The Chosen

EARLIER

The last day of the week. Peder Rydh was moving restlessly around the house. One of his sons had woken up with a temperature, the other with far too much energy.

‘I’ll take him out,’ Peder said to Ylva.

She looked grateful as he dressed the boy in several layers of warm clothing.

‘Where will you go?’ she asked.

‘I’ve just got to call in at the office.’

Gratitude was replaced by annoyance, but he got in before she had time to say anything:

‘I have to show my face. I’m head of security, and another child has gone missing. I have to show that I care, because I do. And it’s good for our kids to be in town occasionally.’

It had been Ylva’s idea to move out of the city, and Peder had taken a great deal of persuasion. Reluctantly he admitted that there were many advantages to living in a house rather than an apartment. The garden was a blessing when the weather was good enough for the boys to play outside; their parents could watch their every move from the kitchen window, without having to go out themselves. Ylva had commented that their garden looked more like a prison exercise yard by the time Peder had finished reinforcing the boundary with impenetrable shrubs and a high fence.

‘It’s important to make sure they can’t get out into the street,’ was his justification.

But deep down he knew it was more about making sure that no one could get in. Following the death of his brother, he had become dependent on setting boundaries, both mental and physical. As far as his home was concerned, the fence was critical. Inside there was security, outside everything that fed his many fears.

Peder parked outside the main entrance of the community centre. He got his son out of the car, and as they stood hand in hand on the pavement, he wondered whether it had been such a good idea to bring the boy.

Another child was missing.

Polly Eisenberg.

The very thought made Peder furious.

How the hell had they let her slip through their fingers?

The only thing that calmed him slightly was the fact that Polly had disappeared just hours after they had begun to suspect that she could be at risk. Her disappearance also seemed to have had the effect of reassuring the members of the community; they no longer thought there was a serial killer out there, picking off victims because they were Jewish. Everyone now believed this was a private vendetta against the Goldmann and Eisenberg families, who were now paying an unacceptably high price for what must be an old transgression.

But what justified the loss of your children?

Peder couldn’t understand it at all.

Nor did he understand the logic of punishing a person by hurting someone else, someone who had done nothing wrong.

He thought about the boys, hunted down like animals out on Lovön. The feeling of his son’s hand in his gave the illusion of security. If the children stayed close to him or Ylva, everything would be fine.

The community centre was much quieter than it had been when Simon and Abraham went missing. Peder thought gloomily that this was probably to be expected; people had learned something since the last time. They weren’t going to find the perpetrator by sitting around making phone calls, working their way through class lists.

One of the assistants came towards them, smiling at his son.

‘Do you like chocolate cake? And how about a glass of juice?’

Peder left his son with her and went into his office, leaving the door open. Trust was good, but control was better.

He hadn’t heard any more from Efraim Kiel. He had no idea whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, but he realised that the police were interested in Kiel, which worried him.

It couldn’t do any harm if Peder checked out the man who had recruited him. He would begin by finding out whether Kiel could possibly be in the frame for the shooting of the teacher and the kidnapping of the two boys. If the Solomon Community could provide an alibi, then he could be eliminated as a suspect.

The police officer within Peder was still there, occupying his body like a restless soul. He couldn’t escape, couldn’t get away. Not that he wanted to. The desire to know more drove Peder from his desk and down the corridor to the general secretary’s office.

He looked up when Peder tapped on the door and walked in.

‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he said. ‘Have you heard anything from the police about Polly Eisenberg?’

‘No, but that’s not why I’m here.’

‘Bevakasha, please sit down.’

The general secretary glanced over Peder’s shoulder.

‘Would you mind closing the door?’

‘I’d rather not. My son is out there.’

Peder sat down. He had planned his strategy.

‘Efraim Kiel, the man who was here when I was appointed,’ he began. ‘Do you know how I can get hold of him?’

‘Efraim? No, the only contact details I have are the ones I’ve already given you. Why do you want to speak to him?’

It was clear that the general secretary was shaken. He was the leader of a community that had suffered terrible losses over the past few days. Evil had placed its cold hand on their lives, terrified them all beyond rhyme and reason.

If only they knew how to stop all this.

‘The police are looking for him.’

The words just came out, but he felt no regret. It was true.

‘Efraim? What on earth for?’

That was the most difficult question to answer; Peder didn’t want it to look as if he was trying to do the police’s job for them.

‘It seems he’s cropped up in their investigation. Somehow. But that’s just between you and me.’

The general secretary went pale, then he burst out angrily:

‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! Why would someone like Efraim be mixed up in all the terrible things that have happened here? If that’s the way the police are working, I’m not surprised that another child has gone missing!’

Peder made an effort to retain control of the conversation.

‘I’m not saying he’s a suspect; I think he’s important for other reasons. Given his background and so on.’

Meaningless words, meaningless sentences. Time was running out for Peder, and he was getting nowhere. The general secretary’s eyes narrowed, and Peder realised that his anger was about to be directed at Peder instead.

He changed tack.

‘Besides, Efraim is automatically ruled out as a suspect, isn’t he? He was working here when Josephine was shot and the boys went missing, wasn’t he?’

‘Exactly,’ the general secretary said. ‘Efraim was here. With me. So unless I’m a suspect too, the police can cross him off their list. You can tell them that from me.’

Peder thought about Alex and Fredrika, wondered what they were doing.

I’d give anything to be a part of this investigation.

‘Absolutely,’ he said.

When he left the centre a little while later with his son, he took out his mobile and called Alex.

‘It’s Peder. I think I have some information that might interest you.’

The silent protests were the worst. The ones that were not uttered out loud, but settled in the air like a thin filter. Diana’s body language told him all he needed to know. She didn’t like the fact that he was working on a Sunday. ‘Unhealthy’ was the word she would have used if she had said anything about it, but she didn’t, and that was even worse than an open confrontation.

‘Do you know how boring it is to ski alone?’ she said when she called Alex.

It was morning, and he felt worn out. He had slept badly because of all the thoughts crowding his brain, most of them about Polly, who still hadn’t been found. Alex was afraid that she was already dead.

But if that was the case, we would have found her.

Diana wasn’t indifferent to his job, but it worried her that he sometimes let himself be swallowed up by it, that he withdrew from what other people referred to as everyday life. When work occupied every single waking hour, things had gone too far.

‘When this is over, I’ll take some time off,’ he said.

‘I should think the snow will be long gone by then.’

He laughed, then fell silent, overcome by sadness. He was convinced that with the speed the case was moving, it wouldn’t be many days before they were sitting there with the answers. The snow would be the least of his problems.

He ended the call and focused on the matter in hand.

A missing five-year-old girl.

A teacher who had been shot dead.

Two ten-year-old boys, hunted down and shot.

