The Postcard Killers (14 page)

“The military don’t usually shoot their fellow citizens for no reason,” Jacob said.

Dessie couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Are you defending state-sanctioned murder?”

Jacob stared at her, simultaneously concentrating on the chewy
ciabatta
.

“Okay,” he said. “Wrong topic of conversation. Let’s move on.”

Dessie put her cutlery down. “Do you think it’s okay to shoot people for demonstrating against their wages being cut?”

Jacob held up both hands in a disarming gesture.

“Shit, I didn’t know you were a communist.”

“And I didn’t know you were a
fascist,
” Dessie said, picking up her knife and fork again.

Chapter 58

DESSIE HONESTLY DIDN’T KNOW WHAT to make of Jacob Kanon.

He was an entirely new species to her, both shut off and extremely demonstrative at the same time. The way he moved seemed a bit clumsy and uncomfortable, as if he weren’t quite house-trained.

“Tell me more about your uncles.”

Dessie pushed aside the plate of cannelloni.

“Two of them drank themselves to death,” she said. “Uncle Ruben was beaten to death outside the church in Piteå the night before May Day three years ago. He had just been released from a stretch in Porsön, in Luleå.”

She said it to shock him, but Jacob just seemed amused.

“Were they often inside?”

“Mostly short sentences. They only managed one big thing in the whole of their miserable careers: raiding a security van where they discovered considerably more money than they’d been expecting.”

The waiter came over to ask if they wanted dessert.

They both said no.

“Were they convicted?” Jacob asked. “For the security van job?”

“Of course,” Dessie said, grabbing the bill. “Although some of the takings were never found.”

“Let me get that,” Jacob said.

“Stop being so macho,” Dessie said, taking out her Amex card. “This is Sweden. Men stopped paying for dates in the sixties.” She motioned the waiter over and handed him her card.

The American poured the last of the wine into their glasses with a grin.

“So this is a date, is it?” he asked, his eyes twinkling. “That’s interesting.”

Dessie looked at him in surprise.

“This? A date? Of course it isn’t.”

“You said it was. You said this was a date. ‘Men stopped paying for —’”

Dessie shuddered.

“That was a figure of speech. This isn’t a date. This will never be a date.” She signed the credit-card slip and said, “Let’s go. It’s late.”

They stepped out into a light blue evening that would soon be night.

“Where are you staying?” Dessie asked as they walked toward the entrance of police headquarters on Polhemsgatan.

“Långholmen,” he said. “A youth hostel, actually.”

“It used to be a prison,” Dessie said.

“Thanks for the reminder,” Jacob said. “I know.”

She got her bicycle, and with Jacob walking alongside, she started slowly cycling home through the Stockholm night. A low mist hung over the waters of Riddarfjärden, thin veils sweeping in and hiding the sounds of the city: the cars, the drunken shouting, the music coming from open windows.

He kept her company all the way to her door.

She looked up at him and he was no more than a silhouette against the moon.

“See you tomorrow,” he said, raising a hand in farewell as he disappeared down toward Götgatan.

Chapter 59

Wednesday, June 16

THE LETTER ARRIVED WITH THE first delivery of the morning.

Dessie recognized immediately both the envelope and the writing on it.

This time it hadn’t been preceded by a warning postcard.

She opened it with her letter knife, wearing gloves on her trembling hands. She was in the presence of the police forensics team and they made her jumpy.

The envelope contained a Polaroid picture, just as the last one had.

“I’ll take care of that,” said one of the officers, grabbing the picture from her.

She had time to register the bodies and the blood.

She went over to her desk and sank down in the chair. An intense feeling of uneasiness started to spread from her stomach out to her limbs. “Oh, dear god, dear god,” she muttered softly.

The text she’d written for the paper had evidently worked. The killers had broken their pattern.
They had carried out more murders in Stockholm instead of moving on to the next city.

The realization made it hard to breathe.

She had caused the deaths of two more innocent people.

