Postcard killers

"They couldn't have been lying like this when they died," she said.

Jacob nodded.

"I know," he said, "but why?"

Dessie picked up the picture from Paris. The two victims were sitting with their hands on their stomachs.

"They look like they've just eaten too much," Dessie said.

They were posing. The corpses were posing. They were saying something, or at least representing something. What was it? If the cops figured that out, they just might catch them.

She looked at Jacob.

"Let me see the one I was sent," she said.

He gave her the picture from Dalaro. She took it and could stil feel the smel of the hot living room.

The woman, Claudia, was sitting upright against the back of the sofa. In her lap was a cushion that had probably been white to start with. She was leaning over the man, Rolf, who was lying on the cushion in her lap.

The man was lying in a strange position. One knee was drawn up, and his fingers were spread out above his heart. In his right hand he was holding something that looked like a sign – or a spatula.

"It's definitely been arranged," she said.

"Does it mean anything to you?"

Dessie looked at the picture for a long time.

"I recognize something," she said. "I just don't know where from. I can't put my finger on it."

"Concentrate," Jacob said.

She stared at the picture until the focus started to blur.

"Sorry," she said. "It's not coming."

He looked at her with his very blue eyes for several long seconds.

Then he gathered the pictures together and without another word left her sitting at the cafe table.

Chapter 36

Jacob got off the bus outside the central police headquarters on Kungsholmen in the middle of Stockholm.

On his first night in Stockholm he had walked around the huge complex that housed the central Swedish police authority ten times or more, feeling like a nut, not caring in the least.

Various different sections had been added over the course of the past century, giving the building an extremely schizophrenic appearance. The eastern section looked like some Disney castle, the southern bit was functional concrete, the northern section was a concrete monstrosity, and the western piece was inherited from the same Soviet era as the suburb he and Dessie had passed on the way to the crime scene on Dalaro.

The unconventional-looking building hadn't made the people inside particularly flexible – he knew that much already. The investigating team refused to take his cal s. The receptionist kept putting him through to an automated message box that acted as the telephone tip-off line.

Enough was enough, though.

Now he was going to get inside, no matter what the cost to his reputation.

He clenched his fists and steeled himself for the upcoming confrontation.

The entrance was in the old, communist part of the complex. He walked into the lobby and got a sense of deja vu. Like the Aftonposten lobby, it had a stone floor, pale wood, and a glass cubicle.

He hoped the similarities would end there and cleared his throat as he laid his police badge on the desk.

"Jacob Kanon, NYPD," he said as calmly as he could manage. "I'm here to see Superintendent Mats Duval. It's about the murders on Dalaro."

The overweight woman on the other side of the desk looked impressed at the sight of his police badge.

"Is he expecting you?"

"He should be," Jacob replied, entirely truthful y.

"I'l just cal him," the plump woman said, picking up the phone.

"No need," Jacob said. "I'l find him myself. He's on the fifth floor, isn't he?"

He had studied the building from outside and counted seven floors in the office section.

"Fourth floor," the woman said, putting the receiver down as she clicked open the i

He took the elevator up to the fourth floor and exited into a narrow corridor with a low ceiling and humming strip lighting. He took several steps before knocking on a random door. He stuck his head into a smal office and 51 said, "Hel o, excuse me, but Duval, can you tel me where he is?"

A woman with a ponytail and glasses looked up in surprise.

"He's in a meeting about Dalaro at the moment," she said. "Conference Room C, I think."

"Thanks," Jacob said and turned back. He had already passed Conference Room C.

He retraced his steps, slipped into the room, and closed the door behind him.

There were ten people inside, the core of the investigating team: Mats Duval, Gabriel a Oscarsson, a woman in her fifties in a suit, two fairly young women, and five men of varying ages. There were thermoses of coffee and refreshments on the table.

Coffee cups stopped in midair, hands stiffened, and ten pairs of eyes stared at him.

"Your investigation is about to go seriously wrong," he said, pul ing up a chair and sitting right down at the table with them.

Chapter 37

There was a deathly silence in the room.

He had managed to get their attention, though. Now he had about ten seconds before he would be thrown out.

"You've probably worked out that the victims' passports and wal ets are missing," he said. "Jewelry, cameras, and other valuables are gone. Their bank accounts have been emptied, their credit cards taken right to the limit with cash withdrawals. When you go through their credit-card transactions, you'l discover at least one large purchase before the cash withdrawals take over."

He paused. No one moved.

"What you're looking for is a very attractive couple around twenty-five years old," he went on. "Maybe even younger. A man and a woman, English speaking. They're wel off, probably white, posing as normal tourists."

Mats Duval cleared his throat. Then he spoke in nearly perfect English.

"I should explain to my col eagues that this man is a homicide detective from the New York police. His name is Jacob Kanon, and he has been tracking al the investigations since New Year's. He has personal reasons -"

"My daughter, Kimberly, was one of the victims in Rome," Jacob said.

He looked around the group. Their shock at his appearance had started to turn to anger in a few of the faces. One of the older men, a bald man in a suit and vest, seemed particularly irritated.

"This is Sweden," the bald man said now. "The Swedish police are 52 responsible for official business here. We don't need any lessons in investigative technique, not from the FBI, nor from any other New York cowboys."

"Cross-border cooperation is absolutely vital if these kil ers are going to be stopped," Jacob said. "Al we've got to go on is their pattern, and we need coordination for that to become clear."

"That isn't necessarily true," the bald man said. "What we need is a decent, honest investigation, and we're very good at that here in Sweden."

Jacob stood up so abruptly that his chair toppled over behind him.

"I'm not here to take part in some pissing contest," he said in a gruff voice. "And New York doesn't have cowboys, by the way!"

The bald man in the vest also stood up. His forehead was sweating and his eyes were narrow and smal.

"Evert, let him speak."

The woman in the suit had said this. Her voice was low and calm. She stood up and walked over to Jacob.

"Sara Hoglund," she said, holding out her hand to him. "Head of the National Crime Investigation Department. You'l have to excuse Prosecutor Ridderwal, he's an extremely dedicated judicial investigator."

The prosecutor sat down and ran his hand angrily over his scalp.

The woman in the suit looked Jacob careful y up and down.

"Detective Kanon from New York City," she said. "What district?"

"Thirty-second," Jacob replied.