And a series of strange elements that he didn’t understand at all. The paper bags with faces drawn on them. The story of the Paper Boy, who attacked other children. Two families who seemed to be at the centre of the investigation, but who were unwilling or unable to explain why. Two families who had left Israel and moved to Sweden, for reasons which were unclear. Plus two Israelis who had entered Sweden and now could not be found.

Eden Lundell had called Alex the previous evening. Unfortunately his phone had been switched off by mistake; the battery had run out. She had left a message, but it wasn’t clear what she wanted; she had just said she had something to tell him, and would call again later.

Alex couldn’t work Eden out. She was frighteningly sharp, but incredibly difficult to reach on a personal level. He thought – or rather knew – that they would have made a good team and worked well together. She was neither emotional nor confrontational. Above all, she didn’t take things personally. Alex often found himself analysing what he had said to Fredrika about this or that, checking to see whether some comment could have been taken the wrong way, but that never happened in his dealings with Eden.

But apart from that… Leaving aside the fact that they could talk to one another, what a special person she seemed to be.

Curiosity got the better of him: why had she called? Perhaps she had information that was vital to the case. There was no harm in trying to reach her; if she was busy, she would say so.

Before Alex had time to call, his phone rang. It was Peder Rydh.

‘I’ve been checking up on Efraim Kiel,’ he said. ‘Well, I say checking up… I spoke to the general secretary of the Solomon Community.’

Alex had a bad feeling about this. Peder was driven, full of energy; nothing ever moved fast enough for him.

‘I hope you didn’t tell him that we have our suspicions about Kiel?’

It sounded as if Peder was out and about; the sound of the traffic was noticeable, making it difficult to hear him.

‘No, of course not. But I had to give him something, otherwise he would have wondered why I was asking questions. I said you were trying to get hold of him because it would be interesting to discuss the investigation with someone with his background.’

That sounded like an acceptable lie to Alex, and to be fair it wasn’t entirely untrue. Without knowing the details of Kiel’s background, Alex thought he might well be able to make a valuable contribution.

If only he hadn’t been behaving so strangely.

His task within the Solomon Community was obviously not a secret; Peder had met him, and Alex had spoken to him on the phone. His voice had been deep and rough, leaving very little margin for compromise.

So why had he checked into the hotel under a false name? If he had stayed there at all. And why had he got rid of his mobile, even though he was still in the country?

Something occurred to him.

‘Sorry Peder, before you go on: you didn’t get Kiel’s new number the last time he called you?’

‘No, I didn’t. If I had, I would have passed it on to you.’

Alex heard what Peder really wanted to say:

I’m on your side, don’t you get it?

Once again he was conscious of how much he missed working with Peder.

When this is over, before or after the snow has melted, I will do whatever I can to get you back in the police.

‘Anyway, I called to tell you that Efraim can’t have shot Josephine or kidnapped the two boys.’

‘And how do you know this?’

‘He was in a meeting with the general secretary all afternoon. They were working on staffing issues. When they heard someone had been shot, Efraim went outside with the security guards. He was still on the premises when the boys were abducted on their way to their tennis coaching session.’

That was a classic watertight alibi. It didn’t mean that Efraim wasn’t involved in some other way, of course, but it definitely made him less interesting. Alex felt a stab of disappointment. This was one of the few leads they had.

Fredrika’s plane would soon be landing. Israeli colleagues were meeting her at the airport. Alex was trying to keep his expectations about her visit in check, but it was hopeless. Without a miracle they were lost.

‘I’m glad you called,’ he said to Peder. ‘Thanks for your help – I won’t forget this.’

Peder said something that Alex didn’t hear.

‘Sorry, there’s a lot of noise at your end,’ he said. ‘Can you say that again?’

After a pause, Peder said: ‘It was nothing important. I’ll speak to you again soon.’

‘Good,’ Alex said.

He meant what he said. Peder’s help had been invaluable in many ways, and Alex would make sure his superiors knew that.

After the conversation came the emptiness. Efraim Kiel was out of the frame; he was no longer a viable suspect. Coincidences could be significant, or they could be nonsense, and in this case they appeared to be nonsense. There was probably no exciting explanation as to why Kiel had asked Peder about calling cards left at the crime scenes; he was just a particularly skilled investigator.

His mobile rang again; number withheld.

Eden’s husky voice came down the line.

‘I missed your call yesterday,’ Alex said.

Which was a stupid thing to say – why waste time stating the obvious?

‘My fault, it was very late when I called. Are you free to talk now?’

‘Absolutely. If you’d rather meet face to face and you happen to be at work, you’re welcome to come over.’

It was no problem for Eden to come to Alex’s office, whereas his chances of dropping in to see her at Säpo were non-existent.

‘That would have been nice, but unfortunately I’m not in today.’

Did he think everyone else worked Sundays as well? Even someone like Eden Lundell was entitled to some time off to breathe in the fresh winter air, spend time with her family. She was married with children, wasn’t she? Or was that just a figment of his imagination?

‘Alex, I haven’t been completely honest with you.’

Her tone was serious.

‘I lied when I said I didn’t know who Efraim Kiel was. I’m very sorry, but given the situation, I couldn’t tell you what I knew until I’d spoken to my boss.’

Eden was the head of the counter-terrorism unit, and she had had to speak to her boss. Who was the General Director of Säpo.

‘Okay,’ Alex said. Warily, because he had no idea what he was supposed to say.

‘You absolutely must not pass this on, but I can tell you that Säpo has had reason to monitor Efraim Kiel’s activities here in Sweden. I can’t tell you why, but I promise you it has nothing to do with the murders you’re investigating.’

‘Hang on a minute,’ Alex said, but Eden interrupted him.

‘You’ll just have to take my word for it. Säpo is not investigating the murders of individual members of the Solomon Community, but if we had information that could benefit your work, then needless to say we would have passed it on.’

Unless of course national security was at risk, Alex thought.

Less than five minutes ago, he had received information that virtually ruled out Efraim Kiel as a suspect, but of course Eden didn’t know that. He appreciated the fact that she had called, and he couldn’t care less why Säpo was following Efraim, as long as it had nothing to do with the murders.

His thoughts turned to Polly Eisenberg. To her brother’s body, lying on the dazzling white snow. To the paper bag over his head.

This has to end.

He heard a rustling noise, then Eden was back.

‘Has Fredrika left?’

‘Yes, she should be there by now.’

He wished they could have gone together, that it hadn’t been so urgent.

And he hoped Fredrika would take care of herself, all alone in the land of the Paper Boy.

ISRAEL

One of the smallest countries in the world, from a purely geographical point of view. The desert meeting the sea. Heat and aridity. Two nations laying claim to the same narrow piece of land. Almost two decades ago there had been a peace process, but there was nothing left of that initiative now. The country where the Paper Boy had once been given life was a strange place.

