The Postcard Killers (29 page)

“Your daughter’s were there,” Gabriella said quietly. “I’ve got them on the desk in front of me. Her fiancé’s as well. You’ll get them when you’re back.”

“Okay,” he muttered.

“You wanted to know if any cars had been stolen in northern Sweden late yesterday, didn’t you? A farmer north of Gysinge has just reported the theft of a Volvo two forty-five. A nineteen eighty-seven model, red. License number CHC four-one-one.

“A two forty-five — that’s a sedan?”

“A wagon. I’m sending a text message with all the details.”

He put the car in gear and looked round. They were in a small village. A tractor trailer pulled out of the parking lot just ahead of him.

“How far have you gotten?” Gabriella asked.

Jacob pulled out onto the road behind a gigantic lumber truck billowing smoke.

“Halfway. Thanks for the call,” he said.

“I wish there were more I could have done,” Gabriella said quietly.

Dessie looked at him.

“Call your cousin,” Jacob said. “We have the make of the potential getaway car.”

She took the phone.

The sun was just rising to the north.

Chapter 131

THE FOREST GREW THICKER after Örnsköldsvik, and signs of habitation thinned out. Between the towns of Umeå and Skellefteå, a distance of almost 150 kilometers, Jacob hardly saw a single house. The end of the world was getting closer and closer, wasn’t it?

In the town of Byske, the jet lag struck him like a sudden fog. The last traces of his ability to judge distances abandoned him and he woke Dessie to take over at the wheel.

Even with the sun in his eyes, he fell into a restless sleep.

Kimmy was there with him.

She looked like she had when she set off for Rome. She had on her new winter coat and her yellow woolly hat. So beautiful and talented.

Jacob could see she was upset, crying. She was standing in a glass box, banging her fists against the transparent walls and calling for him, calling for her dad. He tried to answer, but she couldn’t hear him.

Kimmy!
he shouted in the dream.
I’m here! I’m coming!

“Jacob?”

He woke with a start.

“What?” he said.

“You were shouting. Having a bad dream.”

He sat up and rubbed his eyes hard with his fists.

The car had stopped. They were on the outskirts of a town.

On the left was a large warehouse, and on the right, a long row of office buildings. It was full daylight, a dull sort of light, filtered through a thin cloud cover. The landscape was flat and bare, not like anything he’d ever seen before.

“Where are we?”

“The bridge over to the Finnish side is only a kilometer from here. Robert’s a bit closer, on the other side of the rotary. Nothing came through during the night. No red Volvo. No young couple.”

He blinked and looked around.

“This is Haparanda?”

“Kyllä.”

He looked at her, confused.

“Finnish for
yes,
babe. Let’s go. Robert’s waiting for us.”

She started the car and drove toward a large rotary with what was practically a small forest at its center.

“He’s got men watching all the bridges across the river, and a couple at the main harbors for small boats. No one’s seen anything. Robert’s men are vigilant.”

“Thank god for organized crime,” Jacob said.

“Robert’s rough, but he’s a good guy.”

A huge building with an immense parking lot spread out to the left of the car.

“What the hell is that?” he asked.

“That’s the most northerly IKEA in the world. And there’s Robert!”

They stopped beside a customized Toyota Land Cruiser, the latest model. Leaning against the gleaming paintwork was a giant of a man with a blond ponytail and biceps like logs.

Dessie hurried out of the car and threw herself into his arms. The giant received her with a big grin on his face.

A pang of jealousy hit Jacob in the solar plexus. Slowly he got out of the car and approached the enormous man holding on to Dessie.

Robert’s arms were covered in clumsy tattoos. He was missing two front teeth.

He would have been perfect, just as he was, as the leader of one of Los Angeles’ infamous motorcycle gangs.

“So you’re the American?” he said in a thick Swedish accent, holding out his paw.

Jacob’s hand disappeared in the iron grip of the fist.

“Yep,” he replied. “That’s me.”

Cousin Robert pulled him closer and lowered his voice.

“Don’t think you can hide just because you’re from the States. If you treat Dessie badly, I’ll find you.”