How could she live with herself after this?

Forsberg, the news editor, red-eyed with lack of sleep, sat down on a chair beside her.

“Feeling rough?” he asked.

She looked at him without replying.

“Maybe you should take the day off? Get some rest? You really ought to go home.”

She stared at him, speechless.
Day off? Rest?!

He drummed his fingers on her desk for a few seconds before getting up and going back to the news desk.

Dessie stayed where she was until Mats Duvall, Gabriella, and Jacob Kanon arrived at the office. They got there less than five minutes apart, Duvall and Gabriella looking white as paper.

“What have I done?” she said, looking up at Jacob. “What damage have I caused?”

He looked at her with a surprisingly calm expression.

“Aren’t you crediting yourself with a bit too much?
They
did this, not you.”

She quickly stood up, aiming for the restroom, but Jacob caught her with a firm grasp on her upper arm.

“Stop it,” he said. “This is a blow, but it’s not your fault. Instead of feeling sorry for yourself, help us.”

“The conference room,” Mats Duvall said, moving past them. “Right now, all of you.”

Gabriella walked after the superintendent, giving Jacob a sharp look. Dessie, who was suddenly extremely conscious of Jacob’s hand on her arm, shook herself free and followed the police through the sports section of the room.

Mats Duvall raised an eyebrow in surprise when she sat down with the investigating team around the table.

“Our work is covered by confidentiality laws,” he said.

“First the killers dragged me into this nightmare,” Dessie said. “Then you did the same. So now I’m here, whether you like it or not.”

The superintendent frowned.

Jacob threw his arms out.

“So let her join in. How hard can it be? She’s been useful so far. We owe her something.”

Mats Duvall straightened his back.

“If you stay as an observer only. You can’t write anything about what we talk about. You’re clear about that?”

“Unless you order me to, right?” Dessie said sharply.

The superintendent let the subject drop. One of the detectives handed around enlarged copies of the latest photograph.

“Okay, we’ve got another double murder,” Mats Duvall said, “but so far no bodies. So what do we have? Can anyone identify the scene of the photograph?”

Chapter 60

DESSIE TOOK A DEEP BREATH and stared hard at the photograph in front of her.

A naked young man was lying on his stomach along the back of what looked like a leather Chesterfield-style sofa. Both of his hands were stretched above his head. On the left side of the sofa sat a young woman with her hands placed demurely in her lap.

On her head she was wearing Mickey Mouse ears.

The sofa was in front of a large window. The picture had been taken from a low angle, meaning that the bodies were shot with the daylight coming from behind them.

“Millesgården,” Gabriella said.

Mats Duvall looked at her.

“Do you recognize the setting?”

She nodded her head.

“The artwork they’re imitating. The man is supposed to be the flying statue in the garden outside. The woman might represent one of the animal sculptures that were in an exhibition there this past winter.”

“Get the security recordings from Millesgården,” the superintendent said, and one of the detectives disappeared through the door. “What does this business with works of art mean in this context?”

“We don’t know yet,” Gabriella said. “So far it’s just a theory.”

Dessie squinted and held the picture closer to her face. Either she needed glasses or the picture was bad.

“I don’t know, but maybe…,” she said hesitantly.

“What?” Jacob said.

She pointed at a shadow next to the man’s forehead.

“There,” she said. “That could be a balustrade or a railing. Because it’s so high up, it must be on the roof of a tall building.”

“And?”

“Railings like that are unusual on residential buildings in Stockholm, unless they’re to stop snow from sliding off the roof. This must be some official building.”

“For instance?”

She hesitated and fiddled with her pen.

“Well, I might be wrong…”

“Jesus!” Jacob shouted. “Spit it out!”

Dessie jumped and dropped her pen.

“The Royal Palace,” she said.

Jacob blinked.

“The Royal Palace? How’s that? Have the killers checked in with the king?”

She shook her head.

“The palace is in the background. That’s what I see. The murder scene is exactly opposite.”

