Jack was fortunate enough to find an empty one at the far end of the Siena train but it was still unpleasantly hot and stank of a thousand strangers' bodies. He chugged back half a bottle of lukewarm water he'd taken from the fridge at the Sofitel and shook his shirt from his sticky body.
He tried to open a window but it was jammed. As he sat back on the broken springs of the dusty seat, he could see that outside a couple of members of the transport police, the Polizia Stradale, were sharing a cigarette in the shade after making what had currently become a routine check for terrorist bombs. Above their heads robot CCTV cameras scanned the tracks. Jack recognized them as state-of-the-art IMAS cameras. Even here, in historic Florence, Bill Gates was present. The Microsoft-based Integrated Multimedia Archive System powered more than three thousand cameras on Italian tracks and had become the global standard-setter for video capture and information analysis.
On the sticky table in front of Jack was the still unopened envelope given to him by Orsetta, on behalf of Massimo Albonetti. He and Mass had become friends a long time ago, during an Interpol exchange held in Rome. A year later, Massimo had helped Jack crack a paedophile ring in Little Italy when New York's Italian underworld had closed its doors to local cops and sought to settle the problem the traditional Mafia way using torture and murder. Albonetti was a no-nonsense cop, who, like Jack, had a degree in psychology and saw profiling merely as a powerful tool to help investigators focus on behavioural clues, not as a crystal ball that would magically produce the name of a killer.
Jack finished his bottled water and slit open the envelope with his finger. He pulled out a piece of expensive cream paper covered in Massimo's handwriting.
Dear Jack,
I am pleased you are reading this. It means that the things I have heard about you retiring are simply not true and that a policeman's heart and brain still beat vigorously inside of you. I am very glad that this is so!
I hope you will excuse me, old friend, but I was unable to get away from this awful Europol meeting in Brussels, so I sent Detective Portinari to visit you instead and persuade you to give us your expert assistance on a very disturbing homicide. Jack, if after reading the documentation you feel it is too difficult a case for you to be involved in, then I fully respect your right to decline.
Like many of your friends, I have been praying for you to make a full and fast recovery from your illness and if I didn't think that only you could really help us with this particular case, then honestly, I would never have troubled you.
Inside this package are some brief confidential documents which will give you a quick insight into the investigation, and why I have been forced by events to ask for your help.
Perhaps when you have come to your decision you will call me, either on my office number or my cell phone?
I remain, your friend,
Massimo
Jack let out a slow sigh. He hadn't heard from Massimo since his breakdown, but this was an entirely different note from the kind and supportive one his friend had sent back then. Did he really want to immerse himself in a case that had such a distinct echo of BRK about it? Was he ready for that kind of test? Could he honestly convince Nancy that him going back to police work was for the best? The questions flooded into his mind, but the answers stayed elusively out of reach.
Jack pulled the envelope open again and emptied out another sealed envelope, marked confidential, with his name on it. He'd received many such documents in the past, summaries that reduced to stark facts and figures the death of some innocent victim and the lifelong anguish of their family.
Down the platform, a long, shrill whistle cut through the stifling air. The train doors thudded shut and the metal snake slowly stirred itself, slithering lazily out of the shade of the engine shed and into the blistering brightness of the mid-day sunshine. Jack felt a wave of sadness hit him. It had been a long time since he'd journeyed into the lonely, stressful world of murder and deep down he wasn't quite certain he was truly ready to go there again.
21
Marine Park, Brooklyn, New York For a second, Ludmila Zagalsky thinks she is dead, then as soon as she opens her eyes, she wishes she was. Now, despite being totally disorientated, she instantly remembers the full severity of the dilemma she's in. That useless mudak, that creep who was so boring that he wouldn't even drive above the speed limit, had jumped her and nearly choked her to death with his own handmade hangman's noose. Fuck, Lu, she thinks to herself, how many times have you told people never to trust anyone? Now you let this happen. Remember, girl, life is full of fucking surprises, and they always bite you on the ass.
