The Postcard Killers

    “Have you heard from the police today?” he asked “What are they saying?

Tell me.”

    Dessie looked over her shoulder into the newsroom, then took a firm grip of the man’s arm and pulled him toward the outside door.

    “Your credibility is already pretty low,” she said, pushing him into the revolving door. “You won’t make it any better by standing here shouting at poor Albert. And whatever did you break?”

    They emerged into the sunshine.

    “A wooden bench,” the American said sullenly. “It hit one of the radiators.”

    She gave him a skeptical look, then burst out laughing.

    “You’re crazy,” she said.

Chapter 34

    SHE FELT HIM LOOKING STRANGELY at her as they walked off in the direction of Fridhemsplan.

    They went into an empty taxi drivers’ cafй a few hundred meters from the newspaper office.

    “I’m serious,” the policeman said as they sat down in a corner with their coffee. “The Swedish police are way too rigid in their thinking. They’ll never catch the killers if they carry on like this. They’re acting like amateurs. Trust me on this.”

    Dessie stirred her coffee, the spoon clinking noisily against the china. If anyone was being rigid, it was she. Her behavior in the newsroom just now wasn’t exactly smart. She had to stop being so blunt, and finally, dumb.

    “I can’t help you,” she said. “I’m not even working on the killings for the paper. There are other people assigned to the story.”

    Jacob Kanon leaned across the table, his eyes sparkling brilliantly again.

    “Can’t you try to get back on the story?”

    Dessie looked at the American. His interest in the case was beyond dispute. Unlike her he was dedicated, he had a burning passion, he had a purpose to what he was doing.

    What did she have to lose by writing a few commonplace articles about murder? Doing some normal interviews like any good reporter.

    “Maybe I could interview you about Kimmy,” she said thoughtfully. That wasn’t actually a bad idea. A father in mourning speaking out, his grief for a much-loved daughter…

    She reached for her pen and notepad.

    “Tell me what Kimmy was like as a girl. How you reacted when you found out she was -”

    Jacob Kanon smashed his fist on the table so hard the cups jumped. Dessie dropped her pen with a start.

    The waitress behind the counter glanced quickly in their direction, then looked away again. Whatever this was, she didn’t need any of it.

    “I’m not giving any interviews about Kimmy,” Jacob said. Dessie sat in silence for several moments before she spoke.

    “I just meant as a way of -”

    “I’m a homicide detective,” he interrupted. “I talk to people, I attempt to solve crimes, but I don’t do interviews. Not about anything.”

    “I don’t want to ask you in your capacity as a policeman, but as a father.”

    He looked at her with his strange, piercing eyes. Then he grabbed his sports bag. He pulled out a bundle of papers and slapped a photocopy on the table between them.

“This is Kimmy,” he said.

    Dessie heard herself gasp.

Chapter 35

    TWO YOUNG PEOPLE LAY DEAD as if broken on the floor of a hotel room.

    Their throats had been cut with the same brutality as in the murders on Dalarц. The wounds gaped dark red, the floor was drowning in blood. Dessie’s mouth went dry again and her pulse was racing in a terrifying way.

    “The blood’s still bright, fresh,” Dessie said. “They were alive just a few minutes before.”

    “Yes, that’s correct,” said Jacob, “they’d just died.”

    She forced her breathing to stay calm, regular. It wasn’t really helping. Jacob put another picture in front of her.

    “Karen and Billy Cowley,” he said. “Look at them, Dessie. What do you see?”

    The young Australian couple who had come to Europe to get over the death of their young son hadn’t just had their throats cut. They were sitting upright, side by side, their heads leaning back against what must have been the head of a bed. Their left eyeballs had been stabbed, blood and fluid running like red mascara from the sockets.

    “The couple in Amsterdam had their right ears cut off,” Jacob said, putting a third picture in front of her. “Their names were Lindsay and Jeffrey Holborn.”

    She looked at the pictures, forcing herself to see beyond the blood and violence.

    “They’re telling us something,” Jacob said angrily. “The killers are talking through these pictures. I’m sure of it. Look at this one, from Florence.”

    A double bed: a young woman on the left, a young man on the right. The picture was taken from above, which meant the photographer must have been standing on the bed, right between the dead bodies.

    “What do you see?” Jacob asked.

    The man and woman were lying in the same position, their bent legs parallel a little to the left, their right hands on their ribcages and their left ones over their genitals.

    “They couldn’t have been lying like this when they died,” she said. Jacob nodded.

    “I know,” he said, “but why?”

    Dessie picked up the picture from Paris. The two victims were sitting with their hands on their stomachs.