“Yes, but we didn’t know these boys were going to disappear. I’ve spoken to a colleague in the NCU; they’re very familiar with Josephine’s boyfriend, and would like to take over the case as part of their own work in mapping serious organized crime.”
But what if Josephine had been shot for some other reason? What if her death had nothing to do with her boyfriend?
In that case they would have to pick it up later. They had the capacity to run only one of the two investigations. Alex’s team was still incomplete.
“We can’t have a team that consists of just two people,” he had said when it had first been suggested that he should lead a special investigative unit once more.
“Absolutely not. You’ll have a core team of three, as before. Recruitment will be down to you. If you need additional resources, all you have to do is ask and I’ll allocate colleagues on a temporary basis to assist with any ongoing preliminary investigations.”
But recruitment took time, and at the moment the team consisted of Alex and Fredrika. They had put together an advertisement for the third member and had started to go through the applications as they came trickling in, but so far none of them had been particularly impressive.
Fredrika sailed into the office, her cheeks rosy after walking to work in the cold; her eyes were brighter than they had been the previous day. Playing the violin was clearly doing her good.
“Forget the teacher,” Alex said. “We’re working on the boys.”
Fredrika leaned against the wall.
“Missing kids,” she said. “The perfect first case for our little team, wouldn’t you say?”
She pulled a face.
“You’re thinking about the little girl who disappeared from the train?” Alex said. “Lilian Sebastiansson?”
As if we could ever forget her.
“Aren’t you?”
“Only because it was the first serious case we investigated; otherwise I can’t see any similarities.”
Fredrika shrugged. “Maybe not, but children are children, after all.”
Alex knew she was right. He really didn’t like this business of the two missing Jewish boys. The media had gone crazy overnight, wanting more information, more details, but Alex refused to feed them at such an early stage.
“Is it just you and me?” Fredrika asked.
“We can request any additional resources we need, but we’ll be leading the case.”
That wasn’t strictly true. Alex was the boss, not Fredrika; but as there were only two of them, that seemed like an unnecessary distinction.
The media had been given pictures of the boys as evening turned into night and the snowstorm reached its peak. Public reaction was instant. Everyone thought they could help. Every single person who had been in inner-city Stockholm and seen a child with a backpack and a woolly hat trudging along unaccompanied by an adult decided it was their duty to get in touch with the police.
“Have we had any calls that might be useful?” Fredrika asked.
“Not yet.”
“So where do we start?”
“We’ll go over to the Solomon Community; you interview one set of parents and I’ll take the other. If they’re there, of course. Yesterday the fathers were out searching.”
As he got up and reached for his coat, there was a loud knock on the door and an assistant came in.
“An elderly lady called and said she’s sure she saw one of the boys at a bus stop on Karlavägen yesterday afternoon.”
“And what makes her any more reliable than all the rest of the people who’ve called and said more or less the same thing?” Alex wanted to know as he pulled on his coat.
“Because it’s the stop from which the boys always catch the bus to the tennis center, according to their parents. And because she says the boy had the kind of bag that’s used to carry a tennis racket.”
His first day at work was actually his second.
Peder Rydh slithered along on the fresh snow that hadn’t yet been cleared from the pavements. His sons had cheered when he dropped them off at day care and they saw the thick white blanket of virgin snow waiting for them in the playground.
“We’ll be able to get the toboggans out!” one of the boys had roared with delight.
There were days when Peder wished he were five years old, wanting nothing more from life than good weather and time to play freely. His brother Jimmy’s life had been a bit like that: he had remained a child after falling from a swing and injuring his head.
On that occasion they had been playing a bit too freely.
Peder walked faster. It was never a good idea to start the day by thinking about Jimmy. The memory still hurt; the sense of loss was still immense.
But I avenged your death, little brother. And it was worth the cost.
The smell of coffee greeted him as he arrived at the Solomon Community. The air felt thin, as if too many people were all trying to breathe it in at the same time. The noise level was muted; some people had been there all night, calling around to ask about the boys.
No one had seen anything.
No one had heard anything.
The general secretary took Peder to one side and went over everything that had happened since Peder went home at just after two o’clock in the morning to grab a few hours’ sleep. The general secretary hadn’t slept at all, which made Peder feel a little unsure of himself. Should he have stayed all night, too, then worked all day as well?
“Still no sign of them,” his boss said. “The police have no information either. The parents have kept their phones switched on, of course, but no one has contacted them to demand a ransom or anything like that. So it doesn’t seem to be a kidnapping.”
“I think perhaps it’s a little early to draw that kind of conclusion,” Peder said. “There are different kinds of kidnapping.”
The general secretary went on as if Peder hadn’t spoken:
“The parents aren’t rich; they wouldn’t be able to pay a large ransom. My guess is that some lunatic has taken them and that it’s exceptionally important that they are found as quickly as possible.”