‘Have you been here before?’ asked the man who met Fredrika at the airport.

‘Once, but it was a long time ago.’

She had been twenty-four years old, and she had just fallen in love.

This would have been so much more fun if Spencer was here.

They were in a car on the way to Jerusalem from Ben Gurion airport. The hills forming the landscape were a fascinating sight, a mixture of barrenness dotted with patches of vegetation and settlements.

Her companion was called Isak Ben-Zwi. He was roughly the same age as Alex, and as far as Fredrika could make out, worked for the Israeli equivalent of the National Crime Unit.

‘You have a terrible situation in Stockholm,’ he said.

Fredrika could only agree.

‘Have you found the little girl who went missing yesterday?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

She took out her mobile; a new message she hadn’t had time to listen to yet. She was about to put her phone away when Isak said: ‘Please – we’re not here to make small talk, we’re here because we have a job to do. Don’t mind me.’

She gave him a grateful look and clicked on her voicemail.

Alex’s voice in her ear was a reminder of why she was there.

‘Peder called. Efraim Kiel can’t have abducted the boys or shot Josephine, because he was in a meeting with the general secretary of the Solomon Community at the time. Speak to you later.’

So. That considerably reduced the possibility that Efraim was involved. Of course it could be that one person had abducted the boys and another had shot them, but that seemed unlikely. As a general rule, if there was more than one perpetrator, they were usually responsible for different victims.

‘Problems?’ Isak said.

Fredrika didn’t want to share what she had just heard. She and Alex had agreed before she left that it was best to leave Efraim Kiel out of their collaboration with the Israeli police.

‘Yes, but nothing new.’

She forced a smile and gazed out of the window.

‘Is the weather always this good in January?’

The sun was shining, and it was eighteen degrees. The contrast with Stockholm was depressing.

‘Not always, but sometimes – if we’re lucky. Jerusalem is a little cooler; the city is higher up than Tel Aviv. We even have snow there occasionally, but it’s very rare.’

They drove in silence towards the Israeli capital, which was still not recognised internationally.

‘We’ve started going through the material you sent over,’ Isak said eventually. ‘The various addresses where the individual calling himself the Lion logged into Super Troopers.’

Fredrika’s spirits rose.

‘Any luck?’

‘Not so far, but as I said, we’ve only just started. I’ve got some of my team visiting these places to see whether they keep customer records, or whether any of them have CCTV.’

If so, they might be able to get a picture, which would be invaluable. A picture and personal details. Fredrika tried not to be over-optimistic.

‘We’re very grateful for your co-operation,’ she said.

Isak kept his sharp eyes fixed on the road.

‘We’re happy to help,’ he said. ‘The Jewish people have the right to feel safe. Wherever they may be.’

Fredrika knew what he meant, but felt no empathy. She didn’t really know who her own people were. A small political elite in Europe was trying to create a European identity for the members of the European Union, but Fredrika couldn’t see them succeeding. Such constructs didn’t usually have a long-term future.

‘I believe you have some other matters to look into during your stay,’ Isak said.

It was hard to tell whether there was a question in there, but Fredrika thought so. She and Alex had carefully planned their strategy for her visit. It would be inappropriate to reveal that they distrusted the boys’ parents. They had nothing concrete against them, but Fredrika thought that was irrelevant; the parents must be left out of the whole thing.

But she had to respond to Isak’s question – or statement.

‘An old Israeli legend has come up in our investigation,’ she said. ‘Have you ever heard of the Paper Boy?’

Isak frowned.

‘The Paper Boy? No, never. Who is he?’

Fredrika told him, trying to put into words a story so unpleasant that she couldn’t understand why anyone would ever have told it to their children. She omitted specific details relating to the inquiry, such as the fact that Simon and Abraham had been found with paper bags over their heads.

‘What a strange story,’ Isak said. ‘I’ll get someone to do an online search in Hebrew, but don’t expect miracles; it sounds as if you’ve stumbled across a local urban myth.’

His words gave her the perfect opening.

‘That’s exactly what we thought, which is why I’d really like to visit two kibbutzim where the story was told, according to our sources. Just to see if I can find out any more about where it comes from.’

‘I understand. If you give me the names of the kibbutzim I can help you with transport. If they’re still in existence, of course.’

Fredrika hoped that at least one of them was still in operation. She had come a long way to track down the Paper Boy. The boy who came in the darkness and attacked small children. The boy who had now made his way to Sweden to seek out new victims.

Abraham, Simon, Josephine.

And Polly.

The yellow express train sliced through a snowy landscape so white and beautiful that it looked as if it belonged in a fairy tale.

So much space for such a small population.

Efraim Kiel couldn’t stop staring out of the window.

The Swedes had no idea how privileged they were. Over two hundred years of uninterrupted peace. A population where no one who was alive today had experienced the horrors of war on home territory. For a man like Efraim, that was incomprehensible.

Conditions in Israel were so different that it hurt to think about his own country. Efraim had sacrificed more than most Israelis for the common good, for safety and security. He was well aware of the damage this had done to his heart and soul, dulling his senses and making him capable of doing harm to others in order to achieve a higher goal. But he thought it had been worth it, on the whole. Not everyone could enjoy a life spent barbecuing sausages in the back garden. Some people had to take responsibility.

At least that was what Efraim told himself as he sat on the train, his thoughts once again turning to Eden and the child he had seen in her arms as she walked away.

Responsibility.

Efraim had taken responsibility when he had deliberately made her fall in love with him, even though he felt nothing in return. Perhaps things would have been different under other circumstances. If he hadn’t already met the woman in his life – the woman who had been his secret for so long. Both for his sake and hers, so that neither of them would come to any harm, and be punished for their reckless love.

He had told her that the very first time he kissed her.

‘This is doomed.’

She had responded by getting even closer to him. Then the boy came along, and everything else lost its value.

Almost everything else.

The only thing that could rival his love for his son was his love for Israel, and for that, fate had punished him severely.

The train raced towards its final destination. Signs inside the carriage boasted that it took only twenty minutes to travel from Arlanda airport into the city centre. Efraim couldn’t have cared less whether it took twenty minutes or thirty. He was better prepared now and felt that he had regained control of the situation.

The gun was gone.

So was the child called Polly.

The child whose screams still echoed in his head.

Efraim didn’t speak Swedish, but there was one word he thought he would understand in any language.

Mummy.

A word with a unique tone and melody that a father could only dream of coming close to.

Ima in Hebrew. Umi in Arabic.

The train pulled in; Efraim got off and walked calmly out of the station. He had shaken off Säpo some time ago, and he had no intention of renewing his acquaintance with them. Not until he needed their help. If that day should ever come.

He thought it unlikely.

He felt strong. Confident.

