Michael Morley - Spider

'Our girl was a tomb raider?' asked Jack.

Orsetta corrected him. 'Not at all. In fact, just the opposite. She was very much on the official side of archaeology, she was said to be extremely community-minded and passionate about preserving Italian culture.'

'A sad loss,' said Massimo, considering for a second what kind of woman Cristina had been and how she no doubt would have had the makings of a good mother as well as a good citizen, if only she'd had the chance to realize her potential. He scratched his chin, then went on, 'Let's concentrate on that route from Livorno to Montelupo Fiorentino. Maybe BRK met her on the way there, or on the way back. Remember a few years ago we had an offender who used to target women he saw pictured in newspapers? Well, let's see if Cristina was recently in any papers, magazines, tourist handouts or even on any Internet sites.'

'Will do,' confirmed Benito.

Jack abandoned his whiteboard and turned once more to the pathologist. 'Dottoressa, I know from your report that there were no traces of the offender's flesh, blood or semen on any of Cristina's limbs. But did toxicology test for any traces of lubrication or prophylactics, especially in the orifices of the skull?'

Annelies screwed up her face, not at the thought of how disgusting such an act was, but at recalling how badly decomposed the head had been. 'They haven't, but I wouldn't hold out much hope of success. Most tissue and organs had liquefied. There were some tiny markings in the mouth, but these were consistent with the plastic bag that held the note being jammed in there. Why do you ask?'

Jack slowly rubbed his face with his hands, as if washing off his tiredness. 'We know from case studies that killers who amputate heads very often use those skulls for sexual purposes, either penetrating the oral or ocular cavities or ejaculating over the skull itself. Similarly, we've had some success tracing forensically aware sexual offenders from the type of lubrication used on the condom they wore in the hope they wouldn't leave any tell-tale DNA at the scene.'

'I'll ask the lab to do their best,' said the pathologist, 'but as I said, I wouldn't hold out too much hope.'

'Thank you,' said Jack.

'I have a question,' said Massimo, Cristina's photograph neon-bright in his mind. 'This doesn't seem to be a killing purely for sexual gratification. So, why did he do it? Why did he take the life of this young woman?'

The question hung in a cloud of thoughtful silence, before Jack finally spoke. 'He desired her. The length of time that he spent with her before he killed her, and with her corpse afterwards, indicates that he was somehow attracted to her. Whatever the purpose of his kill, whether it was to relieve a violent tension inside him, to satisfy a deep sexual fantasy or to feed some dark psychological need, he was attracted to her. And once he had her, he wanted to keep her. You know as well as I do that maybe he was just trawling for a victim and her physical appearance was enough to set off some subliminal trigger in him that focused on her as a victim. Or it could be that there's a more substantial link, a previous meeting at which he became attracted to her. Somehow I don't think so. BRK stalks, kills and then -' Jack's voice trailed off as he tried to imagine what inner cravings drove the killer. 'Bearing in mind how long he seems to have kept her body post mortem, it seems an extra wave of desire came crashing in on him once she was dead. It's as though death feeds some psychological and possibly sexual need, fills some primal absence in his life.' Jack looked off into the distance, remembering the past cases, more than a dozen women who'd met their end in similar circumstances to Cristina. He turned back to Massimo. 'I guess we won't really be able to answer your question on why he kills until we actually catch him, and even then we might never find out the true reasons.'

'I agree,' said Massimo. 'In which case, the next big question we have to answer is: where will he kill again? Will it be here, in Italy, or back in the United States, where we believe he has returned to?'

Jack grimaced; not because of the seriousness of the questions, but because of a sharp pain inside his head, flying fast and low like a tornado and then fireballing to an explosive stop in his right temple. He felt a twitch erupt in the corner of his right eye, the same twitch he'd developed just weeks before collapsing at JFK.

'I don't know where,' said Jack, catching his breath and rubbing his face, hoping to massage away the twitch. Oldwounds hadreopened andthementalscars he hoped had healed were gaping painfully again.

FBI Field Office, New York Howie Baumguard and his new partner, Angelita Fernandez, sat in the conference room waiting for the IT guy to fix the video link to Rome. Howie had brought along a cappuccino with a dense topping of chocolate.

'You going to share that?' asked Fernandez, a slightly chubby 39-year-old with shoulder-length dark hair that Howie noticed she sometimes pulled back and pinned up in a bagel-shaped plait.

'You mean I should have got you one?' he asked, almost regretting making Fernandez the first recruit to his BRK task force.

'Would have been nice,' she teased. 'It's okay though, I can improvise.' She wandered away from the conference table and came back with two plastic cups from the water cooler. She popped one inside the other, grabbed Howie's cappuccino and tipped herself a share. 'Thanks,' she said, sliding back his cup.

'Man, how I hate shy women. When are you girls going to get your shit together and start sticking up for yourselves?' he asked wryly.

'Got a picture,' announced the IT guy.

All eyes flicked to the pull-down screen at the front of the room. Jack appeared, sitting next to Massimo Albonetti, chatting intently about something that was so far still inaudible.

'Good-looking guy,' said Fernandez. 'Wouldn't mind sharing some of that too.'

'What? You like little bald Italians?' asked Howie.

'Not what I meant,' said Fernandez, 'but now you mention it, yeah, I think there are some I could give some bed space to.'

Howie smiled at her. Fernandez was eighteen months out from a painful divorce. By painful, it should be made clear that it was far more painful for her ex than for her. She'd returned home after a fourteen-hour shift to find him naked in their bed with a neighbouring housewife. After kicking the floozy's skinny butt all the way down the stairs and out on to the porch, she'd almost pounded her ex unconscious with her bare hands.

'Got sound,' announced the IT man. In fact, not only had the tech got sound, but it came through so loud, it almost tore the FBI agents' heads off.

'Down! Turn the friggin' thing down!' shouted Howie, jabbing fingers in his ears.

'Greetings from beautiful Rome,' announced Jack at the level of a jet plane taking off.

'Ciao!' said Massimo, who then turned to someone off-screen, covered his hand with his mouth and said something in Italian.

'We can't see you yet,' explained Jack. 'Massimo's just giving one of their IT whiz-kids a tough time. Are you on your own, Howie?'

'No,' replied the FBI man. 'I'm here with Special Agent Angelita Fernandez. She joined the task force yesterday.'

'Hi there, Mr King. Pleased to be working with you,' said Fernandez respectfully.

'Now we see you,' announced Massimo. 'I am sorry, Italian telecommunications have not been the same since Marconi died.'

They all laughed politely and waited for the rooms in Rome and New York to clear of geeks before they got down to business.

Jack stayed silent and let Massimo run the show.

'I want to discuss several major things during this video conference call,' he said, looking down at a checklist. 'Number one, Jack's involvement at our request. Number two, the mutual need to share information. Number three, the delivery of a package to Italian police here in Rome, containing the head of Cristina Barbuggiani. And number four, the attempted delivery of a package to the FBI, containing the head of…' Massimo's voice trailed away, as he looked to his side to check his notes again, '… the head of Sarah Kearney, an old victim, maybe the first victim, of the Black River Killer. Is there anything else anyone would like to add to this list?'