by Unknown
71
Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York
The FBI and NYPD started checking car plates, surveillance footage from street and road cameras, and canvassing Hyundai dealers and second-hand car salesmen.
Fernandez stayed with Grazyna Macowicz while she tried to identify the man she had seen Lu leave with. A police artist worked on body shape, build and posture while a policewoman put together an E-fit of his facial components.
Meanwhile, Jack King stood on the pavement of Beach Avenue, his nose pressed to Primorski’s window, imagining what Ludmila Zagalsky had been doing during her last moments of freedom almost a week earlier. It was important for him to know the mood she was in, the frame of mind that might have made her take a risk, or avoid one. First, he imagined the moment Lu saw Ramzan inside the restaurant. She waved at him, hoping he would come to the door and maybe invite her in, hoping her night would end in the arms of the big tall guy with good looks and a regular job. But for some reason he didn’t come.
So what, fuck him! An average end to an averageday.
He pictured Lu spinning around from the window and feeling rejected. But then what?
Jack turned away from Primorski’s window, trying to feel her pang of loneliness, trying to work out what she would do next.
Some guy was rolling up to use the ATM right next to her. ATMs were always hot pick-up spots for good-time girls. It was the perfect distraction for Lu. Why not? He looked harmless enough. Opportunity knocked.
Rejected by one man, she was likely to want to reassert her self-confidence by taking money and power from another.
Was Grazyna right? Had the machine been out of order?
Jack madea note to have it checked. Even if he used a false account, which was inevitable really, it would still contain precise information about where he was at certain times, and Jack always hung on to the hope that one day this son of a bitch would make a simple mistake. He looked at the machine; there was nothing directing users to the next one if it wasn’t working. Of course to BRK it wouldn’t have mattered. Even if the ATM had been working he’d have just pretended it wasn’t. The whole point was to get the girl in the car.
Did that mean he already knew where the other machines were? Had he checked out this area before? Maybe even been stalking Lu Zagalsky for a couple of days, just waiting for the right moment to inject himself into her life?
Jack was convinced it wasn’t a random snatch. He carried on building the scene.
BRK would have tracked this girl all day, maybe for several days; this was his moment, the streets were empty and she was alone. He’d have just slid his car to the kerb and walked over to her. Once she’d turned away from the restaurant window he’d have moved in for the kill.
Moved in for the kill – the phrase stuck in his thoughts. For serial murderers like BRK, the hunt-and-kill instinct seemed as strong and primitively undeniable as most decent people’s urges to meet and mate.
Jack looked up and down the shop walls for security cameras, hoping there might be at least one covering the ATM, but he was out of luck.
So, Lu, what did you do next? Jack slipped back into her time and space, the thoughts in her head that led her to make a fatal mistake.
The guy looks harmless enough; he’s going to have a roll of bills in his hands. He’s up late and after money, maybe he’s looking to spend it on some fun. Hey, aren’t I fun-shaped? Let’s get some action going. A little chat, show him where the next ATM is, then wham-bam-thank-you, Mam, something extra in the purse before calling it quits for the night.
Jack walked slowly east down Beach Avenue. Opposite him, a patrol car crawled along, ready to take him anywhere he wanted.
As he paced, he called Howie and found out where the next two nearest ATMs were. Somewhere between a DIY store that was closing down and a Russian-language video shop that was opening up, he stopped and fine-tuned his thoughts.
Where was she going to take him? Down an alley? Maybe bang him against a wall for a quick buck or blow him off next to a trash can? No, that didn’t figure somehow. Jack leant against a shop wall while Lu’s thoughts whispered in his mind.
Look at it like this, Jack: this sleazeball’s about to withdraw a whole bundle of bucks, and even though he’s acting all innocent he don’t fool no one, he’s sure as hell interested in spending some of them on yours truly. Look at the guy, he’s an easy trick, he’s in his late thirties, maybe forty-something, he’s a professional-looking guy, he’ll have a hotel, motel or rental nearby. Somewhere with richer pickings than the street.
