"Of course. Just as backup. They're with the picture desk. So sick."
She held up the copy of the postcard of the Stock Exchange.
"Do you know what the American cop cal s them? 'Postcard Kil ers.'"
"Cool headline," Forsberg said. "Almost even lines."
Dessie looked at her watch.
"The last mail has just arrived. If there's nothing there, I'm going to go."
"A date?" Forsberg teased.
"Actual y, yes," Dessie said, "and I'm already late."
Chapter 26
She really had been asked out, something that wasn't exactly commonplace. In a way she had been looking forward to this evening: someone actual y wanting to take her out to dinner at a fancy restaurant with candles and white napkins.
Right now, though, she would have given anything to get out of going.
Several weeks ago she had been contacted by Hugo Bergman, a successful crime writer and columnist, who needed help with the credibility of one of his characters: an incorrigible petty thief who had ended up the victim of a global conspiracy. As partial thanks for her work, he had offered to take her out to dinner.
Flattered, she had said yes. Hugo Bergman was famous, rich, and fairly good-looking. Also, he'd invited her to the Opera Cel ar, one of the fanciest eateries in town.
She parked her bike outside the entrance, the smel of the corpses from Dalaro stil in her nostrils. She took off her helmet, let her long hair down, and went in.
In her shapeless trousers and sweaty top, she was as wrongly dressed as she could have been, but there had been no time to go home and change for 38 dinner.
The maitre d' showed her to the table. The magnificent dining room with its cut-glass chandeliers, painted ceiling, and tal candles made her feel messy and clumsy, like the country bumpkin she often felt that she was since coming to Stockholm.
Chapter 27
"Dessie," Hugo Bergman said, his face lighting up. He stood and kissed her on both cheeks in the continental fashion.
Dessie gave a forced smile.
"Sorry I'm late, and a mess," she said, "but I've been out at a double murder al day."
"Ah," Hugo Bergman said. "These stupid editors. Blood and death, their daily bread. But who am I to moralize?"
Bergman laughed at his own joke.
"It was real y rough," Dessie said, sitting down. "The victims, a young couple from Hamburg."
"Let's not talk about that anymore," the author said as he poured red wine into the glass in front of her. She noticed that the bottle was half empty.
"I've already ordered," he said, putting his glass down. "I hope you eat meat."
Dessie smiled again.
"I'm afraid I don't," she said. "I'm against the commercial exploitation of animals."
Hugo Bergman inspected the wine list.
"Wel," he said. "You can eat the mashed potatoes. They haven't been exploited. What about this one, the Chateau Pichon-Longuevil e-Baron from nineteen ninety-five?"
This last sentence was directed at the waiter who had silently glided up to their table.
Bergman turned back to her. "Did you read my article about the workload of public prosecutors, by the way? Goodness, I've had a real y positive response to it."
Dessie continued to smile until her mouth was starting to ache. She real y was trying. Tossing her hair and fluttering her eyelashes, she listened 39 attentively and laughed politely at the writer's attempts to be witty and sophisticated.
The food was good, or at least the mashed potatoes were.
Bergman got more and more drunk from the ridiculously expensive wines he went through. He actual y had some difficulty locating the dotted line when it came to signing the credit-card bil.
"You're a very beautiful woman, Dessie Larsson," he slurred when they came out into Kungstradgarden in front of the restaurant.
His heavy breath struck her in the face.
"Thank you," she said, unlocking her bicycle, "for everything."
"I'd love to see you again," he said, and tried to kiss her.
Quickly Dessie put on her bike helmet, thinking, That ought to work as a passion kil er. But Bergman didn't give up so easily.
"I've got a writer's pad in the Old Town," he slurred at her. "A penthouse…"
Dessie took a quick step to the side and got on her bike.
"Thanks for a fantastic evening," she said, turning her back on him and pedaling off.
It was so bloody typical. Anyone who was interested in her was a control freak, a self-obsessed idiot, or a single-minded sex maniac.
She glanced back over her shoulder when she reached the next intersection. Hugo Bergman was standing there swaying where she had left him, fumbling with his mobile phone. He had probably forgotten about her already.
"Asshole," she whispered into the wind. "It's your loss."
It was a cool, stil evening. The clouds had drifted away and the sky was light even though it was after eleven.
People were walking along the quayside, talking and laughing. The sidewalk bars were open, offering blankets and halogen heaters to anyone feeling cold.
She breathed the white summer night into her lungs and cycled slowly past the Royal Palace, crossed the intersection at Slussen, and then stood up on the pedals to climb up Gotgatsbacken.
She carried the bike up the steps to Urvadersgrand, unlocked the door, and parked it in the courtyard.
She had time to unlock and open the door to her apartment before she noticed the man standing watching her from the shadows.
Chapter 28
She heard herself gasp. that was starting to become a habit, a very bad one.
"I've done what you said," Jacob Kanon said, stepping toward her with his arms outstretched.
She looked at him. He had shaved and washed his hair.
"H and M," he explained.
He was wearing the same jeans, the same jacket, but possibly a new Tshirt. It was hard to teclass="underline" it was black, just like the previous one.
"Fantastic," Dessie said. "What a transformation."
"They sel soap as wel," he went on.
"I hope you didn't wear yourself out shopping," Dessie said. "What do you want?"
He looked at her with his sparkling eyes.
"The Swedish police wil be making a huge mistake if they don't listen to me," he said. "They won't catch these kil ers, even if they trip over them. The Germans did nearly everything right and stil didn't catch them."
Dessie closed the door to her apartment. She stayed out in the hal way with him. She wasn't afraid of him anymore, just a bit leery.
"This type of murder investigation is the worst to try to clear up," the American went on. "The victims are picked at random, there are no connections between them and the kil ers, no obvious motives, no shared history going back more than a few hours. And the kil ers are traveling like ordinary tourists, which means that no one notices their absence, no one cares when they come and go, no one notices if they act strangely…"
He appeared sad, restrained, and not quite sober, but something in him seemed entirely genuine. He wasn't putting it on, he wasn't exaggerating.
Maybe it was the contrast to Hugo Bergman's supercilious sense of selfcongratulation that made Dessie notice it. And now that she could see what he looked like behind al the grime, he was actual y pretty good-looking. And those eyes of his were something.
Watch yourself, she thought and crossed her arms.
"What's this got to do with me?" she asked.
Jacob held up a smal sports bag that she hadn't seen before.
"Al we've got is a pattern," he said. "I've got copies of the pictures of most of the bodies in here, and postcards from almost al of the murders. The kil ers are communicating through these pictures, but I can't work out what they're saying. Can you help me?"
"I don't know anything about murder," she said.
He laughed, a sad, hol ow laugh.
"Who else can I turn to?"
Of course. He was here, outside her door, because he had nowhere else to go.