Postcard killers

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 dinner at a fancy restaurant with candles and white napkins.

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 dinner.

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 dinner.

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.