Michael Morley - Viper

Sylvia Tomms felt furious and sickened. His comment about her private number reminded her of the awful day when Sorrentino had hit on her. He'd told her how exciting she would find it to spend an evening – and maybe a night – with him. The memory stoked her anger and she imagined what a good punchbag he'd make if only she were near him and had a spare half-hour to let off steam.

'I really am very sorry about this leak, and I do hope it doesn't personally cause you too much trouble.' Sorrentino made little effort to sound sincere.

Finally she hung up on him and he allowed himself a smile. He was happy there had been no need to tell her what else he'd discovered. What vital information he'd held back from the press, and from her. Something far more significant than Francesca being pregnant. Something that would teach her not to treat him as though he weren't good enough for her. Something that might even make the front page.

Campeggio Castellani, Pompeii Martina Novello snorted contemptuously at the bed her daughter had clearly not slept in. 'Idiot.' Surely she could have waited. No, of course not. Rosa was never one for waiting. No waiting to have sex. No waiting to spend the night with a man who wasn't fit to clean her shoes. That girl – she'd been born early and been impatient ever since.

The sheets on Rosa's small bunk were pulled tight and tidy, just as Martina had made them, but she still couldn't help freshening them up, turning back the top sheet and re-creasing it. She smiled as she moved Benni, a tiny teddy bear, given to Rosa at birth and now losing his fur in several places.

Cristiano, her lump of a husband, lumbered into the caravan's awful chemical toilet, clutching yesterday's newspaper. Damned paper. These days he spent more time looking at newsprint than he did at her. When had that all changed? More memories tumbled in – Cristiano back in his twenties, with the body of a boxer, a twinkle in his eye and a permanent hard-on. So long ago, and yet still so vivid.

Martina wriggled her feet into blue slippers and padded outside to the neighbouring caravan. She'd give them hell for letting her daughter sleep over with that no-good Filippo. She rapped her knuckles on the cold thin metal of the Valdrano camper and a thought hit her. Rosa had never stayed out before, not all night, so why now? Martina could hear voices, mumblings inside, the scraping of furniture and the patter of feet on the thin floor of the cheap van.

'Buon giorno.' Filippo's mother had bags under her eyes and no make-up. Her cream dressing gown was pulled tight to reveal a pale neck and fatty legs.

'Claretta, is Rosa here? Is she with Filippo?'

The boy's mother sensed worry rather than anger in her friend's voice. 'No, I don't think so.' She walked towards the back of the van, slid open a wooden door. The empty bed told its own story. 'He's not there, Martina.' Fear creased her face as she stated the obvious. 'He's not at yours – not with Rosa?'

Martina shook her head. 'Your car's gone. Did you know that?'

Claretta stuck her head out into the wind and saw the empty space. 'Oh, God. Come in and shut the door. I'll wake Nico.'

And she did. But her husband had no idea either. Not about the kids. Not about the car. Nor did Cristiano when Martina called him over.

Claretta made coffee while they discussed the possibilities: an accident, an elopement, or something less dramatic and romantic – as Nico speculated. Maybe they'd parked somewhere and fallen asleep, run out of petrol, found a party and stayed but hadn't rung because it had been late. None of them spoke of anything worse. But they all thought it.

Two hours later Cristiano rang the police.

Grand Hotel Parker's, Napoli Jack was still asleep at the hotel's computer terminal when his cellphone rang. It flashed Howie's number. He mumbled hello and checked his watch. Nine a.m. in Naples, three in New York. 'You up early or going home late?'

'Just got in,' growled Howie.

The big guy sounded dreadful, no doubt plastered again. 'What happened? You get lost trying to find your way around the whisky bottle?'

Howie let out a low grunt. 'No. I was doing fine for sobriety. Then some robbing little punk in an alleyway knifed me in the ass. I've spent all night in the ER, having nurses stare at my butt and stitch up the wound.'

'In the ass? Man, I'm sorry. You okay?'

'Fine and dandy. I tell you, buddy, some little fucko nearly speared me right up the ring-hole. The nurse said if he'd put the knife train any deeper into the big dark tunnel then I would have bled to death.'

Jack screwed up his face in sympathy.

'If you're laughing, I'll never talk to you again.' Then Howie couldn't help but laugh himself. 'Okay, so I admit it's funny. But listen, I think it'll be a friggin' year before I can sit down again, and Christ knows how much it's gonna hurt when I take a shit.'

'Too much detail. But, hey. I really am sorry.'

'Sure. Anyways, despite my personal tragedy – which you see fit to smirk at – I still done good with regards to your man Creed.'

Jack raised an eyebrow. 'Above and beyond the call of.'

'Yeah, and don't you forget it. So here you go…' Howie growled again as he repositioned himself. 'Let's start at the hotel. No guests, no minibar consumption beyond some water, Pringles and two bottles of beer. Room-service dinner – only for one – and breakfast in his room too. Some photocopying and newspapers. You following me?'

'Right alongside. Boring as hell.'

'Sure is, but it gets a might more interesting in a few lines' time. Remember the hotel receptionist you flirted with?'

'Kind of.'

'Polish woman, Brenda Libowicz, at the Lester. Anyways, she remembers you. I took her for that coffee you didn't have time for and it paid off a little. Brenda let me go through everything and it seems your friend Creed pretty much had the porn channel on full-time.'

'Old news. I thought I'd told you that?'

'Not that I recall. But there's more. Movie porn wasn't his only turn-on. He also spent a lot of time on the Internet.'

'You get browser data?'

'Did Clinton get a blow job?' Howie pulled over a computer printout that was lying on the table next to his notebook. 'Creed did several searches on BDSM and watched some real hard-core adult sites. Get this; he specifically searched for dark-haired women who were between seventeen and thirty. He spent an hour on Court TV's crime library reading stories about killers who buried bodies. He went through all our old friends including John Wayne Gacy and Gary Ridgeway, spent a whole lot of time on the Cleveland Torso murders and then ended up reading everything that was ever written about the Sunday Morning Slasher.'

Jack stopped him. His mind was hopelessly trying to make connections. It felt like wiring a plug in the dark. 'That's ringing all kinds of bells. The Slasher is the Coral Watts case, isn't it?'

'The one and only,' said Howie. 'Coral Eugene Sonofabitch Watts. Killed several young women. Drowned them, strangled them, cut their throats or knifed them dozens of times. And the bastard claimed to have murdered dozens more that the cops never found.'

Jack finally made his mental connection. 'Watts buried his victims and that's why they weren't found for years and he was able to carry on killing. On top of that, he used to ceremonially burn trophies he took from the bodies.'

'Yep, so you have some clear comparisons there – the missing women, the burials, even some burning.'

'Thanks, buddy, I'd just about joined those dots on my own.'

'Well done. There's another thing,' he said, his voice growing flat and worried. 'Turns out that Creed has had and still does have access to FBI files.'