Postcard killers

"You're a woman and you write about typically male subjects. That requires talent, and also stubbor

"That's not always the case," Dessie said, thinking of Alexander Andersson.

Jacob Kanon leaned toward her.

"I need to work with you," he said. "I need a way into the investigation and the media. I think I can get them this time. I do."

Dessie got up, holding down the payment with the coffeepot so it wouldn't blow away.

"Have a bath and burn your clothes," she said. "Then we'l see."

Chapter 25

The story had quickly grown into something unusual – a top international news story playing out right there in Stockholm.

Al the top boys and girls at the paper were keen to have a headline that might get quoted on CNN or in the New York Times. Photographers swarmed around the picture desk, waiting for a crumb to fal their way. Poor Forsberg sat there tearing at his remaining strands of hair, talking into two cordless phones at the same time.

Alexander Andersson held court in the newsroom, reading out loud from his own articles.

For the first time in history the editor in chief, Stenwal, had come into the paper on a Sunday. Dessie saw him sipping a cup of coffee in his glass box.

She went over to her desk, got out her laptop and camera, and downloaded the pictures she had taken of the yel ow house in the archipelago, then sent them to the picture desk. She wrote down al the facts about the case and the kil ers that could be used as a basis by some other reporter.

"How was it out there?" Forsberg asked, suddenly materializing beside her desk.

"Terrible," Dessie said, typing on her laptop. "Worse than I could ever have imagined."

"Is it the same kil ers?"

"Looks like it," she said, turning the computer so the news editor could read her background material.

He started skimming her copy. "Eyedrops?" Forsberg said.

"There were several previous cases in Sweden where women were drugged with eyedrops in their drinks. In Mexico City the drops are used by prostitutes to knock out their clients. At least five men have died there, probably more."

"From eyedrops in their drinks?" Forsberg said doubtful y. "Sounds like the stuff of mystery novels."

Dessie let go of the keyboard and looked up at him.

"Some girls put the drops directly on their nipples."

Forsberg shuffled his feet and dropped the subject. She always won with him – if she needed to.

"How much of this can we publish?"

"Hardly anything," Dessie said, going back to her computer. "The police want to suppress the information about the drugs, champagne, and other stuff they found at the crime scene. We can give the cause of death, though, and information about the victims. Their families were told at lunchtime."

Forsberg sat down on the edge of her desk. He liked Dessie but was thoroughly confused because of her fling with Gabriel a. Everyone was.

"The victims?"

Dessie stared at her screen, at the bare facts she had put together about the dead couple.

"Claudia Schmidt, twenty years old. Engaged to Rolf Hetger, twentythree, both from Hamburg. Arrived in Stockholm on Tuesday, renting the house on Dalaro through an agency on the Internet. Rented a car at the airport, a Ford Focus. Car missing.

"They probably met their kil ers somewhere in town and invited them home," Dessie said. "We're getting photographs from Die Zeit. You'l have 37 everything in two to three minutes."

"What are your sources? I need those as wel, Dessie."

She looked at him cool y.

"Confidential," she said. "What are we going to do with the information about the postcard and the picture of the bodies?"

Forsberg stood up.

"The police have us on a short leash, so we stil can't use it. Did you take pictures of the house?"

"Of course. Just as backup. They're with the picture desk. So sick."

She held up the copy of the postcard of the Stock Exchange.

"Do you know what the American cop cal s them? 'Postcard Kil ers.'"

"Cool headline," Forsberg said. "Almost even lines."

Dessie looked at her watch.

"The last mail has just arrived. If there's nothing there, I'm going to go."

"A date?" Forsberg teased.

"Actual y, yes," Dessie said, "and I'm already late."

Chapter 26

She really had been asked out, something that wasn't exactly commonplace. In a way she had been looking forward to this evening: someone actual y wanting to take her out to di

Right now, though, she would have given anything to get out of going.

Several weeks ago she had been contacted by Hugo Bergman, a successful crime writer and columnist, who needed help with the credibility of one of his characters: an incorrigible petty thief who had ended up the victim of a global conspiracy. As partial thanks for her work, he had offered to take her out to di

Flattered, she had said yes. Hugo Bergman was famous, rich, and fairly good-looking. Also, he'd invited her to the Opera Cel ar, one of the fanciest eateries in town.

She parked her bike outside the entrance, the smel of the corpses from Dalaro stil in her nostrils. She took off her helmet, let her long hair down, and went in.

In her shapeless trousers and sweaty top, she was as wrongly dressed as she could have been, but there had been no time to go home and change for 38 di

The maitre d' showed her to the table. The magnificent dining room with its cut-glass chandeliers, painted ceiling, and tal candles made her feel messy and clumsy, like the country bumpkin she often felt that she was since coming to Stockholm.

Chapter 27

"Dessie," Hugo Bergman said, his face lighting up. He stood and kissed her on both cheeks in the continental fashion.

Dessie gave a forced smile.

"Sorry I'm late, and a mess," she said, "but I've been out at a double murder al day."

"Ah," Hugo Bergman said. "These stupid editors. Blood and death, their daily bread. But who am I to moralize?"

Bergman laughed at his own joke.

"It was real y rough," Dessie said, sitting down. "The victims, a young couple from Hamburg."

"Let's not talk about that anymore," the author said as he poured red wine into the glass in front of her. She noticed that the bottle was half empty.

"I've already ordered," he said, putting his glass down. "I hope you eat meat."

Dessie smiled again.

"I'm afraid I don't," she said. "I'm against the commercial exploitation of animals."

Hugo Bergman inspected the wine list.

"Wel," he said. "You can eat the mashed potatoes. They haven't been exploited. What about this one, the Chateau Pichon-Longuevil e-Baron from nineteen ninety-five?"

This last sentence was directed at the waiter who had silently glided up to their table.

Bergman turned back to her. "Did you read my article about the workload of public prosecutors, by the way? Goodness, I've had a real y positive response to it."

Dessie continued to smile until her mouth was starting to ache. She real y was trying. Tossing her hair and fluttering her eyelashes, she listened 39 attentively and laughed politely at the writer's attempts to be witty and sophisticated.

The food was good, or at least the mashed potatoes were.

Bergman got more and more drunk from the ridiculously expensive wines he went through. He actual y had some difficulty locating the dotted line when it came to signing the credit-card bil.