Postcard killers

by James Patterson

  Jacob blinked.

  "The Royal Palace? How's that? Have the kil ers checked in with the king?"

  She shook her head.

  "The palace is in the background. That's what I see. The murder scene is exactly opposite."

  Mats Duval stood up.

  "The Grand Hotel," he said on his way to the door.

  Chapter 61

  The five-star hotel by the harbor on Sodra Blasieholmshamnen had 366 rooms and 43 suites spread over eight floors. About half of them had a view of the water and the Royal Palace.

  The hotel manager was calm but stern, even with the police, even with homicide.

  "Natural y we're happy to cooperate," she said. "But I hope the search can be conducted with discretion."

  Mats Duval ordered al available staff on the investigation to take part in the search.

  Jacob and Gabriel a didn't wait for the reinforcements to arrive from headquarters.

  They headed for the second floor and methodical y went to room after room on the side facing the water. They were accompanied by a receptionist holding a digital hotel register.

  Jacob knocked, and whenever there was an answer, he moved on at once.

  The kil ers were hardly going to be sitting with the bodies, just waiting to be discovered. That much was clear.

  In the rooms where there was no reply, the majority of them, Gabriel a opened the door with a master key.

  The suspense was like a drug. Jacob realized that he was holding his breath every time a new door opened.

  The search on the second floor gave them nothing.

  They ran up the stairs to the third floor.

  "What have the other hotels looked like?" Gabriel a asked, slightly out of breath as she chased after Jacob along the guest corridor. "Have they been as upscale as this? The Grand Hotel is the finest in Stockholm."

  Jacob knocked on the door at the far end and got an irritated "Oui?" in reply.

  "Sorry," he said, "wrong room," as he moved on to the next.

  He knocked, no reply.

  "No," he said. "Nothing in this price range. Not even close."

  Gabriel a put the key card in the door, and the lock clicked. Jacob opened the door and got a gruff "What the fuck?" from the bed in response.

  "Sorry," he said again and closed it.

  "There are cameras everywhere," Gabriel a said, pointing at the ceiling.

  "Hasn't been like that anywhere else," Jacob said, striding on. "They're breaking their pattern."

  At that moment, Gabriel a's cel rang. She answered with her usual grunt, listened for seven seconds, then hung up.

  "Fourth floor," she said. "Two Dutch tourists."

  Chapter 62

  Nienke Van Mourik and Peter Visser, with separate addresses in Amsterdam, had checked into the Grand Hotel on Saturday evening, June 11, for four nights.

  They would never get to check out.

  Jacob studied their dead bodies with detached concentration. There was no room for anything else, not here, not right now. Sorrow and grief for their wasted lives could come later, at night in his terrible prison cel in the hostel, when it was darkest and the alcohol in the bottle was running out.

  He didn't know the works of art Gabriel a had referred to, but the bodies had definitely been arranged. The dead woman's toy ears affected him particularly badly. Maybe because Kimmy had loved Mickey Mouse and had had a similar pair of ears when she was little.

  He turned away.

  God, these murders were so messed up, horrible in every way he could imagine, inhuman.

  The 32nd District of New York police had the highest murder stats in Manhattan, but he'd never seen anything like this. Al the kil ings were coldly planned, and arranged with little respect. In Harlem, people murdered out of jealousy, passion, revenge, or for money. People kil ed because of drugs, love, or debts, not to create art exhibitions.

  He rubbed his face with his hands. Mats Duval glanced over at him and turned to one of his detectives.

  "Get the recordings from the camera in the corridor," he said. "Check what the surveil ance is like in the lobby and the elevators. Has the medical officer arrived yet? We need a time of death as soon as possible."

  "There are two champagne bottles in the bathroom," Gabriel a said. "One empty, the other half ful. Four glasses, too, al with remnants of light yel ow liquid in the bottom."

  They would find cyclopentolate in two of the glasses, Jacob thought, looking around the hotel room.

  It wasn't very big, maybe twenty by sixteen, he guessed. Several of the other hotel rooms had been bigger, but this was stil a break from the norm. No other crime scene had been anywhere as elegant as this, but that was just a superficial difference. There was something else here, something that made this murder different from al the others, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was.

  The medical officer arrived and Jacob stepped out into the corridor to make room for him.

  He noted that there was a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door.

  Then he left the scene of the crime. There was nothing else he could do here.

  Chapter 63

  By lunchtime, security had been stepped up in al public places in the Stockholm region that were frequented by tourists, and especial y by young people.

  Al available personnel had been sent out to look for anyone resembling the composite picture from the clerk at NK, or any of the people on the security recordings from the Museum of Modern Art and the pawnbroker's on Kungsholmstorg.

  When a preliminary blood test showed that the Dutch couple had smoked marijuana just before they died, sniffer dogs were brought in from around the country to join in the search.

  Throughout Stockholm, young people fifteen and over were asked to empty their bags, purses, and knapsacks.

  Most of them did as they were asked without protest. Those who refused were arrested.

  Dessie was standing in Gabriel a's office, looking out across Kronoberg Park.

