The Chosen

EARLIER

So many loose ends, so many roads that led nowhere. Alex Recht couldn’t settle. Not at night, not during the day.

‘Are you going in to work?’ Diana had said when he slipped out of bed and started to get dressed.

Alex had always worn pyjamas during his marriage to Lena; with Diana he slept naked, except when the grandchildren stayed over. Then he dug out an old pair of ugly PJs, as his son put it.

‘I’ve got a few things to sort out,’ Alex had replied.

Diana had looked disappointed. She had thought they could take their cross-country skis and drive up to Nacka, which wasn’t a bad idea. The weather had once again changed from foul to fantastic; the sun was shining with every scrap of its winter strength, and the snow looked like stiffly whipped meringue.

But Alex couldn’t bring himself to take the day off and go skiing, because in that same stiffly whipped meringue they had found two murdered children just days earlier. So work had to come first, particularly as Fredrika Bergman was flying out to Israel the very next day. Alex had to get in touch with his Israeli colleagues and set up a collaborative process that Fredrika could tap into.

He had spoken to the National Crime Unit the previous evening; they already had a network of contacts with Israel, and had set the ball rolling. The prosecutor liked the direction the investigation was taking. He had great confidence in what he referred to as ‘the Israeli lead’, and thought Fredrika would solve the whole thing in just a couple of days. Alex was rather more doubtful. The case had started to look like a jigsaw, with far too many of those involved claiming too great a share of the pieces available.

For example, Abraham and Simon’s parents were withholding information that Alex needed, which was why Fredrika was going all the way to Israel. But Alex had no intention of giving in so easily. He called Gideon and Carmen Eisenberg and asked them to stay at home for the next few hours.

‘I’m coming over; I need answers to one or two additional questions.’

‘Have you made a breakthrough in the case?’ Gideon wanted to know.

His voice was strained and weary; it belonged to a man going through hell, and Alex’s call had clearly ignited a spark of hope.

‘We’ll talk about that when I see you,’ Alex said.

He wasn’t prepared to have that kind of conversation over the phone. When he had finished speaking to Gideon Eisenberg, he called Fredrika.

‘I’m going to show the parents the pictures of the boys when we found them,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘We have to find out the significance of those paper bags over their heads.’

‘Are you going to tell them about the bag that was sent to the school as well?’

‘No. They might hear about it anyway, through the Solomon Community, but as far as I’m concerned the most important thing is to see if those damned bags mean something to the parents.’

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ Fredrika asked.

‘Thanks, but no – there’s no need.’

Then he changed his mind.

‘Actually, yes, if you’ve got time. It might be useful for you to talk to the Eisenbergs before you go off tomorrow.’

He could hear the sound of children’s voices in the background, and felt guilty; why hadn’t he told her to stay at home? However, he needed her – more than ever. The team must be expanded as soon as possible, with permanent members; they couldn’t carry on like this.

‘No problem,’ Fredrika said. ‘I’ll meet you in the car park.’

Alex threw down his mobile. They had three key questions for the parents: did they know who the Lion was, had their sons met him, and could they explain the background to the paper bags?

He hoped to come away with at least an embryonic lead.

As far as the Lion was concerned, Alex was surprised they had found so little to go on. The boys’ email accounts and their conversations on Super Troopers had been checked, and it appeared that Simon and Abraham had never communicated with one another about the Lion, not once. That didn’t mean they hadn’t spoken about him in school or over the phone, of course, but there was nothing at all in their online messages.

To be on the safe side, he went through the material one more time. The Lion had contacted the boys about three weeks ago. He wanted to meet them to discuss their sporting ambitions and his tennis academy. Grants for short training courses at international schools had also been mentioned.

Surely the boys’ parents must have known about that?

He went through the latest material, and established that the analysis of the traffic on the boys’ mobiles had also failed to generate anything useful. There wasn’t a single call to or from an unknown individual. Every person on the list was a friend from school or the tennis centre, a parent, or another relative.

Fuck.

He made a note to pass on a list of Simon and Abraham’s school friends to the technicians who were analysing the telephone traffic; it was worth checking whether the Lion had contacted anyone else. Maybe they could track his communication, if that was possible. Now that he was no longer active on the forum, perhaps that information was no longer available.

The phone on his desk rang just as he was about to go down to the car park. It was a colleague from the National Crime Unit.

‘I thought you’d be in today, somehow.’

‘Hard to avoid it under the circumstances,’ Alex said, thinking briefly of Diana. He pictured her gliding along on her skis, and wished he was by her side. With a bit of luck the snow would linger, and they would be able to go another day.

‘I’m calling about the murder of the schoolteacher,’ his colleague said.

‘Yes?’

‘It’s about the tracks on the roof where we think the sniper was lying.’

‘You mean the tracks that had almost been blown away or covered in snow by the time we got there?’

The weather had definitely not been on their side.

‘Exactly. The footprints were useless; the weather had more or less destroyed them. The only thing CSI would say with any certainty was that the large imprint must have been left by the perpetrator’s body. Indentations in the snow showed where the knees and elbows had been placed.’

Alex already knew this, but he assumed there was more to come.

‘You found some footprints out at Drottningholm as well, I believe? Size 43 shoes, if my information is correct.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And this is where things get weird,’ his colleague said. ‘Because even taking into account the fact that the imprint on the roof had been affected by the wind and the fresh fall of snow, we have been able to establish that the person in question can’t possibly have been any taller than one metre seventy.’

This was unexpected.

‘You mean that someone of that height wouldn’t be wearing size 43 shoes?’

‘I mean it seems highly unlikely,’ his colleague said. ‘And the footprints we found support that view.’

‘I thought you said they were no use?’

‘It was impossible to secure a cast of the sole, for example. However, CSI were able to get a rough idea of the size.’

Alex pressed the receiver to his ear.

