James Patterson - Postcard killers

Take it easy, Jacob," Dessie said, putting her hand on his arm.

He ran his hands through his hair and swal owed audibly.

On the television screen the interrogation slowly continued. No big ups or downs.

"Where were you on November twenty-seventh last year?"

Sylvia Rudolph played thoughtful y with a curl of hair. She was very pretty, though not as striking as her husband.

"I can't remember offhand. Can I check in my diary? I might have something there."

Mats Duval switched on his electronic notepad.

"Let's take something more recent," he said. "Where were you on February ninth this year?"

Jacob leaned forward to hear better. That was the date of the kil ings in Athens. He knew every murder date by heart.

"February?" the woman said with a frown. "In Spain, I think. Yes, that's right. We were in Madrid in early February, because Mac had a stomach bug and we had to go to a doctor."

"Can you remember the name of the doctor?"

She pul ed a face.

"No," she said, "but I've stil got the receipt. It was real y expensive, and the doctor was useless."

Jacob gave a groan.

The questions meandered on, and Sylvia answered them al in the same 93 calm, matter-of-fact manner.

"What's the reason for the trip to Europe? Why did you come here?"

"We're art students," Sylvia said.

Dessie and Jacob exchanged a quick glance. Final y there was something.

"We're at UCLA and have taken a year off. It's been real y educational.

Super. Until today, anyway."

"How long have you been married?"

The young woman opened her eyes wide, then burst out laughing. Dessie and Jacob looked at each other again.

"Married! We're not married. Mac's my twin brother."

Part Two

Dessie phoned Forsberg at the paper once Sylvia Rudolph had been taken back to her cel.

"How's it going?" the news editor asked. "Have they confessed yet?"

"You know I can't answer that. I'm not here as a reporter," Dessie said.

"What's the reaction at the paper?"

"We've got extra pages in al of tomorrow's editions. This is huge.

Everyone's total y focused. We've got newspapers around the world contacting us. There's even a guy from the New York Times sitting at your desk. I hope you don't mind him borrowing it…"

"I meant the reaction to my letter and the two murders. I can see I'm getting a whole load of crap on the Net."

"Oh, that. Wel, no one's bothered about that."

"Come on," Dessie said. "What are people real y saying?"

Forsberg hesitated.

"Alexander Andersson is upset and going around talking a load of rubbish. He's saying that you're 'unethical' and 'desperate for headlines' and quite a lot of other stuff, but that's nothing to worry about. He's just jealous of the attention you're getting."

Dessie closed her eyes.

She knew it would turn out like this. She told them it would.

"Are they saying anything in the proper media?"

Forsberg sighed.

"Forget about al this, Dessie. The kil ers have been caught. Everyone's happy. Go have a beer or something."

He hung up.

The kil ers have been caught. Everyone's happy.

Dessie desperately wished it were that simple.

At 8.30 that evening, Sylvia Rudolph volunteered that she had new information for the police. The interrogation resumed at her own request.

Her face was paler now, and she had obviously been crying.

"I don't real y want to say this," she said, "because I don't like gossip. But I can see we're in a serious situation here, and I can no longer protect…"

She fel quiet, hesitating about whatever she was going to say next.

"Who are you protecting?" Sara Hoglund said gently. "You have to tel us now."

Sylvia Rudolph discreetly wiped away a tear. Then she took a deep breath.

"I didn't tel you the whole truth earlier," she said, and Jacob and all the others in the control room leaned toward the screen at the same time.

"We didn't set out for Europe just to look at art. I had to get away from Los Angeles, and Mac offered to come with me."

Mats Duval and Sara Hoglund waited in silence for her to go on.

"There's someone who wants to hurt me," she said in a very quiet voice.

"He's an old boyfriend, although if you ask him, he'l say we're stil together.

He just can't accept the fact that I am finished with him. He… used to hit me.

He can't stay away from me."

Sylvia Rudolph started to cry softly.

Sara Hoglund put a reassuring hand on her arm.

"It feels awful to say something so bad about another person," the young woman went on, taking the police chief's hand and squeezing it.

"But I real y think Billy is capable of doing anything if it would hurt me.

He might have followed me to Europe."

The investigating team was gathered in Mats Duval 's office.

They made a hol ow-eyed, determined crowd as they settled on the sofas and chairs.

"We've gone through their hotel room in the Amaranten," the superintendent said. "A preliminary search hasn't re-vealed anything that can help our case. Quite the reverse, in fact…"

He looked through his papers.

"Malcolm Rudolph real y was tested for salmonel a on February ninth in Madrid, the same day the murders in Athens were committed. Here's the receipt."

Jacob shut his eyes, covering them with his hand. He almost couldn't bear to hear any more.

Mats Duval went on to summarize the state of the investigation: No drugs had been found in the hotel room, neither marijuana nor any muscle relaxant containing cyclopentolate. No weapons had been found. No knives or scalpels.

Inquiries at the 7-Eleven shop on Vasterlanggatan confirmed that one of their computers had been used at lunchtime on Tuesday to book a Helsinki cruise with Silja Line for four people. The four passengers were Peter Visser, Nienke van Mourik, Sylvia Rudolph, and Malcolm Rudolph.

No stolen property, neither that of the victims in Sweden nor from anywhere else in Europe, had been found, and no champagne. In fact, there was nothing to suggest that Sylvia or Malcolm Rudolph had ever been in contact with any of the other murder victims.

A response from Berlin indicated that no trace of the Rudolph siblings had been found at any of the European crime scenes.

On the other hand, their fingerprints were found in various places in the room in the Grand Hotel.

There was complete silence after the superintendent finished with his list.

"Reactions?"

"It's them," Jacob said. "I know it is. I don't know how they've done it, or what the purpose of this little charade of theirs is, but they're guilty as fuck."

"And how do we prove that, sir?" Sara Hoglund said. "They've looked at paintings, which isn't a crime, at least not here in Europe. They've been traveling around and they visited friends in their hotel room. What can we possibly charge them with? And based on what evidence?"

Jacob recal ed the reassuring hand she had laid on Sylvia Rudolph's arm.

"We have to go through the confiscated material more thoroughly," he said. "There's something there, something we've missed. Let me help you.

Please."

"They turned themselves in," Sara Hoglund said. "They're being very cooperative. They've declined legal representation. They're horrified by the 96 deaths of their friends. And they've got an alibi for the murders in Athens."

There was an oppressive silence when she stopped talking.

"This won't hold," Evert Ridderwal said. "We have to have something more than this. I can hold them until lunchtime on Saturday. Then I'll have to let them go."

Jacob stepped onto the street. His whole body was numb and felt hol owed out.