Spider

6

Florence, Tuscany The psychiatrist in Florence had been as good as her word. Jack had rung her cell phone and, despite being surprised by the call, Dottoressa Elisabetta Fenella had agreed to see him later that very day. The power of the FBI really did cross continents. Jack suspected the big bucks that the Bureau had no doubt promised to pay probably also had some sway.

The ninety-minute rail journey to Florence went quickly, mainly because of the beauty of the countryside that rolled past the dusty window of the airless, rundown and overcrowded carriage. He found himself mesmerized by the vineyards and olive plantations that battled for the best terraces across steep hillsides, drawn to the sunlight but scratching for patches of precious shade. In some places, the sun had scorched the ploughed fields into slabs, making the earth look as if it had been fashioned out of hunks of grey stone. In wetter valleys, golden stone cottages rose from fertile fields like farmhouse bread baking in an oven.

And Tuscany certainly was an oven.

Jack found himself bathed in sweat as the train started to slow down into Florence. He blamed the lack of air-con, but he knew it was something else. Second thoughts.

Second thoughts about facing up to whatever was inside him, whatever memories were powerful and dark enough to scare him even when he was asleep.

The facts, the cold hard facts, came tumbling into his head. The Black River Killings had broken him.

Those weren't just his words, it was what every crime reporter in America had written after his collapse at JFK.

He'd failed to catch a man who'd murdered at least sixteen young women, and who would murder more. He'd failed.

They'd written that too. Written it so many times that it had stopped hurting. Or so he told everyone.

Maybe it was best if he stayed broken. Broken didn't mean completely unworkable or totally destroyed, it just meant he wasn't as good as he once was. Maybe seeing a shrink would only make things worse.

His head filled with static, a sort of tinnitus, a hissing noise, and then it became clearer, not hissing, cutting. The noises were back; slashing noises. Steel on skin. He covered his ears and closed his eyes.

The sounds slowly slipped away. Had he heard them, or imagined them? Maybe the train pulling into the station, the wheels on the track?

He took his hands away and opened his eyes.

Silence.

The train had stopped and the carriages were empty.

It was decision time.