‘And?’

The tension in his voice was clear.

‘There is no possibility whatsoever that those prints were made by someone wearing a size 43. According to CSI’s calculations, the maximum length of the shoe was twenty-five centimetres. Which means that the perpetrator’s feet were a centimetre or so shorter than that. Which means that the person who lay on the roof and fired the gun was wearing shoes somewhere between size 36 and 38.’

Alex sat motionless in his chair.

He thought about the killer who had settled down on the roof and shot his victim through the falling snow. A killer who was no more than one metre seventy tall, and whose feet were small enough to fit into a pair of size 38 shoes.

A killer who could be a woman.

The toboggans crunched in the snow as they walked through Vasa Park, heading for the hill behind the playground. Eden Lundell was towing one toboggan, her husband the other, a little girl riding on each one. Mikael was holding her hand, and she hadn’t pulled it away. It was his day today. The weather had been kind to him, and he deserved to play happy families.

In Stockholm the sun was shining, but in London they had sleet and high winds. All flights had been postponed, and Eden wouldn’t be able to get away before evening at the earliest.

‘There you go,’ Mikael had said when she told him. ‘Sometimes things just sort themselves out.’

Eden had no idea what he thought had sorted itself out; she wasn’t going to be home any sooner just because her flight was delayed.

However, it was too nice a day to argue, so she didn’t object when Mikael suggested an outing to the park. Instead she packed sausages and rolls and drinks in a rucksack and pulled on her thermal tights. The food was Mikael’s idea; he claimed there were big outdoor barbecues in the park for public use. Eden knew nothing about that kind of stuff.

The rucksack bounced against her back as they walked along. So at last the day had come: Eden was going to Vasa Park. She almost thought it might be fun.

Her daughters were thrilled when they realised where they were going, and their laughter warmed Eden’s heart. Sometimes she did the right thing. It was important to remember that.

From time to time Mikael said hello to people they met. People Eden didn’t recognise. When he spoke to a tall dark woman who gave him a big smile, Eden felt something she hadn’t experienced for a very long time. Jealousy.

‘Who the hell was that?’ she said.

The tone of voice and choice of words gave her away. Mikael couldn’t help smiling.

‘Jealous?’

‘Of course not. I just wondered who she was.’

‘A colleague.’

Eden forced herself to keep on walking.

‘A colleague?’

‘Yes.’

‘You mean she plays the organ or something?’

Mikael’s laughter rang out across the park.

‘For fuck’s sake, pull yourself together,’ Eden said, punching him on the arm.

‘You pull yourself together! Plays the organ – what the hell are you talking about?’

‘Well, answer me then – and stop swearing!’

‘Me stop swearing?!’

‘Don’t change the subject.’

Mikael let go of her hand, and for a fraction of a second Eden felt the ground give way beneath her feet.

You’re not going to leave me, are you?

But Mikael wasn’t the kind of man to leave the woman he loved. Instead he put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a big hug. Bigger than she deserved.

Eden slipped her arm around his waist.

‘So who is she?’

‘She’s a priest.’

‘In your church?’

‘No.’

‘Do you find her attractive?’

Mikael laughed again, quietly this time.

‘Do you?’

‘What do you want me to say?’ he said.

‘How about: “No, she’s the ugliest woman I’ve ever seen”.’

He kissed her cheek.

‘I think she’s gorgeous,’ he said.

Eden couldn’t believe how much energy was contained in a child’s body. She lost count of the number of times the girls ran up the hill to slide down again. At one metre eighty, she felt like a giant among all the children.

‘Again!’

Dani grabbed Eden’s hand and dragged her along. Her hat had slipped to one side and she had taken off her gloves, which dangled from the sleeves of her snowsuit. Eden picked her up and carried her off to the side.

‘Put me down!’

The child kicked out at Eden, who was determined to have her way.

‘Quiet! We’ll go back up as soon as you put on your gloves, okay?’

She put her daughter down on one of the wooden picnic tables. Eden’s stomach rumbled as she thought about grilled sausages; she was getting hungry.

As she was helping Dani with her gloves, she detected a movement in her peripheral vision. Or rather a lack of movement. Someone was standing in the snow, watching her.

Slowly she turned her head.

And there he was.

Efraim.

Less than ten metres away.

No, no, no.

She could do nothing about her reaction. She stood there as if she was frozen to the spot, in front of her daughter with one glove in her hand.

They stood in silence staring at one another, Efraim and Eden. If she hadn’t had Dani with her, she would have done what she didn’t do the last time she saw him. She would have hurled herself at him, knocked him to the ground.

‘Mummy?’

Dani’s voice sounded so far away.

Oh God, Dani.

With a start Eden woke from her trance and looked away from Efraim.

Got to get away got to get away got to get away.

He mustn’t see her.

Please, please, please God, don’t let him see her.

She picked up her daughter and began to back away. She had to get out of here.

But it was too late. That was obvious when she glanced in his direction. His expression had changed from indifference to something that resembled a mixture of shock and horror.

He was looking at Dani.

Staring at Dani.

He couldn’t take his eyes off the face that revealed so much, if you knew what you were looking for.

Dani noticed Efraim over her mother’s shoulder as Eden turned her back on him and set off towards Mikael.

‘Who’s that man?’ she whispered in Eden’s ear.

‘Nobody. Just someone who’s lost his way.’

But inside she was in total panic. The words she knew she would never say out loud to her daughter echoed in her heart and her head.

That, Dani, is your daddy and your sister’s daddy.

It had been a long, restless night. Time and time again he had woken up with all his senses on full alert. Dreams he couldn’t remember made his heart race. Eventually he gave up, and went for a shower.

‘Are you okay?’ Ylva asked when he came back to bed.

‘Absolutely,’ Peder said.

