The Postcard Killers Read online

  Emily’s mother hadn’t been able to stop crying when Jacob talked to her on the phone.

  He could neither comfort nor help her. He wasn’t even formally involved in the case, after all. As an American police officer, he had to be careful not to get involved in the work done by the authorities in other countries.

  That could have diplomatic consequences and, even worse, could lead to his expulsion from the country.

  A wave of despondency washed over Jacob with a force that took his breath away and made the mug of wine in his hand shake.

  He quickly emptied it of its contents and went and poured some more. Pathetic, he knew.

  He sat down at the desk once again, his back to all the photographs and postcards so that he didn’t have to look at them.

  Maybe he should go and shower. Head down to the communal bathroom at the end of the corridor in the hope that there was some hot water left. Did he even have any soap? Christ, had he even used soap since he arrived in Berlin?

  He drank some more wine.

  When the bottle was empty, he picked up the pictures of the dead couple from Rome. He placed them in front of him on the desk and put his 9-millimeter Glock 26 beside them, just as he always did.

  The killers had sent two pictures of the murder in Rome: one image of the two naked victims and a close-up of two of their hands.

  The woman’s left and the man’s right.

  He picked up the picture of the hands and traced the shape of the woman’s graceful hand with his finger, smiling as it reached the birthmark at the base of her thumb.

  She played the piano, was an expert on Franz Liszt.

  He breathed out deeply, let go of the picture, and picked up his gun.

  He ran the palm of his hand over the dull plastic of the grip and put the muzzle in his mouth. It tasted of powder and metal.

  He closed his eyes and the room slid gently to the left, the result of far too much Riesling.

  No, Jacob thought. Not yet. I’m not done here yet.

  Chapter 4

  Friday, June 11

  Stockholm, Sweden

  THE POSTCARD LAY NEXT TO a harmless invitation to a boules tournament—the newsroom against a rival newsroom—and another invitation to a wine-tasting evening with the culture crowd.

  Dessie Larsson groaned out loud and tossed the cards for the pointless social events into the recycling bin. If people paid more attention to their work instead of playing with balls and scratching one another’s back, maybe this newspaper would have a future.

  She was about to get rid of the postcard the same way but stopped and picked it up.

  Who sent postcards these days, anyway?

  She looked at the card.

  The picture on the front was of Stortorget, the main square in Stockholm’s Old Town. The sun was shining and the sky was blue. People were eating ice cream on the benches, and the fountain in the middle was purling with water. Two cars, a Saab and a Volvo, stood parked in front of the entrance to the Stock Exchange Building.

  Dessie turned the card over.

  TO BE OR NOT TO BE

  IN STOCKHOLM

  THAT IS THE QUESTION

  WE’LL BE IN TOUCH

  What sort of insane crap was this?

  She turned the card over and looked at the picture once more, as if it might give her a clue to the cryptic words on the back.

  Ice cream was licked, water purled. Neither the Volvo nor the Saab had moved.

  People need to get a life, she thought as she tossed the card into the recycling bin.

  Then she went over to her desk in the crime section.

  “Has anything happened in Stockholm today? Anything at all?” she asked Forsberg, her dumpy, disheveled news editor, as she put her backpack on the desk and set her bicycle helmet down next to it.

  Forsberg looked up over his glasses for a fraction of a second, then went back to the newspaper in front of him.

  “Hugo Bergman has written a big piece. The People’s Party want a European FBI. And they’ve found another pair of young lovers murdered. In Berlin this time.”

  What sort of nonsense has Hugo Bergman come up with now? Dessie thought, sitting down at her desk. She took her laptop out of her backpack and logged into the paper’s network.

  “Anything you want me to do more work on, boss man?” she wondered out loud, clicking on the news about the double murder in Berlin.

  “Talk about sick bastards, these killers,” the news editor said. “What the hell’s wrong with people like that?”

  “Don’t ask me. I specialize in petty criminals,” Dessie said. “Not serial killers. Nothing big and important like that.”

  Forsberg stood up to get a cup of coffee from the machine.

  The victims in Berlin were Australians, Dessie read. Karen and William Cowley, both twenty-three and married for a couple of years. They’d come to Europe to get over the death of their infant son. Instead, they had run into the notorious murderers who were killing couples all over Europe.