Slowly, consciousness and awareness return to her traumatized mind. She's flat out on her back, looking up at the ceiling, but, she realizes, she's no longer in the lounge, she's somewhere else.
Where?
There's a light on, shining painfully into her eyes, but somehow the room looks black. Lu tries to move her head to one side to take in more information but she feels that the noose is still there, pulling across her windpipe.
A noose? What the fuck is happening here?
The pressure is from below her though, not from above. She realizes too that her wrists and ankles are cuffed with leather restraints. She tugs at them and alarm spreads through her body when she hears what sounds like the rustle of chains beneath her.
The pieces of the jigsaw slowly slot into place. She feels cold. Cold all over. She's naked, spreadeagled on some kind of bondage table. The rope is tied underneath it, so that when she tries to raise her head she starts to choke. She would scream, scream for all she's worth, except that she can barely breathe.
I'm choking! Oh my God, I'm choking!
Some form of cloth is jammed in her mouth and held in place by sticky parcel tape wound around her face.
Panic grips her. Her heart is racing dangerously and she knows that unless she calms down she will suffocate.
Come on girl, get your shit together. Get it together or you are one dead bitch.
She concentrates hard on breathing slowly through her nose and gradually manages to dip her pulse rate and control herself.
And then, as she lies there, staring at the strangely black ceiling, she sees him again. Leaning over her.
His face is so big and so close to her that she can see the pores on his skin. She can see the hairs in his nose and feel the heat of his breath.
Not so fucking harmless now, is he, girl?
'Hello, my little Sugar,' he says softly, smelling her skin, rubbing his face against hers like a pet dog sniffing out a new visitor. 'Don't worry, my little darling, Spider's here. Spider's right beside you.'
She isn't as pretty as the other Sugars, Spider thinks to himself, but he can tell she is just the same as them. They all thought that they were strong and didn't need anyone, could play the game by their rules, could come and go in people's lives as and when they wished. Well, they were wrong. All wrong. No one leaves Spider. No one. Ever.
He pulls over a leather-topped, wooden stool so he can sit facing her. 'How long you stay – alive – depends upon how well you listen,' he says.
Spider has a stack of digitally printed photographs in his left hand.
'Poor Sugar. I know you live in a world of lies,' he says pityingly, 'but don't worry, I'm not going to deceive you. I think relationships should be based on honesty between couples, and I promise you now, right at the beginning of our relationship, that I will always be honest with you.'
He pauses for a moment and then almost tenderly brushes away some strands of black hair that are plastered to her sweating brow and streaked across her eyes. 'I'm going to show you some photographs, some family snaps,' he says, 'so you know that everything I am about to say to you is the truth. Would you like that? Would you like to see my pictures?'
Lu thinks she's going crazy. She's naked and tied up and now some perverted wacko wants to show her his family album. Man, they get weirder by the fucking day.
'Oh, I'm sorry,' says Spid
er sarcastically, laying the photographs face down on her chest. 'I should loosen your noose; that rope must be really cutting into you.'
Lu hears him fumbling with the rope and feels the tension ease around her neck. Man, that feels good. She never realized that one of the sweetest feelings in life was that of simply not being choked to death by a rope.
'Better?' asks Spider.
Lu manages a small nod.
He lifts the photographs off her prostrate body and rearranges them in some kind of order, almost as though he's just drawn a hand of cards. 'The photographs that I'm about to show you are of other women, women who've been in the same position as you. If you read the newspapers, then you may well even recognize one or two of them.'
He leans closer to her. 'Do you read the papers, Sugar? You sure don't look like you do. Well, maybe the funnies, but I guess that's about it.'
Lu visualizes spitting in his arrogant face, kicking him in the balls for being a mouthy swoloch, leaving him rolling in agony on the sidewalk to watch her cute Russian butt wiggle off in the distance.
'Let's play a little game of "Before and After",' says Spider, shuffling the photographs and then holding one out in front of Lu's face. 'This is "Before",' he says.