Morning came and the curse was broken. Peder got up at seven when he heard noises from his sons’ bedroom. He found them sitting on the floor, playing with their Lego, still in their pyjamas and with their hair standing on end. They hardly noticed him; they were completely absorbed in what they were doing.

For a while everything seemed fine.

Calm.

Peaceful.

Without Ylva and the boys, I would never have got back up again.

‘Do you want some breakfast?’

‘Not yet.’

Peder left them and went into the kitchen, put the coffee on and went to fetch the paper. Ylva came to join him; they enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and made plans for the day.

‘I need to put in a few hours’ work.’

‘Oh, Peder…’

‘I won’t be long.’

‘But we said we’d go somewhere – it’s such a beautiful day.’

In a previous life Peder would have reacted with fury, felt as if Ylva was accusing him of something, putting him under pressure. But not any more, because now he knew that she was right. It was wrong to prioritise work over family; it always had been and it always would be.

Although that didn’t mean there was no room for compromise.

‘I’ve got a new job,’ he said. ‘And some terrible things have happened over the past few days.’

‘You’re not a police officer any more.’

‘I know that. But I am head of security. And I was a police officer for several years. It’s my duty to be around for a few hours over the weekend.’

Ylva stroked his arm.

‘I just want you to be careful.’

He knew she meant well. What she really wanted to say was that she was afraid, he thought. Afraid that he would lose control once again, make himself unhappy. But she didn’t need to worry about that. The Solomon Community murders weren’t personal, and therefore his duties were only professional. Otherwise he would never have walked into such a hornets’ nest.

An hour later he left the house and drove into the city. There were two things he wanted to check out.

The hole in the facade was small, but not difficult to find. After Alex and Fredrika’s visit, Peder had spoken to the security guards who were taking it in turns to monitor the entrance to the Solomon school. He had asked if they had seen Efraim Kiel; they had. One of the female guards said she had seen Efraim outside the school on at least two occasions.

Both times he had been interested in just one thing.

The bullet hole in the wall.

But why?

Peder leaned closer and peered at the hole. He had no idea what CSI had to say about the matter, and he couldn’t see anything odd about it. He turned around and looked up at the roof where the sniper had been lying.

It had been a bold enterprise, shooting someone from that distance in such terrible weather.

Peder gazed up at the roof. Then back at the hole. Then back at the roof.

Wasn’t the hole a hell of a long way down?

The teacher had been shot in the back. The bullet had gone straight through her body. Even if you took into account the sharp angle of the shot, Peder still couldn’t make sense of it. If you drew a straight line from the roof to the wall, it looked as if the bullet should have hit Josephine in the leg.

If she had been standing up, that is.

By this time, Peder knew the witness statements off by heart – the statements that had been taken by the community’s security guards, who had conducted their own interviews with those who had been out in the street and seen what had happened.

The second before the shot was fired, Josephine had crouched down to help a child with a shoelace that had come undone. Either Josephine had been incredibly unlucky – if she had remained standing, the bullet would have caused nothing more serious than a leg injury – or she had taken a bullet that was meant for someone else.

Peder breathed in the cold air.

That had been one of his very first thoughts: that the bullet wasn’t meant for her. That it was supposed to have hit one of the children instead. The discovery of the paper bag strengthened his suspicions. Alex and Fredrika hadn’t been willing to tell him why the bag was important, but Peder thought he knew anyway: they must have found similar bags where the two boys had died.

And still they were letting the National Crime Unit run the investigation into Josephine’s death.

It made no sense at all.

Peder went back to his office and pulled out the file containing all the information he had gathered so far. Which children had been standing outside when Josephine was shot?

He read the names out loud, but they meant nothing to him. That wasn’t necessarily significant; if the killer chose his victims at random, then he might not have been aiming at one particular child. But if the choice wasn’t random, which child might he have been aiming at?

Peder read through the list again. He didn’t know the children, had no idea who they were. However, none of them was over four years old. The boys who had been shot out on Lovön were ten.

There was one more thing he wanted to follow up. No doubt the police had already done the same thing, but that didn’t matter, because Peder didn’t have access to their material. When reading through the witness statements, he had noticed something which one of the parents who witnessed the shooting had said:

Josephine turned around to call to the child who was still inside. At the same time, one of the other children came up to her to ask for help with a shoelace that had come undone. As she crouched down, the shot was fired.

Peder thought the phrase ‘the child who was still inside’ was odd. Surely there must have been several children inside, so why would Josephine call one particular child? It didn’t look as if any of the witnesses had said that the child was theirs. Peder pictured the scene: it was after three o’clock, and parents had started arriving to pick up their children from day care and pre-school. Josephine hadn’t been wearing a coat when she died; had she just popped out to speak to a parent?

She was due to finish work at five that afternoon. She was shot just after three, when she happened to step outside.

But how could the killer have known that he would get the chance to shoot her two hours before she was due to go home?

The answer was simple. He couldn’t.

Peder slammed his hand down on the desk. He had known it all along: the killer on the roof hadn’t been aiming at the schoolteacher. He had been aiming at the children. Or possibly at one of the parents, but he thought that was less likely.

The children were the common denominator in both crimes, apart from the fact that they had been shot with the same gun. And now Peder wanted to know whether the killer had been after one specific child, or whether any child would have done.

‘I’ve got a terrible sore throat.’

Spencer was standing behind her in the hallway as she put on her boots.

‘I’ll be back in less than two hours.’

She pulled up one zip, then the other. Scarf, gloves. Woolly hat. It was so bloody cold. The fact that the sun was shining didn’t help at all when you lived in one of the most northerly countries in the world.

‘The thing is,’ Spencer said, ‘I’m worried about the trip to Israel.’

His shoulders were slumped, his posture poor. His eyes were dull and exhausted. For a moment Fredrika was afraid, as she always was when he felt ill or showed signs of tiredness. She stood up and placed a hand on his forehead. He pressed against it, wanting to get close to her.

