Postcard killers

Chapter 65

The square outside Stockholm's central Station was fil ed with police, their dogs, and cordons.

Mac was walking slowly toward the train terminal's main entrance with his arm around Sylvia's shoulders. They could hear the beeping and crackling voices of police radios wherever they went.

Two long-haired boys were picked up with their back pockets ful of grass just a few meters ahead of them. What idiots!

"Sorry, guys," Sylvia said.

No one thought to stop the couple.

No one asked to look in their bags, because they didn't have any.

They had been walking around the streets, looking at their reflections in plate-glass windows, admiring their work. Mac tried on a new leather jacket at Emporio Armani. Sylvia sampled different perfumes in Kicks. She smel ed nice now. Fresh and sexy for her man.

A police car glided slowly past them. Sylvia took off her sunglasses and smiled at the officer in the car. He smiled back and drove on.

An elderly woman started yel ing when two officers asked to go through her handbag. Three teenage boys ran past like the hounds of hel were after them, fol owed by two plainclothes policemen.

"Come on, let's go in," Sylvia said. "These people, the police, are so stupid."

Mac hesitated at the entrance.

Sylvia gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "You're such a star, Mac."

With their fingers laced together, they walked into the lion's den.

Children were crying, dogs barking, adults complaining. Loudspeaker announcements about delays and canceled trains fol owed one after another.

The crowd got thicker and more agitated with every step they took. Some people had already missed trains because of the mindless searches.

After just ten meters or so they reached the first police checkpoint.

Mac stiffened when he caught sight of his own portrait in the hands of a wel -built policeman with a big Alsatian panting at his side, but Sylvia pushed her way through to the policeman and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Excuse me," she said, "but what's going on?"

The policeman turned around, looked right at her, and quite literal y 89 jumped.

"I see you've got my picture there," she said, wide-eyed, pointing to it.

"What's this al about?"