The Chosen

EARLIER

The snowstorm was over.

Simon blinked into the light as the man told him to get out of the van. Frozen stiff. He was enclosed in a bubble of fear, and he couldn’t make a hole in it. He didn’t think he had ever been so cold in his whole life. The night had felt like an eternity. He and Abraham had lain very close to one another, covered by a blanket that was far too thin. Neither of them had slept. They had both wept, shaking with cold.

All night.

‘Where’s Abraham?’ Simon asked.

His legs could hardly hold him up, and his voice was so thin, destroyed by tears and exhaustion.

There wasn’t a sound to be heard. No wind whispering in the tree tops, no animals moving around.

Simon didn’t know where he was. A little while ago someone had got in the van and started the engine. The vehicle had begun to move, and the two boys had looked at one another in a panic.

After just a few minutes, the van had stopped.

The man had come for Abraham first. Simon had heard the snow crunching beneath their feet as they walked past the side of the van, then everything had gone quiet. He had remained motionless for a long time, his body rigid with fear.

Until a loud gunshot made him leap to his feet as quickly as if it had been fired inside the van. Warm piss trickled down his legs. Simon had gone hunting with his father several times, and knew the sounds that went with such expeditions. But the shot he had just heard had nothing to do with the hunt. He could feel it in every fibre of his ten-year-old body.

He waited and waited.

Exhausted and even more terrified, he sank to the floor. At long last the man came back.

Without Abraham.

The man didn’t answer his question.

‘Tell me where he is!’

Simon’s voice was weak as he tried to shout.

He couldn’t control himself any longer. Tears poured down his grubby cheeks.

‘I want to go home,’ he sobbed. ‘Please let me go home.’

The man just looked at him. Then he took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. He gazed around in the way that people do when they don’t really have anything to look at. His eyes roamed across the bare trees without alighting anywhere.

By the time he eventually spoke, Simon had dropped to his knees in the snow, his arms wrapped around his body. Where had Abraham gone?

He gave a start when he heard the man’s voice.

‘Has your father told you about the Paper Boy?’ the man said, staring at him.

Simon nodded.

‘Answer me!’

Simon wiped the snot and tears from his face with the back of his hand.

‘Yes, he has.’

The man took a long drag of his cigarette.

‘Good. In that case you know why you’re here.’

Did he?

Simon didn’t understand a thing.

The cigarette smoke smelled strong, making him cough. The piss in his pants made them feel stiff.

‘Get up.’

Automatically he did as he was told. His legs were so cold they hurt.

The man threw his cigarette down on the snow and slowly turned to face him.

Simon took a step backwards.

It looked as if smoke was coming out of the man’s mouth as he breathed. He ran a hand over his chin.

‘Your father had the greatest respect for the Paper Boy when he was little. As you know, the Paper Boy is happiest in the warmth and the darkness. He sleeps during the day, and comes to the children at night. But this time he has made an exception, and has come in the cold and the daylight instead.’

Simon couldn’t think clearly.

The Paper Boy.

‘Why does he come to the children at night?’

His voice was no more than a whisper.

The man grew serious.

‘He steals them. Takes them from their parents and tears them to pieces.’

Suddenly the man was angry. He hissed:

‘And you know what? Your father became just like him.’

Simon realised two things simultaneously:

He was in a very dangerous situation. And he had no idea how to get out of it.

The man took a step towards him, and Simon fell backwards in the snow as he tried to move away.

‘Get up and take off your shoes and socks.’

Simon blinked.

‘You heard me. Take off your shoes and socks and I’ll give you a chance.’

Without waiting for Simon to obey, he walked past him and opened the driver’s door of the van. Simon stood there as if he had turned to stone, and saw the man reach inside for something. When he turned around he was holding a rifle.

Simon started crying again.

‘There’s no need to be afraid. If you just do as I say, I’ll give you a chance.’

He lowered the gun as if to show that he meant what he said.

‘Do as I say and I’ll let you go.’

With trembling hands Simon slowly began to undo his shoelaces.

His feet were freezing cold.

And he was weary.

Bone weary.

As he stood barefoot in front of the man, he almost didn’t care what was going to happen.

The man stared at him for a long time.

‘Okay, Simon. Listen carefully. I want you to run as fast as you can. Do you understand?’

Not really.

Run?

Run where?

‘Run! Run like the wind, and you might get away from him.’

Simon blinked again, still numb with cold and shock.

‘Who?’ he whispered. ‘Who’s after me?’

The man raised his gun.

‘I am after you. I am the Paper Boy.’

It was such a beautiful day that you just wanted to get in the car and head out of the city. Drive out into the country and let the children go crazy in the snow.

But a conscientious person like Fredrika Bergman couldn’t do that. Not with a murder and two missing boys to think about. The morning passed in silence as she and Spencer moved around the apartment like two restless souls, getting the children ready for day care.

‘So you’ll pick them up this afternoon?’ she said eventually as she stood in the doorway with her son and daughter in the double buggy.

‘Of course.’

Of course.

Now Fredrika had agreed that he could go away for two weeks, there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her.

Very wise.

Fredrika had hardly slept. The missing boys and memories of the past had kept her awake. In the middle of the night, at God knows what time, she had glanced over at Spencer and realised that he too was wide awake, lying on his side and watching her in the darkness. He couldn’t settle either.

‘I don’t know what I’d do if you left me,’ he had whispered. ‘Are you sure it’s okay if I go?’

He had reached out and touched her chin.

The desire came from nowhere, and she had leaned over and kissed his forehead. His cheeks. His chin. And his mouth.

‘Of course it is,’ she had whispered in return.

The clear air and open sky made life seem even more tranquil as she left the apartment block and ploughed through the fresh snow with the buggy. She was taking the children to day care, then she was going to work. One foot in front of the other. Always moving forwards, never backwards.

Soon she would be there. Get to grips with the case of the missing boys.

She offered up a silent prayer that it wouldn’t be too late by the time they found them.

It was as if Stockholm had become a different city overnight. Someone had shot a teacher, standing on the pavement surrounded by children. And the two boys who had disappeared on their way to a tennis lesson were still missing.

‘I can’t lead both investigations,’ Alex Recht said to his boss first thing in the morning.

‘I’ve asked for the murder to be handed over to the National Crime Unit. I’d like you to focus on the boys.’

Alex was frustrated.

‘But I’ve already made a start on the murder!’

‘Yes, but we didn’t know these boys were going to disappear. I’ve spoken to a colleague in the NCU; they’re very familiar with Josephine’s boyfriend, and would like to take over the case as part of their own work in mapping serious organised crime.’

But what if Josephine had been shot for some other reason? What if her death had nothing to do with her boyfriend?

In that case they would have to pick it up later. They had the capacity to run only one of the two investigations. Alex’s team was still incomplete.

‘We can’t have a team that consists of just two people,’ he had said when it had first been suggested that he should lead a special investigative unit once more.

‘Absolutely not. You’ll have a core team of three, as before. Recruitment will be down to you. If you need additional resources, all you have to do is ask and I’ll allocate colleagues on a temporary basis to assist with any ongoing preliminary investigations.’

But recruitment took time, and at the moment the team consisted of Alex and Fredrika. They had put together an advertisement for the third member, and had started to go through the applications as they came trickling in, but so far none of them had been particularly impressive.

Fredrika sailed into the office, her cheeks rosy after walking to work in the cold; her eyes were brighter than they had been the previous day. Playing the violin was clearly doing her good.

‘Forget the teacher,’ Alex said. ‘We’re working on the boys.’

Fredrika leaned against the wall.

‘Missing kids,’ she said. ‘The perfect first case for our little team, wouldn’t you say?’

She pulled a face.

‘You’re thinking about the little girl who disappeared from the train?’ Alex said. ‘Lilian Sebastiansson?’

As if we could ever forget her.

‘Aren’t you?’

‘Only because it was the first serious case we investigated; otherwise I can’t see any similarities.’

Fredrika shrugged. ‘Maybe not, but children are children, after all.’

Alex knew she was right. He really didn’t like this business of the two missing Jewish boys. The media had gone crazy overnight, wanting more information, more details, but Alex refused to feed them at such an early stage.

‘Is it just you and me?’ Fredrika asked.

‘We can request any additional resources we need, but we’ll be leading the case.’

That wasn’t strictly true. Alex was the boss, not Fredrika, but as there were only two of them that seemed like an unnecessary distinction.

The media had been given pictures of the boys as evening turned into night and the snowstorm reached its peak. Public reaction was instant. Everyone thought they could help. Every single person who had been in inner city Stockholm and seen a child with a rucksack and a woolly hat trudging along unaccompanied by an adult decided it was their duty to get in touch with the police.

‘Have we had any calls that might be useful?’ Fredrika asked.

‘Not yet.’

‘So where do we start?’

‘We’ll go over to the Solomon Community; you interview one set of parents and I’ll take the other. If they’re there, of course. Yesterday the fathers were out searching.’

As he got up and reached for his coat, there was a loud knock on the door and an assistant came in.

‘An elderly lady called and said she’s sure she saw one of the boys at a bus stop on Karlavägen yesterday afternoon.’

‘And what makes her any more reliable than all the rest of the people who’ve called and said more or less the same thing?’ Alex wanted to know as he pulled on his coat.

‘Because it’s the stop from which the boys always catch the bus to the tennis centre, according to their parents. And because she says the boy had the kind of bag that’s used to carry a tennis racquet.’

His first day at work was actually his second.

Peder Rydh slithered along on the fresh snow that hadn’t yet been cleared from the pavements. His sons had cheered when he dropped them off at day care and they saw the thick white blanket of virgin snow waiting for them in the playground.

‘We’ll be able to get the toboggans out!’ one of the boys had roared with delight.

There were days when Peder wished he was five years old, wanting nothing more from life than good weather and time to play freely. His brother Jimmy’s life had been a bit like that; he had remained a child after falling from a swing and injuring his head.

On that occasion they had been playing a bit too freely.

Peder walked faster. It was never a good idea to start the day by thinking about Jimmy. The memory still hurt; the sense of loss was still immense.

But I avenged your death, little brother. And it was worth the cost.

The smell of coffee greeted him as he arrived at the Solomon Community. The air felt thin, as if too many people were all trying to breathe it in at the same time. The noise level was muted; some people had been there all night, ringing around to ask about the boys.

