Viper - Michael Morley [150]
‘Signora, may I add my own commiserations? I’m very sorry for your loss.’ The profiler settled comfortably into a chair opposite her. Her eyes followed a brown folder that he placed on the table. Jack interlocked his fingers and rested his hands on top of it. ‘I’m here helping the carabinieri to solve a series of murders of young women. I think you may have known some of them.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Gina looked confused.
He opened up the folder, slid out a photograph and turned it towards her. ‘This is Francesca Di Lauro. Name mean anything to you?’
Gina shook her head. ‘No. Why, should it?’
Jack didn’t say anything. He took out several other photographs and lined them up in a separate row. Luisa Banotti, Patricia Calvi, Donna Rizzi and Gloria Pirandello.
Gina’s gaze slid over them, their dark eyes and mixed expressions looking back up from the table at her. She bit at a thumbnail then turned the picture of Francesca back towards Jack. ‘I don’t know her but I’ve seen her face. In the papers, right? On television. She’s the woman they found somewhere out near Pompeii.’
Jack steepled his fingers again. ‘A pretty young woman. Like all the others. Much prettier than you. Do you think that’s why Bruno chose her?’
Gina looked away. She knew she looked stressed. She could feel her face flush, her heartbeat quicken. She understood what he was driving at. He hadn’t said it, but she knew.
‘Gina. Gina, look at me.’
Her eyes locked on his.
Defiance? Pressure? Certainly not complete innocence. Jack decoded the signals. ‘Lady, the way you just reacted, the fact that you can’t say anything, tells me that I’m right. You do know this woman.’ He slapped his hand firmly down on Francesca’s photograph. Gina flinched. ‘You know her and you know all the others on this table. Francesca Di Lauro had an affair with your husband and you killed her.’
‘No!’ snapped Gina. ‘That’s ridiculous. I’m not going to say anything else until I have a lawyer. I want a lawyer here.’ She chewed hard on another nail. Jack sat in silence and let her stew. ‘I agreed to answer questions about my father, but not this. This is ridiculous.’
Still Jack said nothing. He leaned back, tilted his chair on to the rear legs, drummed his fingers on the edge of the table and watched the pressure grow. Only when Gina looked straight into his eyes did he play his final card.
‘Kris-ten Pet-rov.’ He said the name slowly as he put the photograph down. Watched the reaction in her eyes. The pain caused a twitch in the corner of her mouth. Gina couldn’t help but glance down at the photograph. Her face said it all. So that’s what she looked like. Bruno’s latest. The little bitch he’d sent text messages to.
‘I’ve no problem getting you that lawyer,’ said Jack calmly, ‘but here’s the deal. If we stop now and he turns you into Sleeping Beauty, then I promise you, you’ll never see your son again.’
Gina looked up from Kristen’s picture and glared at him. Could he do that? Would he do that?
‘Worse than that, Gina, your husband will get custody of Enzo, while you go to prison for a long time. A very long time.’
Gina’s head was aching, throbbing like crazy. So much in one day. So much in the future – that she could lose.
Now Jack wouldn’t rest. Wouldn’t give her a moment to think. He just piled on the pressure. ‘Listen, Gina. I know you were involved in the murders of Kristen and Francesca, just as you were involved in the murders of all the other women. But I also know you didn’t actually take their lives. You had someone do it for you, didn’t you? Give up the real killer and maybe you can come out of this with the kind of sentence that will give you a chance to see some of the rest of your son’s life.’
Gina looked up at him. She was about to make the biggest decision of her life.
‘What’s it to be, Gina? You going to roll the dice and risk spending the rest of your life without Enzo? Or do we get the name?’
Centro città, Napoli
A navy-blue carabinieri squad car fell into the traffic behind the Lexus.
‘Amateurs. They don’t have a fucking clue.’ Valsi