The Chosen

EARLIER

Efraim Kiel had arrived with two tasks to accomplish. The first was to identify and recruit a new head of security for one of the Jewish associations in Stockholm, the Solomon Community. The second task he preferred not to think about too much. Once both had been fulfilled, he would return home to Israel. Or move on elsewhere. He rarely knew how long his journeys would take.

It shouldn’t have been so difficult. It wasn’t usually all that difficult. How many times had he been sent off on a similar mission? Countless times. And how often had he come up against problems like this? Not once.

The Solomon Community in Stockholm had made the decision to approach contacts in Jerusalem. A series of worrying incidents had occurred over the past year; the community had been the target of a sabotage campaign. In several cases this had involved direct attacks, and the community’s school had also been targeted. No one knew why the situation had changed in Stockholm in particular, and that was largely irrelevant. The important thing was to assess their current position and to see how security could be improved.

It had been decided that one part of the solution was to employ a head of security who was better qualified, and Efraim’s task was to find such a person.

He knew what he wanted.

A good leader.

In order for a team to work well, it was essential to have a clear, energetic leader, someone with integrity and the ability to prioritise, to make strategic decisions. But above all they must have someone who would command respect. No qualities in the world could compensate for character traits that evoked contempt in those he or she was supposed to guide and co-ordinate.

So far they had found it hard to track down a person who possessed the necessary skills and attributes. There was always something missing, usually integrity and sufficient operational experience. One applicant after another was discounted, and now time was running out for Efraim Kiel.

‘But we’ve got the perfect candidate – why can’t we employ him?’ The query came from the general secretary of the Solomon Community, who was sitting opposite Efraim.

‘Because he can’t take up the post until summer, which is too late. You can’t be without a head of security for six months. That’s out of the question.’

Efraim looked over at the window and saw the snow falling from the dark clouds, covering the ground with white powder. Stockholm in January was very different from Tel Aviv, where he had been sitting outside drinking wine just a few days ago. The Swedes had their own customs and rituals, of course. Efraim had realised that they sometimes sat outdoors in the snow, grilling sausages and sipping hot chocolate. Even allowing for the fact that he didn’t eat pork, and that it would never have occurred to him to mix milk and meat, he still thought it was a bizarre tradition.

‘We need to find someone else,’ he said, making an effort to maintain a diplomatic tone of voice. ‘Someone with a broad range of experience who can start right away.’

The general secretary shuffled through the pile of applications on the desk in front of him. There weren’t very many, but from a purely numerical point of view there should have been enough to find someone. Efraim knew that the general secretary had had a lot to deal with over the past few months. Both the Solomon Community and the school had moved to new premises in buildings directly opposite one another on Nybrogatan. They hadn’t moved far from their previous home on Artillerigatan, but it had still taken time and energy. Everyone needed a period of peace and quiet.

If only their preferred candidate could take up the post earlier.

Efraim was open to a solution that involved a temporary appointment to fill the gap until the summer, but they still needed a solid incumbent. A community without a head of security was naked and vulnerable.

He couldn’t explain why, but Efraim had the distinct feeling that this particular community wouldn’t be able to cope for very long. He reached for the pile of applications, in spite of the fact that he knew them off by heart by now.

‘Actually, we had another application today,’ the general secretary said hesitantly. ‘Several, in fact. From a consultancy firm that specialises in strategic security work.’

Efraim raised his eyebrows.

‘And?’

‘I’d say that only one of the candidates is worth looking at, but then again the application arrived too late, and I’m not really sure if the person in question is suitable for the post.’

Efraim didn’t care whether the application was late or not, but the issue of suitability was more interesting.

‘Why is he unsuitable? Or she?’

‘He. And he’s not one of us.’

‘You mean he’s a gentile?’

‘Yes.’

A non-Jewish candidate for the post of head of security within a Jewish community.

‘Why are you mentioning his application if you think he’s no good?’

The general secretary didn’t answer; instead he got up and left the room. He returned with a sheaf of papers in his hand.

‘Because he has certain qualities and a level of experience that made me curious, especially in view of the fact that we may need to make a temporary appointment. I checked out his background and found several important elements.’

He passed the documents to Efraim, and reeled off a brief summary.

‘An ex-cop, almost forty years old. Wife and two young kids. Lives in Spånga; they moved out of the city when he lost his job. Did his military service with the Marine Commandos, and seems to have flirted with the idea of becoming an officer, as he stayed on for a while. Got into the Police Training Academy and made rapid progress in the police service. Promoted to the rank of Detective Inspector at a very young age, and spent only a few years in the sticks before he was handpicked to join a special investigation unit in Stockholm. Led by a DCI by the name of Alex Recht.’

Efraim looked up.

‘Alex Recht. Why do I recognise that name?’

‘Because he was in the papers back in the autumn when that plane was hijacked. His son was the co-pilot.’

‘That’s it.’

Efraim nodded to himself. The hijacking had also featured in the Israeli press. He focused on the documents in his hand once more. The information the general secretary had just given matched what the man himself had said in his application. However, there was one piece of information missing.

‘You said he lost his job.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re still considering taking him on? Don’t you realise how much you have to fuck things up to lose your badge in a country like Sweden?’

Yes, the general secretary did realise.

‘However, I would say there are definitely extenuating circumstances in this case.’

‘Go on.’

The general secretary paused for effect.

‘They kicked him out after he shot the man who murdered his brother. And it happened in the line of duty.’

Efraim stared at the man opposite for a long time, then looked down at the application once more.

Peder Rydh. Could he be the person they needed?

The meeting was interrupted by the general secretary’s PA, who knocked on the door and walked straight in.

‘You have to come,’ she said. ‘Something terrible has happened. I’ve just had a call from the Solomon school to say that one of the pre-school teachers has been shot.’

The call from the Solomon school in Östermalm didn’t make any sense at first. A pre-school teacher had been shot. In front of children and parents. Probably by a sniper who must have been on a roof on the other side of the road.

Incomprehensible.

As far as DCI Alex Recht was concerned, the Solomon Community was a closed book. He knew it was one of Stockholm’s Jewish communities, but that was all. He couldn’t understand why the case had landed on his desk. If the motive was anti-Semitism, then it should be investigated by the National Crime Unit’s specialist team who dealt with hate crimes. Maybe the National Security Police, Säpo, should be involved. But why Alex’s team, which had only just been formed and wasn’t yet ready for a major challenge? And even more importantly, who the hell would have a reason to shoot a pre-school teacher in broad daylight in front of a group of adults and kids?

‘Her new partner,’ Alex’s boss said, tossing a computer printout onto his desk. ‘This is no hate crime, although that’s how the internet editions of the papers are reporting it. This is linked to serious organised crime, and if you look under a few stones I’m sure you’ll discover that the poor little schoolteacher who got shot in the back isn’t quite as pure as the snow she’s lying on.’

Alex picked up the printout, which was an extract from the serious crimes database.

‘This is her partner?’

‘Yep.’

The words in front of him were all too familiar. Drugs-related offences. Unlawful threats. Assaulting a police officer. Resisting arrest. Aggravated theft. Armed robbery. Procurement.

‘Anything on the teacher herself?’

‘Not a thing. She isn’t even in the suspects’ database.’

‘In which case she might be as pure as the driven snow after all; perhaps she just has particularly poor judgement. And bad luck.’

‘I’ll leave it to you to look into; find out if this is about her or her boyfriend. Or possibly both of them. And don’t hang about.’

Alex looked up.

‘Are we in a hurry?’

‘The Solomon Community is very energetic when it comes to security issues. If they don’t get answers from us fast enough, they’ll start their own investigation. Whatever happens, they’re bound to demand major input from the police, and they’ll do it very publicly.’

Alex ran a hand over his chin.

‘Maybe not if we tell them that their teacher was living with someone who has a criminal record as long as your arm,’ he said. ‘Surely that will give the impression that they’re recruiting potentially dangerous individuals, which won’t be very good for their image.’

His boss was already on his way out of the door.

‘Exactly. So make sure you get in touch with them as soon as possible. Go over there and have a chat. Take Fredrika with you.’

‘She’s not in this afternoon, but I’ll call her tonight and let her know what’s going on.’

His boss frowned.

‘That’s up to you, of course, but don’t you think you ought to call her now and ask her to come in? If she’s in town, that is.’

‘She is in town, and of course I can call her, but she probably won’t answer.’

‘Has something happened?’

‘She’s rehearsing with the orchestra.’

‘Orchestra? What does she play?’

‘The violin. And it makes her feel good, so I’m not going to interrupt her.’

After being away from the police for almost two years, Fredrika Bergman was back at last. Back at Kungsholmen. Back with Alex. Which was exactly where he had always thought she should be, so he had no intention of quibbling over the odd rehearsal.

He would make a start on the investigation himself. The teacher had been living with a man who had been in a hell of a lot of trouble, so that was the obvious place to begin.