Jack stood motionless on the pavement. To the torrent of shoppers and tourists flowing past him he looked as though he was in a trance, a man with his mind in an entirely different world.
Lu’s thoughts were no longer of any use to him. The trap had been sprung, the hunter had his prey. From now on, Jack had to think like a killer.
Feel like a killer.
A flashgun went off in his head; images flickered by; the room he’d prepared, the restraints he’d readied, and most of all the way he felt – excited, exhilarated, unstoppable.
He gazed into the blur of passing traffic and pictured himself in BRK’s place, driving along in the Hyundai, turning to Lu in the passenger seat.
I’ve got a house, not far from here, we can go back there.
Jack flinched. The flashgun popped again and a nervous twitch pulled at his right eye. Was he really ready to do this? He forced himself to concentrate. What kind of place did he take her to and where?
Not far from here, we don’t have to go far…
Wherever he took her, it surely couldn’t have been a long journey. The hunter would want to be alone with his prey as soon as possible. He’d be aching for the kill.
The twitch quickened, a tug on the skin like a hidden needle pulling thread through his flesh. Jack put a finger to his right temple and rubbed it.
Street girls aren’t stupid. They’ll go a few miles, but not more than a ten-, fifteen-minute drive, max.
The twitch slowed.
For what BRK had in mind, he needed to take her somewhere remote, the more isolated the better. But it would have to be respectable as well; somewhere residential that wouldn’t spook her. No woman’s going to take a dead-of-night trip into a barn or warehouse. And wherever he took her, he would have to get the car out of sight. It would have a garage, outbuildings, and a big room, somewhere.
A room he uses for other things.
Things such as the dismemberment and disposal of bodies.
It’s a big, old house with a garage – and a basement beneath it.
The basement is where she’s kept.
Jack felt sick to the pit of his stomach as he realized that at that very moment the young Russian woman was probably dying a slow and agonizing death in a basement less than fifteen minutes’ drive from where he was standing.
His head was throbbing now; it was full of engine noise and the faulty flash of neons that buzzed but wouldn’t light properly. And then the voices came again, the hopeless voices crying in pain and screaming for help. Jack put his hands to his temples.
It’s too soon. Nancy was right. You’re not ready for this.
He rubbed his face with his hands and told himself to forget the self-doubts and focus. He looked up and down Beach Avenue; fifteen minutes’ drive from the spot he stood in would include all houses within a seven-mile radius.
‘Shit!’ he said out loud and felt his heart break into a sprint. Brooklyn was New York City’s largest borough; almost a third of the entire city’s population lived there. Ludmila Zagalsky was just one out of two and a half million people living within the area that had to be searched.
One in two and a half million – the odds against finding her alive were bad, very bad indeed.
72
San Quirico D’Orcia, Tuscany
The telephoto lens that McLeod unscrewed from the Nikon was the same one he’d used to take the photo of the headless skeleton in Georgetown
. He capped both ends and packed it in its own cloth bag, which he then put into the rucksack along with the rest of his equipment. He’d earned a fortune from that snap at Sarah Kearney’s grave and was eternally grateful for the anonymous tip-off that had sent him there ahead of the cops.
McLeod was a veteran hack, a freelance photo-journalist who made his money providing pictures and stories for the Crime Channel, Court TV, Crime Illustrated and all manner of other true-crime magazines and publications. He was well used to working alone, moving around secretly, acting on whispers here and tip-offs there. Mainly the tips came from cops, ambulance crews and a few villains themselves. Usually, ‘the source’ wanted some kind of kick-back at the end, but in the Kearney case there had been no demand for payment of any kind.
The fees he’d raked in from the Georgetown job had fired up his interest in the BRK case, and had got him thinking about what had happened to the cop who had quit the investigation after collapsing because of the strain of leading the murder hunt. McLeod had spent days researching the case, and had finally found the Kings’ whereabouts on a website about Tuscan cookery. Rising star chef Paolo Balze had been the subject of the feature and, fortunately for McLeod, he had magnanimously thanked his proprietors Jack and Nancy King. Well, the old hack was planning a feature of his own, and it wasn’t intended for the lifestyle section of some glossy magazine.
