James Patterson - Postcard killers

"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.

The recordings from the security cameras at the Museum of Modern Art were of relatively good quality. Hopeful y, they would be incriminating.

They were a bit grainy, and the colors were slightly flattened, but the people coming and going were clearly visible in the bright lighting.

The recordings had no sound.

Jacob and Gabriel a had barricaded themselves into a video suite deep in the basement of police headquarters, in the middle of piles of computer disks.

The files weren't in order or marked in any useful way, which meant they had to go through each of them in turn.

"Where to start with this very bad movie?" Gabriel a said, a note of resignation in her voice.

Jacob flipped through the disks, thinking out loud.

"The murders took place on Saturday afternoon. So they must have visited the museum before that."

"If they were ever actual y there," Gabriel a said. "Don't forget that part."

Jacob chose to ignore her negative attitude.

"Saturday morning isn't very likely," he said. "They were probably busy doing other things then."

"Like what?" Gabriel a said.

He looked at her in mild despair.

"Buying champagne and smoking dope with the German couple they would then murder in cold blood."

They divided the recordings between them and started their random viewing.

Jacob was studying a screen where a group of schoolchildren were wandering aimlessly around the room containing Swedish art at 9:26 on Friday morning. He hit the fast-forward button, and the children suddenly started dashing about like mad things, jumping around the room like midget actors in an old silent movie.

"What do you think of Dessie?" Gabriel a asked out of nowhere without turning away from her screen.

Jacob looked over at her in surprise.

She had also sped up her recording, and had reached Thursday 2:23.

"Pretty smart girl, for a journalist. Why? What do you think of Dessie?"

Gabriel a got to the end of her recording and reached for a new disk from the pile. Friday 3:00 started with three old ladies who seemed more interested in one another than in the art around them.

Gabriel a slowed down her recording to look more careful y at a group of Japanese visitors on a guided tour in front of Dardel's painting.

"She's got a lot of integrity, which makes her seem tougher than she is. It was probably a mistake to force her to write that letter," Gabriel a said.

Jacob glanced over at Gabriel a's screen and watched her hit fast-forward again after the Japanese tourists disappeared.

"Stop! Look at that," Jacob suddenly said.

At 3:27 a young couple came into the room and stood in front of The Dying Dandy. Only their backs were visible.

The woman had long hair, dark but not black. It was hard to judge the exact color because of the quality of the film.

Beside her was a tal, wel -built man with fair hair. The man put his arm around the woman's shoulders. She stroked his back and slipped her fingers under the waistband of his jeans.

Together they went right up to the painting, like they were inspecting it thoroughly.

"Do you think that could be them?" Gabriel a wondered.

Jacob didn't answer.

The couple kept standing there, looking at the painting, speaking only occasional y to each other. They paid no attention to any of the other works in the room.

Gabriel a moved the video forward frame by frame so they didn't miss 72 anything, not a single gesture.

Jacob wished he could hear what they were saying to each other.

The young couple stood in front of the canvas for almost fifteen minutes.

They had their arms around each other the whole time.

Then they abruptly turned to leave the room. The woman kept her head lowered, but just as the man reached the doorway, he threw his hair back.

Suddenly his handsome features were caught in razor-sharp precision by the security camera.

Gabriel a caught her breath.

"It's him!" she said. "That's the guy from the police composite."

Jacob leapt forward and paused the image. His voice was hoarse with excitement.

"I've got you now, you bastard. I've got both of you!"

Dessie spread her notes and research material out across Gabriel a's desk. She was starting to get excited about the possibility of solving these murders.

There was one aspect of the kil ers' pattern that she'd noticed several times: they were thieves, too. They took cameras, jewelry, electronic gadgets like iPods and mobile phones, credit cards, and other valuables that had one thing in common. They were among the easiest things to get rid of on the black market.

She leaned back in her chair, chewing the hel out of a bal point pen.

If she ignored the murders and the brutal artistic associations, what was left of the Postcard Kil ers?

Wel, a couple of petty thieves.

And how did people like that behave?

She didn't need her research material in front of her to know the answer to that.

They were creatures of habit, just like everyone else, and maybe even more so.

Criminals who concentrated on break-ins, for instance, almost always 73 started in the bedroom. That was where they could usual y find jewelry and cash.

Then they did the study, with its laptops and video cameras.

Then, final y, they went through the living room, with al the expensive but bulky items, like televisions and stereos.

After the crime, the stolen items had to be gotten rid of, and that was where things started to get interesting for Dessie.

What usual y happened was that the thieves passed their takings on to a fence, often at a serious discount. That was a price the thieves were wil ing to pay. Having an established channel to get rid of stolen property was worth its weight in gold. It took away the biggest risks.