The Postcard Killers

    “Good god,” he said. “Are those… are those… people?”

    Her reply was needlessly harsh. It just came out that way.

    “Not anymore. Look at the way they’re positioned. Doesn’t it remind you of anything? Where have I seen that before?”

    “For heaven’s sake,” he said, shutting his eyes, shaking his head. “Take it away.”

    “No,” Dessie said. “Take a proper look. Please. Look at the man.”

    She helped Christer sit down on the floor. He was breathing deeply and had to put his head between his knees for a few seconds.

    “Let’s see,” he said, taking the picture, looking at it for a couple of seconds, then pushing it away again.

    “The Dying Dandy,” he said. “Nils Dardel, nineteen eighteen. It’s in the Museum of Modern Art.”

    Dessie closed her eyes, seeing the painting before her. Of course! It floated up from her memory. She knew exactly which painting it was. She leaned over and kissed her ex-husband on the cheek.

    “Thank you,” she whispered. “This may save lives, Christer.”

Chapter 47

    DESSIE CAUGHT HER BREATH AS she locked her bicycle outside the entrance to the Museum of Modern Art on the island of Skeppsholmen. The yellow building was glowing in the sunlight, making her squint just to look up at it.

    She didn’t think she’d been here since her divorce from Christer. She went into the upper entry hall, into an environment similar to her exhusband’s gallery: pristine white, harsh lighting. It looked just as she remembered it, the glass walls, the espresso bar, the chrome lamps. She and Christer had been to a party here in the foyer just a few weeks before their marriage came to an end.

    She went up to the information desk, staffed by a tall woman in an allblack outfit.

    “Excuse me,” Dessie said. “I’m trying to find a painting called The DyingDandy.”

    “Eighty kronor,” the woman said.

    Of course, the new right-wing government had abolished free entry to Sweden’s museums.

    Dessie paid.

    “You’re on the right floor. Just follow the corridor to the left as far as you can, then take a right and then the first left again,” said the woman in black.

    Dessie couldn’t remember the reason for the party she had attended with Christer. It was probably someone’s birthday, or someone new had managed to get an exhibition at the Modern.

    She suppressed the memory and headed off along the long corridor beyond the espresso bar.

    The museum was almost empty at this early hour. She could hear people talking from deep within the catacombs but saw no one, not a soul. It wasn’t just newspapers but also an appreciation for art that was on the decline, even here in Sweden.

    Eventually she found the right room.

    There it was! She recognized it immediately.

TheDying Dandy, oil on canvas, one and a half meters tall, almost two meters across. One of the most famous Swedish paintings of the last century.

Chapter 48

    DESSIE STOPPED IN FRONT OF the painting, oddly moved. It was an impressive creation, with its sweeping shapes and strong colors: the narcissistic man lies dying on his white cushion, a mirror still in his hand. His equally affected friends are gathered around him. They’re mourning, but the only one in tears is the man in the purple jacket and orange shirt up in the left-hand corner.

    The woman holding him and the white cushion on her lap looks almost amused.

    There was no doubt about it now: this was the model for the murders on Dalarц.

    The killers must have known the painting. Maybe they’d been here. Maybe they’d stood exactly where she was standing now, pondering Dardel’s work: Was it an allegory about the act of creativity? Or was Dardel holding up a forbidden image of homosexuality?

    A thought ran like fire through her brain. She took a deep breath, looking up at the ceiling, then felt the adrenaline kick in.

    Up in one corner, right above the door, was a discreet surveillance camera.

    Right now, her image was being captured somewhere.

    She took out her mobile and called Gabriella at police headquarters.

Chapter 49

    DESSIE WAS HOLDING UP THE color reproduction of Dardel’s masterpiece in one hand and the photograph from Dalarц in the other. Her hunch had to be right. Jeez, she was better at this than the police!

    Gabriella’s desk was covered with Jacob’s postcards and the photographs of the bodies. Beside them were pictures Dessie had printed from the Internet. Gabriella looked at the pictures one by one, her eyes opening wider and wider.

    “God,” she said, picking up the picture of the murdered Germans, “you’re right, Dessie.”

    “Sorry,” said Jacob, “but what are you talking about?”

    Dessie looked at his unruly mop of hair. He looked like he’d been quite literally tearing it out. Suddenly she felt so sorry for him, for his pain, his terrible loss.

    “The killers arrange the bodies to imitate famous works of art,” she said.

    “Look at this one, Jacob.”

    Dessie picked up the photograph from Paris. Emily and Clive Spencer’s bodies were sitting side by side in bed, both with their right hand over the left resting on their stomachs.