The Chosen (33 page)

We don
’
t let anyone get close any more.

Eventually she had to do what she had come for. Prick a hole in the bubble in which she had been floating around ever since she left England. Not every aspect of her relationship with Fred
had been false. They had established a friendship in her very first week with MI5, years before she met Efraim.

The sound of the doorbell was so loud that Eden thought the entire neighbourhood had probably heard it.

She rang it again, hoping to hear some movement on the other side of the door. However, she had to press the bell several times before she heard footsteps approaching. Then came the usual
silence as someone peered through the peep hole. Which was normally followed by the sound of the latch being turned, the door opening.

But not this time.

After a while she realised that the person who had looked out had recognised her, and crept away. Left her to her fate.

I refuse to be let down yet again by anyone at this fucking address.

She banged on the door with all her might, ringing the bell over and over again.

The footsteps returned, heavier and quicker this time.

Angry.

The door flew open so fast it almost hit her in the face.

Fred Banks, who had once been her very best friend, filled the entire doorway with his furious bulk. In spite of the fact that she had promised herself she wouldn’t react when they met for
the first time in several years, she couldn’t help taking a deep breath when she saw him. And Fred, who had no doubt intended to start by bawling at her for daring to darken his door, froze
in mid-movement and stood there with his mouth open.

When he eventually broke the silence, he was brief and to the point:

‘I have no interest in speaking to you, Eden. Go away, please.’

She had hated him when she left London, because he had done what his boss told him to do – spied on her. Because he had turned his back on her, betrayed her. Because through his involvement he
had complicated the break-up, making her lie to her husband even more; Mikael had never understood why Fred and Angela suddenly went from being friends to enemies. Mikael had been told about the
affair with Efraim, but not about her secret lover’s background and the difficulties that created.

The years had moderated her anger more than she had realised. When she saw Fred she felt nothing but a bottomless sorrow.

‘I’m going nowhere,’ she said. ‘Either let me in, or come with me to a place nearby where we can talk.’

‘No chance. I’ve nothing to say to someone like you.’

‘On the contrary. You have a great deal to say to me.’

He was still staring at her, clearly shocked at her unexpected reappearance in his life. Who knew what stories they had told about her to make her seem like a worse person than she actually
was.

Fred shook his head slowly.

‘If you think I’m going to help you in any way, you’re wrong. I want nothing whatsoever to do with your sort.’

‘My sort?’

‘
You betrayed everything we worked for! Every fucking ideal I thought we shared!
’

He was shouting now, his cheeks red, the veins in his neck standing out. As they always used to do when he got really angry.

Her face wet with icy rain and something that might be tears, Eden said firmly:

‘You’re right, there was a betrayal. But not of you, and not of our organisation. The only person I ever betrayed was Mikael, and that’s between him and me.’

She moved a step closer, making it impossible for him to close the door without squashing her.

‘You don’t know the whole story,’ she went on. ‘You think you do, but you’re wrong. And you have to listen to me now, because I’m afraid I’ve ended up
in a very dangerous situation. And I don’t know anyone else who can help me.’

She could feel the fear spreading from her chest and through her entire body as she spoke. Because she knew she was telling the truth. She
was
afraid. Afraid of the motives and powers
that she didn’t understand, but which had brought Efraim to Stockholm. Afraid of Alex Recht’s hints that Efraim might have something to do with his murder inquiry. But most of all she
was afraid that everything that was happening hung together in a way she couldn’t yet see, which meant she was unable to protect herself.

Fred hesitated. Eden knew why; it was because she was asking for help. Eden, who had made a point of needing no one’s help.

‘What’s this about?’ he said.

He was still clutching the door handle, wanting nothing more than to shove her down the steps and forget that she had ever come calling.

‘My family,’ she whispered.

And saw him slowly begin to soften.

A
ccording to the reports he was getting from Fredrika, the weather in Jerusalem was mild and summery. Difficult to imagine how that felt when you were sitting in Alex Recht’s office
in Stockholm.

His plans to go home had been postponed.

Time was passing. Hour followed hour with inexorable inevitability, and there was no trace of Polly Eisenberg. It was only a matter of time before she was found. Dead, and with a paper bag over
her head. With a face drawn on it.

Eyes, nose, mouth.

They still didn’t understand what the paper bags meant, nor whether they had anything to do with the so-called Paper Boy. Alex offered up a silent prayer that Fredrika would be able to
solve that puzzle during her stay in Israel.

And the rest.

Alex was more stressed than he liked to admit. He hated failures that cost lives. They caused too much suffering, too much pain. But with the amount of unanswered questions facing him right now,
he found it difficult to see how he could turn this tragedy into success.

The evidence suggested that there were two perpetrators, yet there was only one murder weapon. Therefore, they must know one another. And at least one of them must know who the Paper Boy was.

Certain circumstances pointed in the direction of Efraim Kiel, who appeared to have gone to ground. But he had an alibi.

And then there was the Lion, who had actively sought out the boys online and arranged to meet them. Who could be the person who had picked them up. But that meant he couldn’t be Efraim,
who had an alibi for that period of time.

But he could still be involved.

There was no getting away from it: Efraim had an alibi for Josephine’s murder and the point at which the boys disappeared, but not for the morning when they were shot. Not as far as the
police were aware, anyway. If Efraim Kiel and the Lion were the two people they were looking for, then the Lion was presumably a woman. But in that case why had she called herself Zalman, which was
a man’s name? Had she never intended to meet the boys face to face?

Everything would be so much simpler if they just knew who the Lion was, or if they could eliminate the person in question from their inquiries.

