The Chosen (48 page)

So they had left the country, but Efraim had kept tabs on them. He had never forgotten what they had done, and that there was a debt to be paid. Both Gideon and Saul were blessed with a son;
Efraim couldn’t accept that such an outcome was fair.

‘I’ll give them ten years,’ he had said to Nadia. ‘Then I will take from them what they should never have been granted.’

But it was all over between Efraim and Nadia. She didn’t want him any more.

‘You gave me the best thing I ever had,’ she said. ‘But you also caused me the greatest pain I have ever known. I can’t reconcile those two experiences. I just
can’t.’

Therefore, Efraim had lost not only a son, but the love of his life, and for that Gideon and Saul would pay the highest price imaginable.

Nadia made a new life for herself in northern Israel. They met occasionally, but briefly. She would remind him of what he had promised, and Efraim would assure her that he would never let her
down again.

That promise rang hollow as he saw Nadia approach the door of the apartment block for the second time. Everything happened so fast. Before Efraim could take one step, she was inside. The door
clicked shut behind her.

Shit.

Efraim raced across the road, afraid that every second was vital.

It took him ninety seconds to get the door open.

And that was all the time the woman known as the Paper Boy needed.

H
er case was too heavy to carry in the snow. Fredrika Bergman had been indoors for far too many hours; she needed some fresh air, which was why she wanted to walk home.

She glanced at the suitcase, decided she could pick it up the following day.

But not her violin.

She was determined to take it with her so that she could play for Spencer.

She put on her coat, picked up the violin case and called in to see Alex on her way out.

‘Are you sure it’s okay if I go home? You don’t need me?’

Alex looked exhausted.

‘No, you get off. I won’t be long myself.’

Fredrika felt lost. Sad. Almost resigned.

‘It’s over,’ she said. ‘And yet it isn’t.’

Alex pulled a face.

‘As far as I’m concerned, there is absolutely no doubt: Gideon is the killer we’ve been looking for. And until we’ve had a proper conversation with Mona Samson, I’m
not prepared to eliminate her completely from our inquiries, in spite of the fact that she’s finally condescended to get in touch.’

Fredrika agreed.

‘She could have been the person on the roof, if it wasn’t Gideon. When is she supposed to be coming in?’

‘Tomorrow. I hope she turns up, because otherwise she’ll be in real trouble.’

Alex picked up the copy of Gideon Eisenberg’s brief suicide note, which had been on his desk.

‘I wish he’d left a longer message,’ he said. ‘So that we could understand why he did what he did.’

But Fredrika had learned that it just wasn’t possible to understand some things.

‘He must have been so badly damaged by what Saul’s father did to him.’

Slashes and scratches inflicted all over his body with a knife.

A road map of scar tissue.

A daily reminder of what he had gone through. She tried to shake off the image.

‘That might be an explanation, but it’s hardly an excuse,’ Alex said.

He was right; as far as Fredrika was concerned, there was no excuse for shooting two ten-year-old boys and leaving their bodies barefoot in the snow.

‘We’ll find Polly tomorrow,’ she said.

Alex nodded.

‘We will. I’m sure she’s alive.’

‘Me too. Goodnight.’

She raised a hand and left.

She walked out of Police HQ, out into the fresh air.

It wouldn’t be a long walk, but she didn’t need one. She just wanted to feel the cold night air on her face, to stretch her legs. She decided to go via Sankt Eriksplan and Vasa Park,
which would extend her route slightly.

She called home to tell Spencer that she was on her way.

He didn’t answer.

Perhaps one of the children had woken, and needed his full attention.

She put away her mobile, enjoying the winter chill even though it was snowing once more.

Across the street she could see the figure of another woman, who also seemed to be carrying something resembling a violin case. Fredrika followed her through the falling snow and saw her
head towards the ICA supermarket on the corner. She was swallowed up by the store’s glass doors, and Fredrika carried on walking.

H
e ran twice as fast as he imagined his son had run on the day he died.

