Postcard killers

by James Patterson

  Dessie showed him the photocopy. She saw his eyes open wide and his face go as white as the wal s.

  She caught him before he fel.

  "Good god," he said. "Are those… are those… people?"

  Her reply was needlessly harsh. It just came out that way.

  "Not anymore. Look at the way they're positioned. Doesn't it remind you of anything? Where have I seen that before?"

  "For heaven's sake," he said, shutting his eyes, shaking his head. "Take it 66 away."

  "No," Dessie said. "Take a proper look. Please. Look at the man."

  She helped Christer sit down on the floor. He was breathing deeply and had to put his head between his knees for a few seconds.

  "Let's see," he said, taking the picture, looking at it for a couple of seconds, then pushing it away again.

  "The Dying Dandy," he said. "Nils Dardel, nineteen eighteen. It's in the Museum of Modern Art."

  Dessie closed her eyes, seeing the painting before her. Of course! It floated up from her memory. She knew exactly which painting it was.

  She leaned over and kissed her ex-husband on the cheek.

  "Thank you," she whispered. "This may save lives, Christer."

  Chapter 47

  Dessie caught her breath as she locked her bicycle outside the entrance to the Museum of Modern Art on the island of Skeppsholmen.

  The yel ow building was glowing in the sunlight, making her squint just to look up at it.

  She didn't think she'd been here since her divorce from Christer.

  She went into the upper entry hal, into an environment similar to her exhusband's gal ery: pristine white, harsh lighting. It looked just as she remembered it, the glass wal s, the espresso bar, the chrome lamps.

  She and Christer had been to a party here in the foyer just a few weeks before their marriage came to an end.

  She went up to the information desk, staffed by a tal woman in an al black outfit.

  "Excuse me," Dessie said. "I'm trying to find a painting cal ed The Dying Dandy."

  "Eighty kronor," the woman said.

  Of course, the new right-wing government had abolished free entry to Sweden's museums.

  Dessie paid.

  "You're on the right floor. Just fol ow the corridor to the left as far as you can, then take a right and then the first left again," said the woman in black.

  Dessie couldn't remember the reason for the party she had attended with Christer. It was probably someone's birthday, or someone new had managed to get an exhibition at the Modern.

  She suppressed the memory and headed off along the long corridor beyond the espresso bar.

  The museum was almost empty at this early hour. She could hear people talking from deep within the catacombs but saw no one, not a soul. It wasn't just newspapers but also an appreciation for art that was on the decline, even here in Sweden.

  Eventual y she found the right room.

  There it was! She recognized it immediately.

  TheDying Dandy, oil on canvas, one and a half meters tal, almost two meters across. One of the most famous Swedish paintings of the last century.

  Chapter 48

  Dessie stopped in front of the painting, oddly moved.

  It was an impressive creation, with its sweeping shapes and strong colors: the narcissistic man lies dying on his white cushion, a mirror stil in his hand.

  His equal y affected friends are gathered around him. They're mourning, but the only one in tears is the man in the purple jacket and orange shirt up in the left-hand corner.

  The woman holding him and the white cushion on her lap looks almost amused.

  There was no doubt about it now: this was the model for the murders on Dalaro.

  The kil ers must have known the painting. Maybe they'd been here.

  Maybe they'd stood exactly where she was standing now, pondering Dardel's work: Was it an al egory about the act of creativity? Or was Dardel holding up a forbidden image of homosexuality?

  A thought ran like fire through her brain. She took a deep breath, looking up at the ceiling, then felt the adrenaline kick in.

  Up in one corner, right above the door, was a discreet surveil ance camera.

  Right now, her image was being captured somewhere.

  She took out her mobile and cal ed Gabriel a at police headquarters.

  Chapter 49

  Dessie was holding up the color reproduction of Dardel's masterpiece in one hand and the photograph from Dalaro in the other.

  Her hunch had to be right. Jeez, she was better at this than the police!