Mats Duvall stood up.

“The Grand Hôtel,” he said on his way to the door.

Chapter 61

THE FIVE-STAR HOTEL BY THE harbor on Södra Blasieholmshamnen had 366 rooms and 43 suites spread over eight floors. About half of them had a view of the water and the Royal Palace.

The hotel manager was calm but stern, even with the police, even with homicide.

“Naturally we’re happy to cooperate,” she said. “But I hope the search can be conducted with discretion.”

Mats Duvall ordered all available staff on the investigation to take part in the search.

Jacob and Gabriella didn’t wait for the reinforcements to arrive from headquarters.

They headed for the second floor and methodically went to room after room on the side facing the water. They were accompanied by a receptionist holding a digital hotel register.

Jacob knocked, and whenever there was an answer, he moved on at once. The killers were hardly going to be sitting with the bodies, just waiting to be discovered. That much was clear.

In the rooms where there was no reply, the majority of them, Gabriella opened the door with a master key.

The suspense was like a drug. Jacob realized that he was holding his breath every time a new door opened.

The search on the second floor gave them nothing.

They ran up the stairs to the third floor.

“What have the other hotels looked like?” Gabriella asked, slightly out of breath as she chased after Jacob along the guest corridor. “Have they been as upscale as this? The Grand Hôtel is the finest in Stockholm.”

Jacob knocked on the door at the far end and got an irritated
“Oui?”
in reply.

“Sorry,” he said, “wrong room,” as he moved on to the next.

He knocked, no reply.

“No,” he said. “Nothing in this price range. Not even close.”

Gabriella put the key card in the door, and the lock clicked. Jacob opened the door and got a gruff
“What the fuck?”
from the bed in response.

“Sorry,” he said again and closed it.

“There are cameras everywhere,” Gabriella said, pointing at the ceiling.

“Hasn’t been like that anywhere else,” Jacob said, striding on. “They’re breaking their pattern.”

At that moment, Gabriella’s cell rang. She answered with her usual grunt, listened for seven seconds, then hung up.

“Fourth floor,” she said. “Two Dutch tourists.”

Chapter 62

NIENKE VAN MOURIK AND PETER Visser, with separate addresses in Amsterdam, had checked into the Grand Hôtel on Saturday evening, June 11, for four nights.

They would never get to check out.

Jacob studied their dead bodies with detached concentration. There was no room for anything else, not here, not right now. Sorrow and grief for their wasted lives could come later, at night in his terrible prison cell in the hostel, when it was darkest and the alcohol in the bottle was running out.

He didn’t know the works of art Gabriella had referred to, but the bodies had definitely been arranged. The dead woman’s toy ears affected him particularly badly. Maybe because Kimmy had loved Mickey Mouse and had had a similar pair of ears when she was little.

He turned away.

God, these murders were so messed up, horrible in every way he could imagine, inhuman.

The 32nd District of New York police had the highest murder stats in Manhattan, but he’d never seen anything like this. All the killings were coldly planned, and arranged with little respect. In Harlem, people murdered out of jealousy, passion, revenge, or for money. People killed because of drugs, love, or debts, not to create art exhibitions.

He rubbed his face with his hands. Mats Duvall glanced over at him and turned to one of his detectives.

“Get the recordings from the camera in the corridor,” he said. “Check what the surveillance is like in the lobby and the elevators. Has the medical officer arrived yet? We need a time of death as soon as possible.”

“There are two champagne bottles in the bathroom,” Gabriella said. “One empty, the other half full. Four glasses, too, all with remnants of light yellow liquid in the bottom.”

They would find cyclopentolate in two of the glasses, Jacob thought, looking around the hotel room.

It wasn’t very big, maybe twenty by sixteen, he guessed. Several of the other hotel rooms had been bigger, but this was still a break from the norm. No other crime scene had been anywhere as elegant as this, but that was just a superficial difference. There was something else here, something that made this murder different from all the others, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.