The Postcard Killers

    “How long have you been married?”

    The young woman opened her eyes wide, then burst out laughing. Dessie and Jacob looked at each other again.

    “Married! We’re not married. Mac’s my twin brother.”

Part Two

Chapter 69

    DESSIE PHONED FORSBERG AT THE paper once Sylvia Rudolph had been taken back to her cell.

    “How’s it going?” the news editor asked. “Have they confessed yet?”

    “You know I can’t answer that. I’m not here as a reporter,” Dessie said.

    “What’s the reaction at the paper?”

    “We’ve got extra pages in all of tomorrow’s editions. This is huge. Everyone’s totally focused. We’ve got newspapers around the world contacting us. There’s even a guy from the New York Times sitting at your desk. I hope you don’t mind him borrowing it…”

    “I meant the reaction to my letter and the two murders. I can see I’m getting a whole load of crap on the Net.”

    “Oh, that. Well, no one’s bothered about that.”

    “Come on,” Dessie said. “What are people really saying?”

    Forsberg hesitated.

    “Alexander Andersson is upset and going around talking a load of rubbish. He’s saying that you’re ‘unethical’ and ‘desperate for headlines’ and quite a lot of other stuff, but that’s nothing to worry about. He’s just jealous of the attention you’re getting.”

    Dessie closed her eyes.

    She knew it would turn out like this. She told them it would.

    “Are they saying anything in the proper media?”

    Forsberg sighed.

    “Forget about all this, Dessie. The killers have been caught. Everyone’s happy. Go have a beer or something.”

    He hung up.

The killers have been caught. Everyone’s happy. Dessie desperately wished it were that simple.

Chapter 70

    AT 8.30 THAT EVENING, SYLVIA Rudolph volunteered that she had new information for the police. The interrogation resumed at her own request. Her face was paler now, and she had obviously been crying.

    “I don’t really want to say this,” she said, “because I don’t like gossip. But I can see we’re in a serious situation here, and I can no longer protect…”

    She fell quiet, hesitating about whatever she was going to say next.

    “Who are you protecting?” Sara Hцglund said gently. “You have to tell us now.”

    Sylvia Rudolph discreetly wiped away a tear. Then she took a deep breath.

    “I didn’t tell you the whole truth earlier,” she said, and Jacob and all the others in the control room leaned toward the screen at the same time.

    “We didn’t set out for Europe just to look at art. I had to get away from Los Angeles, and Mac offered to come with me.”

    Mats Duvall and Sara Hцglund waited in silence for her to go on.

    “There’s someone who wants to hurt me,” she said in a very quiet voice.

    “He’s an old boyfriend, although if you ask him, he’ll say we’re still together. He just can’t accept the fact that I am finished with him. He… used to hit me. He can’t stay away from me.”

    Sylvia Rudolph started to cry softly.

    Sara Hцglund put a reassuring hand on her arm.

    “It feels awful to say something so bad about another person,” the young woman went on, taking the police chief’s hand and squeezing it.

    “But I really think Billy is capable of doing anything if it would hurt me. He might have followed me to Europe.”

Chapter 71

    THE INVESTIGATING TEAM WAS GATHERED in Mats Duvall’s office. They made a hollow-eyed, determined crowd as they settled on the sofas and chairs.

    “We’ve gone through their hotel room in the Amaranten,” the superintendent said. “A preliminary search hasn’t re-vealed anything that can help our case. Quite the reverse, in fact…”

    He looked through his papers.

    “Malcolm Rudolph really was tested for salmonella on February ninth in Madrid, the same day the murders in Athens were committed. Here’s the receipt.”

    Jacob shut his eyes, covering them with his hand. He almost couldn’t bear to hear any more.

    Mats Duvall went on to summarize the state of the investigation: No drugs had been found in the hotel room, neither marijuana nor any muscle relaxant containing cyclopentolate. No weapons had been found. No knives or scalpels. Inquiries at the 7-Eleven shop on Vдsterlеnggatan confirmed that one of their computers had been used at lunchtime on Tuesday to book a Helsinki cruise with Silja Line for four people. The four passengers were Peter Visser, Nienke van Mourik, Sylvia Rudolph, and Malcolm Rudolph. No stolen property, neither that of the victims in Sweden nor from anywhere else in Europe, had been found, and no champagne. In fact, there was nothing to suggest that Sylvia or Malcolm Rudolph had ever been in contact with any of the other murder victims.

    A response from Berlin indicated that no trace of the Rudolph siblings had been found at any of the European crime scenes.

    On the other hand, their fingerprints were found in various places in the room in the Grand Hotel.

    There was complete silence after the superintendent finished with his list.

    “Reactions?”