Michael Morley - Spider

'Inside her skull?' checked Jack.

Massimo nodded. Jack slowly opened the file, his mind trying to put the various angles together. A pattern was clearly starting to emerge in both the US and Italian cases and he suspected he was about to see more links and similarities. Jack looked down at the photocopy. It was of a handwritten note. Black felt-tip ink, in capitals on plain white paper. The message was short, but devastating:

A cold wave of emotion seeped down Jack's shoulders and spine, his eyes locked on the three letters that had ruined his life.

The Black River Killer.

Jack read the note again and noticed that the three letters came up twice. It was almost as though the writer was trying too hard to convince the police that it was his handiwork.

'Are you okay, Jack?' asked Massimo.

'I've been better,' he said, rubbing a hand across his forehead. Something wasn't right, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Maybe it was the sick humour – a heads-up – or maybe once more he was just grasping for a reason, any reason, to convince himself that this wasn't proof that BRK was killing again. He took a long breath and cleared his head. 'I spoke to my old office in New York and it turns out that the corpse of an early BRK victim had been exhumed and the skull posted there, care of yours truly.'

Massimo screwed up his face. He felt for Jack. All this was a lot of pressure to pour on the guy at once. 'I saw a Bureau note on this, and heard some details had leaked to the press, but nothing was said about it being addressed to you.'

'Well, it was. Howie Baumguard, my old number two, is convinced it's BRK.'

'The Bureau note said nothing of that,' remarked Massimo.

'Same confidentiality problem as your Prime Minister's office,' said Jack, forcing a smile. 'Put that kind of information on the closed wires and it's sure to get out in the open.'

Massimo was wondering whether it was really possible for BRK to be almost simultaneously active in both Italy and the USA. 'Do you think this Black River Killer really is responsible for the incident back in America?'

Jack let out the breath he'd been holding. 'I really don't know. The issue is clouded now because of what you've just told me.'

Massimo scratched at a patch of stubble just below his left ear. 'Two decapitations. Two heads, both mailed by the killer…'

Jack cut him off. 'BRK has a thing about left hands, not heads. But you're right; it seems too much of a coincidence to believe that two separate killers send dead women's heads to law enforcement organizations at roughly the same time.'

'I agree,' said Massimo, 'and I really hope I'm wrong. I would much rather believe we're dealing with a first-time psycho, than entertain the thought that your infamous serial killer has decided to make Italy his new playground.'

Jack searched his mind for the name of the Italian victim, and felt bad that it didn't come. 'Cristina Bar- Bar -'

Massimo helped him. 'Barbuggiani.'

'Barbuggiani,' continued Jack. 'How was her head delivered to you?'

Massimo raised his eyes in exasperation. 'Not yet fully clear. Our goods bay took possession of a cardboard box. It was passed to the mail room and then one of the clerks, a young woman, opened it.'

'What can your bay tell us?'

'It wasn't signed in, and we can't find anyone to say that they took possession,' answered Massimo, looking embarrassed. 'It's possible that it was just left with other mail in one of the "In" crates. We security-scan all the mail and packages, but not until they are being sorted into the different departments.'

'Do I feel a security review and tightening of procedures coming on?' asked Jack.

'Already under way,' confirmed Massimo. 'There was a courier company stamp on the box, but we've not got anything on them yet.'

'Forensics find anything on either the box or your note?' asked Jack.

'No prints. ESDA testing also came back blank. We're running a trace on the notepaper and the ink.'

Jack shook his head. 'Not much point. It'll be the commonest possible.'

Massimo hoped he was wrong. 'Don't despair too early, my friend. Even the best of criminals make mistakes.'

'Not this guy,' said Jack. 'Let me tell you how he works. Before this son of a bitch does anything, he researches the backside off it. I bet you your life savings that the pen he used to write this pornography is the most commonly used felt-tip pen in America.'

'Or Italy.'

'I bet you a hundred euros it's American. The paper too. Your researchers will draw a blank on all your Italian manufacturers, I promise you, Mass.'

Massimo shrugged. 'Then maybe we discover the paper is a particular batch, issued to a particular region, on a particular date. Your colleagues in the FBI will be able to help us with this.'

'You betcha, they've got whole databases on ink and paper,' said Jack dismissively. 'But I'll guarantee you this as well: BRK knows we'll run those traces, he knows that eventually we will find the factory that produced the ink, the very tree the damned wood came from to make the paper.'

'What are you saying, Jack?'

'I'm saying this. He will have bought the most common paper he could get his hands on, months and months, maybe even years, ago. He'll have bought it for cash, from a giant store, in a city that he no longer has anything to do with, and in the first place was probably only passing through. Even if we trace the day, the date, the time that he purchased it, the information will lead us nowhere.'

Massimo's door opened and Claudia, his PA, came in with the espressos and some small tumblers of water.

'Grazie,' said Massimo. Claudia smiled and left as quietly as a burglar.

'You want this?' Mass held out a cup of coffee to Jack.

'Yeah, I sure do,' said Jack, craving anything that would jolt him out of his moment of pessimism. 'Anyway, the pen and paper aren't the biggest clues.'

'You mean the text?' said Massimo, pulling his chair alongside Jack on the other side of his desk.

'Yeah. He thought long and hard about these words, Mass. What were your first impressions when you read it?'

Massimo turned the paper towards him and read silently. 'Shocking. Cold-blooded. Brutal. How you say in America, "straight to the point", is that right?'

'Yeah, that's right. What else?'

Mass puzzled for a moment. 'Clear – threatening – dangerous.' He started to struggle to add to his list. 'And you? What do you make of it?'

Jack scanned the paper again. 'He's begging for attention. The bold capital letters, the brevity of the note, the use of exclamation marks, the fact that he mentions his own name twice – it all shows that he's craving, almost demanding our attention. As you know, when killers do this, it's usually a sign that they are full of pent-up anger and are bursting to release it. I'd say he's either about to kill again, or maybe has even killed since writing this letter.'

It wasn't a thought that Massimo wanted to consider. His resources were stretched to the limit and another murder would cause mayhem, not just on the Barbuggiani case, but on three other, unrelated ones that he was overseeing. He took out a cigarette, tapped the end of it repeatedly on his desk and asked, 'Will he have found the process of writing the letter arousing?'

'Undoubtedly,' said Jack. 'Not only arousing, but empowering. He'd also be particularly turned on by the waiting process, the anticipation that we would read it.'