The Postcard Killers Read online

  Gabriella caught her breath.

  “It’s him!” she said. “That’s the guy from the police composite.”

  Jacob leapt forward and paused the image. His voice was hoarse with excitement.

  “I’ve got you now, you bastard. I’ve got both of you!”

  Chapter 53

  DESSIE SPREAD HER NOTES AND research material out across Gabriella’s desk. She was starting to get excited about the possibility of solving these murders.

  There was one aspect of the killers’ pattern that she’d noticed several times: they were thieves, too. They took cameras, jewelry, electronic gadgets like iPods and mobile phones, credit cards, and other valuables that had one thing in common. They were among the easiest things to get rid of on the black market.

  She leaned back in her chair, chewing the hell out of a ballpoint pen.

  If she ignored the murders and the brutal artistic associations, what was left of the Postcard Killers?

  Well, a couple of petty thieves.

  And how did people like that behave?

  She didn’t need her research material in front of her to know the answer to that.

  They were creatures of habit, just like everyone else, and maybe even more so.

  Criminals who concentrated on break-ins, for instance, almost always started in the bedroom. That was where they could usually find jewelry and cash.

  Then they did the study, with its laptops and video cameras.

  Then, finally, they went through the living room, with all the expensive but bulky items, like televisions and stereos.

  After the crime, the stolen items had to be gotten rid of, and that was where things started to get interesting for Dessie.

  What usually happened was that the thieves passed their takings on to a fence, often at a serious discount. That was a price the thieves were willing to pay. Having an established channel to get rid of stolen property was worth its weight in gold. It took away the biggest risks.

  But what did they do if they didn’t have an established channel?

  They used pawnbrokers, drug dealers, acquaintances, and even strangers.

  So, what channels were open to the Postcard Killers in their murderous cavalcade across Europe?

  They came completely fresh to each new city, which meant they lacked any form of local network. They couldn’t sell to fences or acquaintances, and they would hardly take the risk of trying to sell the stolen property to strangers.

  She picked up the phone, called reception, and asked to speak to Mats Duvall.

  He answered in his office and she made a note of the extension that flashed on the display. It could come in handy one of these days.

  “Hello, yes, sorry, this is Dessie Larsson. I’ve got a quick question: have you checked the pawnbrokers?”

  “The pawnbrokers? Why would we do that? We don’t even know what’s been stolen.”

  He hung up on her—the stupid bastard!

  Dessie sat with the receiver in her hand.

  This time they knew exactly what had been stolen.

  Gabriella had mentioned the brand of watch, and she had even written it down.

  Dessie picked up her notepad and read.

  An Omega Double Eagle Chronometer in steel and gold with a mother-of-pearl case.

  There couldn’t have been many of those handed over to Stockholm’s pawnbrokers since Saturday afternoon, certainly not one still in its original packaging.

  She went over to Gabriella’s computer, typed “pawnbroker Stockholm” into the yellow pages, and got eighteen hits.

  She picked up the phone and dialed the first number.

  “Hello, my name’s Dessie Larsson, and, well, this is really embarrassing, but my boyfriend and I pawned my new Omega and a few other bits and pieces on Saturday, and, well… we’d had a few beers, and now my boyfriend’s lost the receipt and I can’t remember which shop we went to. I’m so sorry. The watch was an Omega Double Eagle Chronometer. In steel and gold with a mother-of-pearl case…”

  No one was going to confirm that they had the watch in their shop—that would be admitting to breaking the law—but the people who worked there were only human. If they’d received a watch matching that description, they couldn’t help but react.

  “You can’t tell me? Omega Double Eagle?”

  Straight denial.

  “Well, thanks, anyway.”

  She broke the call and dialed the next number.

  Chapter 54

  UNFORTUNATELY, OLGA, THE CLERK AT NK, had to resign from her job in the jewelry department. She had been very upset and apologetic because she had really enjoyed working there, but her husband had had a stroke and obviously she needed to hurry back home to look after him.

  The management at NK had been understanding and let her have both the regular wages she was owed and the extra payment she had earned during tourist season. She had returned to Riga the previous evening.

  Jacob slammed his fist down on the jewelry counter, making the gold rings jump.

  “Fucking hell!” he shouted. “I told them. Why doesn’t anybody listen to me?”

  The customers around him backed away in alarm.

  “Did she leave an address in Riga?” Gabriella asked, giving Jacob a look of disapproval. “I’m listening to you, so you don’t have to shout.”

  “I do too have to shout. It makes me feel better.”

  The head of the jewelry department went over to the office to check, but Jacob couldn’t be bothered to wait. The address Olga had given would be false. And there was no husband who’d had a stroke either.

  He waited on the sidewalk outside, rubbing his eyes with his palms. People brushed past him on both sides. They were laughing and talking. Someone was playing a mouth organ.

  It was him. It was the fair-haired man on the video. Jacob was sure of it.

  Kimmy’s killer, that was what he looked like. But then he looked again more closely.

  The man with the mouth organ wasn’t the killer.

  Suddenly Gabriella came running out to the sidewalk with her cell in her hand.