The police officer in Peder, the one who had been sacked in disgrace, suddenly came to life.
First of all, people were sometimes kidnapped in spite of the fact that their relatives weren’t rich.
Secondly, the possibility that the boys had disappeared voluntarily couldn’t be ruled out.
And thirdly, it didn’t matter whether they had gone off on their own or been abducted by someone else—finding them was still a matter of urgency.
“What about their phones?” he said. “I’m assuming both boys have their cell phones with them; do they ring when you call the numbers?”
“They seem to be switched off.”
“We’ll check with the police, see if they’ve managed to pinpoint their position. There’s no guarantee that the boys and the phones will be in the same place, but at least it would be a start.”
A shadow passed across the general secretary’s face.
“If the person who’s taken them is thinking far enough ahead to realize he can be tracked using their phones, and has dumped them . . .” he began.
“Then he’s a man with a plan,” Peder finished the sentence for him.
Silently he added: And in that case we’re in trouble, because even the weather is on his side.
The boys would have had no chance of surviving the night if they had managed to get away from their abductor. They would have frozen to death within an hour.
The police officer inside Peder refused to go away.
Two children and a preschool teacher.
All members of the Solomon Community.
All with a clear link to the Solomon school.
It was obvious that this couldn’t possibly be a coincidence.
The only question was what was going to happen next.
One of the boys had definitely been seen at the bus stop on Karlavägen. The elderly lady confirmed this when Fredrika
Bergman showed her some pictures of the children.
“He’s the one I saw,” she said, pointing to the photograph of the one called Simon. “I spoke to him.”
“What about?”
“I asked him what time it was, and he answered very politely.”
Fredrika looked at the photographs provided by the parents. Both boys looked so serious; Simon in particular wore a melancholy expression that affected his whole appearance. The other boy, Abraham, looked more insolent. Cocky. The kind of kid who might get hold of a boy like Simon and shove his head down the toilet, just because it was fun.
Fredrika stopped her train of thought. It was wrong to think badly of children. They deserved more protection than adults in that respect; they weren’t yet fully formed individuals. It wasn’t right for Fredrika to come up with aspects of Abraham’s character when she didn’t even know him.
“Have you remembered anything else?” she said to the woman, keen to bring the conversation to an end as quickly as possible so that she and Alex could get over to Östermalm.
“I have, actually. He looked so angry.”
“Angry?”
“Yes, really upset. Almost as if he was standing there getting quite worked up about something. And I was surprised when he didn’t get on the bus.”
“Why?”
“Because he was obviously waiting for it. Lots of different routes use that stop, but I saw his face change when we spotted the bus. And then he didn’t move a muscle. It was as if he was standing there debating with himself, deciding whether to get on or not.”
Fredrika could clearly see the boy at the bus stop in the snow. It had been just after four o’clock, and the tennis lesson was due to begin at four thirty. Even if he’d already changed, which his parents said was usually the case, he didn’t have much time. She presumed he hadn’t caught the bus because Abraham wasn’t there—but why was Abraham late? He was due at the tennis center at four thirty as well.
Fredrika thanked the woman for taking the time to come in and showed her how to find her way out.
The last sighting of Simon was at the bus stop, which meant that at least they had a geographical location to start from.
• • •
“We need to go over what we know,” she said to Alex a little while later when they were in the car on the way to Östermalm.
“Haven’t we already done that?”
“No. We’ve had too much to think about: first the fatal shooting, then the missing boys. I’m not saying that everyone isn’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing; they are. But we haven’t yet sat down and worked out a clear picture. For example, do we have the slightest idea where the boys went missing?”
“On their way to their tennis lesson,” Alex said. “Both of them were in school, then they went off to do some homework with different friends. They always met at the bus stop at four o’clock.”
“Exactly. But we don’t think they got on the bus?”
“We’ve spoken to the bus company and all the drivers who might have picked them up, but no one remembers seeing them.”
“So where does that take us? Do we think that they decided to go and do something else for some unknown reason? Or that they started walking instead of catching the bus? The woman who saw Simon at the stop said she thought he looked as if he wanted to get on the bus when it arrived but then stayed where he was.”
Alex pulled up at a pedestrian crossing and waited for a man pushing a stroller to cross.
“In that case I suppose we can assume he was waiting for Abraham,” he said. “And when he turned up . . .”
“Yes?”
“No idea. The trail ends at the bus stop. That’s where they were last seen.”
“Wrong,” Fredrika said. “That’s where Simon was last seen. It would be very useful if we could say the same about Abraham. Where are we up to with the analysis of their telephone traffic? Have we been able to pinpoint their cell phones?”
They had arrived, and Alex was looking for a parking space. The car glided slowly along, the snow crunching beneath its tires.
