The Postcard Killers

“Drag еta dцrn fцr moija,” he said.

    Dessie shut the outside door.

    “This is Jacob, Granddad,” she said, walking toward him, still holding Jacob by the hand.

    Her grandfather hadn’t aged much, she thought. Maybe it was because his hair had been white for as long as she could remember, and his face had always had the same miserable scowl. He didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see her in his living room for the first time since her mother’s funeral. Instead, he just glowered suspiciously at Jacob.

“Vo jдr hдjna fцr ein?”

    “Jacob mostly does rough work,” Dessie said, taking the remote and turning off the television.

    Then she sat down on the table directly in front of the old man.

    “Granddad, I want to ask you something. If I’m on the run from the police and haven’t got any money and want to hide out in Finland, what should I do?”

Chapter 129

    THE OLD MAN’S EYES twinkled. He cast a quick, approving look at Jacob, straightened up in his armchair, and regarded Dessie with new interest.

“Vo hеva jд djеrt?”

    “What language is that?” Jacob asked, bewildered. “It doesn’t sound like any Swedish I’ve heard.”

“Pitemеl,” Dessie said. “It’s an almost extinct dialect from where he grew up. It’s further from Swedish than either Danish or Norwegian. This farm belonged to my maternal grandmother’s family. No one around here really understands him.”

    She turned to her grandfather again.

    “No,” she said, “we haven’t done anything bad. Not yet, anyway. I’m just wondering, purely hypothetically.”

“Sko jд hеva nalta е ita?”

    “Yes, please,” Dessie said. “Coffee would be good, and a sandwich, if you’ve got any cheese.”

    The old man stood up and staggered off toward the kitchen. Dessie took the opportunity to go out into the gloom of the hall and crawl in under the stairs, where the only toilet in the house was situated. When she got back, the old man had prepared some bread and cheese and had boiled water for instant coffee. He was sitting with his hands clasped on the wax tablecloth, his eyes squinting as he mulled over Dessie’s question.

“ djццm sд i Finland,” he said. “Hд gе et…”

    Dessie nodded and took a bite of the sweet bread and Port Salut. Then she interpreted simultaneously for Jacob so he could follow. Hiding in Finland wouldn’t work. The Finnish police were far more effective, and brutal, than the Swedes. Any Finns on the run came over to Sweden as quickly as they could.

    But if you absolutely had to get to Finland, that was no problem, as long as you had a freshly stolen car, of course.

    Anyone could cross the Torne River wherever they liked. There were bridges in Haparanda, Цvertorneе, Pello, Kolari, Muonio, and Karesuando. Each had its advantages and disadvantages. Haparanda was the biggest and slowest, but the guards there were the laziest, so you might not get questioned. Kolari was the least used and fastest, but you were more likely to be noticed there. You had to choose your route in Morjдrv - north toward Цverkalix or south to Haparanda. Then you just had to aim straight for Russia as quickly as you could.

    “Russia?” Jacob said. “How far away is that?”

“Jд nцgges tjццr цver Kuusamo, hд jдr som rдttjest…”

    “Three hundred kilometers,” Dessie said.

    “Christ,” Jacob said. “That’s nothing. Manhattan to the end of Long Island.”

    According to Dessie’s grandfather, it was hard to get into Russia, and it always had been.

    In his day, the no-man’s-land along the border had been mined with explosives, but they were all gone now. Nowadays it was the most remote boundary of the European Union. It was tricky but not impossible. The biggest problem wasn’t getting out of the EU, but into Russia. You had to leave the car and then walk across, maybe just north of Tammela. There was a main road on the other side of the border that would take you to Petrozavodsk, and from there to St. Petersburg.

    Dessie and Jacob sat in silence until the old man had finished. Then he stood up, put the coffee cups on the draining board, and wandered off toward the television again.

“Stдng еta dцrn fцr moija dе jд gе,” he said.

    “We have to shut the door to stop the midges from getting in when we leave,” Dessie said. “I think he likes you.”

Chapter 130

    THEY FILLED THE CAR with diesel from the farm’s illegal agricultural tank. Then Jacob took the wheel.

    “Where am I going?”

    “Straight on until you see ‘Suomi Finland’ on the signs,” Dessie said, putting the seat back down and stretching out.

    He aimed north and emerged onto the main road again.