The Chosen (34 page)

So he tried someone else, with more success. A deep male voice answered. When Alex explained who he was and asked if he could come in, the door buzzed and he was soon standing in the foyer.
People with nothing to hide rarely refused to co-operate when the police asked for help.

Mona Samson lived on the third floor. The lift was broken, so Alex had to walk. That didn’t bother him; it enabled him to get a better idea of the property.

There were four doors on the level where Mona Samson lived. Alex tried her doorbell, heard the sound reverberating through the apartment. As he had expected, no one came.

With a certain amount of hesitation he rang her neighbour’s bell. The man who answered the door was wearing shorts, in spite of the cold. Alex recognised his voice; it was the man who
had let him in off the street.

Alex introduced himself again and showed his police ID.

‘I’m looking for Mona Samson. I don’t suppose you know where I can get hold of her?’

‘Has something happened?’

A legitimate question when the police turned up on a Sunday afternoon.

‘No, nothing serious, but I do need to speak to her.’

The man thought for a moment.

‘Hang on, I’ll ask my partner. He has a better idea than I do of what the neighbours get up to.’

He turned away and called out:

‘Andreas, do you know where Mona is? The police are looking for her.’

Excellent, now the entire building knew what was going on.

A red-haired man ambled into the hallway. He nodded to Alex, and like his partner, asked whether something had happened. Alex repeated his answer.

‘I’ve no idea where she is,’ Andreas said. ‘I bumped into her in the laundry room on Tuesday, but I haven’t seen her since.’

Alex couldn’t help feeling disappointed. His resigned expression made Andreas keep talking. ‘She might have gone home,’ he said. ‘She does that sometimes.’

‘Home?’

‘To Israel. That’s where she’s from.’

T
he American Colony Hotel: an oasis consisting of beautiful stone buildings and a lush, green garden, situated only ten minutes’ walk from the so-called Damascus
Gate in the wall around the Old City. Originally built by a group of Americans and Swedes, the same Swedes that Selma Lagerlöf later wrote about in her book
Jerusalem.

Fredrika Bergman was given a room in the building known as the East House. It was a small, minimalist but charming room, with a high ceiling. Lovely double aspect windows. A bathroom so stunning
that Spencer would have insisted they sleep in the shower.

Darling, you should be here with me.

Isak Ben-Zwi had dropped her off about an hour ago. She had stayed in the hotel, had lunch in the magnificent restaurant. If the background to her trip hadn’t been so horrific, she
would have felt privileged; as it was, she just felt burdened.

She sat in the restaurant for a while and worked. To Spencer’s surprise and delight, she had taken her violin with her.

‘I thought you were going there to work,’ he had said.

‘I am, but there’s always time for meditation.’

Meditation. That was how she referred to the time she spent playing the violin, so that people would understand what it meant to her. An essential breathing space.

But now she was actually here, that was the last thing on her mind. She was sitting with her back to the wall, eyes fixed on her laptop. She liked to have people around her, the noise and bustle
reminding her that the reality with which she was confronted in her work was not her own life. She was not the one who had lost her children. It was someone else.

And for that she was deeply grateful.

Daphne and Saul Goldmann.

Carmen and Gideon Eisenberg.

Alex wanted her to find out more about their past, try to understand why they had left Israel and moved to Sweden, because neither he nor Fredrika believed that the move had been motivated only
by the feeble reasons the families themselves had put forward – although Fredrika did sympathise when it came to the issue of security. It was doomed to be a fragile commodity in Israel;
conflict followed conflict, and the people never had any peace. Perhaps eventually some had had enough, and simply upped sticks and left. Particularly if they had children.

In the car on the way from the airport, Isak had said that security had improved. The first years after the outbreak of the second Intifada had been extremely difficult. Fredrika realised that
he was speaking from an Israeli perspective. The calm surrounding her in Jerusalem seemed deceptive, like a bubble that could burst at any moment, because presumably the Palestinians
didn’t share the Israeli view that things had got better.