  The postcard had been sent to a journalist at a local paper. The picture was of the site of Hitler’s bunker, and there had been a Shakespeare quote on the back.

  Dessie suddenly gasped. She felt almost like she was having a heart attack, or how she imagined that might feel.

  To be or not to be…

  Her eyes were pinned to the recycling bin in front of her.

  “Forsberg,” she said, sounding considerably calmer than she felt. “I think they’ve arrived in Stockholm.”

  Chapter 5

  “SO, DESSIE, YOU’VE NO IDEA why the postcard was sent to you in particular?”

  The police had taken over the conference room behind the sports desk.

  Police superintendent Mats Duvall sat on the other side of the table, looking at her through a pair of designer glasses.

  An old-fashioned tape recorder, the sort that actually used a cassette, was slowly winding on the table in front of her.

  “Not the faintest idea,” Dessie said. “I don’t get it at all. No.”

  The newsroom was cordoned off. A team of forensics officers had taken the postcard, photographed it, and sent it off for analysis. After that, they had laid siege to the mail room.

  Dessie didn’t understand what they were expecting to find there, but they had a whole arsenal of equipment with them.

  “Have you written any articles about this? Have you reported on any of the other murders around Europe?”

  She shook her head.

  The superintendent looked at her coolly.

  “Can I ask you to reply verbally so that your response gets picked up on the tape?”

  Dessie sat up in her chair and cleared her throat.

  “No,” she said, a little too loudly. “No, I’ve never written about these murders.”

  “Is there anything else you might have done to provoke them into contacting you specifically?”

  “My obvious charm and flexibility?” she suggested.

  Duvall tapped away at a small gadget that Dessie assumed was some sort of electronic notepad. His fingers were long and thin, the nails well manicured. He was dressed in a suit, a pink shirt, and a gray-on-blue striped tie.

  “Let’s move on to you: how long have you been working here at Aftonposten?”

  Dessie clasped her hands in her lap.

  “Almost three years,” she said. “Part-time. I do research when I’m not here.”

  “Research? Can I ask what in?”

  “I’m a trained criminologist, specializing in property crime. And I’ve done the extension course in journalism at Stockholm University, so I’m a trained journalist as well. And right now I’m writing my doctoral thesis…. Glad you asked?”

  She had let the sentence about her thesis trail off. Focusing on the social consequences of small-scale property break-ins, it had been placed on the back burner—to put it mildly. She hadn’t written a word of it in over two years.

  “Would you describe yourself as a high-profil
e or famous reporter?” the superintendent asked.

  Dessie let out a rather inappropriate laugh, partly through her mouth, partly her nose.

  “Hardly.” She recovered slightly. “I never write about the news. I come up with my own stories. For instance, I had an interview with Burglar Bengt in yesterday’s paper. He’s Sweden’s ‘most notorious’ burglar. Found guilty of breaking into three hundred eighteen properties, and that doesn’t include—”

  Superintendent Duvall interrupted her, leaning in closer across the table.

  “The usual scenario is that the people who sent the postcard carry on a correspondence with the journalist. You may get more mail from the killers.”

  “If you don’t catch them first,” she said.

  She met the policeman’s gaze. His eyes were calm, inscrutable behind his shiny glasses. She couldn’t tell if she liked or disliked him. Not that it mattered.

  “We don’t know the killers’ motives,” he said. “I’ve spoken to the security division, but we don’t think you need personal protection for the time being. Do you think you need it?”

  A shiver ran up Dessie’s spine.

  “No,” she said. “No personal protection.”

  Chapter 6

  SYLVIA AND MAC WERE STROLLING happily, arm in arm, through the medieval heart of Stockholm.

  The narrow cobblestoned streets wound between irregular buildings that appeared to lean toward one another. The sun was blazing in a cloud-free sky, prompting Mac to take off his shirt. Sylvia stroked his flat stomach and kissed him passionately on the mouth and elsewhere.

  The streets opened out and they emerged onto a little triangular square with an ancient tree at its center. Some pretty, blond girls were jumping rope on the cobbles. Two old men were playing chess on a park bench.

