a handwritten note. Black felt-tip ink, in capitals on plain white paper. The message was short, but devastating:
BUON GIORNO ITALIAN POLICE!
HERE IS A GIFT FOR YOU, WITH LOVE
FROM BRK.
CALL IT A ‘HEADS-UP’ OF WHAT I’VE
GOT IN STORE FOR YOU!
HA! HA! HA!
BRK
A cold wave of emotion seeped down Jack’s shoulders and spine, his eyes locked on the three letters that had ruined his life.
BRK.
The Black River Killer.
Jack read the note again and noticed that the three letters came up twice. It was almost as though the writer was trying too hard to convince the police that it was his handiwork.
‘Are you okay, Jack?’ asked Massimo.
‘I’ve been better,’ he said, rubbing a hand across his forehead. Something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Maybe it was the sick humour – a heads-up – or maybe once more he was just grasping for a reason, any reason, to convince himself that this wasn’t proof that BRK was killing again. He took a long breath and cleared his head. ‘I spoke to my old office in New York and it turns out that the corpse of an early BRK victim had been exhumed and the skull posted there, care of yours truly.’
Massimo screwed up his face. He felt for Jack. All this was a lot of pressure to pour on the guy at once. ‘I saw a Bureau note on this, and heard some details had leaked to the press, but nothing was said about it being addressed to you.’
‘Well, it was. Howie Baumguard, my old number two, is convinced it’s BRK.’
‘The Bureau note said nothing of that,’ remarked Massimo.
‘Same confidentiality problem as your Prime Minister’s office,’ said Jack, forcing a smile. ‘Put that kind of information on the closed wires and it’s sure to get out in the open.’
Massimo was wondering whether it was really possible for BRK to be almost simultaneously active in both Italy and the USA. ‘Do you think this Black River Killer really is responsible for the incident back in America?’
Jack let out the breath he’d been holding. ‘I really don’t know. The issue is clouded now because of what you’ve just told me.’
Massimo scratched at a patch of stubble just below his left ear. ‘Two decapitations. Two heads, both mailed by the killer…’
Jack cut him off. ‘BRK has a thing about left hands, not heads. But you’re right; it seems too much of a coincidence to believe that two separate killers send dead women’s heads to law enforcement organizations at roughly the same time.’
‘I agree,’ said Massimo, ‘and I really hope I’m wrong. I would much rather believe we’re dealing with a first-time psycho, than entertain the thought that your infamous serial killer has decided to make Italy his new playground.’
Jack searched his mind for the name of the Italian victim, and felt bad that it didn’t come. ‘Cristina Bar– Bar –’
Massimo helped him. ‘Barbuggiani.’
‘Barbuggiani,’ continued Jack. ‘How was her head delivered to you?’
Massimo raised his eyes in exasperation. ‘Not yet fully clear. Our goods bay took possession of a cardboard box. It was passed to the mail room and then one of the clerks, a young woman, opened it.’
‘What can your bay tell us?’
‘It wasn’t signed in, and we can’t find anyone to say that they took possession,’ answered Massimo, looking embarrassed. ‘It’s possible that it was just left with other mail in one of the “In” crates. We security-scan all the mail and packages, but not until they are being sorted into the different departments.’
‘Do I feel a security review and tightening of procedures coming on?’ asked Jack.
‘Already under way,’ confirmed Massimo. ‘There was a courier company stamp on the box, but we’ve not got anything on them yet.’
‘Forensics find anything on either the box or your note?’ asked Jack.
‘No prints. ESDA testing also came back blank. We’re running a trace on the notepaper and the ink.’
Jack shook his head. ‘Not much point. It’ll be the commonest possible.’
Massimo hoped he was wrong. ‘Don’t despair too early, my friend. Even the best of criminals make mistakes.’
‘Not this guy,’ said Jack. ‘Let me tell you how he works. Before this son of a bitch does anything, he researches the backside off it. I bet you your life savings that the pen he used to write this pornography is the most commonly used felt-tip pen in America.’
‘Or Italy.’
‘I bet you a hundred euros it’s American. The paper too. Your researchers will draw a blank on all your Italian manufacturers, I promise you, Mass.’
Massimo shrugged. ‘Then maybe we discover the paper is a particular batch, issued to a particular region, on a particular date. Your colleagues in the FBI will be able to help us with this.’
‘You betcha, they’ve got whole databases on ink and paper,’ said Jack dismissively. ‘But I’ll guarantee you this as well: BRK knows we’ll run those traces, he knows that eventually we will find the factory that produced the ink, the very tree the damned wood came from to make the paper.’
‘What are you saying, Jack?’
‘I’m saying this. He will have bought the most common paper he could get his hands on, months and months, maybe even years, ago. He’ll have bought it for cash, from a giant store, in a city that he no longer has anything to do with, and in the first place was probably only passing through. Even if we trace the day, the date, the time that he purchased it, the information will lead us nowhere.’
Massimo’s door opened and Claudia, his PA, came in with the espressos and some small tumblers of water.
‘Grazie,’ said Massimo. Claudia smiled and left as quietly as a burglar.
‘You want this?’ Mass held out a cup of coffee to Jack.
‘Yeah, I sure do,’ said Jack, craving anything that would jolt him out of his moment of pessimism. ‘Anyway, the pen and paper aren’t the biggest clues.’
‘You mean the text?’ said Massimo, pulling his chair alongside Jack on the other side of his desk.
‘Yeah. He thought long and hard about these words, Mass. What were your first impressions when you read it?’
Massimo turned the paper towards him and read silently. ‘Shocking. Cold-blooded. Brutal. How you say in America, “straight to the point”, is that right?’
‘Yeah, that’s right. What else?’
Mass puzzled for a moment. ‘Clear – threatening – dangerous.’ He started to struggle to add to his list. ‘And you? What do you make of it?’
Jack scanned the paper again. ‘He’s begging for attention. The bold cap
ital letters, the brevity of the note, the use of exclamation marks, the fact that he mentions his own name twice – it all shows that he’s craving, almost demanding our attention. As you know, when killers do this, it’s usually a sign that they are full of pent-up anger and are bursting to release it. I’d say he’s either about to kill again, or maybe has even killed since writing this letter.’
It wasn’t a thought that Massimo wanted to consider. His resources were stretched to the limit and another murder would cause mayhem, not just on the Barbuggiani case, but on three other, unrelated ones that he was overseeing. He took out a cigarette, tapped the end of it repeatedly on his desk and asked, ‘Will he have found the process of writing the letter arousing?’
‘Undoubtedly,’ said Jack. ‘Not only arousing, but empowering. He’d also be particularly turned on by the waiting process, the anticipation that we would read it.’
Massimo looked down at the letter again. ‘I noticed that he spelt buon giorno correctly. Not many foreigners would do that. I think maybe he is an educated man.’
‘He’s certainly no fool. Check the letter again and you’ll see that the grammar, spelling and punctuation are all correct,’ said Jack. ‘But I think there are two reasons why he is precise and so correct. Firstly, like I’ve said before, it’s not that he’s hugely intelligent, it’s that he’s hugely careful. BRK researches everything he does, meticulously. This guy probably looked up the spelling of buon giorno to make sure he didn’t make a mistake. His whole attitude to life is to be careful, to plan, to avoid making that one slip-up that could end his freedom, and that’s mirrored in this letter as well.’
‘And the second reason?’ asked Mass.
‘His ego. This is a murderer with the biggest ego on the planet. If you could see egos, then we’d just hire a plane, fly around a bit and pull him in. It would be as easy as that.’