He headed north along Vasagatan, up towards the congress building that hid his new hotel. It was nowhere near as luxurious as the Diplomat, but it served its purpose. The receptionist didn’t appear to react as he walked in; there was no reason why she should be aware that he had been away overnight.

Up in his room he took a shower, changed his clothes, and went back out into the cold. He had to visit the Diplomat just once more. A final visit before war broke out.

He caught the bus this time. Got on and showed the strip of tickets he had bought. The driver stamped it and the bus moved off towards Djurgården. A green space right in the middle of Stockholm. An outpost by the sea. Efraim thought it was much more beautiful in the summer.

He got off at Nybroplan and took a circuitous route to the hotel.

There was a risk that Säpo might be waiting for him, hoping he’d come back, because by this stage even they must have realised they’d lost him.

He saw them from some distance away, sitting in a car parked much closer to the hotel than he would have done. He turned off Strandvägen, disappeared up a side street. He would have to use the entrance at the back of the hotel, the one he had located on his very first day there. It was easier to use when darkness had fallen, but not impossible in daylight.

That was the only advantage of this insane winter darkness: it was easy to become invisible. Efraim couldn’t think of anything else remotely positive about the fact that the sun disappeared at three o’clock in the afternoon.

He walked straight into a cleaner as he opened the fire door and slipped into the corridor. Shit. She looked surprised and said something he didn’t understand. He smiled apologetically, explained briefly that he had taken a wrong turning.

She stared after him for far too long.

Foolish of her. Very foolish.

Time would tell whether he could leave the matter, or whether he would need to deal with it.

The receptionist recognised him. He could see that she was confused because he hadn’t come in through the main door, which was less troublesome, but still irritating. He would have avoided the visit if he could, but it was impossible. He had no doubt about that.

‘I was in such a hurry when I checked out yesterday,’ Efraim said, his most charming smile firmly in place. ‘I just wanted to make sure I hadn’t forgotten to pick up any messages.’

The receptionist began to go through the file in front of her.

‘Something did come for you; we were talking about it this morning, wondering what to do with it. We didn’t know how to get hold of you.’

‘Well, I’m here now.’

Still smiling, and the message was in his hand.

He moved away from the desk and the windows, where he was far too visible.

He opened the envelope and read the brief communication. The declaration of war he had been expecting. To think that so few words could cause such pain.

I will never forgive you for this.

LONDON

There were two things that Eden Lundell had found particularly difficult during her years in London: the ingrained conservatism, and the terrible weather. Instinctively she felt that the latter would be easier to come to terms with than the former.

The sleet had turned into a classic autumn rain, lashing her face as she left the hotel, on her way to the man she had come here to see. The man who would tell her what she needed to know in order to get rid of her problem. To crush Efraim.

Her thoughts were constantly with Mikael and the children she had left behind. The anxiety she couldn’t shake off had grown into a monster that was threatening to drive her insane. She had to end this, and soon. She didn’t know why, she just knew that time was short.

The rain hammered against her waterproof jacket, the drops turning to transparent beads that almost looked like pearls. Eden had always hated pearls, mainly because her mother thought they were the last word in elegance. Eden wondered if she still felt the same. It was a long time since they had seen one another. Israel wasn’t all that far away, but after the affair with Efraim, Eden had been unable to bring herself to go there. She didn’t think she would get through passport control anyway – not without being taken to one side and questioned.

The water on the pavement softened the sound of her heels. There was hardly anyone else around, which wasn’t surprising; it was Sunday, and it was pouring down. Why would anyone be out and about? She had chosen a hotel less than five blocks from where he lived. The most unexpected plan was often the best strategy. Her visit would lead to discussions, and might also have certain practical consequences in the long term. She was under no illusion that he would be pleased to see her; those days were gone forever.

But that’s irrelevant; this is a matter of life and death, and that takes precedence over all the crap that’s behind us.

She had arrived.

She stood outside the house she had visited more times than she could count. The house where Fred and Angela Banks lived. They had been her and Mikael’s best friends when they lived in London. The most treacherous friends she had ever had.

At least as far as Fred was concerned.

He had been her colleague as well as her friend. And the first person her boss had chosen to involve in the investigation into her affair with Efraim.

A natural choice. He was closest to Eden, and would easily be able to keep himself informed about her private life without arousing any suspicions.

The memories flooded her mind.

Memories of the holidays she and Mikael had spent with Fred and Angela. Dinner parties and celebrations. Fred with a cigar in the corner of his mouth (‘I only smoke when I’m drunk, you know’), and Angela with a décolletage so deep you could practically see her navel (‘Without these boobs I would never have been such a successful broker!’). On the surface they didn’t seem to have anything whatsoever in common with Eden and Mikael, but in reality they had shared everything.

Interests.

Values.

Humour.

And sorrow.

Because Fred and Angela were unable to have children, which led to a painful friction that Eden and Mikael not only witnessed, but helped to heal.

Eden swallowed hard. She went up the steps, her finger trembling as she was about to ring the bell. Because they hadn’t made any friends in Stockholm who were as close as Fred and Angela had been.

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.

According 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.

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.’

ISRAEL

The 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.’

LONDON

Wood 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.

Fred went into the kitchen to fetch a bottle of wine, and they sat down in the living room.

‘It was after 9/11,’ Fred began. ‘2001. A lot of people thought it was our turn next. Through an undercover informant, MI5 learned that Palestinian terrorists were preparing a major attack on several British embassies around the world. A major investigation team was assembled to look into the threat, but they got nowhere. So they contacted the Israelis. The key player in the plot was supposed to be in a village on the West Bank, to which we had no access. The various attacks were to be carried out by Palestinians living in diaspora across the world.’

Eden listened carefully. She thought about the role the British had played in Palestine after the First World War, and the subsequent chaos which still reigned in 2001. Eden hadn’t started working for MI5 at that stage.

‘The Israelis were interested when they heard what we knew. MI5’s contact on the Israeli side was Efraim Kiel. He led a special team operating on the West Bank, and they had someone in that particular village who was both reliable and willing to co-operate.’

Fred took a sip of his wine, and Eden automatically reached for her glass. She shouldn’t drink; she knew that. But if Fred was drinking, she didn’t want to sit there stone-cold sober. It sent out the wrong signals.

‘Anyway, MI5 set up a joint operation with Mossad in order to track down the man behind the plot, and thus put a stop to it. Efraim Kiel’s team were supposed to locate him with the help of a source on the West Bank. I don’t know how much you remember about the situation in Israel at the beginning of the twenty-first century, but it was no picnic over there.’

Eden remembered those days very well. That was when her parents, particularly her mother, had been radicalised and eventually decided to emigrate to Israel. Eden recalled endless discussions with her mother and father, weeping with rage at the dinner table.

It had always been clear to Eden that disappointment was the strongest impetus for violence, disappointment over everything that didn’t happen, or didn’t happen fast enough.