He glanced at the list of residents, because he couldn’t remember whether Eden lived on the second or third floor.

Third.

From a purely logical point of view, he should have realised that it was already too late.

That he wasn’t going to get there in time.

That she would not allow him to prevent the completion of her task.

When he reached Eden’s floor, there was nothing but silence.

The absence of sound made him feel sick.

He grabbed the door handle. Pulled it. Hard.

And found that the door was open.

Surprise made him lose concentration, just for a second. Then he could see once more. With terrible clarity.

Eden’s husband was lying on his stomach in the hallway. Efraim crouched down automatically and felt for a pulse.

He felt the faintest throb against his fingertips.

Erratic, but it would have to do.

He stepped over the body and carried on into the apartment.

He had expected a fight. An attack. Loud screams and vicious blows. To her head and neck, arms and knees. Whatever he had to do to put her out of action.

But she was one step ahead of him.

And Efraim realised he would never catch up.

She was standing in Eden’s bedroom.

He could see her in profile.

The main light was not switched on; only the street lamps cast a faint glow into the room.

That was all the light he needed.

He could see what there was to see. The two girls, lying in their parents’ double bed. Fast asleep. As peaceful as only children can be when they are asleep.

‘Don’t do it,’ he said.

He saw the gun in her hand.

He tried to play for time.

‘Was it you who murdered Gideon?’ he said.

She was taken aback.

‘He’s dead?’

‘They say he killed himself.’

‘I’m not surprised. I always thought he was weak.’

Efraim wondered how she knew. Was it Gideon she’d had an affair with, or Saul? He no longer cared.

Instead he looked again at the gun she was holding. Saw the extension to the black barrel.

A silencer.

That was why he had heard nothing when she shot Eden’s husband.

Surely she hadn
’
t already shot the girls, had she?

He took a step closer, his hand closing around the gun in his pocket.

Looked at the sleeping girls.

‘Don’t do it,’ he said again. ‘This is nothing to do with them.’

She turned to face him.

Slowly, as if she had all the time in the world. As if she knew, better than he did, that he would never be able to bring himself to shoot her.

‘Indeed it is,’ she said. ‘And you’re late.’

He couldn’t stop himself.

He hurled himself at the bed, tore off the covers. And saw the blood on the children’s pyjamas.

He stared at the darker of the two girls, the one who looked so much like his sister.

Tears filled his eyes, blurring his vision. He walked around the bed, positioned himself opposite her.

‘For fuck’s sake.
What
’
s the point of this?
’

‘You know that as well as I do. And now my work is done.’

Efraim shook his head.

Pulled out his gun. Took aim, knowing that she wouldn’t have time to shoot him first.

‘You’re going nowhere,’ he said.

‘You think we should stay here? And do what? Wait to welcome home the rest of the family?’

He forced himself not to take his eyes off her, not to look at the girls again. Perhaps it would be just as well to wait for Eden, because what did she have to live for now? What was left when
everything had been taken away?

‘I don’t think so,’ she said.

She raised her gun, and there they stood.

Two people who had once loved each other enough to create another person.

There was nothing left of what they had had.

Not one iota.

‘I promised to take revenge,’ Efraim said. ‘And I did.’

Nadia’s face contorted in sorrow.

‘You envisaged a lesser revenge than I did,’ she said. ‘Much lesser. You wanted to spare Gideon’s daughter.’

‘I believed in a just revenge. I didn’t know we thought so differently.’

The gun shook in her hand.

‘You can’t do it,’ she said. ‘You can’t shoot me, can you? Not even now.’

He opened his mouth to say that she was wrong.

He could do it.

But he didn’t want to.

She got there first.

‘But I can, Efraim. I can.’

And she did.

Efraim twisted and fell, landed on his back on the bed and automatically began to shuffle away. His strength quickly failed. He was unable to raise his gun and fire. The last thing he saw in
this life was Nadia’s face as she bent over him. She appeared to be crying.