She was ashamed as she shook off thoughts of the Israeli-Palestine conflict as if it were an unwelcome insect, but she just didn’t have room for that kind of thing
alongside the immediate crisis she was here to try and solve. A crisis involving two murdered children.

The same questions that had haunted her over the past few days were still going round and round in her head. She wrote them down. Read through them. Again. There was nothing new to add. She must
have patience, wait for the results of the Israeli efforts to identify the Lion, so that they could either eliminate him or establish what role he had played.

And then there were the kibbutzim, where she hoped to find out more about the Paper Boy, and about the past history of the Eisenberg and Goldmann families.

Her phone rang, making her jump.

‘We need to take a closer look at Saul Goldmann,’ Alex said.

Fredrika listened attentively as he went through what he had found out.

Another trail leading to Israel. Another Israeli citizen.

‘Why would Saul Goldmann kill his own son?’ she said. ‘Or be involved in his murder?’

‘That’s what we need to find out,’ Alex said.

‘Do you think the Goldmann lead is more promising than Efraim Kiel and the Lion?’

‘As I always say, I don’t think anything at this stage. Anyway, how do you know we’re looking at two different leads? We know next to nothing, Fredrika. We think we’re
looking for two perpetrators, but it could just as easily be three. Or four. Or just one. We think one of them might be a woman, but we don’t know that either.’

‘If you give me Mona Samson’s details I can find out if she’s entered Israel over the past few days.’

‘Good idea. Because I’m wondering why I can’t get hold of her either.’

It wasn’t an irrelevant question, but nor was it the most important. One of their colleagues had spoken to her, and she had confirmed Saul Goldmann’s alibi. There wasn’t
necessarily anything suspicious about the fact that they couldn’t get in touch with her at the moment, but if she was in Israel, it became more difficult to regard her as a person of no
interest. She might have been there all the time, in which case Saul didn’t have an alibi.

‘Israel again,’ Alex said. ‘Don’t tell me it’s just a coincidence.’

He was quite right; whichever way they turned, they ended up in Israel.

‘Then again, is that so surprising?’ Fredrika said. ‘After all, we are investigating the murders of members of the Solomon Community, and the victims come from Israel. So
it’s not so strange if the case has a geographical bias.’

Alex said something she didn’t hear.

‘Sorry?’

‘I don’t agree. You have a point, but the murder of the two boys and Polly’s abduction have something to do with events that took place in Israel. I’m sure of it. And
there are people who obviously know what’s going on, but refuse to talk. Which is annoying the hell out of me.’

They were in agreement on that point.

The sounds around Alex grew quieter, and she assumed he had gone inside.

‘Where are you?’

‘At work. I’m going to stay for a few more hours, then go home. Call me any time if something comes up. And I mean that literally – any time.’

‘Thanks.’

She liked people who made her feel safe, and Alex was one of those people. His voice could bring her down to earth in seconds, blowing away the threatening clouds she thought she could see
gathering on the horizon. When he had ended the call, she felt unexpectedly lonely.

Until Isak rang her.

‘I’m on my way to the hotel,’ he said. ‘Wait for me in the restaurant.’

‘I’m already there. What’s happened?’

‘We think we’ve got a name for the Lion.’

W
ood panelling on the walls and 80s music coming through the speakers. They were in a pub five minutes away from Fred Banks’s house. They had been sitting there for three hours. At first
the words had come slowly. Eden had done all the talking. She hadn’t thought through what she was going to say, how she would say it. To begin with she had felt inhibited by the fact that she
wasn’t sure how much Fred knew, then she had decided that it didn’t matter.

More important assets than her own integrity were at risk.

She had to make her peace with the past, move on. Ultimately she also had to forgive herself, but neither Fred nor anyone else could help her there. She would have to manage that on her
own.

She had practically dragged Fred out onto the street and down to the pub, appealing to the warm heart she knew he had.

He had said he would give her half an hour. If she hadn’t said anything that caught his attention by then, he would walk out. She noted with relief that he was still there, and he had
started talking. Tentatively, hesitantly, but he was talking.