No one had seen anything.

No one had heard anything.

The general secretary took Peder to one side and went over everything that had happened since Peder went home at just after two o’clock in the morning to grab a few hours’ sleep. The general secretary hadn’t slept at all, which made Peder feel a little unsure of himself. Should he have stayed all night too, then worked all day as well?

‘Still no sign of them,’ his boss said. ‘The police have no information either. The parents have kept their phones switched on, of course, but no one has contacted them to demand a ransom or anything like that. So it doesn’t seem to be a kidnapping.’

‘I think perhaps it’s a little early to draw that kind of conclusion,’ Peder said. ‘There are different kinds of kidnapping.’

The general secretary went on as if Peder hadn’t spoken:

‘The parents aren’t rich; they wouldn’t be able to pay a large ransom. My guess is that some lunatic has taken them, and that it’s exceptionally important that they are found as quickly as possible.’

The police officer in Peder, the one who had been sacked in disgrace, suddenly came to life.

First of all, people were sometimes kidnapped in spite of the fact that their relatives weren’t rich.

Secondly, the possibility that the boys had disappeared voluntarily couldn’t be ruled out.

And thirdly, it didn’t matter whether they had gone off on their own or been abducted by someone else – finding them was still a matter of urgency.

‘What about their phones?’ he said. ‘I’m assuming both boys have their mobiles with them – do they ring when you call the numbers?’

‘They seem to be switched off.’

‘We’ll check with the police, see if they’ve managed to pinpoint their position. There’s no guarantee that the boys and the phones will be in the same place, but at least it would be a start.’

A shadow passed across the general secretary’s face.

‘If the person who’s taken them is thinking far enough ahead to realise he can be tracked using their phones, and has dumped them…’ he began.

‘Then he’s a man with a plan,’ Peder finished the sentence for him.

Silently he added: And in that case we’re in trouble, because even the weather is on his side.

The boys would have had no chance of surviving the night if they had managed to get away from their abductor. They would have frozen to death within an hour.

The police officer inside Peder refused to go away.

Two children and a pre-school teacher.

All members of the Solomon Community.

All with a clear link to the Solomon school.

It was obvious that this couldn’t possibly be a coincidence.

The only question was what was going to happen next?

One of the boys had definitely been seen at the bus stop on Karlavägen. The elderly lady confirmed this when Fredrika Bergman showed her some pictures of the children.

‘He’s the one I saw,’ she said, pointing to the photograph of the one called Simon. ‘I spoke to him.’

‘What about?’

‘I asked him what time it was, and he answered very politely.’

Fredrika looked at the photographs provided by the parents. Both boys looked so serious; Simon in particular wore a melancholy expression that affected his whole appearance. The other boy, Abraham, looked more insolent. Cocky. The kind of kid who might get hold of a boy like Simon and shove his head down the toilet, just because it was fun.

Fredrika stopped her train of thought. It was wrong to think badly of children. They deserved more protection than adults in that respect; they weren’t yet fully formed individuals. It wasn’t right for Fredrika to come up with aspects of Abraham’s character when she didn’t even know him.

‘Have you remembered anything else?’ she said to the woman, keen to bring the conversation to an end as quickly as possible so that she and Alex could get over to Östermalm.

‘I have, actually. He looked so angry.’

‘Angry?’

‘Yes, really upset. Almost as if he was standing there getting quite worked up about something. And I was surprised when he didn’t get on the bus.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he was obviously waiting for it. Lots of different routes use that stop, but I saw his face change when we spotted the bus. And then he didn’t move a muscle. It was as if he was standing there debating with himself, deciding whether to get on or not.’

Fredrika could clearly see the boy at the bus stop in the snow. It had been just after four o’clock, and the tennis lesson was due to begin at four thirty. Even if he’d already changed, which his parents said was usually the case, he didn’t have much time. She presumed he hadn’t caught the bus because Abraham wasn’t there – but why was Abraham late? He was due at the tennis centre at four thirty as well.

Fredrika thanked the woman for taking the time to come in, and showed her how to find her way out.

The last sighting of Simon was at the bus stop, which meant that at least they had a geographical location to start from.

‘We need to go over what we know,’ she said to Alex a little while later when they were in the car on the way to Östermalm.

‘Haven’t we already done that?’

‘No. We’ve had too much to think about – first the fatal shooting, then the missing boys. I’m not saying that everyone isn’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing – they are. But we haven’t yet sat down and worked out a clear picture. For example, do we have the slightest idea where the boys went missing?’

‘On their way to their tennis lesson,’ Alex said. ‘Both of them were in school, then they went off to do some homework with different friends. They always met at the bus stop at four o’clock.’

‘Exactly. But we don’t think they got on the bus?’

‘We’ve spoken to the bus company and all the drivers who might have picked them up, but no one remembers seeing them.’

‘So where does that take us? Do we think that they decided to go and do something else, for some unknown reason? Or that they started walking instead of catching the bus? The woman who saw Simon at the stop said she thought he looked as if he wanted to get on the bus when it arrived, but then stayed where he was.’

Alex pulled up at a pedestrian crossing and waited for a man pushing a buggy to cross.

‘In that case I suppose we can assume he was waiting for Abraham,’ he said. ‘And when he turned up…’

‘Yes?’

‘No idea. The trail ends at the bus stop. That’s where they were last seen.’

‘Wrong,’ Fredrika said. ‘That’s where Simon was last seen. It would be very useful if we could say the same about Abraham. Where are we up to with the analysis of their telephone traffic? Have we been able to pinpoint their mobiles?’

They had arrived, and Alex was looking for a parking space. The car glided slowly along, the snow crunching beneath its tyres.

‘I checked while you were talking to the woman from the bus stop; both mobiles are switched off. No signal whatsoever. I’ve asked for lists of their calls over the last few months, and we should have those in an hour or so.’

‘Do we know who each of them called last?’ Fredrika said as she pointed. ‘There’s a space.’

‘Simon’s mother spoke to him after he left school; she said he sounded just the same as usual. He said he wanted meatballs for tea.’

He reversed into the space.

‘If he was talking about tea, then it definitely sounds as if he was intending to go straight home after tennis. What about Abraham?’

‘He spoke to his father before he went to meet Simon. He’d been doing some homework at a friend’s house. But I don’t know if that was the last call he made or received.’

They left the car and set off towards the Solomon Community. The police cordon outside the school had been removed, and the snow had done a good job of covering the blood. The street looked perfectly normal.

‘They’re ten years old, Alex. We have to gain access to the family’s computers, see what they’ve been doing on the internet. That’s where children communicate these days, however sad that might sound.’

‘We’ll sort it out with their parents now. To be honest I’d be more worried about that if we were dealing with young girls.’

‘Because of the risk that they might have arranged to meet someone they’ve got to know online?’ Fredrika said.

‘Yes. Unfortunately we live in an age where it’s more common for girls to be picked up by perverts.’

‘But that doesn’t mean boys are safe. These two are young enough to attract all kinds of perpetrators.’

Paedophiles. That was the word she had meant to say, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do so. The involvement of a paedophile was always the last thing they wanted, and the worst case scenario.

She pushed aside the unwanted images in her mind and decided to think of something else. They knew where Simon had last been seen. Now she wanted to know where Abraham’s trail ended.

The heat inside the centre was overwhelming. Alex automatically unbuttoned his coat and noticed that Fredrika had done the same. The situation seemed almost unchanged from the previous evening, with several people working hard to find out where the boys had gone. However, the energy level had dropped. He could hear it in their voices, see it in their body language. They had already phoned everyone they could think of; everyone who might be able to help was already here.

Peder Rydh met them at the door. He and Alex shook hands, but Fredrika reacted as Alex had done the previous day and gave him a hug. The memory of a time Alex could never recapture flared up once more. He, Fredrika and Peder had been a super-troika, and those years had corresponded with the most difficult time in his private life. The loss of Lena to cancer had damaged him in so many ways. Diana only had to mention a word like mammogram or biopsy for him to panic.

‘Darling, you can’t go around being scared of life itself,’ she would say.

As if it were life and not death he feared. He had no problem with the idea that we have a limited time on this earth; however, he did struggle to accept that death was forever. That people don’t come back. Ever.

When had Fredrika and Peder last met? He had no idea, but they both looked quite emotional as they broke apart.

‘I heard you got married,’ Peder said. ‘Congratulations!’

So it must be quite a while ago. Fredrika had been married for over a year.

‘Thanks. We tied the knot while we were living in New York,’ she said with a smile. A big smile. It was obvious that she and Spencer were very much in love. Alex still hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting Spencer, but he had heard a lot about him. Bloody stupid name, but he sounded like one of the good guys.

‘So you’re working here now,’ Fredrika said, changing the subject.

‘It’s my first day.’

‘Not a good start, what with the murder and the boys going missing.’

Peder nodded.

Alex looked around. ‘I see you’ve done part of our job for us,’ he said, referring to the barrage of telephone calls that had been made by volunteers.

‘It’s an impressive turnout,’ Peder said. ‘I had no idea the Solomon Community was so tight.’

Alex was in the same boat, and he wondered what the implications might be if the police found any leads that pointed towards the community itself.

‘Anything you can tell us?’ he asked.

Peder grew serious.

‘How far have you got? Are you leading the case now?’

Alex was surprised. Was Peder trying to trade information?

‘Yes, I’m leading the case, and I’ll be happy to tell the families what we know so far. Are they here?’

Peder relaxed.

‘The boys’ mothers are here; the fathers are still out looking.’

Still. Where were they looking, and what were they looking for? The families lived in Östermalm, the tennis centre where the boys played was no more than a kilometre away on Lidingövägen. If someone had taken them, they could be anywhere.

People are never more irrational than when they are afraid, Alex knew that. He also knew that hope was the last thing to go. You only had to ask Peder. He could tell you what happened when hope disappeared and hell became a reality.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Peder said quietly so that no one else could hear. ‘About the parents. But they’re just incapable of sitting at home and waiting. Do you want me to call the fathers?’

‘Leave them for the time being,’ Alex said. ‘We’ll start with the boys’ mothers. It would be helpful if we could speak to them separately.’

Peder indicated that they should follow him.

