Postcard killers Read online

The old man let out a sigh.

  "I thought you'd never ask."

  "Thanks for everything," Jacob said.

  "Wel, adios, amigo, then," Lyndon Crebbs replied.

  "Hasta la vista," Jacob said. "Til next time."

  But the line was already dead, and Jacob wondered if he'd ever hear his friend's voice again.

  Chapter 113

  Tuesday, June 22

  Oslo, Norway

  The motor home was in a campsite just outside the city. The police cordon had been lifted from the entrance to the site but was stil in place around the vehicle.

  Dessie pul ed the zipper on her Windbreaker up snug and tight under her chin.

  The campsite was almost empty, and not just because of the weather. The Italians' motor home was al alone in its section of the site, like a leprous metal box whose neighbors had fled in panic.

  She went closer.

  Drifts of dead insects were stil littering the insides of the windows. They covered the bottom third of the screens.

  She pul ed the hood over her head. A stiff gale was blowing in from the Oslo fjord just below, sharp as needles.

  It was the flies that had let on that something was wrong inside the Italians' motor home. The people in the neighboring tents had complained about the buzzing, and eventual y also about the smel. 150 The owner of the site, a man named Olsen, hadn't been too bothered. The Italians were paying for their patch on account, and he wasn't fussy. If people wanted to keep flies as pets, he wasn't about to stop them.

  When the police eventual y arrived, the windows were completely covered in swarms of black insects. They were as thick as curtains.

  It was estimated that the bodies had been there for over a month.

  Dessie pul ed out the copy of the Polaroid picture, taken before the flies had started to lay eggs.

  The wind tore at the sheet of paper, and she had to hold it with both hands.

  The letter and postcard had only been found the previous morning. The reporter the kil ers had chosen had gone away on vacation the day the card was posted. No one had been checking his mail.

  When he returned to work at the paper, he found both the postcard, TO BE OR NOT TO BE, and the photograph Dessie now had before her.

  Antonio Bonino and Emma Vendola had been on a driving tour of Europe, and had arrived in Oslo on the morning of May 17. They wanted to experience Norway's national day, the celebrations when the Norwegians mark the anniversary of their country's independence.

  Emma worked as a secretary at a PR agency. Antonio was studying to be a dentist. They had been married for two years.

  She looked at the victims' picture again.

  Their hands had been placed close to their faces, the palms to their ears.

  The kil ers had stuffed two pairs of black tights in their mouths, giving the faces a grotesque expression of pain and horror.

  She had recognized the work of art immediately, and it was famous.

  Edvard Munch's The Scream, a painting that had become world-famous to a new generation as the logo for the horror movie Scream.

  Dessie could feel her eyes wel ing up. She didn't know if it was because of the wind or the thought of the dead couple.

  They had been saving up to buy this vehicle ever since they got married.

  Six bunks, so there would be room for the children when they came along.

  Did they have time to feel afraid?

  Did they feel any pain?

  She turned away from the motor home and walked toward the exit, not wanting to think about the dead anymore.

  Instead she conjured up Jacob's image. His messy hair, the crumpled suede jacket, the sparkling blue eyes. He hadn't been in touch.

  He'd disappeared from her life as though he'd never been there.

  This past week could have been a dream, or, rather, a nightmare, in which her whole life had been turned upside down by forces she had no control over.

  Dessie shivered.

  She stopped by the exit and turned around to look back at the abandoned campsite.

  Wil owy birch trees bent beneath the wind; the water down below was gray with geese. The cordon around the motor home flapped in the wind.

  The Rudolphs could have been responsible for these murders.

  They hadn't been arrested yet in the middle of May.

  Chapter 114

  Stockholm, Sweden

  Sylvia let Malcolm go in first.

  She enjoyed watching the effect he had on poor, dul Andrea Friederichs: the lawyer clearly became positively moist the moment he walked into a room.

  "Dear Malcolm," the lawyer said, standing up and grasping his hand with both of hers. Her cheeks glowed bright red. Her eyes swept from his biceps down toward the curve of his backside.

  Sylvia sat down opposite her and smiled.

  "It's great that we're getting close to a financial agreement," she said.

  The lawyer's smile faded as she glanced at Sylvia. She put on her uglyduckling reading glasses and started to leaf through the papers on the table.

  They were in one of the smal er conference rooms of the Grand Hotel, the room the lawyer had reserved to conduct negotiations for the global rights to Sylvia and Malcolm's story.

  "Wel, I've had final bids for both the book and the film rights," she said, putting the documents in two piles in front of her.

  "There are four parties bidding for both packages, six who want only the book, and three, possibly four, who just want to make the film. I thought we might go through them together so that you -"

  "Who's offering the biggest advance?" Sylvia asked.

  The lawyer blinked at her over the thick black frame of her glasses.

  "There are a number of different conditions attached to the various bids," she said. "Nielsen and Berner in New York, for instance, have a very interesting proposal including a television series, a computer game, a lecture tour… for the two of you."

  "Excuse me," Sylvia interrupted, "but how much are they offering as an advance?"

  Dear Andrea took a theatrical deep breath.