  “Duvall just called,” she said. “Dessie’s found the Omega.”

  Jacob spun around and stared at her.

  “What! Where?”

  “A pawnshop on Kungsholmstorg, a square just a couple of blocks from police headquarters.”

  “They’ve got some nerve,” Jacob said, running toward their car, a Saab that had seen better days.

  Gabriella unlocked the car with the infrared as she ran. She got in, stuck a blue light on the roof, and started the siren as she steered the car into heavy afternoon traffic.

  Chapter 55

  THE PAWNSHOP WAS AT A busy intersection and looked like pawnshops usually do, a bit messy, uncomfortable, apologetic.

  They parked on a pedestrian crossing right outside the shop, then hurried inside.

  On the front counter stood a digital camera, a box containing an emerald ring, a few other pieces of jewelry—and an Omega in steel and gold in a mother-of-pearl case.

  Mats Duvall, impeccably dressed in a blazer and chinos, was standing with Dessie, the shop’s owner, and two detectives. Duvall was leaning over a computer screen.

  “Is he on video?” Jacob asked breathlessly.

  “We’re hoping he is,” the superintendent said.

  “What ID did he use?”

  Duvall pushed the pawnbroker’s ledger toward him without taking his eyes from the screen.

  The items on the counter in the shop had been pawned by a man who had used an American driving licence as his ID, issued in the state of New Mexico in the name Jack Bauer. He had received 16,430 kronor in total.

  “Is this some sort of fucking joke?” Jacob asked. “How the hell can someone get away with calling himself Jack Bauer? Jack Bauer! The TV show? Twenty-four?”

  “Here he is,” Mats Duvall said, turning the screen to face Jacob.

  A tall man in a long, dark coat, with brown hair, a cap, and sunglasses, was sh
own signing the agreement on the counter in the shop.

  No well-built blond. No Brad Pitt. No Jack Bauer.

  What had he been expecting?

  “I presume you recognize him,” Mats Duvall said.

  Jacob gave a quick nod.

  It was the same man who had been photographed taking money out of ATMs on the murder victims’ credit cards throughout Europe.

  Chapter 56

  “OKAY, THEN,” THE SUPERINTENDENT SAID a few minutes later. “We’ll meet again at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. You’re all working hard. We’ll get these people.”

  He stood up and walked quickly from the shop without looking back. The two detectives on his team followed close on his heels.

  Dessie was left standing by the pawnbroker’s desk together with Jacob and Gabriella. On a shelf next to the computer was a copy of that day’s Aftonposten. Her own words screamed out its battle cry: “Accept My Challenge—If You Dare.”

  She turned the paper over to avoid having to see it. Gabriella noticed her doing it.

  “I agree that publishing the letter wasn’t very smart,” she said, nodding toward the paper.

  Dessie took a deep breath and pulled on her knapsack.

  “See you tomorrow,” she said abruptly, heading for the door.

  “I’ve got the car,” Gabriella called after her. “I can give you a lift.”

  Dessie kept walking.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I’ve got my bike at police headquarters. It’s close. I’m fine.”

  She opened the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  “I’ll walk with you,” Jacob Kanon called, catching up with her.

  “I can put the bike in the back,” Gabriella said, jogging after them.

  Dessie spun around.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll be fine. Thanks, anyway.”

  It was evening. The air was damp and cool, and the sun was low in the sky.

  “Whatever you want,” Gabriella said, getting into the Saab and speeding off, sour as hell.

  With a sense of melancholy, Dessie watched the car drive away.

  “You were the one who finished it, weren’t you?” Jacob said.

  She gave a deep sigh.

  “Hungry?” the American asked.

  She thought for a moment. Then she nodded. “Strangely, I am.”

  Chapter 57

  THEY PICKED A CHEAP ITALIAN restaurant with red-checked tablecloths and pasta and pizza on the menu. Jacob ordered a bottle of red wine from Tuscany and poured them each a glass. “This is good for whatever ails you,” he said.

  Dessie took a small sip, leaned back, and shut her eyes. “I doubt it very much, but thank you.”

  So far the letter had done no good at all. Had Gabriella’s unpleasant comment been justified? Had she been completely crazy to write it?

  “You did the right thing,” Jacob said, reading her thoughts. “We’ve already ruffled their feathers. They’re going to make a mistake. Cheers.”

  Jacob ordered Parma ham and spaghetti Bolognese. Dessie the insalata caprese and cannelloni.

  “I heard you were the one who actually found the watch,” he said. “Good thinking.”

  She was suddenly embarrassed.

  “They aren’t just killers,” she said. “They’re petty thieves, too.”

  “True, but why did you make that connection?” the American asked, pouring more wine into his glass.

  Dessie laughed, not even sure why she thought it was funny.

  “Remember I told you I was writing my thesis? Well, it’s on the social consequences of small-scale property break-ins. Let’s just say it’s been an interest of mine since I was a child.”

  Jacob raised his eyebrows quizzically. He had a very expressive face. When he got angry, his face turned black with rage, when he was happy, he glowed like a woodstove, and when he wasn’t sure of something, like now, his face looked like a big question mark.

