The Postcard Killers Read online

  This nugget of information woke him up properly.

  “So these are your old stomping grounds? Interesting. You’re really a hick.”

  “Until I was seventeen. I spent a year at Ådal high school in Kramfors, then went to New Zealand as an exchange student. I ended up staying there nine years.”

  Jacob looked at her.

  “Your weird English accent,” he said. “I’ve been trying to place it. Why New Zealand?”

  She glanced over at him.

  “It was as far away as I could get… from being a hick. See that? There’s the memorial to the workers who were shot by the military in nineteen thirty-one. Remember our talk, fascist?”

  She pointed to a sculpture of a horse and a running man that was just visible down by the water.

  They drove up onto Sandö Bridge, and Jacob peered down at the river below.

  “When it was built, this was the longest single-span concrete bridge in the world. I had to cross it every day to get to school.”

  “Lucky you,” Jacob said.

  “It scared me every single time, every day, twice a day. The bridge collapsed once, killing eighteen people. The most forgotten tragedy of the last century, because it happened on the afternoon of August thirty-first, nineteen thirty-nine.”

  “The day before the Second World War broke out,” Jacob said. “I have a good memory for history, too. Where are we actually going?”

  “Past Klockestrand,” she said. “It’s not far now.”

  She slowed down and turned off to the right, onto a narrow dirt road.

  “I thought we might need some expert help,” she said, driving up to a huge wooden building in a state of more or less complete ruin.

  “What the hell is this place? The House on Haunted Hill?”

  “Welcome to my childhood home,” Dessie said, switching the engine off.

  Chapter 128

  THERE WAS A FAINT light coming from a window on the ground floor, the sort of blue light that an old television set gives off.

  Dessie wondered how many of her family were there. The house was a base for her uncles, the few who were still alive, and for a number of her cousins.

  “Will anyone be awake at this time of day?” Jacob asked.

  “Granddad,” Dessie said. “He usually sleeps during the day. At night he watches old black-and-white films that he downloads illegally from the Net. Are you coming in with me?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Jacob said, climbing out of the car.

  The held each other’s hand as they walked up to the huge building.

  The structure was an old-style farmhouse, with four chimneys, two floors, and a loft tall enough to stand up in. The red iron-oxide paint had peeled off decades ago and the wooden walls shone a grayish white in the early light.

  Dessie opened the outside door without knocking and kicked off her shoes.

  Apart from the sound from the television, the house was quiet. If anyone was here besides Granddad, they were sound asleep.

  Her grandfather was sitting in his usual armchair, watching a film with Ingrid Bergman in it.

  “Granddad?”

  The old man turned around and took a quick look at her.

  Then he went right back to the television screen.

  “Drag åta dörn för moija,” he said.

  Dessie shut the outside door.

  “This is Jacob, Granddad,” she said, walking toward him, still holding Jacob by the hand.

  Her grandfather hadn’t aged much, she thought. Maybe it was because his hair had been white for as long as she could remember, and his face had always had the same miserable scowl. He didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see her in his living room for the first time since her mother’s funeral. Instead, he just glowered suspiciously at Jacob.

  “Vo jär häjna för ein?”

  “Jacob mostly does rough work,” Dessie said, taking the remote and turning off the television.

  Then she sat down on the table directly in front of the old man.

  “Granddad, I want to ask you something. If I’m on the run from the police and haven’t got any money and want to hide out in Finland, what should I do?”

  Chapter 129

  THE OLD MAN’S EYES twinkled. He cast a quick, approving look at Jacob, straightened up in his armchair, and regarded Dessie with new interest.

  “Vo håva jä djårt?”

  “What language is that?” Jacob asked, bewildered. “It doesn’t sound like any Swedish I’ve heard.”

  “Pitemål,” Dessie said. “It’s an almost extinct dialect from where he grew up. It’s further from Swedish than either Danish or Norwegian. This farm belonged to my maternal grandmother’s family. No one around here really understands him.”

