Postcard killers

Dessie sat up in her chair and cleared her throat.

"No," she said, a little too loudly. "No, I've never written about these murders."

"Is there anything else you might have done to provoke them into contacting you specifical y?"

"My obvious charm and flexibility?" she suggested.

Duval tapped away at a smal gadget that Dessie assumed was some sort of electronic notepad. His fingers were long and thin, the nails wel manicured.

He was dressed in a suit, a pink shirt, and a gray-on-blue striped tie.

"Let's move on to you: how long have you been working here at Aftonposten? "

Dessie clasped her hands in her lap.

"Almost three years," she said. "Part-time. I do research when I'm not here."

"Research? Can I ask what in?"

"I'm a trained criminologist, specializing in property crime. And I've done the extension course in journalism at Stockholm University, so I'm a trained journalist as wel. And right now I'm writing my doctoral thesis…

Glad you asked?"

She had let the sentence about her thesis trail off. Focusing on the social consequences of smal -scale property break-ins, it had been placed on the back burner – to put it mildly. She hadn't written a word of it in over two years. 12 "Would you describe yourself as a high-profile or famous reporter?" the superintendent asked.

Dessie let out a rather inappropriate laugh, partly through her mouth, partly her nose.

"Hardly." She recovered slightly. "I never write about the news. I come up with my own stories. For instance, I had an interview with Burglar Bengt in yesterday's paper. He's Sweden's 'most notorious' burglar. Found guilty of breaking into three hundred eighteen properties, and that doesn't include -"

Superintendent Duval interrupted her, leaning in closer across the table.

"The usual scenario is that the people who sent the postcard carry on a correspondence with the journalist. You may get more mail from the kil ers."

"If you don't catch them first," she said.

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

"We don't know the kil ers' 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.

"Shal 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 shal we take a steamer?"

Mac pul ed her close and kissed her.

"I'l 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 al 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 al 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 14 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 kil ers choose her as the recipient of the postcard, there was no obvious explanation in any of the articles.

Superintendent Duval 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 wal s.

She had just reached her apartment and pul ed 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 smel ed. He put his hand inside his jacket and Dessie felt her knees about to buckle.

I'm going to die.

He's going to pul out a big butcher's knife and cut my throat.

And I never did find out who my father was.

The man held a smal disk toward her, a blue-and-yel ow 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 police badge? She had seen them on television only. This one looked like it could easily have been bought in a toyshop.