“I checked while you were talking to the woman from the bus stop: both cell phones are switched off. No signal whatsoever. I’ve asked for lists of their calls over the last few months, and we should have those in an hour or so.”
“Do we know who each of them called last?” Fredrika said as she pointed. “There’s a space.”
“Simon’s mother spoke to him after he left school; she said he sounded just the same as usual. He said he wanted meatballs for dinner.”
He reversed into the space.
“If he was talking about dinner, then it definitely sounds as if he was intending to go straight home after tennis. What about Abraham?”
“He spoke to his father before he went to meet Simon. He’d been doing some homework at a friend’s house. But I don’t know if that was the last call he made or received.”
They left the car and set off toward the Solomon Community. The police cordon outside the school had been removed, and the snow had done a good job of covering the blood. The street looked perfectly normal.
“They’re ten years old, Alex. We have to gain access to the family’s computers, see what they’ve been doing on the Internet. That’s where children communicate these days, however sad that might sound.”
“We’ll sort it out with their parents now. To be honest, I’d be more worried about that if we were dealing with young girls.”
“Because of the risk that they might have arranged to meet someone they’ve gotten to know online?” Fredrika said.
“Yes. Unfortunately we live in an age where it’s more common for girls to be picked up by perverts.”
“But that doesn’t mean boys are safe. These two are young enough to attract all kinds of perpetrators.”
Pedophiles. That was the word she had meant to say, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do so. The involvement of a pedophile was always the last thing they wanted—and the worst-case scenario.
She pushed aside the unwanted images in her mind and decided to think of something else. They knew where Simon had last been seen. Now she wanted to know where Abraham’s trail ended.
The heat inside the center was overwhelming. Alex automatically unbuttoned his coat and noticed that Fredrika had done the same. The situation seemed almost unchanged from the previous evening, with several people working hard to find out where the boys had gone. However, the energy level had dropped. He could hear it in their voices, see it in their body language. They had already phoned everyone they could think of; everyone who might be able to help was already here.
Peder Rydh met them at the door. He and Alex shook hands, but Fredrika reacted as Alex had done the previous day and gave him a hug. The memory of a time Alex could never recapture flared up once more. He, Fredrika, and Peder had been a super-troika, and those years had corresponded with the most difficult time in his private life. The loss of Lena to cancer had damaged him in so many ways. Diana only had to mention a word like mammogram or biopsy for him to panic.
“Darling, you can’t go around being scared of life itself,” she would say.
As if it were life and not death he feared. He had no problem with the idea that we have a limited time on this earth; however, he did struggle to accept that death was forever. That people don’t come back. Ever.
When had Fredrika and Peder last met? He had no idea, but they both looked quite emotional as they broke apart.
“I heard you got married,” Peder said. “Congratulations!”
So it must be quite a while ago. Fredrika had been married for over a year.
“Thanks. We tied the knot while we were living in New York,” she said with a smile. A big smile. It was obvious that she and Spencer were very much in love. Alex still hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting Spencer, but he had heard a lot about him. Stupid name, but he sounded like one of the good guys.
“So you’re working here now,” Fredrika said, ch
anging the subject.
“It’s my first day.”
“Not a good start, what with the murder and the boys going missing.”
Peder nodded.
Alex looked around. “I see you’ve done part of our job for us,” he said, referring to the barrage of telephone calls that had been made by volunteers.
“It’s an impressive turnout,” Peder said. “I had no idea the Solomon Community was so tight.”
Alex was in the same boat, and he wondered what the implications might be if the police found any leads that pointed toward the community itself.
“Anything you can tell us?” he asked.
Peder grew serious.
“How far have you got? Are you leading the case now?”
Alex was surprised. Was Peder trying to trade information?
“Yes, I’m leading the case, and I’ll be happy to tell the families what we know so far. Are they here?”
Peder relaxed.
“The boys’ mothers are here; the fathers are still out looking.”
Still. Where were they looking, and what were they looking for? The families lived in Östermalm; the tennis center where the boys played was about half a mile away on Lidingövägen. If someone had taken them, they could be anywhere.
People are never more irrational than when they are afraid—Alex knew that. He also knew that hope was the last thing to go. You only had to ask Peder. He could tell you what happened when hope disappeared and hell became a reality.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Peder said quietly so that no one else could hear. “About the parents. But they’re just incapable of sitting at home and waiting. Do you want me to call the fathers?”
“Leave them for the time being,” Alex said. “We’ll start with the boys’ mothers. It would be helpful if we could speak to them separately.”
Peder indicated that they should follow him.
“There’s someone I’d like you to meet before you do anything else. He’s a friend of Abraham’s, and I think he has something important to tell you.”
• • •
The boy was sitting in the general secretary’s room, where Peder had asked him to wait for Alex and Fredrika to arrive. Peder introduced him to his former colleagues.
The Chosen Page 7