‘There’s someone I’d like you to meet before you do anything else. He’s a friend of Abraham’s, and I think he has something important to tell you.’

The boy was sitting in the general secretary’s room, where Peder had asked him to wait for Alex and Fredrika to arrive. Peder introduced him to his former colleagues.

‘Tell them what you told me,’ he said.

The boy shuffled uncomfortably, obviously overwhelmed by the gravity of the situation. Alex sat down opposite him.

‘There’s no need to be scared,’ he said. ‘No one thinks you’ve done anything wrong.’

‘But you think something terrible has happened to Abraham and Simon!’

His eyes were huge with anxiety. Peder knew that his parents had been heavily involved in the search.

‘We don’t know that yet,’ Alex said. ‘But we are worried that they might come to some harm if we don’t find them soon. It’s bitterly cold out there.’

The boy automatically glanced over at the window, as if to confirm what Alex had said. He nodded, gazing at the snow.

‘I spoke to Abraham yesterday.’

‘And when was that?’

Fredrika stayed in the background, next to Peder. They had both silently reached the same conclusion; it was best if Alex handled this on his own.

Peder looked at her profile. Motherhood had made her even more attractive. Her face was more relaxed, not as stressed as it used to be. However that worked – having small children wasn’t exactly a piece of cake. At least, not at Peder’s house.

‘I called just before he left for tennis; I’d forgotten he had a lesson.’

‘Do you play too?’

‘No, my dad wants me to play football instead.’

Alex smiled, but said nothing. Peder and Fredrika made no comment either; what kind of father forces his kid to play football?

‘And what did Abraham say?’

‘He was walking to the bus stop when I rang.’

Abraham didn’t live far from Karlavägen, where he was supposed to be meeting Simon. No more than two hundred metres in the direction of Djurgården.

The boy went on:

‘I was going to ask if he wanted to play computer games later, but he told me to ring back after his tennis lesson. I asked him if he knew whether we were going skating with the school today, because if so I needed to ask my mum to get my ice skates down from the loft.’

He paused, and Peder noticed that Fredrika was moving her feet up and down impatiently. It took an eternity for children to get to the point; interviewing them required an enormous amount of patience.

‘Abraham said he thought we were going to the ice rink, but then he said he had to go. He said that really, really quickly.’

‘Because he’d reached the bus stop where Simon was waiting?’ Alex asked.

‘No, because someone in a car had pulled up and offered him a lift. At least that’s what he said before he rang off.’

Alex turned to Peder and Fredrika, stunned into silence. Peder could see that they were all thinking the same thing.

The boys had accepted a lift and been abducted by someone known to them.

Two mothers on a journey through hell that Fredrika Bergman could not and would not begin to imagine. Their sons had been missing for just over eighteen hours. During those hours the silence had been deafening; they hadn’t heard a word from or about their ten-year-old children.

I wouldn’t be able to cope, Fredrika thought. Without Isak and Saga I am nothing.

Before she had children, she had sometimes doubted whether she was capable of a mother’s love, a mother’s strength; of those qualities that seemed to make women capable of moving mountains for the sake of their children. Fredrika had thought she was too egotistical, too self-centred to stand being needed all the time. She had been wrong. On the contrary, it suited her perfectly to be so loved, so much in demand.

She looked at the woman in front of her.

Her name was Carmen Eisenberg, and her son was missing.

It seemed to be a very conservative arrangement: the men were out in their cars searching for the boys, while the women remained in the centre, engaged in a different aspect of the search. Abraham’s mother was in the room next door, talking to Alex.

‘Have you been here all night?’ Fredrika asked.

‘Of course – where else would I be?’

‘I thought perhaps you might have other children at home.’

‘Some good friends are looking after our daughter. We have two children. Simon is the eldest.’

Fredrika already knew how many children they had. She also knew how old they were and where they had been born: Simon in Jerusalem, the year the family moved to Stockholm, and the girl in Sweden. She thought about the elderly lady who had seen Simon at the bus stop, and said he looked angry.

‘What kind of person is Simon?’

‘Quiet. Conscientious. Popular. Maybe too nice.’

Maybe too nice? Was that possible when you were ten years old?

‘What do you mean?’

Don’t evaluate what is said, just listen and ask for clarification if you don’t understand.

‘He’s always keen to fit in with everyone else, always ready to compromise. Sometimes others take advantage.’

‘His friends, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘Abraham?’

‘Especially Abraham.’

Her tone was neutral, she didn’t look upset. Fredrika had watched the interaction between the two mothers for a little while; they seemed to know each other well, and worked together with no friction. However, she hadn’t got the impression that they were close friends.

‘Tell me.’

Carmen crossed her legs and tilted her head on one side. She spoke with a noticeable accent, a legacy from Israel. Fredrika didn’t understand a word of Hebrew, but she recognised the language.

Israel. The country to which Spencer would be travelling on Sunday.

Without her.

‘How can I explain?’ Carmen said. ‘On the whole, Abraham is a good kid; he’s tough and confident, and nobody can tell me that those aren’t important qualities in life. But the negative side is that he’s incredibly competitive. Every single thing is a competition. Reaching the front door first when you get out of the car; scoring the highest marks in the maths test. Simon’s not like that at all. He won’t take on Abraham’s constant challenges; instead he just lies down, so to speak. In school he runs his own race. If Abraham wants to make comparisons, he’s welcome to do so, but as far as Simon is concerned, thinking of every test or piece of homework as a competition does nothing to improve his motivation.’

‘And of course Abraham is aware of this?’

‘Absolutely. So if they’re playing football or computer games or whatever, he’s very good at getting his own way. Whatever the cost. Simon can’t cope with all that.’

Fredrika thought about Simon standing at the bus stop, annoyed and probably cold.

‘Does Simon often end up waiting for Abraham?’

‘Far too often. My husband sometimes tells him off about it; he thinks Simon should make it clear to Abraham that you can’t behave like that.’

Very wise. As long as Dad’s criticism didn’t turn into yet another problem.

‘I realise this might sound stupid, but I have to ask,’ Fredrika said. ‘Do you think there’s the slightest chance that the boys might have gone off somewhere on their own?’

‘No.’

Neither do I.

‘Abraham wouldn’t be able to persuade Simon to do something like that?’

‘The point is, if Simon ever got the idea of doing something as ridiculous as running away from home, Abraham would be the last person he would choose as his accomplice.’

Why did it have to be so hot in here? Alex thought about taking off his jacket as well, but would that look too informal? Probably.

So he kept it on as he interviewed Abraham’s mother.

Daphne Goldmann. A tall, dark woman with a steely expression. Just like Simon’s parents, Abraham’s mother and father had relocated to Sweden ten years ago. Alex wondered if this was a coincidence, or whether the move had been a joint enterprise.

‘I understand that you’re under immense strain,’ he began. ‘Is someone helping out with your other children while you and your husband are here?’

‘Abraham is our only child.’

So if something happens to him, you have no one left.

‘Do you work outside the home?’

‘My husband and I run a company offering various kinds of security solutions for organisations involved in activities in need of protection.’

Alex had no idea what any of that meant, but didn’t really want to dig any deeper.

‘When and how did you discover that Abraham was missing?’

He already knew the answer, but he had to start somewhere.

‘We realised something had happened when he didn’t come home after tennis. We called his coach, who said that neither Abraham nor Simon had turned up for their session. He had assumed they’d had problems because of the weather; apparently several of the children weren’t there yesterday.’

‘And what was your initial reaction?’

‘That something was wrong. That something had happened to them. If they’d got stuck somewhere because of the snow, they would have called.’

‘Why? Couldn’t they just have decided to skip tennis and do something that was more fun?’

Daphne folded her arms.

‘Definitely not.’

‘Because?’

‘Because as far as Abraham is concerned, nothing is more fun than playing tennis.’

‘Is he good?’

‘He’s good at everything he does. Tennis is no exception.’

Alex ran a hand over his chin, remembering the photographs he had seen of the boys.

‘What’s his temperament like?’

‘He’s very similar to his father. He can be hot-headed, but he can also be very considerate. Above all, he’s totally loyal.’

‘To his family? His friends?’

‘To everyone he cares about.’

‘Does he have a lot of friends?’

‘Absolutely.’

Alex thought about Simon, waiting in the cold at the bus stop.

‘We think Abraham was late getting to the bus stop where he was due to meet Simon. Have you any idea what could have delayed him?’

‘No. Abraham always has a thousand things to do, which means he sometimes finds it difficult to keep an eye on the clock.’

She shrugged and reached up to touch a pendant hanging around her neck.

A silver Star of David.

‘My husband and I don’t regard it as a problem. People don’t usually mind waiting for someone who has a reasonable excuse.’

Alex thought this wasn’t necessarily true, but he didn’t say anything. It wasn’t his job to correct a grown woman.

‘It sounds as if Abraham is very driven. Qualities like that can sometimes lead to conflict.’

‘Really?’

Not a hint of irony in her voice. She really didn’t get it.

‘I’m just thinking about other people, who either regard a competitive instinct as provocative, or who are equally competitive themselves. Does Abraham have any enemies?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

Why did he dislike her so much? Alex looked searchingly at the woman sitting opposite him. A woman whose son had been missing for far too long in a bitterly cold Stockholm. Why didn’t he feel any empathy for her situation?

Because her whole attitude rejected empathy and understanding. She was like a predator on the hunt, completely focused on the mission to find her son.

Dead or alive.

‘Is there anywhere Abraham particularly liked to go?’

He disregarded the fact that she had just said that she didn’t believe her son would have gone off of his own accord. Children sometimes got the strangest ideas, and Alex was sure that Abraham was no exception to that rule. Alex also guessed that if he was as driven as he sounded, he could probably carry through quite advanced projects behind his parents’ backs.

‘You mean in Sweden?’

Alex was surprised.

‘Well yes – that’s where we are.’

‘I’m only asking because he loves visiting my parents in Israel,’ Daphne explained. ‘I’m not sure if he has any favourite places here in Sweden. We have a summer cottage that he loves, but he never mentions it in the winter when we’re not there.’

Alex made a mental note of the summer cottage, but he didn’t really think it would get them anywhere.

He was just about to end the interview when his mobile rang. The call came from one of his colleagues at HQ.