The West Bank had been in flames during those years, and that was also when the decision was made to start constructing the barrier that now separated the two peoples. Running a source in a Palestinian village at that time must have been doomed to failure.

‘I assume it didn’t end well,’ Eden said.

‘To say the least. What I’m about to tell you stays between us, Eden. It’s more sensitive than everything else I’ve told you put together.’

She nodded. She had no words to express what she was feeling.

‘In February 2002, just before the Israelis moved in and reoccupied the West Bank, they thought they had a breakthrough in the source operation in the Palestinian village. Mossad contacted MI5, and we were offered the chance to be there when they went in to seize the man suspected of being behind the plot. We already had staff in Jerusalem; one of them joined Efraim Kiel’s team and accompanied them to the West Bank. A high-risk project in those days. For example, sometimes Palestinian terrorists or insurgents rigged up booby-trapped buildings.’

Booby traps. Eden had never needed to worry about that kind of danger, but she knew all about them – bombs that went off when someone stood on them; bombs that could be hidden under the floor so that an entire building would collapse on top of the intruder.

‘Efraim’s team ended up standing outside a house they were afraid was booby trapped,’ Fred went on. ‘For that reason they hesitated before going in, and Kiel moved aside to request reinforcements so that they could smoke out anyone who might be inside. At that moment a child emerged, a boy aged about ten. Two members of the team went over and spoke to him, asked if he was home alone or if there were any adults in the house.’

‘They did what?’

‘I know – unbelievable. They didn’t want him in there if they were going to use tear gas, or blow the place up, so they confronted him. But they completely misjudged his reaction. The boy panicked and pulled away from them. He was much faster than they were, of course, and he ran straight back inside through the nearest door, which evidently wasn’t the one through which he had come out. And the team found out whether the house was booby trapped or not.’

The wine became impossible to swallow, stuck in her throat.

‘The house went up,’ Eden said.

Fred nodded, his face expressionless.

‘They didn’t have a chance; in two seconds the whole place was in flames. We later received confirmation that the suspect had died in the explosion. There were no attacks on British embassies. Afterwards, however, MI5 was extremely critical of the way in which the operation had been carried out. A child died that day. How many British citizens do you have to save for it to be worth the life of a Palestinian boy?’

Eden had no answer to that question. She looked down into her glass, feeling wave after wave of nausea. She realised how little she had known about Efraim’s background.

‘We had nothing more to do with Efraim Kiel after that,’ Fred said. ‘Until the day when he approached one of our brightest and best.’

He gave Eden a wry smile, and she couldn’t help but smile back.

‘Were you there on the West Bank?’ she asked.

Fred shook his head.

‘I found out about the operation when I was reading up about Kiel in order to understand who he was. Painful secrets hidden away in the archives under a bizarre code name.’

‘How bizarre can it be?’ Eden said. ‘How do you name an operation that so obviously went against important principles that we’re supposed to represent?’

‘You give it the name the Israelis gave their source. And on this occasion the source on the West Bank who led Efraim Kiel’s team to the main suspect was apparently known as the Paper Boy.’

The longing had been aroused deep inside him on the very first day, when the snow outside the Solomon Community was still red with blood, and the two boys were missing. He had felt his pulse rate increase, felt the surge of adrenalin. And he knew that he had done the wrong thing on the day when he walked away from the police and handed in his badge without even putting up a fight. Had he been crazy? How could he have done something so stupid?

Peder Rydh knew the answer to that question.

He had been out of his mind.

His brother had been murdered, and nothing else mattered.

But now things were different. Peder was different.

I want to go back, he thought. I really, really want my old job back.

There were so many things he missed; being around Alex was one of them. Working with such an experienced investigator so early in his career had been a blessing. Peder’s success could have taken him a very long way if he had played his cards right. It wasn’t just the fact that he had shot his brother’s killer that had landed him in hot water; there were the women too.

So bloody pointless.

Unsatisfactory sex with women for whom he had no respect. You just didn’t behave like that. Not towards them, and definitely not towards your own wife. One thing had led to another, and eventually he had been working so hard at being a bastard that he no longer knew how to be anything else. Until now.

Peder had finally been forced to grow up. The question was whether he had left it too late.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the murders within the Solomon Community. He realised he had begun to regard them as his case, his responsibility. Ylva watched with unspoken anxiety as he became unreachable, lost in his thoughts. She wondered if he was moving away from her again.

They had supper with the children and she took them off for baths and bedtime. Peder loaded the dishwasher, then fetched his laptop.

The newspapers were following the search for Polly Eisenberg. Her parents had gone to ground and were making no comment. Peder had met them only a few times, but they had made a good impression, particularly Carmen, the mother. She seemed calmer than her husband; more comfortable in her own skin.

He wanted to ring Alex, find out how far he had got with the investigation, ask if he could help in any way. Most of all he wanted to ask whether Alex wanted him back. Whether he missed him.

I’d do anything for a second chance.

The sounds from the boys’ bedroom as Ylva tried to settle them reminded him that he had already been given a second chance. Things could have been much worse. He could have lost his whole family as well.

His work mobile rang. He answered quickly, not wanting to disturb Ylva and the children.

It was the general secretary.

‘Sorry to disturb you on a Sunday, but… I have something to tell you. Something I forgot when we last spoke.’

‘What’s this about?’

‘Efraim Kiel,’ the general secretary said slowly.

Peder took a deep breath.

‘Yes?’

He heard a sigh.

‘I don’t think this is important, I really don’t. But after you asked me where Efraim Kiel was when Simon and Abraham went missing, I thought back to that afternoon. I told you Efraim was with me, but that’s not the case.’

‘No?’

‘Everything happened so fast. First of all Josephine was shot, just after three o’clock. We were both there when the police arrived, but then Efraim went off, said he had personal contacts who might be able to help push the police a little harder. With his background he obviously knows people the rest of us wouldn’t have access to, so I didn’t react to what he said. And he did come back; he was there when you came in, and he was the one who made the calls taking up your references.’

Bloody hell.

‘So what you’re saying is that when the boys disappeared on their way to tennis coaching, Efraim wasn’t in the community centre,’ Peder said.

‘Correct. Which doesn’t necessarily mean he was lying; it’s entirely possible that he had meetings that were none of my business.’

But you’re not sure, because otherwise you wouldn’t have called me, would you?

Peder swallowed.

Efraim Kiel no longer had an alibi for the period when the boys were abducted.

The sound of children in the house was a joy. Chatter turning into screams of delight, giggles exploding into laughter, bouncing off the walls. High voices calling out new words that made his face light up.

‘Grandma!’

‘Grandpa!’

Alex’s son and daughter had both come for Sunday dinner with their families, a surprise that met him in the doorway when he got home from work.