  "Not much at al. Their package is the largest in total, but it's conditional upon your ful participation in the marketing campaign."

  Malcolm stretched, making his T-shirt ride up. He scratched his stomach.

  "The advance?" he said, smiling toward Andrea.

  Her angular face broke into a foolish smile and she fumbled with the papers again.

  "The largest advance is offered by Yokokoz, a Japanese company that real y wants only the digital rights. They wil make a manga series, with al the spin-offs that entails – col ectable cards, clothing, and so on. They want to sel the book and film rights, without you having any say in where they end up…"

  "How much?" Malcolm asked.

  "Three mil ion dol ars," Andrea said.

  Sylvia stretched her back.

  "That sounds pretty good," she said. "Sign up with Yokokoz."

  The lawyer blinked.

  "But," she said, "the agreement has to be refined. We can't leave the question of subsidiary sales open. You have to have control over the finished product…"

  "Try to get them up to three and a half mil ion," Sylvia said, "although that's not a deal breaker. But they have to pay us now. Anything else and the deal's off with them. Right? We're clear?"

  Andrea Friederichs shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Clearly, she wasn't clear.

  "If I could just remind you about my fee," she said. "I can't take a percentage because I'm a member of the Association of Swedish Lawyers, but I presume we're fol owing usual practice?"

  Sylvia raised her eyebrows in surprise.

  "Are we? I don't remember signing an agreement like that. Nor does Malcolm."

  "No, I don't."

  Andrea Friederichs clicked her bal point pen in irritation.

  "A quarter of the total is usual in cases like this. We discussed it the first time we spoke. I must tel you that some agents take considerably more."

  Syl
via nodded.

  "I know twenty-five percent is the norm," she said, "but in our case I think five percent is more appropriate."

  The lawyer looked as though she couldn't believe what she'd just heard.

  "What do you mean? A hundred and fifty thousand dol ars? That's quite absurd!"

  Sylvia smiled again.

  "You're getting five percent."

  Andrea Friederichs started to get up from her chair. Her blushes had grown into fiery blotches covering her whole neck.

  "Almost a mil ion and a half Swedish kronor for a few days' work,"

  Sylvia said. "You think that's absurd? I suppose that it is."

  "There's such a thing as legal precedent…," the lawyer began.

  Sylvia leaned over and lowered her voice to an almost inaudible whisper.

  "Have you forgotten who we are?" she breathed, and she saw how Andrea Friederichs sank back in her chair, her face drained of color.

  Part Three

  Chapter 115

  Wednesday, June 23

  Stockholm, Sweden

  Urvadersgrand was deserted and doing its best to show why it had been named after bad weather.

  Gusts of rain tore and tugged at the street lamps and signs, the shutters and gables.

  The reporters had finally given up and gone the hel home. That was the good news.

  Dessie paid the taxi driver and hurried in through the doorway. Her steps echoed in the empty stairwel. She felt like she'd been away for ages.

  Her apartment welcomed her with gray light and complete silence and a certain unappealing mustiness.

  She pul ed off her clothes, letting them fal in a heap on the hal floor.

  Then she sank down and sat on the telephone table in the hal, staring at the wal opposite. Suddenly she was far too exhausted to take the shower she had been looking forward to al day.

  For some reason her mother came to her mind.

  They hadn't been in regular contact during the last years she was alive, but right now Dessie would have liked to cal her and tel her what had been written about her, about the terrible murders, about her own loneliness.

  And about Jacob.

  She would have liked to tel her about the unusual American with the sapphire blue eyes. Her mother would have understood. If there was one thing she had experience in, it was doomed relationships.

  At that moment the phone rang right next to her. It startled her so much that she jumped.

  "Dessie? The phone didn't even ring on my end. You must have been sitting on it."

  It was Gabriel a.

  "Actual y, I was," Dessie said, standing up.

  She got hold of a towel and grappled with it to pul it around her with one hand, then took the cordless phone out through the kitchen and into the living room.

  "How are things with you? You sounded so down when I last spoke to 154 you."

  Dessie slumped onto the sofa and looked out at the harbor. It was stil gorgeous; at least that never changed.

  "Everything got a bit much in the end," she muttered.

  "Is it Jacob?"

  Unable to stop herself any longer, Dessie started to cry.

  "Sorry," she sniffled into the phone. "Sorry, I…"

  "You fel for him hard, didn't you?"

  Gabriel a sounded neither angry nor disappointed, but more like a good friend now.

  Dessie took a deep breath.

  "I suppose so," she said.

  There was a moment's silence.

  "Things don't always work out as you hope," Gabriel a said, so quietly that her words were almost inaudible.

  "I know," Dessie whispered. "Sorry."

  Gabriel a laughed.

  "That took its time," she said.

  "I know," Dessie repeated.

  Silence again.

  "What's happening today?" Dessie asked, to break the silence more than anything else.

  "The Rudolphs have announced that they're checking out of the Grand at lunchtime. Not a moment too soon, if you ask me."

  Dessie bit her lip. "Do you real y think they're innocent?" she asked.