‘So why am I dealing with this?’ Alex asked. ‘Serious organised crime isn’t in my remit.’

‘The Östermalm police have asked for back-up in the initial stages,’ his boss explained. ‘I promised you’d give them a hand. If there’s a clear link to organised crime, just pass the case on to the National Crime Unit.’

It sounded so simple. Just pass the case on through the system. God knows how easy that would actually be. Alex thought back to the unique team he had led previously, drifting like a jellyfish between the National Crime Unit, the local forces and the Stockholm City police. On paper they had been part of the Stockholm City police, but in reality they had served several masters. Alex had liked it that way, and if it was up to him, the new team would be no different.

‘I’ll send a car to bring in her partner if he’s at home,’ Alex said. ‘I want to hear what he has to say, see whether we can eliminate him as a suspect.’

‘I shouldn’t think he did it himself,’ his boss said. ‘It’s too crude.’

‘I agree. It sounds like revenge or some other crap. But we still have to talk to the guy. I’m sure he must know who shot her in the back.’

Only an hour had passed since Fredrika had left Police HQ in Kungsholmen to go to her rehearsal. One hour, but the job no longer existed. Nor did her family or her friends. Not within the vacuum that was created when she settled her violin in the correct position between her chin and shoulder.

The music carried her as if she had wings. She was flying high above everyone else, pretending she was alone in the universe. It was a dangerous thought. Soloists rarely did well in an ensemble, but for a moment – just one moment – Fredrika Bergman wanted to experience a taste of the life she had never had, to catch a glimpse of the woman she had never become.

It was the third week of the new, yet familiar era. All her adult life Fredrika had mourned the career as a violinist that she had never had, and would never have. Not only had she grieved, she had searched hard for an alternative future. She had wandered around like a lost soul among the ruins of everything that had once been hers, wondering what to do, because as a child and a teenager, she had lived for music. Music was her vocation, and without it life was worth very little.

Things never turn out as we expect.

Sometimes they’re better, but often they’re worse.

Occasionally the memory would resurface, as unwelcome as rain from a summer sky. The memory of a car skidding, ending up on the wrong side of the road, crashing and turning over. With children in the back, parents in the front, skis on the roof. She remembered those cataclysmic seconds when everything was torn apart, and the silence that followed. The scars were still there. Every day she could see them on her arm, white lines that told the story of why she had been unable to put in the necessary hours of practice every day. In despair and emotional turmoil she had buried her violin in the graveyard of the past, and become a different person.

And now she was playing again.

It was her mother who had found the string ensemble and told her: ‘This is your chance, Fredrika’. As if Fredrika, who was married to a man twenty-five years older than her, with two small children, had endless hours at her disposal, just waiting for something to fill them.

But seek and ye shall find, as they say, and for the past three weeks music had been back in her life. For the first time in twenty years, Fredrika felt something that might just be harmony. Her husband and children made her heart whole. She was happy in her work, for once. Reaching this point had been a messy process. The case of the hijacked plane a few months earlier had been the key. Her employer in the Justice Department had sent her back to work with the police on a temporary basis, and Fredrika had realised where she felt at home, where she wanted to be.

In the police service. On the first of January, she was back. Working with Alex Recht as part of a new investigative team, which was very similar to the one she had been a part of a few years ago.

Very similar, even though so much had changed.

Harmony. A word that would have made her feel queasy just a couple of years ago. But not now. Now it had acquired a new meaning; it wrapped itself around her soul like cotton wool, and lit a spark in her eyes. Fredrika Bergman had found peace.

For the time being, at least.

There had once been a Jewish bloodline in Alex’s family, but it had been broken several generations ago. Since then, none of his relatives had any links to Judaism, and the only trace that remained was his surname. Recht.

Nevertheless, he felt that the name gave him certain advantages as he set off for the Solomon Community in Östermalm, as if its Jewish origins would be enough to bring him closer to a people he had never felt part of.

The air was cold and damp as he got out of the car on Nybrogatan. Bloody awful weather. January at its worst.

The Östermalm police had cordoned off the area around the body. Huddles of curious onlookers were leaning over the plastic tape. Why did blood and death attract so much attention? So many people shamelessly gravitated towards misery, just so they could feel glad they hadn’t been affected.

He quickly made his way over to the cordon where he could see several younger colleagues in uniform. He had once been like them, young and hungry, always ready to put on his uniform and get out there to keep the streets safe. He was rather more disillusioned these days.

One of the officers introduced him to the community’s general secretary, a man weighed down by a tragedy that was only a few hours old. He could barely speak.

‘None of the witnesses is allowed to leave,’ Alex said, placing as much emphasis on the first word as he could muster. ‘As I understand it, a number of parents and children saw what happened. No one goes home until we’ve spoken to them, or at least made a note of their contact details.’

‘Already done,’ one of his Östermalm colleagues said tersely. Alex realised that he had overstepped the mark. Who was he to come marching onto their turf issuing orders? They had asked him to help out, not take over.

‘How many witness are we talking about?’ he said, hoping that he had managed to soften his tone.

‘Three parents and four children aged between one and four. And of course various people who happened to be passing when the incident took place. I’ve asked those who came forward to stick around, but of course I can’t guarantee that’s everyone.’

It shouldn’t be a problem; Alex had been told that the school entrance was covered by CCTV, so it would be fairly straightforward to get an idea of how many people had been passing at the time of the shooting.

‘Who’s your head of security?’ Alex asked, turning to the general secretary.

‘We don’t have one at the moment. Our security team is running itself until we fill the post.’

Alex looked over at the body. The falling snow was doing its best to bury the scene of the crime, but without success. The warm blood that had poured out of the woman was melting the snowflakes as effectively as if they had landed on a radiator. She was lying on her stomach, her face on the ground. She had been shot in the back as she turned towards the open door of the school to call to one of the children. Alex thanked God that the bullet hadn’t hit one of the little ones instead.

‘According to the parents, there was just one single shot,’ said his colleague from Östermalm.

Alex looked at the body. Clearly one shot was all that had been required.

‘Shall we continue inside, where it’s warmer?’ the general secretary suggested.

He led the way into the building, where another man appeared and introduced himself as the headteacher of the Solomon school.

‘I need hardly say that we are devastated by what’s happened, and that we expect the police to give this matter the highest priority,’ the general secretary said.

‘Of course,’ Alex said sincerely. Shooting someone down in broad daylight in the middle of the city wasn’t exactly common.

They sat down in the general secretary’s office. The walls were adorned with pictures of various places in Israel arranged in neat rows – Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Nazareth. Alex had visited the country several times, and recognised virtually every location. In the window an impressive menorah spread its seven branches: one of the classic symbols of Judaism. Alex wondered if he had one at home; if so it must be in one of the boxes in the loft.

‘Tell me about the woman who died,’ he said, trying to remember her name. ‘Josephine. How long had she been working for you?’

‘Two years,’ the headteacher replied.

‘Which age group did she work with?’

Alex knew nothing about the way pre-schools were organised, but he assumed that children of different ages were separated into groups. His own children were grown up now, and parents themselves. Sometimes when he listened to their talk of day care and school and dropping off and picking up, he wondered where he had been when they were little. He certainly hadn’t been with them, at any rate.

‘Early years – one to three. She and two colleagues were responsible for a dozen or so children.’

‘Have there been any threats directed against Josephine or the school in the past?’

The headteacher looked at the general secretary, waiting for him to respond.

‘As I’m sure you know, there are always threats against Jewish interests, irrespective of time or place, unfortunately. But no, we haven’t received any concrete threats recently. Unless you count all the vandalism, that is. Which we do, even if it isn’t directed against individuals.’

‘I know you keep a close eye on people moving around outside your premises; have you noticed anything in particular that you’d like to share?’

Once again the answer was no; everything had been quiet.

‘What about you?’ the general secretary said, leaning across the desk. ‘I realise that the investigation is at an early stage, but do you have any leads that you think could prove interesting?’

There was something about the man’s tone of voice that made Alex suddenly wary. He decided to answer a question with a question, which he directed to both the headteacher and the general secretary.

‘What do you know about Josephine’s private life?’

A pale smile flitted across the headteacher’s face.

‘She was twenty-eight years old. The daughter of two members of our community who have been close friends of mine for many years. I’ve known Josephine since she was little. She was a lovely girl.’

But? There was always a but.

‘But?’

‘She was a little… wild. It took time for her to find the right path in life. However, I had no hesitation in giving her the job. She was fantastic with the children.’

A little wild. That could mean anything from ‘She robbed a bank but she didn’t mean any harm,’ to ‘She hitched her way around the world twice before she decided what she wanted to be when she grew up’. Alex didn’t understand words like ‘wild’. It was new a invention, coined by a generation with too many choices and skewed expectations of life.