They thought they had found the boys.

If Eden Lundell had the choice, she thought she would like to die on a cold winter’s day just like this one. But not until she was old or worthless, of course, whichever came first.

The call had come in just under an hour ago. Someone had reported hearing shooting out at Drottningholm. Two shots at an interval of approximately twenty minutes. Not in the immediate vicinity of the palace, but security had decided to contact Säpo’s personal protection unit anyway. A group of bodyguards accompanied by members of the National Task Force had searched the park and surrounding area, but found nothing out of the ordinary.

They were just about to call off the operation when they found the bodies on the edge of the Royal Drottningholm Golf Club. They were lying on their backs, approximately fifty metres apart.

Eden was informed about the original call only because she was spending a few weeks as acting head of the personal protection unit, while carrying out her duties as head of counter-terrorism at the same time.

‘I know you’re not exactly short of something to do,’ GD had said. ‘But I’d really appreciate it if you could support our bodyguards while their chief is on sick leave for two days a week.’

Eden always had time. Time was something you created, not something you were given. She also felt that the work of the personal protection unit had many links to the activities of her own team.

The discovery of the two bodies was reported directly to Eden and the head of the protection unit. Five minutes later they were in a car heading towards Drottningholm, at Eden’s suggestion.

‘I hope it’s not those boys who went missing in Östermalm yesterday,’ her colleague said.

Who else would it be? Eden thought.

It did her good to get away from Kungsholmen for a while. There had been just one thing on her mind ever since GD called her the previous evening:

Efraim Kiel.

The biggest fuck-up in her entire life.

What the hell was he doing back in Stockholm?

She had had a brief meeting with GD first thing in the morning. Efraim had checked into the same hotel as last time, and was already under surveillance. No doubt he felt safe there. He wouldn’t be able to go anywhere without them knowing exactly what he was up to. Whatever that was supposed to achieve.

They stopped in the avenue leading to Lovö church, where several vehicles were already parked. Eden slammed the car door and greeted the colleague who came over to meet them, a young man she hadn’t seen before.

‘You were the one who ran the investigation into the plane hijacking last year, weren’t you?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I was.’

She had been relatively new to the job back then. A plane carrying four hundred passengers had taken off from Arlanda, and was hijacked high above the clouds. The only person who had so far been held responsible for his actions was the captain, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment in the USA. The chances of his being allowed to serve his sentence in a Swedish prison were negligible, and the prospect of a pardon was even less likely.

They ploughed through the snow, sinking up to their knees.

From a distance they could see only two paper bags, sticking up out of the snow and breaking the line of the landscape. Brown and hard. Both bodies had sunk down, and were difficult to see from a distance.

Two children. Like snuffed-out snow angels with paper bags on their heads.

Two boys. With bare, frozen feet.

Eden crouched down.

‘Fuck,’ the head of the protection unit said behind her.

The forensic pathologist would be able to provide more information about what had happened to the boys, but at first sight there didn’t appear to be any major injuries, apart from the bullet wounds that had presumably killed them.

‘Is this where they died?’ Eden asked one of the CSIs standing a short distance away.

‘We haven’t got that far yet, but yes, I think that seems to be the case. If you look at the tracks in the snow, it looks as if the boys walked or ran to the spot where they are now. They appear to have been shot in the chest.’

Eden looked around.

Children’s footprints in the snow. Bigger prints alongside the small ones. The killer’s. He, or she, had walked up to the victims to check that they really were dead.

And put paper bags over their heads.

Why?

Someone had drawn faces on the paper bags. Big eyes, wide open as if in terror. And big mouths that looked as if they were calling out to someone or something.

‘This isn’t our case,’ her colleague said. ‘I’ve spoken to the police, and they’re on their way.’

Eden gazed at the boys for a moment before she got to her feet. She knew instinctively that the paper bags were important to the killer. They carried a message, directed to someone other than the police.

The only question was – to whom?

But someone else could work that out. Eden had enough problems of her own.

If Efraim Kiel dared to take as much as one single step in her direction, he would pay a higher price than he could ever have imagined.

Three murders in less than twenty-four hours. Something like that would send shock waves through any community, particularly in a country like Sweden. Sheltered and protected, a kingdom of safety and security.

A discovery had been made on the edge of a golf course not far from Drottningholm Palace. No further details had been released, but that was enough for Efraim Kiel. He realised they must have found the boys. He listened attentively to the news bulletin on the radio.

He packed his case, his movements slow and hesitant. He hated the constant travelling, the endless series of anonymous hotel rooms that served as his home. The apartment in Jerusalem was just one of many places where he stayed; it had never been his real base.

He missed having a proper home.

Sometimes he thought he had no roots at all.

He flipped his case shut. The Solomon Community in Stockholm had a new head of security. Two, if you counted Peder Rydh, who would fill the post until the summer. Poor sod. He had no idea of what was waiting for him.

Efraim gazed out at all the snow. The summer seemed so far away. How could people live in a place like this? Cold and dark. That was his overall impression of the past few days.

He had been in Stockholm before, of course. As recently as last October. His employer had decided it was time for a fresh approach. One final attempt to recruit Eden Lundell. At the time she had only just started her job as head of counter-terrorism with Säpo; by now she must be well established.

She had said no. Very clearly. Only two weeks after Efraim had made his move, Mossad’s liaison officer for Scandinavia had been called in to see the general director of Säpo, and had been castigated for the fact that his organisation had the gall to try to infiltrate Sweden’s security police. It pained him to admit it, but Säpo’s handling of the issue had been impressive. Mossad had also been surprised by Eden’s reaction; it seemed she had gone straight to her boss and put all her cards on the table.

‘There is nothing I don’t know,’ Buster Hansson had said. ‘I know that you got one of your operators to seduce Eden in London, and made her look like an idiot in front of MI5, her British employer. I know that she’s only human, and that she made a terrible mistake. But now she has finished paying for that mistake.’

Unexpected. So Eden had told her boss whom she had had a relationship with. That was a brave thing to do. It must have really hurt.

Unfortunately Buster Hansson was wrong. He had said there was nothing he didn’t know. That wasn’t true.

Efraim sat down on the bed. His plane was due to take off in less than two hours. Back to Israel. Home to Jerusalem. He thought about Eden and took a deep breath. He had been borrowing an apartment from a friend in Tel Aviv back then, when he seduced her. When they had had a relationship.

A very unfair relationship, because she had actually fallen in love, while he had just screwed her in the interests of national security.

But he had said that he loved her, and she had believed him – until she realised who he was, and what his agenda must be. The humiliation had driven her crazy; the fact that she had walked straight into his simple trap had made her lose all self-respect. For a while he had thought that she wouldn’t settle for an outburst of rage, that she would come after him, determined never to give up until she had killed him. But that wasn’t what happened. Instead her fury had been followed by total silence, and then she had left London.

Resolutely he got to his feet. He had no reason to remain in Stockholm. It was time to go home, to wait for his next assignment. This had been a turbulent ending to his stay in the Swedish capital; it would be interesting to follow the progress of the police investigation.

He had made a point of staying away from the members of the Solomon Community, visiting the centre only to do his job. Distance was important; he didn’t want to be recognised and remembered.

But that damned feeling kept on coming over him. The same feeling that had stressed him out when it looked as if they weren’t going to find a suitable candidate for the post of head of security. It hovered in the air, hanging over him like an omen of impending doom, an Armageddon that was being held at bay only by the beautiful winter weather that had blessed the city today.

He tried to shake off the sense of unease as he picked up his suitcase and left the room. He went down to the lobby to check out.

The receptionist smiled.

‘There’s a message for you,’ she said, handing him an envelope.

Slowly he put down the case. He stood there holding the letter. Who knew he was here? A few people from the Solomon Community, but they wouldn’t contact him in writing. They would phone him.

Efraim moved away from the desk. With his back to the receptionist, he opened the sealed envelope.

It held only a simple white card. He read the brief message.

What the hell?

This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening.

He read the message over and over again.

‘Excuse me, did you want to check out?’

He turned around in a daze.

‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I’m staying.’

He slipped the card into his pocket, knowing that he wouldn’t need to look at it again to remember what it said.

I heard you were in town.

So am I.

The Paper Boy

Children’s bodies, laid to rest in the cold snow. Fredrika Bergman was standing a short distance away with Alex, trying yet again to understand how someone could believe they had the right to harm other people. Take on the role of the supreme judge, presiding over life and death.

The life and death of children.

She could hardly remember how she and Alex had managed to get from the interviews with the boys’ mothers in Östermalm to the deserted golf course at Drottningholm.

‘I don’t understand this,’ Alex said.

‘Who does?’

‘What the hell are these paper bags supposed to mean?’

When the bags had been removed, there was no longer any doubt. They had found Simon Eisenberg and Abraham Goldmann.

‘They must have some significance for the murderer,’ Fredrika said. ‘But I have no idea what it might be.’

Sometimes a murderer would try to distance himself from his crime by covering the victim’s face, depersonalising him or her. Could it be something along those lines?

She looked at the bags. Brown, sturdy. With big faces drawn on the front.

‘It seems as if whoever shot the boys wanted to tell us something,’ Alex said. ‘With the bags, I mean. Have you checked if there’s anything written on them?’ he asked one of the CSIs.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing. The only thing of interest is the face on each one. I’ll take them back to the lab and check them over.’

They could always hope, of course. With a bit of luck the killer would have suffered an attack of megalomania, and would have left his or her fingerprints all over the thick paper. Or used a very rare pen that would be easy to trace. Somehow.

Fredrika was very downhearted. They wouldn’t find a single thing on those bags; she felt it in every fibre of her body.

‘Is there anything else you can tell us?’ she said. ‘For example, how did the boys get here?’

‘Good question. You can see the boys’ footprints,’ the CSI said, pointing. ‘They ran quite a distance through the forest over there; we’ve been able to follow them all the way to a narrow track that branches off Lovövägen. The most likely scenario is that they managed to escape from their abductor, but I’ve no idea how that happened. Hopefully the forensic pathologist will be able to tell us more on the basis of their injuries.’

Fredrika shuddered. She couldn’t take her eyes off the children’s bare feet in the sparkling snow. Who knew what they had been forced to endure before they managed to get away? And in the end they had both been shot dead.

