The Postcard Killers

    Or did they have some other intention? Were the pictures and postcards a smoke screen to conceal their real motive? And if so, what the hell might that be?

What the hell, what the hell, what the hell?

    He examined the photograph, its macabre composition. There had to be a meaning, but he couldn’t see what it was.

    Instead, he picked up the picture of the couple from Paris. Emily and Clive Spencer, just married, propped up next to each other against a pale-colored headboard in a Montparnasse hotel room. They were both naked. The streams of blood that covered their torsos had gathered in congealed little pools around their genitals.

Why?

Chapter 3

    JACOB REACHED FOR THE WEDDING photograph he had asked Emily’s mother to send him.

    Emily was only twenty-one years old. Clive had just turned twenty-six. They were a stunningly beautiful couple, and the wedding photo radiated so much happiness and romance. Clive was dressed in tails, tall and handsome. Maybe a touch overweight, but that suited his status as a stockbroker in the London markets.

    Emily looked like a fairy-tale princess, her hair in big ringlets framing her head. Slim and fragile, she looked quite enchanting in her ivory dress. Her eyes shone at the camera.

    They had met at a mutual friend’s New Year’s party in Notting Hill, in one of those narrow trendy houses where the film with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts had been shot.

    Emily’s mother hadn’t been able to stop crying when Jacob talked to her on the phone.

    He could neither comfort nor help her. He wasn’t even formally involved in the case, after all. As an American police officer, he had to be careful not to get involved in the work done by the authorities in other countries. That could have diplomatic consequences and, even worse, could lead to his expulsion from the country.

    A wave of despondency washed over Jacob with a force that took his breath away and made the mug of wine in his hand shake. He quickly emptied it of its contents and went and poured some more. Pathetic, he knew.

    He sat down at the desk once again, his back to all the photographs and postcards so that he didn’t have to look at them.

    Maybe he should go and shower. Head down to the communal bathroom at the end of the corridor in the hope that there was some hot water left. Did heeven have any soap? Christ, had he even used soap since he arrived in Berlin?

    He drank some more wine.

    When the bottle was empty, he picked up the pictures of the dead couple from Rome. He placed them in front of him on the desk and put his 9millimeter Glock 26 beside them, just as he always did. The killers had sent two pictures of the murder in Rome: one image of the two naked victims and a close-up of two of their hands. The woman’s left and the man’s right.

    He picked up the picture of the hands and traced the shape of the woman’s graceful hand with his finger, smiling as it reached the birthmark at the base of her thumb.

    She played the piano, was an expert on Franz Liszt.

    He breathed out deeply, let go of the picture, and picked up his gun. He ran the palm of his hand over the dull plastic of the grip and put the muzzle in his mouth. It tasted of powder and metal.

    He closed his eyes and the room slid gently to the left, the result of far too much Riesling.

No, Jacob thought. Not yet. I’m not done here yet.

Chapter 4

Friday, June 11

Stockholm, Sweden

    THE POSTCARD LAY NEXT TO a harmless invitation to a boules tournament - the newsroom against a rival newsroom - and another invitation to a wine-tasting evening with the culture crowd. Dessie Larsson groaned out loud and tossed the cards for the pointless social events into the recycling bin. If people paid more attention to their work instead of playing with balls and scratching one another’s back, maybe this newspaper would have a future.

    She was about to get rid of the postcard the same way but stopped and picked it up.

    Who sent postcards these days, anyway?

    She looked at the card.

    The picture on the front was of Stortorget, the main square in Stockholm’s Old Town. The sun was shining and the sky was blue. People were eating ice cream on the benches, and the fountain in the middle was purling with water. Two cars, a Saab and a Volvo, stood parked in front of the entrance to the Stock Exchange Building.

    Dessie turned the card over.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE

IN STOCKHOLM

THAT IS THE QUESTION

WE’LL BE IN TOUCH

    What sort of insane crap was this?

    She turned the card over and looked at the picture once more, as if it might give her a clue to the cryptic words on the back. Ice cream was licked, water purled. Neither the Volvo nor the Saab had moved.

    People need to get a life, she thought as she tossed the card into the recycling bin.