His head was bursting with random thoughts and speculation about why two children had been shot dead and a third had disappeared. His grandchildren drove those thoughts away for a while. They hurled themselves at him, much less easy to elude than the adults in his company. He even managed to get through the meal before his mind was once again invaded by what had happened. What it would mean if one of the parents had lied about his alibi.

The last thing he had done before leaving Police HQ was to put Saul Goldmann under surveillance, just to be on the safe side. If he was the one who had taken Polly Eisenberg, he might lead them to her.

Diana watched him across the table. She had one of the grandchildren on her knee, holding the child close. They were not her grandchildren, but she had taken Alex’s family to her heart and made them her own.

His mobile rang and he excused himself. Diana’s expression was forgiving as he left the table.

It was Peder. Alex almost dropped the phone when he realised what he was saying.

Efraim Kiel didn’t have an alibi.

‘As you know, this is extremely important information,’ he said. ‘Thank you very much.’

A thank you was not enough. Follow up questions came thick and fast. Peder wanted to know what the next step would be, and whether he could be of any help.

But that was where Alex had to draw the line. Peder was not a police officer, and that was that. He could tell that his former colleague was disappointed; Peder’s silence told Alex all he needed to know.

‘Peder, you’re not part of my team. I’m sorry, but that means I can’t let you in on everything we find out.’

Peder cleared his throat.

‘I know that.’

Another protracted silence.

‘Was there anything else?’ Alex said.

He tried to keep his tone friendly, but he was keen to call Fredrika in Jerusalem.

‘I just wanted to tell you that I…’ Peder said, then hesitated.

Alex held his breath, waiting for him to go on.

‘Yes?’

‘I’m thinking of trying to gain some kind of redress, Alex. I want to come back to the police. I shouldn’t have had to leave.’

Alex wasn’t so preoccupied that he didn’t have time to say the right thing.

‘That’s good news. I’m really pleased.’

He meant every word, and hoped Peder could hear it in his voice.

The three grandchildren had got down from the table and came charging into the hallway, whirling around his legs like hyperactive butterflies, each trying to shout louder than the others.

‘Peder, I’ll speak to you very soon. Thanks again for your help.’

Alex withdrew from the children and shut himself in his study so that he could talk to Fredrika in peace. He had only just sat down at his desk when he realised what he was doing.

Making the same mistake all over again.

The same mistake, but with a new generation.

How many times, irrespective of whether it was a weekday, a weekend or a holiday, had he left his family because of work? With empty promises, assuring them that he was going to make just one more phone call, talk to one more person, stay in the office for one more hour? How much had he missed by behaving that way?

But what was the alternative? Ignore the fact that a little girl had been abducted?

That was equally impossible, and no less painful.

Fredrika sounded far away when she answered.

‘Sorry I haven’t called,’ she said. ‘I’ve just got back to the hotel. I’ve been in a meeting about the Lion with Isak and his colleagues.’

Fredrika Bergman was sitting in with the Israeli equivalent of the National Crime Unit. Alex tried to remind himself why Fredrika had been sent to Jerusalem, rather than anyone else: because her husband was going there. But that wasn’t the way things had turned out.

‘Tell me,’ he said.

‘We have a name,’ Fredrika said. ‘But I’m afraid it doesn’t get us anywhere.’

‘Because?’

He couldn’t suppress the impatience in his voice.

‘There was only one occasion when the Lion had to give a name in order to be allowed to use a computer in one particular store. He said his name was Avital Greenburg.’

Avital Greenburg.

Yet another new name.

Alex felt his heart sink. This was too much to cope with.

‘And did our Israeli colleagues recognise the name?’

‘Yes, they did. But not in the way you’re thinking.’

More surprises. It seemed there was no end to them.

‘Alex, Avital Greenburg was a man who died many years ago. He became notorious in Israel when he abducted and killed two children at the end of the 70s.’

Alex didn’t know what to say at first.

‘Well, at least we know that the person who sent the emails was linked to the murders.’

‘It definitely looks that way,’ Fredrika said. ‘The police here are extremely frustrated. They can’t get any further with the Lion. There are no CCTV pictures, and he always paid cash for internet access.’

Alex wasn’t surprised; they were dealing with a pro. A person who was fully aware of security issues. A person like Efraim Kiel.

‘I’ve got news for you too,’ he said.

Fredrika listened in silence. When he had finished speaking, she said:

‘If Efraim is behind all this, then Saul and Gideon must understand why it’s happening.’

‘I agree. Which is what we’ve suspected all along – that they’re keeping something from us. But we just can’t work out why.’

‘Perhaps through fear?’ Fredrika suggested. ‘Then again, what have they got to be afraid of? The worst has already happened.’

Alex nodded to himself.

‘Mona Samson,’ he said. ‘I mentioned her to you earlier; have you found out whether she’s entered the country?’

‘So far the police haven’t managed to identify her, but they’re still looking.’

‘What the hell does that mean?’ Alex said. ‘The police haven’t managed to identify her? Mona Samson can’t be the most common name in Israel. How many people using false names can there be in one inquiry?’

He could tell that Fredrika was equally frustrated. They had to make progress. Soon. Before it was too late.

‘Saul Goldmann,’ she said. ‘Do we still think he shot his own son?’

‘I’ve seen stranger things over the years,’ Alex replied. ‘But my priority at the moment is that we now have an individual who looks even more suspect since we broke his alibi.’

Efraim Kiel. Who had vanished without a trace.

Alex thought out loud.

‘If Efraim is the Lion, why did he email the boys? Why not just pick them up on the street? That’s what I would have done.’

If I were a killer, which I’m not.

‘Because he knows their parents, realised there was a risk of being recognised,’ Fredrika said.

‘Bollocks. Neither of the boys had ever met him, and even if they’d seen him in a photograph, although their parents insist they don’t have any pictures of Kiel, it would be more than ten years old.’

He could hear the sound of traffic in the background; Fredrika must have gone outside.

‘I don’t know why he emailed them,’ she said. ‘Possibly because it increased his chances of getting them to go with him voluntarily? Otherwise he would have been forced to take them one at a time, which would have been more difficult. Or it would have taken longer, at least.’

So many loose ends. Alex thought bitterly that it felt as if they were chasing an entire pride of lions, not just one.

‘This is an endless nightmare scenario,’ he said.

‘Do you think so? I don’t agree. This starts and ends with the Goldmann and Eisenberg families. Otherwise other children would have been taken.’

Fredrika was right, but they still had to get to the bottom of the murders, with or without the co-operation of the parents.

‘Tomorrow I’m going to visit the kibbutz where Saul and Gideon grew up. Hopefully we’ll know more after that.’

Alex hoped she was right.

Above all he wanted Fredrika to find the most mysterious figure in the whole case so far.

The man known as the Paper Boy.

A man who the murderer, whoever he might be, must have known about.

