Spider jk-1

by Michael Morley

  'I head home that way, Direttore,' said Orsetta. 'I don't mind dropping him off myself.'

  Massimo studied her face and thought about teasing her. It was only natural that she'd be intrigued by someone as well thought of as Jack King; come to think of it, he'd probably planted the seeds himself by quoting Jack's theories during many of his case conferences. 'Very kind of you, Orsetta. I'll keep it in mind and call you should I need you,' he said playfully.

  Orsetta, dressed simply in figure-hugging black trousers and a long-collared white cotton blouse, felt herself blush as Massimo's brown eyes appeared to x-ray her mind. What the hell, she had decided that Jack King was special and she hoped something special was going to happen when they met again.

  'Roberto, have all the translations been finished? My old friend Jack is American; he can barely speak English let alone Italian.'

  'Si, Direttore,' laughed the assistant. He was so young and fresh-faced that Massimo didn't think the kid had even started shaving. A blessing he should enjoy while it lasted. 'We have done overviews of the main witness statements, a summary report on the major actions carried out and their results, also a forensics overview, with a run-down on soil and substance analysis. We're still running traces on the black plastic bags that the body parts were found in. It all takes time and right now we are short-handed.'

  'Chase it, Roberto. You need more men, ask now, not in two weeks, when it is too late.' Massimo fixed his eyes on him, making sure the lesson was being learned.

  'I need two more people,' replied Roberto quickly. 'Maybe three shifts each?'

  'Then you'll have them, my young colleague,' said Massimo with a generous smile. 'What else?'

  Roberto cleared his throat. We have translations of the summaries on fingerprints and DNA, but we have no known matches to any offenders.'

  'Then, for the moment, keep looking,' instructed Massimo, silently cursing the fact that, unlike the FBI, the Italian Forensic Science Service did not have a fully integrated DNA database on which to carry out searches. It had established CODIS, its own highly efficient Combined DNA Index System as far back as 1999 but the national police, the carabinieri and many other public and private bodies continued to have separate databases that were not connected to CODIS. Moreover, the databases were so zealously guarded that often Massimo's unit had to apply to prosecutors or judges to instruct the owners to release information.

  Massimo tried to put the DNA tangle out of his thoughts and pressed on. 'We're all presuming that this BRK is American, and that he is the FBI's problem and will stay the FBI's problem. But a murder here in Italy changes all that. It makes it our problem. My problem, your problem, our problem.' His eyes roamed over them, picking them out one at a time. 'You all understand me?'

  'Si, Direttore,' they managed, apologetically and not in unison.

  'So why Italy?' continued Massimo, rubbing his big bald head while looking at his team for answers. 'Come on; give me some of your thoughts.'

  Roberto went first, 'He's moved here, this is now his home. His job has brought him to Italy.'

  'Possibly,' said Massimo. 'Next.'

  'Holiday,' suggested Benito, the case coordinator. 'Even serial killers have holidays. Perhaps he just had the opportunity to kill while he was here.'

  'Next,' said Massimo.

  'Perhaps Cristina Barbuggiani had been on holiday in America and he came over to visit her,' offered Orsetta.

  'Check it,' said Massimo. 'Ask her family where she'd recently been on vacation, and whether there were any foreign friends that she spoke of.'

  'What if this serial killer turns out to be Italian?' suggested Roberto. 'Maybe he came from Rome originally, then moved to America like many Italians do, and now, after a long and illustrious career killing Americans, he has decided to come back home and settle here.'

  'Then why kill here?' questioned Massimo. 'I could understand a killer, perhaps of Italian blood, coming back to his native home to give it all up, to turn his back on the murders and live out the last of his days in the sunshine, a long and happy way from anyone investigating his crimes. But not to kill here. A dog does not shit in his own basket.'

  'I have a dog that shits everywhere, including his own basket,' argued Benito, stroking a straggly black goatee that Massimo desperately wanted to cut off.

