The Postcard Killers

    “It’s them,” Jacob said. “I know it is. I don’t know how they’ve done it, or what the purpose of this little charade of theirs is, but they’re guilty as fuck.”

    “And how do we prove that, sir?” Sara Hцglund said. “They’ve looked at paintings, which isn’t a crime, at least not here in Europe. They’ve been traveling around and they visited friends in their hotel room. What can we possibly charge them with? And based on what evidence?”

    Jacob recalled the reassuring hand she had laid on Sylvia Rudolph’s arm.

    “We have to go through the confiscated material more thoroughly,” he said. “There’s something there, something we’ve missed. Let me help you. Please.”

    “They turned themselves in,” Sara Hцglund said. “They’re being very cooperative. They’ve declined legal representation. They’re horrified by the deaths of their friends. And they’ve got an alibi for the murders in Athens.”

    There was an oppressive silence when she stopped talking.

    “This won’t hold,” Evert Ridderwall said. “We have to have something more than this. I can hold them until lunchtime on Saturday. Then I’ll have to let them go.”

Chapter 72

    JACOB STEPPED ONTO THE STREET. His whole body was numb and felt hollowed out.

    He couldn’t imagine a worse scenario than these two killers walking free. As if it weren’t bad enough that they had killed and humiliated their victims, they’d be able to stand there laughing at everyone afterward. He had to stop himself from kicking over a motorcycle leaning against the wall.

    “See you tomorrow,” Dessie said, walking past him with her bike helmet in her hand.

    “Wait up,” Jacob said instinctively, holding his hand out toward her.

    “Hold on…”

    She stopped, surprised.

    He looked at her, his mouth open, apparently not knowing what to say next.

Don’t go, I can’t stand being alone anymore?

I can’t go back to my prison cell at the hostel. Not tonight?

They’re laughing at me, can’t you hear them laughing at me?

    “Jacob,” the journalist said, walking over to him. “What’s wrong? I mean, I know what’s wrong in a particular sense, but what’s wrong?”

    He made an effort to breathe normally.

    “There are… a few things I’ve been wondering about. Have you got a couple of minutes?”

    She hesitated.

    “It won’t take long,” he said. “You’ve got to eat anyway, haven’t you? I’ll pay tonight. I’ll even make an effort to be civil.”

    “I’m so exhausted. I need to go home. We can get something along the way.”

Chapter 73

    THEY HEADED OFF DOWN TOWARD the Central Station side by side.

    “What does it mean that the Rudolphs are being held according to Swedish law?” Jacob asked.

    “The prosecutor can hold them for up to three days.”

    “Can they post bail?”

    “No, we don’t have that sort of system here. Have you ever eaten a flatbread roll?”

    “A what?”

    They stopped at a little kiosk selling hot dogs and hamburgers. Dessie ordered something in her incomprehensible language and let him pay for whatever it was.

    Gradually the solid panic inside him started to let go and open up some.

    “Here you are,” Dessie said.

    She handed him a sort of pancake filled with mashed potato, hamburger dressing, grilled hot dog, chopped dill pickle, onion, mustard, ketchup, and prawn mayonnaise, and all wrapped in foil.

    “Jeezuz,” he said.

    “Just eat,” Dessie said. “It’s really good.”

    “I thought you didn’t eat meat,” Jacob said.

    She looked at him in surprise.

    “How’d you know that?”

    He took a deep breath and tried to relax his shoulders.

    “Just something I noticed, I guess. What do you think of the Rudolphs?

    Are they our Postcard Killers?”

    “Probably,” she said. “Mine’s vegetarian, by the way.”

    They sat on the bench inside a bus shelter and ate the sticky rolls. Jacob, who considered himself an expert in junk food, had to admit she was right: it was really good.

    He wolfed it down and thought he might even have another hot-dog-withmashed-potatoes thing. Dessie Larsson had a calming effect on him. He’d known that almost from the beginning, but he’d never felt it more than he did right now. He looked at this woman next to him in the yellow glow of the streetlights.

    She was actually very beautiful without being conspicuously pretty. Her profile was classically clean and simple. She didn’t seem to wear any makeup at all, not even mascara.

    “What makes you think they’re guilty?” he asked, studying her reaction. She glanced at him and wiped her mouth with a napkin.

    “The bodies,” she said. “We know they’re arranged as works of art, and the Rudolphs are art students. I don’t know, but there’s something there, in that mix of art and reality. Also, I don’t believe them, especially her.”

    He threw the foil wrapping and the small remains of mashed potato into the bus shelter’s trash bin.

    “What do you mean, ‘that mix of art and reality’? Either it’s art or it’s reality, right?”

    Dessie gave him a serious look.