Lu focuses on a red-headed girl with sunglasses; she's wearing a flowing floral green dress and strappy sandals. It's taken in a shopping mall; the girl's on a cell phone and in the background people are riding an elevator to an upper floor.
'And "After",' says Spider, replacing it with another shot.
This time the woman's naked-anddead. She'slying on her back, hands across her chest and her hair looks unnaturally red against her shockingly white skin.
Lu notices something else.
The dead girl is lying on the same type of table that she is tied to. Maybe the very same table!
Spider takes the photographs away and smiles. 'Don't be nervous, Sugar. I know what you're thinking and you're wrong, oh so very wrong. You're not naked because I'm going to do anything sexual to you. There may be a time for intimacy. But not now. Not in this life.'
The words don't compute in Lu Zagalsky's brain. Not now – what did he mean? Not in this life. She's heard every kind of wacko talk about every kind of crazy shit that turns them on. Piss on me, dress me in rubber, drag me around on a dog lead, but never anything like this. This shit just doesn't happen.
Spider moves behind her. He combs his fingers through her tangled hair as it dangles off the edge of the bondage table. The moment reminds him of when he was a young boy waiting in the hairdresser's salon while his mom had her hair washed leaning backwards over a sink, a strange man laughing all the time and soaping her hair so vigorously. More than anything he had wanted to play with the magical clouds of bubbles that tumbled on to the floor. But the strange man wouldn't let him and kept brushing him away, telling him to sit down and let mommy have some time without being pestered by him.
Spider rubs the tips of his fingers into her hair, just like he'd seen the man do with his mom, then he smoothes the palms of his hands over her face and forehead to wipe away the bubbles. 'You have nice hair, Sugar, but you should take better care of it. Maybe not use so many sprays, and get a slightly classier cut; I'm sure you can afford to indulge yourself every once in a while.' He gently massages her temples and forehead and then moves back to the stool, so he can sit facing her once more. Dark thoughts cross his mind. Thoughts of how he would like to explore her body when she's dead; relieve himself in the cool of her orifices and then hold her freshly limp corpse until all her energy has flowed into him.
He touches her face again. 'Do you like flowers?' he asks.
What the fuck? Do I like flowers?
He stares down on her again, his wild eyes boring into her, his crazy voice croaking out crazy words.
'Have you ever seen Spider Lilies?' he continues. 'They're so beautiful, so white and fragile.'
Lu's never even seen normal lilies let alone these Spider things that Mr Crazy is babbling on about.
'One day, I will lay them all over your body. I will cover you in them. And when others have forgotten you, I will always bring Spider Lilies to you.'
Spider spins around and walks away from her. He feels the urge rising within him, stimulating him, arousing him.
He wants her now.
He wants to feel the magic of owning her.
Possessing her.
Consuming her.
Killing her.
But Spider knows he mustn't let the want overwhelm him, he mustn't let the fire within him wreck all his plans.
He won't give in to it.
He's learned not to.
Spider knows how to control the current that's surging through his veins and prevent it overpowering him in just one moment of blind, bloody passion.
Lu Zagalsky is in a cold sweat. With her head freed of the neck noose, she manages to turn her face for the first time, craning sideways towards the sick mudak who's in the corner of the room, looking away from her. What she sees sends another ripple of panic through her. And, despite the futility of it all, she starts kicking, and straining at the ropes around her wrists.
It isn't just the ceiling that's covered in black plastic. Every inch of the whole room, all the walls and even the floor are covered in the stuff.
It's as though she's inside a giant bodybag.
And it's about to be zipped up.
22
Florence, Tuscany Jack waited until the train guard had checked his ticket and left the carriage before he settled down to work on Massimo Albonetti's file.
One glance at the documents was enough to put him on edge.
There were two thick documents, the first in Italian, the second, he presumed, its English translation. He put the Italian version to one side and focused on the English one. It kicked off with a well-written executive summary, which he suspected had been penned by Massimo himself. It stated what Orsetta had already told him, that the Italian police believed they were investigating a serial killer who posed a seriously high risk to the public.
