The Chosen

by Kristina Ohlsson

  Was this something similar? Another bloody lunatic going after the youngest, the most vulnerable? Alex looked at the photographs from the edge of the golf course. A fractured pattern of footprints in the snow. Two boys lying on their backs, with paper bags on their heads.

  Those fucking bags.

  What did they mean?

  If it hadn’t been for the faces drawn on them, Alex might have thought the bags were there simply to alleviate the murderer’s sense of regret, or whatever the hell you felt when you had killed two children.

  But the faces.

  Eyes, nose, mouth. A large mouth. Impossible to tell if it was laughing or screaming.

  The paper bags worried him, because they made the whole thing even more sick. And if it was sick, then it was also irrational, which meant there was no way of knowing what to expect.

  A ghostly voice whispered in Alex’s ear.

  Serial killer.

  Were they dealing with a serial killer? If so, there would be more victims. With paper bags pulled over their heads.

  But serial killers were unusual. Not even unusual, to be honest. They were virtually nonexistent. In real life, anyway.

  Alex stared at the material in front of him. What did they know, and what could they rule out? To begin with, the gun put an end to the idea that the whole thing could have been a game that had gone wrong. So did the fact that the boys had been missing for a whole night before they died. Nor did it seem like a kidnapping that had gone wrong: the parents hadn’t been contacted. Unless of course they had been contacted but hadn’t informed the police.

  But why would that happen?

  Which left two alternatives.

  Perhaps the whole thing was a terrible coincidence. The boys had somehow bumped into a killer who had selected his victims on a whim, which meant that any child could have been abducted.

  Or those two boys had been deliberately chosen. This seemed more likely to Alex: there was some kind of personal motivation, either directed at the boys themselves, or with the aim of punishing someone else. Their parents, for example.

  He dug out his notes from the conversation with Abraham’s friend; Abraham had told him he was getting a lift to his tennis lesson. They were assuming that the killer had picked Abraham up on the street, but it was possible that something had gone wrong and that Abraham and Simon had been dropped off somewhere else altogether, not outside the tennis center. And that the person who killed them had picked them up from wherever that might be.

  They had so little concrete information.

  Alex glanced at his watch. By now the parents would have been informed; he and Fredrika weren’t due to see them until the following day. This would give them more time to formulate the right questions.

  He went back to the issue of how well Abraham must have known the driver to jump into that car. It would simplify matters considerably if the boys had been picked up by an acquaintance, because that would almost guarantee that their parents also knew that person.

  A teacher, perhaps, or a family friend.

  Or one of the parents.

  That was another key piece of the puzzle: they needed to check whether all the parents had an alibi for the time when the boys went missing.

  Alex’s phone rang, and he felt something akin to relief. He was in danger of getting lost in the labyrinth of his thoughts.

  It was Peder Rydh.

  “Am I disturbing you? Have you got five minutes?”

  He sounded hesitant, as if he wasn’t sure whether this was a good idea or not.

  “Sure,” Alex said.

  “Are you still investigating the murder of the teacher at the Solomon school?”

  So Peder wanted information.

  “No, it’s been passed on to the National Crime Unit.”

  “Right. To the team dealing with hate crime?”

  “To Organized Crime.”

  Silence.

  “You don’t think you’re jumping to conclusions just because her partner has a criminal record?” Peder said eventually.

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “In the light of the fact that the boys have now been found dead, I’m just wondering if we can rule out the idea that there might be a connection.”

  Had they ruled it out? Alex wasn’t sure. They knew too little; they hadn’t even gotten details of the murder weapons yet.

  “We’re not ruling anything out,” he said. “But we need more concrete evidence before we can link the two. Both the MO and the choice of victim are very different; there doesn’t have to be a connection.”

  “It depends on your point of view,” Peder said. “You could say there are several similarities between the two incidents. The boys were abducted on the day Josephine was shot. All three were members of the Solomon Community. They were all part of the Solomon school. And all three were shot dead.”

  Alex was all too familiar with the energy in Peder’s voice. The hunger, the desire to be right.

  “So you think we’re looking at a hate crime in both cases?” he asked, sounding angrier than he had intended. “I think that’s one hell of a long shot.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying. I just think there’s a connection. And I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that all the victims were Jewish.”

  Alex didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to tell Peder that the boys had been found barefoot, with paper bags over their heads. These were clear differences from Josephine’s murder: she had been shot in the street, in broad daylight.

  “One more thing,” Peder went on. “Are you really sure that the right person was shot dead yesterday afternoon?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There were three small children standing next to Josephine when she was shot. The killer might have missed the person he actually intended to kill.”

  “You’re suggesting that one of the children was meant to die?” Alex said dubiously.

  “Why not? It was two children who were abducted just over an hour later, not adults.”

  Alex thought for a moment. Fredrika had said something similar the previous day, wondering whether someone other than Josephine had been the intended victim.