Eden was surprised to hear that Angela was no longer in his life. She had found someone else, and was expecting their first child. Fred tried to look as if he didn’t care, but she could see the sorrow as clearly as fire in his eyes.

He had been promoted at work; without turning a hair he admitted that his skilled deception in the investigation into Eden’s affair with Efraim had been a key factor in his success.

‘When I was called to the first meeting, I had no idea what was coming. And when they told me, I laughed in their faces. Said you would rather die than be unfaithful to Mikael. Then I
stopped laughing and got angry. Said I would tell you everything. Told them I would walk away, get another job. They let me carry on like a steamroller; then they showed me the pictures.’

He fell silent. Eden had given him her version of events, and now it was his turn. She had put all her cards on the table, told him everything.

Except the fact that Efraim was the father of her children.

‘At first I thought the pictures were fake,’ Fred went on. ‘You with a Mossad operative? It was unthinkable. You had always been so loyal. But the evidence was unequivocal. And
I was there the first time you met – do you remember?’

She did. Fred had been at the conference where she met Efraim.

‘I don’t recall you and Efraim speaking to one another,’ she said.

‘We didn’t. But I saw you talking to him, and I was pleased. He made your face light up, and you’d been so low after the miscarriage.’

Eden could have wept.

So it had been obvious that he made her happy. Brightened her life. In order to crush her.

‘The boss explained who he was: a Mossad operative who was well known for his ability to recruit agents. They couldn’t believe their eyes when you were seen with him one
day.’

‘So they knew right from the start? And nobody thought of confronting me?’

‘Not right from the start,’ Fred said. ‘But pretty early on they put together a top secret team to monitor your relationship. I wasn’t brought in until about six
months later. They had been waiting for you to tell your superiors that you had been the target of a recruitment attempt by the Israelis, but instead you carried on seeing him. They felt it was
highly unlikely that you didn’t know who he was, who he worked for.’

Eden shook her head.

‘I hadn’t a clue.’

Fred’s expression hardened.

‘As far as I was concerned, the fact that you were actually having an affair sealed the deal. If you were capable of deceiving the person you said you loved more than anything in the
world, I thought you could easily be unfaithful to your employer as well, so to speak.’

Of course. That’s the way friendship worked. It could be a blessing, and it could create problems. In this case it had evidently done both.

‘I’ve explained what drove me into Efraim’s arms.’

She tried to sound defiant, but she couldn’t look Fred in the eye.

‘You’ve explained now, but at the time I didn’t have that information. Nor was I in a position to ask for it. Anyway, I’m still not sure I understand. I can see how you
fell for him the first time round, but the second time? When you and Mikael had just had the twins? I don’t get it.’

Eden fixed her gaze on a serviette on the table.

‘It was a very difficult time,’ she said.

As if that were a satisfactory explanation.

Fred didn’t respond. Eden wanted him to tell her more. About Efraim Kiel and how she could get to him.

‘You said that MI5 already knew who Efraim was. How come?’

Fred looked grim.

‘These are sensitive matters,’ he said. ‘Top secret.’

She realised that. This was why she had come to London: to access information that would otherwise be unavailable to her.

‘You have to give me whatever you’ve got,’ she said. ‘Otherwise I’ll never be rid of him.’

Give me the ammunition to blow the bastard into a thousand pieces.

Fred hesitated for a long time.

Eventually he spoke:

‘You know, deep down . . .’

She waited. Held her breath.

‘Deep down I think I’ve always known that you had walked into a trap. You showed very poor judgement, but you did nothing illegal. And you’re right, the only person you really
betrayed was Mikael.’

She could have wept with relief.

‘I’ll tell you what you need to know,’ Fred said. ‘But not here. Let’s go back to my place.’

Nothing much had changed in Fred’s house, except that all the photographs that had adorned the walls of the hallway had been removed. Perhaps Angela had taken them with her, or perhaps they had been thrown away.