The Postcard Killers - James Patterson [76]
“Hasta la vista,” Jacob said. “Till next time.”
But the line was already dead, and Jacob wondered if he’d ever hear his friend’s voice again.
Chapter 113
Tuesday, June 22
Oslo, Norway
THE MOTOR HOME WAS in a campsite just outside the city. The police cordon had been lifted from the entrance to the site but was still in place around the vehicle.
Dessie pulled the zipper on her Windbreaker up snug and tight under her chin.
The campsite was almost empty, and not just because of the weather. The Italians’ motor home was all alone in its section of the site, like a leprous metal box whose neighbors had fled in panic.
She went closer.
Drifts of dead insects were still littering the insides of the windows. They covered the bottom third of the screens.
She pulled the hood over her head. A stiff gale was blowing in from the Oslo fjord just below, sharp as needles.
It was the flies that had let on that something was wrong inside the Italians’ motor home. The people in the neighboring tents had complained about the buzzing, and eventually also about the smell.
The owner of the site, a man named Olsen, hadn’t been too bothered. The Italians were paying for their patch on account, and he wasn’t fussy. If people wanted to keep flies as pets, he wasn’t about to stop them.
When the police eventually arrived, the windows were completely covered in swarms of black insects. They were as thick as curtains.
It was estimated that the bodies had been there for over a month.
Dessie pulled out the copy of the Polaroid picture, taken before the flies had started to lay eggs.
The wind tore at the sheet of paper, and she had to hold it with both hands.
The letter and postcard had only been found the previous morning. The reporter the killers had chosen had gone away on vacation the day the card was posted. No one had been checking his mail.
When he returned to work at the paper, he found both the postcard, TO BE OR NOT TO BE, and the photograph Dessie now had before her.
Antonio Bonino and Emma Vendola had been on a driving tour of Europe, and had arrived in Oslo on the morning of May 17. They wanted to experience Norway’s national day, the celebrations when the Norwegians mark the anniversary of their country’s independence.
Emma worked as a secretary at a PR agency. Antonio was studying to be a dentist. They had been married for two years.
She looked at the victims’ picture again.
Their hands had been placed close to their faces, the palms to their ears.
The killers had stuffed two pairs of black tights in their mouths, giving the faces a grotesque expression of pain and horror.
She had recognized the work of art immediately, and it was famous.
Edvard Munch’s The Scream, a painting that had become world-famous to a new generation as the logo for the horror movie Scream.
Dessie could feel her eyes welling up. She didn’t know if it was because of the wind or the thought of the dead couple.
They had been saving up to buy this vehicle ever since they got married. Six bunks, so there would be room for the children when they came along.
Did they have time to feel afraid?
Did they feel any pain?
She turned away from the motor home and walked toward the exit, not wanting to think about the dead anymore.
Instead she conjured up Jacob’s image. His messy hair, the crumpled suede jacket, the sparkling blue eyes. He hadn’t been in touch.
He’d disappeared from her life as though he’d never been there.
This past week could have been a dream, or, rather, a nightmare, in which her whole life had been turned upside down by forces she had no control over.
Dessie shivered.
She stopped by the exit and turned around to look back at the abandoned campsite.
Willowy birch trees bent beneath the wind; the water down below was gray with geese. The cordon around the motor home flapped in the wind.
The Rudolphs could have been responsible for these murders.
They hadn’t been arrested yet in the middle of May.
Chapter 114
Stockholm, Sweden
SYLVIA LET MALCOLM GO in first.
She enjoyed watching the effect he had on poor, dull