Viper - Michael Morley [95]
This case now had the makings of a long one and he couldn’t afford to get trapped in it. That meant getting out sooner rather than later – and sooner seemed round about now. The few days he’d promised Nancy it would take had already gone. Christmas was looming. His thoughts turned to his son – still at that incredible age when he believed a fat man in a red suit could land a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer on the roof of a house and then slip down a chimney so narrow you couldn’t post a supermodel down it. How beautiful!
Grilled salmon or meatballs and spaghetti? Jack was torn. He’d just about eaten his way through everything room service could offer. He was leaning towards the meatballs when his cellphone rang. He hoped it was Nancy.
‘Pronto,’ said Jack, rolling his ‘r’ in his best possible accent, then waiting as usual for his wife to laugh at him.
‘Mr King, I’m in reception. Perhaps we could meet downstairs and talk?’
Jack’s spine tingled.
Luciano Creed.
Downstairs?
You bet they could talk.
Jack didn’t bother answering – or waiting for the lift. He hit the stairs two at a time. Covered four floors faster than an Olympic sprinter on steroids.
Creed was standing near the front desk, wet and stinking. Even if he made a run for it now, Jack could catch him.
‘Nice to see you, Jack.’ He cracked a yellow-toothed smile and swung out a bony hand.
Jack grabbed it. Not out of friendship, but just to have a firm grip on him. ‘Come over here, Luciano. Sit down.’ He effectively manoeuvred Creed into a plush wing-backed chair in the reception area. ‘Stay still.’ He flipped open his phone and dialled. ‘Sylvia, it’s Jack. I have Creed with me at my hotel. Send a car; I’ll bring him to the station.’
His stomach growled. The meatballs would have to wait.
Jack said little to Luciano Creed as they waited at the hotel, and even less in the carabinieri car that whisked them back to the barracks.
Creed rattled on about his innocence. Said he’d known they would suspect him because he knew so much about the missing women and because he was unusual, outspoken and honest. They weren’t the words that Jack would have used to describe him. He did his best to tune out Creed’s monologue. There would be a time to talk – and plenty of it – but not now. He wanted tape machines turning, witnesses present and a proper interview strategy. Another thing was on his mind too, and he needed to call Howie urgently to fix it.
Sylvia met Jack in her office as Creed was shown through to an interview room. Technically, he wasn’t under arrest; no charges had been laid and he could walk away at any moment. Or, at least, he could try. If pushed, they’d probably come up with something – perverting the course of justice, suspicion of involvement in an indictable offence – they’d find a sticky label somewhere.
Sylvia crossed her arms and rubbed her hands up and down them. She was tired and cold and needed desperately to warm up and wake up. ‘Why now? Why the hell had he turned himself in at this very moment?’
‘Timing. He said he’d achieved what he wanted at the press conference. Brought attention to the cases you folks had ignored. And he figured that by now we’d all have worked out that he was a brilliant profiler – his words, not mine – and not a suspect.’
Sylvia snorted a laugh. ‘Everything about this guy is suspect.’
‘Sure, but – as we both know – suspect doesn’t mean guilty. There’s a way to finally settle whether he’s telling the truth or not. Do you know about LVA?’
She frowned. ‘El Vee-ay. Arabic?’
‘No. LVA – Layered Voice Analysis. It’s voice-sensitive stress-detection software. Developed by Israeli whizz-kids, used by Mossad and security forces in many countries.’
‘We have nothing like that. Polygraphs, yes, but even their use is very limited and controlled.’
‘My buddy Howie has a laptop