The Postcard Killers

    She could see her mother in front of her, Eivor, her dear, sweet mom, born in 1938, the same year as Dйsirйe Elizabeth Sibylla, the second-youngest of the Haga princesses, the “Hagacesses,” daughter of Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf and his wife, Sibylla av Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha. Princess Dйsirйe was Eivor’s great role model, so it was obvious that that was what her daughter would be called.

    “It’s a beautiful name,” Jacob said.

    She laughed.

    “You can imagine how much fun it was being called Dйsirйe when you’re ten years old and living in dalen. ‘Dйsirйe, have you got diarrhea?’”

    “Poor Dйsirйe,” said Jacob, stroking her hair, then her face, his fingers lingering.

    “It was lucky my cousin Robert from Kalix came to visit sometimes,”

    Dessie said, lifting her face to look at Jacob’s. “Robert was big and strong, and he protected me.”

    He kissed her, and she felt an immediate little shiver between her legs. She felt him react the same way.

    She rolled over to sit on top of him and nibbled gently at his earlobe, then his cheek.

    If this was wrong, how come it felt so right?

    Dessie kissed Jacob’s eyes one at a time.

Chapter 89

Friday, June 18

    SHE WAS WOKEN BY a muffled electronic noise. It was coming from somewhere beneath them, and she waited quietly until the annoying sound stopped.

    Carefully she laid her head back on Jacob’s chest and breathed in his smell, a combination of sweat and aftershave. Everything was quiet. The sun was already high in the sky, drowning the little room in white light. Dessie wondered how long she had been asleep.

    An hour, maybe two.

    She wanted to lie here forever. Never have to get up from this bed or leave this man, never do anything else for the rest of her life but make love to him until the day they died, or possibly until the lack of caffeine made her change her mind.

    It would soon be unbearably hot in here. In his cell. That much was a certainty.

    She wriggled her way out of his embrace, pulled herself up on one elbow, and looked at his sleeping face.

    He looked so young when his face was relaxed and all his worries were far away.

    His hair curled over his forehead and spread out on the pillow. He couldn’t have had it cut for at least six months.

    Not since Kimmy. She thought about Jacob’s daughter now, picturing her face. How unbearably sad to lose her like that… to outlive your own child. The electronic noise started up again, longer and more persistent this time. It was her cell phone.

    Damn, it was in her knapsack, which had slid under the bed the night before, during their somewhat chaotic entry into the little room. She waited until it stopped buzzing. Jacob stirred in his sleep beside her. She leaned over the edge of the bed, pulled out the knapsack, and fished out her phone.

    One missed call.

    One new message.

    She clicked on the message.

    It was a news flash from the main Swedish news agency, short and concise as usual.

    She gasped, “Oh, no.”

    Jacob’s heavy breathing stopped and she realized he was awake. She’d woken him. She felt his warm hand on her back, a caress that carried the promise of something more.

    She turned to face him, meeting his radiant eyes.

    His smile faded when he saw the look on her face.

    “What is it?” he said. “What’s happened?”

    Oh god, oh god, how was she going to tell him?

    He sat up so abruptly that he hit his head on the top bunk. “Just say it, for god’s sake!”

    She shrank from his words.

    “They’re out,” she said. “Ridderwall has let the Postcard Killers go free.”

Chapter 90

    DESSIE HELD HER ARMS out to him, wanting to catch him as he fell into despair at the news. She wanted to hold his face in her hands and reassure him that everything would sort itself out, that this was just a mad, stupid mistake, that Kimmy would get justice and he would be able to move on with his life, and that the rest of his life started right here in this bed with her. But Jacob leapt up from the bunk, making his way across her and stumbling onto the floor.

    He grabbed his jeans, pulling them on without bothering with his underwear.

    “You can’t change the decision,” Dessie said, forcing herself to sound calm and collected. “There’s nothing you can do about it.”

    His hair was a mess, still damp with sweat. His face was almost completely drained of color.

    “No,” he said, pulling his black T-shirt over his head. “But I can follow them. So that’s what I’m going to do, right to the ends of the damn earth, if I’m not there already…”

    Dessie sat up in bed now, lifting the covers over her breasts, suddenly very conscious of her nakedness. She felt incredibly vulnerable, too. A little sad.

    “They were let out at six this morning, to avoid the media. They could be halfway across the Atlantic by now. They could be anywhere.”

    He pushed his feet into his shoes without bothering to untie them and tugged his suede jacket on. Then he stopped by the door, hesitating.

    “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean… I’m just sorry!”