The Postcard Killers (4 page)

“Do you speak English? Do you understand anything I’m saying?”

She nodded and looked up at the man. He was hardly any taller than she was, with broad shoulders and strong biceps, and he was blocking her escape route down the stairs.

He had a powerful presence but appeared to have lost weight recently. His jeans had slid down and were hanging on his narrow hips. His suede jacket was good quality but badly creased, as though he’d been sleeping in it.

“It’s really important that you listen to what I’ve got to say,” he said.

She looked carefully at his eyes, which were bright blue and sparkling. Quite the opposite of everything else about him.

“They’re here, and they’re going to kill again,” he said.

Chapter 8

JACOB FELT THE ADRENALINE PULLING like barbed wire through his veins.

He had never been so quick out of the gate before, only a day or so behind them: before the murders took place, before the pictures of the bodies, before their flight to yet another city.

“I have to find a way into the investigation,” he said. “At once, right fucking now.”

The reporter stumbled a little and steadied herself against the wall behind her. Her eyes were wide and watchful. He’d frightened her badly. He hadn’t meant to.

“If I’m the killers’ contact,” she said, “who’s yours?”

Her voice was dark, a little hoarse. Her English was perfect but spoken with a strange accent. He looked at her in silence for a few moments.

“Who interviewed you?” Jacob asked. “What’s his name, what unit’s he on? Is there a prosecutor involved yet? What safety measures have been taken?
Someone’s going to die here in Stockholm
.”

The woman backed away another few steps.

“How did you know I received the card?” she asked. “How did you know where I live?”

He looked at her carefully. There was no reason to lie.

“Berlin,” he said. “The German police. It was the
deutsche Polizei
who told me another postcard had turned up, sent to a Dessie Larsson at
Aftonposten
in Stockholm, Sweden. I came at once. I’ve just gotten in from the airport.”

“So, what are we doing here? What do you want with me? I can’t help you. I’m nobody.”

He took a step closer to her, she took a step to one side. He checked himself.

“They have to be stopped,” he said. “This is the best chance yet.… They picked you. So now you’re
somebody
.”

Chapter 9

“I’VE BEEN FOLLOWING THESE BUTCHERS since the murders in Rome last Christmas,” he said.

Suddenly he turned away and looked out through the leaded glass farther down the stairs. The fading sunlight was making red, green, and dark blue spots dance on the marble steps.

He closed his eyes and put his hand over them, the colors burning into his brain.

“Sometimes I think I’m right behind them. Sometimes they slip past me, close to me, so close I can almost feel their breath.”

“How did you find me? I asked you a question.”

He looked at the reporter again. She wasn’t like the others. She was younger, about thirty, less high-strung. Plus, all the others had been men — apart from the female reporter in Salzburg whom he hadn’t managed to make contact with yet.

“I got your address from directory inquiries. The taxi driver dropped me off at the door. Like I said, I’m a detective.”

He knotted his hands in frustration.

“You have to understand how important this is. How far have the police gotten? Have they made contact with the Germans? Tell them
they have to talk to Berlin,
the best inspector there is called Günther Bublitz. He’s a decent man. He cares.”

The woman lowered her head, peering at him from beneath her hair. Her fear seemed to have subsided, and her gaze was steady and calm now. She was impressive in her way.

“This is my home,” she said. “If you want to discuss anything about the postcard or the killers or the police operation, you’ll have to come to my workplace tomorrow.”

She nodded toward the stairs.

“I’m sure you’ll find your way, Detective. You can get the address from directory inquiries.”

He took a step closer to her and she held her breath.

“I’ve been chasing these bastards for six months,” he said, almost inaudibly. “No one knows more about them than I do.”

The woman braced herself against the wall, then forced her way past him. She picked up her keys from the floor and clutched them hard in her hand.

“You look and smell like a garbage dump,” she said. “You’ve no authority with the Swedish police. You’re just chasing these killers.… Sorry, but that seems a bit… obsessive.”

He brushed his hair back hard and closed his eyes.

