The Chosen (40 page)

What a team they would have made, if that were the case. Saul and Mona. Providing one another with an alibi. Helping one another with the murders in order to fragment the investigation,
make the police’s job so much more difficult.

They
’
re not a team; they
’
re a couple.

The realisation made him go cold.

That was why they had lied, why they had met in her apartment rather than her office.

‘They’re in a relationship,’ he said, hardly conscious of the fact that he was thinking out loud.

‘Who?’ Lasse said.

‘Samson and Goldmann.’

‘So they got rid of the kid so they could make a fresh start? Is that what you’re saying?’

Was it that simple? Alex hesitated. ‘Something along those lines.’

‘But why take Simon Eisenberg as well? And what about Polly?’

Alex had no answer to that, but his brain had gone into overdrive. If he could just gather together all the scraps of information and odd circumstances that had rained – or snowed – down on them
over the past few days, a clear picture would emerge. Because the Eisenbergs and the Goldmanns had a history that they were keeping from the police. A reason why they no longer spent time
together, in spite of the fact that the men had been in close proximity for decades.

Alex had no idea how deep the conflict was, but he sincerely hoped that Fredrika would have found out something about their background in Israel. Because by now Alex was certain they were
close to a resolution of the case.

Very close.

If they could just work out why Simon and Polly Eisenberg had to die as well.

T
he rain had stopped, but the cloud cover remained. They were walking through the kibbutz as Gali and David Eisenberg took Fredrika on a guided tour of Gideon and Saul’s youth.

‘Gideon was always so cautious,’ his mother said. ‘Anxious and nervous. He was an easy target for Saul’s vivid imagination.’

David Eisenberg shook his head.

‘If I’d realised Saul was the one filling his head with rubbish I would have done something about it earlier.’

‘This is where the Goldmanns lived,’ Gali said, pointing to a house only fifty metres from their own.

The kibbutz was idyllic, with its lush greenery. A little community cut off from the rest of the world. Fredrika couldn’t work out how they supported themselves; fruit cultivation
might have carried the economy in years gone by, but these days they must have another income stream.

So this was where Saul and Gideon had spent their childhood, crawling among the plants and shrubs, running from one house to the other.

‘Does Saul have any brothers or sisters?’ Fredrika asked.

‘No,’ Gali said. ‘And that was a great source of sorrow, above all to his mother.’

Fredrika could understand that. She was very glad she had two children, even though her son had been unplanned. But no less welcome for that.

‘The Paper Boy,’ she said. ‘Where does the story come from?’

She could see by the look on Gali and David’s faces that this was a sensitive subject. Gali slipped her hand into her husband’s.

‘It was Avital, Saul’s father, who told me the story first,’ David explained. ‘When we were children. We didn’t live here then, we lived in a village in the south
of Israel. The story grew and became a legend, and after a few years its origins were forgotten. And eventually Saul told Gideon the tale. When we heard about it, we thought it was a very
practical idea, to be honest. You’re familiar with the history of Israel – full of conflicts and difficulties, in spite of the fact that the state has existed only since 1948.’

‘You mean it was useful if the boys stayed indoors after dark?’ Fredrika said.

‘Not necessarily indoors, but we didn’t want them going off on night-time excursions outside the kibbutz with the older kids,’ David said. ‘Teenagers can be
incredibly irresponsible. Once two of them hitched from the kibbutz to Netanya. It could have ended very badly, because it turned out that the guy who picked them up was a wanted
criminal.’

‘We were keen to make sure that our boys stuck to the rules when it came to late evenings and nights, so we didn’t dispute the story of the Paper Boy, who came and took children
while they were sleeping,’ Gali said. ‘It sounds stupid now, but as we said, at the time it was practical.’

‘The myth spread to the neighbouring kibbutz,’ David went on.

That was where Daphne Goldmann had grown up. Unlike Carmen Eisenberg, she had heard about the Paper Boy when she was a child.

‘But then something dreadful happened,’ Gali said, an anguished expression on her face.

