Spider - Michael Morley [68]
‘Don’t worry, Mr Albonetti,’ said Howie. ‘We’re good at keeping the scarafaggots, or whatever you called them, out. If the Italian link were known, it would make our life hell as well.’
Massimo nodded, approvingly. ‘So that has cleared items one and two from our agenda.’ Another thought hit him. ‘I should just add, once we have liaison officers in place, we will adopt the standard practice of routine twice-a-day report exchanges, morning and night, other communication between designated senior investigating officers coming as and when needed.’ He ticked the top two items on his list. ‘Now let us turn to item three, the head of Cristina Barbuggiani, delivered, anonymously, to us here in Rome, in a package marked simply “To Whom It May Concern”.’
‘You say anonymously,’ interjected Howie. ‘Does that mean you don’t know the name of the courier company, or the name of the delivery person from the courier company?’
‘At the moment both,’ conceded Massimo. ‘We do not have a name for the person who delivered the package, and while we do have a name for the courier company we cannot at present make contact with them.’
‘Why is that?’ pushed Howie.
Massimo gave a small sigh. The Americans always wanted to dig another level, or rush things. ‘You need to have a little patience with us on this matter. The address of the courier company isn’t listed; we cannot find a telephone number or any business registrations with our authorities. This may mean the company doesn’t exist. Or it may mean someone is operating a company illegally and is trying to avoid paying taxes. We think it most likely that it does not exist, but please trust us that we will find out all the information first and then share our report on this.’
Howie could sense the frustration of his Italian counterpart. ‘No problem. I’m sure you guys will get to the bottom of it. I just wanted to check out what similarities or differences there were between the way your package was delivered in Italy and the way we got ours over here.’
Massimo nodded at the giant Howie on the conference screen. ‘I understand your point. More significant though, I think, is a note we discovered in our package. It was left for us inside the head of the victim. Jack and I have spent much time discussing this note, and he already sees great importance in its content.’
‘There’s a copy coming over to you,’ said Jack, taking his cue. ‘In brief, here’s what it says: “Buon giorno Italian police!” Folks, please note that he spells buon giorno correctly and ends the sentence with an exclamation mark.’
Both Howie and Fernandez made notes.
‘“Here is a gift for you, with love from BRK,”’ continued Jack. ‘He makes the clear claim that he is BRK and then ends the sentence with a point and again there are no spelling or grammar mistakes. The next line is a sizzler, get yourselves ready for this. He says “Call it a ‘heads-up’ of what I’ve got in store for you!” Heads-up hyphenated and again the exclamation mark. The language is simple, literate and there is a huge emphasis on trying to impress and engage us.’
‘And is this all handwritten, or typed?’ asked Howie.
‘Handwritten,’ answered Jack, ‘but in block capitals, so the experts won’t get much from his style.’
‘We’ll throw it over Manny Lieberman’s desk when we get the copy in,’ said Howie. ‘He’ll pick something up, he always does.’
‘Any sign-off, a PS, or anything like that?’ asked Fernandez unemotionally.
‘Ha, ha, ha,’ said Jack.
‘I’m sorry, say again?’ queried Fernandez, not sure if Jack was mocking her.
‘The letters H and A – HA – he wrote them three times, and in capitals, and with an exclamation mark after each,’ said Jack.
‘Sure loves those exclamation marks,’ said Howie. ‘It’s like he got a box of them for Christmas.’
‘Then, he finished off with a smiley face and the letters BRK,’ said Jack. ‘So that’s the second time in this short note that he’s tried to tell us that this is all BRK’s work.’
‘You mean he’s trying too hard?’ asked Fernandez. ‘Do