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ he said. ‘Given that you know her parents so well, I assume you’re also aware that she was living with a man fifteen years older than her, with convictions for a series of serious crimes?’

Their reaction took him by surprise.

They hadn’t had a clue. Or had they? Alex gazed at the man who looked the least surprised: the general secretary. But he was also the person who had most to lose if it appeared that he had no idea what was going on within his community.

‘There must be some misunderstanding,’ the headteacher said. ‘We didn’t even know she was living with someone.’

Alex remembered that they had been co-habiting for only a few months, according to the records.

‘Surely her parents must have known who she was sharing her home with?’ he said.

‘You’d think so, but then I don’t know how much they saw of her,’ the headteacher said.

Alex immediately decided that he needed to speak to the parents.

‘Where can I get hold of Josephine’s mother and father?’

‘They have an apartment on Sibyllegatan, but I know they were keen to get to the hospital as soon as she’s taken there; they want to see her. Or whatever the procedure is.’

You saw. You felt. You understood.

You went under and fell apart.

‘Any brothers or sisters?’

‘She has a brother in New York.’

So at least the parents still had one child left. That always gave him some small consolation – not that he thought it was possible to replace one child with another. He had almost lost his son just a few months ago, and nothing could have compensated for such a loss.

Nothing.

Alex hated remembering those hours when everything had been so uncertain and no one knew how it would end. And it was almost more painful to remember the aftermath of the hijacking, which had cost him so much. All those weeks of frustration, all the footslog that had been necessary to bring his son home; exhausting marathon trips to the USA; endless meetings with government officials who were unwilling to let him out of the country.

He shook his head. That was all behind him now.

‘I’m assuming that you will treat the information I have given you with the greatest discretion,’ he said, getting to his feet to indicate that the meeting was over.

‘Of course. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if we can help in any way,’ the general secretary said, holding out his hand.

Alex shook it.

‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said.

‘So will we, actually,’ the general secretary said. ‘As I said, we’re in the process of recruiting a new head of security, and one of the applicants has given your name as a referee.’

‘Really?’ Alex was slightly taken aback.

The general secretary nodded.

‘Peder Rydh. But as I said, we’ll be in touch.’

Peder Rydh.

It still hurt to hear that name.

He still missed his former colleague.

A little while later Alex was standing on Nybrogatan, wondering why he felt so uneasy. It was as if the snowflakes were whispering to him.

This has only just begun. You have no idea of what is to come.

The falling snow was like confetti made of glass. Simon suppressed an urge to stick out his tongue to let some of the crystals land on it. The cold made him stamp his feet up and down on the spot. Why was Abraham always late? He was the kind of person who thought punctuality just didn’t matter. How many hours had Simon stood waiting for him in bus shelters, outside the school, outside the tennis centre, and in a million other places? If he added it all up, and he was good at that kind of thing, he had probably spent days and days being annoyed with his friend who was incapable of turning up on time.

Who never apologised.

Just smiled when he eventually showed up.

‘Have you been waiting long?’ he would say.

As if he hadn’t a clue about when they were due to meet, or the fact that they had agreed on a specific time.

The humiliation bothered Simon more often than he was prepared to admit. He no longer knew why it was simply taken for granted that he and Abraham should be friends. Their parents no longer saw as much of each other as they had in the past, and in school they belonged to different groups. When he thought about it, tennis was really the only thing they had in common, although that had changed too in recent weeks. They still went along together, but ever since the coach had taken Simon to one side and said that he thought it would be worth putting in a few extra hours of training to help him move forward, Abraham had begun to withdraw. They no longer played against each other, but against other boys.

Simon was careful to avoid a direct conflict with Abraham, mainly because his friend couldn’t deal with losing in any way. It didn’t matter whether it was in a tennis match or in school; Abraham always had to be right.

At any price.

And now Simon was standing here with his tennis racquet on his back in the bus shelter on Karlavägen, waiting for his friend yet again.

Five minutes, he thought. If he’s not here in five minutes, I’m going.

To his surprise he realised that he meant it.

He had had enough. He had already waited for Abraham approximately a hundred times too often. Even his own father had told him he ought to draw the line.

The minutes crawled by as the snow came down, heavier and heavier. It was windy too. And cold. Really cold.

‘Excuse me, do you have the time?’

The voice came from the side, and belonged to an elderly lady wearing a big purple woolly hat. She looked nice.

Simon found his watch in the gap between his sleeve and his glove.

‘Five past four.’

‘Thank you. I’m sure the bus will be here in a minute,’ the woman said.

She was probably right, and Simon would be getting on it. He straightened his back and his breathing slowed down. He was going to do it this time. Just get on the bus and go. He would look at Abraham with the same nonchalant expression he had encountered so often, and he would say something along the lines of:

‘Oh, did you think we were supposed to be going together?’

A few minutes later he saw the bus approaching. The woman in the hat looked relieved, and stepped forward. But Simon didn’t.

His determination ebbed away, seeping into the snow beneath his boots. Was it worth arguing about a few minutes here or there?

His cheeks burned with embarrassment and self-loathing as the bus pulled up and the doors opened. He didn’t move; he just stood there as if he was frozen to the pavement.

He was so weak.

No wonder Abraham despised him.

He kicked angrily at the ground as the bus disappeared in a cloud of snow, leaving Simon feeling tired and furious.

Then he saw the car. It was moving so slowly that it almost seemed to be floating towards him. Someone was waving from the front seat. Hesitantly, almost cautiously.

He looked around in surprise, but there was no one else nearby. The hand must be waving to him.

It was only when the car pulled up in front of him that he saw who was in the passenger seat.

Abraham.

The window slid down and Abraham looked out.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a lift – hop in.’

Simon was lost for words. He couldn’t see who was driving.

‘Hop in,’ Abraham said again.

Or was he pleading with Simon?

Simon wasn’t sure. His friend’s voice was so shrill, his face so stiff.

‘Come on, Si!’

The window began to slide up. Another bus appeared a few hundred metres behind the car.

Simon felt the weight of his sports bag on his shoulder, and thought that it would be nice to have a lift. But most of all he thought that Abraham didn’t seem to want to be alone in the car, so he opened the door and slid into the back seat.

It was only when the car began to move that he realised what had just happened.

Abraham had said ‘Sorry I’m late’.

Sorry.

A word Simon had never heard him use before.

He was overwhelmed by a feeling so strong he could almost touch it.

Out of the car. They had to get out of the car.

Nybrogatan, just after six o’clock in the evening. Dark and almost deserted. The call had come less than an hour ago. A man who spoke English had introduced himself as the person responsible for human resources at the Solomon Community in Östermalm; it was about the post of head of security. Was Peder able to attend an interview that same evening?

Absolutely. Peder Rydh had become the man who never said no.

Once he had had everything. Now he had virtually nothing.

Here comes the king of sand; here comes the king of nothing at all.

Unless you counted Ylva and the boys, which he did, of course. Every day Peder thanked his unlucky star that he had at least been allowed to hold onto his family, even though he had almost lost them too.

After he had lost his job with the police, things had gone downhill. Fast.

He had ended up in an abyss he hadn’t even known existed, rolling in filth in a way not even a pig would have considered. He had staggered home drunk at four in the morning and thrown up in the children’s shoes. Collapsed on Ylva’s lap and wept until there was nothing left. She had leaned forward and whispered in his ear:

‘You can try as hard as you want, Peder, but I’m not leaving you. Not again.’

Counselling had been good, but expensive. It had formed part of his package on leaving the police, thank God. At least they hadn’t chucked him out at thirty thousand feet without a parachute.

He still found it difficult to sleep, and only occasionally slept right through the night. He had spent many long hours lying there wide awake, staring up at the ceiling.

Could he have done anything differently?

Had he really had a choice?

He always reached the same conclusion. No, he couldn’t have done anything differently. No, he hadn’t had a choice. And therefore there was no room for regret.

‘Why don’t I feel guilty?’ he had asked his counsellor. ‘I shot a man in cold blood. Three times. Two of the bullets went into his heart.’

‘You do feel something,’ the counsellor had said. ‘That’s what differentiates you from the man you killed. You know you did the wrong thing.’

No one who knew Peder regarded him as a murderer. He had been confused; he couldn’t be held responsible for his actions. The court had agreed; the man who had been killed had to carry his fair share of blame for the way things turned out. The prosecutor hadn’t been happy. He had appealed against the verdict of the Magistrates’ Court, determined to see Peder convicted of manslaughter or premeditated murder, but the Crown Court had acquitted him as well.

Things had been different when it came to the police. They couldn’t simply disregard the fact that he had voluntarily placed himself in the situation which led to the shooting of a suspect. His actions showed a lack of judgement which, combined with a whole load of other old crap, was enough to lead to his dismissal, as they put it.

Perhaps he could have appealed.