  She turned to her grandfather again.

  “No,” she said, “we haven’t done anything bad. Not yet, anyway. I’m just wondering, purely hypothetically.”

  “Sko jä håva nalta å ita?”

  “Yes, please,” Dessie said. “Coffee would be good, and a sandwich, if you’ve got any cheese.”

  The old man stood up and staggered off toward the kitchen. Dessie took the opportunity to go out into the gloom of the hall and crawl in under the stairs, where the only toilet in the house was situated.

  When she got back, the old man had prepared some bread and cheese and had boiled water for instant coffee. He was sitting with his hands clasped on the wax tablecloth, his eyes squinting as he mulled over Dessie’s question.

  “Å djööm sä i Finland,” he said. “Hä gå et…”

  Dessie nodded and took a bite of the sweet bread and Port Salut.

  Then she interpreted simultaneously for Jacob so he could follow.

  Hiding in Finland wouldn’t work. The Finnish police were far more effective, and brutal, than the Swedes. Any Finns on the run came over to Sweden as quickly as they could.

  But if you absolutely had to get to Finland, that was no problem, as long as you had a freshly stolen car, of course.

  Anyone could cross the Torne River wherever they liked. There were bridges in Haparanda, Övertorneå, Pello, Kolari, Muonio, and Karesuando. Each had its advantages and disadvantages. Haparanda was the biggest and slowest, but the guards there were the laziest, so you might not get questioned. Kolari was the least used and fastest, but you were more likely to be noticed there. You had to choose your route in Morjärv—north toward Överkalix or south to Haparanda. Then you just had to aim straight for Russia as quickly as you could.

  “Russia?” Jacob said. “How far away is that?”

  “Jä nögges tjöör över Kuusamo, hä jär som rättjest…”

  “Three hundred kilometers,” Dessie said.

  “Christ,” Jacob said. “That’s nothing. Manhattan to the end of Long Island.”

  According to Dessie’s grandfather, it was hard to get into Russia, and it always had been.

  In his day, the no-man’s-land along the border had been mined with explosives, but they were all gone now. Nowadays it was the most remote boundary of the European Union. It was tricky but not impossible.

  The biggest problem wasn’t getting out of the EU, but into Russia. You had to leave the car and then walk across, maybe just north of Tammela. There was a main road on the other side of the border that would take you to Petrozavodsk, and from there to St. Petersburg.

  Dessie and Jacob sat in silence until the old man had finished.

  Then he stood up, put the coffee cups on the draining board, and wandered off toward the television again.

  “Stäng åta dörn för moija då jä gå,” he said.

  “We have to shut the door to stop the midges from getting in when we leave,” Dessie said. “I think he likes you.”

  Chapter 130

  THEY FILLED THE CAR with diesel from the farm’s illegal agricultural tank.

  Then Jacob took the wheel.

  “Where am I going?”

  “Straight on until you see ‘Suomi Finland’
on the signs,” Dessie said, putting the seat back down and stretching out.

  He aimed north and emerged onto the main road again.

  If the Rudolphs managed to reach Russia, he’d never see them again, that much he was sure of. Anyone with a lot of money could buy protection there, and anyone without it could disappear among the country’s homeless millions.

  He stiffened his grip on the wheel and pressed the accelerator. His head still felt groggy from his long nap. The car was small and sluggish, with a weirdly noisy engine. He’d never driven a diesel before.

  The landscape glided past and it really was astonishingly beautiful. Craggy cliffs falling to the sea. Blue peaks rising to the north. The road wound its way along the coast, getting ever narrower and more twisted and scenic.

  He was on his way toward the end of the world. The Rudolphs were on their way there, too.

  Dessie’s cell phone started to ring on the dashboard.

  He glanced at the woman beside him. She was fast asleep, mouth open in a narrow line.

  Jacob grabbed the phone and said, “Yeah?”

