Postcard killers

Chapter 50

Dessie wasn't particularly interested in art. Hel, she hadn't recognized the connection to The Dying Dandy. Not at first. But she was fairly knowledgeable about the theory, something she had picked up during her marriage to Christer, probably as a means of self-preservation. She hadn't wanted to come across as an ignorant country girl from Norrland at the various openings. She hadn't exactly felt any real emotion or joy from art, however.

Gabriel a, on the other hand, had a genuine love of art. She'd gotten on very wel with Christer, better than Dessie had actual y. 69 "Amsterdam," Dessie said, picking out a copy of the next painting.

"Vincent van Gogh. Heard of him?"

Jacob looked at her with indulgence.

"I'm an American," he said, "not a barbarian."

"One of his self-portraits," she said. "It usual y belongs in London, but this spring it was on loan to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. He actual y cut off his left ear, but the kil ers clearly didn't know that, because they cut off -"

"The right ears of their Amsterdam victims," Jacob said breathlessly.

"Hel. What are they up to?"

A silence fel. Jacob drummed his fingers on the table, something he did when he was deep in thought.

Gabriel a looked through the pictures of the bodies and compared them to other works of art that Dessie had printed out.

"Florence is Botticel i's Birth of Venus?"

"The Uffizi," Dessie confirmed.

"What about Athens, then? What's Athens meant to be?"

"I don't know that one. But Madrid has to be The Naked Maja by Goya – from the Prado. What do you think, Jacob?"

But Jacob wasn't listening now. He had gone very pale. He was staring vacantly out at the greenery in Kronoberg Park.

"Who was Kimmy?" he asked. "Which work of art is she? What were they imitating?"

Dessie felt her palms sweating. She looked through the printouts and held them out to him.

"The Sistine Chapel," she said softly. "The Creation of Adam is a detail from the ceiling fresco. You know, Michelangelo…"

She held the larger picture, with God lying in front of a human brain and stretching out his hand to Adam, and then a close-up of God's finger almost touching Adam's hand.

Jacob turned to look at Dessie. His eyes were an even brighter blue, radiating a sorrow she couldn't begin to understand.

This is Kimmy's dad, she thought. Not Jacob the policeman, just Jacob the dad.

Instinctively she put her hand on his arm, which was tensed up and very strong.

"But what does this actual y tel us?" Gabriel a said. "That the kil ers are fucked in the head? We already knew that."

Her tone was terse, almost dismissive. Dessie looked at her in surprise.

She removed her hand from Jacob's arm.

"It tel s us more than that," Jacob said, now a policeman again. "It tel s us 70 a lot of things. They're showing off. They're contemptuous. They're demonstrating to us how they have power over life and death. Maybe that death is a form of art that they can use as they please."

Dessie was surprised at the depth of the thought.

Gabriel a's intercom crackled.

"The video from the Museum of Modern Art is at the Bergsgatan reception desk now," a voice said.

Jacob stood up.

"Ask for the recordings from al the museums," he said.

Gabriel a's head jerked.

"Do you realize how many recordings we're talking about? Anyway, they won't have them after such a long time."

But Jacob had already left the room.