The Postcard Killers

    “You look and smell like a garbage dump,” she said. “You’ve no authority with the Swedish police. You’re just chasing these killers… Sorry, but that seems a bit… obsessive.”

    He brushed his hair back hard and closed his eyes.

Obsessive? Was he obsessed? Of course he was.

    He saw the Polaroid picture in front of his eyes, the man’s and woman’s hands, the beautiful fingers that were almost touching. The blood that had run down their arms and gathered around the fingernails. “Love you, Dad! See youat New Year’s!”

    He opened his eyes and met her gaze.

    “They killed my daughter in Rome,” he said. “They cut Kimmy’s and Steven’s throats in a hotel room in Trastevere, and I’m going to chase them until Hell freezes over.”

Chapter 10

    DESSIE HEARD THE MAN’S HEAVY footsteps disappear down the stairs as she double-locked her door. She blew out a deep breath. It was Friday evening, and she was alone again. Worse, she’d just been scared shitless by an American detective who tragically had lost his daughter. She took off her sneakers, hung up her jacket, and put her bike helmet on the hat rack. She pulled off the rest of her clothes as she walked to the bathroom and got into the shower.

    Jacob Kanon, she thought. He hadn’t meant her any harm, that much was obvious. What would have happened if she had asked him in? What would she have lost as a result? Would she have gotten a news story?

    She shook off the idle thoughts and turned the tap to run the water ice cold. She stood under the jet until her toes started to go numb and her skin stung.

    Wrapped in a big dressing gown, she walked across the tiled floor into the living room. She sank onto the sofa and reached for the television remote control but held it idly in her hand.

    Why had the killers picked her? What the hell had she done? She wasn’t a star reporter by any means.

    Were they actually in the city right now?

    Were they looking for their next victims, or had they already set to work?

    Had the letter containing the photographs of the dead bodies already been sent?

    She got up off the couch and went into the kitchen. She opened the fridge door and found a few withered carrots and a moldy tomato. Jeez. She really must do some shopping.

    Coming home usually made her thoroughly calm and relaxed. Not this night.

    Her apartment lay on Urvдdersgrдnd, an old street on the island of Sцdermalm, in the heart of the onetime working-class district that had recently been transformed into overpriced homes for the hip middle class to buy. Sweden’s national poet, Carl Michael Bellman, had lived in the building next door for four years in the 1770s. She tried to feel the winds of history. It didn’t work too well tonight. Another Friday at home. Why was that?

    She went over to the stereo and put on a CD of German hard rock. Du, duhast, du hast mich…

    Then she sat down and stared at the telephone. She had a pretty good reason for making the call.

    She was neither lonely nor abandoned. She had just turned down the chance to invite a man into her apartment - a dirty, unshaven man, admittedly

    - so she wasn’t the slightest bit desperate. Right?

    She picked up the receiver and dialed the number of Gabriella’s cell phone.

Chapter 11

    GABRIELLA ANSWERED WITH HER USUAL unfriendly grunt.

    “Hi,” Dessie said. “It’s me.”

    She could hear Gabriella breathing.

    “It’s not what you think,” Dessie said. “I don’t want to be a nuisance, and I haven’t changed my mind…”

    “I’ve been expecting you to call,” Gabriella said, sounding strictly professional. “Mats Duvall pulled me onto the investigating team this afternoon. I think you and I can deal with this like grown-ups… Right, Dessie?”

    Dessie breathed out. She had lived with police inspector Gabriella Oscarsson for almost a year. Maybe they had been in love, maybe not. Three months ago Dessie had ended the relationship and Gabriella had moved out of the apartment. It hadn’t been an amicable split. Was it ever?

    “Have you heard anything?” Dessie asked, which meant in plain language, Have you found any bodies with their throats cut?

    “Nothing. Not yet.”

Not yet. So they were expecting something. They believed the postcardwas real.

    “I was contacted by an American cop here this evening,” Dessie said. “A Jacob Kanon. Do you know anything about him?”

    “He’s been working with the Germans,” Gabriella said. “We’ve had confirmation that he’s with the New York force, and that his daughter was one of the first victims. In Rome. Where did you say you met him?”

    Dessie sighed with relief. At least he was who he said he was, even if he smelled.

    “He looked me up,” she said.

    “Why? Why did he look you up? What did he want with you? He came to the apartment?”