  'Good point,' said Massimo. 'We should not close our minds to the fact that this man is an exception to all the rules we know, and that he will never stop killing. He is not a burned-out businessman looking for a place in the sun to retire to and rest his old bones in. He is a predator, looking for new prey, thirsting for fresh blood, and perhaps he has decided that Italy is a new hunting ground for him.'

  'Perhaps it's not BRK,' suggested Orsetta. 'Perhaps it's a copycat.'

  'I don't buy that,' interjected Benito. 'Two killers on two different continents with the same MO, targeting the same type of victims. It's a big ask.'

  'No bigger than imagining he's come all the way here just to kill,' replied Orsetta, her voice rising in defence of her theory. 'I mean, it's not like he's short of choice in America, is it? He's got three hundred million people to choose from, so why on earth would he give up such a rich hunting ground to operate in a country that is alien to him?'

  'Okay, we'll chalk that up as a maybe,' said Massimo. 'But, back to my point. Why here? What's the link?'

  They sat silently, dredging their minds for inspiration. 'King,' suggested Orsetta. 'If it is BRK and not a copycat, then the only link I can think of is Jack King.'

  Massimo frowned. 'Jack King?'

  Orsetta struggled to build on her suggestion. 'I'm not saying King is the reason BRK may be killing in Italy, I'm just saying that he appears to be the only link.'

  Benito curled his beard between his fingers. 'I agree. It's the only link that I can see as well.'

  Massimo thought they were getting nowhere. 'Then we are in trouble. If the only connection we can come up with is Jack King, the man I invited to help us, then indeed we have nothing to go on. I want a bottom-up evaluation of all our statements, and I mean all of them. I want every last second of Cristina Barbuggiani's life accounted for. And let me make this very clear to you. I do not want this sociopath slaughtering dozens of young girls here in Italy. I do not want a second person to die. Do you understand me?' The looks on their faces told him that they did. 'Good. First killings in new areas are never perfect. This may be our best chance to catch him. No, let me correct myself. This may be our only chance to catch him. And that is the reason I have asked Jack King to put his own health at risk in order to help us try to catch this monster – this -' Massimo was stuck for the English words to express the full venom of his hatred for Cristina Barbuggiani's killer. As he resorted to his native tongue, he respectfully covered the dead girl's picture with his big hand. 'Uno che va in culo a sua madre!'

  'Motherfucker,' said Orsetta coolly. 'The word you're looking for, Direttore, is motherfucker.'

  36

  Marine Park, Brooklyn, New York The house stands alone on the corner of a quiet cul-de-sac, heavily shaded from view by large maple trees and thick hawthorn hedges that dominate the front garden and small driveway. In the pre-dawn darkness, Spider walks around it, checking his security system, testing the sensors on the lights, the angles of the surveillance cameras and the electricity feeds that he's put into a variety of other hidden security devices that will do much more than just deter any unwanted intruders.

  In the back yard he sits on the edge of a heavily weathered wooden table and gets to thinking about the old days; the time he lived here with his parents, the time before they went to the Better Place and he was taken away to the orphanage. Fifteen years ago he'd bought the house back, paying cash out of the inheritance left in a trust fund for him. The rest of the money he'd invested wisely, managing a strong port-folio of stocks, shares and bonds over the Internet. His father would have been proud of him. Dad had always said 'never take any unnecessary risks' and that had been the key t
o his success, in whatever he did.

  He remembers life in the orphanage: the bullying, the squabbling, the shortage of food, the fetid warm smell of overcrowded and unclean dormitories and, more than anything, the endless noise. It wasn't until he'd moved out that he appreciated just how golden silence can be. Spider knows those years were formative for him. For better or worse, they shaped him into what he is today. He knows that the reason he still eats his food too quickly is because if he hadn't wolfed down his meals as a kid, the bigger boys in the orphanage would simply have taken whatever they wanted from his plate. He understands his comfort with violence stems from the day he could no longer take the ritual abuse and beatings that all new boys endured, and exploded into a rage that led to him fracturing the skull of one of his attackers by repeatedly banging his head on a toilet wall.

  The orphanage had been packed with kids from the wrong side of the tracks and it served as a university of crime, teaching him a dozen ways to establish false identities, obtain bogus documents and set up fake companies. Crime was literally child's play for him.