They must have been terrified.

‘You said you were able to follow their footprints,’ Alex said. ‘That must mean they didn’t get away until it had stopped snowing.’

‘Exactly. The tracks are very clear and well preserved. I think they were running in daylight, with the weather on their side. And the shots were fired less than an hour ago.’

They had been given that information in the car on the way over, along with the news that Säpo had been called out first, because the shots had been heard by the guards in the palace gardens.

‘How much time elapsed between the two shots?’ Fredrika asked.

The CSI frowned and thought for a moment.

‘You’ll have to double-check the witness statements, but I think it was about twenty minutes.’

Alex didn’t say anything, and Fredrika saw his jaw tense as it so often did when he was thinking. Twenty minutes between the shots, yet the boys had gone down fifty metres apart. How was that possible?

‘I can’t make any sense of this,’ Fredrika said.

‘Me neither.’ Alex shook his head. ‘So let’s imagine they managed to get away from whoever abducted them. That they ran off together. Obviously the perpetrator went after them, and…’

He was interrupted by the CSI.

‘They didn’t run together. There’s a whole tangle of footprints among the trees over there. It’s clear that they ran in different directions, but it seems likely that they both spotted the golf course and decided to get out of the forest and head for open ground.’

Fredrika could understand that. A golf course would make them think of some kind of civilisation, the hope of meeting a saviour even though it was the middle of winter. Then again, could you actually tell it was a golf course? She looked around and decided you couldn’t. The flags that normally marked the holes had been removed, and the course resembled nothing more than a gigantic white field.

‘Children act on instinct,’ Alex said. They don’t like dark forests. If they see an alternative, they’ll go for it.’

‘But they would have had more protection in the forest,’ Fredrika objected.

‘I’m not sure they were thinking logically.’

Fredrika thought he was probably right.

‘What can you tell us about the perpetrator’s tracks?’ she said. ‘Or was there more than one?’

She hadn’t really thought about that possibility before she spoke. There could have been more than one person hunting children out on the island.

She and Alex exchanged a look of mutual understanding. The boys might not even have chosen to leave the cover of the trees; they might just as well have been driven out.

But the CSI shook her head.

‘We’ve found prints made by only one pair of shoes. Either we have two killers wearing shoes that are exactly the same size and make, or the children were shot by the same person, which seems more likely.’

The golf course was cold and desolate. Fredrika adjusted her scarf and pulled on her gloves. She wanted to get back in the car, gather her thoughts and digest what she had seen.

The forensic technicians came forward with stretchers. Gently they freed the boys from their icy bed, ready to be transferred to the forensic laboratory in Solna.

‘We need to inform the parents,’ Fredrika said.

She glanced at the police tape that cordoned off the entire area. The first journalists had already appeared. So far all they knew was that shots had been heard in the vicinity of Drottningholm Palace, and that the police had discovered something, but Fredrika was well aware that it was only a matter of time before they learned that the boys had been found.

‘Already in hand,’ Alex said. ‘The mothers are still in the centre, and the fathers have been asked to join them there.’

There were routine procedures for everything, even for the cruellest, most unthinkable news.

Fredrika couldn’t imagine anything worse than being taken aside in the middle of searching for her missing child, and being told that the child was dead.

‘Come on, let’s get back,’ Alex said.

As they turned away, Fredrika couldn’t stop thinking about the paper bags with the faces drawn on them. There must be a message, but she couldn’t see it. Perhaps she wasn’t supposed to; the message could be meant for someone else. In which case the question was whether that person would come forward, or whether he or she would have to be tracked down.

The triumph of good over evil was a recurring theme in the stories Peder Rydh read to his children. It was also a principle that meant a great deal to him.

We get what we deserve.

Past sins may grow old, but they should never be forgotten; there is always time for vengeance.

Just once he had taken on the role of executioner. It had cost him his job, but had probably saved his sanity. He had no idea of what might save Simon and Abraham’s parents.

The boys had been found shot dead, not far from Drottningholm Palace.

In the Solomon Community centre the news was received with shock and sorrow. The silence that followed was so dense that Peder could almost touch it. One by one, the members left. Went home to their families. Back to their lives. Eternally grateful that tragedy had struck someone else and not them.

Peder stayed behind. It was a devastating start to a job that only yesterday had seemed challenging and exciting.

For the second time in as many days, parents from the Solomon Community were being taken to a forensic laboratory to formally identify their dead children. It was incomprehensible.

He found a quiet corner and called Ylva. He wanted to hear her voice, know that she was okay.

‘What’s going on?’ she said.

Anxious.

There was no way she was going to let him drag more crap into their lives. That was what she really wanted to say.

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘Is there a connection? Between what happened yesterday, and this?’

Was there?

The police didn’t seem to think so.

Peder was trying to stay out of the police investigation; he knew he didn’t belong there any more. But if he had still been a serving officer, if he had been a part of Alex’s new team… He would have slammed his fist down on the table.

Because he was convinced the cases were linked.

When he had finished talking to Ylva, he went into the room that had been designated as his office. The security team at the Solomon Community had conducted a parallel interview of their own with everyone who had witnessed the murder of the pre-school teacher after the police had spoken to them. Interview was probably the wrong word; the community didn’t have that kind of authority. But they had talked to the three parents who had been standing next to Josephine, and to the people who had been passing by at the time. They hadn’t spoken to the children.

Peder read through their notes, but found nothing useful.

Frustrated, he went through the material the team had put together, but couldn’t find what he was looking for. How could the community find out what the murder weapon was? Or any details about distance and the trajectory of the bullet? Or if there were any suspects among the victim’s circle of acquaintances?

Actually the media had answered the last question; as usual they had been fed by leaks from within the police. Josephine’s boyfriend had a string of convictions for serious crimes. Peder guessed that the police would conclude that she had been dragged into some kind of transaction, either willingly or under duress, and had ended up as a victim of organised crime.

Peder didn’t agree.

This crime was spectacular. Cocky. As daring as picking up two boys in a car and driving off with them.

What was the best way to proceed? Would he be able to persuade Alex that it was essential for him to sit in on some of their briefings? He needed access to their investigation if he was going to get anywhere.

He broke off his train of thought.

What the fuck was he doing?

He wasn’t going to ‘get anywhere’. He was no longer an investigator, he was head of security. It was time to get to grips with his new job, familiarise himself with his team. The general secretary had had a long conversation with him, explained how the community viewed Peder’s role. He had also explained how the security team worked and what their working routine was.

There was a knock on his door. The sound made him jump and shout ‘Come in’ rather too loudly.

The general secretary came in.

‘I’m extremely concerned,’ he said, closing the door behind him.

Peder listened.

‘Tell me honestly, do you think either of the dreadful crimes that have shaken our community over the past twenty-four hours could be motivated by anti-Semitism? Or could there really be completely different reasons behind them?’

It was a straight question, and it deserved a straight answer. Had Josephine or the two boys been killed because they were Jewish, or not?

‘I can’t tell you that,’ Peder said. ‘I don’t know enough.’

‘What do you think about the police’s main line of enquiry with regard to Josephine? The idea that the murder is linked to her boyfriend?’

Peder didn’t hesitate.

‘I think there’s a different explanation. But once again – I have too little information to draw any conclusions.’

The general secretary gazed at him.

‘In that case I hope you will come up with a way of acquiring more information, because many members of our community are terrified.’

Terrified?

‘Of what?’

‘They are terrified that they or their children are next in line to be executed. Because Josephine, Simon and Abraham were killed by a murderer who will return to our community to seek out further victims.’

So the boys were dead. Hunted down and shot. Alex Recht knew that he couldn’t do anything useful until he had the preliminary report from the forensic pathologist.

Which should tell him how the boys had been killed. And what they had been subjected to before they died.

He thought about the impressions their feet had left in the snow. How far could you run if you were ten years old, barefoot, frozen, and had been awake for hours on end? If you could trust the tracks in the snow, they had got quite a long way.

Alex tried to set aside his own emotional reaction to the case that had landed on his desk. Fredrika had mentioned Lilian Sebastiansson, a little girl who had gone missing from a train one summer’s day a few years ago. Several children had disappeared, and only one had survived, with severe burns. Alex would never forget, because he had been there. Seen the flames burst into life, raced towards the child to save him. His hands still bore the scars.

Was this something similar? Another bloody lunatic going after the youngest, the most vulnerable? Alex looked at the photographs from the edge of the golf course. A fractured pattern of footprints in the snow. Two boys lying on their backs, with paper bags on their heads.

Those fucking bags.

What did they mean?

If it hadn’t been for the faces drawn on them, Alex might have thought the bags were there simply to alleviate the murderer’s sense of regret, or whatever the hell you felt when you had killed two children.

But the faces.

Eyes, nose, mouth. A large mouth. Impossible to tell if it was laughing or screaming.

The paper bags worried him, because they made the whole thing even more sick. And if it was sick, then it was also irrational, which meant there was no way of knowing what to expect.

A ghostly voice whispered in Alex’s ear.

Serial killer.

Were they dealing with a serial killer? If so, there would be more victims. With paper bags pulled over their heads.

But serial killers were unusual. Not even unusual, to be honest. They were virtually non-existent. Not in real life, anyway.

Alex stared at the material in front of him. What did they know, and what could they rule out? To begin with, the gun put paid to the idea that the whole thing could have been a game that had gone wrong. So did the fact that the boys had been missing for a whole night before they died. Nor did it seem like a kidnapping that had gone wrong; the parents hadn’t been contacted. Unless of course they had been contacted, but hadn’t informed the police.

But why would that happen?

Which left two alternatives.

Perhaps the whole thing was a terrible coincidence. The boys had somehow bumped into a killer who had selected his victims on a whim, which meant that any child could have been abducted.

Or those two boys had been deliberately chosen. This seemed more likely to Alex; there was some kind of personal motivation, either directed at the boys themselves, or with the aim of punishing someone else. Their parents, for example.

He dug out his notes from the conversation with Abraham’s friend; Abraham had told him he was getting a lift to his tennis lesson. They were assuming that the killer had picked Abraham up on the street, but it was possible that something had gone wrong, and that Abraham and Simon had been dropped off somewhere else altogether, not outside the tennis centre. And that the person who killed them had picked them up from wherever that might be.