  “We’ve found the left-luggage locker,” Gabriella said. “It was in the basement of the Central Station. You were right. Both of you were.”

  He clenched his fist in triumph.

  “It contained everything you suspected: light shoes, brown wig, coat, trousers, sunglasses, Polaroid camera, a couple of packs of film, pens, stamps, postcards, eyedrops, and a really sharp stiletto knife, as well as some other stuff.”

  She fell silent.

  “What?” Jacob said. “What else was there?”

  His raised voice woke Dessie, and she sat herself up beside him.

  “We found the passports and wallets of all the murder victims—apart from Copenhagen and Athens and Salzburg.”

  He braked and stopped the car by a twenty-four-hour café. He was searching for words but couldn’t find any.

  “Your daughter’s were there,” Gabriella said quietly. “I’ve got them on the desk in front of me. Her fiancé’s as well. You’ll get them when you’re back.”

  “Okay,” he muttered.

  “You wanted to know if any cars had been stolen in northern Sweden late yesterday, didn’t you? A farmer north of Gysinge has just reported the theft of a Volvo two forty-five. A nineteen eighty-seven model, red. License number CHC four-one-one.

  “A two forty-five—that’s a sedan?”

  “A wagon. I’m sending a text message with all the details.”

  He put the car in gear and looked round. They were in a small village. A tractor trailer pulled out of the parking lot just ahead of him.

  “How far have you gotten?” Gabriella asked.

  Jacob pulled out onto the road behind a gigantic lumber truck billowing smoke.

  “Halfway. Thanks for the call,” he said.

  “I wish there were more I could have done,” Gabriella said quietly.

  Dessie looked at him.

  “Call your cousin,” Jacob said. “We have the make of the potential getaway car.”

  She took the phone.

  The sun was just rising to the north.

  Chapter 131

  THE FOREST GREW THICKER after Örnsköldsvik, and signs of habitation thinned out. Between the towns of Umeå and Skellefteå, a distance of almost 150 kilometers, Jacob hardly saw a single house. The end of the world was getting closer and closer, wasn’t it?

  In the town of Byske, the jet lag struck him like a sudden fog. The last traces of his ability to judge distances abandoned him and he woke Dessie to take over at the wheel.

  Even with the sun in his eyes, he fell into a restless sleep.

  Kimmy was there with him.

  She looked like she had when she set off for Rome. She had on her new winter coat and her yellow woolly hat. So beautiful and talented.

  Jacob could see she was upset, crying. She was standing in a glass box, banging her fists against the transparent walls and calling for him, calling for her dad. He tried to answer, but she couldn’t hear him.

  Kimmy! he shouted in the dream. I’m here! I’m coming!

  “Jacob?”

  He woke with a start.

  “What?” he said.

  “You were shouting. Having a bad dream.”

  He sat up and rubbed his eyes hard with his fists.

  The car had stopped. They were on the outskirts of a town.

  On the left was a large warehouse, and on the right, a long row of office buildings. It was full daylight, a dull sort of light, filtered through a thin cloud cover. The landscape was flat and bare, not like anything he’d ever seen before.

  “Where are we?”

  “The bridge over to the Finnish side is only a kilometer from here. Robert’s a bit closer, on the other side of the rotary. Nothing came through during the night. No red Volvo. No young couple.”

  He blinked and looked around.

  “This is Haparanda?”

  “Kyllä.”

  He looked at her, confused.

  “Finnish for yes, babe. Let’s go. Robert’s waiting for us.”

  She started the car and drove toward a large rotary with what was practically a small forest at its center.

  “He’s got men watching all the bridges across the river, and a couple at the main harbors for small boats. No one’s seen anything. Robert’s men are vigilant.”

  “Thank god for organized crime,” Jacob said.

  “Robert’s rough, but he’s a good guy.”

  A huge building with an immense parking lot spread out to the left of the car.

  “What the hell is that?” he asked.

  “That’s the most northerly IKEA in the world. And there’s Robert!”