  In the cool of his back yard he fires up a dual-core Dell laptop and, through a false identity web account, goes online. He accesses Webmail and finds his way to his own security-coded intranet system. A few seconds later, he's able to pull up picture feeds from any of the cameras inside or outside the house. He toggles between the external views, then shrinks the screen to compress the pixels and increase the night-view quality. Satisfied with the settings, he punches up the internal camera feeds. In the dark of the yard Sugar's prostrate body shows up as an intense, white shape, almost like a white-hot crucifix. Spider ponders the picture. There is something about the girl that unsettles him. He'd felt it the other night, when he'd approached her, and he feels it again now. He somehow senses that, even spreadeagled and dying, she represents a danger to him. He dismisses his feelings as illogical. His planning has been good, and apart from that one bloody moment when she'd bitten him, he'd experienced no real difficulties with her.

  Spider switches angles, choosing a close-up of her face. Her eyes are shut and the camera shot is so tight it almost looks as though she's in a peaceful sleep. He knows the truth is far from that. He imagines that by now the woman is in constant mental agony. He feels no compassion or concern for her. In fact, he feels nothing for her. Hookers are not his usual prey, but then this isn't going to be a usual kill. This kill wasn't planned solely for pleasure; this kill has a much bigger prize attached to it.

  37

  Mount Amiata, Tuscany There were days when Tuscany looked so beautiful that Nancy imagined God must have made Italy himself, but then, for some reason known only to him, he subcontracted work on the rest of the world to some Poles who had promised to get it done cheaply and be finished by the end of the week.

  Today was one of those days. With Zack in nursery, and Carlo and Paolo briefed on pending jobs at the hotel and restaurant, Jack and Nancy decided to make the most of their time together before he headed off to meet Massimo in Rome.

  They spent the morning walking on Mount Amiata. Jack puffed and wheezed far more than he ever thought he would as they climbed the former volcano's great slabs of yellowish-brown rock.

  The view from the top across the Val D'Orcia was as stunning as any they had ever seen. They stood side by side on the summit, a warm and gentle wind buffeting them, as they tried to pick out the more notable landmarks of Pienza, Montalcino, Radicofani and of course their own San Quirico.

  'Do you know where San Quirico got its name from?' asked Nancy, as Jack pointed a finger towards its distinctive ancient walls.

  'No, I don't,' he conceded, 'but I've got a sneaky feeling that I know someone who does.'

  The wind sprayed Nancy's hair across her face as she turned in the breeze. 'It's not nice. Seems the town takes its name from the child martyr Saint Quiricus.'

  'Who was he?' asked Jack, eager for her to get to the point.

  'Be patient. I'm getting there,' said his wife, well used to his ways. 'Back in the year 304, when Quiricus, or Cyricus as he was sometimes called, was only three years old, the same age as Zack, his mother Julietta was sentenced to death for being a Christian. When she appeared before the local governor in Tarsus and sentence was passed, she had her young son with her. The boy made a fuss, insisting that he wouldn't leave his mother, no matter what happened to him. The officials told him, rather brutally, that his mother was to be killed because she was a Christian. At which point, Quiricus declared that he was also a Christian and wished to die with her. This "stand" apparently maddened the governor so much that he grabbed the boy by his legs and smashed his head on some stone steps. Now here's the amazing bit: Julietta didn't weep; instead, she openly showed that she was happy.'

  'Come again?' interrupted Jack. 'Happy?'

  'Yes, happy. Apparently she was honoured that her son had been chosen to earn the crown of martyrdom.' It made Nancy wonder if history was repeating itself in the modern world. 'Maybe that's how the parents of suicide bombers feel these days, perhaps their mothers feel honoured.'

  'Enough now,' said Jack, keen not to start such a debate. 'You're beginning to sound like my old grandmother.'

  'That's no bad thing from what I remember. You liked her, didn't you?'

  'Adored her,' corrected Jack, fondly remembering the old woman. 'She was a Bible-bashing nutcase, but I loved her to bits.'

