Michael Morley - Spider

'Hello, Sugar,' he says cheerily, almost as though he were greeting an old friend.

Lu notices the bandage on his hand, blood staining the side. In his other hand he holds what looks like a drink and a newspaper that she recognizes as a copy of USA Today.

Spider sees her eyes darting all over him. 'I've been out,' he explains. 'I needed a breath of fresh air to calm myself down after what happened between us. I brought you back a vanilla milkshake; I thought you might like something cool and soothing for your throat.'

He lays the newspaper on the floor, as though covering a damp spot, and sets the shake down on the edge of the bondage table. 'I'm going to slacken the chains a little so you can sit up again and you can have the drink,' says Spider, adding with a touch of black humour, 'but not as much as last time, eh? Old Spider has learned his lesson, and I'm afraid you won't be free enough to bite the hand that feeds you.'

Lu's head roars with pain as he manoeuvres her into an upright position and blood pumps back through her body.

'Sip it slowly,' he says, angling the straw her way and putting it to her lips.

She sucks hard and the ice-cool liquid slips comfortingly down her raw throat. Her shrunken belly growls and rumbles its surprise at finally having something to digest.

'Good, good,' says Spider, taking the shake off her. 'Now, let's lie you down again.' He pushes her forehead back and dips below the bondage table to re-tighten the restraining chains.

Lu feels better for the drink, and allows herself a moment of brief optimism. He just fed you, Lu. If he's feeding you, he plans to keep you alive, at least for the time being.

Spider leans over her again, pulling at the chains, checking their tautness. 'That shake should make you feel a little better. It will help you settle down for a while now – while I'm gone.'

Gone? The word sizzled, as though he'd branded her with it.

'That's right,' he says, noticing the change in her eyes. 'I'm going to have to leave you now.'

Leave me? For where? For how long? Why?

Spider bends close to her face and points a finger upwards. 'Look closely at the ceiling and you'll see a camera.'

Lu stares at the blackness above her and finally spots the camera lens. A red light is blinking near it, like the eye of a rodent staring down at her.

Spider twists her head to one side. 'And over there, there's another little camera eye watching you.' He lets go of her. 'In fact, there are cameras all over the room, watching you all the time. And guess what? Wherever I am, I'll be watching you too. Isn't technology a wonderful thing?' He takes a small black device, about a quarter of the size of a cell phone, out of his pocket.

Lu can see that there's a blue light flashing on it and that it has three different coloured buttons, like the red, green and blue ones on a TV remote.

'This is a blue-toothed trigger device. As I leave here, I will activate several pressure pads on the outside of this basement. Should you try to escape, or should anyone try to get in while I'm gone, the devices will explode and this whole house will become a fireball. Even better than that, no matter where I am, I can dial in a number and press this little red button here and kaboomb! No more Sugar.'

Lu feels her face drain of what little colour she had left.

'I hope that milkshake was good, Sugar, because it is the last thing you will ever taste. You're going to get hungry soon. Then you're going to experience what starvation feels like. And then, after a certain period of time, your body will literally start to eat itself to death. And all the time, I'll be watching, right up until your last breath.'

Tuesday, 3 July

Rome None of the offices smelled more of stale tobacco than that of Massimo Albonetti, head of the Ufficio Investigativo Centrale di Psicologia Criminale, an elite offshoot of the Unita di Analisi del Crimine Violento, modelled on the FBI's famed National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime in Quantico. Crammed inside Massimo's nicotine den, in preparation for Jack King's visit, were Orsetta, case coordinator Benito Patrizio and assistant analyst Roberto Barcucci. In readiness for working with Jack, they were instructed to speak English, not Italian, though they all knew Massimo would be the first to lapse into their native tongue.

The Director's desk was cleared of all unrelated papers and files, leaving only a dark green leather-framed ink-blotter, a hard-backed faintly lined notebook, a cheap police-issue ballpoint pen, and a black-and-white photograph of Cristina Barbuggiani's face that seemed to stare right up at him. Massimo pressed a buzzer on his desk and spoke to Claudia, his secretary, who patrolled the other side of his office like a pit-bull guarding a sirloin steak. 'Claudia, please bring some water, juices, sodas and a double espresso for me. Grazie.'

He flicked off the buzzer and gently touched Cristina's picture before addressing his team. 'Orsetta, Jack will be staying at the Grand Plaza on Via del Corso. He's booked in for two nights, please authorize Admin to reserve a third. Have an unmarked car waiting to pick him up from the train station and take him straight there. He should be arriving around ten p.m.' Massimo thought once more about the transportation for Jack. 'Don't let them send an owl, make it a VIP sedan with a driver, I want him fully refreshed by the time he has got through our blessed traffic. The following morning have the same car and the same driver bring him to my office. I'll probably drop him back at the Plaza myself at the end of the day.'

'I head home that way, Direttore,' said Orsetta. 'I don't mind dropping him off myself.'

Massimo studied her face and thought about teasing her. It was only natural that she'd be intrigued by someone as well thought of as Jack King; come to think of it, he'd probably planted the seeds himself by quoting Jack's theories during many of his case conferences. 'Very kind of you, Orsetta. I'll keep it in mind and call you should I need you,' he said playfully.

Orsetta, dressed simply in figure-hugging black trousers and a long-collared white cotton blouse, felt herself blush as Massimo's brown eyes appeared to x-ray her mind. What the hell, she had decided that Jack King was special and she hoped something special was going to happen when they met again.

'Roberto, have all the translations been finished? My old friend Jack is American; he can barely speak English let alone Italian.'

'Si, Direttore,' laughed the assistant. He was so young and fresh-faced that Massimo didn't think the kid had even started shaving. A blessing he should enjoy while it lasted. 'We have done overviews of the main witness statements, a summary report on the major actions carried out and their results, also a forensics overview, with a run-down on soil and substance analysis. We're still running traces on the black plastic bags that the body parts were found in. It all takes time and right now we are short-handed.'

'Chase it, Roberto. You need more men, ask now, not in two weeks, when it is too late.' Massimo fixed his eyes on him, making sure the lesson was being learned.

'I need two more people,' replied Roberto quickly. 'Maybe three shifts each?'

'Then you'll have them, my young colleague,' said Massimo with a generous smile. 'What else?'

Roberto cleared his throat. We have translations of the summaries on fingerprints and DNA, but we have no known matches to any offenders.'

'Then, for the moment, keep looking,' instructed Massimo, silently cursing the fact that, unlike the FBI, the Italian Forensic Science Service did not have a fully integrated DNA database on which to carry out searches. It had established CODIS, its own highly efficient Combined DNA Index System as far back as 1999 but the national police, the carabinieri and many other public and private bodies continued to have separate databases that were not connected to CODIS. Moreover, the databases were so zealously guarded that often Massimo's unit had to apply to prosecutors or judges to instruct the owners to release information.