  “I don’t think so,” he said to Peder. “Unless I see some evidence pointing in that direction. Keep in touch; we’ll swap notes if we hear anything new.”

  Trying to link the children who had been standing on Nybrogatan with the boys who had been shot near Drottningholm was a questionable enterprise. On the other hand, they would soon have details of the murder weapons that had extinguished three lives.

  If the victims had been shot with the same gun, it would be impossible to deny that the cases were linked.

  The gym in the basement of Police HQ was a cavern characterized by too much sweat and adrenaline and too little brainpower; hard, muscular bodies that happened to bump into one another. Skin against skin, a wry grin over the shoulder, accompanied by a “Sorry.” Which was all too frequently followed by “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” or “What are you doing this evening?”

  Eden Lundell trained as often as she could, but preferably not among her colleagues. Unfortunately, today she didn’t have time to go anywhere else. Holding herself erect, she walked into the cattle market, saw the male police officers checking her out. Someone had tried to chat her up just once; it hadn’t ended well. Eden didn’t appreciate uninvited attention.

  Her feet thudded against the hard surface of the treadmill. She couldn’t forget the boys she had seen lying in the snow, even though it wasn’t Säpo’s case. She had heard Alex Recht’s name mentioned just before they left and had considered staying around to see him. They had been in touch several times during the autumn, above all when Alex had needed help to bring his son home from the USA after the hijacking of Flight 573. She was happy to do whatever she could: Alex was an excellent police officer and would have been invaluable if Säpo had been able to recruit him. However, he wasn’t interested, and that was that. Not every
one loved the world of secrets.

  The sweat was trickling down her back.

  Step by step she whipped the stress out of her body.

  Efraim was back in Stockholm.

  There was no end to it.

  Eden’s hatred burned with undiminished strength. She couldn’t bear to hear his name, to know that he was anywhere near her. She had too many memories. Too many—and too good, unfortunately. It had started out as an affair and grown into something else, something that began to seem serious, leaving her in despair.

  And she had forced herself to answer the biggest question of all:

  Was she prepared to leave Mikael for Efraim?

  Eden increased her pace on the treadmill. Faster, faster. She refused to remember her answer. Refused to remember what she had been ready to pay for something that had turned out to be nothing more than thin air.

  I could have left. I could have lost everything and gained nothing.

  She had taken another call from the Solomon Community just before she came down to the gym.

  The situation was desperate, the person on the other end of the line had said. They could be looking at a serial killer, handpicking his victims among the members of the community.

  Eden thought that was unlikely. Admittedly she knew only what she had read in the newspapers and what she had seen with her own eyes out on the island, but that was enough. At the moment there was no evidence to suggest that it was the same murderer. The fact that the crimes had been committed within such a short space of time looked like no more than an unfortunate coincidence.

  But what if it wasn’t?

  Eden ran faster.

  If it wasn’t—if someone really was selecting members of the Solomon Community as his targets—then it could only end in an even greater disaster.

  Efraim popped into her head again.

  Fuck, this had to stop.

  She was going out of her mind.

  Eden had confessed everything to Buster Hansson, the general director of Säpo, that autumn night when the situation became critical. She had almost lost her job, because it looked as if she were working as an agent for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. That was bad. It didn’t get much worse.

  And it had happened before.

  She had been working for MI5, the British intelligence service, and had been regarded as one of the organization’s top operatives. She had met Mikael in London, where he had been working as a priest in the Swedish church. Eden had fallen fast and hard for his charisma and his unshakable belief that he could make her whole. Their first year together had been good. Then Efraim Kiel came into the picture, and everything changed.

  So many lies.

  So many secret trysts in cheap hotel rooms, and eventually a trip all the way to Israel.

  Just to be with Efraim.

  Because she had fallen for him, too. She had believed they had met by chance, brought together by an invisible, magical hand. But that wasn’t the case. Everything had been planned in advance, down to the smallest detail. Eden had been no more than a counter in a game so meticulously worked out that the very thought of it made her shudder.

  Efraim had tried to deny everything. Sworn that he meant everything he had said, everything he had done, that she was important to him, that they still had the chance of a future together.

  Bullshit.

  She had told Buster Hansson all this—more than she had told Mikael, in fact. A lot more.

  However, she had kept one thing to herself. The grubbiest truth of all, the one that could still make her hate herself. These days she thought about it less and less often, but she didn’t believe she would ever have real peace of mind.

  Never.

  Because she didn’t deserve it.

  She stepped off the treadmill. Saw two well-built men helping each other on the bench press. Men did stuff together. That’s the way it had always been.

  She picked up her bag and slipped out of the gym. Went into the changing room and took out her phone. One missed call, from Mikael. If he had rung to discuss the trip he had mentioned, she would go crazy. She had a job to do, terrorists to keep in check. And incoming agents to deal with.

  Unfortunately it wasn’t possible to refer to Efraim in any other way.

  And she wanted the bastard out of the country. Out of her life.