“That’s good to know,” Jacob said.

The giant let go of Jacob’s hand.

“We’ve been keeping an eye on the junction in Morjärv all night,” Robert said. “They passed it half an hour ago in a red Volvo with false plates. They took the E-ten down toward Haparanda.”

Jacob felt adrenaline explode throughout his body. This was it.
The end of the tale, at the end of the world.

The gangster looked at his watch, a diamond-encrusted Rolex.

“They could be here any minute.”

Chapter 132

TIME NEARLY STOPPED FOR Jacob.

He checked his cheap plastic watch every minute.

8:14, then 8:15, then 8:16.

The early morning mist was lingering, making the landscape seem eerie, scary-looking.

Robert’s sidekick brought them coffee, juice, and ham sandwiches, which they ate in the car. They were both very hungry.

“How close are you two?” Jacob asked, nodding toward the enormous man leaning on his car a hundred yards away. The car sagged from his weight.

Dessie was doing her best to scrape the ham off the bread.

“Robert?” she said. “He’s my favorite cousin. His mom was in and out of prison when he was young, so he spent a lot of time with us on the farm. He’s two years younger than me, but he was always bigger and stronger than me.”

Dessie put the sandwich down on her lap.

“I’ve always wondered if we’re more than cousins,” she said.

Jacob stopped chewing.

“What do you mean?”

She took a gulp of orange juice.

“I don’t know who my dad is,” she said quietly. “My mother always said he was an Italian prince who would come and fetch us both one fine day. I have
no idea
what she meant.”

She gave him a quick embarrassed look.

“I know,” she said. “All a bit like a fairy tale. One of my uncles is probably my father, or maybe even Granddad himself.” She shivered and was silent.

Jacob turned to look through the windshield. What could you say to something like that?

Dessie stretched out as much as she could and looked in the rearview mirror.

“Red car,” she said.

Jacob adjusted the mirror so he could see for himself. Sure enough, a red car was approaching from behind.

“It’s a Ford,” he said. “Four people. It’s not them. It’s probably not them.”

Chapter 133

THEY SAT IN SILENCE, watching the passengers as the Ford went past on its way to the border crossing: two elderly couples, the men in the front, the women in the back.

Dessie turned to him, hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Who was Kimmy’s mother?”

Now it was his turn to put his sandwich down.

“Her name’s Lucy,” he said. “We grew up together in Brooklyn. She was a singer, blues and jazz, really talented. We were both eighteen when she got pregnant. When Kimmy was three months old, she left us.”

“Left you? To do what?”

Jacob shrugged.

“Live another life, I guess. Drugs, money, music… The first few years, she saw Kimmy a couple of times, but that died out. It must be fifteen years since I last saw her.”

“Does Lucy know… about Kimmy…?”

Jacob shook his head.

“No. At least, I haven’t told her. I don’t know where she is. I don’t even know if she’s still alive.”

“She sounds like an idiot to me.”

“We were both young, both idiots.”

Silence fell inside the car.

A green VW Passat drove past.

Jacob looked at his watch. 8:54.

A blue Saab sped past them. They could hear the sound of rock and roll coming from the open windows. Two young males. Punk-style haircuts.

Jacob looked at his watch. 8:55. He was conscious that he was doing it obsessively, but he couldn’t help it.

Dessie’s phone rang. She listened in silence, said not a word, then turned to Jacob.

“They’ve passed through Salmis and Vuono,” she said. “Two villages just outside this town. Still in the red Volvo. They’re almost here.”

“Robert’s men, are they reliable?”

Dessie nodded. “Very.”

“I don’t want them involved at the border. I’ll take it from here.”

She passed on the message and hung up.

Chapter 134

NINE O’CLOCK CAME AND WENT.

No red Volvo. No Rudolphs.

The road beyond the rotary was full of cars now, mostly trailers and trucks. Due to the hunt for the Postcard Killers, security at the border crossing had been stepped up and all vehicles were forced to go through the checkpoint, next to a small wooden building up on the left.

Jacob looked at his watch again.

Half past nine. Jesus. The time was crawling.

