Postcard killers

Chapter 18

Dessie opened the door to the newsroom with her card and code.

"I'm not going to offer you anything to drink," she said over her shoulder.

"If you'd turned up yesterday, you might have gotten a cup of coffee, but you lost your chance. This way…"

She headed off to the right through the office, aiming for the crime desk. 27 "I'm not here for coffee," Jacob Kanon said behind her. "Have the bodies been found?"

He was in a bad mood and stank like hel. Nice guy.

"Not yet," said Dessie. "Give us a little time, wil you. Murder is a bit less common here than in New York. Suicide is our specialty."

She sat down behind her desk and pointed to the wobbly metal chair in front.

"When was the letter posted?" he asked.

"Yesterday afternoon, at the central Stockholm post office. We don't usual y get mail on a Sunday, but the police ordered an extra delivery."

He sat down on the chair and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.

"Did you see the picture?" he asked. "What did it show? Were there any particular characteristics? Anything that could identify the crime scene?"

Dessie looked careful y at the man in front of her. He looked even worse in daylight than he had in the gloom of the stairwel. His hair was a mess and his clothes were dirty. But his blue eyes were burning with an intensity that brought his whole face alive. She liked something about him – maybe the intensity. Probably that.

"Just a Polaroid picture, nothing else."

She looked away as she passed him a copy of the picture. Jacob Kanon took it with both hands and stared at the bodies.

Dessie was trying to look calm and unaffected. Violence didn't usual y bother her, but this was different.

The victims were so young, their deaths so cold and calculated, so inhuman.

"Scandinavian setting," the policeman stated. "Pale furniture, pale background, blond people. Did they take the envelope away?"

Dessie swal owed.

"Forensics? Of course they did."

"Have you got a copy?"

Dessie handed him a photocopy of the ordinary oblong envelope. The address was written in neat capital letters across the front.

DESSIE LARSSON AFTONPOSTEN 115 10 STOCKHOLM

She looked uncomfortably at her own name.

"They won't find anything on it," Jacob Kanon said. "These kil ers leave no fingerprints, and they don't lick the stamps. Was there anything on the back?"

She shook her head.

He held up the picture of the bodies.

"Can I have a copy of this?"

"I'l print a new one for you," Dessie said, clicking the command through 28 her computer and pointing at a printer some distance away. "I'm going to get a coffee," she said, getting up. "Do you want one?"

"I thought I'd lost my chance," Jacob Kanon replied, heading off toward the printer to get the picture.

Dessie went over to the coffee machine with a gathering feeling of unreality. She pressed for coffee with milk for herself, and black, extra strong for the American. He looked like he needed it.

"They have to make a mistake sometime," Jacob said as he took the coffee. "Sooner or later they'l get lazy, or overconfident, or just unlucky. That moment can't be far off now. That's what I'm thinking."

Dessie pushed the terrible coffee away from her and fixed her gaze on the American.

"I've got a lot of questions," she said, "but this one wil do for a start:

Why me? Why did they pick me? You seem to have a lot of answers. Do you know why?"

At that moment her cel phone began to vibrate. She looked at the display.

Gabriel a cal ing.

"It's one of the police team," she said.

"One of the team on this case? Answer it, then!"

She took the cal and turned her chair so she had her back to Jacob Kanon.

"We think we've found the victims," Gabriel a said. "A German couple out on Dalaro. It's a real mess."