Postcard killers

Chapter 11

Gabriella answered with her usual unfriendly grunt.

"Hi," Dessie said. "It's me."

She could hear Gabriel a breathing.

"It's not what you think," Dessie said. "I don't want to be a nuisance, and I haven't changed my mind…"

"I've been expecting you to cal," Gabriel a said, sounding strictly professional. "Mats Duval pul ed me onto the investigating team this afternoon. I think you and I can deal with this like grown-ups… Right, Dessie?"

Dessie breathed out. She had lived with police inspector Gabriel a Oscarsson for almost a year. Maybe they had been in love, maybe not. Three months ago Dessie had ended the relationship and Gabriel a had moved out of the apartment. It hadn't been an amicable split. Was it ever?

"Have you heard anything?" Dessie asked, which meant in plain language, Have you found any bodies with their throats cut?

"Nothing. Not yet."

Not yet. So they were expecting something. They believed the postcard was real.

"I was contacted by an American cop here this evening," Dessie said. "A Jacob Kanon. Do you know anything about him?"

"He's been working with the Germans," Gabriel a said. "We've had confirmation that he's with the New York force, and that his daughter was one of the first victims. In Rome. Where did you say you met him?"

Dessie sighed with relief. At least he was who he said he was, even if he smel ed.

"He looked me up," she said.

"Why? Why did he look you up? What did he want with you? He came to 19 the apartment?"

Al the old irritations came crashing back on Dessie like a fist in the stomach. Al these questions, the insinuations, the same accusing tone that had final y driven her to finish it with Gabriel a.

"I real y don't know," Dessie said, trying to sound calm and in control of the situation.

"We're thinking of talking to him to see what he knows," Gabriel a said,

"so you're free to interview him if you like."

"Okay," Dessie said, feeling that it was time to hang up.

"But we're looking after this case, not some freelancing Yank," Gabriel a said. "And be careful, Dessie. These are murderers, not your usual pickpockets and burglars."

Chapter 12

Saturday, June 12

Sylvia Rudolph tilted her head to one side and smiled beautiful y.

Her eyes lit up.

"You have to let us show you our very favorite place in Stockholm.

They've got the most wonderful cakes, and their hot chocolate cups are as big as bathtubs."

The German couple laughed, their mood lightened by the thick joint the four of them had just shared.

"It's on Stortorget, the square in the Old Town that's got a ridiculously dramatic history," Mac said, putting his arm around the German woman. "The Danish king, one Christian the Tyrant, had the whole of the Swedish nobility executed there in November fifteen twenty."

"More than a hundred people lost their heads," Sylvia said. "The mass murder is stil cal ed 'the Stockholm Bloodbath.'"

The German girl shuddered.

"Ugh, how horrid."

Mac and Sylvia exchanged a quick glance and smiled at each other.

"Horrid?" This from someone whose forefathers started two world wars?

The Rudolphs held each other's hand and walked quickly up toward Borshuset, the old Stock Exchange Building, and the Nobel Museum located in it. The Germans fol owed them, giggling and stumbling.

In the cafe, actual y cal ed Chokladkoppen, "The Chocolate Cup," they ate ci

Sylvia couldn't take her eyes off the German woman. She real y was incredibly beautiful. Unfortunately she was light blond, almost platinum, but that could be sorted out somehow.

"Oh, I'm so glad we met you two," Sylvia said, hugging the German man. 20 "I have to have a souvenir of today! Mac, do you think the jeweler in that department store is stil open?"

Mac sighed, raising his eyebrows as he always did at this point in their script.

"Oh, dear," he said. "This is going to be expensive."

The German took out his wal et to pay for the pastries, but Mac stopped him.

"This is on us!"

Chapter 13

They walked down to the quayside together, fol owing the water until they came to the greenery of Kungstradgarden. The German woman seemed to have gotten the munchies badly after the marijuana, because she stopped to buy an ice cream at one of the kiosks along the way.

Sylvia took the opportunity to sidle closer to the man while his girlfriend was busy licking her ice cream.

"She's amazing," Sylvia said, gesturing toward the woman, who was dripping melted ice cream on her clothes. "If I were you, I'd real y want to give her a token of my appreciation…"

The German smiled, a little uncertain. He was not exactly a bad specimen either. He looked like a handsome vil ain from some film, maybe a member of the old Baader-Meinhof Gang, something like that.

"'Appreciation'? How do you mean?"

Sylvia kissed him on the cheek and touched his left wrist.

"She hasn't got a nice watch…"

Sylvia suggested they get a little cash, so they stopped at the bank. She hung on to the man, memorizing his PIN as he keyed it in at the ATM.

NK, the department store, was crowded, and they had to take a number at the jeweler. Sylvia pul ed the German woman over to the perfume department while the men picked out the right watch. They each bought a bottle of Dior's J'adore.

The woman let out a series of very cute squeals of joy when she opened her present.

Sylvia took the opportunity to pop into a branch of Systembolaget, the state-owned chain that had a monopoly on sel ing alcohol throughout Sweden, and bought two bottles of Moet Chandon.

"This deserves a celebration," Sylvia cooed, twining her arm around the German man's waist. "I want to drink these with you, somewhere where we can be alone."

The German looked slightly confused but definitely interested.

Sylvia laughed softly.

"I mean al four of us," she said. "Do you know anywhere we could go?"

He looked at her ful breasts and gulped audibly, then nodded.

"We're renting a house in the archipelago. Our rental car's actual y in a garage not far from here."

Sylvia kissed him on the lips then, letting her tongue play over his front teeth.

"So what are we waiting for?" she whispered. "Let's go to your house."

Chapter 14

The newsroom was nearly abandoned for lunch.

Forsberg, the news editor, was sitting chewing the end off a bal point pen and reading telegrams. Out in the mail room, two twitchy forensic investigators had settled in to intercept any letters the kil ers might send.

Dessie was sitting with a mass of printouts about the double murders throughout Europe over the past eight months spread out on her desk. She had been there since seven o'clock that morning and had been told to stay until the last postal delivery arrived, sometime in the late afternoon. She had agreed to put together a summary of the murders that another reporter could build a story on.

The case in Berlin, the latest one, was deeply tragic to her.

The kil ers had not been content merely to murder the Australians. They had also mutilated their bodies. It was not clear from the articles Dessie had found precisely what they had done to the couple.

She picked up another printout and started making her way through the Spanish newspaper article.

The kil ings in Berlin seemed to be a replica of those in Madrid, except for the bit about mutilation. An American couple, Sal y and Charlie Martinez, had been found with their throats cut in their room in the Hotel Lope de Vega.