James Patterson - Postcard killers

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?"

They were american citizens, their names Sylvia and Malcolm Rudolph, from Santa Barbara, California.

Their arrest was entirely undramatic.

They went right along to the police station without protest to clear up what was obviously a misunderstanding. They were both very calm, if a little curious and perhaps a little anxious, but no more than might be expected.

Natural y, they wanted to cooperate in any way they could to sort out the mix-up.

The premises of the Stockholm police had no rooms equipped with oneway mirrors. Instead, Jacob and Dessie, together with Gabriel a and the rest of the investigative team, were shown into a control room where the recorded interview was being shown live.

Jacob's hands were trembling, his mouth completely dry. There they were.

After al the months spent searching, al the cities he'd been in.

He stood at the back of the room, worried that he might otherwise attack the television screens with his fists.

The fair-haired male, Malcolm Rudolph, was already sitting down, nervously rubbing his hands. He was stunningly handsome, no doubt about that.

Jacob couldn't take his eyes off this man.

It was him, Jacob was sure of it. There he was: the bastard who had kil ed Kimmy.

The door of the interrogation room opened and Mats Duval and Sara Hoglund entered and sat down opposite the man.

Mats Duval jabbered his way through the formalities about time and location. Then Sara Hoglund leaned across the table and began the first interview.

"Malcolm," she said calmly, "do you understand why you're here?"

The young man bit his lip.

"The police at the Central Station had our pictures," he said. "I guess you've been looking for us, that you think we've done something."

"Do you know what?"

He shook his head. "No, not at al."

"It's about Nienke van Mourik and Peter Visser," the head of the unit said. "They were found dead in their room in the Grand Hotel this morning."

Malcolm Rudolph's face registered shock and alarm.

"That can't be true," he protested. "Nienke and Peter? But we just saw them, what, yesterday afternoon! We're al going on a cruise to Finland together this weekend!"

Jacob let out a noise that sounded like a purr.

"So you maintain you don't know anything about their deaths?" Hoglund asked.

"Are they real y dead?"

Malcolm Rudolph began to cry.

The young american was sobbing as if his heart were about to break, as if he had just lost his best friends in the world.

"And you think we had something to do with it? That we could have harmed Peter and Nienke? How could you even think that?"

Sara Hoglund and Mats Duval let him cry for a few minutes.

Then they asked if he wanted a lawyer present. They had to do this. He had the right to one under Swedish law, the same as in America.

The murder suspect merely shook his head. He didn't need legal representation. He hadn't done anything wrong. He couldn't understand how anyone could suspect him of anything so terrible. The Dutch couple had been happy and ful of life when he and Sylvia had left them in their hotel room the previous day.

What were they doing in the hotel room? Did they eat or drink anything?

"No," Malcolm Rudolph said with a sniff. "Wel, actual y we did. Peter had a Coke that I drank a bit of."

"No champagne?"

"Champagne? In the middle of the afternoon?" The question seemed to strike him as absurd.

"Did you smoke anything in their room? Marijuana, for instance?"

"Marijuana is il egal here, isn't it? And Sylvia and I don't smoke, anyway."

He slumped down on the table and started crying again. The questions 91 kept coming.

When did you arrive in Sweden?

How long have you been traveling in Europe?

Can you tel us about Peter and Nienke?

"They were so much fun, so nice. We were real y looking forward to the trip to Finland with them. We had a great lunch at that place in the Old Town…"

The detectives' questions bounced off him, many unanswered, then into the control room.

Where were you on November twenty-seventh last year?

December thirtieth?

January twenty-sixth this year? February ninth? March fourth?

The interrogation was stopped after just forty-three minutes. To be humane, and to be lawful.

Malcolm Rudolph was led away to a cel in Kronoberg Prison.

Jacob had to stop himself from smashing his fist through the cement wall. He was forced to take a quick walk out in the corridor to calm himself down, if that was even possible.

He came back into the control room just as the young woman was taking her place in the interrogation room.

Sylvia.

She seemed more col ected than her husband and answered the questions calmly and clearly.

When she heard that the Dutch couple had been murdered, she put her hands to her face and wept quietly for a moment.

Then she confirmed Malcolm's story: they'd eaten lunch with Nienke and Peter and were planning a joint trip to Helsinki next weekend.

"How did you arrange it?"

"We booked the tickets on the Internet – from a Seven-Eleven shop," she said.

"Which company?"

"Silja."

She smiled.

"I remember that because it sounds a bit like my name, Sylvia."

"Where was the shop?"

"On the long pedestrian street that runs right through the Old Town, Vasterlang-?"

"Vasterlanggatan?"

"Yes, that's it."

One of the detectives got up at once and left the room to check out her story.

"Who actual y purchased the tickets?" Sara Hoglund asked. "Do you remember?"

Jacob slapped his forehead.

"Good God!" he said. "What sort of performance is this? Question time in Sunday school? Jesus, ask her some tough questions, for fuck's sake!"

Gabriel a came over and stood right next to Jacob. Her eyes were red and her breath smel ed of coffee.

"Pul yourself together," she said. "You're behaving like a kid. Let Sara and Mats do their jobs."

"That's precisely what I mean!" Jacob yel ed. "They're not doing their jobs! They're sitting there making nice with her! She's a cold-blooded murderer. Look at her. She's so calm."