Spider - Michael Morley [61]
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.’
Massimo looked down at the letter again. ‘I noticed that he spelt buon giorno correctly. Not many foreigners would do that. I think maybe he is an educated man.’
‘He’s certainly no fool. Check the letter again and you’ll see that the grammar, spelling and punctuation are all correct,’ said Jack. ‘But I think there are two reasons why he is precise and so correct. Firstly, like I’ve said before, it’s not that he’s hugely intelligent, it’s that he’s hugely careful. BRK researches everything he does, meticulously. This guy probably looked up the spelling of buon giorno to make sure he didn’t make a mistake. His whole attitude to life is to be careful, to plan, to avoid making that one slip-up that could end his freedom, and that’s mirrored in this letter as well.’
‘And the second reason?’ asked Mass.
‘His ego. This is a murderer with the biggest ego on the planet. If you could see egos, then we’d just hire a plane, fly around a bit and pull him in. It would be as easy as that.’
‘Why so egotistical?’
‘BRK would be mortified if he’d done something wrong and thought we were laughing at him, rather than him laughing at us.’ Jack moved the paper closer to Mass. ‘Here, look at this.’ He pointed out the smiley face. ‘Kids use these on e-mails, they draw them as symbols to express that they’re happy in an uncomplicated, pure, childish way. The smiley is pretty much the first face a kid gets to draw. By using it, he’s showing us that he has no respect for any of our values, and is happy to be seen as a threat to the most precious thing we have, our children. He’s using the smiley as a form of intimidation. And now look at this.’ Jack ran his finger under the line ‘HA! HA! HA!’ ‘He’s going to great lengths to mock us. Note the bold capitals again, and three exclamation marks. That’s his way of saying, “I see you all as a joke, don’t you get it?” And then there’s this, the sickest of lines.’ Jack’s finger pointed to ‘CALL IT A “HEADS-UP” OF WHAT I’VE GOT IN STORE FOR YOU!’ The former FBI profiler leant back in his chair. ‘He’s warning us that he’s going to kill again. Why?’
Massimo lit the cigarette, blew out