  Gabriel a's desk was covered with Jacob's postcards and the photographs of the bodies. Beside them were pictures Dessie had printed from the Internet.

  Gabriel a looked at the pictures one by one, her eyes opening wider and wider.

  "God," she said, picking up the picture of the murdered Germans, "you're right, Dessie."

  "Sorry," said Jacob, "but what are you talking about?"

  Dessie looked at his unruly mop of hair. He looked like he'd been quite literal y tearing it out. Suddenly she felt so sorry for him, for his pain, his terrible loss.

  "The kil ers arrange the bodies to imitate famous works of art," she said.

  "Look at this one, Jacob."

  Dessie picked up the photograph from Paris. Emily and Clive Spencer's bodies were sitting side by side in bed, both with their right hand over the left resting on their stomachs.

  "The Mona Lisa," she said, putting a copy of da Vinci's masterpiece alongside the photograph.

  Jacob clumsily grabbed the pictures, crumpling them slightly.

  The mysteriously smiling woman on the painting was holding her right hand over her left and resting both on her stomach.

  "Christ," he said final y, "you're right. That's what they've been doing."

  "Karen and Bil y Cowley," Dessie said.

  She put down the picture of the couple murdered in Berlin, showing them in profile, the side with their uninjured eye looking toward the camera.

  Beside it she laid a printout of an Egyptian statue.

  "The bust of Nefertiti, probably the most imitated work of art from Ancient Egypt. It's in the Neues Museum in Berlin. The kil ers saw it there, I guarantee you."

  Gabriel a leaned forward. Her face was flushed, two red marks glowing on her cheeks. Dessie glanced at her. They had been there, too, to the Neues Museum, on their first trip away together.

  Jacob picked up the picture and studied it intently.

  "What do you mean?" he asked Dessie. "What do their gouged-out left eyes have to do with it?"

  "The bust of Nefertiti is missing its left eye," Gabriel a said. "Everyone knows that."

  Chapter 50

  Dessie wasn't particularly interested in art. Hel, she hadn't recognized the connection to The Dying Dandy. Not at first. But she was fairly knowledgeable about the theory, something she had picked up during her marriage to Christer, probably as a means of self-preservation. She hadn't wanted to come across as an ignorant country girl from Norrland at the various openings. She hadn't exactly felt any real emotion or joy from art, however.

  Gabriel a, on the other hand, had a genuine love of art. She'd gotten on very wel with Christer, better than Dessie had actual y. 69 "Amsterdam," Dessie said, picking out a copy of the next painting.

  "Vincent van Gogh. Heard of him?"

  Jacob looked at her with indulgence.

  "I'm an American," he said, "not a barbarian."

  "One of his self-portraits," she said. "It usual y belongs in London, but this spring it was on loan to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. He actual y cut off his left ear, but the kil ers clearly didn't know that, because they cut off -"

  "The right ears of their Amsterdam victims," Jacob said breathlessly.

  "Hel. What are they up to?"

  A silence fel. Jacob drummed his fingers on the table, something he did when he was deep in thought.

  Gabriel a looked through the pictures of the bodies and compared th
em to other works of art that Dessie had printed out.

  "Florence is Botticel i's Birth of Venus?"

  "The Uffizi," Dessie confirmed.

  "What about Athens, then? What's Athens meant to be?"

  "I don't know that one. But Madrid has to be The Naked Maja by Goya – from the Prado. What do you think, Jacob?"

  But Jacob wasn't listening now. He had gone very pale. He was staring vacantly out at the greenery in Kronoberg Park.

  "Who was Kimmy?" he asked. "Which work of art is she? What were they imitating?"

  Dessie felt her palms sweating. She looked through the printouts and held them out to him.

  "The Sistine Chapel," she said softly. "The Creation of Adam is a detail from the ceiling fresco. You know, Michelangelo…"

  She held the larger picture, with God lying in front of a human brain and stretching out his hand to Adam, and then a close-up of God's finger almost touching Adam's hand.