They had so little concrete information.

Alex glanced at his watch. By now the parents would have been informed; he and Fredrika weren’t due to see them until the following day. This would give them more time to formulate the right questions.

He went back to the issue of how well Abraham must have known the driver to jump into that car. It would simplify matters considerably if the boys had been picked up by an acquaintance, because that would almost guarantee that their parents also knew that person.

A teacher, perhaps, or a family friend.

Or one of the parents.

That was another key piece of the puzzle: they needed to check whether all the parents had an alibi for the time when the boys went missing.

Alex’s phone rang, and he felt something akin to relief. He was in danger of getting lost in the labyrinth of his thoughts.

It was Peder Rydh.

‘Am I disturbing you? Have you got five minutes?’

He sounded hesitant, as if he wasn’t sure whether this was a good idea or not.

‘Sure,’ Alex said.

‘Are you still investigating the murder of the teacher at the Solomon school?’

So Peder wanted information.

‘No, it’s been passed on to the National Crime Unit.’

‘Right. To the team dealing with hate crime?’

‘To Organised Crime.’

Silence.

‘You don’t think you’re jumping to conclusions, just because her partner has a criminal record?’ Peder said eventually.

‘What are you trying to say?’

‘In the light of the fact that the boys have now been found dead, I’m just wondering if we can rule out the idea that there might be a connection.’

Had they ruled it out? Alex wasn’t sure. They knew too little; they hadn’t even got details of the murder weapons yet.

‘We’re not ruling anything out,’ he said. ‘But we need more concrete evidence before we can link the two. Both the MO and the choice of victim are very different; there doesn’t have to be a connection.’

‘It depends on your point of view,’ Peder said. ‘You could say there are several similarities between the two incidents. The boys were abducted on the day Josephine was shot. All three were members of the Solomon Community. They were all part of the Solomon school. And all three were shot dead.’

Alex was all too familiar with the energy in Peder’s voice. The hunger, the desire to be right.

‘So you think we’re looking at a hate crime in both cases?’ he asked, sounding angrier than he had intended. ‘I think that’s one hell of a long shot.’

‘That’s not what I’m saying. I just think there’s a connection. And I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that all the victims were Jewish.’

Alex didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to tell Peder that the boys had been found barefoot, with paper bags over their heads. These were clear differences from Josephine’s murder; she had been shot in the street, in broad daylight.

‘One more thing,’ Peder went on. ‘Are you really sure that the right person was shot dead yesterday afternoon?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There were three small children standing next to Josephine when she was shot. The killer might have missed the person he actually intended to kill.’

‘You’re suggesting that one of the children was meant to die?’ Alex said dubiously.

‘Why not? It was two children who were abducted just over an hour later, not adults.’

Alex thought for a moment. Fredrika had said something similar the previous day, wondering whether someone other than Josephine had been the intended victim.

‘I don’t think so,’ he said to Peder. ‘Unless I see some evidence pointing in that direction. Keep in touch; we’ll swap notes if we hear anything new.’

Trying to link the children who had been standing on Nybrogatan with the boys who had been shot near Drottningholm was a dodgy enterprise. On the other hand, they would soon have details of the murder weapons that had extinguished three lives.

If the victims had been shot with the same gun, it would be impossible to deny that the cases were linked.

The gym in the basement of Police HQ was a cavern characterised by too much sweat and adrenalin, and too little brainpower; hard, muscular bodies that happened to bump into one another. Skin against skin, a wry grin over the shoulder, accompanied by a ‘sorry’. Which was all too frequently followed by ‘Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?’ or ‘What are you doing this evening?’

Eden Lundell trained as often as she could, but preferably not among her colleagues. Unfortunately, today she didn’t have time to go anywhere else. Holding herself erect, she walked into the cattle market, saw the male police officers checking her out. Someone had tried to chat her up just once; it hadn’t ended well. Eden didn’t appreciate uninvited attention.

Her feet thudded against the hard surface of the treadmill. She couldn’t forget the boys she had seen lying in the snow, even though it wasn’t Säpo’s case. She had heard Alex Recht’s name mentioned just before they left, and had considered staying around to see him. They had been in touch several times during the autumn, above all when Alex had needed help to bring his son home from the USA after the hijacking of Flight 573. She was happy to do whatever she could; Alex was an excellent police officer, and would have been invaluable if Säpo had been able to recruit him. However, he wasn’t interested, and that was that. Not everyone loved the world of secrets.

The sweat was trickling down her back.

Step by step she whipped the stress out of her body.

Efraim was back in Stockholm.

There was no end to it.

Eden’s hatred burned with undiminished strength. She couldn’t bear to hear his name, to know that he was anywhere near her. She had too many memories. Too many – and too good, unfortunately. It had started out as an affair, and grown into something else, something that began to seem serious, leaving her in despair.

And she had forced herself to answer the biggest question of all:

Was she prepared to leave Mikael for Efraim?

Eden increased her pace on the treadmill. Faster, faster. She refused to remember her answer. Refused to remember what she had been ready to pay for something that had turned out to be nothing more than thin air.

I could have left. I could have lost everything and gained nothing.

She had taken another call from the Solomon Community just before she came down to the gym.

The situation was desperate, the person on the other end of the line had said. They could be looking at a serial killer, handpicking his victims among the members of the community.

Eden thought that was unlikely. Admittedly she knew only what she had read in the newspapers and what she had seen with her own eyes out on the island, but that was enough. At the moment there was no evidence to suggest that it was the same murderer. The fact that the crimes had been committed within such a short space of time looked like no more than an unfortunate coincidence.

But what if it wasn’t?

Eden ran faster.

If it wasn’t, if someone really was selecting members of the Solomon Community as his targets, then it could only end in an even greater disaster.

Efraim popped into her head again.

Fuck, this had to stop.

She was going out of her mind.

Eden had confessed everything to Buster Hansson, the general director of Säpo, that autumn night when the situation became critical. She had almost lost her job, because it looked as if she was working as an agent for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. That was bad. It didn’t get much worse.

And it had happened before.

She had been working for MI5, the British intelligence service, and had been regarded as one of the organisation’s top operatives. She had met Mikael in London, where he had been working as a priest in the Swedish church. Eden had fallen fast and hard for his charisma and his unshakeable belief that he could make her whole. Their first year together had been good. Then Efraim Kiel came into the picture, and everything changed.

So many lies.

So many secret trysts in cheap hotel rooms, and eventually a trip all the way to Israel.

Just to be with Efraim.

Because she had fallen for him too. She had believed they had met by chance, brought together by an invisible, magical hand. But that wasn’t the case. Everything had been planned in advance, down to the smallest detail. Eden had been no more than a counter in a game so meticulously worked out that the very thought of it made her shudder.

Efraim had tried to deny everything. Sworn that he had meant everything he said, everything he did, that she was important to him, that they still had the chance of a future together.

Bullshit.

She had told Buster Hansson all this – more than she had told Mikael, in fact. A lot more.

However, she had kept one thing to herself. The grubbiest truth of all, the one that could still make her hate herself. These days she thought about it less and less often, but she didn’t believe she would ever have real peace of mind.

Never.

Because she didn’t deserve it.

She stepped off the treadmill. Saw two well-built men helping each other on the bench press. Men did stuff together. That’s the way it had always been.

She picked up her bag and slipped out of the gym. Went into the changing room and took out her phone. One missed call, from Mikael. If he had rung to discuss the trip he had mentioned, she would go crazy. She had a job to do, terrorists to keep in check. And incoming agents to deal with.

Unfortunately it wasn’t possible to refer to Efraim in any other way.

And she wanted the bastard out of the country. Out of her life.

Once and for all.

A clear blue sky, cold air. Efraim Kiel was strolling along Strandvägen, wondering whether he could be bothered to get annoyed with the Säpo agents who insisted on shadowing him. They didn’t seem very bright. He had been in Sweden for several days before they realised he had entered the country, and decided that perhaps they ought to keep an eye on him.

Being followed was a bit of a nuisance, but not unmanageable. Efraim would have no problem in shaking them off. He had already done it twice, and could do so again if necessary. But not too often; it was important to give them the impression that they were on top of things.

He was more worried about the fact that the person who had left the envelope at reception had tracked him down.

He had asked the receptionist who had brought it in, demanded a description, but he had been unable to get anything out of her. She just couldn’t remember, nor could any other member of staff. The lobby was covered by CCTV, but they refused to let him look at the film. If that was how they wanted it, Efraim was happy to play along. He knew how to get hold of information without first asking permission; when evening came he would take what he wanted.

Unconsciously he was heading towards the Solomon Community. They would be surprised to see him; they thought he had gone home.

The short lines on the card inside the envelope were still reverberating in his brain. The message was written in Hebrew, and was clearly meant for Efraim’s eyes only.

Feeling frustrated, he increased his speed. His Säpo followers kept pace like nonchalant shadows, naively convinced that he hadn’t noticed them.

What the hell did this person who called himself the Paper Boy want?

Efraim had several problems that he wasn’t yet sure how to solve. He had to find out more about the murders that had shaken the Solomon Community. See how far the police had got, what they knew about the three deaths. But he had no sources within the Swedish police. Eden was a last resort, of course, but she was with Säpo, and had nothing to do with these investigations.

The very thought of Eden stressed him out.

The Paper Boy; was he a mutual acquaintance? He didn’t think so.

Efraim rarely felt uneasy. Years of training and experience had prepared him for most of what life had to offer, but not the sort of challenges the Paper Boy posed.

He would have to make sure that he didn’t lose his grip. The mere fact that he was actually thinking of the Paper Boy as a real person was ominous.

You don’t exist, he thought, clutching the note in his pocket.

Although he couldn’t be certain.

He knew of two Paper Boys; it depended which of them had contacted him. The one who was a myth, or the one who had once existed.

He had reached the community centre on Nybrogatan. He stopped in the street and stared at the door of the Solomon school, where the teacher had been killed. There were no traces of yesterday’s drama to be seen; last night’s storm had very efficiently swept away all the bloodstained snow. He moved closer to the building, examining the facade.

It didn’t take him long to find the spot where the bullet had penetrated the wall. It wasn’t there now, of course; the police had removed it and taken it away. But the hole was still there, and it was lower down than Efraim had expected.

