James Patterson - Postcard killers

Jacob had spent the night throwing up into the wastepaper basket and feeling miserable. There wasn't enough alcohol in the whole of the country to 26 drown his thoughts about Kimmy and her murder.

He beat on his forehead with his fists.

Now that he was so close to the bastards, his own failings were overtaking him.

He got gingerly to his feet and set off toward the glass cubicle again. The soles of his shoes had dried and had a better grip on the floorboards.

The glass box was empty now. The guard had gone off somewhere. Shit.

Shielding his eyes from the glare of the glass with his hands, he tried to see into the newsroom. As far as he could tel, there was no one about.

What sort of fucked-up place was this? Wasn't this supposed to be a newspaper?

He walked back to the security post and buzzed the alarm. No response, no one anywhere.

He put his finger on the buzzer and held it there. The guard final y approached, holding a mug of coffee in one hand and a pastry in the other.

"Hel o!" Jacob cal ed. "Can you please cal Dessie Larsson and tel her I'm here?"

The guard glanced at him, then turned his back and started talking to someone out of sight.

Jacob banged the glass wal with the palm of his hand.

"Hel o!" he yel ed. "Come on! It's a matter of life and death!"

"You're too late," said a voice behind him.

He spun around to see the journalist standing in the stairwel behind him.

Her face was white, her green eyes tired. There were dark rings around them.

"The picture arrived this morning," she said. "The forensics team already took it away."

He stepped toward her and opened his mouth, but he couldn't get a single question out.

"A man and a woman," Dessie Larsson said. "Their throats were cut."

Dessie opened the door to the newsroom with her card and code.

"I'm not going to offer you anything to drink," she said over her shoulder.

"If you'd turned up yesterday, you might have gotten a cup of coffee, but you lost your chance. This way…"

She headed off to the right through the office, aiming for the crime desk. 27 "I'm not here for coffee," Jacob Kanon said behind her. "Have the bodies been found?"

He was in a bad mood and stank like hel. Nice guy.

"Not yet," said Dessie. "Give us a little time, wil you. Murder is a bit less common here than in New York. Suicide is our specialty."

She sat down behind her desk and pointed to the wobbly metal chair in front.

"When was the letter posted?" he asked.

"Yesterday afternoon, at the central Stockholm post office. We don't usual y get mail on a Sunday, but the police ordered an extra delivery."

He sat down on the chair and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.

"Did you see the picture?" he asked. "What did it show? Were there any particular characteristics? Anything that could identify the crime scene?"

Dessie looked careful y at the man in front of her. He looked even worse in daylight than he had in the gloom of the stairwel. His hair was a mess and his clothes were dirty. But his blue eyes were burning with an intensity that brought his whole face alive. She liked something about him – maybe the intensity. Probably that.

"Just a Polaroid picture, nothing else."

She looked away as she passed him a copy of the picture. Jacob Kanon took it with both hands and stared at the bodies.

Dessie was trying to look calm and unaffected. Violence didn't usual y bother her, but this was different.

The victims were so young, their deaths so cold and calculated, so inhuman.

"Scandinavian setting," the policeman stated. "Pale furniture, pale background, blond people. Did they take the envelope away?"

Dessie swal owed.

"Forensics? Of course they did."

"Have you got a copy?"

Dessie handed him a photocopy of the ordinary oblong envelope. The address was written in neat capital letters across the front.

DESSIE LARSSON AFTONPOSTEN 115 10 STOCKHOLM

She looked uncomfortably at her own name.

"They won't find anything on it," Jacob Kanon said. "These kil ers leave no fingerprints, and they don't lick the stamps. Was there anything on the back?"

She shook her head.

He held up the picture of the bodies.

"Can I have a copy of this?"

"I'l print a new one for you," Dessie said, clicking the command through 28 her computer and pointing at a printer some distance away. "I'm going to get a coffee," she said, getting up. "Do you want one?"

"I thought I'd lost my chance," Jacob Kanon replied, heading off toward the printer to get the picture.

Dessie went over to the coffee machine with a gathering feeling of unreality. She pressed for coffee with milk for herself, and black, extra strong for the American. He looked like he needed it.

"They have to make a mistake sometime," Jacob said as he took the coffee. "Sooner or later they'l get lazy, or overconfident, or just unlucky. That moment can't be far off now. That's what I'm thinking."

Dessie pushed the terrible coffee away from her and fixed her gaze on the American.

"I've got a lot of questions," she said, "but this one wil do for a start:

Why me? Why did they pick me? You seem to have a lot of answers. Do you know why?"

At that moment her cel phone began to vibrate. She looked at the display.

Gabriel a cal ing.

"It's one of the police team," she said.

"One of the team on this case? Answer it, then!"

She took the cal and turned her chair so she had her back to Jacob Kanon.

"We think we've found the victims," Gabriel a said. "A German couple out on Dalaro. It's a real mess."

Dessie took a deep breath

"Who found them?" she asked in Swedish.

Jacob Kanon walked around her desk so that he was in front of her again.

"The cleaner," Gabriel a said through the phone. "We've got a local patrol out there now."

"Have they found the victims?" Jacob asked.

Dessie turned away from him again, twisting her body.

"Are you sure it's the couple in the picture?" she asked.

"They've found them, haven't they?" the American persisted, annoying her.

"Who's that talking in the background?" Gabriel a asked.

"The coroner wil find traces of several different substances in the victims' blood," Jacob Kanon said loudly, right next to the phone. "Partly THC and alcohol, but also a drug that wil be identified as -"

"When did the murders take place?" Dessie asked, putting her finger in her ear to shut out the noisy American.

"I'm worried about you," Gabriel a said. "These kil ers mean business. I want you to take special care."

Jacob Kanon grabbed Dessie's office chair and swung it around so that her knees ended up between his.

"Get the address!" he said, looking her right in the eyes. "Get the address of the crime scene right now."

"What's the address of the crime scene?" Dessie asked, flustered, feeling the warmth from his legs through the thin fabric of her trousers.

"Are you at the paper? Is that the crazy Yank?"

Gabriel a's voice turned shril and accusing again.

"What's he doing there? You let him come into the newsroom? Why?"

Dessie avoided the man's bright blue eyes, feeling her irritation at Gabriel a bubbling over. She was very close to shouting at her.

"The address, Gaby. This is a newspaper, and these murders are news.

We'l have to send someone out there."

"What? Since when are you a newshound?"

A stubborn streak that should have vanished when she was three years old wel ed up inside her and made her cheeks burn.

"Would you rather we sent Alexander Andersson? I can arrange for that."

Gabriel a Oscarsson gave her an address out on Dalaro.