  Four uniformed police officers and a large Alsatian dog had blocked one of the entrances to the park, a popular shortcut for people heading for the beach or the shops and underground station on Fridhemsplan. Picnic baskets, bags of swimming gear, and expensive attache cases were al careful y checked without any distinction between them.

  The sight ought to have made her feel more secure, but she simply felt guilty.

  Jacob came into the room with three plastic wrappers containing sandwiches he had found in a vending machine somewhere.

  "Where's Gabriel a?"

  "She went down to the video suite to get the recordings from the Grand,"

  Dessie said, col apsing onto a chair.

  Jacob tore open one of the packets and with a healthy appetite took a large bite of the bread and tuna plus mayonnaise. Dessie looked at him and cringed.

  "How can you eat?" she asked. "Doesn't al the violence you see ever affect you?"

  "Of course it does," Jacob said, wiping his chin with the back of his hand.

  "I was just thinking about how sick these murders are. But it won't help the Dutch couple if I faint from low blood sugar."

  Dessie leaned her face down into her hands. "I shouldn't have written that 86 bloody letter."

  Jacob carried on chewing.

  "I thought we'd gotten past that."

  She had her cel phone out.

  "And now it's started," she said. "Just as I thought it would."

  "What has?" Jacob wondered.

  "I'm getting cal s from the trade press, asking why I'm doing the police's work for them."

  Jacob gestured with his hand toward the pictures of the dead couple in the hotel room.

  "That's your reality," he said. "What you're talking about is pretentious bul shit."

  "Exactly," she said. "And what if I'm the one who made that reality happen?"

  He groaned.

  "It's true," she said in a low voice. "You said so yourself. They've broken their pattern – they've kil ed again in the same city. If
I hadn't let myself be persuaded, this Dutch couple would stil be alive."

  "You don't know that," Jacob said. "And if they hadn't died, other young people would have, in some other city."

  She took her hands away from her face.

  "What do you mean? That the Dutch couple were sacrificed to a noble cause? What does your lot usual y cal it, col ateral damage?"

  The American wiped his fingers on his jeans. His expression had grown dark.

  "I never think like that," he said. "The Dutch couple's deaths were a tragedy. But you have to lay the blame where it belongs. You didn't kil them, and neither did I. Those bastards on the recordings did that, and we're soon going to catch them. Right here in Stockholm. It ends here."

  Chapter 64

  The suspects from the museum of Modern Art were identified almost immediately on the security recordings from the Grand Hotel. They appeared on four different film files: two from the lobby and two from the corridor on the fourth floor.

  The fair-haired man and the dark-haired woman were caught on camera in the hotel lobby at 2:17 on the afternoon of June 15.

  They were with a couple who were quickly identified as Peter Visser and Nienke van Mourik.

  The four of them disappeared together into an elevator.

  Two minutes later al four reappeared on another recording, in the corridor outside the Dutch couple's room on the fourth floor. They al went into room 418 and the door closed.

  Forty-three minutes later, the fair-haired man and the dark-haired woman came out into the corridor again.

  After another two minutes, they passed the reception desk and left the hotel.

  The detectives who had been out to Mil esgarden came back with results as wel.

  A woman who worked as a gardener thought she recognized the fairhaired man. She had noticed him as he walked around with a woman in the sculpture garden. At first glance she thought it was the actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

  The recordings from the exhibit rooms at Mil esgarden were requisitioned and were now being checked down in the basement.

  Prosecutor Evert Ridderwal had signed an arrest warrant in the pair's absence.

  "This is completely incredible," Gabriel a said excitedly. She was walking up and down in Mats Duval 's office, two red spots flushing her cheeks.

  Jacob was staring at prints made from the recordings from the Grand Hotel, tearing at his hair.

  Something was fundamental y wrong here. Was he the only one who saw it?

  Why had the kil ers suddenly dropped al safety precautions?

  Why were they showing themselves so openly?

  It was too easy.

  "We've got them now," Evert Ridderwal said happily. "They'l never get away. I don't see how they can."

  Even Mats Duval looked pleased.

  "It's just a matter of time before they're arrested," he agreed.

  Jacob looked through the pictures again. Both the fair-haired man and the dark-haired woman were clearly visible in al the pictures. There was no doubt that they would be recognized. A national alert had been put out for the couple.

  Interpol would be releasing these same pictures international y within half an hour. Every police patrol in the Stockholm region had already received the printouts.

  Sara Hoglund came into the room.

  "We've released their pictures to the media. They ought to be up on their websites in a few minutes."

  Mats Duval turned to his computer and quickly logged into Aftonposten's website.

  "Sometimes they're real y quick," he said, turning the screen toward the others.

  The headline was in a size usual y reserved for world wars and Swedish victories in the ice hockey world championships. 88 Police Suspects: These Are the POSTCARD KILLERS."

  Underneath was a picture of the fair-haired man and the dark-haired woman.

  Chapter 65

  The square outside Stockholm's central Station was fil ed with police, their dogs, and cordons.

