Free The Postcard Killers by James Patterson, Liza Marklund Page A

interviews about Kimmy,” Jacob said.
    Dessie sat in silence for several moments before she spoke.
    “I just meant as a way of—”
    “I’m a homicide detective,” he interrupted. “I talk to people, I attempt to solve crimes, but I don’t do interviews. Not about
     anything.”
    “I don’t want to ask you in your capacity as a policeman, but as a father.”
    He looked at her with his strange, piercing eyes. Then he grabbed his sports bag. He pulled out a bundle of papers and slapped
     a photocopy on the table between them.
    “This is Kimmy,”
he said.
    Dessie heard herself gasp.

Chapter 35
    TWO YOUNG PEOPLE LAY DEAD as if broken on the floor of a hotel room.
    Their throats had been cut with the same brutality as in the murders on Dalarö. The wounds gaped dark red, the floor was drowning
     in blood.
    Dessie’s mouth went dry again and her pulse was racing in a terrifying way.
    “The blood’s still bright, fresh,” Dessie said. “They were alive just a few minutes before.”
    “Yes, that’s correct,” said Jacob, “they’d just died.”
    She forced her breathing to stay calm, regular. It wasn’t really helping.
    Jacob put another picture in front of her.
    “Karen and Billy Cowley,” he said. “Look at them, Dessie. What do you see?”
    The young Australian couple who had come to Europe to get over the death of their young son hadn’t just had their throats
     cut. They were sitting upright, side by side, theirheads leaning back against what must have been the head of a bed. Their left eyeballs had been stabbed, blood and fluid running
     like red mascara from the sockets.
    “The couple in Amsterdam had their right ears cut off,” Jacob said, putting a third picture in front of her. “Their names
     were Lindsay and Jeffrey Holborn.”
    She looked at the pictures, forcing herself to see beyond the blood and violence.
    “They’re telling us something,” Jacob said angrily. “The killers are talking through these pictures. I’m sure of it. Look
     at this one, from Florence.”
    A double bed: a young woman on the left, a young man on the right. The picture was taken from above, which meant the photographer
     must have been standing on the bed, right between the dead bodies.
    “What do you see?” Jacob asked.
    The man and woman were lying in the same position, their bent legs parallel a little to the left, their right hands on their
     ribcages and their left ones over their genitals.
    “They couldn’t have been lying like this when they died,” she said.
    Jacob nodded.
    “I know,” he said, “but why?”
    Dessie picked up the picture from Paris. The two victims were sitting with their hands on their stomachs.
    “They look like they’ve just eaten too much,” Dessie said.
    They were posing.
The corpses were posing
. They were saying something, or at least representing something. Whatwas it? If the cops figured that out, they just might catch them.
    She looked at Jacob.
    “Let me see the one I was sent,” she said.
    He gave her the picture from Dalarö. She took it and could still feel the smell of the hot living room.
    The woman, Claudia, was sitting upright against the back of the sofa. In her lap was a cushion that had probably been white
     to start with. She was leaning over the man, Rolf, who was lying on the cushion in her lap.
    The man was lying in a strange position. One knee was drawn up, and his fingers were spread out above his heart. In his right
     hand he was holding something that looked like a sign—or a spatula.
    “It’s definitely been arranged,” she said.
    “Does it mean anything to you?”
    Dessie looked at the picture for a long time.
    “I recognize something,” she said. “I just don’t know where from. I can’t put my finger on it.”
    “Concentrate,” Jacob said.
    She stared at the picture until the focus started to blur.
    “Sorry,” she said. “It’s not coming.”
    He looked at her with his very blue eyes for several long seconds.
    Then he