The Postcard Killers

    She met the policeman’s gaze. His eyes were calm, inscrutable behind his shiny glasses. She couldn’t tell if she liked or disliked him. Not that it mattered.

    “We don’t know the killers’ motives,” he said. “I’ve spoken to the security division, but we don’t think you need personal protection for the time being. Do you think you need it?”

    A shiver ran up Dessie’s spine.

    “No,” she said. “No personal protection.”

Chapter 6

    SYLVIA AND MAC WERE STROLLING happily, arm in arm, through the medieval heart of Stockholm.

   The narrow cobblestoned streets wound between irregular buildings that appeared to lean toward one another. The sun was blazing in a cloud-free sky, prompting Mac to take off his shirt. Sylvia stroked his flat stomach and kissed him passionately on the mouth and elsewhere.

    The streets opened out and they emerged onto a little triangular square with an ancient tree at its center. Some pretty, blond girls were jumping rope on the cobbles. Two old men were playing chess on a park bench. The huge canopy of the tree cast shadows over the whole square, filtering the sunlight onto the cobbles and facades of the houses. They each bought an ice cream and sat down on an ornate park bench that could have been there beneath the tree for hundreds of years.

    “What an amazing trip this is. What an adventure we’re having,” Sylvia said. “No one has ever lived life like this.”

    The air was clear, crystal clear, and birds were singing in the branches above them. There was no urban noise, just the girls’ laughter and the rhythmic sound of the jump rope hitting the cobbles.

    The square was an oasis surrounded by five-hundred-year-old buildings in muted colors, their hand-blown windows shimmering.

    “Shall we do the National Museum or the Museum of Modern Art first?”

    Sylvia asked, stretching out along the length of the bench, her head in Mac’s lap, as she leafed through her guidebook.

    “Modern,” he said between bites of his ice cream. “I’ve always wanted to see Rauschenberg’s goat.”

    They took the street north out of the square and passed a huge statue of St. George and the Dragon. A minute later they were down on the quayside again, opposite the sailing yacht af Chapman, which was lying at anchor off the island of Skeppsholmen.

   “There’s water everywhere in this city,” Mac said, amazed. Sylvia pointed to the island directly behind the Grand Hotel.

    “Are we walking, or shall we take a steamer?”

    Mac pulled her close and kissed her.

    “I’ll go anywhere, anyhow, any way, as long as I can be with you.”

    She pushed her hands down under his belt and stroked his bare buttocks.

    “You look like a Greek god,” she whispered, “with a very nice tan.”

    In the Museum of Modern Art the first thing they looked at was Rauschenberg’s world-famous piece Monogram, a stuffed angora goat with a white-painted car tire around its middle.

    Mac was ecstatic to see it in person.

    “I think this is a self-portrait,” he said, lying down flat on the floor alongside the goat’s glass case. “Rauschenberg saw himself as a rudely treated animal in the big city. Look at what it’s standing on, a mass of found objects, newspaper clippings about astronauts, tightrope walkers, and the stock fucking exchange.”

    Sylvia smiled at his enthusiasm.

    “I think all of his ‘combines’ are a kind of narrative about the big city,”

    she said. “Maybe he wants to say something about how human beings are always trying to master new environments.”

    When Mac was done with his veneration, they went on to look at the Swedish art.

    At the back of the Modern, through one long corridor and a couple of shorter ones, they found the motif for the next murders.

    “Perfect,” Mac said.

    “Now all we have to do is find two people in love,” Sylvia said. “Just like us.”

Chapter 7

    DESSIE LARSSON DRAGGED HER RACING bike through the lobby of her ancient apartment building and chained it to the drainpipe in the courtyard. The bike ride through Stockholm City Centre had not managed to blow away her sense of unease. The intense questioning had taken up most of the day. The police had gone through every article she had written since the first murder took place in Florence eight months ago.

    Whatever it was that had made the killers choose her as the recipient of the postcard, there was no obvious explanation in any of the articles. Superintendent Duvall had looked completely frustrated when he let her leave.

    She wandered back into the lobby, ignored the elevator, and took the stairs up to the third floor. The leaded windows facing onto the courtyard made the staircase gloomy in the half-light. Her steps echoed between the stone walls. She had just reached her apartment and pulled her keys out of her backpack when she froze.

    There was a man standing in the shadows by her neighbor’s door. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

    “Dessie Larsson? ”

    She dropped her keys and they landed on the marble floor with a clatter. Her mouth was dry, her legs ready to run.

    He had a beard and long hair, and he smelled. He put his hand inside his jacket and Dessie felt her knees about to buckle.

I’m going to die.

He’s going to pull out a big butcher’s knife and cut my throat.And I never did find out who my father was.

    The man held a small disk toward her, a blue-and-yellow badge with the letters NYPD on it.

    “My name’s Jacob Kanon,” he said in English. “I’m sorry I scared you. I’m on the homicide unit in the Thirty-second Precinct of Manhattan, in New York City.”

    She looked at the disk. Was that supposed to be an American policebadge? She had seen them on television only. This one looked like it could easily have been bought in a toyshop.

    “Do you speak English? Do you understand anything I’m saying?”

    She nodded and looked up at the man. He was hardly any taller than she was, with broad shoulders and strong biceps, and he was blocking her escape route down the stairs.

    He had a powerful presence but appeared to have lost weight recently. His jeans had slid down and were hanging on his narrow hips. His suede jacket was good quality but badly creased, as though he’d been sleeping in it.

    “It’s really important that you listen to what I’ve got to say,” he said.

    She looked carefully at his eyes, which were bright blue and sparkling. Quite the opposite of everything else about him.

    “They’re here, and they’re going to kill again,” he said.

Chapter 8

    JACOB FELT THE ADRENALINE PULLING like barbed wire through his veins.

    He had never been so quick out of the gate before, only a day or so behind them: before the murders took