He packed his case, his movements slow and hesitant. He hated the constant traveling, the endless series of anonymous hotel rooms that served as his home. The apartment in Jerusalem was just one of many places where he stayed; it had never been his real base.
He missed having a proper home.
Sometimes he thought he had no roots at all.
He flipped his case shut. The Solomon Community in Stockholm had a new head of security. Two, if you counted Peder Rydh, who would fill the post until the summer. Poor sucker. He had no idea of what was waiting for him.
Efraim gazed out at all the snow. The summer seemed so far away. How could people live in a place like this? Cold and dark. That was his overall impression of the past few days.
He had been in Stockholm before, of course. As recently as last October. His employer had decided it was time for a fresh approach. One final attempt to recruit Eden Lundell. At the time she had only just started her job as head of counterterrorism with Säpo; by now she must be well established.
She had said no. Very clearly. Only two weeks after Efraim had made his move, Mossad’s liaison officer for Scandinavia had been called in to see the general director of Säpo and was castigated for the fact that his organization had had the gall to try to infiltrate Sweden’s security police. It pained him to admit it, but Säpo’s handling of the issue had been impressive. Mossad had also been surprised by Eden’s reaction; it seemed she had gone straight to her boss and put all her cards on the table.
“There is nothing I don’t know,” Buster Hansson had said. “I know that you got one of your operators to seduce Eden in London and made her look like an idiot in front of MI5, her British employer. I know that she’s only human and that she made a terrible mistake. But now she has finished paying for that mistake.”
Unexpected. So Eden had told her boss whom she had had a relationship with. That was a brave thing to do. It must have really hurt.
Unfortunately, Buster Hansson was wrong. He had said there was nothing he didn’t know. That wasn’t true.
Efraim sat down on the bed. His plane was due to take off in less than two hours. Back to Israel. Home to Jerusalem. He thought about Eden and took a deep breath. He had been borrowing an apartment from a friend in Tel Aviv back then, when he seduced her. When they had had a relationship.
A very unfair relationship, because she had actually fallen in love, while he had just screwed her in the interests of national security.
But he had said that he loved her, and she had believed him—until she realized who he was and what his agenda must be. The humiliation had driven her crazy; the fact that she had walked straight into his simple trap had made her lose all self-respect. For a while he had thought that she wouldn’t settle for an outburst of rage, that she would come after him, determined never to give up until she had killed him. But that wasn’t what happened. Instead her fury had been followed by total silence, and then she had left London.
Resolutely he got to his feet. He had no reason to remain in Stockholm. It was time to go home, to wait for his next assignment. This had been a turbulent ending to his stay in the Swedish capital; it would be interesting to follow the progress of the police investigation.
He had made a point of staying away from the members of the Solomon Community, visiting the center only to do his job. Distance was important: he didn’t want to be recognized and remembered.
But that damned feeling kept on coming over him. The same feeling that had stressed him out when it looked as if they weren’t going to find a suitable candidate for the post of head of security. It hovered in the air, hanging over him like an omen of impending doom, an Armageddon that was being held at bay only by the beautiful winter weather that had blessed the city today.
He tried to shake off the sense of unease as he picked up his suitcase and left the room. He went down to the lobby to check out.
The receptionist smiled.
“There’s a message for you,” she said, handing him an envelope.
Slowly he put down the case. He stood there holding the letter. Who knew he was here? A few people from the Solomon Community, but they wouldn’t contact him in writing. They would phone him.
Efraim moved away from the desk. With his back to the receptionist, he opened the sealed envelope.
It held only a simple white card. He read the brief message.
What the hell?
This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening.
He read the message over and over again.
“Excuse me, did you want to check out?”
He turned around in a daze.
“No,” he said. “No, I’m staying.”
He slipped the card into his pocket, knowing that he wouldn’t need to look at it again to remember what it said.
I heard you were in town.
So am I.
The Paper Boy
Children’s bodies, laid to rest in the cold snow. Fredrika Bergman was standing a short distance away with Alex, trying yet again to understand how someone could believe they had the right to harm other people. Take on the role of the supreme judge, presiding over life and death.
The life and death of children.
She could hardly remember how she and Alex had managed to get from the interviews with the boys’ mothers in Östermalm to the deserted golf course at Drottningholm.
“I don’t understand this,” Alex said.
“Who does?”
“What the hell are these paper bags supposed to mean?”
When the bags had been removed, there was no longer any doubt. They had found Simon Eisenberg and Abraham Goldmann.
“They must have some significance for the murderer,” Fredrika said. “But I have no idea what it might be.”
Sometimes a murderer would try to distance himself from his crime by covering the victim’s face, depersonalizing him or her. Could it be something along those lines?
She looked at the bags. Brown, sturdy. With big faces drawn on the front.
