The Chosen

by Kristina Ohlsson

  “Is this Mona Samson?”

  He handed Saul the sketch. Saul gazed at it for a long time.

  “Hard to say, but it could be her.”

  Alex took back the drawing. It could be her wasn’t definitive enough, but it had been worth a try. He changed tack.

  “What do you know about her company?”

  “The basics. We never actually did business together.”

  “Would you be surprised if I told you that the mother company in Israel, which she used to register with the tax office, doesn’t exist?”

  Saul’s eyes widened.

  “I didn’t check,” he said. “I didn’t think it was necessary.”

  He was more cooperative now, and Alex wanted to make the most of that.

  “Why did you leave Israel in 2002?”

  “I’ve already told you.”

  “I’d like you to tell me again. And this time you can cut the crap about the firm you were working for, because we know that both you and Gideon were employed by the Israeli military until you moved.”

  Saul’s expression changed. His posture grew more erect as he stood guard over his past.

  “There are clearly defined limits when it comes to what I can tell you about my professional background,” he said. “It’s true that I was in the Israeli armed forces, but I can’t go into which branch or what my work involved.”

  “Not even if it has something to do with your son’s murder?”

  No answer.

  “Tell me why you moved.”

  “Because of something that happened on duty. An accident, you could say. Both Gideon and I had had enough after that. The risks and the level of personal commitment were too great. We were both going to become fathers, and in 2002 Israel was literally in flames. A cavalcade of suicide bombers had turned the country into hell on earth, and the Israeli counteroffensive wasn’t exactly moderate, of course. But we just wanted to get out of there, so we moved to Stockholm. We had both been here before, and knew one or two people. We thought we would be able to establish ourselves in Sweden, and we were right.”

  “Efraim Kiel—how well do you know him?”

  “You’ve asked me that before as well. Efraim has the same background as me and Gideon. And Daphne. We worked together. But he chose to stay, both in Israel and in the military. I have no idea what he’s doing these days.”

  “Have you had any contact with him while he’s been in Stockholm?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think he has anything to do with the deaths of Simon and Abraham?”

  For the first time Saul dropped the mask completely.

  “Efraim? No, definitely not. Why would he do such a thing?”

  Suddenly Alex had had enough.

  “That’s my fucking point! Why would someone do such a thing to you and Gideon? I don’t believe for a moment that you have no idea.”

  Saul’s reaction was not what Alex had expected. He became completely calm. Relaxed a fraction, looked Alex straight in the eye.

  “Of course I have an idea,” he said. “What astonishes me is that you apparently don’t.”

  Alex felt control shift over to Saul, and there was nothing he could do about it. Saul realized what was happening and grew in stature.

  “I was intending to deal with the matter myself, but if you’d like to help, then of course I would welcome your input.”

  Deal with the matter myself?

  “Gideon,” Saul said, uttering the name like a swear word. “Have you put the same energy into checking his alibi as you did with mine?”

  Alex would like to think that was the case, but he didn’t know.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Liar!”

  Saul Goldmann slammed his fist down on the table.

  “You’ve done no such thing. Gideon said he was in meetings all afternoon, but that’s not true. When I was driving home from Kungsholmen after I’d been with Mona, I saw him walking along Strandvägen and turning off onto Nybrogatan. It was about twenty past two. I asked him about it, but he said I was mistaken and that he’d been in a meeting with the bank then. No fucking way—I saw him from the car!”

  Alex’s mouth went dry. This couldn’t be true. How many false alibis could these two come up with?

  “We’ll double-check what you say, but I’m not expecting to find anything,” he said, well aware of how feeble it sounded.

  But Saul hadn’t finished.

  “Do you know why we don’t hang out together anymore? Because we couldn’t have him around once we had a child. Gideon had more reasons than I did to leave Israel. There were rumors that he had been so damaged by what had happened to him that he had started molesting boys—hitting them, threatening them with knives. Now do you understand? I defended him, said it was slander. But then I saw him with a young boy one night when we were in a bar in Tel Aviv. And when I say a young boy, I mean a child who hadn’t yet reached puberty. They were standing out in the street, and it looked as if Gideon was trying to give him money, but the boy ran away. After that I was more careful.”

  Alex saw a chance to regain the upper hand.

  “But you let Abraham and Simon spend time together.”

  “Never at their house unless Carmen was at home.”

  “So you think Gideon murdered both your son and his own? Because he is so damaged by what happened to him as a child?”

  Saul’s eyes filled with tears.

  “You should see him without clothes. My father made a good attempt at turning his skin into a patchwork quilt. I think he said he has over fifty scars. You can’t go through something like that and remain sane. It’s just not possible.”

  The tears spilled over and Saul dashed them away.

  “That night when we were searching for the boys, I saw Gideon. He was sitting in his car, staring into space. He had parked near the television center. Do you know how many times I drove past him? Five. He sat there all night; he never moved.”

  Alex went cold inside.

  “And Polly?” he said. “What has he done with Polly?”