‘You’ve got a temperature.’

Damn. All at once leaving him at home with the girls didn’t seem like such a good idea.

And what about the trip to Israel? Would she still go if she had to travel alone?

‘Go and lie down,’ she said. ‘I’ll stay at home.’

‘Nonsense, I can manage two hours. Go on – Alex is waiting.’

Fredrika could hear the sound of shrieking from her daughter’s room; it sounded as if Saga and Isak were about to start demolishing the apartment.

‘I won’t be long,’ she said, slipping out through the front door. She ran down the stairs; she didn’t even have time to say hello to a neighbour in passing.

Quick, quick.

She would have loved to go back to Israel with Spencer. If she had to go alone, the adventure was much less appealing. But she would still go.

Her mobile beeped; it was a text from the orchestra. Would she be coming to their rehearsal tomorrow evening?

In just a couple of days, the violin had disappeared from her universe. She was going to Israel; there was no chance that she would be able to make the rehearsal.

‘No time, will be there later in the week’ she replied.

She dashed through Tegnérlunden and over Barnhus Bridge. Crossed Fleminggatan and turned into Scheelegatan, heading for Police HQ.

Her mobile rang; it was Alex, wondering where she was. He was already in the car. He sounded tense; Fredrika sensed bad news.

‘Pick me up outside Spisa hos Helena,’ she said, stopping in front of the restaurant. Three minutes later she was sitting in the car.

‘The National Crime Unit called,’ he said. ‘They think the person who was lying on the roof could be a woman. The footprints indicate smallish feet, and the indentation left by the body in the snow shows that the person in question was no taller than one metre seventy.’

Fredrika was totally bewildered.

‘A woman? But whoever hunted down the boys on Lovön was wearing size 43 shoes.’

‘It could still be a woman,’ Alex said. ‘A smartarse who knows how to confuse the police.’

Fredrika’s mind was whirling.

It was possible that someone with small feet could have put on shoes that were too big…

However, it was less likely that someone with big feet could have put on shoes that were too small.

‘What do we do now?’ she said.

‘We carry on as before.’

‘With NCU investigating the murder of the teacher, while we concentrate on the boys?’

‘Yes.’

‘What if there’s more than one killer, Alex? Working as a team?’

‘In that case we’ve got twice the chance of catching them, if we carry on as we started.’

Fredrika tried to bring together the evidence to form a coherent picture. It was impossible. Different killers, same gun. Different kinds of victim, different crime scenes. Same community, same ethnicity.

One of her earliest thoughts came back to her.

‘I’m still not sure that the bullet that killed Josephine was meant for her rather than one of the children.’

‘To be honest, we can’t be sure of anything right now,’ Alex said.

‘In that case let me raise the stakes and say that this is something we are particularly unsure about.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘What’s that got to do with anything? Don’t you think it’s important to find out whether that lunatic actually meant to shoot a child?’

‘Because?’

Because in that case we could be dealing with the one thing we don’t want to say out loud.

A serial killer.

‘Because then we’d have three children who belong to the same school and the same community, who have been attacked with the same gun, and a killer who has marked each death with a paper bag with a face drawn on it,’ Fredrika said.

‘Would the killer have sent the bag to the school if the wrong victim had died?’

‘Maybe. If he or she wanted us to believe that the teacher really was meant to die. To stop us looking for other possible victims.’

Another thought occurred to her.

‘What if the chrysanthemum was sent before the murder took place?’

Her voice was quiet, her tone almost submissive.

‘But we know that wasn’t the case,’ Alex said. ‘It was delivered the following morning. The boys were missing but their bodies hadn’t been discovered, and Josephine was dead.’

Fredrika felt an all too familiar surge of obstinacy. The same obstinacy that had once driven Alex crazy, and alienated her from the rest of the team.

‘That’s got nothing to do with when it was ordered, or when the delivery was arranged.’

Alex sighed.

‘Well no, but…’

Fredrika interrupted him.

‘Do we know anything about those details? Have we been in touch with the firm responsible for the delivery?’

‘No, we haven’t, because as you might recall, this is not our investigation.’

‘In that case I’ll call NCU and check.’

Fredrika got out her mobile. ‘Who’s your contact?’

They had almost arrived; Alex started looking for somewhere to park.

‘Please, Fredrika, don’t waste your time on this.’

But Fredrika had no intention of giving up now.

‘Tell me who I need to speak to.’

Another sigh, then he gave her a name.

The call was answered almost immediately. Fredrika explained her question as Alex reversed into a space that felt at least half a metre too small.

‘We thought about that, of course,’ their colleague said, ‘but we got nowhere. The name of the delivery firm wasn’t on the bag, and the secretary couldn’t remember whether the person who handed it over was wearing any kind of logo.’

‘Shit,’ Fredrika said.

Her colleague laughed.

‘We said much the same thing.’

‘Have you tried ringing around different firms?’ Fredrika said. ‘They ought to remember if they were asked to deliver a plant in a bag with a big face drawn on it.’

‘We called a dozen or so, but it was no good. The only thing we had to go on was that according to the secretary, the girl who brought the plant in didn’t speak Swedish.’

Fredrika froze. Alex was already out of the car.

‘She didn’t speak Swedish?’

‘No, but why would she need to? She only had to hand over a plant.’

But Fredrika didn’t agree.

‘Send a sketch artist over to the secretary,’ she said. ‘Right now.’

‘But why?’ Her colleague was taken aback.

‘Because I think the girl who delivered the plant was the one who lay on the roof and shot Josephine.’

The feeling that he had hit upon something vital was intoxicating. Peder Rydh had known he was right all along, but now he thought he could prove it.

I need to speak to Alex about this.

He just wanted to check one more thing.

His hands were shaking slightly as he dug out a list of contact details for the witnesses the security team had interviewed. He called one of the parents, the father of a three-year-old boy.