“It seems as if whoever shot the boys wanted to tell us something,” Alex said. “With the bags, I mean. Have you checked if there’s anything written on them?” he asked one of the CSIs.
“Yes,” she said. “There’s nothing. The only thing of interest is the face on each one. I’ll take them back to the lab and check them over.”
They could always hope, of course. With a bit of luck the killer would have suffered an attack of megalomania and would have left his or her fingerprints all over the thick paper. Or used a very rare pen that would be easy to trace. Somehow.
Fredrika was very downhearted. They wouldn’t find a single thing on those bags; she felt it in every fiber of her body.
“Is there anything else you can tell us?” she said. “For example, how did the boys get here?”
“Good question. You can see the boys’ footprints,” the CSI said, pointing. “They ran quite a distance through the forest over there; we’ve been able to follow them all the way to a narrow track that branches off Lovövägen. The most likely scenario is that they managed to escape from their abductor, but I’ve no idea how that happened. Hopefully the forensic pathologist will be able to tell us more on the basis of their injuries.”
Fredrika shuddered. She couldn’t take her eyes off the children’s bare feet in the sparkling snow. Who knew what they had been forced to endure before they managed to get away? And in the end they had both been shot dead.
They must have been terrified.
“You said you were able to follow their footprints,” Alex said. “That must mean they didn’t get away until it had stopped snowing.”
“Exactly. The tracks are very clear and well preserved. I think they were running in daylight, with the weather on their side. And the shots were fired less than an hour ago.”
They had been given that information in the car on the way over, along with the news that Säpo had been called out first, because the shots had been heard by the guards in the palace gar
dens.
“How much time elapsed between the two shots?” Fredrika asked.
The CSI frowned and thought for a moment.
“You’ll have to double-check the witness statements, but I think it was about twenty minutes.”
Alex didn’t say anything, and Fredrika saw his jaw tense as it so often did when he was thinking. Twenty minutes between the shots, yet the boys had gone down fifty yards apart. How was that possible?
“I can’t make any sense of this,” Fredrika said.
“Me neither.” Alex shook his head. “So let’s imagine they managed to get away from whoever abducted them. That they ran off together. Obviously the perpetrator went after them, and—”
He was interrupted by the CSI.
“They didn’t run together. There’s a whole tangle of footprints among the trees over there. It’s clear that they ran in different directions, but it seems likely that they both spotted the golf course and decided to get out of the forest and head for open ground.”
Fredrika could understand that. A golf course would make them think of some kind of civilization, the hope of meeting a savior even though it was the middle of winter. Then again, could you actually tell it was a golf course? She looked around and decided you couldn’t. The flags that normally marked the holes had been removed, and the course resembled nothing more than a gigantic white field.
“Children act on instinct,” Alex said. “They don’t like dark forests. If they see an alternative, they’ll go for it.”
“But they would have had more protection in the forest,” Fredrika objected.
“I’m not sure they were thinking logically.”
Fredrika thought he was probably right.
“What can you tell us about the perpetrator’s tracks?” she said. “Or was there more than one?”
She hadn’t really thought about that possibility before she spoke. There could have been more than one person hunting children out on the island.
She and Alex exchanged a look of mutual understanding. The boys might not even have chosen to leave the cover of the trees; they might just as well have been driven out.
But the CSI shook her head.
“We’ve found prints made by only one pair of shoes. Either we have two killers wearing shoes that are exactly the same size and make, or the children were shot by the same person, which seems more likely.”
The golf course was cold and desolate. Fredrika adjusted her scarf and pulled on her gloves. She wanted to get back in the car, gather her thoughts, and digest what she had seen.
The forensic technicians came forward with stretchers. Gently they freed the boys from their icy bed, ready to be transferred to the forensic laboratory in Solna.
“We need to inform the parents,” Fredrika said.
She glanced at the police tape that cordoned off the entire area. The first journalists had already appeared. So far all they knew was that shots had been heard in the vicinity of Drottningholm Palace, and that the police had discovered something, but Fredrika was well aware that it was only a matter of time before they learned that the boys had been found.
“Already in hand,” Alex said. “The mothers are still in the center, and the fathers have been asked to join them there.”
There were routine procedures for everything, even for the cruelest, most unthinkable news.
Fredrika couldn’t imagine anything worse than being taken aside in the middle of searching for her missing child and being told that the child was dead.
“Come on, let’s get back,” Alex said.
As they turned away, Fredrika couldn’t stop thinking about the paper bags with the faces drawn on them. There must be a message, but she couldn’t see it. Perhaps she wasn’t supposed to; the message could be meant for someone else. In which case the question was whether that person would come forward, or whether he or she would have to be tracked down.
The triumph of good over evil was a recurring theme in the stories Peder Rydh read to his children. It was also a principle that meant a great deal to him.
