The Postcard Killers

    Right now, though, she would have given anything to get out of going. Several weeks ago she had been contacted by Hugo Bergman, a successful crime writer and columnist, who needed help with the credibility of one of his characters: an incorrigible petty thief who had ended up the victim of a global conspiracy. As partial thanks for her work, he had offered to take her out to dinner.

    Flattered, she had said yes. Hugo Bergman was famous, rich, and fairly good-looking. Also, he’d invited her to the Opera Cellar, one of the fanciest eateries in town.

    She parked her bike outside the entrance, the smell of the corpses from Dalarц still in her nostrils. She took off her helmet, let her long hair down, and went in.

    In her shapeless trousers and sweaty top, she was as wrongly dressed as she could have been, but there had been no time to go home and change for dinner.

    The maоtre d’ showed her to the table. The magnificent dining room with its cut-glass chandeliers, painted ceiling, and tall candles made her feel messy and clumsy, like the country bumpkin she often felt that she was since coming to Stockholm.

Chapter 27

    “DESSIE,” HUGO BERGMAN SAID, HIS face lighting up. He stood and kissed her on both cheeks in the continental fashion. Dessie gave a forced smile.

    “Sorry I’m late, and a mess,” she said, “but I’ve been out at a double murder all day.”

    “Ah,” Hugo Bergman said. “These stupid editors. Blood and death, their daily bread. But who am I to moralize?”

    Bergman laughed at his own joke.

    “It was really rough,” Dessie said, sitting down. “The victims, a young couple from Hamburg.”

    “Let’s not talk about that anymore,” the author said as he poured red wine into the glass in front of her. She noticed that the bottle was half empty.

    “I’ve already ordered,” he said, putting his glass down. “I hope you eat meat.”

    Dessie smiled again.

    “I’m afraid I don’t,” she said. “I’m against the commercial exploitation of animals.”

   Hugo Bergman inspected the wine list.

    “Well,” he said. “You can eat the mashed potatoes. They haven’t been exploited. What about this one, the Chвteau Pichon-Longueville-Baron from nineteen ninety-five?”

    This last sentence was directed at the waiter who had silently glided up to their table.

    Bergman turned back to her. “Did you read my article about the workload of public prosecutors, by the way? Goodness, I’ve had a really positive response to it.”

    Dessie continued to smile until her mouth was starting to ache. She really was trying. Tossing her hair and fluttering her eyelashes, she listened attentively and laughed politely at the writer’s attempts to be witty and sophisticated.

    The food was good, or at least the mashed potatoes were. Bergman got more and more drunk from the ridiculously expensive wines he went through. He actually had some difficulty locating the dotted line when it came to signing the credit-card bill.

    “You’re a very beautiful woman, Dessie Larsson,” he slurred when they came out into Kungstrдdgеrden in front of the restaurant. His heavy breath struck her in the face.

    “Thank you,” she said, unlocking her bicycle, “for everything.”

    “I’d love to see you again,” he said, and tried to kiss her. Quickly Dessie put on her bike helmet, thinking, That ought to work as a passion killer. But Bergman didn’t give up so easily.

    “I’ve got a writer’s pad in the Old Town,” he slurred at her. “A penthouse…”

    Dessie took a quick step to the side and got on her bike.

    “Thanks for a fantastic evening,” she said, turning her back on him and pedaling off.

    It was so bloody typical. Anyone who was interested in her was a control freak, a self-obsessed idiot, or a single-minded sex maniac. She glanced back over her shoulder when she reached the next intersection. Hugo Bergman was standing there swaying where she had left him, fumbling with his mobile phone. He had probably forgotten about her already.

    “Asshole,” she whispered into the wind. “It’s your loss.”

    It was a cool, still evening. The clouds had drifted away and the sky was light even though it was after eleven.

    People were walking along the quayside, talking and laughing. The sidewalk bars were open, offering blankets and halogen heaters to anyone feeling cold.

    She breathed the white summer night into her lungs and cycled slowly past the Royal Palace, crossed the intersection at Slussen, and then stood up on the pedals to climb up Gцtgatsbacken.

    She carried the bike up the steps to Urvдdersgrдnd, unlocked the door, and parked it in the courtyard.

    She had time to unlock and open the door to her apartment before she noticed the man standing watching her from the shadows.

Chapter 28

    SHE HEARD HERSELF GASP. THAT was starting to become a habit, a very bad one.

    “I’ve done what you said,” Jacob Kanon said, stepping toward her with his arms outstretched.

    She looked at him. He had shaved and washed his hair.

    “H and M,” he explained.

    He was wearing the same jeans, the same jacket, but possibly a new Tshirt. It was hard to tell: it was black, just like the previous one.