  “The question you should be asking is why she’s not dead,” Saul said.

  Alex didn’t understand.

  “It’s not Gideon who’s taken her—it’s Carmen. Because she knows what a sick bastard she’s married to and she’s hidden the only child she has left.”

  It was evening. Efraim Kiel suddenly noticed he was kicking up the snow as he walked along; he had seen small children doing it, and he could understand why.

  His heart was heavy as he remembered other children’s feet that had made the snow swirl up. Bare feet that grew cold, weakening their bodies.

  He was a man with no religious conviction. Everything he had done throughout his life had been based on his own internal compass, his own perception of what was right and wrong, good and evil. The occasions when he felt with hindsight that he had done the wrong thing were few.

  It took him only a few minutes to walk from the hotel to the address on Torsgatan where he had seen the woman enter the building. And this time neither Säpo nor the police were there. He peered into the dark stairwell. No movement out on the street or inside the building. He assumed the block housed mainly offices, which were now empty. Most people had probably headed home through the darkness.

  To make dinner or see what was on TV.

  Put the children to bed, if they had any.

  Things that Efraim knew others did while he traveled far and wide to make sure that his people were safe and secure.

  The light came on; someone was on their way out.

  Excellent. He wouldn’t have to waste time trying to break in.

  A young woman emerged, smiling at Efraim as she held the door open for him. He smiled back and quickly stepped inside. Allowed the door to close behind him.

  The noise was unexpectedly loud.

  Efraim set off up the stairs. If he had read the plaque by the door correctly, the office of Samson Security AB was on the third floor.<
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  Samson.

  Her new surname. It suited her; she had always admired the lion for its strength and invincibility.

  Efraim took two steps at a time. Increased his speed, reducing the distance between them. If she was in the apartment, of course, which he thought unlikely.

  But, oh, how he hoped she was.

  Then he was standing outside her door. He rang the bell and waited. No one came. He rang the bell again. Waited again.

  She obviously wasn’t there.

  He took out the necessary equipment to open the door, and in seconds he was in the hallway. He smiled in the darkness. Anyone who knew anything about locks would see immediately that this couldn’t possibly be a company that specialized in security.

  He didn’t switch on the main light; instead he went over to the windows behind the desks to see if they had curtains. Indeed they did; she hadn’t missed that detail. You had to be able to turn on the light without anyone being able to see it from outside.

  Efraim was virtually certain that no one had followed him, but just in case he’d got it wrong, he wanted to make sure he minimized any possible damage.

  Once the curtains were drawn, he switched on the desk lamp. He glanced around the room. Took in the sparse furnishings and thought that with such an unimpressive facade he would be surprised if she’d managed to attract a single client.

  There was a computer on one of the desks. Presumably the police hadn’t had a warrant to remove it.

  Efraim started it up and went through the files on the bookshelf while he waited. Empty. He laughed out loud, then sat down and grew serious, reminding himself that he didn’t have much time. Because he had one more job to do before he went to bed.

  He was going to pay Fredrika Bergman a visit.

  Make sure she understood the importance of not getting mixed up in things that had nothing to do with her.

  Every war claimed its victims.

  As far as Efraim was concerned, no war had been more significant than the one in which he was engaged right now. And he was ready to do whatever it took to emerge victorious from the conflict.

  The computer turned out to be just as easily accessible as everything else in the room. No password was required. He clicked his way around the system. The police would probably have needed some time to determine how empty the document files were, if they had opened them, because everything was written in Hebrew.

  There was no Internet connection.

  No word processing program.

  It was rare that anyone made such an effort to embrace the minimalist approach.

  He moved over to the document-handling program. To his surprise he found an ordinary text file there.

  Efraim felt as if he had suddenly developed tunnel vision when he read the name of the file.

  “To Samson.”

  He knew that this time he was the lion.

  He didn’t hesitate; he had to see what she had written. He opened the document and read the short lines she had left behind in the empty office.

  I have seen the girl

  I know who she looks like.

  You said you suffered as much as I did.

  But that’s impossible.

  You went on to have two more children.

  Congratulations.

  Efraim couldn’t take his eyes off the screen. He read the words over and over again.

  She had seen the girl.

  Realized she was his.

  But I didn’t know.

  Efraim read the message one last time, then deleted the file. She hadn’t written one word about Polly, who had disappeared. Just his two newly discovered daughters.

  As he left the building on Torsgatan, he thought about what that meant.

  It was only when he was back in his hotel that what she was telling him sank in.

  The knowledge made him go weak at the knees; he had to sit down on one of the sofas in the lobby.

  Not only had Efraim deprived her of the victim she had selected.

  He had also provided her with two new ones.

  Sometimes Mikael Lundell thought that Eden lived in a parallel universe.

  One which bore no relation to his or anyone else’s.

  “Pack a bag and get a cab.”

  They had two children, one of whom suffered from a number of allergies. You couldn’t just pack a bag and take off. You had to plan, work things out.