Alex had suggested it, and Peder should have listened. But Alex also said quite a lot of other things. He thought it was time Peder pulled himself together and stopped brooding. Those demands had come much too soon after what had happened; it was as if Alex expected Peder to function like some kind of machine. He couldn’t do it.

Sorry to disappoint you, Alex. I have a heart and a brain, I can’t just stop feeling the way I do.

To hell with the police, there were other careers for someone with Peder’s background. The private security industry was growing, and there were plenty of jobs. It hadn’t been difficult to get a foot in the door; at the moment Peder was working for two agencies who took it in turns to provide him with assignments. One of them had put his name forward for the post of head of security with the Solomon Community. Peder had no objections; admittedly he knew nothing whatsoever about the community, but stuff like that always became clear once you were on the spot. If you weren’t happy, you just moved on.

Alex helped Peder by acting as a referee, and whatever had happened between them in the past, Peder almost always got the jobs he applied for. So Alex must have said something good about him.

Hopefully he would do the same this time.

Peder had already heard that a teacher had been shot dead outside the Solomon school in Östermalm, and had tried to read as much as he could in the media before he went to the meeting. There had been very little concrete information in the flow of news: a young woman, shot in the back. No trace of a suspect so far.

He had briefly considered calling one of his former colleagues to ask for more details, but he had a feeling it was far too early for that. Besides which, he didn’t know who to call. It was a long time since he had had a handle on who was dealing with what.

When he arrived it was clear that he was expected. A security guard asked him for his ID, and he had to pass through a metal detector before entering the building. He could see a police cordon on the opposite side of the street, and officers trudging around. The body had been removed, but he could still see blood on the snow.

Red snow.

Unusual in Stockholm. Unusual anywhere, perhaps.

Peder was shown into a small office where two men were waiting for him. One of them was the man who had called him.

‘Efraim Kiel – thank you for coming at such short notice.’

‘No problem. I realise it’s urgent.’

The other man was the community’s general secretary. Peder was surprised at the title; he had thought it was only major organisations like the United Nations that had a general secretary.

‘You’ve heard what happened?’ Efraim said.

Peder nodded.

‘How far have the police got?’ he asked.

A flash of approval in Efraim’s eyes.

‘That’s exactly what we’re wondering. Perhaps that’s not entirely fair; we think we’ve established a good relationship with the police, and it seems as if they already have an idea of the direction in which they’re going to start looking for the perpetrator. So far, we’re satisfied.’

‘Who’s leading the investigation?’

‘DCI Alex Recht,’ Efraim said. ‘The officer you gave as a referee in your application.’

Peder swallowed hard. This was something new. A few years ago he wouldn’t have been sitting here asking questions about an investigation that was being led by Alex. He would have been a part of the team.

He had lost so much.

‘He’s good,’ he managed to say.

‘That was our impression too.’

Silence followed, and Efraim gazed at Peder for a long time.

‘I’ll be completely honest with you,’ he said eventually. ‘We have another candidate who is perfect for the post of head of security, but he’s not available until the summer, and the community can’t leave the post vacant for that length of time, particularly in view of what has just happened.’

Peder waited for him to continue.

‘If you would consider accepting the post on a temporary basis until July 15, it’s yours. On two conditions.’

Efraim Kiel held up two fingers.

‘Which are?’

‘First of all, we would want you to start immediately, preferably tomorrow. And secondly, that you are able to maintain a good relationship with the police, regardless of your background.’

‘No problem,’ Peder stated firmly. ‘I’m just finishing an assignment with a large company, but I only need a few hours to clear that up. And as for the police… I don’t foresee any difficulties there either.’

He had been surprised at Efraim’s words: ‘regardless of your background’. What did he know about that? Quite a lot, apparently. And yet they still wanted him in such a sensitive position.

As if he could read Peder’s mind, Efraim said:

‘We know you lost your job with the police, and we know why. Given the circumstances, we have no problem with that. Okay?’

Without realising how tense he had become, Peder suddenly relaxed.

‘Okay.’

‘We’ll take up your references this evening, and if you don’t hear anything to the contrary, I’ll expect to see you here at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. There’s a great deal to do, and you’ll have a lot of new routines to get used to.’

An old feeling gradually came to life inside Peder. This was the closest he had been to police work for several years. The adrenalin started pumping, and his heart rate increased.

A murder had been committed at his new place of work, and his employers had no problem with the fact that he had shot dead his brother’s killer.

That told him something about their expectations of him.

It told him a great deal, in fact.

Peder had found a place where he thought he could be happy.

If it hadn’t been so icy, the cold and the snow would have made her start running. Home to Spencer, home to the children, with her violin case in her hand. But her brain knew better than her heart, and sensibly exhorted her to go carefully.

Her mobile rang when she was a hundred metres from home.

‘Fredrika Bergman.’

‘It’s Alex – did you pick up my messages?’

She hadn’t listened to her voicemail, but she had seen that he had called. She had been in too much of a hurry to get home to wonder what Alex wanted in her free time.

It’s Spencer I’m married to. Not the job.

Spencer with his tall, lanky body and those eyes that could see straight through her.

‘Was it something in particular?’ she said, wanting him to know that she did care, even if it might not seem that way.

‘You could say that. A pre-school teacher was shot dead outside the Solomon school in Östermalm a few hours ago.’

Fredrika came to an abrupt halt.

‘Do you need me?’

‘If you’ve got time, it would be very helpful if you could come with me to see her parents.’

‘I’ll be there. I just have to go home and drop off my violin first.’

‘In that case I’ll wait for you.’

Spencer was in the bathroom with the children when she got in; she could see them through the open door from the hallway, her son in the bath and her daughter perched on the toilet, fully dressed. It could have been a perfectly ordinary chair as far as Saga was concerned. Spencer was kneeling beside the bath with his back to Fredrika, his shirt creased and his sleeves rolled up.

So many people had told her it would never work, that she would have to do everything herself because Spencer was too old to be supportive; a man of his age didn’t have enough energy to be the parent of small children.

And they had all been wrong. Fredrika had met people of her own age who seemed older than Spencer. It wasn’t the number of years that mattered, but the general attitude towards life.

‘Hi,’ she said.

She dropped her bag and her violin case on the floor, kicked off her shoes and went into the bathroom. She sank to her knees behind her husband and wrapped her arms around him. Just a brief moment of closeness, then she would turn her attention to the murder Alex had told her about. A woman had been shot. In the middle of the city.

Spencer’s body was like part of her own. After holding him for only a few seconds she knew that something was wrong. The feeling was so strong that she stiffened, didn’t even reach out to the children.

‘Hi,’ he said.

Saga greeted her mother cheerily like an echo of her father, energetically waving the book she was holding. Isak splashed away happily in the bath, in a world of his own.

‘Has something happened?’

She had lowered her voice without knowing why.

Spencer didn’t reply; he just reached down into the water and fished out a bottle of shampoo that Isak had knocked down.

‘What is it?’

‘Fredrika, we need to talk. When the children are asleep. It’s nothing serious.’

Her arms dropped. He still hadn’t turned around. Fredrika was never more sensitive to the possibility of a setback than when she was happy. The sense of impending problems was so powerful that it bothered her as much as a foul smell would have done.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Alex called – I have to go into work for an hour or so.’

‘You’re going into work? Tonight?’

‘A teacher has been shot dead at the Solomon school in Östermalm.’

‘I heard about that. What’s it got to do with you?’

‘Apparently we’re investigating the case.’

‘Since when have you been involved in hate crimes?’

He lifted his son’s slippery body out of the bath and wrapped him in a towel. He still hadn’t looked at her.

She made an instant decision.

‘I’m not leaving here until you tell me what’s happened.’

Isak tore himself free and scampered out of the bathroom, stark naked. Saga hopped down from the toilet and followed him, yelling at the top of her voice. Brother and sister. Created by Fredrika and Spencer. Yet another incomprehensible mystery: the fact that it was possible to make a new person. Biological magic.

Spencer was still on his knees, while Fredrika had got to her feet.

‘For heaven’s sake, what is it?’

She rarely snapped or raised her voice, but she was angry now. Or just scared?

Eventually he turned and looked at her as he had done so many times before. But only for a moment. Then he disappeared again.

‘I was called to a meeting today,’ he said.

‘And?’

She still hadn’t taken off her coat, and the sweat was trickling down her back.

Spencer stood up.

‘I’ve had an offer, but we have to make up our minds right away. Ernst has had a stroke.’

Confusion made Fredrika take a step backwards. An offer? Ernst, Spencer’s colleague at the university, had had a stroke. What did that have to do with anything?

‘And?’ she said again.

Spencer reached for a towel and dried his hands.

‘Ernst was supposed to be going to Jerusalem. He was going to be one of the principal tutors on a course at the Hebrew University. But now he can’t go.’

‘And they’ve asked you to go instead?’

‘Yes. It’s a two-week course.’