Jack King soaking up the good life in Tuscany, on a state pension, while his ex-colleagues have to deal with the desecration of a grave of one of the victims on whom he turned his back. This was great tabloid crime. Maybe a front-page splash in the National Enquirer, or a slide show of pics for Court TV. Only trouble was, King wasn’t there.
At first McLeod feared that the story might be dead, but then he patiently set his mind to things. If he was lucky, maybe the Kings had split up; perhaps there was an even better human drama story to tell. Cop that quit BRK case quits wife who stood by him!
Sprinkle the story with some shots of the lonely wife looking after a sad toddler because Daddy’s run out on them and he’d have editors eating out of his hand like pigeons.
Then within the last few days had come suggestions that the former Fed guy was somehow helping Italian cops with some job or other. This was also a good angle. ‘Retired’ FBI man on state pension can’t help us, but he can help the Italians and help himself !
The last headline needed work, but McLeod knew it was still a seller. In truth, anything about BRK was a seller.
With that thought in mind, he ended his long vigil and climbed out of his hide to return to La Casa Strada to question Nancy King about her husband’s whereabouts. He was going to get the quotes he needed to clinch his story and nothing was going to stop him.
Whatever the King woman said, it didn’t really matter. McLeod knew he now had enough to write the kind of exclusive that many people would die for.
73
Livorno, Tuscany
Orsetta Portinari had two questions on her mind as she arrived in Livorno: what were Cristina Barbuggiani’s last movements on the ninth of June and what was the link between Jack King and her killer?
Marco Rem Pici from the local murder squad met her at the railway station, with a genuine smile and a kiss on each cheek that he had to stand on tiptoe to administer. He was a small man, even by Italian standards, but was always immaculately dressed in dark suits that complemented his short dark hair, gym-broadened shoulders and trim waist. He drove them to Cristina’s apartment, a cheap place, high up a hillside, with a terrific view down on to the Medici port – providing you had a telescope. The ugly concrete building was a stark contrast to the ancient towers and fortresses that led to the historic town centre. They were shown to the third floor by the landlord, a fat, bald man in his sixties who thought white string vests and broken-zipped slacks were fashionable. He opened the heavy metal front door and without saying a word left them to their business. The business of murder.
Orsetta silently cursed Jack as she looked around. This was a trip that he should have been making with her, giving her his expert input on, instead of disappearing back to America. Visiting a victim’s home was always like sticking a slide of their whole life under a microscope and uncovering the crucial secrets they thought no one would ever find out. It would have been a huge help to have had him around.
Orsetta took in the light marble flooring that ran throughout the place, a single yellow cotton settee and yellow beanbag crowded in front of an open fireplace filled with dried flowers in a terracotta vase. There were a few archaeology books on a shelf around the fireplace and a small television on a slab of marble in a corner of the room. And that was it. Yellow and white were the only colours on display. Calm but vibrant, simple, dry and uncluttered, thought Orsetta, starting to get a feel for the dead woman.
‘You’ve been through all these?’ she asked, waving a hand at the books.
‘Book by book, page by boring page. There’s nothing of interest to us,’ said Marco.
Orsetta’s heels clacked over the marble as she checked out the bathroom, then went through everything in the kitchen. A thin calendar hung on the wall near the sink. She lifted it off its drawing pin and thumbed through the months. Each one had a different recipe, tied to the seasonal use of food and wine, but Orsetta wasn’t interested in the culinary tips. Fixing her attention on June, she was disappointed at the absence of any jotted remarks on the ninth or tenth.
‘Tell me again about who saw her last on the ninth,’ she said, still peering at the calendar.