The man sounded wary when Peder had explained who he was and why he was calling.

‘I’ve already spoken to the police and the community’s security team. What’s this about?’

‘I wonder if you could help me understand a couple of things,’ Peder said. ‘For example, what was Josephine doing outside? Why did she leave the school building?’

The man didn’t say anything for a moment, presumably because he was trying to recall.

‘There was nothing strange about it,’ he said eventually. ‘Three parents had arrived at the same time; everything was just the way it always was. We went inside and collected our children, helped them to put on their outdoor clothes and said goodbye to the staff and the children who were still there. Just as we got outside Josephine came after us. She said that one of the children, a little girl called Lova, was wearing the wrong hat. That caused a bit of a discussion, because Lova flatly refused to give it back. Josephine came out to retrieve the hat, that’s all there was to it.’

So chance had brought Josephine outside, and led to her death.

‘I believe the last thing Josephine did was to call a child who was still inside,’ Peder said.

‘That’s right. She wanted the little girl who owned the hat to come to the door and bring Lova’s hat, because of course it was still sitting on the shelf.’

Peder’s brain was working overtime, desperate for more details. Every scrap of the instinct that had once made him a skilled investigator was screaming at him to keep digging. Because there was more to come.

‘Was there something special about this particular hat? Why did it cause such a fuss?’

God knows, small children didn’t need a sensible reason to start squabbling, but Peder still felt he had to ask.

‘Actually, it wasn’t just any old hat,’ the parent said. ‘It was a big, red, hand-knitted hat.’

Peder found it difficult to understand why a big red hand-knitted hat would be so popular.

‘One of those that looks like a berry?’

‘Not at all – it was more like a big red ball. Several of the parents laughed when Polly turned up in it; none of us could have produced anything like it, but Carmen is very talented.’

Carmen?

‘I’m sorry? Carmen?’ Peder said. ‘Carmen Eisenberg? Simon’s mother?’

‘That’s right – Polly is Simon’s little sister. Or rather she was… Well, you know what I mean.’

The man’s voice broke with emotion.

And suddenly Peder understood.

He was so agitated that it was all he could do to stop himself shouting down the phone.

‘So what you’re saying is that when Josephine was shot, there was a child standing next to her wearing a big red hat? A hat that actually belonged to Polly Eisenberg?’

‘Yes.’

‘But Polly wasn’t picked up at the same time?’

‘She should have been, but Carmen was obviously running late.’

She should have been.

Polly Eisenberg, Simon’s little sister, should have been going home at the time when her teacher was shot. She should have been outside the school just after three o’clock, wearing her big red hat.

Peder closed his eyes, thought about the snow that had fallen that day, and the fact that it was already starting to get dark. He thought about the distance from the roof to the school entrance.

And he thought that a big red hat would have been the perfect target.

The investigation was beginning to resemble the tracks in the snow out on Lovön: the leads appeared to be going around in circles, taking the team in all directions. However, as Alex Recht had already established, most led in the same direction.

To Israel.

‘We have a man who’s travelled from Israel to Stockholm to recruit a head of security for the Solomon Community,’ he said to Fredrika, as they walked from the car to the Eisenbergs’ apartment. ‘A man who is either a bloody good investigator, or who is disturbingly well informed about our inquiries. At the same time, we have someone calling himself the Lion who has been exchanging messages with Simon and Abraham. From Israel. He claims his name is Zalman.’

‘Efraim Kiel could have sent those messages, if we’re looking at him as a possible suspect,’ Fredrika said. ‘The correspondence took place before he came to Sweden.’

They had reached the apartment block.

‘The Lion, whoever he is, could be the person who picked up the boys,’ Fredrika said.

‘I know.’

‘In which case he – or she – must have rented or borrowed a car. Or driven here from Jerusalem, which seems highly unlikely, wouldn’t you say?’

She attempted a wan smile, which Alex returned.

‘I think that sounds like great fun,’ he said. ‘Driving to Jerusalem. Perhaps Diana and I should give it a go some time.’

‘Have you heard anything from Eden yet?’

Alex’s expression grew serious.

‘No, she said she’d be in touch when she had something to tell me. If she had something to tell me.’

He held the door open for Fredrika. If his daughter had seen him, she would have given him a long lecture about why opening a door for a woman constituted oppression. Alex couldn’t give a damn. Opening the door for a woman was just like closing the door when you went to the toilet; it was just something you did.

‘There are several things we need to ask Carmen and Gideon about,’ he said as they went up the stairs. ‘The Paper Boy and the paper bags are our number one priority. The Lion, and why they left Israel ten years ago, are also important. I can’t shake off the feeling that’s where the answer lies – or part of it, at least.’

‘We also need to ask them about Efraim Kiel,’ Fredrika pointed out.

Once again they were standing outside the Eisenberg family’s door. Alex was just about to press the doorbell when his mobile rang. It was Peder Rydh. After listening to him for less than a minute, Alex signalled to Fredrika to follow him back down the stairs.

The visit to the Eisenbergs would have to be postponed.

A big red hat on a little girl’s head.

Without it, Peder’s argument was nothing.

They met in a café on Östermalm Square; Alex had already forgotten the name of it. Alex, Peder and Fredrika: just like the old days. But they had never met in a café; it was a new environment for the old team.

‘Thanks for this – I thought it was best if you didn’t come to the community centre.’

Alex agreed.

What Peder had done was far beyond the remit of his role as head of security; he had done the police’s job for them, and he had done it well.

‘You have to take back Josephine’s case from the National Crime Unit,’ Peder said. ‘I’m sure they’ve given up any attempt to link the murder to organised crime by now; it could just be lying there, with no one making much of an effort.’

He took a sip of his coffee, then bit into a cinnamon bun the size of a saucer.

