Postcard killers

Chapter 29

Dessie went in and closed the door behind her, put the safety lock on, and clenched her fists.

She pul ed off her clothes and thought about taking a shower but dropped the idea.

She crept under the covers in her double bed without turning the lights on.

The room was gloomy but not dark. The sun had gone down but would be up again in a few hours. She lay there quietly, looking around her bedroom. 42 Restless, she threw off the covers, pul ed on a dressing gown, and went out to the kitchen.

She drank a glass of water and then went into what was once the maid's room, a little cubbyhole behind the kitchen where she had set up her office. She switched the computer on, hesitating a few moments before opening her halffinished doctoral thesis.

Who knew if it would ever get finished?

She sighed. She was actual y extremely interested in her research subject, so she didn't know why she never got it done. She had already spent several years of academic life on it, studying minor criminals and their thought processes, patterns of behavior, and motives.

She had grown up among petty thieves on a farm out in the forests of Norrland in the north of Sweden.

The great majority of her family hadn't done an honest day's work in the whole of their miserable lives.

She scrol ed up and down the text, reading sentences and whole paragraphs at random.

Maybe she could get going on it again, finish it, and final y get her degree.

Why on earth did she find it so difficult?

Everything she did ended up half done, no matter whether it was work or relationships.

She switched off the computer and went back into the kitchen.

The perfect partner didn't exist, she knew that much, and, god knows, her knowledge was based on extensive research. The idea of finding your other half was a myth and a lie. You had to compromise, make al owances, be tolerant.

Gabriel a was a great girl, beautiful and sexy and seriously in love with her.

There had been nothing wrong with Christer either. If he hadn't asked for a divorce, she'd probably stil be married to him.

She drank another glass of water and looked at the clock on the wall. 1:43.

Why had she told the American she'd been on a date? Why had she mentioned Bergman's name? Was it that she wanted Jacob Kanon to know that she dated men as wel? Why would she want him to know that?

She put the glass down on the draining board and realized that she was quite hungry. Al she had eaten were those damn mashed potatoes!