Jack scanned back to the top of the document and saw it was dated the last week of June; the case was certainly a live one. He realized he was reading a translation of a confidential memo that had been sent to the Italian Prime Minister's private office. From this first page, Jack was aware that he was probably one of maybe only half a dozen people privileged enough to see the report.
A photograph of a victim was paper-clipped to the file. She was a beautiful young woman in her twenties with long, dark brown hair and even darker eyes. She was wearing inexpensive, slightly owlish glasses, but they suited her. The text named her as Cristina Barbuggiani, a 26-year-old librarian from Livorno, who kept herself to herself and was described as bright, shy and academic. Her age fitted BRK's profile to a T. Cristina had been a history graduate and had spent much of her spare time travelling to Montelupo Fiorentino just outside Florence, to help on the archaeological excavation of some Roman ruins. Farms, villas and even early factories set up to produce wine, olive oil and corn had been unearthed in the area.
Jack wondered why serial killers always seemed randomly to select the most undeserving of victims. Why were international drug-runners, paedophiles and rapists never their victims?
The report's top-line executive summary described another of the similarities with the BRK case that Orsetta had outlined to him over breakfast. Dismembered pieces of Cristina's body had been found spread across kilometres of the western coastline. Each piece, and apparently there had been thirteen in total, had been found wrapped in black plastic bags and weighted down. This too fitted with BRK's chosen method of disposal. Jack read on and learned that from where the body parts were recovered, it was deduced that they had been thrown in from the shore – from a beach, cliff or nearby rocks. No boat had been used. The feet, shins, thighs, trunk, lower and upper arms of the victim had been disposed of and found in entirely different places. Jack turned a page and the air in his lungs froze. All t
he body parts had been recovered, bagged and tagged, and had autopsy reference numbers. All, that is, except for the left hand. Jack understood the significance immediately. In his entire career, he'd only ever come across one offender who'd kept such a trophy. The Black River Killer. After four years, the silence was over, and BRK had returned.
23
Marine Park, Brooklyn, New York Spider checks the gag and restraints, locks the basement door and heads upstairs to rest.
As he walks into his bedroom he glances up at the mirrored tiles that cover the ceiling. They're there so that he can see himself perfectly as he lies on his specially adapted bed. He thinks of them as his 'Window to Heaven'.
He empties his pockets on to the bedside table, opens up his clam-shell cell phone and thumbs through the Menu. Under Media Gallery he chooses View and flicks through the digital shots made by the phone's two-mega-pixel lens. For two nights he'd covertly snapped Lu Zagalsky plying her trade across the streets of Brooklyn Beach, high-heeling her way alongside the cars that cruised Little Odessa. He'd got to know and photograph her every move as she grafted punter after punter, leaving them with empty balls and empty wallets. She was typical of all women: they took your money and left. Only difference was, this girl did it in twenty minutes rather than in twenty years. But the outcome was the same, in the end they all left.
Except in your world, Spider, isn't that right? In Spider's World, no one leaves. What is it you tell them? Even when your mortal flesh is gone, you will still live inside of me; you will still be part of me. Your soul and my soul will be together for ever.
Spider looks at the small digital picture of her and thinks how, like all the rest, there's something about her that reminds him of his dead mother. The hair colour is almost identical, and the shape and colour of her eyes too. But that's where the similarities end. This girl is a whore and a slut; someone almost unworthy of what he has in mind for her. For this will be no ordinary kill. This will be a unique murder, a killing that will make her more famous than any of his previous victims. Spider feels an ache of passion, a lustful gnawing inside him, as he thinks of how she'll die and what her cool, dead body will be like when he's finished with her. He strips off his clothes and goes to the en-suite bathroom to use the toilet, wash and clean his teeth. He brushes them three times a day, not twice. It's something his mom used to make him do. Cleanliness is next to godliness. That was back in the happy days, the days before she left him.
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