NK, the department store, was crowded, and they had to take a number at the jeweler. Sylvia pul ed the German woman over to the perfume department while the men picked out the right watch. They each bought a bottle of Dior's J'adore.

The woman let out a series of very cute squeals of joy when she opened her present.

Sylvia took the opportunity to pop into a branch of Systembolaget, the state-owned chain that had a monopoly on sel ing alcohol throughout Sweden, and bought two bottles of Moet Chandon.

"This deserves a celebration," Sylvia cooed, twining her arm around the German man's waist. "I want to drink these with you, somewhere where we can be alone."

The German looked slightly confused but definitely interested.

Sylvia laughed softly.

"I mean al four of us," she said. "Do you know anywhere we could go?"

He looked at her ful breasts and gulped audibly, then nodded.

"We're renting a house in the archipelago. Our rental car's actual y in a garage not far from here."

Sylvia kissed him on the lips then, letting her tongue play over his front teeth.

"So what are we waiting for?" she whispered. "Let's go to your house."

Chapter 14

The newsroom was nearly abandoned for lunch.

Forsberg, the news editor, was sitting chewing the end off a bal point pen and reading telegrams. Out in the mail room, two twitchy forensic investigators had settled in to intercept any letters the kil ers might send.

Dessie was sitting with a mass of printouts about the double murders throughout Europe over the past eight months spread out on her desk. She had been there since seven o'clock that morning and had been told to stay until the last postal delivery arrived, sometime in the late afternoon. She had agreed to put together a summary of the murders that another reporter could build a story on.

The case in Berlin, the latest one, was deeply tragic to her.