Alex couldn’t work out how the perpetrators had been thinking. If it hadn’t been for the gun, the police probably wouldn’t have been able to confirm the link between the
murders at such an early stage. They would have had nothing more than circumstantial evidence, supposition.

Which admittedly would have been confirmed when Polly Eisenberg subsequently disappeared.

He tried to distance himself from the material, identify the key issues.

If he assumed that Efraim Kiel and the Lion were working together: why had two Israelis travelled to Stockholm to kill three children?

Because they had some kind of dispute with the children’s parents, who had left Israel for reasons that were unclear ten years ago, when their sons were born? Revenge
was a classic motive for murder, but revenge for what? As long as the parents kept quiet, the investigation would remain at a standstill, unless Fredrika could save it from a distance. She was
capable of a great deal, but miracles?

Alex had his doubts.

He felt very much alone. Without Fredrika he lacked a sounding board, someone to cast a critical eye over his thoughts and suggestions. The team must be expanded by another permanent member, and
fast. As soon as he had time, he would go through the applications again.

They must be able to find someone. Someone who was worthy of a place on the team.

Alex knew exactly who he wanted: Peder Rydh. He shouldn’t be grubbing around in the private sector, moving from one contract to the next. Perhaps the matter could be resolved through the
Labour Court; Peder hadn’t even been charged, he had simply packed up and left.

That wasn’t the right thing to do. You had to fight for your successes in order to cope with setbacks.

But that could wait; right now his priority was the children from the Solomon Community. He had to find a way to get their parents to talk so that the move the investigation forward.

The National Crime Unit had been in touch: a sketch artist had visited the Solomon Community and spoken to the secretary who had taken delivery of the chrysanthemum in the paper bag with a face on it. He had produced a drawing, which was faxed over to Alex.

He looked at it with a feeling of deep scepticism. The woman in the picture could be just about anybody.

Alex wondered if Fredrika had guessed correctly: did this woman have something to do with the murders, and if so, was she the Lion?

With a mounting sense of irritation he realised that a growing number of people were of interest purely because they couldn’t be identified or reached. Therefore, he decided to focus
on those they did know and could contact.

Did he have suspicions about any of these individuals?

Yes.

Someone who had appeared unnecessarily defensive and aggressive; someone who was close to the children who had died.

Saul Goldmann.

He had clearly found it difficult to co-operate with the police, and he had no alibi for the time when Polly went missing. But why would he have shot his own son? Alex had to work that out
before he could move on.

Unless of course it had been a mistake.

Perhaps Abraham Goldmann was never meant to die. Perhaps he had been picked up in the car purely so that it would be easier to get Simon to come along.

Although that seemed unlikely.

Nevertheless, Alex decided to double-check Saul Goldmann’s alibi for the time when the boys disappeared. If there was one thing he had learned during his years as a police officer, it was
that whatever seemed most unlikely at first glance would probably turn out to be the only logical explanation in the end.

Saul Goldmann had said he was in a meeting when his son went missing. The meeting had taken place in Kungsholmen, not far from where Alex was now. Saul had met an associate at her business
premises on Hantverkargatan. This associate, Mona Samson, had confirmed that the meeting had taken place.

Alex read carefully through what Mona Samson had said.

Saul Goldmann had arrived as agreed at one o’clock, and had left just after five. By that time both Abraham and Simon were missing, and Josephine had been shot dead.

One till five.

That was a bloody long meeting.

Not that it was illegal in any way, but he couldn’t see any indication of what had been discussed. The feeling that something wasn’t right grew stronger; he
couldn’t settle. Something was grating – something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

Without hesitation he picked up the phone and called Mona Samson. He wanted to hear her voice, try to sense whether she might be lying. He thought about the indentation in the snow on the
roof; the person lying there had probably been a woman. One metre seventy. Size 36 to 38 shoes.

There was no reply. Alex didn’t leave a message; instead he got up and pulled on his jacket. It would take only a few minutes to walk to her office, check things out, ring the bell, see if
she was there. Then again, why would she be there on a Sunday?

He made a mental note of the address and the name of the firm: Samson Security AB. A security firm which, according to its website, specialised in various alarm systems. Alex couldn’t tell how big it was; Mona Samson could
well be the sole employee.

The lift made its way laboriously down to the ground floor. He went out onto Stråket, which linked the buildings that made up Kronoberg, Stockholm’s Police HQ. How many times had he
walked along here? Back and forth, never wanting to be anywhere else. He was very different from Fredrika Bergman, who had taken half a lifetime to work out what she wanted to do.

How hard could it be?

You just had to live.

He emerged via the old building leading onto Scheelegatan. The air was raw and damp. The sun that had shone so brightly the day before was gone. On days like this it was hard to imagine that it
would be back later in the year. Stockholm’s weather was hard on those who were tough, and even harder on those who were already weak.

Hantverkargatan was a long street running all the way from Sankt Eriksgatan down to the City Hall. Diana had been to dinner there once, and she still talked about it. Candelabras and linen
napkins, an orchestra playing, male guests who danced like gods. Listening to her made Alex break out in a sweat. If she wanted candelabras and linen napkins, she could find another man. Although
he could dance. Very well, in fact.

‘That’ll do,’ she had said when he mentioned it.

Samson Security AB lay only three blocks from Police HQ, in a very attractive building on the left hand side. Alex stopped outside the main door.

He felt at something of a loss.

What had he actually thought was going to happen here?

He tried the door. Locked, of course. But there was an intercom with a list of names. He glanced through them: several private individuals, a small number of businesses. Samson Security AB was
not one of them.

There was, however, a Mona Samson. Strange – why wasn’t the name of the company listed? Did no one ever come here on business?

But Saul Goldmann had been here.

Alex rang the bell. No response. He tried again. Not a sound from Mona Samson.