  The huge canopy of the tree cast shadows over the whole square, filtering the sunlight onto the cobbles and facades of the houses. They each bought an ice cream and sat down on an ornate park bench that could have been there beneath the tree for hundreds of years.

  “What an amazing trip this is. What an adventure we’re having,” Sylvia said. “No one has ever lived life like this.”

  The air was clear, crystal clear, and birds were singing in the branches above them. There was no urban noise, just the girls’ laughter and the rhythmic sound of the jump rope hitting the cobbles.

  The square was an oasis surrounded by five-hundred-year-old buildings in muted colors, their hand-blown windows shimmering.

  “Shall we do the National Museum or the Museum of Modern Art first?” Sylvia asked, stretching out along the length of the bench, her head in Mac’s lap, as she leafed through her guidebook.

  “Modern,” he said between bites of his ice cream. “I’ve always wanted to see Rauschenberg’s goat.”

  They took the street north out of the square and passed a huge statue of St. George and the Dragon. A minute later they were down on the quayside again, opposite the sailing yacht af Chapman, which was lying at anchor off the island of Skeppsholmen.

  “There’s water everywhere in this city,” Mac said, amazed.

  Sylvia pointed to the island directly behind the Grand Hôtel.

  “Are we walking, or shall we take a steamer?”

  Mac pulled her close and kissed her.

  “I’ll go anywhere, anyhow, any way, as long as I can be with you.”

  She pushed her hands down under his belt and stroked his bare buttocks.

  “You look like a Greek god,” she whispered, “with a very nice tan.”

  In the Museum of Modern Art the first thing they looked at was Rauschenberg’s world-famous piece Monogram, a stuffed angora goat with a white-painted car tire around its middle.

  Mac was ecstatic to see it in person.

  “I think this is a self-portrait,” he said, lying down flat on the floor alongside the goat’s glass case. “Rauschenberg saw himself as a rudely treated animal in the big city. Look at what it’s standing on, a mass of found objects, newspaper clippings about astronauts, tightrope walkers, and the stock fucking exchange.”

  Sylvia smiled at his enthusiasm.

  “I think all of his ‘combines’ are a kind of narrative about the big city,” she said. “Maybe he wants to say something about how human beings are always trying to master new environments.”

  When Mac was done with his veneration, they went on to look at the Swedish art.

  At the back of the Modern, through one long corridor and a couple of shorter ones, they found the motif for the next murders.

  “Perfect,” Mac said.

  “Now all we have to do is find two people in love,” Sylvia said. “Just like us.”

  Chapter 7

  DESSIE LARSSON DRAGGED HER RACING bike through the lobby of her ancient apartment building and chained it to the drainpipe in the courtyard.

  The bike ride through Stockholm City Centre had not managed to blow away her sense of unease. The intense questioning had taken up most of the day. The police had gone through every article she had written since the first murder took place in Florence eight months ago.

  Whatever it was that had made the killers choose her as the recipient of the postcard, there was no obvious explanation in any of the articles.

  Superintendent Duvall had looked completely frustrated when he let her leave.

  She wandered back into the lobby, ignored the elevator, and took the stairs up to the third floor. The leaded windows facing onto the courtyard made the staircase gloomy in the half-light. Her steps echoed between the stone walls.

  She had just reached her apartment and pulled her keys out of her backpack when she froze.

  There was a man standing in the shadows by her neighbor’s door. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

  “Dessie Larsson?”

  She dropped her keys and they landed on the marble floor with a clatter. Her mouth was dry, her legs ready to run.

  He had a beard and long hair, and he smelled. He put his hand inside his jacket and Dessie felt her knees about to buckle.

  I’m going to die.

  He’s going to pull out a big butcher’s knife and cut my throat.

  And I never did find out who my father was.

  The man held a small disk toward her, a blue-and-yellow badge with the letters NYPD on it.

  “My name’s Jacob Kanon,” he said in English. “I’m sorry I scared you. I’m on the homicide unit in the Thirty-second Precinct of Manhattan, in New York City.”

  She looked at the disk. Was that supposed to be an American police badge? She had seen them on television only. This one looked like it could easily have been bought in a toyshop.

  “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.”