Spider - Michael Morley [55]
‘Huh!’ she exclaimed, and wheeled away from him.
He took a quick pace forward and grabbed her by the arm. ‘Listen to me.’
She was startled that he’d been so rough.
He took his hand away. ‘I love you. I love you and our little boy to bits, but this exile, this remoteness that’s being enforced on me, it’s killing me.’
Nancy was stung by the remark, and felt her eyes filling up.
‘I’m a policeman, I chase bad guys and lock them up,’ he went on, ‘that’s what I am, and that’s what I do. It’s all I’ve ever done, and it’s all I know how to do. Bringing me all the way out here, and having me do nothing but help you move chairs and clean plates, isn’t helping me, Nancy, it’s making me sick.’
‘Oh, Jack, how can you say that? You were so ill in New York that you could barely walk when I took you home from the hospital. Look at you now, you’re fitter and healthier-looking than ever.’
Jack slapped his stomach and managed a half-smile. ‘Physically, you’re right. Tuscany helped build my strength. But mentally, well…’
She frowned at him. ‘Well, what?’
‘Mentally, it’s destroying me. I feel useless, weak, impotent and…’ he struggled for words, then added, ‘cowardly.’
‘Oh, honey.’ Nancy wrapped her arms around him and for half a second she thought she felt him try to pull away. She stood with her head against his chest, just as she’d done the first night they’d gone out together. She didn’t want him to get involved in criminal work again, but she didn’t want to see him like this either. Nancy felt him squeeze her tight and kiss the top of her head. Finally, she broke from his arms and looked up at him. ‘You’re probably right. I did need to come here. I needed to have a life as far away from murder and morgues as possible. And I needed to have you as well. Not you for only two hours a night, slipping into bed next to me at two a.m. and then slipping out again before daybreak, but a full-time you.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he began.
Nancy cut him off. ‘Shush, let me finish. You scared me so much when you collapsed. I can’t imagine – I don’t want to imagine – bringing Zack up on my own because you’ve worked yourself to death. Is that so selfish?’
‘No, no it’s not,’ he conceded, knowing she had him on the back foot.
‘I want to grow old with you, be it here, or be it anywhere else in the world. I just want us to live a long and happy life together.’ She looked around, just as Jack had done moments ago. ‘You’re right. I do love it here, and I hope you’ll learn to love it too. But more than anything I love you.’ She forced a smile for him. ‘I understand that you have to get involved again. I guess deep down I always knew you would. Unfinished business and all that.’ She let out a sigh, then took his hand. ‘But promise me that you’re going to be careful.’
‘I promise,’ he said, just as he had done a hundred times before.
‘And you’ve got to keep going to that psychiatrist. You’ll do that?’
‘I will.’
‘Then do it. Do whatever you have to.’ Nancy tried to smile again, but this time she couldn’t, and the tears came.
Jack wrapped his arms around her and held her. From the top of Amiata they looked out towards the place where they’d built their new home and privately both wondered what the future held for them. Nancy turned to her husband and kissed him passionately.
38
Rome
There were two important facts that Massimo Albonetti had not yet shared with Jack King. The first was that the severed head of Cristina Barbuggiani had not been recovered at sea, like the other body parts, but had been boxed up by her killer and delivered to their headquarters in Rome, seemingly by a courier company in Milan. The second was even more shocking.
Both omissions were on Massimo’s mind and were making him short-tempered as he passed out cold drinks and continued briefing his team for Jack’s arrival.
‘Roberto has completed the victimology report and had it translated,’ said Orsetta, popping the tab on