LONDON

The Paper Boy.

Known to some as an Israeli myth.

Known to significantly fewer people as the name of a secret source in a Palestinian village on the West Bank.

Eden Lundell was trying to digest what she had heard, while struggling with the dilemma that she now faced. Because under no circumstances could she pass this information on to Alex Recht or Fredrika Bergman. Intelligence of the most sensitive nature, which would never be admissible in a Swedish court of law. It could never be shared. She had gone to Fred for personal reasons, but now her private life had collided with her professional background, and she had no choice but to stick to the rules of the game.

Fredrika was in Israel. She wouldn’t get anywhere near the information Eden had been given; the question was whether she and Alex would still be able to solve the case. Eden hoped so, because three people had died, two of them children. Justice must be done.

In one way or another.

She and Fred Banks had parted company a few hours earlier. He had looked very tired when she left his house.

‘It’s funny, but I always had a feeling we’d meet again,’ he had said as she was leaving, a wry smile lighting up his pale face. He had given her far more than she had ever dared hope for, and for that she would be eternally grateful.

‘It was good to see you,’ she said.

Her voice was suddenly thick, the damp air difficult to breathe.

‘When are you going back to Sweden?’

‘Tomorrow morning. First thing.

She hesitated, but had to ask the question.

‘If you know any more about the Paper Boy, or if you think you can find out more… I’d really appreciate it if you could let me know.’

His face had darkened, the smile gone in a second.

‘You’re asking a lot.’

She shook her head.

‘I haven’t told you everything. There has been a series of murders in Stockholm. Three members of a Jewish community, two of them children, and the story of the Paper Boy from Israel has come up in the investigation.’

Fred looked surprised.

‘And how does that end up on your desk? What’s it got to do with Säpo?’

‘It’s not my case; it’s being investigated by a special team of detectives. But we were consulted because an Israeli citizen who is known to us is on the periphery.’

Fred opened his mouth, then closed it again.

‘Not Efraim Kiel?’

‘Yes.’

It was Fred’s turn to shake his head.

‘There’s a big difference between what he did to you and killing children, Eden.’

‘We don’t know if he’s involved. We don’t think so, but there are a number of question marks around his presence in Stockholm, and the fact that it coincides with these murders.’

Once again he reminded her of what he had already said:

‘You are not to pass on what I told you, not under any circumstances whatsoever.’

‘Of course not.’

He thought for a moment.

‘Okay, I’ll see what I can find out, although I don’t know how. I’ll call you if I get anywhere.’

‘It would be particularly helpful to know who else was part of Efraim’s team, the one that was operating on the West Bank.’

Fred let out a bark of laughter.

‘You’re crazy. Why do you want to know that?’

‘Because there are several leads, all pointing back to Israel. And someone is watching Efraim in Stockholm. Someone other than Säpo.’

Fred grew serious.

‘Take care of yourself,’ he said. ‘It sounds as if there’s something major going on over there.’

I know. And it frightens me.

She raised a hand in farewell.

‘I’ll be in touch. And thanks again for your help.’

He waved back, and she turned and walked away. Once upon a time they would have hugged, but those days were long gone.

Maybe in the future, she thought when she was back in her hotel room. Maybe it would be possible to heal the past. Her relationship with MI5 was beyond repair, but she and Fred could fix things; if they tried.

It would make Mikael happy, anyway; he still talked about Fred, said how much he missed him.

He had always been better than Eden at putting his thoughts and feelings into words. She was a permanent meltdown of suppressed needs and reactions, while he was a firework, an explosion of emotions. That was both the strength and the weakness within their relationship.

She called home to say goodnight. Mikael sounded pleased to hear her voice, talked enthusiastically about what he and the girls had been up to. She listened, but told him nothing about what she had done. That was how it always was, and Mikael didn’t mind. Nor did she mention that she had managed to find time to go and buy a violin for Dani; that would be a surprise.

‘See you tomorrow,’ he said.

‘See you.’

For a second she was seized by a bottomless panic.

Dear God, please don’t let me have misjudged Efraim Kiel completely.

Waking nightmares were always worse than those that came when she was asleep. She had just decided to go for an evening stroll to settle her nerves when her boss rang from Stockholm.

‘I presume you’re still not prepared to tell me what you’re up to,’ GD said, the irritation clear in his voice.

‘I’ll be back at work by lunchtime tomorrow.’

‘Marvellous,’ GD said dryly. ‘But that’s not why I called. We’ve made some progress during your absence.’

‘Progress?’

‘We think we’ve found the person who is following Efraim Kiel.’

‘How?’

‘The surveillance team kept one car outside the Diplomat in the faint hope that we weren’t the only ones he had managed to shake off. And it seems as if their strategy worked perfectly. They identified an individual who was hanging around in the vicinity of the hotel for long periods at a time.’

‘Did they get any pictures?’

‘They’re here in front of me.’

Eden’s heart was pounding. She thought about the links to Israel, about Efraim’s team operating on the West Bank: a team with which he had obviously parted company, because he had then moved on to trying to recruit agents in London.

‘What does he look like? Can you send me a photo?’

‘You can see the photos when you get back. But I will tell you that it’s not a man. The person who is following Efraim Kiel is a woman.’

It wasn’t hard to spot her. He sensed her presence as soon as he picked up her last message from reception. He knew she couldn’t be far away. He had left the hotel by the same route as he had come in, slipped through the streets behind the building, then cautiously made his way back to Strandvägen. The Säpo car was still there. And a short distance away, at a bus stop, stood a figure who didn’t get on any of the buses that pulled up.

To think that she had grown so careless.

It was Efraim Kiel who had trained her, spent countless hours working with her. Provided her with all the knowledge and skills necessary to survive her mission.

Now she was behaving as if she had forgotten every single thing. Or as if she simply didn’t care. He took it for granted that Säpo had also seen her. Eventually she must have realised that she was making a fool of herself. As she walked away she lacked the energy he had been used to. Her head was bowed, hands shoved in her pockets.

Following her had been trickier than he had expected, because of course the car door opened and one of the Säpo goons set off after her as well. Efraim had found it difficult to shadow the Säpo guy without the other man in the car spotting him. If he could just keep his distance, he should be okay.

And so they had moved through the city, the woman first, the Säpo guy in the middle, and Efraim on the other side of the road. An unconscious troika with the unsuspecting woman as its leader. She led them down towards the central station, then along Vasagatan. At first Efraim had thought they were heading for his new hotel, which would have been most unfortunate, but the woman continued toward Torsgatan. The trail ended when she disappeared through the doorway of one of the newly built apartment blocks on the left hand side.

When the Säpo agent gave up and walked away, Efraim crossed over. Read the names of the residents, wondered which one might be hers. Going inside and ringing one doorbell after another was out of the question.

