The Chosen (11 page)

‘We think Abraham was late getting to the bus stop where he was due to meet Simon. Have you any idea what could have delayed him?’

‘No. Abraham always has a thousand things to do, which means he sometimes finds it difficult to keep an eye on the clock.’

She shrugged and reached up to touch a pendant hanging around her neck.

A silver Star of David.

‘My husband and I don’t regard it as a problem. People don’t usually mind waiting for someone who has a reasonable excuse.’

Alex thought this wasn’t necessarily true, but he didn’t say anything. It wasn’t his job to correct a grown woman.

‘It sounds as if Abraham is very driven. Qualities like that can sometimes lead to conflict.’

‘Really?’

Not a hint of irony in her voice. She really didn’t get it.

‘I’m just thinking about other people, who either regard a competitive instinct as provocative, or who are equally competitive themselves. Does Abraham have any enemies?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

Why did he dislike her so much? Alex looked searchingly at the woman sitting opposite him. A woman whose son had been missing for far too long in a bitterly cold Stockholm. Why didn’t he
feel any empathy for her situation?

Because her whole attitude rejected empathy and understanding. She was like a predator on the hunt, completely focused on the mission to find her son.

Dead or alive.

‘Is there anywhere Abraham particularly liked to go?’

He disregarded the fact that she had just said that she didn’t believe her son would have gone off of his own accord. Children sometimes got the strangest ideas, and Alex was sure that
Abraham was no exception to that rule. Alex also guessed that if he was as driven as he sounded, he could probably carry through quite advanced projects behind his parents’ backs.

‘You mean in Sweden?’

Alex was surprised.

‘Well yes – that’s where we are.’

‘I’m only asking because he loves visiting my parents in Israel,’ Daphne explained. ‘I’m not sure if he has any favourite places here in Sweden. We have a summer
cottage that he loves, but he never mentions it in the winter when we’re not there.’

Alex made a mental note of the summer cottage, but he didn’t really think it would get them anywhere.

He was just about to end the interview when his mobile rang. The call came from one of his colleagues at HQ.

They thought they had found the boys.

I
f Eden Lundell had the choice, she thought she would like to die on a cold winter’s day just like this one. But not until she was old or worthless, of course, whichever came first.

The call had come in just under an hour ago. Someone had reported hearing shooting out at Drottningholm. Two shots at an interval of approximately twenty minutes. Not in the immediate vicinity
of the palace, but security had decided to contact Säpo’s personal protection unit anyway. A group of bodyguards accompanied by members of the National Task Force had searched the park
and surrounding area, but found nothing out of the ordinary.

They were just about to call off the operation when they found the bodies on the edge of the Royal Drottningholm Golf Club. They were lying on their backs, approximately fifty metres apart.

Eden was informed about the original call only because she was spending a few weeks as acting head of the personal protection unit, while carrying out her duties as head of
counter-terrorism at the same time.

‘I know you’re not exactly short of something to do,’ GD had said. ‘But I’d really appreciate it if you could support our bodyguards while their chief is on sick
leave for two days a week.’

Eden always had time. Time was something you created, not something you were given. She also felt that the work of the personal protection unit had many links to the activities of her own
team.

The discovery of the two bodies was reported directly to Eden and the head of the protection unit. Five minutes later they were in a car heading towards Drottningholm, at Eden’s
suggestion.

‘I hope it’s not those boys who went missing in Östermalm yesterday,’ her colleague said.

Who else would it be? Eden thought.

It did her good to get away from Kungsholmen for a while. There had been just one thing on her mind ever since GD called her the previous evening:

Efraim Kiel.

The biggest fuck-up in her entire life.

What the hell was he doing back in Stockholm?

She had had a brief meeting with GD first thing in the morning. Efraim had checked into the same hotel as last time, and was already under surveillance. No doubt he felt safe there. He
wouldn’t be able to go anywhere without them knowing exactly what he was up to. Whatever that was supposed to achieve.

They stopped in the avenue leading to Lovö church, where several vehicles were already parked. Eden slammed the car door and greeted the colleague who came over to meet them, a young man
she hadn’t seen before.

‘You were the one who ran the investigation into the plane hijacking last year, weren’t you?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I was.’

She had been relatively new to the job back then. A plane carrying four hundred passengers had taken off from Arlanda, and was hijacked high above the clouds. The only person who had so far been held responsible for his actions was the captain,
who had been sentenced to life imprisonment in the USA. The chances of his being allowed to serve his sentence in a Swedish prison were negligible, and the prospect of a pardon was even less
likely.

They ploughed through the snow, sinking up to their knees.

From a distance they could see only two paper bags, sticking up out of the snow and breaking the line of the landscape. Brown and hard. Both bodies had sunk down, and were difficult to see from
a distance.

Two children. Like snuffed-out snow angels with paper bags on their heads.

Two boys. With bare, frozen feet.

Eden crouched down.

‘Fuck,’ the head of the protection unit said behind her.

The forensic pathologist would be able to provide more information about what had happened to the boys, but at first sight there didn’t appear to be any major injuries, apart from the
bullet wounds that had presumably killed them.

‘Is this where they died?’ Eden asked one of the CSIs standing a short distance away.

‘We haven’t got that far yet, but yes, I think that seems to be the case. If you look at the tracks in the snow, it looks as if the boys walked or ran to the spot where they are now.
They appear to have been shot in the chest.’

Eden looked around.

Children’s footprints in the snow. Bigger prints alongside the small ones. The killer’s. He, or she, had walked up to the victims to check that they really were dead.

And put paper bags over their heads.

Why?

Someone had drawn faces on the paper bags. Big eyes, wide open as if in terror. And big mouths that looked as if they were calling out to someone or something.

‘This isn’t our case,’ her colleague said. ‘I’ve spoken to the police, and they’re on their way.’

Eden gazed at the boys for a moment before she got to her feet. She knew instinctively that the paper bags were important to the killer. They carried a message, directed to someone other than
the police.

The only question was – to whom?

But someone else could work that out. Eden had enough problems of her own.

If Efraim Kiel dared to take as much as one single step in her direction, he would pay a higher price than he could ever have imagined.

T
hree murders in less than twenty-four hours. Something like that would send shock waves through any community, particularly in a country like Sweden. Sheltered and protected, a kingdom of
safety and security.

A discovery had been made on the edge of a golf course not far from Drottningholm Palace. No further details had been released, but that was enough for Efraim Kiel. He realised they must
have found the boys. He listened attentively to the news bulletin on the radio.

He packed his case, his movements slow and hesitant. He hated the constant travelling, 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 sod. 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 counter-terrorism 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 had
been castigated for the fact that his organisation 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 realised 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 centre only to do his job. Distance was important; he didn’t want to be recognised 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

C
hildren’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, depersonalising him or her. Could it be something along those lines?