‘Children actually began to disappear,’ she said in a voice that was no more than a whisper. ‘One from our community first of all, then one from the neighbouring
kibbutz.’

Fredrika shuddered, pulling her jacket closer around her body.

‘Were they found?’

‘Yes,’ David said. ‘Each of them was missing for only a few days, then they were found naked by the roadside, with severe lacerations. It looked as if someone had simply pulled
up in a car, thrown them out and driven off.’

Children disappearing. One at a time. Found naked by the roadside.

Fredrika ran her fingers through her hair; she was finding it difficult to breathe.

‘Do you know what had happened to them?’

Gali couldn’t speak. She was weeping silently, her head resting on David’s shoulder.

‘It looked as if an animal had tried to rip them to pieces,’ David said, his voice breaking. ‘I was there when the first child was found. Someone had attacked him with a knife
– not deep stab wounds, but scratches and slashes. It almost had a ritualistic feel. But the actual cause of death was a bullet in the chest, fired from a distance. It was eventually established
that the children had run for their lives before they died. The murderer first caught his prey, abused it, then let it go in order to hunt it down and kill it.’

Fredrika’s head was spinning.

The only thing she could think about was the children who had been shot on Lovön; who had been chased barefoot in the snow in freezing temperatures.

‘The police and the press called the killer the Hunter, but the children on the kibbutzim believed it was the Paper Boy who had taken them.’

The Hunter and the Paper Boy. Fredrika blinked up at the sun, which had broken through the cloud cover for a little while. She chose her words with care.

‘When the children were found, were they marked in any way? Apart from their injuries, I mean.’

Gali straightened up and wiped her eyes.

‘Both children had a paper bag over their head, with a face on it,’ David said. ‘The police kept that detail to themselves at first, but the rumour spread in no time because so
many of us had been involved in the search. Needless to say, that fuelled the children’s fear of the Paper Boy.’

The strain was clear in every line of his face.

‘Did they catch the killer?’ Fredrika asked, thinking back to a case she had worked on a few years ago. The murderer had used a grave site in Midsommarkransen, returning to it over a
period of many years. God forbid the same thing was happening again: a killer who had moved from Israel to Sweden. Please let it not be true.

‘They did,’ David said.

She let out a long breath. Thank goodness.

‘He made a mistake,’ Gali said. ‘Another child went missing, a boy. He managed to get away, and was able to tell the police what had happened to him, and who had taken him.’

‘He came staggering in through the gate,’ David said. ‘The guard took care of him and made sure the police were called right away.’

‘He was from this kibbutz?’ Fredrika asked.

A shadow passed across David’s face. His eyes filled with tears, and he could barely speak.

‘Yes. And he was never the same again. He said he was fine, but we could see the change. But at least they caught the person responsible, which was a blessing in the midst of all the
sorrow.’

He fell silent, watching a bird as it flitted from tree to tree.

Gali didn’t say anything either; she waved to a neighbour passing by.

They had more to tell, Fredrika could feel it.
A lot more.
She waited until the neighbour was out of earshot.

‘So what happened to the murderer? I assume he got a long prison sentence.’

Gali looked as if she was about to start crying again.

‘Life,’ David said. ‘Which was only right after what he had done.’

But?

There was an unspoken ‘but’ that they were avoiding, refusing to touch.

‘It was just so terrible for his family,’ Gali whispered. ‘We did our best to support them, but it was difficult. Especially for us.’

‘His family? You knew them?’

David nodded. Fredrika gazed at the idyllic surroundings, tried to work it out.

‘The murderer came from here? He was one of you?’

Another nod, and Fredrika was beginning to understand.

‘He killed himself in prison,’ David said. ‘His son was particularly badly affected by the whole thing. I’d say he was every bit as damaged as the boy who got
away.’

Gali wiped a tear from her cheek.

‘Avital was the Hunter and the Paper Boy,’ she said. ‘Now do you see? Saul Goldmann’s father was the murderer.’

