Postcard killers

Chapter 57

They picked a cheap italian restaurant with red-checked tablecloths and pasta and pizza on the menu. Jacob ordered a bottle of red wine from Tuscany and poured them each a glass. "This is good for whatever ails you," he said.

Dessie took a smal sip, leaned back, and shut her eyes. "I doubt it very much, but thank you."

So far the letter had done no good at al. Had Gabriel a's unpleasant comment been justified? Had she been completely crazy to write it?

"You did the right thing," Jacob said, reading her thoughts. "We've already ruffled their feathers. They're going to make a mistake. Cheers."

Jacob ordered Parma ham and spaghetti Bolognese. Dessie the insalata caprese and cannel oni.

"I heard you were the one who actual y found the watch," he said. "Good thinking."

She was suddenly embarrassed.

"They aren't just kil ers," she said. "They're petty thieves, too."

"True, but why did you make that connection?" the American asked, pouring more wine into his glass.

Dessie laughed, not even sure why she thought it was funny.

"Remember I told you I was writing my thesis? Wel, it's on the social consequences of smal -scale property break-ins. Let's just say it's been an interest of mine since I was a child."

Jacob raised his eyebrows quizzical y. He had a very expressive face.

When he got angry, his face turned black with rage, when he was happy, he glowed like a woodstove, and when he wasn't sure of something, like now, his face looked like a big question mark.

"I grew up with my mother and her five brothers. My mother worked as home help al her life, but my uncles were vil ains and bandits, the whole lot of them."

She glanced at him to see how he reacted.

"'Home help'?" he said.

"Helping old people, sick people. None of my uncles married, but they had loads of kids with different women."

Jacob ate some bread. He didn't wolf down his food like some men she knew.

"What's the name of the town you grew up in?"

"I come from a farm in the forests of Adalen," she said. "That's part of Norrland, where the military were cal ed in to shoot workers as recently as the nineteen thirties."

The American looked at her stonily.

"I'm sure they must have had a good reason," he said.

Dessie's mozzarel a caught in her throat. "What did you say?"

"The military don't usual y shoot their fel ow citizens for no reason,"

Jacob said.

Dessie couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"Are you defending state-sanctioned murder?"

Jacob stared at her, simultaneously concentrating on the chewy ciabatta.

"Okay," he said. "Wrong topic of conversation. Let's move on."

Dessie put her cutlery down. "Do you think it's okay to shoot people for demonstrating against their wages being cut?"

Jacob held up both hands in a disarming gesture.

"Shit, I didn't know you were a communist."

And I didn't know you were a fascist," Dessie said, picking up her knife and fork again.