If the killer had been lying on the roof on the opposite side of the street, he would have had a pretty good chance of being able to see what he was doing and to hit his target – assuming that he was a good shot, which Efraim took as read. Otherwise no one would attempt this kind of attack. Not in the middle of a snowstorm.

He squatted down, ran his hand over the wall. Josephine had been surrounded by children when she was killed. Shot in the back. Had she been standing upright, or bending down? Perhaps she had been about to kneel down to help one of the children with something? The newspapers hadn’t given any details, but nor could they be expected to.

Was the bullet really meant for Josephine?

Or for one of the children?

Reluctantly his thoughts returned to the Paper Boy.

Was it you who did this?

He was overwhelmed by a sense of impotence. Had he misunderstood who the message was from?

Efraim had no specialist knowledge of the Paper Boy, but two things he did know:

First of all, he always left a calling card when he had taken a victim.

And secondly, he took only children.

Concentrating on the pattern of footprints and impressions left by shoes in the snow quickly became confusing. It was possible to track two sets of children’s bare feet, and one set of adult boots. Size 43, so probably a man’s. CSI thought they had found the place where the boys had managed to escape from their abductor, but how the children had got there remained a mystery.

Fredrika Bergman frowned as she looked at the documents in front of her: a map, photographs and scribbled notes.

A theory was beginning to take shape. The boys had been taken to Lovön by car. At the moment it wasn’t clear whether the perpetrator had a specific link to the island; nor did they know where he and the children had spent the night. CSI had found evidence to suggest that a larger vehicle had been in the area where they thought the boys had escaped. The width of the tyre tracks and the size of the wheelbase indicated that this was some kind of van.

So the boys had been driven to the spot.

But how had they managed to escape?

Fredrika just couldn’t work it out, but it must have happened somehow. The boys had fled and sought refuge among the trees; it looked as if they had run around in circles. In certain places they appeared to have knelt down, or even lain on the snow beneath the trees. They had presumably hidden behind the tree trunks, watching out for whoever was chasing them. But why had neither of them got away? If only they had set off in different directions, then the killer wouldn’t have been able to go after both of them at the same time.

Fredrika reminded herself that they were children. And that they had been barefoot, frozen, exhausted and terrified.

They must have been so cold.

She looked at her watch. Their first team meeting was due to begin shortly.

Reluctantly she had begun to take an interest in the boys’ fathers, the men who had driven around and around the city searching for their sons while the mothers stayed in the community centre, calling friends and acquaintances.

Both men worked in security. Simon’s father was a specialist in IT security, Abraham’s in personal protection. Fredrika rapidly came to the conclusion that she was in the wrong job. Abraham’s father had successfully built up a company with something in the region of fifteen employees, offering security packages to everyone from embassies to small and medium-sized enterprises. Fredrika glanced at the homepage and wondered what kind of background you needed to start a business like that. She must remember to ask.

Simon’s mother was an architect, while Abraham’s mother worked for her husband. That was all Fredrika managed to find out.

Both families had a fascinating background. They had moved to Sweden in 2002; again, this was something worth asking about. Why would someone move from Israel to Stockholm?

She found the pictures the parents had given to the police while they still believed that the children were alive; she gazed at the boys with their serious expressions for a long time.

Now they were gone.

She felt as if the photographs were burning her fingers. Who would target children, hunt them down and shoot them?

A thought came and went, and disappeared so quickly that she didn’t have time to catch it. She put down the pictures of the boys and dug out the photos of the place where they had been found.

They were missing something vital. Something the tracks in the snow were telling them.

Alex opened her door. ‘We’re about to make a start,’ he said.

She got up and followed him down the corridor, still thinking about those footprints in the snow. Eventually she had to try to put her thoughts into words.

‘Alex, the boys’ footprints in the snow.’

He looked at her.

‘Yes?’

They stopped outside the meeting room – no longer the Lions’ Den. They were one floor higher up these days, and the room was known as the Snakes’ Nest. Fredrika presumed someone had come up with the name in connection with a Christmas party or some similar occasion; she much preferred the Lions’ Den.

‘I think we’re on the wrong track – no pun intended.’

‘In what way?’

‘We’re assuming that Simon and Abraham managed to escape from their abductor, and that he chased them through the forest and out towards the golf course, where he shot them dead. But why was there a gap of twenty minutes between the two shots? And why did the one who was shot last leave the forest, if he had seen his friend go down?’

‘Because they’re children,’ Alex said, then immediately corrected himself. ‘They were children. The one who was still alive could have run over to the one who was shot first, thinking that something could be done.’

‘But twenty minutes is a long time.’

‘The second one might have stayed in the forest for a while before he broke cover. We did see indentations behind several trees, remember.’

Fredrika shook her head.

‘Even if the snowstorm had eased by the time they took off, it was still minus five out there. And they were barefoot. That means it would be impossible to lie still in the snow for twenty minutes, then start running.’

Why had no one seen anything?

It was hard to believe that two boys could have been running for their lives so close to Sweden’s head of state, and no one had seen or heard a thing.

Alex opened the door of the Snakes’ Nest.

‘They ran away and they were shot down,’ he said. ‘What else is there to say?’

It was obvious that he wanted to bring the discussion to an end, and Fredrika had to admit he was right; what else was there to say?

There was only one alternative to Alex’s brief summary of events, and it was totally improbable.

What if the boys hadn’t managed to escape, but had been released?

If that was the case, then why?

The Snakes’ Nest was a really bad name for a meeting room. It carried overtones of a sex club rather than an appropriate venue for a collection of highly skilled investigators. Apart from that, Alex Recht felt entirely at home in the room, because it looked exactly the same as the Lions’ Den.

He recognised everyone, but hadn’t worked with all of them in the past. Everyone introduced themselves briefly, and once again Alex thought back to his former team. There had never been any problem when it came to bringing in additional resources for high-priority cases, and the same applied this time.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Two young boys, Simon Eisenberg and Abraham Goldmann, were abducted in Östermalm yesterday afternoon when they were on their way to a tennis coaching session. Today they were found shot dead in the vicinity of Drottningholm Golf Club. We know that Simon was waiting for Abraham at a bus stop on Karlavägen, and we know that when Abraham was speaking to another friend on the phone, he said he had to end the call because he’d been offered a lift to the tennis centre. The weather was terrible yesterday, so I don’t think either of the boys would need to be asked more than once if they would like a lift rather than waiting for the bus – with the proviso that they knew the driver, which we believe they did.’

‘Do we know anything about the car that picked them up?’ a colleague on loan from the National Crime Unit asked.

‘No.’

‘Any thoughts about who might have been driving?’

‘No, again. We might have a better idea when we’ve spoken to the parents.’

‘But we think the person who picked them up is the same person who shot them?’

‘That’s our working hypothesis at the moment,’ Alex said.

He looked around the room: representatives from CSI and several investigators.

‘We’re expecting the post mortem report later, but the forensic pathologist has provided us with some key information that we need to take into account at this stage. First of all, there is no sign of sexual interference with either of the boys.’

A collective sigh of relief, as if such a crime wouldn’t have been eclipsed by the fact that they had been murdered. But in principle Alex felt the same; it was good to know that the children had been spared that ordeal.

‘Secondly, there are no defensive injuries whatsoever. There are no indications that they have been fighting, or that they have been hit. No bruises. However, they do have cuts and scratches on their feet and ankles from running through the forest.’

‘But how did they manage to get away from their abductor?’ asked a woman who hadn’t managed to get a place at the table, but was sitting in a corner.

‘We don’t know,’ Alex replied. ‘On the other hand, I’m sure none of us seriously believes that two ten-year-old boys managed to knock down an adult male who wears size 43 shoes.’

The room fell silent.

‘Have we heard anything about the murder weapon?’ someone asked.

‘Later this afternoon.’

‘Are we ruling out a link between this case and the shooting of the pre-school teacher?’

‘We’re not ruling out anything until we know for certain,’ Alex said. ‘The priority is to compare the murder weapons as soon as the information comes through.’

And then, he thought, we have to rule out the possibility that the shot fired from the roof the previous day might have been meant for one of the children standing next to Josephine. Or their parents.

The pressure was mounting. They had a lot to do.

‘I need hardly point out that we have major gaps in our knowledge at the moment,’ Alex said. ‘We know when the boys went missing and when they were found, but we have no idea where they were in the interim period, or what they were subjected to. Nor do we know if it’s pure chance that they were shot on the golf course, or if the location was chosen deliberately.’

‘So we’re sure they were shot there and not somewhere else, then moved to the spot where the bodies were found?’ a colleague asked.

Alex nodded to one of the CSIs to take over.

‘Based on their footprints in the snow, we have been able to conclude that they were shot where they lay. The bullets were fired from the front, and hit them in the chest. We found them lying on their backs, and there is nothing to suggest that they were moved even a millimetre. Then there are the larger prints in the snow. Shoes – men’s size and style. They show that the killer went over to the victims after he had shot them, probably to check that they were actually dead, and to put the paper bags over their heads.’

Fredrika raised her hand.

‘What else can you tell us about these larger prints? The pattern of movement in relation to the boys’ footprints?’

The question made the CSI lean over and confer with a colleague before he answered.

‘Actually, when it comes to the adult’s tracks we have come across a number of things we’re finding puzzling. It’s clear that the boys ran back and forth and around in circles in the forest; the man seems to have followed them at a distance, never getting very close. It doesn’t look as if he was moving as fast as the boys. The footprints are very distinct; the snow hasn’t been kicked up and scuffed, which is what happens when you run fast.’

A murmur spread around the room, but Alex didn’t take his eyes off Fredrika. He had seen her looking exactly like this on so many occasions: on full alert, right down to her fingertips. She was formulating a new theory. Alex realised he was smiling. She obviously hadn’t lost her edge while she’d been away.

‘Exactly how did he move around the bodies? Can you explain?’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, can you tell how he acted after he’d shot the first child? Did he go up to the body at that point, or did he wait until he’d shot them both?’

The CSI nodded to show he’d understood.

‘That’s another anomaly,’ he said. ‘It looks as if the killer went up to the children separately. There are no tracks linking the bodies, nothing to indicate that he walked from one to the other. One could therefore conclude that he shot one of the boys, went over to the body, then went all the way back to the track, where we think his vehicle was parked. This may have been to reload his gun, but that’s just a theory. Then it looks as if he came back out of the forest.’