Fredrika didn’t know what to say. Saul’s father had subjected other children to the same horror that had now claimed his own grandchild. The Paper Boy had travelled from the
past to the present.

Someone had brought him to life.

‘Although in those days the family was called Greenburg, not Goldmann,’ David said.

Fredrika stopped dead. For a second, time stood still.

‘Avital Greenburg. Was that his name?’

‘Yes, but when it was all over, Aida changed the family name. For Saul’s sake, so that fewer people would remember his background.’

But someone still remembers.

Whoever had called himself the Lion had known exactly what he was doing.

The Lion was a chameleon, who had taken the devil’s name without hesitation.

‘Did you ever get an explanation for what he’d done?’ she asked. ‘Why he’d killed those children?’

David sighed.

‘Not really. Back in those days people weren’t so fond of psychological analysis as they are now, but he was obviously sick. It would be absurd to think anything else.’

‘We knew so little about his past,’ Gali said. ‘Both his parents died in the Holocaust; only Avital survived. Very few children came out of the concentration camps alive, but
he was one of them. He was four years old when the war ended, and he was placed with foster parents who left Europe and came to Israel. I have no idea what that kind of start in life does to a
person, but it’s obvious that he too was badly damaged.’

It was hard to disagree. Fredrika had just one more question.

‘Who was the boy who survived? Does he still live here?’

Gali turned and started walking back towards her house.

David didn’t move, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at Fredrika.

At that moment she realised what he was going to say.

‘It was Gideon,’ he said. ‘Gideon was the Hunter’s last victim. It was Gideon who put Saul’s father in prison.’

T
wice he had been to her apartment block. On both occasions he had seen the tall man emerge with the girls. On the Sunday they had gone to Vasa Park, on the Monday to day care. But he had seen
no sign of Eden, which led Efraim Kiel to conclude that she had gone away.

And that worried him. Because Eden ought to be shaken up by what had happened, by the fact that he now knew he was the father of her children, yet she had taken the risk of leaving her family
alone. Admittedly her husband looked more than capable of defending his children if he had to. Efraim had seen him once before, in London. It had been a bad idea. Feeling over-confident, Efraim had
gone to Eden’s house. He had been standing in the street when they came out hand in hand.

Eden had watched him to the very last second. That was when he realised she had fallen in love with him.

But right now Efraim had bigger problems than Eden. The woman who was following him was one of them. She wasn’t sticking to the rules. She wasn’t keeping out of the way. And what the
hell was she doing in Stockholm? Efraim couldn’t shake off the feeling that he had seriously misjudged the situation. Made a mistake, in fact.

Or several mistakes.

Because now he was caught up in an unpleasant dilemma, and he couldn’t see a way out.

I have to get out of this country. Fast.

But that wouldn’t solve the problem of the Paper Boy. There were certain things you couldn’t run away from, however much you wanted to.

He also had to work out what to do with the girl, Polly. Time was running out, he had to act.

They called when he was in his hotel room getting changed. He had walked over to Torsgatan in the hope of spotting the woman he had followed the previous day, but instead he had seen the police
entering the building. Plain clothes officers, instantly recognisable to Efraim’s trained eye. Right in front of the Säpo goons, who were also watching the woman’s apartment. He
couldn’t understand why Säpo and the police apparently didn’t know about each other; why weren’t they working together?

His phone rang as he was pulling on his jeans. He stopped dead. It was his dedicated work mobile, the one only his employer knew about.

‘Yes?’

‘Can you talk?’

‘Yes.’

His boss got straight to the point.

‘We have a problem. There’s a Swedish police officer over here asking questions about the Paper Boy.’

He had been expecting this, and had an answer ready.

‘It’s a different Paper Boy,’ he said. ‘Not the one you’re thinking of.’

‘Excuse me – there’s more than one?’

His boss sounded irritated.

‘Yes. The original. A child killer from a kibbutz outside Netanya. And then there’s the one both you and I are familiar with,’ Efraim said.

‘And it’s the first one the Swedish police are interested in?’ his boss said with a certain amount of relief.