Always stay out of sight; never be noticed.

It wasn’t until he was standing under the shower back in his hotel room that he understood which name she had chosen.

The realisation hit him like a thunderbolt. His hands felt numb as he turned off the water, dried himself and went into the bedroom.

Now he knew what she was calling herself.

She had taken the name of the man who was so strong that he could tear a lion to pieces.

Samson.

ISRAEL

The lion was everywhere, its image on manhole covers and flags, on ceramic ornaments and pieces of jewellery.

‘The lion is the symbol of Jerusalem,’ Isak Ben-Zwi explained when Fredrika asked him about it. ‘There are early references to the lion’s significance for the city in what Christians refer to as the Old Testament, and the symbol of the lion played a major role when we were a part of the Ottoman Empire.’

They had left the American Colony in the eastern part of Jerusalem for a late evening walk. Isak led her down Nablus Road to the Damascus Gate, set in the magnificent wall that encircled the Old City. The wall was lit up, shining against the dark sky, beautiful and uncompromising.

‘During the day the Old City is a gigantic market place,’ Isak said. ‘We can come down tomorrow if you like; nothing is open now.’

Even though Fredrika had visited Jerusalem before, she really wanted to go to the market again. If she had time.

Tomorrow she was due to visit the kibbutzim; theoretically she would be able to go home in the evening.

‘Did you find out any more about the Paper Boy?’ she asked Isak. ‘You said you were going to do an online search in Hebrew.’

He didn’t reply. Was she imagining it, or was his expression less amiable than it had been earlier?

‘This way,’ he said. ‘I will show you the Old City by night.’

He took her hand and led her down the stone steps towards the dark opening of the Damascus Gate. She presumed he was being a gentleman, but the gesture felt much too intimate. Discreetly she withdrew her hand, holding the strap of her shoulder bag instead.

Isak looked at her. He was clearly annoyed, much to her surprise.

So much for being a gentleman. It had been an invitation. And she had turned him down.

The Old City was both dark and deserted. The long, narrow alleyways were normally packed with traders, but now there were only endless dark walls with huge metal doors protecting the goods behind them.

‘They arrive first thing in the morning,’ Isak explained. ‘Open the doors and set out their wares. Earlier in the year when we had a lot more tourists it was almost impossible to walk along here.’

Fredrika could easily picture the scene, in spite of the fact that it was so quiet now. A scruffy cat padded silently by, and Fredrika gave a start. She would never have ventured down here alone.

They turned left into the Via Dolorosa, walked along the road where Jesus had allegedly carried his cross, although in the opposite direction. At the end of the narrow thoroughfare the Lion Gate stood before them.

‘This is where our soldiers entered during the Six Day War,’ Isak said. ‘And raised the Israeli flag over Temple Mount.’

His voice was suffused with pride and warmth. He was far too young to have been around back then, but Fredrika guessed that older members of his family might well have fought in the war.

Or wars.

Because there had been so many more wars in the territory that had been known as Israel since 1948. I wonder if there will ever be peace here, she thought.

She felt slightly ashamed, and instead focused on the symbol of the lion, trying to understand how it fitted into the investigation: why someone calling himself the Lion had emailed Jewish children in Stockholm; emailed and possibly murdered them.

They walked back up the Via Dolorosa.

In silence.

Until Isak suddenly stopped. Fredrika stopped too, on her guard. She wondered what the hell she was doing between two silent walls of stone with a man she didn’t know.

‘I’ve given you almost an hour,’ he said.

His voice was perfectly calm, but his expression was dark and aggressive. He moved a step closer.

‘An hour. And still you haven’t told me.’

Told me? What did he want her to say?

‘I’m afraid I don’t understand,’ she said.

She backed away until she was pressed against the yellowish-white wall, with Isak far too close.

‘I think you do,’ he said. Still utterly calm.

The fear he aroused in her made her angry.

‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but I’m going back to the hotel right now.’

She tried to sound determined, but failed. As she moved to walk away he grabbed hold of her and held her tight, pressed up against the wall with his face only centimetres from hers.

‘You and your colleagues haven’t told us everything there is to tell.’

The words emerged as a protracted hiss.

When she didn’t reply, the grip on her wrists tightened.

‘The Paper Boy,’ he said. ‘You know who he is, don’t you? That’s why you’ve come here. You and your subterfuge. You want our help to drive out someone you wouldn’t be able to get at otherwise. Fucking liar!’

He let go of her, and she collapsed like a marionette whose strings have been cut.

What the hell was he talking about?

She made an attempt to reason with him.

‘I’ve no idea what you mean, but I can see that you’re very upset. I don’t know what’s happened to make you so angry, but I can assure you that neither I nor my colleagues know anything about the Paper Boy. That’s why we came to you.’

Her torrent of words was interrupted by a scornful laugh.

‘You’ve made me and my men look like idiots! Getting us to run errands that you should have asked your own security service to take care of.’

Security service?

He swore again.

‘Did you think I was going to share that kind of information with you? Did you?’

Fredrika’s entire body was shaking. Something had gone wrong. It was hardly a coincidence that Isak had brought her to the Old City late at night, when he knew the place would be deserted.

She was tired and frightened; she just wanted to go back to the hotel.

‘I promise you, we didn’t and don’t know anything about the Paper Boy. That’s why I’m going to the kibbutz in the morning, to find out more.’

Isak gazed wearily at her.

‘And you think they’ll be able to tell you something? You’re obviously deluded. If you want to go somewhere tomorrow, you’re on your own. I’m done with you and your games.’

With that he turned his back on her and walked away. Fredrika hesitated for a second, then set off after him. He stopped and spun around.

‘Don’t fucking follow me. This is where we go our separate ways. If you have any more questions relating to your investigation in Stockholm, fax them over when you get home.’

She stared after him as he disappeared into the darkness, the sound of his rapid footsteps echoing between the walls and fading away.

She stood there in the cold and the darkness without any idea of what she had done to upset him so much. Perhaps the answer lay in his assertion that he had been used to carry out tasks that should have fallen within the remit of the Swedish security service.

She hadn’t a clue what he meant by that. The only thing she could imagine was that any links to the world of intelligence were stronger and more numerous than they had realised, and that they had inadvertently marched straight into affairs that were both secret and sensitive. But how? And how were they supposed to find whoever was behind the murders if even those in authority were determined to protect their secrets?

But that wasn’t her biggest problem right now. Her biggest problem was finding her way out of the labyrinthine streets of the Old City, with the lights out and not a soul in sight.

Fredrika knew that she wouldn’t be able to find her way back to the Damascus Gate without Isak’s help. However, she thought she could find the Lion Gate, which meant she would be able to get out of the Old City and follow the wall back to her hotel.

Walking as fast as she could, her arms tightly folded across her chest, she set off along the Via Dolorosa once more.