James Patterson - Postcard killers

The Little Mermaid, the statue in Copenhagen's harbor, was obviously the best known. But there were the artists of the Skagen School, the cubist Vilhelm Lundstrom, and plenty more.

She pushed the stray hairs away from her brow. A lot of the other photographs had been very easy to trace back to various artworks, usual y wel known ones.

This wasn't one of them, was it? Something had changed.

"I don't think it was the same photographer," she said to Nils Thorsen.

"So who took this picture?"

Los Angeles, USA

"Hey, sleepyhead, you still alive?"

Jacob slowly opened his eyes without the faintest idea of where he was.

He examined the clues.

A ceiling with a large damp stain.

The rattle of an exhausted air-conditioning unit.

A sharp smel of coffee, a smel he hadn't woken up to for the past six months.

"Ah, there you are. It lives. It snores. I've got some more information for you."

Jacob sat up on Lyndon Crebbs's lumpy living-room sofa. It had been insignificantly more comfortable than the recliner on the flight across the Atlantic.

The FBI agent held out a mug of steaming coffee.

"I've got the name of the guardian who took care of the Rudolph kids 134 after their parents died," he said. "Jonathan Blython, a cousin of the mother's, also a resident of Santa Barbara."

Jacob took the mug, had a sip, and immediately scalded himself.

"Excel ent job," he said. "Do you think he'd appreciate an informal visit?"

"Hardly," Lyndon said. "He's been dead three years."

Jacob snapped awake.

"A sudden and violent death?"

Lyndon nodded.

"He was found with his throat cut. Parking lot over on Vista del Mar Street. He'd been with a prostitute. It was written off as a violent mugging. No arrest."

"Three years ago, you say?"

"The twins had just turned twenty-one. They were living here in L.A. No one connected them to the murder. Why would they?"

Jacob drank the bitter liquid and fumbled for his trousers. They'd slid beneath the sofa. Suddenly he remembered his night with Dessie. He put it out of his mind.

"I think I'm going to head out to Montecito," he said, pul ing his jeans on.

"How far is it?"

"A hundred miles or so, a bit less. You'l be there in two hours if you miss rush hour. But -"

Lyndon Crebbs placed a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"First you're going to take a shower," he said.

Copenhagen, Denmark

The crime scene was a hotel close to the Central Station.

The hotel looked like it had been built in the 1930s. It was three stories and pretty basic, not to say shabby. It fit the pattern for the kil ers – before the Grand Hotel murders, anyway.

Dessie and Nils Thorsen arrived at the same time as one of the officers from the forensics team.

"We'l help you carry your equipment up," Thorsen said to them. This was met with wide eyes but no word of protest. Dessie was impressed with Thorsen's sly move.

They were waved past the cordon by the uniforms whose job it was to keep the press and public away.

The murders had been committed in a double room on the top floor.

There were no security cameras in the corridors, Dessie noted. The kil ers' old pattern.

Two of the forensics officer's col eagues had already started examining the room. It was harshly lit by various lamps, and Dessie could tel from the 135 smel that the bodies were stil there. Several detectives were walking around the room with notepads or cameras in their hands.

Dessie came to a halt just outside the door. She stood on tiptoe to see past one of the plainclothes officers, and when he leaned over, she got a clear view of the bed.

She gasped, couldn't help herself. The scene was beyond horrifying.

The man's genitals had been cut off and stuffed in his mouth.

The woman's stomach had been cut open and her guts laid out between her legs. She had an empty champagne bottle rammed down her throat.

Dessie turned away and grabbed at the wal for support.

"What is it?" Nils Thorsen asked.

"See for yourself," she said, stepping aside to let him through. "Although I advise against it."

Thorsen gulped for air and let out a noise that sounded like he was retching. He staggered back along the corridor.

Dessie moved to the door. She vividly recal ed the scene in the house on Dalaro.

The similarities were striking.

Two dead bodies, a man and a woman, their throats cut.

But there were differences, too.

She hadn't thought it possible, but this scene was even more revolting. It was rougher and more graphic.

"What nationality are they?" someone from the forensics team asked.

"American," the senior detective said. "From Tucson, Arizona. Anna and Eric Hel er, newlyweds. Here on their honeymoon."

Dessie's desire to throw up grew stronger. Her mind was working very fast. The similarities were undeniable, but there was also something different about this scene.

Nothing suggested that the bodies had been arranged in a particular way.

The couple lay splayed on the bed without any apparent attention to their position, as if they had been thrown there, or had even just fal en asleep that way.

This was no Little Mermaid. Nothing from the Skagen school either. No famous art.

She took out her mobile and cal ed Gabriel a.

The detective grunted in answer.

"Are Sylvia and Malcolm stil at the Grand Hotel?" Dessie asked.

"They haven't left their suite."

"You're quite sure?"

"The entire hotel is besieged by the press. The Rudolphs can't move without the whole world knowing about it. Andrea Friederichs is busy sel ing the rights to the whole circus to the highest bidder. You know, 'Based on a true story…'"

Dessie closed her eyes. She massaged her forehead with one hand.

"You've heard about Copenhagen?" she said.

"Grisly from what I've heard," Gabriel a said.

"This is different," Dessie said. "Even more disgusting. I don't think it was the same kil ers. This was someone different."

There were a few moments of silence from the other end.

"Or else it was never actual y the Rudolphs," Gabriel a said.

Dessie couldn't think of a response.

"You have to consider that Jacob might be wrong," Gabriel a said.

"Everything we find is pointing to the fact that Sylvia and Malcolm are innocent."

Yes, she was perfectly aware of that.

"They might just have been incredibly unlucky," Gabriel a went on.

"They might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or else someone real y is trying to set them up."

Dessie moved to one side to let the ambulance crew through with their stretchers.

"Or else they're guilty," Dessie said, "and now someone else is mimicking their murders in almost the same way, just not as wel thought through."

"And this 'someone else,'" Gabriel a said. "Who might that be?"

Montecito, USA

The directions Jacob had been given led him to a huge gate at the end of a paved private road.

A tarnished bronze sign revealed that this was THE MANSION, with a very definite capital M.

No false modesty here.

Jacob sat in his car for a moment studying the surroundings.

While he had been cruising the streets of Montecito, he realized that this whole area was a playground for the wealthy and famous. Many of the houses were showy mansions built in a faux Mediterranean-style, with ornate gates and colorful bougainvil ea.

This one was different, though.

The wal s were several feet high, unwelcoming, granite gray. They stretched as far as he could see up toward the hil s. They protected the house and grounds so wel that he had no idea what might be on the other side.