  Once and for all.

  A clear blue sky, cold air. Efraim Kiel was strolling along Strandvägen, wondering whether he could be bothered to get annoyed with the Säpo agents who insisted on shadowing him. They didn’t seem very bright. He had been in Sweden for several days before they realized he had entered the country and decided that perhaps they ought to keep an eye on him.

  Being followed was a bit of a nuisance, but not unmanageable. Efraim would have no problem shaking them off. He had already done it twice and could do so again if necessary. But not too often: it was important to give them the impression that they were on top of things.

  He was more worried about the fact that the person who had left the envelope at reception had tracked him down.

  He had asked the receptionist who had brought it in, demanded a description, but was unable to get anything out of her. She just couldn’t remember, nor could any other member of staff. The lobby was covered by CCTV, but they refused to let him look at the film. If that was how they wanted it, Efraim was happy to play along. He knew how to get hold of information without first asking permission. When evening came he would take what he wanted.

  Unconsciously he was heading toward the Solomon Community. They would be surprised to see him; they thought he had gone home.

  The short lines on the card inside the envelope were still reverberating in his brain. The message was written in Hebrew and was clearly meant for Efraim’s eyes only.

  Feeling frustrated, he increased his speed. His Säpo followers kept pace like nonchalant shadows, naively convinced that he hadn’t noticed them.

  What the hell did this person who called himself the Paper Boy want?

  Efraim had several problems that he wasn’t yet sure how to solve. He had to find out more about the murders that had shaken the Solomon Community. See how far the police had gotten, what they knew about the three deaths. But he had no sources within the Swedish police. Eden was a last resort, of course, but she was with Säpo and had nothing to do with these investigations.

  The very thought of Eden stressed him out.

  The Paper Boy: Was he a mutual acquaintance? He didn’t think so.

  Efraim rarely felt uneasy. Years of training and experience had prepared him for most of what life had to offer, but not the sort of challenges the Paper Boy posed.

  He would have to make sure that he didn’t lose his grip. The mere fact that he was actually thinking of the Paper Boy as a real person was ominous.

  You don’t exist, he thought, clutching the note in his pocket.

  Although he couldn’t be certain.

  He knew of two Paper Boys; it depended which of them had contacted him. The one who was a myth, or the one who had once existed.

  He had reached the community center on Nybrogatan. He stopped in the street and stared at the door of the Solomon school, where the teacher had been killed. There were no traces of yesterday’s drama to be seen; last night’s storm had very efficiently swept away all the bloodstained snow. He moved closer to the building, examining the facade.

  It didn’t take him long to find the spot where the bullet had penetrated the wall. It wasn’t there now, of course; the police had removed it and taken it away. But the hole was still there, and it was lower down than Efraim had expected.

  If the killer had been lying on the roof on the opposite side of the street, he would have had a pretty good chance of being able to see what he was doing and to hit his target—assuming that he was a good shot, which Efraim took as a given. Otherwise no one would attempt this kind of attack. Not in the middle of a snowstorm.

  He squatted down, ran his hand over the wall. Josephine
had been surrounded by children when she was killed. Shot in the back. Had she been standing upright or bending down? Perhaps she had been about to kneel down to help one of the children with something. The newspapers hadn’t given any details, but they couldn’t be expected to.

  Was the bullet really meant for Josephine?

  Or for one of the children?

  Reluctantly his thoughts returned to the Paper Boy.

  Was it you who did this?

  He was overwhelmed by a sense of impotence. Had he misunderstood who the message was from?

  Efraim had no specialist knowledge of the Paper Boy, but two things he did know:

  First, he always left a calling card when he had taken a victim.

  And second, he took only children.

  Concentrating on the pattern of footprints and impressions left by shoes in the snow quickly became confusing. It was possible to track two sets of children’s bare feet, and one set of adult boots. Size 912, so probably a man’s. CSI thought they had found the place where the boys had managed to escape from their abductor, but how the children had gotten there remained a mystery.

  Fredrika Bergman frowned as she looked at the documents in front of her: a map, photographs, and scribbled notes.

  A theory was beginning to take shape. The boys had been taken to Lovön by car. At the moment it wasn’t clear whether the perpetrator had a specific link to the island, nor did they know where he and the children had spent the night. CSI had found evidence to suggest that a larger vehicle had been in the area where they thought the boys had escaped. The width of the tire tracks and the size of the wheelbase indicated that this was some kind of van.

  So the boys had been driven to the spot.

  But how had they managed to escape?

  Fredrika just couldn’t work it out, but it must have happened somehow. The boys had fled and sought refuge among the trees; it looked as if they had run around in circles. In certain places they appeared to have knelt down or even lain on the snow beneath the trees. They had presumably hidden behind the tree trunks, watching out for whoever was chasing them. But why had neither of them gotten away? If only they had set off in different directions, then the killer wouldn’t have been able to go after both of them at the same time.