  Jacob turned to look at Dessie. His eyes were an even brighter blue, radiating a sorrow she couldn't begin to understand.

  This is Kimmy's dad, she thought. Not Jacob the policeman, just Jacob the dad.

  Instinctively she put her hand on his arm, which was tensed up and very strong.

  "But what does this actual y tel us?" Gabriel a said. "That the kil ers are fucked in the head? We already knew that."

  Her tone was terse, almost dismissive. Dessie looked at her in surprise.

  She removed her hand from Jacob's arm.

  "It tel s us more than that," Jacob said, now a policeman again. "It tel s us 70 a lot of things. They're showing off. They're contemptuous. They're demonstrating to us how they have power over life and death. Maybe that death is a form of art that they can use as they please."

  Dessie was surprised at the depth of the thought.

  Gabriel a's intercom crackled.

  "The video from the Museum of Modern Art is at the Bergsgatan reception desk now," a voice said.

  Jacob stood up.

  "Ask for the recordings from al the museums," he said.

  Gabriel a's head jerked.

  "Do you realize how many recordings we're talking about? Anyway, they won't have them after such a long time."

  But Jacob had already left the room.

  Chapter 51

  The recordings from the security cameras at the Museum of Modern Art were of relatively good quality. Hopeful y, they would be incriminating.

  They were a bit grainy, and the colors were slightly flattened, but the people coming and going were clearly visible in the bright lighting.

  The recordings had no sound.

  Jacob and Gabriel a had barricaded themselves into a video suite deep in the basement of police headquarters, in the middle of piles of computer disks.

  The files weren't in order or marked in any useful way, which meant they had to go through each of them in turn.

  "Where to start with this very bad movie?" Gabriel a said, a note of resignation in her voice.

  Jacob flipped through the disks, thinking out loud.

  "The murders took place on Saturday afternoon. So they must have visited the museum before that."

  "If they were ever actual y there," Gabriel a said. "Don't forget that part."

  Jacob chose to ignore her negative attitude.

  "Saturday morning isn't very likely," he said. "They were probably busy doing other things then."

  "Like what?" Gabriel a said.

  He looked at her in mild despair.

  "Buying champagne and smoking dope with the German couple they would then murder in cold blood."

  They divided the recordings between them and started their random viewing.

  Chapter 52

  Jacob was studying a screen where a group of schoolchildren were wandering aimlessly around the room containing Swedish art at 9:26 on Friday morning. He hit the fast-forward button, and the children suddenly started dashing about like mad things, jumping around the room like midget actors in an old silent movie.

  "What do you think of Dessie?" Gabriel a asked out of nowhere without turning away from her screen.

  Jacob looked over at her in surprise.

  She had also sped up her recording, and had reached Thursday 2:23.

  "Pretty smart girl, for a journalist. Why? What do you think of Dessie?"

  Gabriel a got to the end of her recording and reached for a new disk from the pile. Friday 3:00 started with three old ladies who seemed more interested in one another than in the art around them.

  Gabriel a slowed down her recording to look more careful y at a group of Japanese visitors on a guided tour in front of Dardel's painting.

  "She's got a lot of integrity, which makes her seem tougher than she is. It was probably a mistake to force her to write that letter," Gabriel a said.

  Jacob glanced over at Gabriel a's screen and watched her hit fast-forward again after the Japanese tourists disappeared.

  "Stop! Look at that," Jacob suddenly said.

  At 3:27 a young couple came into the room and stood in front of The Dying Dandy. Only their backs were visible.

  The woman had long hair, dark but not black. It was hard to judge the exact color because of the quality of the film.

  Beside her was a tal, wel -built man with fair hair. The man put his arm around the woman's shoulders. She stroked his back and slipped her fingers under the waistband of his jeans.

  Together they went right up to the painting, like they were inspecting it thoroughly.

  "Do you think that could be them?" Gabriel a wondered.

