Spider - Michael Morley [65]
‘Good question,’ replied Jack. ‘In the past, BRK has always killed near a major coastline. A tidal sea is a very handy way to dispose of a body, so it might be as simple as that. Or there may be a bigger significance that we are yet to discover. We can’t rule out a connection to a port – it could be that he is a sailor of some kind – although I have to say that we’ve done extensive checks with the American navy and haven’t come up with any possible suspects.’
‘Livorno has a very active port,’ said Orsetta. ‘Unless I’m mistaken, I think there’s a naval academy there.’
‘There is,’ said Benito, ‘it’s the training school for officers. The Italian navy has been in Livorno since the late eighteen hundreds.’
‘How do you know that?’ asked Orsetta with a wry smile.
Benito held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘Okay, so I once dreamt of being a sailor, and ended up as a policeman instead. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.’
Once the laughter had died down Jack picked up the thread. ‘We don’t really know why BRK was in Livorno, but we’re going to presume that he was there and that somehow he singled out Cristina. Were there any witness reports of her being seen with any strangers over the last few days before she disappeared?’
Massimo shook his head.
‘Didn’t think so,’ continued Jack, ‘so it’s possible that BRK persuaded her to get into a vehicle and travel voluntarily with him to a secluded place that he’d set up beforehand.’
‘Hang on,’ said Massimo. ‘Orsetta, wasn’t Cristina into helping out at some architectural dig near Florence?’
‘Yes, she was,’ confirmed Orsetta. ‘Friends said she was regularly at Montelupo Fiorentino; there was some talk about uncovering a frescoed burial chamber.’
‘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