  "There's nothing to link them to the murders," Gabriel a said. "No forensic evidence, no witnesses, no confessions, no murder weapons…"

  "So who did it? Sel me on a new explanation," Dessie said. "Who are the real Postcard Kil ers, then?"

  Before Gabriel a could answer, the doorbel rang.

  What the -?

  Who could it be now? A reporter who stil hadn't given up?

  She had no peephole and no safety chain.

  "Hang on a moment while I get the door," Dessie said, going out to the hal and unlocking the door.

  She opened it cautiously, then suddenly she couldn't breathe.

  "I'l cal you later," she said into the phone and hung up on Gabriel a.

  Chapter 116

  Jacob was almost AS crumpled-looking and unshaven as he had been 155 the first time he stood outside Dessie's door.

  She took a great leap into his arms, holding him t ight, tight, tight, as though she never meant to let go, kissing him hard and letting her hands roam inside his checkered flannel shirt.

  "Dessie," Jacob whispered into her hair. "We're standing in the stairwel and you're not wearing any clothes."

  Her towel had fal en to the floor. She kicked it into the apartment and pul ed him into the front hal way. The dirty duffel bag ended up under the telephone table, his jeans by the door, his shirt and T-shirt by the radiator.

  They made it as far as the door to the living room before they col apsed to the floor. She fel into his bright blue eyes and felt him pushing inside her. The world spun and she closed her eyes, straining her head back against the wooden floor when she came.

  "Jeezuz," Jacob said. "I guess that means you're happy to see me!"

  "Just you wait," she said, nipping his earlobe with her teeth.

  They stumbled into the bedroom. Dessie pushed him onto the bed and began to explore every inch of his body. She used her fingers, hair, and tongue, tasting and licking and caressing.

  "Oh, god!" he panted. "What are you doing to me?"

  "I'm just happy to see you," Dessie said. "What are you doing to me?"

  Then she sat astride him.

  She moved gently above him, deep and intense, forcing him to calm down, slow down. It gave her a chance to catch up, and when she felt the rush coming, she let go completely. He seemed to lose several seconds when he came, but she forced him to continue for another minute or so until she came as wel.

  Then she fel into his arms and passed out.

  Chapter 117

  Dessie opened her eyes and looked deep into his bright blue ones. They crackled with a warmth that left her breathless. And more confused than ever.

  "You're here," she whispered. "It wasn't a dream. I'm so glad. I'm happy."

  He laughed. His teeth were white, a bit crooked. His hair was sweaty, sticking out in every direction. He sank back down on the bed and pul ed her to him.

  "Why did you come back?" she asked.

  He kissed her and then grew suddenly serious.

  "Several reasons," he said. "You were the most important one."

  She hit him playful y on the shoulder with her fist.

  "Liar," she said.

  "How did you make out in Denmark and Norway?" he asked.

  She told him about the grotesque murders in the hotel in Copenhagen, about the mutilation of the bodies and the fact that the woman had probably been raped. They had found bruises and scratches on the inside of her thighs, and the semen in her vagina wasn't her husband's. It didn't seem to her like the Rudolphs' work.

  She went on to tel him about the motor home death scene at the campsite outside Oslo, how neither the bodies nor the letters had been discovered because the reporter had been on vacation, and how the bodies had been arranged to look like Munch's The Scream.

  "How did you get on in America?" she asked.

  He gave her a summary of his investigations, tel ing her that the
Rudolphs came from an extremely privileged background. That Sylvia had found their parents murdered when she was thirteen years old. That their guardian, Jonathan Blython, had embezzled their inheritance and been found dead with his throat cut. That Mac's girlfriend Sandra Schulman – whom Sylvia was jealous of – had disappeared after a visit to the Rudolphs' home. That the twins had set up an experimental art group, the Society of Limitless Art, and been expel ed from UCLA because of a public act of incest.

  "A public act of incest?" Dessie said.

  "They cal ed the work Taboo. The two of them made love in an exhibition hal."

  "They real y are mad," Dessie said, pul ing him to her once more.

  Chapter 118

  Afterward, they sat in bed and ate an improvised lunch. Jacob was finishing one of her microwaved vegetarian lasagnas.

  Dessie had taken her laptop back to bed and was reading Aftonposten's report of the deal that the lawyer, Andrea Friederichs, had negotiated for the rights to Sylvia and Malcolm's story.

  "An advance of three and a half mil ion dol ars," she read, "plus royalties and even more money for the subsidiary sale of the book rights. And get this – the lawyer has decided not to charge for her services. She only represented them because it was the right thing to do, she says."

  "Are they stil at the Grand?"

  She clicked further on the site and looked at her watch.

  "According to Alexander Andersson's blog, they checked out half an hour 157 ago. They left through the back door to avoid the media scrum outside the main entrance."

  Jacob threw off the covers, leapt out of bed, and disappeared into the kitchen.

  Dessie looked after him in surprise.

  "There's nothing that links them to the murders," she cal ed into the kitchen. "Jacob? They're free to come and go as they like."

  She heard the kettle boil.

  The next minute he was standing in the doorway with a mug of coffee in each hand. His face was as dark as a thundercloud.

  "It was them," he said. "I know it was. We can't let them go free."