Postcard killers

Chapter 125

The whole case was breaking open now – and quickly.

The kil ers from Athens lived in Thessaloniki. They weren't a couple, just two art student friends at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the largest university in Greece. They were arrested on the campus, given away by the electronic trail left on their computers.

They were both deeply religious, and both claimed that they were in direct contact with "the creating God, the unknowable ruler of al the universe." They admitted to what had happened in Athens, but denied it was murder. Their work was part of a global conceptual artwork intended to reveal humankind's divinity.

The murders in Salzburg were traced to a young British couple from London. They were enrol ed at a fashionable art col ege in the middle of London. They hadn't attended any classes for the past four months. 167 Their fingerprints and DNA were found at the scene of the crime, and the murder weapon was discovered under a loose floorboard in the couple's apartment.

They didn't comment on the accusations. They didn't respond to any of the authorities' questions, and they even refused to talk to their own lawyer. On their blogs they had written that every individual was responsible for creating their own morals and their own laws, and that everything else was an affront to the rights of the individual.

The kil ers in Copenhagen were arrested that evening, both the repeat offender whose details had been in the DNA register and his accomplice, a younger woman who was deeply remorseful once she was captured. The woman confessed at once, in floods of tears, and said that she had changed her mind and tried to stop the kil ings. Her change of heart had occurred when her col eague had raped the young American woman, which hadn't been part of the "artwork" design.

Dessie looked at Jacob and saw how his eyes registered everything that was reported about the murderers, how his jaw clenched every time new information was received.

The other police officers exhibited the sort of relief that comes after an arrest and a confession, but not Jacob. The others' shoulders relaxed, became less tense, and the way they walked seemed somehow freer, but Jacob's face remained carved from stone.

She knew why.

Kimmy's kil ers were stil out there somewhere, probably on their way to Finland.