Postcard killers

Chapter 127

Thursday, June 24

Norrland, Sweden

It was past one o'clock in the morning when Dessie sailed past the town of Utansjo. She had driven almost five hundred kilometers and needed to get petrol, drink coffee, and go to the bathroom. Not in that order actual y.

She glanced at Jacob in the reclined seat next to her as he slept the comatose sleep of the jet-lagged. The diesel would last until they got to the twenty-four-hour truck stop in Docksta, but she had a much better idea.

It would mean a slight detour, but it might be worth the trouble.

She reached the turning to Lunde, hesitated just for a second, and then headed left along Route 90.

The car's rhythm changed and the very poor road surface made Jacob stir.

"What the hel…?" he said, confused, as he sat up straight. "Are we there?"

He looked around, astonished, at the early dawn light. Mist was lying in thin veils on the water, black fir trees reached up to the heavens, several deer fled across the fields.

"We're exactly halfway to Haparanda," Dessie said. "Those are reindeer, by the way."

He looked at his watch.

"This whole midnight sun thing is pretty fucked up," he said, shaking his watch. "And the reindeer, too. Where's Santa?"

Dessie slowed the car and pointed ahead.

"See that?" she said. "Wasterlunds Bakery. I lost my virginity in the parking lot around the back."

This nugget of information woke him up properly.

"So these are your old stomping grounds? Interesting. You're real y a 170 hick."

"Until I was seventeen. I spent a year at Adal high school in Kramfors, then went to New Zealand as an exchange student. I ended up staying there nine years."

Jacob looked at her.

"Your weird English accent," he said. "I've been trying to place it. Why New Zealand?"

She glanced over at him.

"It was as far away as I could get… from being a hick. See that? There's the memorial to the workers who were shot by the military in nineteen thirtyone. Remember our talk, fascist?"

She pointed to a sculpture of a horse and a running man that was just visible down by the water.

They drove up onto Sando Bridge, and Jacob peered down at the river below.

"When it was built, this was the longest single-span concrete bridge in the world. I had to cross it every day to get to school."

"Lucky you," Jacob said.

"It scared me every single time, every day, twice a day. The bridge col apsed once, kil ing eighteen people. The most forgotten tragedy of the last century, because it happened on the afternoon of August thirty-first, nineteen thirty-nine."

"The day before the Second World War broke out," Jacob said. "I have a good memory for history, too. Where are we actual y going?"

"Past Klockestrand," she said. "It's not far now."

She slowed down and turned off to the right, onto a narrow dirt road.

"I thought we might need some expert help," she said, driving up to a huge wooden building in a state of more or less complete ruin.

"What the hel is this place? The House on Haunted Hil?"

"Welcome to my childhood home," Dessie said, switching the engine off.