The Chosen (16 page)

But that is not the worst thing.

The worst thing is that he doesn’t understand what has happened. Why the Paper Boy came to this particular address and took fresh victims.

He daren’t ask. Not right now.

He doesn’t need to; she tells him anyway.

‘You’re wondering why he came here,’ she says.

‘Yes.’

‘It’s my fault.’

‘None of this is your fault.’

She nods slowly, and then he sees them. The tears. Welling up in her eyes and spilling over.

‘It’s my fault,’ she says again. ‘I have always known that I wouldn’t get away with what I did.’

He feels a spurt of anger, shakes his head.

‘What on earth do you think you’ve done, for God’s sake?’

But she doesn’t answer. She is not yet ready to share her secret.

M
ore fucking snow. A punishment from God for a crime he wasn’t even aware of. Efraim Kiel was sitting in his hotel room, staring at the grainy images on his computer. He
couldn’t see a fucking thing. If he hadn’t stolen the tape from the CCTV camera, he would have gone down to reception and asked what kind of useless fucking camera they were using.

It had been laughably simple to get hold of the film. He had installed similar cameras elsewhere; it had taken him less than an hour to locate the computer where the sequences were saved.
Bizarrely, it was in the luggage storage room. It wasn’t clear if this was a temporary arrangement, but he hoped so, otherwise he felt sorry for the hotel management; they must have had
terrible advice when they installed their security system.

However, it had made it much easier for Efraim to get hold of the images that would show him who had left the message at the desk. He had his suspicions, but was praying to every higher power he
could think of that he would be proved wrong.

And now he was sitting in his room trying to make sense of what he was looking at.

A blizzard.

A chimney sweep in a darkroom.

And that bothered him, because he wouldn’t have expected images from this kind of camera to look like that.

Irritation and a feeling that was entirely unfamiliar to him – anxiety – spread through his body like an itch. Could someone have sabotaged the camera? Put something over the lens?

But how was that possible when reception was always
staffed?

He told himself to calm down. There were a thousand ways to get into buildings and areas where you weren’t supposed to be. You dressed up as a tradesman. Someone who had come to
install cable TV. A cleaner. Anyone at all who opened doors that were otherwise locked.

The Paper Boy could have easily got into the hotel lobby and done what he wanted to do.

Efraim clenched his fist and pressed it against his forehead. He had to stop thinking about the Paper Boy as an individual, as someone who actually existed.

It
’
s only a story, a myth. He doesn
’
t exist.

But in that case, who had sent him the message?

He was starting to think that it must be the Paper Boy who had once lived. Who had not been a myth. But if that was the case, then Efraim had a difficult task ahead, because that Paper Boy
couldn’t be left to his own devices; he would need help, someone to bring him to his senses.

Efraim’s heart rate was normally forty-seven beats per minute, but at the moment it was significantly higher. And it was pounding, as if it was having difficulty in pumping the blood
around his body. He got up and went into the bathroom. Washed his face and dried it with a hand towel.

He had to pull himself together.

Focus.

The Paper Boy had issued an invitation to the dance, but Efraim wasn’t interested in meeting him halfway. He couldn’t really understand why he didn’t just pack his bag and go
home, why he was still here.

Because I know I can
’
t get away, wherever I hide.

Resolutely he left his hotel room.

As he closed the door, he saw the note.

It was lying on the floor outside his room. Out in the open, so that anyone passing by could read what it said. Then again, they probably wouldn’t understand it, because once again the
message was written in Hebrew.

A piece of white paper with black characters.

I can see you
all the time
but you can’t see me.
Strange, don’t you think?

H
is coffee had gone cold. Peder Rydh didn’t really want it anyway. Perhaps he needed a glass of wine, or a whisky. Although it was too early in the day. Even when he had been at his
lowest, he had never drunk alcohol for breakfast.

He was sitting at his desk, frowning. How the hell was he supposed to find the answer Efraim had demanded? He wanted to know whether the person – or persons – who had shot the teacher and the
two boys had left behind any kind of calling card. He would never be able to get that kind of detail out of the police, and Alex certainly wouldn’t tell him something like that.

But perhaps he could try someone he knew in the National Crime Unit.

Because hadn’t Alex said that the case of the murdered teacher had been passed over to the team specialising in organised crime? Peder knew at least one of the investigators on that
team – not very well, but he didn’t think that was necessary. Not when it came to that particular person.

His colleague answered almost straight away. He sounded stressed at first, then surprised when he realised who was calling.

‘Peder, it’s been a long time!’

You could say that.

‘How are you?’ his colleague said.

‘Fine, thanks.’

After one or two more polite exchanges, Peder explained what he was after. He rarely answered honestly when someone asked ‘How are you?’ or ‘How are things?’ Nobody
really wanted to know the truth.

‘Are you involved in the investigation into the fatal shooting outside the Solomon school?’ he said.

His colleague sounded extremely dubious when he replied.

‘The teacher, you mean? Yes, I am.’

‘Listen, I know I’m not part of the job any more,’ Peder said, although it still pained him to say the words out loud. ‘But I’m working as head of security with the
Solomon Community, and as I’m sure you understand, what’s happened has given rise to a hell of a lot of questions.’

‘Sorry, but the whole thing is proscribed. I can’t . . .’

‘I’m not asking you to. I’m just wondering whether you found anything, some object the killer might have left behind. A calling card.’

‘Where?’

That was a good question.
Where?
What had Efraim meant?

‘Where he was lying when he fired the shot,’ Peder said eventually. ‘Or anywhere else inside the building.’

‘Not a thing. He seems to have been an ice-cold bastard. He just went up there, did what he’d come to do, and left.’

‘Okay. Thanks very much, and I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’

‘No problem, sorry I couldn’t help.’

