Viper

I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE THINKING BUT I DIDN'T DO IT. I'M INNOCENT. CREED.

'So, if he's innocent, why all this?' said Sylvia. 'What's all this about?'

Pietro shrugged sympathetically. 'He is messing with us again. He is lying now and was lying right from the start when he met Jack and said he was still working for us and the university.'

'And he lied about being involved with Francesca?' added Sylvia.

'Exactly,' said Pietro. 'Look at it this way. He books out of his hotel early in New York and then he comes back to Naples and won't talk to us. He turns up at the press conference tonight and then he runs away again. These are not the actions of an innocent man.'

'No, they're not,' agreed Sylvia, the message stoking her anger.

Jack wasn't so sure. To him the actions seemed like taunting. More a case of someone proving their point. 'The question that he asked at the press conference, when he listed the names of the missing girls -'

'What about it?' snapped Sylvia.

'If Creed is Francesca's killer, and maybe the murderer of more women, then it was a bold and crazy thing to do. An unnecessary risk. Why put himself so clearly in the frame and chance being caught?' Jack looked across at Pietro and Sylvia and made sure they were following him. 'The more I look at this case, the more I think we're hunting someone who is willing to cope with risk, but doesn't court it.'

'Evil can't always be explained,' said Raimondi.

Jack disagreed, he thought evil could always be explained. 'Let's look at the options. Creed was either egotistically trying to point the spotlight at himself as the killer – trying to enjoy the public horror and concern over the crimes he's committed – or else, he was being public-spirited and was attempting to focus attention on the missing girls and force you to put more resources into trying to find them. Angel or devil? Which is he?'

'Perhaps both?' said Pietro. 'Perhaps he is a Mr Jecky and Dr Hid?'

Sylvia laughed. 'I think you mean Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.' She patted him playfully on the shoulder. 'Good try, Pietro.'

'I mean half of him wants to kill and half of him wants to be stopped,' explained the big lieutenant, not amused at his own faux pas.

Split personality? It was something Jack hadn't thought about. But that didn't fit the profile either. 'There's one other possibility,' he said.

'I'm all ears.'

'What if Creed is doing all this as revenge?'

'Revenge? How so?' asked Sylvia.

Jack rolled out his latest thoughts. 'The carabinieri crushed his dream of becoming a psychological profiler. Stopped him being a hot-shot working high-profile police cases. The force ended his secondment and complained about him to his university, which also ruined his academic career. So, this could be his idea of payback. And I bet there's a lot worse to come.'