Two weeks. That was a long time to be away, but even so Fredrika felt calmer. She had thought he must have terrible news of some kind.

I must stop getting so stressed.

‘When would this be?’

‘I’d be leaving on Sunday.’

‘On Sunday? In four days?’

‘Yes.’

‘But Spencer, that’s out of the question!’

‘I know.’

But you want to go, don’t you?

Of course he wanted to go. Was she being unreasonable if she said no?

She shook her head.

‘We’ll talk about it when I get home,’ she said.

She went into the hallway and put her shoes back on, picked up her bag. Spencer was standing behind her as she moved to open the door.

‘You know I love you?’ he said.

She smiled, but didn’t let him see.

You don’t get away with it that easily, Professor.

‘I thought so, but it’s nice of you to remind me.’

She turned around, her hand still resting on the latch.

He smiled, and she went weak at the knees. There weren’t many men over sixty who looked as good as Spencer. She hoped that she and the children would keep him young for many years to come.

Her mobile rang, and she fished it out of her pocket.

Alex. She rejected the call. She went over to Spencer and kissed him.

‘See you later,’ she said.

‘I certainly hope so. Anything else would be a disaster.’

She left her family behind, closed the door of the apartment. When she was outside the building, she called Alex.

‘I’ll take a cab; I’ll be at HQ in ten minutes.’

Cold and darkness.

And fear. Because it was too late; because he had done something stupid.

Simon and Abraham were sitting in a van. It was parked in the middle of a forest, and the man who had locked them in wouldn’t be coming back until the next day. That meant they would be alone in the bitterly cold vehicle all night.

Both boys were crying with exhaustion. If only they hadn’t got into the car. If only they’d caught the bus.

When Simon thought about the drive out of the city, for some reason it was the windscreen wipers he saw in his mind’s eye, scraping back and forth, trying to clear the snow so that the driver could see where he was going. Simon could see the back of his neck.

He had felt the bonds around his wrists beginning to chafe. Once when they were younger, he and Abraham had played a war game. Abraham had hurled himself at Simon and tied his hands behind his back with a skipping rope. It hadn’t been much fun, and they had never done it again. In the car it hadn’t been a game. His hands were tied behind his back for real this time.

Simon was terrified.

Why hadn’t he got on the bus and left Abraham behind?

The only thing he knew for sure was that they were in serious trouble. Abraham hadn’t said a word when Simon got into the back seat. Not until the car stopped at the traffic lights. Then he had yelled:

‘He’s got a gun, Si!’

And Simon had thrown himself at the door, fumbling with the handle, trying to get it open so that he could jump out. But the door was locked, and he was going nowhere.

‘Fasten your seatbelt and sit still!’ the driver had bellowed, and Simon had done as he was told, trembling with fear.

‘Sorry,’ Abraham had whispered, turning to look at Simon.

‘And you shut your mouth,’ the man said.

Another apology, just as bizarre as the first.

Simon had wanted to say that everything was okay, that it didn’t matter. That he forgave his friend. But he didn’t dare say a word.

He didn’t know what the man driving the car wanted; all he knew was that they weren’t heading for the tennis centre. They had set off in a completely different direction. They had stopped once, when the man tied their hands and made Abraham move into the back seat.

It was like being in some horrible film, the kind Simon’s mum and dad wouldn’t let him watch. The mere thought of his parents gave him a burning pain in his belly. He wanted to go home. Right now.

The man hadn’t driven particularly fast. He actually looked relaxed, which frightened Simon even more. After tying them up he had dug out their mobiles, switched them off and removed the batteries. Simon had no idea why, but he realised it wouldn’t make any difference if he could reach his phone; it was useless anyway.

The car had driven up onto an impressive bridge, and all at once Simon recognised the location. They were heading out towards the big palace where the king and queen lived. Why?

They passed the palace without stopping. Eventually the man turned off the road and along a smaller track that led straight into the forest. Simon had travelled a great deal with his parents, and he had never seen as many forests as there were in Sweden. Especially not in Israel, where all his relatives lived. In Israel there were only towns and sand. And the sea. Wild and blue.

The car stopped and the man told them to get out on Abraham’s side. It might have been warm sitting in the back with their coats on, but it was freezing cold standing in the snow. They couldn’t see the palace.

‘Come with me,’ the man said.

Only then had Simon noticed the large van parked a short distance away. A black van, without any windows. The man led the way and opened the back doors.

‘Get in.’

His voice was deep, and he spoke English. Simon wished he hadn’t understood what the man was saying; it would have been easier to kick off. But not the way things were; they both did exactly as they were told. Not even Abraham was going to take on someone who had a gun.

Inside the van it was dark and cold. There were no seats, just a hard rubber mat on the floor. You couldn’t see the driver’s seat, because someone had put up a wall between the front and the back of the van.

When they were standing in the van, Simon realised the man wasn’t coming with them. He was still outside in the snow. The two boys automatically backed away when he switched on a torch and shone it in their faces.

And then he said the words that made Simon lose all hope of getting home any time soon.

‘You can sit down over there under those blankets.’ He pointed towards the corner. ‘You’ll be staying here until daylight.’

Then the tears came, and Simon couldn’t stop them.

Over an hour had passed since then, and he was still crying.

‘I’ve been so stupid,’ Abraham sobbed. ‘I believed him when he said he wanted to talk to us about tennis.’

Simon didn’t answer. What would he have thought if he’d got in the car first? He didn’t know.

‘He said it was a coincidence,’ Abraham went on. ‘He said he was going to email us tonight to ask if we wanted to meet up tomorrow, and then he was driving along and he just happened to see me. I swear that’s what he said.’

Simon still didn’t speak.

‘I want to go home,’ Abraham whispered.

‘Me too.’

Then they both fell silent.

And outside it grew colder and colder.

The underground car park was both cold and dark as Alex Recht walked over to the car with Fredrika. She looked excited and pensive at the same time. Alex could almost always read Fredrika Bergman’s body language; she was a mistress of non-verbal communication, and had the ability to project several different moods simultaneously.

Alex focused on the fatal shooting outside the Solomon school, and ran through the latest information. Many of his colleagues had been hard at work; witnesses had been interviewed, leads followed up. But so far there were still more questions than answers. A lot more.

A mantra kept on pounding in his brain.

The first few hours are the most important. Always and without exception.

‘The perpetrator was lying on a roof on the other side of the street,’ Alex said as they got in the car and fastened their seatbelts. ‘It’s difficult to interpret the evidence because of the wind and snow, but the indications are that he – or she – was lying on his or her stomach when the shot was fired. The killer then disappeared the same way he or she got in – through the attic. We’ve spoken to the residents’ association, and apparently people sometimes forget to close the outside door behind them when they come in from the street, so the killer didn’t necessarily need the entry code or a key to get in.’

‘But surely the door leading to the attic must have been locked,’ Fredrika said.

Alex drove out of the grubby car park.

‘I’m afraid not. They’re in the process of carrying out some renovations, and the workmen need access to all parts of the building. According to the chair of the association, the attic door is left open all day, and locked in the evening.’

‘In that case there must be a pretty good chance that someone saw the perpetrator arriving or leaving. If there are workmen all over the place, I mean.’

Alex shook his head, his expression grim.

‘Apparently not.’

They had found very few traces of the killer. No fingerprints or footprints inside the building, which was interesting given that his or her shoes must have been soaking wet from the snow.

‘But we’ve got footprints on the roof?’ Fredrika said.

‘Nothing of any use. The weather more or less destroyed them before the police got up there. The only thing we have is an indentation in the snow, which as I said indicates that the perpetrator was probably lying on his or her stomach.’

The news that they hadn’t managed to track down the dead woman’s boyfriend worried Alex.

‘He wasn’t in the apartment when the police arrived; we’ve tried his registered mobile number, but there’s no answer. As far as we know, he’s unemployed at the moment.’

‘But is he a suspect?’ Fredrika asked. ‘Do we think he shot his girlfriend?’

‘To be honest, no. Admittedly he has a record as long as your arm, but this shooting is too clean for someone like him. However, I still need to be able to eliminate him from our enquiries. We’ve shown a picture of him to the witnesses who were on Nybrogatan at the time of the incident and just beforehand; no one has seen him. On the other hand, we don’t know how long the killer was waiting for Josephine to come out. We’ve issued an appeal asking anyone who was passing in the hours before the shooting to come forward, but that’s going to mean interviewing a hell of a lot of people. I’m not sure it’s going to be much help, to say the least.’

Fredrika thought for a moment.

‘Are we even sure that Josephine was the target? He could have been aiming at someone else who was around at the time, and missed.’

‘But in that case he would have tried again, wouldn’t he?’

‘I’m not so sure. The shot would have frightened people, made them start running around all over the place. He might not have got a second chance.’

