Spider Read online

  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 to 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 gr
abbed 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 chest, 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.

  38

  Rome

  There were two important facts that Massimo Albonetti had not yet shared with Jack King. The first was that the severed head of Cristina Barbuggiani had not been recovered at sea, like the other body parts, but had been boxed up by her killer and delivered to their headquarters in Rome, seemingly by a courier company in Milan. The second was even more shocking.

  Both omissions were on Massimo’s mind and were making him short-tempered as he passed out cold drinks and continued briefing his team for Jack’s arrival.

  ‘Roberto has completed the victimology report and had it translated,’ said Orsetta, popping the tab on a can of Cola Lite.

  ‘Va bene,’ said Massimo, glad to be distracted from his thoughts. ‘And what does it tell us, Roberto? Why did this man pick out Cristina Barbuggiani? What made her the unlucky one?’

  ‘More than anything, she seemed simply to be in the wrong place at the wrong time –’ began the young researcher.

  ‘Bullshit!’ exploded Massimo, his hand again sheltering Cristina’s photograph from his more ‘colourful’ language. ‘Che cazzo stai dicendo!’

  ‘In English, Direttore,’ said Orsetta, with a smile.

  Massimo glared at her and turned back to the researcher. ‘Roberto, do not even think of telling that to Jack King. BRK is not an opportunist; he’s not a common, spur-of-the-moment criminal. This man chose Cristina. He picked her out of the crowd. When Jack King asks you that question, do not shame this unit by telling him she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ Massimo turned to Orsetta, holding Cristina’s picture between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Find me a lookalike. Go to the film casting agencies and find me an actress who looks like our Cristina and can behave like Cristina did.’

  ‘I will fix it,’ said Orsetta.

  ‘And, Orsetta,’ continued Massimo. ‘What about Patologia, what did they have to say about the limbs?’

  ‘The limbs, or the head?’ she asked, opening her notebook.

  ‘The limbs first,’ answered Massimo, still not sure how he was going to break the news of the head to Jack. ‘They were dumped in various places in the sea, while, as we know, the head was sent here. So, I guess he got rid of the body parts first, and hung on to the girl’s head until the last moment?’

  ‘Most likely,’ said Orsetta, flicking to the relevant page of notes. ‘As you request, I will start with the limbs first. Dismemberment and then dispersal of the body parts in sea water made setting the time of death very difficult. The labs said it was also made harder by the fact that they had no body fluids to test…’

  ‘Madonna porca!’ swore Massimo. ‘How easy do these so-called scientists want their lives? How about we pass a law that all killers have to tag the bodies with the exact time of death before they dispose of them? Orsetta, save me from the excuses. Just tell me the facts that can help us.’

  Orsetta, well used to his emotional flare-ups, continued unshaken. ‘Decomposition was pretty uniform across the body parts, give or take a few hours. All the flesh had begun softening and liquefying. He’d tied the severed limbs in the plastic bags before dumping them at sea, so they went through a fairly normal putrefaction cycle. There had been discoloration, marbling and some blistering.’

  ‘How long, Orsetta?’ asked Massimo impatiently. ‘How long had he kept her body?’

  ‘They couldn’t predict that accurately from the body parts, but –’

  ‘Affanculo!’ swore Massimo, slamming a meaty hand on his desk top. ‘Non mi rompere le palle!’

  Orsetta reddened, not with embarrassment, but with anger. ‘With the greatest respect, Direttore, I am not breaking your balls; these are the path lab reports, not mine. The body parts don’t help us a lot because the decomposition rate is skewed by the fact that they were dumped in sea water.’

  ‘Mi dispiace,’ said Massimo, clasping his hands together as though in prayer. ‘Please continue.’ He reached out and once more gently touched the photograph of Cristina on his desk.

  Orsetta picked up where she’d been stopped. ‘Pathology says it looks like Cristina had been dead for about six to eight days before her body was dismembered and then exposed to the sea water.’

  ‘Anything in the stomach or lungs that helps us?’ asked Massimo, hopefully.

  Orsetta frowned. ‘Fortunately, Cristina’s torso had been wrapped quickly and tightly in the plastic sacks, presumably to avoid a lot of spillage at the crime scene, and this went a long way to preserving parts of the vital organs. Lung tissue analysis was difficult, but from what they could work out, no diatoms were found in the body organs. They checked bone marrow too, and that came back clear of the diatoms as well.’

  ‘Diatoms
are microscopic organisms usually found in lakes, rivers or seas?’ checked Roberto.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Orsetta. ‘Even bathwater in some places can contain them. Anyway, evidence that they were not absorbed while she was alive means she was not killed by drowning nor was she dismembered in the sea water, or any other water for that matter.’

  ‘Surely that would have been unlikely anyway?’ suggested Benito.

  ‘You’re right,’ Massimo agreed. ‘Unlikely, but not impossible. It has been known for a murderer to drown a victim in bathwater and then dismember the body in the same water, the logic being that there is only one crime scene for the killer to clean up, rather than a death site and a separate dismemberment site. We should always look for the unusual. If you can find it, then you have a sat nav guide to your murderer.’

  Orsetta took a long drink of the cold cola. Massimo waited until she finished before he urged her to continue. ‘Now her head,’ said the Direttore. ‘What does Patologia say about the head of Cristina Barbuggiani?’

  Orsetta flicked over a page of her notes. ‘The head…’

  ‘Her head, Cristina’s head,’ snapped Massimo. ‘It is not an object. We are dealing with a person here. Let’s remember that.’

  ‘Cristina’s head,’ Orsetta began again, ‘we can treat as a pure sample, in that it had not been exposed to any sea water. So fixing the time and date of death is more possible here.’ Her eyes dipped down to her notes, to find the pathologist’s exact wording. “‘The skin was easy enough to peel from the skull and the hair could be gently pulled out.” From this, they fixed the rate of decomposition at about two weeks.’

  Roberto was pondering something. ‘How differently does a body decompose on land, compared to in water?’

  ‘Very differently,’ said Massimo. ‘Bodies decompose in air twice as quickly as they do in water, and eight times as quickly as they do in soil.’