‘Forgive me,’ she said. ‘Forgive me.’

And with that she rested her head on his chest and felt him draw his final breath.

T
he alarm was raised by the neighbour in the apartment opposite. He had been on his way out when he heard a door open – first once, and then again. Curiously, he peered through the spy hole. And
saw Mikael Lundell, the priest, standing in the doorway facing a woman.

Who took a gun out of her pocket and shot the priest in the chest.

Without making a sound.

The neighbour edged as far away from the door as possible, then called the police.

Alex Recht was still in his office, so he was informed about the call that had come in minutes earlier from Sankt Eriksplan. Suspected shooting in the stairwell. Could it have anything to do
with his case?

‘Why should it?’ he wanted to know, thinking that enough was enough.

‘The residents of the apartment in question are Eden and Mikael Lundell,’ his colleague said. ‘Have those names come up in your inquiry?’

Four minutes later Alex was in a car heading from Kungsholmen to Sankt Eriksplan at speed, blue lights flashing and siren screaming.

Not Eden, he thought. Anyone but Eden.

He called Fredrika.

‘Suspected shooting at Eden Lundell’s apartment on Sankt Eriksplan. Come if you can.’

The apartment door was closed but not locked when they arrived. The stairwell was quickly filled with police officers and a team from the National Task Force, who by chance happened to be on
exercise nearby when Eden’s neighbour called the emergency number.

They had their guns at the ready, heavy boots thumping on the hard surface of the stairs.

Alex waited outside, the snow falling on his face and clothes.

He didn’t even feel the cold.

He stood there without moving a muscle.

Until someone shouted that the apartment was clear.

He could come up.

There were two children and a man in what must be the master bedroom. The children were lying in the man’s arms.

Alex Recht, the inspector who thought he had seen it all up to now, dropped his gun on the floor and wept.

His prayer had been heard.

Eden Lundell had not been shot. But her entire family was dead.

Eden arrived.

No one could stop her.

And why should they?

She must be allowed to see with her own eyes.

Because Alex didn’t have the words to tell her.

She was carrying a violin case. She put it down on the floor. It remained there after she had left, when they discovered that one of the children was still alive. The other child was dead.
Just like her father.

Eden disappeared.

According to the officers on the street, she might as well have gone up in smoke.

At the same time, Alex realised that the man who had been lying on the bed with the children didn’t bear the slightest resemblance to the man posing with Eden in the photographs on the
bedside table.

‘Listen to me, there’s a man missing here!’ he shouted. ‘Eden Lundell’s husband, the priest who was shot. We have to find him! Fast!’

The angels had shown Eden their mercy for a second time tonight, because Mikael Lundell was found in a closet in the hallway, carelessly hidden under a pile of blankets. The CSIs had missed the
fact that the bloodstains smeared across the floor led to the closet door. Eden’s husband was tall and well-built; whoever had shot him had only just managed to push him inside.

‘He’s lost a lot of blood,’ the paramedic said. ‘We don’t even know if he’ll survive the journey to the hospital.’

‘Do what you can,’ Alex said.

He hoped the priest had God on his side.

And he wondered why Eden hadn’t said anything.

Because she must have known it wasn’t her husband lying on the bed.

Alex called the morgue where the bodies were being kept overnight.

‘The man who was brought in a little while ago – did he have any ID on him?’

‘I thought you knew who he was.’

‘We were wrong.’

He waited while the technician went off to check what had been found among the man’s belongings.

At that moment Fredrika Bergman walked into the apartment, ashen-faced and with tears in her eyes.

‘Sorry I didn’t get here earlier. I should have realised; I heard the sirens when I was walking home.’

Alex reached out and stroked her arm.

The technician came back.

‘I found a passport,’ she said. ‘He’s not Swedish.’

‘Israeli?’

‘Yes, his name is Efraim Kiel.’

Alex let out a long breath. Slowly he lowered the hand holding the phone.

‘We’ve found Efraim Kiel,’ he said.