  They stopped beside a customized Toyota Land Cruiser, the latest model. Leaning against the gleaming paintwork was a giant of a man with a blond ponytail and biceps like logs.

  Dessie hurried out of the car and threw herself into his arms. The giant received her with a big grin on his face.

  A pang of jealousy hit Jacob in the solar plexus. Slowly he got out of the car and approached the enormous man holding on to Dessie.

  Robert’s arms were covered in clumsy tattoos. He was missing two front teeth.

  He would have been perfect, just as he was, as the leader of one of Los Angeles’ infamous motorcycle gangs.

  “So you’re the American?” he said in a thick Swedish accent, holding out his paw.

  Jacob’s hand disappeared in the iron grip of the fist.

  “Yep,” he replied. “That’s me.”

  Cousin Robert pulled him closer and lowered his voice.

  “Don’t think you can hide just because you’re from the States. If you treat Dessie badly, I’ll find you.”

  “That’s good to know,” Jacob said.

  The giant let go of Jacob’s hand.

  “We’ve been keeping an eye on the junction in Morjärv all night,” Robert said. “They passed it half an hour ago in a red Volvo with false plates. They took the E-ten down toward Haparanda.”

  Jacob felt adrenaline explode throughout his body. This was it. The end of the tale, at the end of the world.

  The gangster looked at his watch, a diamond-encrusted Rolex.

  “They could be here any minute.”

  Chapter 132

  TIME NEARLY STOPPED FOR Jacob.

  He checked his cheap plastic watch every minute.

  8:14, then 8:15, then 8:16.

  The early morning mist was lingering, making the landscape seem eerie, scary-looking.

  Robert’s sidekick brought them coffee, juice, and ham sandwiches, which they ate in the car. They were both very hungry.

  “How close are you two?” Jacob asked, nodding toward the enormous man leaning on his car a hundred yards away. The car sagged from his weight.

  Dessie was doing her best to scrape the ham off the bread.

  “Robert?” she said. “He’s my favorite cousin. His mom was in and out of prison when he was young
, so he spent a lot of time with us on the farm. He’s two years younger than me, but he was always bigger and stronger than me.”

  Dessie put the sandwich down on her lap.

  “I’ve always wondered if we’re more than cousins,” she said.

  Jacob stopped chewing.

  “What do you mean?”

  She took a gulp of orange juice.

  “I don’t know who my dad is,” she said quietly. “My mother always said he was an Italian prince who would come and fetch us both one fine day. I have no idea what she meant.”

  She gave him a quick embarrassed look.

  “I know,” she said. “All a bit like a fairy tale. One of my uncles is probably my father, or maybe even Granddad himself.” She shivered and was silent.

  Jacob turned to look through the windshield. What could you say to something like that?

  Dessie stretched out as much as she could and looked in the rearview mirror.

  “Red car,” she said.

  Jacob adjusted the mirror so he could see for himself. Sure enough, a red car was approaching from behind.

  “It’s a Ford,” he said. “Four people. It’s not them. It’s probably not them.”

  Chapter 133

  THEY SAT IN SILENCE, watching the passengers as the Ford went past on its way to the border crossing: two elderly couples, the men in the front, the women in the back.

  Dessie turned to him, hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Who was Kimmy’s mother?”

  Now it was his turn to put his sandwich down.

  “Her name’s Lucy,” he said. “We grew up together in Brooklyn. She was a singer, blues and jazz, really talented. We were both eighteen when she got pregnant. When Kimmy was three months old, she left us.”

  “Left you? To do what?”

  Jacob shrugged.

  “Live another life, I guess. Drugs, money, music… The first few years, she saw Kimmy a couple of times, but that died out. It must be fifteen years since I last saw her.”

  “Does Lucy know… about Kimmy… ?”

  Jacob shook his head.

  “No. At least, I haven’t told her. I don’t know where she is. I don’t even know if she’s still alive.”