‘Drove out the second child, and shot him when he was fifty metres from his friend,’ Fredrika said.

‘That is a possible scenario.’

Alex tried to process what he was hearing. A man walking purposefully among snow-covered trees. A man who didn’t appear to be in any hurry. Who didn’t leave until he had finished what he had set out to achieve.

What he had set out to achieve.

Bloody hell.

The realisation struck Alex like a punch in the face.

Fredrika put his thoughts into words:

‘I don’t think the boys escaped. I think he let them go. One at a time. Then he pursued his prey, like a hunter. The paper bags over their heads aren’t necessarily a hidden message meant for a particular recipient; they could just as easily be his calling card.’

The meeting had lasted no longer than fifteen minutes, but it had stirred things up for Peder Rydh. Efraim Kiel had come to see him. In spite of the fact that he had appeared calm and collected, Peder had sensed an air of frustration, a degree of stress that he couldn’t quite figure out.

Kiel asked questions about the murdered teacher and the boys; wondered if there was any information about whether the killer had marked his victims, or left some kind of calling card at the scenes of the crimes. He was particularly interested in the murder of Josephine.

Peder was surprised and confused.

A calling card?

Not that he’d heard of, no.

But if that was the case, he was certain the police would keep quiet about that particular detail. It could jeopardise the entire investigation if there was a leak about what made this killer unique.

‘I do realise that,’ Efraim Kiel said. ‘But I’m not asking you what you’ve read in the online press, but what you’ve found out from your former colleagues.’

‘Next to nothing,’ Peder replied.

Truthfully.

‘Well, I suggest you contact someone you can trust and find out how far they’ve got. Because we need that information.’

Do we?

Peder didn’t like Kiel’s tone of voice, and nor did he understand what ‘we’ meant. Wasn’t Kiel supposed to have gone home by now?

Then Kiel asked what Peder thought about the two cases.

‘Are they connected?’ he said.

Peder hesitated. How much did he dare say?

‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘We can’t rule out the possibility that the bullet was meant for someone else.’

Efraim Kiel looked pleased.

Satisfied.

‘I agree. It would be unfortunate if any other members of the community died just because we ignored the obvious, wouldn’t you say?’

It wasn’t a question.

It felt more like a threat.

‘Of course,’ Peder agreed, trying to sound as if he was on top of things, as if he understood the background to their conversation. Which he didn’t. Not at all.

‘I’ll be staying in town for a while,’ Efraim Kiel said finally. ‘And while I’m here we’ll be working together. Understood?’

Peder understood. He nodded, got to his feet and shook hands.

He understood that he didn’t understand people like Kiel, that he had never been a part of that world. And when he was alone in his office with a cup of coffee a little while later, he couldn’t help wondering: Why was someone like Efraim Kiel interested in the murder of a teacher and two boys in Stockholm?

Peder thought about going home. The working day was over; the phone had stopped ringing. There was a high level of anxiety among the members of the community; people had started asking whether they ought to keep their children off school. Peder didn’t think that was necessary.

There were two inquisitive journalists for every anxious parent. In the police service such calls went straight to the information unit, but at the Solomon Community Peder was expected to deal with them personally. When it came to that particular aspect of his job, he felt weak and inadequate. And he had absolutely no patience.

And then there was Efraim Kiel, asking questions about calling cards at the scene of the crime. Why hadn’t he gone back to Israel as planned? Peder didn’t like the feeling that someone was keeping an eye on him, questioning his actions. However, was it advisable to fall out with a man like Efraim Kiel over the issue?

He thought not.

It was almost six o’clock, and Eden Lundell was already on the way home to her family. She was feeling better since she had been to see GD and demanded to know what they were going to do about Efraim Kiel.

‘We have to be patient,’ GD had said. ‘Wait for him to make a mistake. So far all he’s done is move between his hotel and the Solomon Community in Östermalm. We can hardly deport him for that.’

From a logical point of view Eden knew that GD was absolutely right, but on a more emotional level, it wasn’t enough. She knew both Efraim and his employer, Mossad. Something was going on, otherwise he wouldn’t have stayed for so long.

She was a little calmer after speaking to a former colleague in the National Crime Unit; he had been in touch with the Solomon Community because of the murdered teacher, and told her that the community was in the process of appointing a new head of security. That sounded like something Efraim might be involved in.

But guesses weren’t enough for Eden. She wanted to know exactly what she was talking about. The simplest method would be to confront him, of course, demand an answer. But could she really do that? Did she have the strength to see him?

I don’t think so.

It took her less than fifteen minutes to walk from Police HQ at Polhemsgatan 30 to their apartment on Sankt Eriksplan.

‘Perfect,’ Mikael had said when they first went to see it. We’ll be able to walk to Vasa Park with the girls.’

Eden had been taken aback, then she had burst out laughing.

‘Of course we will, darling,’ she had said, squeezing his hand.

In spite of the fact that they both knew that the only person who would be taking the girls to the park was Mikael.

A wonderful aroma filled her nostrils as she opened the front door.

Her daughters were drawn to the sound of her key in the lock like iron filings to a magnet. They raced into the hallway and hurled themselves at her. Eden opened her arms and gave them a big hug.

You do know I love you, even though I rarely say it out loud?

Twin girls. Non-identical in appearance, and even more different when it came to their personality. Saba was like Eden, spirited and straight-backed, stubborn and uncompromising. She even looked like a copy of her mother. Dani, on the other hand… Sometimes it actually hurt when Eden looked at the child who had been born fourteen minutes after her sister.

Because Dani was a carbon copy of the twins’ father.

But Eden was the only one who could see it.

The apartment was almost completely silent when Fredrika Bergman got home. The only sound came from the TV in the living room. For a moment she was gripped by an illogical fear that something had happened.

‘Hello?’ she said, when she had hung up her coat and taken off her boots.

She walked quickly down the hallway, glanced into the kitchen, which was empty.

Her son came rushing towards her out of nowhere. He was grinning from ear to ear and babbling at the top of his voice. He was a clever boy, but unfortunately he couldn’t talk yet.

She picked him up and held him tight. Inhaled the smell of him, stroked his hair. Tried not to think about the boys she had seen lying in the snow that morning. Tomorrow the parents would be interviewed again. A colleague had asked a few brief questions when they were informed of the deaths; neither family had been able to think of a single person who would have any reason to do this to them. And both couples had alibis for the time when the boys went missing. That was enough to begin with.

Saga came racing after her little brother.

‘Daddy’s reading us a story,’ she said.

Fredrika bent down, put an arm around her and kissed her cheek.

‘Lovely,’ she said.

Saga took her hand, pulling Fredrika towards her bedroom.

Spencer was sitting on his daughter’s bed with a book of fairy tales on his knee. He looked abandoned. His silver-grey hair was sticking up, and his shirt was creased.

A mature parent of two small children.

‘Hi,’ she said.

‘Hi yourself,’ he said, looking up.

They smiled at one another.

She moved towards the bed, and Saga immediately scrambled up and onto Spencer’s lap. Fredrika put down her son, who crawled under his daddy’s arm. Fredrika joined them on the edge of the bed.

If I wasn’t around, would he be able to bring them up himself?

‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said. ‘Have you eaten?’

It was only six thirty, but the children ate early.

‘We had macaroni and sausage an hour ago. There’s some left if you want it.’

She did. She got up and went into the kitchen, took out a plate and filled it with food from the pans on the hob. As she warmed it in the microwave, she allowed herself to reflect on the small things that they had lost since having children. There had been a time when they ate only delicacies and drank obscenely expensive wines when they got together. On the other hand, back then they had had nothing else apart from the food and wine.

If she was forced to lose her current life…

If someone took her children away…

Would she be able to replace them with a good cheese and a glass of fine wine?

She swallowed hard. Some things couldn’t be changed; it went against nature. These days she couldn’t care less what she ate, just as long as her family was alive and healthy.

She tried to make sense of all the images that had come crowding in during the day. The boys who had died, their grieving parents. And she still couldn’t shake off the feeling that they had overlooked something, that the material they had to work on was somehow too much and yet at the same time, too little.

We’re missing something, she thought again. Something fundamental and important. Something to do with the Eisenberg and Goldmann families. And the paper bags. The killer’s calling card. Suddenly Fredrika was convinced that there would be more victims. She just didn’t know when.

Alex wasn’t really a fan of unwritten rules, particularly as they usually passed him by and made him appear clumsy and insensitive. Which he wasn’t. But there was one rule that he always observed to the letter: the one that said he wasn’t allowed to talk about work at home if the case involved children or young people who had died or been mistreated.

The background to this rule was both simple and painful. That was how he and Diana had met; he had been investigating her daughter’s disappearance. He had promised Diana that he would never stop looking, that he would make sure she got her daughter back. Which she did. But it took three years before he found the place where her killer had laid her to rest.

So Alex didn’t mention the two boys when he got home.

‘Have you had a good day?’ Diana said as they stood in the kitchen with a glass of wine.

‘Absolutely,’ Alex said, taking a sip.

She stroked his arm.

‘Could you make a salad?’

‘Of course.’

If his children could see him now… Over all the years he had been married to their mother, they had never seen him make a salad. Or anything else, for that matter. Lena had taken care of all the cooking, along with everything else in the household.

At an early stage Diana had made it clear that she didn’t want things to be that way. She wanted them to build and look after their home together. They had never argued about it; he had simply fallen in with her wishes. He was still embarrassed to think about how he had let Lena fight to keep the home and family running smoothly while he worked.

‘It doesn’t matter whether you get home at six o’clock or ten o’clock,’ Diana had said. ‘I’ll wait for you, and we’ll eat when you get in. And it will be a meal that we have prepared together.’

Simple and fair. A routine he had grown to love.

But the boys with the paper bags over their heads refused to leave him in peace. They were in his thoughts as he washed rocket leaves and sliced tomatoes.

Just before he left work he had received the news he had been dreading. The news he didn’t want to hear.

The boys had been shot with the same gun as the preschool teacher. Therefore there was an undeniable connection between the two cases.

And outside the snow began to fall once more.