We get what we deserve.
Past sins may grow old, but they should never be forgotten; there is always time for vengeance.
Just once he had taken on the role of executioner. It had cost him his job but had probably saved his sanity. He had no idea of what might save Simon’s and Abraham’s parents.
The boys had been found shot dead not far from Drottningholm Palace.
In the Solomon Community center the news was received with shock and sorrow. The silence that followed was so dense that Peder could almost touch it. One by one, the members left. Went home to their families. Back to their lives. Eternally grateful that tragedy had struck someone else and not them.
Peder stayed behind. It was a devastating start to a job that only yesterday had seemed challenging and exciting.
For the second time in as many days, parents from the Solomon Community were being taken to a forensic laboratory to formally identify their dead children. It was incomprehensible.
He found a quiet corner and called Ylva. He wanted to hear her voice, know that she was okay.
“What’s going on?” she said.
Anxious.
There was no way she was going to let him drag more crap into their lives. That was what she really wanted to say.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Is there a connection? Between what happened yesterday and this?”
Was there?
The police didn’t seem to think so.
Peder was trying to stay out of the police investigation; he knew he didn’t belong there anymore. But if he had still been a serving officer, if he had been a part of Alex’s new team . . . he would have slammed his fist down on the table.
Because he was convinced the cases were linked.
When he had finished talking to Ylva, he went into the room that had been designated as his office. The security team at the Solomon Community had conducted a parallel interview of their own with everyone who had witnessed the murder of the preschool teacher after the police had spoken to them. Interview was probably the wrong word: the community didn’t have that kind of authority. But they had talked to the three parents who had been standing next to Josephine and to the people who had been passing by at the time. They hadn’t spoken to the children.
Peder read through their notes but found nothing useful.
Frustrated, he went through the material the team had put together but couldn’t find what he was looking for. How could the community find out what the murder weapon was? Or any details about distance and the trajectory of the bullet? Or if there were any suspects among the victim’s circle of acquaintances?
Actually the media had answered the last question; as usual they had been fed by leaks from within the police. Josephine’s boyfriend had a string of convictions for serious crimes. Peder guessed that the police would conclude that she had been dragged into some kind of transaction, either willingly or under duress, and had ended up as a victim of organized crime.
Peder didn’t agree.
This crime was spectacular. Cocky. As daring as picking up two boys in a car and driving off with them.
What was the best way to proceed? Would he be able to persuade Alex that it was essential for him to sit in on some of their briefings? He needed access to their investigation if he was going to get anywhere.
He broke off his train of thought.
What the fuck was he doing?
He wasn’t going to “get anywhere.” He was no longer an investigator; he was head of security. It was time to get to grips with his new job, familiarize himself with his team. The general secretary had had a long conversation with him, explained how the community viewed Peder’s role. He had also explained how the security team worked and what their working routine was.
There was a knock on his door. The sound made him jump and shout “Come in” rather too loudly.
The general secretary came in.
“I’m
extremely concerned,” he said, closing the door behind him.
Peder listened.
“Tell me honestly: Do you think either of the dreadful crimes that have shaken our community over the past twenty-four hours could be motivated by anti-Semitism? Or could there really be completely different reasons behind them?”
It was a straight question, and it deserved a straight answer. Had Josephine or the two boys been killed because they were Jewish, or not?
“I can’t tell you that,” Peder said. “I don’t know enough.”
“What do you think about the police’s main line of inquiry with regard to Josephine? The idea that the murder is linked to her boyfriend.”
Peder didn’t hesitate.
“I think there’s a different explanation. But once again, I have too little information to draw any conclusions.”
The general secretary gazed at him.
“In that case, I hope you will come up with a way of acquiring more information, because many members of our community are terrified.”
Terrified?
“Of what?”
“They are terrified that they or their children are next in line to be executed. Because Josephine, Simon, and Abraham were killed by a murderer who will return to our community to seek out further victims.”
So the boys were dead. Hunted down and shot. Alex Recht knew that he couldn’t do anything useful until he had the preliminary report from the forensic pathologist.
Which should tell him how the boys had been killed. And what they had been subjected to before they died.
He thought about the impressions their feet had left in the snow. How far could you run if you were ten years old, barefoot, and frozen, and had been awake for hours on end? If you could trust the tracks in the snow: they had gotten quite a long way.
Alex tried to set aside his own emotional reaction to the case that had landed on his desk. Fredrika had mentioned Lilian Sebastiansson, a little girl who had gone missing from a train one summer’s day a few years ago. Several children had disappeared and only one had survived, with severe burns. Alex would never forget, because he had been there. Seen the flames burst into life, raced toward the child to save him. His hands still bore the scars.
The Chosen Page 9