Marco let out a tired sigh. He’d gone over this info so many times he could recite it backwards. ‘Two friends, Mario and Zara Mateo, called round at about seven p.m., and invited her out to dinner. She said no thanks and they wentontheir own. The restaurant says they stayed until gone midnight, got a bit drunk and caught a taxi home. Next timing we have is the following day. Cristina’s mother wanted her to pick up some medicine and called her mobile, maybe six or seven times. By evening she was worried, so she and Cristina’s father came round to the apartment and raised the alarm. Local police booked the call at 8.33 p.m.’
Orsetta nodded and went back to flicking through the calendar. There was almost nothing on it, just an entry in the last week of May: ‘Diet and jogging start today!’ She smiled and felt a stab of sadness at the same time. There wasn’t a woman alive who hadn’t made similar dates with herself. She returned the calendar to its pin and followed Marco to the single bedroom. It was barely big enough to accommodate a three-quarter-size bed, a cheap dressing table and a white plastic chair that looked as though it should be in a garden. Orsetta opened a built-in, sliding wardrobe made of slatted pine. It was empty. ‘Clothes at the lab?’ she asked, already knowing the answer.
‘Aha,’ said Marco. ‘I’ve brought photographs and lists of everything that’s been removed and not put back. I knew you’d want to see.’
Orsetta took a stack of small prints from him. The first shot showed what the photographer had initially seen when he’d opened the door. Jeans on the left of the rail, followed by trousers, then blouses, skirts and finally dresses. They were plain and functional; none of them looked expensive or particularly new. She shuffled through the photos and found the print she was looking for. Shoes. Orsetta’s eyes widened.
‘Are these the only pairs she had?’ she asked, incredulously.
Marco peered over her shoulder. ‘Yes, that looks about right.’ One pair of high heels, two pairs of flat brown shoes, two pairs of flat black, and a pair of black boots. There was something wrong. Orsetta couldn’t put her finger on it, but she just knew that there was something wrong.
She dropped the prints on top of the dressing table and quickly went through the three drawers.
Nothing.
She sat at the dressing table, waiting for her mind to identify what was disturbing her. ‘Anything from these drawers still at the labs?’
Marco thought for a moment. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
Orse
tta’s eyes searched the room, flicking over every corner of it, desperate to uncover the clue that she knew lay somewhere close to her. ‘What about a laundry basket?’
‘Done,’ said Marco, understanding where her thoughts were heading. ‘Three pairs of panties, a couple of T-shirts, jeans, not much else. All free of any trace samples or DNA other than the victim’s.’
‘That’s not what I’m thinking,’ said Orsetta, returning to the bottom drawer. She tipped the contents out on to the bed and searched through a mixture of tights, stockings, panties, bras and socks. She was close to something, she could sense it. But what?
She quickly sorted the clothing into piles. She presumed the smarter underwear was for work or the few dates Cristina had, and the older, tattier stuff was for when she was hanging out at home on her own. That left two matching pairs of white Lotto running socks, the type found in a three-pack. Orsetta dipped into her jacket and produced a picture of Cristina to remind herself of the girl’s size and shape.
‘In the laundry pile, did you find a sports bra, or any white Lotto socks to match these?’ She pointed to the pair she’d balled up.
Marco thought for a moment. ‘No. No, we didn’t.’
Orsetta felt a kick of excitement. She had a hunch.
She grabbed the photographs and scanned them again. ‘No running shoes. The shot in the wardrobe shows no sports shoes,’ she announced with a look of triumph. She could picture Cristina’s last night. ‘I think she was snatched while she was out jogging, probably not far from here. There are no trainers, no sports pants or sports bra among any of the belongings we’ve examined and I bet she was wearing the third pair of Lotto running socks.’
Marco got her drift. ‘So, she turned down her friends’ dinner invite around seven, then you think she went for a run straight after that?’
Orsetta weighed it up. ‘Yes. She was on a fitness kick, so she said no to them in order to stick to a diet and probably went for the run almost straight away, before it started to get dark. So we can say she probably went out between seven and maybe nine, nine-thirty.’