  “I grew up with my mother and her five brothers. My mother worked as home help all her life, but my uncles were villains and bandits, the whole lot of them.”

  She glanced at him to see how he reacted.

  “ ‘Home help’?” he said.

  “Helping old people, sick people. None of my uncles married, but they had loads of kids with different women.”

  Jacob ate some bread. He didn’t wolf down his food like some men she knew.

  “What’s the name of the town you grew up in?”

  “I come from a farm in the forests of Ådalen,” she said. “That’s part of Norrland, where the military were called in to shoot workers as recently as the nineteen thirties.”

  The American looked at her stonily.

  “I’m sure they must have had a good reason,” he said.

  Dessie’s mozzarella caught in her throat. “What did you say?”

  “The military don’t usually shoot their fellow citizens for no reason,” Jacob said.

  Dessie couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “Are you defending state-sanctioned murder?”

  Jacob stared at her, simultaneously concentrating on the chewy ciabatta.

  “Okay,” he said. “Wrong topic of conversation. Let’s move on.”

  Dessie put her cutlery down. “Do you think it’s okay to shoot people for demonstrating against their wages being cut?”

  Jacob held up both hands in a disarming gesture.

  “Shit, I didn’t know you were a communist.”

  “And I didn’t know you were a fascist,” Dessie said, picking up her knife and fork again.

  Chapter 58

  DESSIE HONESTLY DIDN’T KNOW WHAT to make of Jacob Kanon.

  He was an entirely new species to her, both shut off and extremely demonstrative at the same time. The way he moved seemed a bit clumsy and uncomfortable, as if he weren’t quite house-trained.

  “Tell me more about your uncles.”

  Dessie pushed aside the plate of cannelloni.

  “Two of them drank themselves to death,” she said. “Uncle Ruben was beaten to death outside the church in Piteå the night before May Day three years ago. He had just been released from a stretch in Porsön, in Luleå.”

  She said it to shock him, but Jacob just seemed amused.

  “Were they often inside?”

  “Mostly short sentences. They only managed one big thing in the whole of their miserable careers: raiding a security van where they discovered considerably more money than they’d been expecting.”

  The waiter came over to ask if they wanted dessert.

  They both said no.

  “Were they convicted?” Jacob asked. “For the security van job?”

  “Of course,” Dessie said, grabbing the bill. “Although some of the takings were never found.”

  “Let me get that,” Jacob said.

  “Stop being so macho,” Dessie said, taking out her Amex card. “This is Sweden. Men stopped paying for dates in the sixties.” She motioned the waiter over and handed him her card.

  The American poured the last of the wine into their glasses with a grin.

  “So this is a date, is it?” he asked, his eyes twinkling. “That’s interesting.”

  Dessie looked at him in surprise.

  “This? A date? Of course it isn’t.”

  “You said it was. You said this was a date. ‘Men stopped paying for—’ ”

  Dessie shuddered.

  “That was a figure of speech. This isn’t a date. This will never be a date.” She signed the credit-card slip and said, “Let’s go. It’s late.”

  They stepped out into a light blue evening that would soon be night.

  “Where are you staying?” Dessie asked as they walked toward the entrance of police headquarters on Polhemsgatan.

  “Långholmen,” he said. “A youth hostel, actually.”

  “It used to be a prison,” Dessie said.

  “Thanks for the reminder,” Jacob said. “I know.”

  She got her
bicycle, and with Jacob walking alongside, she started slowly cycling home through the Stockholm night. A low mist hung over the waters of Riddarfjärden, thin veils sweeping in and hiding the sounds of the city: the cars, the drunken shouting, the music coming from open windows.

  He kept her company all the way to her door.

  She looked up at him and he was no more than a silhouette against the moon.

  “See you tomorrow,” he said, raising a hand in farewell as he disappeared down toward Götgatan.

  Chapter 59

  Wednesday, June 16

  THE LETTER ARRIVED WITH THE first delivery of the morning.

  Dessie recognized immediately both the envelope and the writing on it.

  This time it hadn’t been preceded by a warning postcard.

  She opened it with her letter knife, wearing gloves on her trembling hands. She was in the presence of the police forensics team and they made her jumpy.

  The envelope contained a Polaroid picture, just as the last one had.

  “I’ll take care of that,” said one of the officers, grabbing the picture from her.

  She had time to register the bodies and the blood.

  She went over to her desk and sank down in the chair. An intense feeling of uneasiness started to spread from her stomach out to her limbs. “Oh, dear god, dear god,” she muttered softly.

  The text she’d written for the paper had evidently worked. The killers had broken their pattern. They had carried out more murders in Stockholm instead of moving on to the next city.

  The realization made it hard to breathe.

  She had caused the deaths of two more innocent people.

  How could she live with herself after this?

  Forsberg, the news editor, red-eyed with lack of sleep, sat down on a chair beside her.

  “Feeling rough?” he asked.

  She looked at him without replying.

  “Maybe you should take the day off? Get some rest? You really ought to go home.”

  She stared at him, speechless. Day off? Rest?!

  He drummed his fingers on her desk for a few seconds before getting up and going back to the news desk.