Obsessive? Was he obsessed? Of course he was.

He saw the Polaroid picture in front of his eyes, the man’s and woman’s hands, the beautiful fingers that were almost touching. The blood that had run down their arms and gathered around the fingernails.
“Love you, Dad! See you at New Year’s!”

He opened his eyes and met her gaze.

“They killed my daughter in Rome,” he said. “They cut Kimmy’s and Steven’s throats in a hotel room in Trastevere, and I’m going to chase them until Hell freezes over.”

Chapter 10

DESSIE HEARD THE MAN’S HEAVY footsteps disappear down the stairs as she double-locked her door. She blew out a deep breath.

It was Friday evening, and she was alone again. Worse, she’d just been scared shitless by an American detective who tragically had lost his daughter.

She took off her sneakers, hung up her jacket, and put her bike helmet on the hat rack. She pulled off the rest of her clothes as she walked to the bathroom and got into the shower.

Jacob Kanon, she thought. He hadn’t meant her any harm, that much was obvious. What would have happened if she had asked him in? What would she have lost as a result? Would she have gotten a news story?

She shook off the idle thoughts and turned the tap to run the water ice cold. She stood under the jet until her toes started to go numb and her skin stung.

Wrapped in a big dressing gown, she walked across the tiled floor into the living room. She sank onto the sofa and reached for the television remote control but held it idly in her hand.

Why had the killers picked her? What the hell had she done? She wasn’t a star reporter by any means.

Were they actually in the city right now?

Were they looking for their next victims, or had they already set to work? Had the letter containing the photographs of the dead bodies already been sent?

She got up off the couch and went into the kitchen. She opened the fridge door and found a few withered carrots and a moldy tomato. Jeez. She really must do some shopping.

Coming home usually made her thoroughly calm and relaxed. Not this night.

Her apartment lay on Urvädersgränd, an old street on the island of Södermalm, in the heart of the onetime working-class district that had recently been transformed into overpriced homes for the hip middle class to buy. Sweden’s national poet, Carl Michael Bellman, had lived in the building next door for four years in the 1770s. She tried to feel the winds of history.

It didn’t work too well tonight. Another Friday at home. Why was that?

She went over to the stereo and put on a CD of German hard rock.
Du, du hast, du hast mich…

Then she sat down and stared at the telephone. She had a pretty good reason for making the call.

She was neither lonely nor abandoned. She had just turned down the chance to invite a man into her apartment — a dirty, unshaven man, admittedly — so she wasn’t the slightest bit desperate. Right?

She picked up the receiver and dialed the number of Gabriella’s cell phone.

Chapter 11

GABRIELLA ANSWERED WITH HER USUAL unfriendly grunt.

“Hi,” Dessie said. “It’s me.”

She could hear Gabriella breathing.

“It’s not what you think,” Dessie said. “I don’t want to be a nuisance, and I haven’t changed my mind…”

“I’ve been expecting you to call,” Gabriella said, sounding strictly professional. “Mats Duvall pulled me onto the investigating team this afternoon. I think you and I can deal with this like grown-ups.… Right, Dessie?”

Dessie breathed out. She had lived with police inspector Gabriella Oscarsson for almost a year. Maybe they had been in love, maybe not. Three months ago Dessie had ended the relationship and Gabriella had moved out of the apartment. It hadn’t been an amicable split. Was it ever?

“Have you heard anything?” Dessie asked, which meant in plain language, Have you found any bodies with their throats cut?

“Nothing. Not yet.”

Not yet. So they were expecting something. They believed the postcard was real.

“I was contacted by an American cop here this evening,” Dessie said. “A Jacob Kanon. Do you know anything about him?”

“He’s been working with the Germans,” Gabriella said. “We’ve had confirmation that he’s with the New York force, and that his daughter was one of the first victims. In Rome. Where did you say you met him?”

Dessie sighed with relief. At least he was who he said he was, even if he smelled.

“He looked me up,” she said.

“
Why
? Why did he look you up? What did he want with you? He came to the apartment?”