Alex was doubtful. The woman had been shot in the back. Her death had been inevitable and instantaneous. He couldn’t imagine the bullet had been meant for anyone else, and yet that didn’t make sense either: why would someone think of firing from that distance in such terrible weather? It hadn’t been quite so windy at the time, but it had been snowing heavily, with the storm already moving in.

‘We’ll speak to her parents,’ he said. ‘Then we’ll know where we stand.’

The silence that followed was pleasant and comfortable. Many of his colleagues seemed unable to cope with an absence of noise, and would therefore ramble on about nothing at all. But not Fredrika. Alex glanced at her profile; she was thinking something over. Alex was well aware of what his male colleagues thought of her appearance, and how many of them harboured inappropriate fantasies about her.

Which was stupid of them, particularly in view of the fact that she was taken. Married, actually. To a man who was older than Alex, and who had been her professor and lover when she was a student in Uppsala, according to the rumours. He would probably never know the truth of the matter; Fredrika shared a great deal, but not confidences of that kind.

‘How was the rehearsal?’ he asked.

She gave a start.

‘Good. Great, thanks.’

Alex made an attempt to comment on her pensive mood, although he wasn’t at all sure it was a good idea.

‘You look as if you’ve got something on your mind.’

‘It’s nothing. It’s just that Spencer’s going away.’

‘So you’ll be on your own with the kids?’

Fredrika looked as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

‘Exactly. If one parent goes away for a few weeks, that leaves just one at home. But I’m sure it’ll sort itself out.’

Alex’s phone rang. It was a man speaking English, who introduced himself as the person responsible for human resources at the Solomon Community. He wanted to know what Alex could tell him about his former colleague, Peder Rydh.

Alex gave the same answer as always.

He spoke briefly about one of the most talented police officers he had ever met.

The press just kept on calling. The journalists were drawn to the dead body in the snow just like those who happened to walk past the scene of the crime. It took them less than an hour to identify the victim, to find out where she lived and to expose her boyfriend’s background. From then on the reports followed two separate strands: either they talked about the fatal shooting as an example of hate crime and anti-Semitism, or they suggested that the murder might have links to organised crime in the city. The police said nothing, and the Solomon Community tried to keep any comments as brief as possible.

Efraim Kiel left the room where the general secretary was dealing with one call after another from the press. It looked as if they finally had a satisfactory solution to the problem of the vacant post; Peder Rydh had made a good impression. Efraim would have liked to avoid making a temporary appointment, but Peder Rydh seemed more than capable of doing the job.

Efraim got in touch with the three referees in Rydh’s application; the last call was to his former boss, Alex Recht.

He had no problem in eliciting the information he wanted. Just as Efraim had suspected, Peder Rydh had been an extremely conscientious and very popular police officer. A little hot-headed, perhaps, and there were one or two issues regarding his attitude towards female colleagues in the past, but otherwise Alex Recht had nothing negative to say.

‘What’s your personal view of the incident that led to his dismissal?’ was Efraim’s final question.

‘What do you mean?’

‘What’s your assessment of the situation? Do you think that what he did – shooting the man who murdered his brother – is indefensible, or can you understand his actions?’

Alex was silent for a moment, then he said:

‘I have no personal opinion on the matter; I do, however, have a professional view, which I am prepared to share only with my colleagues and superiors.’

‘I understand,’ Efraim said, and ended the call.

With considerable relief he handed over the relevant paperwork. He would spend his last evening in Stockholm checking on how the investigation into Josephine’s murder was going. He really wanted to ask how someone with such poor judgement could have been appointed to a post at the Solomon school, but it was none of his business to allocate blame; the members themselves could do that.

Efraim’s train of thought was interrupted by the general secretary who had come to find him, his eyes darting from side to side, his forehead shiny with perspiration.

‘Has someone else been shot?’ Efraim asked dryly.

‘I do hope not, but we’ve had a call from one of the families within our community. Two ten-year-old boys appear to have gone missing. They were supposed to have a tennis coaching session after school, but they didn’t turn up. And now no one knows where they are.’

A quick glance out of the window reminded Efraim of the cold and the heavy snowfall.

A tragedy was rarely an isolated event. But people never learned.

A grief so deep that it threatened to swallow up all sense and understanding. The interview was necessary, but it would be brief.

‘What do you know about your daughter’s boyfriend?’ Fredrika asked the couple sitting opposite her.

Josephine’s mother and father. They were rather older than Fredrika had expected.

They were still in shock, their grief fresh and raw. They had seen their daughter in the hospital morgue little more than an hour ago, and now they were back in their apartment, where life was expected to go on. Fredrika didn’t have the words to explain how that was supposed to happen. Alex had more idea, having lost his wife a few years earlier. Sorrow had etched fine lines on his face.

Josephine’s mother glanced at her husband, who answered:

‘Not much, and we’re not interested either. We just assumed she would eventually realise what a waste of space he was, and leave him.’

‘In what way do you regard him as a waste of space?’ Alex said, making an effort to sound as neutral as possible.

‘A man with a criminal record longer than the Torah is hardly likely to have made very many good choices in life.’

‘So how come you knew about his background?’

Josephine’s father sighed and folded his arms.

‘Contacts,’ he said tersely.

In the police, no doubt, Fredrika thought, and decided not to pursue the matter. Alex seemed to be of the same opinion, and changed tack.

‘Were you aware that they were living together?’

‘Yes.’

‘Were they happy?’

A sound that was somewhere between a sob and a snort escaped Josephine’s mother.

‘Happy? I’m sorry, is that supposed to be a serious question?’

She shook her head, angry and upset at the same time.

‘Am I to understand that your daughter was dissatisfied with the relationship?’ Fredrika asked gently.

Or was it just you and your husband who felt that way?

‘Interpret it however you want. I’m not saying that happiness is always the same thing, but the relationship between my daughter – our daughter – and that man was rotten.’

‘Rotten to the core,’ Josephine’s father said, as if he felt that his wife’s words needed further clarification. ‘His only contributions were expensive parties and problems.’

‘He didn’t have a job or an income?’

‘As far as we know he had certain resources, shall we say, but no job.’

‘Was he violent towards her?’ Alex asked.

The question made both parents drop their guard. They looked genuinely stunned.

‘No. No, I don’t believe he was. She would have told us.’

Fredrika didn’t think that was something that could necessarily be taken for granted, but it was probably best to leave Josephine’s parents with that delusion.

‘Did you see your daughter often?’ she asked.

‘Yes, but less so after she moved in with that man.’

‘Was she involved in his criminal activities?’

As Alex spoke Fredrika could see that he might just as well have punched the parents in the face.

‘What the hell are you insinuating?’ the father said. ‘Of course she wasn’t!’

‘Had she had similar boyfriends in the past?’ Fredrika asked, trying to draw attention away from Alex’s question.

‘Never.’

Parents were always parents. They rarely said anything about their children in a way that reflected how things actually were, rather than how they wished they were. The distance between these two realities could be significant.

Fredrika looked at her watch, then at Alex. There was no reason to continue interviewing the parents. Their answers were mechanical, their tragedy incomprehensible. It was Fredrika and Alex’s duty to leave them alone.

Fredrika had been spared the loss of those who were near and dear to her. Once she had almost lost Spencer in a car accident; she didn’t even want to think about what it would have cost her mentally if he had died. She had been expecting their first child at the time, and at long last he had been ready to give up his marriage in order to live with Fredrika.

And now he wanted to go off to Jerusalem for two weeks. What a brilliant idea. Fredrika didn’t know what bothered her most: the fact that he seemed to think it ought to be achievable in spite of the short notice, or that she herself would never have considered such a thing.

‘One last question,’ Alex said. ‘What did Josephine do before she qualified as a teacher and started working at the pre-school?’

A pale smile shimmered across her mother’s face.

‘She was lost back then, our Josephine. She tried just about every job you could think of.’

‘And a few you wouldn’t think of,’ her father muttered. ‘But nothing illegal,’ he added quickly.

‘I presume she liked children?’

‘I’m not so sure about that,’ her mother said. ‘But she loved her job, so I suppose she did.’

Fredrika and Alex got to their feet, both feeling relieved at the thought of leaving the apartment. No one wants to visit the province of grief with a one-way ticket.

‘Did she have any enemies?’ Fredrika said as they stood in the doorway.

‘Not that we knew of.’

‘No conflicts or arguments? Not necessarily in the recent past?’

Both parents shook their heads. They looked so abandoned standing there, so desperately lonely.

‘Is there anyone we can call for you?’

‘Thank you, but some close friends are on their way.’

‘In that case, thank you for your time, and once again, our condolences on your incomprehensible loss.’

She felt Alex stiffen as she uttered the last three words.

Your incomprehensible loss.

It sounded so artificial, like something out of a bad play.

‘We’ll be in touch,’ Alex said, opening the door. ‘Please don’t hesitate to call us at any time if anything occurs to you, or if there’s anything we can do.’