  'Anyway, Saint Quiricus is the patron saint of family happiness. And that, allegedly, is where our town got its name.'

  'You love it here, don't you?' Jack asked, as a prelude to the conversation he'd been avoiding for as long as possible.

  She wiped more hair from her face. 'I do. Don't you?'

  He half turned away from her and gazed across the heat-hazed countryside. 'I know this will sound crazy, but I'm not, I'm not happy.' Jack waved his hand across the valley. 'All this is beautiful, but it's not helping me. In fact, even out here on this incredible mountain top, I feel trapped.'

  'Trapped?' queried Nancy, conscious that her husband was feeling awkward and was avoiding looking directly at her.

  'You said Tuscany would help me recover,' he turned back to her, 'but what you really meant was that it would help you. All this, it's what you wanted, what you needed.'

  'That's unfair!' she snapped. 'When you came out of hospital, you were completely wiped out, you were finished with it all, Jack.'

  He shook his head and bit down on his lip. 'No, Nancy, you were finished with it. I was sick. I should have stayed in New York. I should have taken some time off, got myself strong again, and then gone back to work and finished the job.'

  'Huh!' she exclaimed, and wheeled away from him.

  He took a quick pace forward and grabbed her by the arm. 'Listen to me.'

  She was startled that he'd been so rough.

  He took his hand away. 'I love you. I love you and our little boy to bits, but this exile, this remoteness that's being enforced on me, it's killing me.'

  Nancy was stung by the remark, and felt her eyes filling up.

  'I'm a policeman, I chase bad guys and lock them up,' he went on, 'that's what I am, and that's what I do. It's all I've ever done, and it's all I know how to do. Bringing me all the way out here, and having me do nothing but help you move chairs and clean plates, isn't helping me, Nancy, it's making me sick.'

  'Oh, Jack, how can you say that? You were so ill in New York that you could barely walk when I took you home from the hospital. Look at you now, you're fitter and healthier-looking than ever.'

  Jack slapped his stomach and managed a half-smile. 'Physically, you're right. Tuscany helped build my strength. But mentally, well…'

  She frowned at him. 'Well, what?'

  'Mentally, it's destroying me. I feel useless, weak, impotent and…' he struggled for words, then added, 'cowardly.'

  'Oh, honey.' Nancy wrapped her arms around him and for half a second she thought she felt him try to pull away. She stood with her head against his ches
t, just as she'd done the first night they'd gone out together. She didn't want him to get involved in criminal work again, but she didn't want to see him like this either. Nancy felt him squeeze her tight and kiss the top of her head. Finally, she broke from his arms and looked up at him. 'You're probably right. I did need to come here. I needed to have a life as far away from murder and morgues as possible. And I needed to have you as well. Not you for only two hours a night, slipping into bed next to me at two a.m. and then slipping out again before daybreak, but a full-time you.'

  'I'm sorry,' he began.

  Nancy cut him off. 'Shush, let me finish. You scared me so much when you collapsed. I can't imagine – I don't want to imagine – bringing Zack up on my own because you've worked yourself to death. Is that so selfish?'

  'No, no it's not,' he conceded, knowing she had him on the back foot.

  'I want to grow old with you, be it here, or be it anywhere else in the world. I just want us to live a long and happy life together.' She looked around, just as Jack had done moments ago. 'You're right. I do love it here, and I hope you'll learn to love it too. But more than anything I love you.' She forced a smile for him. 'I understand that you have to get involved again. I guess deep down I always knew you would. Unfinished business and all that.' She let out a sigh, then took his hand. 'But promise me that you're going to be careful.'

  'I promise,' he said, just as he had done a hundred times before.

  'And you've got to keep going to that psychiatrist. You'll do that?'

  'I will.'

  'Then do it. Do whatever you have to.' Nancy tried to smile again, but this time she couldn't, and the tears came.

  Jack wrapped his arms around her and held her. From the top of Amiata they looked out towards the place where they'd built their new home and privately both wondered what the future held for them. Nancy turned to her husband and kissed him passionately.