All the old irritations came crashing back on Dessie like a fist in the stomach. All these questions, the insinuations, the same accusing tone that had finally driven her to finish it with Gabriella.

“I really don’t know,” Dessie said, trying to sound calm and in control of the situation.

“We’re thinking of talking to him to see what he knows,” Gabriella said, “so you’re free to interview him if you like.”

“Okay,” Dessie said, feeling that it was time to hang up.

“But we’re looking after this case, not some freelancing Yank,” Gabriella said. “And be careful, Dessie. These are murderers, not your usual pickpockets and burglars.”

Chapter 12

Saturday, June 12

SYLVIA RUDOLPH TILTED HER HEAD to one side and smiled beautifully. Her eyes lit up.

“You have to let us show you our very favorite place in Stockholm. They’ve got the most wonderful cakes, and their hot chocolate cups are as big as bathtubs.”

The German couple laughed, their mood lightened by the thick joint the four of them had just shared.

“It’s on Stortorget, the square in the Old Town that’s got a ridiculously dramatic history,” Mac said, putting his arm around the German woman. “The Danish king, one Christian the Tyrant, had the whole of the Swedish nobility executed there in November fifteen twenty.”

“More than a hundred people lost their heads,” Sylvia said. “The mass murder is still called ‘the Stockholm Bloodbath.’”

The German girl shuddered.

“Ugh, how horrid.”

Mac and Sylvia exchanged a quick glance and smiled at each other. “Horrid?” This from someone whose forefathers started two world wars?

The Rudolphs held each other’s hand and walked quickly up toward Börshuset, the old Stock Exchange Building, and the Nobel Museum located in it. The Germans followed them, giggling and stumbling.

In the café, actually called
Chokladkoppen,
“The Chocolate Cup,” they ate cinnamon buns and drank homemade raspberry juice.

Sylvia couldn’t take her eyes off the German woman. She really was incredibly beautiful. Unfortunately she was light blond, almost platinum, but that could be sorted out somehow.

“Oh, I’m so glad we met you two,” Sylvia said, hugging the German man. “I have to have a souvenir of today! Mac, do you think the jeweler in that department store is still open?”

Mac sighed, raising his eyebrows as he always did at this point in their script.

“Oh, dear,” he said. “This is going to be expensive.”

The German took out his wallet to pay for the pastries, but Mac stopped him.

“This is on us!”

Chapter 13

THEY WALKED DOWN TO THE quayside together, following the water until they came to the greenery of Kungsträdgården. The German woman seemed to have gotten the munchies badly after the marijuana, because she stopped to buy an ice cream at one of the kiosks along the way.

Sylvia took the opportunity to sidle closer to the man while his girlfriend was busy licking her ice cream.

“She’s amazing,” Sylvia said, gesturing toward the woman, who was dripping melted ice cream on her clothes. “If I were you, I’d really want to give her a token of my appreciation…”

The German smiled, a little uncertain. He was not exactly a bad specimen either. He looked like a handsome villain from some film, maybe a member of the old Baader-Meinhof Gang, something like that.

“‘Appreciation’? How do you mean?”

Sylvia kissed him on the cheek and touched his left wrist.

“She hasn’t got a nice watch…”

Sylvia suggested they get a little cash, so they stopped at the bank. She hung on to the man, memorizing his PIN as he keyed it in at the ATM.

NK, the department store, was crowded, and they had to take a number at the jeweler. Sylvia pulled the German woman over to the perfume department while the men picked out the right watch. They each bought a bottle of Dior’s J’adore.

The woman let out a series of very cute squeals of joy when she opened her present.

Sylvia took the opportunity to pop into a branch of Systembolaget, the state-owned chain that had a monopoly on selling alcohol throughout Sweden, and bought two bottles of Moët & Chandon.

“This deserves a celebration,” Sylvia cooed, twining her arm around the German man’s waist. “I want to drink these with you, somewhere where we can be alone.”

The German looked slightly confused but definitely interested.

Sylvia laughed softly.