  This time Mikael had gotten it all wrong. He had abandoned the cooking and started packing, which had been a mistake. The girls were hungry, and they were also starting to get tired, while Mikael himself was so furious, he felt like standing in the middle of the floor and screaming.

  Why was there never any peace and quiet?

  Why did Eden constantly come up with new ways of stressing out her family?

  Tops and pants, underwear and pajamas. Comfort blankets and toys.

  A furious yell from the kitchen sent him hurtling through the apartment.

  Dani was sitting on the floor, sobbing hysterically. Her sister was standing next to her, patting her on the head. Blood was pouring from Dani’s forehead.

  “She fell over,” her sister said, pointing to the angular edges of the table leg.

  Mikael picked her up, as always astonished at how light she was, even though she had been alive for such a long time.

  He examined the cut on her head. Did it need stitches? No. Had she knocked out any teeth? No.

  “Does your head hurt?”

  Dani howled something that might have been a yes.

  “Do you feel sick?”

  Apparently not. He carried her to the bathroom, where he had started packing a toilet bag. He cleaned the cut and found a bandage with a bear on it. When Dani had calmed down, Mikael carried her back to the kitchen. Both girls were obviously tired, and kept glancing over at the stove; Daddy had promised to cook their favorite dinner.

  Fuck Eden and her whims and fancies.

  “Okay, girls, guess what we’re going to do?”

  Two expectant little faces.

  “We’re going to order pizza and eat it here before we leave. What do you think about that?”

  Their eyes lit up. Mikael picked up the phone; he had no intention of leaving the apartment until the girls had food in their stomachs.

  • • •

  Half an hour later, the pizzas still hadn’t arrived. Mikael called the restaurant again and was told the pizzas had been sent out.

  “But they’re not here,” he said, unable to hide the irritation in his voice.

  He threw down the phone and went back into the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry everything’s such a mess,” he said to the girls. “Daddy will fix us something to eat.”

  He took some chopped meat out of the fridge. They would have spaghetti Bolognese as planned, and if Eden had a problem with that, she could damn well come home from work.

  Yet another alibi had cracked like a windowpane hit by a stone. This time it was Gideon Eisenberg’s.

  Getting hold of someone with access to the bank’s database of clients and visitors wasn’t easy, particularly at seven o’clock in the evening.

  “I don’t care how they do it,” Alex Recht bellowed. “This is an emergency. We need that information.”

  Eventually they managed to contact an administrator who was still on the premises and was able to access the list of clients. She then called Alex personally to confirm that Gideon Eisenberg had indeed had a meeting with a deputy manager at the bank between two thirty and four thirty the previous Wednesday, just as he had said.

  “Do you know whether the meeting actually took place or whether it was just booked in?” Alex wanted to know.

  “You mean could it have been postponed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Unfortunately I can’t tell from the records; sometimes staff forget to make a note if a meeting is canceled or postponed.”

  “In that case I want to speak to the manager in question. Right now.”

&nb
sp; The administrator sensed the seriousness of the situation and said that she would contact her colleague immediately and ask him to call the police.

  Alex’s phone rang a few minutes later.

  “I have a very simple question,” he said. “According to your admin staff, Gideon Eisenberg was in a meeting with you at the bank between two thirty and four thirty last Wednesday. Can you confirm that the meeting actually took place?”

  The answer came immediately.

  “No, it was postponed. Did I forget to make a note in the visitor database?”

  Yes, you did, you fucking idiot.

  “Why was the meeting postponed?”

  “Gideon rang and said he was ill.”

  Alex ended the call with a brief thank-you and ran out into the corridor. He gathered his colleagues in the Snakes’ Nest. They listened as he explained the latest twist in the case.

  “We need to bring in Gideon and Carmen Eisenberg,” he said. “Right away.”

  He thought he ought to call Peder, tell him he was partly right: someone else had taken Polly.

  He wished Fredrika were there. She would have been a godsend when it came to interviewing Carmen, but then again, she could do that when her plane landed. It wouldn’t do any harm for Carmen to sit and wait.

  “Are we sure that Gideon is the guilty party?” one of his colleagues said. His expression said it all; he was far from sure.

  “No,” Alex said. “But we now know that he doesn’t have an alibi. And we have Saul’s account, which I’m inclined to believe. So we have to bring Gideon in; anything else is out of the question.”

  They were out of the Snakes’ Nest as quickly as they had assembled there.

  Alex went in one of the cars to the Eisenbergs’ apartment in Östermalm. Sitting in his office, waiting for them to return, wasn’t an option; there was too much adrenaline coursing around his body.

  He texted Diana from the backseat:

  “Will be late again. Love you. See you later.”

  The car skidded on the snow which had not yet been cleared from the road. They were driving insanely fast, blue lights flashing, sometimes in the wrong lane facing oncoming traffic. A younger colleague was at the wheel, still hungry for the kicks everyone thought were a daily part of police work, but which in fact very rarely came along.