Seconds later they were out in the street, and Fredrika thought that Josephine’s last day had been an unusually cold one.

An unusually long day. An unusual start to the new year, in fact. Alex Recht was exhausted; he just wanted the day to end so that he could go home. His mobile rang as soon as he dropped Fredrika off outside her door.

Diana.

The second great love of his life, the fresh start he hadn’t believed was possible after the death of his wife Lena.

He longed to hear her voice.

But it wasn’t Diana. It was his boss.

‘How did it go with the parents?’

‘I don’t really know what to say, except that we’re none the wiser.’

His boss starting coughing, a rattling, smoker’s cough. As far as Alex knew, smoking was his only vice, but it was remarkable to think that one wrong choice could bring a person so much closer to the end of their life.

‘We’ve had another call from the Solomon Community.’

Alex waited, hoping this wasn’t more bad news. But it was. First of all came something that he already knew.

‘Have you heard that Peder Rydh has just been appointed as their new head of security?’

‘I found out when they called and asked me for a reference earlier this evening.’

‘What did you say to them?’

‘The same as I always say. That he was a very talented police officer with certain issues regarding his temperament, and one or two problems when it came to his attitude towards women in the past.’

His boss was coughing again.

‘Issues regarding his temperament? I suppose you could put it that way.’

Alex had no interest in discussing the matter any further. A lot of things would have to change before he stopped supporting Peder Rydh.

‘It’s most unfortunate that he’s been appointed to the post at this particular moment. Don’t you agree?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘I mean, you’re going to have to work with him – have you thought about that?’

‘I’ve worked with Peder before, and we’ve never had any problems.’

Untrue. And he knew it. His boss wasn’t slow to pick him up on his mistake.

‘I’m sorry – you’ve never had any problems?’

Alex couldn’t listen to this; he didn’t have the energy to get involved in a discussion. His current boss had never actually worked with Peder, but knew his history like everyone else.

‘I know, I know.’

He thought back to the beginning of their conversation.

‘So did the Solomon Community call to ask you for a reference too?’

‘No, they just happened to mention Rydh in connection with the real reason for their call.’

‘Which was?’

‘Two boys who belong to the community didn’t arrive at their tennis coaching session. The parents have reported them missing to the police, and the case should end up on your desk. You’re the person who’s most familiar with this kind of thing.’

Of course. Shit.

‘There’s absolutely no way that Fredrika and I can deal with two major investigations – the fatal shooting and two missing kids. Forget it.’

‘I realise that; we’ll sort it out tomorrow. Unless of course there’s a connection, in which case it would probably be better to expand your team. Fast.’

Why would there be a connection? Because all three were Jews? Because the boys had gone missing on the day the teacher was shot? Were they actually missing? Kids got the most peculiar ideas; they could be back home in a couple of hours.

‘Have the parents been interviewed?’ he asked, sincerely hoping that he wouldn’t have to speak to them as well.

‘Yes, you don’t need to think about that for the time being. And the Stockholm City Police and the National Crime Unit are helping to search for the boys. You won’t have to deal with any of this until tomorrow.’

Good. Tomorrow was another day.

A busy day, by the sound of it.

‘The Solomon Community is also organising a search. They’ve gathered in the centre in Östermalm and they’re ringing everyone in the boys’ classes to see if anyone has heard from them. You could drop in on your way home, if you feel like it.’

Why would he want to do that? They’d be in touch if the boys turned up.

It was eight o’clock. Alex wanted to go home. Listen to Diana telling him about her day. Have something to eat. Ring his children. If necessary he could come back in later, leave his mobile switched on all night.

But to his surprise he heard himself say:

‘I’ll drop by and call you afterwards.’

‘Good. And Fredrika Bergman? Is she still playing the violin?’

‘She’s with her family.’

Alex’s response was curt and angry. To protect Fredrika. He thought about her frown, how pensive she had been. He hoped she wasn’t having problems at home. The way she had looked today, she wouldn’t have the energy to fight a war on two fronts.

The weather was atrocious, and it seemed to be getting worse all the time. Stockholm looked deserted as he drove towards the Solomon Community for the second time today. Cars covered in snow lined the streets like white sculptures, silent and motionless.

Nothing evoked stronger feelings than children at risk; Alex was well aware of that, so he wasn’t surprised when he walked in and saw how many people had gathered to support the parents in their search for the two boys.

The general secretary recognised him.

‘Any news?’ he said, his tone almost pleading. He adjusted his glasses which had slipped down his nose. The yarmulke perched on the back of his head was black and crooked. It was interesting to observe the effects of a divergence from normality.

‘I’m afraid not,’ Alex said. ‘I was about to ask you the same question.’

The general secretary shook his head gloomily.

‘Not a trace.’

‘And there’s no reason to suspect that the boys might have gone off somewhere of their own accord?’

‘No. Where would they go? They’re ten years old, there’s a blizzard and it’s minus five out there.’

Just as Alex opened his mouth to say something about children who went missing and where they usually went, he caught sight of someone he hadn’t seen for a long time.

Peder Rydh.

A tsunami of emotions surged through his body. Peder had been there when Alex’s career reached its zenith, when he was asked to lead his own freestanding team. He had selected Peder himself, and Fredrika had joined immediately afterwards. As time went by they had become one of the best teams Alex had ever worked with.

The pain of loss seared his soul like salt on an open wound. He was leading a similar team now, with a small core and a wide periphery. But without Peder Rydh.

When had he last seen Peder? They had bumped into one another in town about a year ago, but that was all.

Peder was sitting at one of the tables, deep in thought. He was holding a sheet of paper in his hand, frowning as he read. The years had left a clear impression on his face. He looked hardened. Hardened but balanced.

‘Excuse me,’ Alex said to the general secretary, and walked over towards Peder.

When he was only a metre or so away, Peder looked up and saw Alex. His face broke into such a broad grin that Alex had to take several deep breaths to stop the tears from coming.

They hugged each other tightly, without saying a word.

‘You’re looking well,’ Alex said when they had let go.

‘I’m fine,’ Peder said. ‘I don’t actually start until tomorrow, but they asked if I’d come in tonight.’

A shadow passed across his face, and a flicker of the defiance that had been so typical of him was visible for a split second.

‘What can you tell me?’ Alex said.

They sat down at the table. This was neither the time nor the place to discuss private matters.

‘Not much. The boys didn’t turn up for their tennis coaching session, and they hadn’t said anything to their friends about other plans.’

‘Have you met the parents?’

‘The mothers are over there; the fathers are out searching.’

‘Out searching.’ As if that was a feasible option. A search party in Stockholm city centre. In a blizzard. Senseless and pointless.

‘They seem, at least at first glance, to be harmonious families. One of the fathers is perhaps a little unstable, but I can’t decide whether that’s because of what’s happened, or whether he’s always like that.’

Of course not – how could he possibly know when the investigation had been going on for less than an hour? And a person could be unstable for all kinds of different reasons.

Peder lowered his voice.

‘The community has a lot of contacts within the police.’

‘So I’ve realised,’ Alex said.

‘One name in particular has been mentioned several times over the last hour: Eden Lundell. I’ve never heard of him or her – have you?’

He certainly had.

Eden Lundell. A woman so strong that she could declare war on any country, all by herself. They had worked together only once, but that was enough. Alex had the greatest respect for Eden Lundell.

‘I know who she is,’ he said. ‘She’s a very special woman.’

‘Special enough to find two missing boys and clear up a premeditated murder?’

‘I’d be very surprised if she got involved in all this,’ Alex said.

‘Why?’

‘Because she’s Säpo’s head of counter-terrorism.’

He was so damned good.

Like most other men, her beloved husband wasn’t perfect, but he was a bloody good lover. Which was fortunate, because otherwise he would never have won Eden Lundell’s heart.

She buried her face in his shoulder to smother her cries as she came. Pulled him closer, wrapped her legs more tightly around him. Her heart was pounding like a hunted animal, and she could feel his sweaty upper body pressing down on hers. Then he stopped moving and her pulse rate dropped.

Eden was satisfied. Obviously a successful encounter.

Mikael withdrew and lay down by her side. The sheet stuck to her skin as he laid his arm across her breasts and breathed against her neck. Closeness was important to him, and she let him be. For a while, anyway.

‘Do you mind if I have a cigarette?’ she said.

‘Eden, for fuck’s sake!’

‘You can’t blame me for asking. One day you might say yes.’

‘No bloody chance.’

‘Goodness me, all this swearing. Are priests really allowed to swear?’

‘This one is.’

She caressed his arm distractedly. The bedroom still smelled of fresh paint. From the street came the muted sound of traffic. Quieter than usual; the bad weather must have persuaded people to stay at home.

It had been Eden’s idea to sell their boring house and move into the city. Mikael had taken some convincing, but when Eden made the point that she would have more time for the family if she had a shorter commute, he gave in.

