Michael Morley - Spider

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 Spider 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.

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.