Big tourist buses had started to arrive in the lot outside IKEA. They seemed to come from the whole of the Arctic region. Jacob saw license plates from Norway, Finland, and Russia. It was like IKEA was a county fair.

Soon there was a line of cars waiting to get into the parking lot.

“This is the Thursday before Midsummer’s Eve,” Dessie said. “It’s the high point of Sweden’s busiest shopping week. It’s even bigger than Christmas.”

Jacob didn’t say anything.

He realized he was grinding his teeth. He needed to stop that. Yes, as soon as they caught the Rudolphs.

A line of shoppers was starting to form outside the entrance to the superstore. These country folks were clearly nuts.

Jacob looked at the time.

Three minutes before ten.

He glanced up into the rearview mirror.

Just a line of cars: blue, red, white, black, all full of crazy-ass Arctic shoppers.

He pressed the palms of his hands to his forehead.

The doors to the store opened.

People flooded into the hangarlike building.

Jacob felt like he was going to burst out of his skin.

“What the hell is this?” he yelled suddenly. “Where have they gone?”

Dessie didn’t answer.

“They must have taken another road,” Jacob said. “They’re not coming through Haparanda. That criminal hooligan you call your cousin was wrong. Maybe he’s in league with them now. Maybe he’s fooled us into sitting here so they can get away. They could have bribed him.”

“Jacob, calm down! You don’t know what you’re saying.
Stop it.
”

Jacob turned the key, and the engine coughed into life.

“What are you doing?” Dessie asked.

“I can’t wait here any longer,” Jacob said. “I’m going completely fucking mad just sit—”

“Hang on,” Dessie interrupted. “Just hang on. A red car — there’s a red car. I think it’s a Volvo.”

Jacob looked in the rearview mirror again.

It was a Volvo wagon, an old model, definitely red.

There were two people inside.

A young blond man and a dark-haired woman.

The Rudolphs were here.

Chapter 135

THE VOLVO CREPT SLOWLY toward the big rotary with all the bushes and trees in the middle.

Jacob pulled out into the traffic right behind them. His heart was thumping so hard that he could hardly hear anything going on around him.

The pair in the Volvo stopped in the rotary. The line to the border crossing snaked forward ahead of them.

“They’ve realized they can’t get through this way,” Dessie said. “Not in that car. So what do they do about it?”

Jacob pulled handcuffs from the inside pocket of his jacket and stuffed them under his belt behind his back. Then he leaned forward and took the Glock out of its holster strapped to his ankle. Suddenly he was glad he hadn’t turned it over to the authorities as requested but had checked it in an airport locker while he traveled to and from Los Angeles. It looked like he’d need it now.

He heard Dessie’s breath catch.

“Jacob, what are you doing?
You can’t use that gun here. You’ll go to jail.”

Just then the red Volvo swerved out of the traffic line. The driver wrenched the car to the left and squeezed past a trailer and a small van with Cyrillic lettering scrawled along the side.

Jacob found first gear and pushed his foot all the way to the floor. A moment later he was forced to brake sharply to avoid a truck that was halfway into the rotary.

“Hell! We’re losing them!”

“They’re going straight on,” Dessie cried, leaning her head out of the window. “Now they’re turning right!
They’re in the IKEA parking lot!
”

Jacob drove too fast past the truck. He scraped the side of a Peugeot and forced his way into the lot as the driver of the Peugeot sat angrily on his horn behind them.

The parking lot for IKEA was complete chaos. Cars and buses and trailers were all battling with huge shopping trolleys and children’s strollers and hundreds of people.

Jacob stopped the car and looked around wildly.

“Where the hell have they gone? We’ve lost them! They got away!”

“I think they were heading for where the buses park,” Dessie said, pointing. “There.
There!
That’s Sylvia Rudolph, isn’t it?”

The dark-haired woman opened the door and started to run. She was athletic, fast on her feet.

“No!” Jacob cried, trying to drive after her. An entire family — grandma, mother, four kids, and a dog — blocked his way. Then the driver of the Peugeot suddenly appeared, banging furiously on the windshield. Jacob showed him the pistol, and the man backed away, hands up.