Fredrika was drinking tea and eating a marzipan cake.

‘I thought you didn’t eat crap like that,’ Peder said.

‘Well, there you go.’ She took a big bite. ‘What made you think that?’

Peder looked down, picking sugar crystals off the tablecloth.

‘I thought you were too much of a gourmet for that kind of thing.’

Alex was about to interrupt the discussion before Fredrika made mincemeat of Peder, but discovered that he no longer needed to act as playgroup leader. Those days were gone. The years that had passed had tempered both of them, in different ways.

Fredrika looked as if she was about to burst out laughing. No doubt she realised that she was partly to blame; she had been quite difficult in the past.

Obviously Peder still didn’t quite know where to draw the line, because when he realised that he had got away with his comment about the cake, he decided to carry on:

‘Since you’ve started eating like a cop, maybe you could try dressing like one too,’ he said, glancing at her smart blouse and jacket, which looked more like something a banker or stockbroker might wear.

At that point Alex decided he had had enough; they didn’t have time for this.

‘A red hat,’ he said. ‘Worn by the wrong child. You think that’s enough to jump to the conclusion that the Eisenbergs’ daughter was the target, not the teacher.’

Peder bristled.

‘You wouldn’t be sitting here if you didn’t think the same.’

Always difficult when people knew you…

‘Besides,’ Peder went on, ‘this doesn’t just come down to a red hat.’

‘Convince me.’

‘First of all: the timing. The killer was lying high up on a roof. It was snowing and several degrees below freezing. So he or she wouldn’t want to stay there for too long. Therefore, I believe we can assume he was intending to carry out his mission at about three o’clock, which was when Polly was due to be picked up. Secondly…’

‘How did the killer know she was due to be collected then?’ Fredrika asked.

‘I don’t know. But we can assume he checked it out; if he knew what school she attended, it seems likely that he would have found out when her parents usually came for her. Polly is collected at three o’clock every day; her parents take it in turns. The killer could easily have watched the family for a few days, and very quickly got a handle on their routines.’

‘But why shoot the child outside the school?’ Alex said. ‘There must be a hundred other opportunities to choose from.’

‘In inner-city Stockholm?’ Peder said. ‘Think about it. You found the two boys out on Lovön. In broad daylight. Not far from Sweden’s head of state. Not a particularly discreet crime. You have to admit the person you’re dealing with here is seriously disturbed.’

The three of them fell silent.

‘Or someone who likes the attention,’ Peder added so quietly that Alex had to lean forward to hear what he said.

‘Okay, I’ll stop interrupting,’ he said. ‘Carry on. You were talking about the timing.’

Alex Recht gave his former colleague one more chance to prove his point.

Peder felt a fresh surge of energy.

‘Secondly, as I said, it was very cold on Wednesday, and it was windy too. And it was snowing. Our friend on the roof can’t have wanted to stay there any longer than absolutely necessary. Polly Eisenberg was supposed to go home at three o’clock, not Josephine. There was no reason whatsoever why the sniper would have expected to see Josephine out there before five o’clock, when she finished work. And another thing – the angle of the shot is wrong. If Josephine hadn’t crouched down to help a child do up his shoelace, the bullet would have hit her in the leg, not the back.’

‘Which suggests that he was aiming at someone shorter than Josephine,’ Fredrika said.

‘Exactly.’

‘In which case he missed,’ Alex said.

‘It was snowing,’ Peder said. ‘Visibility was very poor. And just as the shot was fired, the little girl who was wearing Polly’s hat moved. Josephine turned around to call to Polly, who was still inside, and the girl who had taken Polly’s hat got cross and pulled away from her father. Then the gun went off.’

‘You mean if she had stayed where she was, she would have been hit?’

‘I only have second-hand accounts to go on, but yes, it looks that way.’

Alex sipped his coffee. He had decided against a pastry; Diana had suggested that both of them ought to be eating less rubbish. Reluctantly he had accepted that it was a good idea, particularly on days like this.

He caught Fredrika’s eye.

‘What do you think? This is what you said right from the start: that there was a chance the bullet wasn’t meant for Josephine.’

Fredrika finished off her cake.

‘That was just a guess, but at the time I didn’t know there was a link to the Eisenberg and Goldmann families.’

‘And now?’

The door of the café opened and closed as a customer came in. Cold air sliced across the floor.

Fredrika hesitated.

‘I don’t think we can rule it out. But regardless of what I think, Peder has managed to reinforce one key point.’

‘Which is?’

‘That Josephine died by pure chance. There is absolutely no reason to believe that someone would have stayed up there on the roof for hours, just waiting for her to appear. It’s out of the question.’

‘So where does that leave us?’ Peder said.

‘Either things really are as bad as in some TV drama, and we’re looking at serial killers who specialise in Jewish victims – but in that case, why haven’t we seen more victims, given how quickly things happened that first day? Or the bullet actually did hit the right victim, but she was chosen at random – the killer was prepared to shoot whoever was outside the school at that particular moment.’

Alex prayed that Peder wouldn’t pick up the additional information Fredrika had just revealed – information that was most definitely not intended for anyone outside the team.

His prayer was in vain, of course.

‘Serial killers?’ Peder said.

‘That’s just one theory we’re considering,’ Fredrika said.

‘I understand that, but you’re talking as if there’s more than one killer.’

Fredrika blinked.

‘Sorry, I made a mistake.’

‘No, you didn’t. It was the same murder weapon; are you still saying there was more than one killer?’

A man and a woman, Alex wanted to say. We think there could be two of the bastards working together.

But it was too soon to share information like that with an outsider.

‘It’s just one of a number of theories we’re considering at the moment,’ he said, placing a calming hand on Peder’s shoulder. ‘I’d be grateful if you’d keep it to yourself.’

Peder reluctantly agreed.