  Mac was walking slowly toward the train terminal's main entrance with his arm around Sylvia's shoulders. They could hear the beeping and crackling voices of police radios wherever they went.

  Two long-haired boys were picked up with their back pockets ful of grass just a few meters ahead of them. What idiots!

  "Sorry, guys," Sylvia said.

  No one thought to stop the couple.

  No one asked to look in their bags, because they didn't have any.

  They had been walking around the streets, looking at their reflections in plate-glass windows, admiring their work. Mac tried on a new leather jacket at Emporio Armani. Sylvia sampled different perfumes in Kicks. She smel ed nice now. Fresh and sexy for her man.

  A police car glided slowly past them. Sylvia took off her sunglasses and smiled at the officer in the car. He smiled back and drove on.

  An elderly woman started yel ing when two officers asked to go through her handbag. Three teenage boys ran past like the hounds of hel were after them, fol owed by two plainclothes policemen.

  "Come on, let's go in," Sylvia said. "These people, the police, are so stupid."

  Mac hesitated at the entrance.

  Sylvia gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "You're such a star, Mac."

  With their fingers laced together, they walked into the lion's den.

  Children were crying, dogs barking, adults complaining. Loudspeaker announcements about delays and canceled trains fol owed one after another.

  The crowd got thicker and more agitated with every step they took. Some people had already missed trains because of the mindless searches.

  After just ten meters or so they reached the first police checkpoint.

  Mac stiffened when he caught sight of his own portrait in the hands of a wel -built policeman with a big Alsatian panting at his side, but Sylvia pushed her way through to the policeman and tapped him on the shoulder.

  "Excuse me," she said, "but what's going on?"

  The policeman turned around, looked right at her, and quite literal y 89 jumped.

  "I see you've got my picture there," she said, wide-eyed, pointing to it.

  "What's this al about?"

  Chapter 66

  They were american citizens, their names Sylvia and Malcolm Rudolph, from Santa Barbara, California.

  Their arrest was entirely undramatic.

  They went right along to the police station without protest to clear up what was obviously a misunderstanding. They were both very calm, if a little curious and perhaps a little anxious, but no more than might be expected.

  Natural y, they wanted to cooperate in any way they could to sort out the mix-up.

  The premises of the Stockholm police had no rooms equipped with oneway mirrors. Instead, Jacob and Dessie, together with Gabriel a and the rest of the investigative team, were shown into a control room where the recorded interview was being shown live.

  Jacob's hands were trembling, his mouth completely dry. There they were.

  After al the months spent searching, al the cities he'd been in.

  He stood at the back of the room, worried that he might otherwise attack the television screens with his fists.

  The fair-haired male, Malcolm Rudolph, was already sitting down, nervously rubbing his hands. He was stunningly handsome, no doubt about that.

  Jacob couldn't take his eyes off this man.

  It was him, Jacob was sure of it. There he was: the bastard who had kil ed Kimmy.

  The door of the interrogation room opened and Mats Duval and Sara Hoglund entered and sat down opposite the man.

  Mats Duval jabbered his way through the formalities about time and location. Then Sara Hoglund leaned across the table and began the first interview.

  "Malcolm," she said calmly, "do you understand why you're here?"

  The young man bit his lip.

  "The police at the Central Station had our pictures," he said. "I guess you've been looking for us, that you think we've done something."

  "Do you know what?
"

  He shook his head. "No, not at al."

  "It's about Nienke van Mourik and Peter Visser," the head of the unit said. "They were found dead in their room in the Grand Hotel this morning."

  Malcolm Rudolph's face registered shock and alarm.

  "That can't be true," he protested. "Nienke and Peter? But we just saw them, what, yesterday afternoon! We're al going on a cruise to Finland together this weekend!"

  Jacob let out a noise that sounded like a purr.

  "So you maintain you don't know anything about their deaths?" Hoglund asked.

  "Are they real y dead?"

  Malcolm Rudolph began to cry.

  Chapter 67

  The young american was sobbing as if his heart were about to break, as if he had just lost his best friends in the world.

  "And you think we had something to do with it? That we could have harmed Peter and Nienke? How could you even think that?"

  Sara Hoglund and Mats Duval let him cry for a few minutes.

  Then they asked if he wanted a lawyer present. They had to do this. He had the right to one under Swedish law, the same as in America.

  The murder suspect merely shook his head. He didn't need legal representation. He hadn't done anything wrong. He couldn't understand how anyone could suspect him of anything so terrible. The Dutch couple had been happy and ful of life when he and Sylvia had left them in their hotel room the previous day.

  What were they doing in the hotel room? Did they eat or drink anything?

  "No," Malcolm Rudolph said with a sniff. "Wel, actual y we did. Peter had a Coke that I drank a bit of."

  "No champagne?"

  "Champagne? In the middle of the afternoon?" The question seemed to strike him as absurd.

  "Did you smoke anything in their room? Marijuana, for instance?"

  "Marijuana is il egal here, isn't it? And Sylvia and I don't smoke, anyway."

  He slumped down on the table and started crying again. The questions 91 kept coming.

  When did you arrive in Sweden?