‘Was it my mobile or yours that rang just now?’ she said.

‘Bound to be yours. The rest of us switch off our phones when we’re making love.’

Making love – was that really what they had just been doing? Eden would have said they were screwing, and that they knew exactly what they were doing.

‘You can’t be serious,’ Mikael said, raising his head as she slipped out of bed.

‘I’m just going to check,’ Eden said as she walked across the room to pick up her bag.

She sat down on the edge of the bed and took out her mobile. Mikael grabbed it.

‘Give it back!’

Sometimes she sounded like her daughters, barking out staccato orders and expecting instant compliance. However, she was far superior to the girls when it came to getting her own way. Mikael maintained that he and the children lived in the shadow of Eden’s whims and caprices, but she thought that was unfair.

It wasn’t her fault that others were so weak.

Mikael gave her the phone and she listened to the message that came from a withheld number. It was the general secretary of the Solomon Community.

‘Eden, I don’t know if you’re in Sweden or if you’ve been following the news, but we’ve had two terrible incidents today. A member of staff at the Solomon school was shot dead this afternoon, and this evening two boys have been reported missing by their parents. Give me a call if you can.’

She put the phone back in her bag. Mikael looked pleased as she lay back, resting on his outstretched arm.

‘Anything important?’

‘Nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow.’

She had already heard about the shooting, but not the missing boys.

Do I need to get involved? No.

For some obscure reason the Solomon Community had got the idea that they could count on her support and resources in various situations. This was, to put it mildly, a misapprehension. She felt no loyalty whatsoever towards what were somewhat inaccurately referred to as ‘her people’.

‘I thought we might go away in March,’ Mikael said.

Did you indeed?

‘Where?’

‘Somewhere hot. Just you and me and the girls.’

As if they usually went away with a whole crowd of other people.

‘I don’t know if I can get away from work.’

‘I’m sure you can, if you book the time early enough.’

‘We’ve talked about this before; you have to realise there’s a difference between what you do and what I do.’

Mikael was a priest, and Eden loved him for that. Everything was possible in Mikael’s world. The sky was the limit as far as he was concerned, but his naive attitude towards time, and above all to obligations outside the family, drove her crazy. It created conflict and all too often led to arguments.

Things had been calm for a while now; Christmas had been enjoyable, and January hadn’t sprung any surprises. Eden had even managed to drop the girls off at day care and pick them up, just like an ordinary mum.

A normal mum. One who didn’t feel like screaming ‘For God’s sake will you hurry up!’ as soon as she saw the twins ambling towards her, eager to show and tell what they had been doing at day care. As if they had all the time in the world. As if it was the most obvious thing in the world, they would hand her drawings and trolls made of stones and all kinds of crap that Eden realised other people took into work and placed on their desks; personally, she just wanted to chuck the whole lot in a box in the garage. She understood that the children thought they had made something wonderful, but she felt as if she would be doing them a disservice if she lied. Ugly was ugly, end of.

‘How long do you think you’ll stay with Säpo?’ Mikael asked.

Excellent, he had already dropped his holiday plans.

‘Why do you ask? I’ve only been there just over six months.’

‘I’m asking because I know you, Eden. You’re a restless soul.’

She stared up at the ceiling. Was that true? Was she restless? Maybe, maybe not.

‘I’ll stay for a while. There’s a lot to do within their organisation before I’m satisfied.’

‘Their organisation? Not yours?’

No. She would never again make the same mistake as she had in London, becoming as one with an organisation that wasn’t hers after all.

The desire for a cigarette grew too strong.

‘Back in a minute,’ she said, getting out of bed again.

‘Say what you like, nobody could accuse you of being a romantic,’ Mikael said, and for a moment it bothered her that he didn’t sound in the least ironic.

She let the comment pass. In the bathroom she unzipped her toilet bag and took out the packet of cigarettes and the lighter she always kept in the side pocket. She ran water into the hand basin, then opened the window and lit up. She closed her eyes as she blew out the smoke, the cold air cooling her body. Just a few drags, then she was satisfied. The odd snowflake found its way into the bathroom, melting on her bare skin.

As usual she doused the cigarette under the running water and flushed the stub down the loo. She was brushing her teeth when her mobile rang again.

She went back into the bedroom. Why couldn’t the Solomon Community understand that she was neither willing nor able to help them?

But it wasn’t the Solomon Community. It was her boss, Buster Hansson, the General Director of Säpo, usually known as GD.

‘We have a problem,’ he said. ‘Efraim Kiel is back in Sweden.’

The telephone slipped out of Eden’s hand and landed on the floor.

‘What’s happened?’ Mikael asked, sitting up in bed.

‘Nothing,’ she said, picking up the phone.

But inside she was in turmoil.

Efraim Kiel. She could think of several reasons why he might turn up in Stockholm.

None of them was good news.

It was almost nine thirty, and Fredrika Bergman was sitting alone in the kitchen with a cup of tea. Spencer was in their bedroom, and she had asked him to stay there. They had had an unexpectedly bitter argument about how he thought he could possibly go off to Jerusalem, because it turned out they had completely different perceptions of what was achievable, and what they could demand of one another.

‘How would you react if I suddenly said I was going off to play the violin for two weeks?’ Fredrika had snapped.

‘The fact is you don’t actually do everything at home while I just watch,’ Spencer had replied, as if that had anything to do with Fredrika’s question.

‘What’s that got to do with anything? Am I supposed to go around feeling grateful because I don’t have to look after the kids and run the house on my own? Is that what you’re saying?’

Spencer had made the mistake of sounding more than a little condescending in his response.

‘If I travel to Jerusalem to work for two weeks, it’s hardly the same as you going off to China to play the guitar.’

At that point Fredrika had hit the roof.

‘I don’t play the fucking guitar! And China? Are you going senile?’

That had been the starting pistol for an extremely undignified row.

So now she was sitting alone in the kitchen. The guitar. In China. She couldn’t help it, she just burst out laughing. Half her girlfriends would have advised her to file for divorce. Right now.

For God’s sake, Spencer, sort yourself out.

The strength in their relationship had always – always – been the unconditional trust, and the fact that they were able to communicate with one another. During all those years when Spencer was still married, they had still known exactly where they were; he had never disappointed her by giving her false expectations or making promises he couldn’t keep. Not once. Their situation was complicated enough; there was no need to make it even more complex with a whole load of lies.

Fredrika wearily ran her hand across the surface of the table. A table on which Spencer had actually taken her just a couple of nights ago, when the children were staying over with their grandparents. She hoped her parents liked babysitting, because if she was going to be on her own for two weeks, she wouldn’t be able to cope without them.

If only everything wasn’t so fragile.

She had never thought she would have everything she had dreamt of.

Spencer.

The children.

The violin.

Now that she had all of those things and was happy for once, why did Spencer have to make such a fuss about something so trivial? Or was she the one who was kicking off? Because she was so afraid of losing everything?

She heard footsteps behind her.

‘I’m sorry if I upset you,’ Spencer said. ‘You’re right and I’m wrong. Two weeks is too long.’

He sat down at the table. He even looked good in pyjamas. Fredrika tilted her head on one side, wondering what she would have wanted him to say if she had been offered the chance to go to Israel.

That’s terrific!

‘Go to Jerusalem,’ she said. ‘You have to go.’

‘That means you’ll be on your own with the kids for two weeks.’

Or for the rest of my life, if I suffocate you.

‘It’ll be fine. I’ll ask Mum to help out.’

His face broke into a smile.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘Don’t thank me,’ Fredrika said. ‘You can return the favour some time.’

He got up and moved around the table. Placed a hand on her shoulder.

‘Are you coming to bed soon?’

‘I’m just going to check my phone first.’

Spencer wasn’t the only one who worked at strange times.

The job.

She yawned and picked up her phone to see if Alex had called about the murdered teacher. Perhaps something new had come up during the evening that she ought to know about before she went into work tomorrow.

God, it was cold outside. The winter chill seemed to find its way in through the walls and the floor, making her shiver. The snow was falling heavily now, covering everything in its path. Fredrika curled up on the kitchen chair and read a message from Alex.

Two ten-year-old boys had gone missing. Alex’s team would probably be working on the case tomorrow if the boys hadn’t turned up by then.

As she read the message she was transported back four and a half years. She had been the new recruit, and for several terrible days that summer they had worked against the clock to find a little girl who had disappeared from a train. Fredrika still remembered her name.

Lilian Sebastiansson.

Fredrika’s first difficult case with Alex’s team.

Back then she had been the enigmatic single woman approaching thirty-five who never said a word about her private life. The woman who was sleeping with her former university professor, pretending that he wasn’t the man in her life. The only member of the team who had a civilian background rather than police training.

Resolutely she got to her feet. She hoped the missing boys were at least somewhere indoors, in the warmth. If they were outside they wouldn’t survive the bitterly cold night.