Alex knew exactly what he was thinking. He had taken the trouble to call them, placed all his cards on the table, and now Fredrika and Alex wouldn’t let him in.

Fredrika tried to move the discussion forward.

‘To be honest, I think Peder’s idea is the closest to the truth.’

‘You believe Polly Eisenberg was the intended victim?’ Alex said.

She nodded. Peder looked pleased.

‘In that case, we have a problem,’ Alex said.

‘We do.’

‘But isn’t it a good thing if Polly was the target?’ Peder said. ‘It means this is personal, so you’re not looking at a serial killer. In other words, we don’t need to worry about more victims.’

Alex raised his eyebrows; he could see that Fredrika shared his unease.

‘Unfortunately I don’t think we can make that assumption,’ he said.

‘Because?’

‘Because if Polly was the target, then the killer has failed to achieve his goal. Which means we have a five-year-old girl who won’t be safe for a second until we have caught whoever is after her.’

The sunshine made Stockholm look even more stunning than usual. The most beautiful capital city in the world, Eden had once said. Efraim Kiel had contradicted her, said he couldn’t imagine a lovelier city than Jerusalem. They had spent a day driving from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Taken tea on the magnificent terrace of the King David Hotel. Strolled through the Old City and visited the Western Wall. Eden had slipped her hand into his and he had let it happen. He had sensed, believed, that her love for him would eventually be so strong that he would be able to win her over to their side.

He had failed. Failed, but he had been convinced that she was the only one who would have to pay.

How wrong he had been.

How very wrong.

Efraim Kiel was sitting motionless on the edge of his bed in his hotel room. He had left the glorious winter weather behind; he wanted no part of that particular idyll. He had waited for Eden outside the door of her apartment block, thinking that she and her family wouldn’t want to stay indoors on a day like this.

Right so far.

Her carefree attitude had surprised him; at no point had he thought she might spot him. That was one of the main reasons why he had been tempted to creep up on her as he had done; he had wanted to put her in her place, make her realise that it didn’t matter how many of her Säpo goons she put on his tail.

He would always win.

That’s how he had felt when he walked up to her.

Before he saw the child who was obviously her daughter.

He couldn’t believe his eyes.

It was like staring at a carbon copy of his younger sister. She had died in a car crash as a child, and he still carried a picture of her in his wallet. Eden had seen that picture, which had been a big mistake; he should never have let her touch any of his personal possessions. Everything he had shown her had been a facade, an invention, a stage set. The small amount that was not a part of this facade was in his wallet, but the only thing Eden had been interested in on that one occasion when she unconsciously got too close to the truth was the photograph of his sister.

She had thought it was his daughter.

‘You’re so alike,’ she had said.

‘We were,’ he had said. ‘But she’s not around any more.’

And he had immediately come up with a story of how his sister had been blown up in a terrorist attack, and how his parents had never got over it. The last part was true, in a way; his parents were still grieving for their lost little girl. But there had been no terrorist attack, just an unnecessary car accident.

Efraim closed his eyes, conjuring up once again the image of Eden’s daughter.

Their daughter.

But how was that possible?

They had used protection. Every single time. Or had they? Efraim recalled just one time when he hadn’t used anything, but Eden had stroked his cheek – how fucking stupid had he been? – and said:

‘It’s okay. I’m already pregnant.’

Why had she said that?

Efraim had had no reason to doubt her, because after a while the pregnancy had begun to show, and Mossad’s leaders had decided to put the project on the back burner. If motherhood meant that she was likely to move back to Sweden and leave MI5, then she would no longer be of interest to them. But Eden had given birth to her children and remained in London. Six months later, Efraim had made another attempt. It took a few weeks, but then she was his once more.

That was when he had realised that she was in love.

Deeply in love.

During the first phase of their relationship she had been driven by lust, but in this second phase it was all about love. He had been surprised when he saw the change in her, and he hadn’t been slow to capitalise on it. Recruiting an MI5 agent was invaluable.

Thank God she had fallen for him.

She must have known he was the father of her children. The only question was what he should do with that information now.

Efraim felt as if the challenges were beginning to pile up, but the fact that he had unexpectedly become the father of two little girls didn’t necessarily need to be one of them. Eden clearly had no intention of causing him any problems, and if he had interpreted the situation correctly, she hadn’t told her husband what she had done. Hadn’t mentioned that he wasn’t the father of the children he loved and supported.

How the hell could she live with such a huge lie?

Efraim wondered if he was supposed to feel something for the kids. He didn’t think so. He hadn’t been there at the birth, hadn’t been a part of their lives. He hadn’t even known they existed, so he hadn’t missed them either.

Not the way he had missed Benjamin over the past ten years.

As always his heart swelled with sorrow when he thought of the boy he hadn’t been allowed to keep. To think that grief could hurt so much for so long. The things we are prepared to do for those we love… He hadn’t understood until he himself suffered the greatest loss of all.

If it hadn’t been for what had happened to Benjamin, Efraim would have been less inclined to appoint a man like Peder Rydh as head of security. But when he learned about Peder’s past, the terrible choice he had been forced to make, Efraim had felt nothing but respect. Seeking vengeance for those who have died at someone else’s hand was a duty and a curse.

Efraim knew why Simon Eisenberg and Abraham Goldmann had had to die.

It was as obvious as any law of nature.

But the second murder, the teacher outside the Solomon school…

Efraim didn’t understand that at all. When he heard that the same murder weapon had killed all three victims, he knew who had murdered Josephine.

But he didn’t know why.

What the hell was going on? It must have been a mistake. The bullet must have been meant for someone else.

There had been another message waiting when he got back from the park. This time it had been pushed under the door of his room. When he read it, he realised that the game was over, and that the person going by the name of the Paper Boy was seeking peace. And his support.

I will finish what you cannot bring yourself to do.

Try to understand.