  Jacob didn't answer.

  The couple kept standing there, looking at the painting, speaking only occasional y to each other. They paid no attention to any of the other works in the room.

  Gabriel a moved the video forward frame by frame so they didn't miss 72 anything, not a single gesture.

  Jacob wished he could hear what they were saying to each other.

  The young couple stood in front of the canvas for almost fifteen minutes.

  They had their arms around each other the whole time.

  Then they abruptly turned to leave the room. The woman kept her head lowered, but just as the man reached the doorway, he threw his hair back.

  Suddenly his handsome features were caught in razor-sharp precision by the security camera.

  Gabriel a caught her breath.

  "It's him!" she said. "That's the guy from the police composite."

  Jacob leapt forward and paused the image. His voice was hoarse with excitement.

  "I've got you now, you bastard. I've got both of you!"

  Chapter 53

  Dessie spread her notes and research material out across Gabriel a's desk. She was starting to get excited about the possibility of solving these murders.

  There was one aspect of the kil ers' pattern that she'd noticed several times: they were thieves, too. They took cameras, jewelry, electronic gadgets like iPods and mobile phones, credit cards, and other valuables that had one thing in common. They were among the easiest things to get rid of on the black market.

  She leaned back in her chair, chewing the hel out of a bal point pen.

  If she ignored the murders and the brutal artistic associations, what was left of the Postcard Kil ers?

  Wel, a couple of petty thieves.

  And how did people like that behave?

  She didn't need her research material in front of her to know the answer to that.

  They were creatures of habit, just like everyone else, and maybe even more so.

  Criminals who concentrated on break-ins, for instance, almost always 73 started in the bedroom. That was where they could usual y find jewelry and cash.

  Then they did the study, with its laptops and video cameras.

  Then, final y, they went through the living room, with al the expensive but bulky items, like televisions and stereos.

  After the crime, the stolen items had to be gotten rid of, and that was where things started to get intere
sting for Dessie.

  What usual y happened was that the thieves passed their takings on to a fence, often at a serious discount. That was a price the thieves were wil ing to pay. Having an established channel to get rid of stolen property was worth its weight in gold. It took away the biggest risks.

  But what did they do if they didn't have an established channel?

  They used pawnbrokers, drug dealers, acquaintances, and even strangers.

  So, what channels were open to the Postcard Kil ers in their murderous cavalcade across Europe?

  They came completely fresh to each new city, which meant they lacked any form of local network. They couldn't sel to fences or acquaintances, and they would hardly take the risk of trying to sel the stolen property to strangers.

  She picked up the phone, cal ed reception, and asked to speak to Mats Duval.

  He answered in his office and she made a note of the extension that flashed on the display. It could come in handy one of these days.

  "Hel o, yes, sorry, this is Dessie Larsson. I've got a quick question: have you checked the pawnbrokers?"

  "The pawnbrokers? Why would we do that? We don't even know what's been stolen."

  He hung up on her – the stupid bastard!

  Dessie sat with the receiver in her hand.

  This time they knew exactly what had been stolen.

  Gabriel a had mentioned the brand of watch, and she had even written it down.

  Dessie picked up her notepad and read.

  An Omega Double Eagle Chronometer in steel and gold with a mother-ofpearl case.

  There couldn't have been many of those handed over to Stockholm's pawnbrokers since Saturday afternoon, certainly not one stil in its original packaging.

  She went over to Gabriel a's computer, typed "pawnbroker Stockholm" into the yel ow pages, and got eighteen hits.

  She picked up the phone and dialed the first number.

  "Hel o, my name's Dessie Larsson, and, wel, this is real y embarrassing, 74 but my boyfriend and I pawned my new Omega and a few other bits and pieces on Saturday, and, wel… we'd had a few beers, and now my boyfriend's lost the receipt and I can't remember which shop we went to. I'm so sorry. The watch was an Omega Double Eagle Chronometer. In steel and gold with a mother-of-pearl case…"