Peder ended the call, then got to his feet, put on his coat and left the building. The weather had deteriorated; soft clouds filled the sky, making him shiver.

He went across the street to the Solomon school, nodding to the guards outside as he went inside. He recognised the secretary on reception; she had shown him round the previous day. Her
greeting was a little subdued; Peder knew there was to be a service for Josephine and the boys in the synagogue later that morning. He wondered if he was expected to attend, or stay away.

‘How can I help?’ she said.

He hardly knew himself. He supposed he was still looking for calling cards, but how could the secretary help him with that?

‘I just wanted to check that everything is okay,’ he said. ‘You haven’t had any strange phone calls, anything like that?’

He sounded like a police officer, but she didn’t appear to react. She shook her head.

‘No, nothing.’

‘Good, that’s excellent. And no unexpected packages or messages?’

‘No.’

Of course not. What had he expected? That the killer would have sent a calling card over by courier?

‘But we have had a huge amount of flowers,’ the secretary said, smiling for the first time. ‘Look.’

She pointed to a table at the other end of the room; it was almost completely covered in flowers and pot plants.

‘We’re going to display them in the hall later so that the children can see how many people care.’

‘That’s lovely,’ Peder said. ‘Are they from community members?’

‘Mostly, but some have come from outside.’

She got up and went over to the table.

‘For example, this one arrived yesterday,’ she said, showing Peder a large red flower; he had no idea what it was called.

‘Lovely,’ he said again.

He noticed that the waste bin under the secretary’s desk was overflowing with the discarded paper the flowers had been wrapped in; some had spilled over onto the
floor.

‘Goodness, look at the mess,’ she said apologetically when she noticed Peder looking at the bin. ‘I’ll tidy it up in a minute.’

He could see a number of paper bags on the floor, and assumed they had been used for delivery. He crouched down automatically to take a closer look. Ordinary paper bags, some bearing address
labels giving details of both the sender and the recipient.

One of the bags caught his attention. A brown, medium-sized bag with no label – but someone had drawn on it.

‘That was one of the first to arrive,’ the secretary said. ‘A beautiful chrysanthemum.’

She pointed and Peder picked up the plant, which was in a plain white pot.

‘No card,’ he said.

‘No,’ the secretary said unhappily. ‘Some of the cards must have fallen off, which is annoying. Or they were attached to the bags, and I just didn’t notice
them.’

Peder looked at the bag once again. No name anywhere.

But there was a drawing.

‘Don’t throw this one away,’ he said. ‘Show it to the police.’

‘But why?’

‘Because I think it might be important.’

T
he morning after yet another night of very little sleep. The dead boys haunted her, mixed up with other cases that Fredrika Bergman had investigated in the past. Cases where children had fared
badly.

Life was fragile. Small mistakes could have disastrous consequences. Fredrika had seen it happen more times than she could remember, and yet she was always equally surprised.

She didn’t know whether Carmen and Gideon Eisenberg had made any mistakes that might explain why they had lost their son. There wasn’t a sound when she and Alex walked into their
house the morning after they had been told that their son had been shot dead out on the island of Lovön. It had been a long night; that was clear from their exhausted faces.

Did grief have a different shape and colour in a foreign land? Perhaps people dealt differently with heavy losses if they had grown up in a place where peace never seemed to last, where there
was always unrest and no one could ever be sure how tomorrow would turn out.

Fredrika realised she felt completely at a loss with the Eisenbergs. Carmen, to whom Fredrika had spoken the previous day, was sitting at the table with her husband. He had reached across
the polished surface and placed his hand on hers, and was just gazing at her.

No tears, no screaming.

Not then.

Not in front of Fredrika and Alex.

But she could see that they had been crying, and no doubt there would be more tears once she and Alex had left.

The parents had been given answers to the most important questions at the hospital.

No, it didn’t look as if their son had been subjected to violence or physical abuse before his death.

No, he wouldn’t have suffered when he died; death would have been instantaneous.

However, they had not been told that the boys had had bags on their heads, or that they appeared to have been hunted down by their killer. There would be a time for that kind of information, but
this wasn’t it.

There would be a short interview today, nothing more. Not on the first day.

It was less than forty-eight hours since Fredrika and Alex had been talking to Josephine’s parents about the loss of their daughter. Fredrika thought about the three deaths, trying to
digest the news that they now had proof that there was a connection.

Her own words still echoed in her brain: the paper bags could be a calling card. A serial killer’s calling card. In which case they could expect more victims.

But that kind of thing just doesn
’
t happen. The worst nightmares never become reality. And serial killers don
’
t exist. Not in real
life.

Fredrika and Alex were sitting side by side. The table seemed   too   small   for   two   grieving  parents   and  
two stressed-out investigators. The whole kitchen was too small. And the silence was too huge.

It was Alex who broke it.

‘At the moment we don’t know why this has happened,’ he said, speaking slowly as if he were choosing every single word with the greatest care. ‘But I can promise you that
we will spare no effort in this case. We will do everything, and I mean
everything,
to find the person or persons behind the murders of Simon and Abraham.’

He stopped speaking, allowing what he had just said to sink in. That was how he built trust, by focusing on clarity and pledging only what was reasonable. He had said they would do everything
they could to find the perpetrator, and that was true. He had not, however, promised that they would succeed, which was also true, unfortunately. Sometimes they failed. It had happened as
recently as last autumn, when the person responsible for hijacking Flight 573 had got away.

But they knew who the guilty party was, and they were still looking.

They would never stop.

Sometimes that was as far as they got, even if it was incredibly frustrating.

‘What’s your take on all this?’ Alex said. ‘Do you have any enemies or unresolved disputes?’