Two hours, Fredrika Bergman had said to Spencer. She would be gone for two hours, no more. But with the new development in the case, she wasn’t at all sure she could get home by then.

‘Can you cope?’ she said on the phone.

Spencer sounded hoarse when he replied.

‘Of course.’

‘Are you going to be well enough to travel tomorrow?’ she said.

She really didn’t like the idea of going on her own; it just felt wrong in every way.

‘I don’t think so, Fredrika.’

Her heart sank.

‘Okay, but…’

‘Maybe we should talk about this when you get home?’

He was right. He usually was, unfortunately.

‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’

He laughed.

‘I know you will. You said that before you left.’

As she slipped her phone back into her bag, she felt a pang of guilt. She had left her children the day before she was due to go to Israel. She had left Spencer with both of them, in spite of the fact that he wasn’t well. They stuck rigidly to certain unwritten rules, one of which was that they didn’t go in for punishment. Leaving someone who was ill home alone with two small children definitely sounded like some kind of penalty.

But the intention was key; she couldn’t possibly have known how the day would turn out.

Once again she and Alex were standing outside Gideon and Carmen Eisenberg’s apartment, and this time they weren’t going to walk away.

‘We won’t start with the possibility that Polly might be in danger,’ Alex decided. ‘We’ll go for the other stuff first.’

Fredrika agreed; it sounded like a sensible approach.

If only they could get the parents to talk.

It was Gideon who opened the door, and at first Fredrika didn’t think it was the same man. Sorrow had eaten away at his soul, leaving him a damaged and broken individual.

‘Sorry to disturb you again,’ Alex began, ‘but we’d like to ask you a few more questions.’

‘Come in.’

Carmen was waiting in the living room. She was sitting in a large armchair, gazing towards one of the windows. The apartment was silent; Fredrika wondered where Polly was.

They sat down, and Alex got straight to the point.

‘The Paper Boy.’

Both parents looked at him, their expressions weary but attentive.

‘You said that was the name Simon used on the Super Troopers forum.’

Gideon cleared his throat. ‘That’s right.’

‘Could you explain why?’

‘What do you mean, why?’

‘Why did he choose that particular name?’

Gideon and Carmen exchanged glances which Fredrika was unable to interpret.

‘It’s just a name,’ Carmen said.

Her tone was neither evasive nor annoyed, but empty of emotion.

‘But he must have got it from somewhere,’ Fredrika said. ‘The Paper Boy. It doesn’t sound like something a ten-year-old boy would choose to be called.’

Carmen looked away.

‘It’s a story,’ Gideon said. ‘A legend, if you like.’

‘It’s not a story I’m familiar with,’ Alex said. ‘What’s it about?’

Gideon sighed. His entire being radiated exhaustion. And something else. Fear.

‘It’s just an Israeli story. Simon heard us talking about it once. I didn’t want to tell him the real story, so I changed it a bit to make it more child-friendly. If I had known he was going to use it as his online alias, I would have asked him to choose something else.’

‘What do you mean, you changed the story?’ Alex said.

Gideon shuffled uncomfortably.

‘People used to talk about the Paper Boy when I was growing up. They said he used to abduct children and do them harm. The story was told so that children would respect the political situation in Israel, and not go rambling around the streets late in the evening or at night. But I didn’t feel it was necessary to give Simon all the details, so I said that when I was little, the Paper Boy was the name we gave to a boy everyone looked up to.’

Simon’s choice of the name immediately sounded more logical.

‘The problem was that Daphne and Saul had chosen to tell Abraham the real version,’ Carmen said. ‘So when Simon started to call himself the Paper Boy on that forum, Abraham reacted quite strongly, wanting to know what he thought he was doing. Simon was upset and tried to change the name, but apparently that wasn’t possible unless he gave up his membership of the forum and reapplied, and he didn’t want to do that.’

‘So he stuck with the Paper Boy,’ Fredrika said.

‘Yes.’

Hesitantly Alex reached into his inside pocket and took out a photograph. Fredrika was only too well aware of its subject.

‘There’s something we have to show you,’ Alex said.

Alex placed the photograph on the table in front of Gideon and Carmen. They stared at the image as if they couldn’t work out what it was.

Carmen was the first to realise.

‘Oh God,’ she said, covering her mouth with her hand.

Her eyes widened and filled with tears.

‘Is that Simon?’ Gideon whispered. He couldn’t take his eyes off the picture of the boy with a paper bag over his head. Barefoot in the snow.

‘I’m afraid so. That’s how we found both Simon and Abraham: barefoot, and with paper bags over their heads.’

Carmen was weeping openly by now.

‘I’m so very sorry we have to show you this,’ Alex said. ‘But we need to know whether you can explain it to us. Why do the boys look like this?’

Fredrika was watching Gideon. He looked as if someone had cast a spell on him. He was staring at his son, his breathing irregular, his face chalk-white.

‘Would you like a glass of water?’ she said.

‘Please.’

She was back in no time. Gideon drank greedily, then pushed the photograph away.

‘That’s how they were supposed to look,’ he said.

Quietly, as if he didn’t want anyone to hear what he was saying.

‘Sorry, who are you talking about?’ Alex asked.

‘The Paper Boy’s victims. He tore off their clothes and left a paper bag as his calling card.’

The atmosphere in the room was oppressive.

‘So we can conclude that whoever killed the boys was familiar with the story of the Paper Boy,’ Alex said. ‘How widespread is this tale? Is it known outside Israel?’

‘I have no idea,’ Gideon said.

‘What about within the Solomon Community?’ Fredrika said. ‘Is anyone else familiar with it, apart from the two of you and Abraham’s parents?’

Carmen shook her head.

‘I don’t think so. I’m not even sure it’s all that widespread in Israel. I’d never heard of it until Gideon told me.’

Fredrika thought that was interesting.

‘But where you grew up, children were told about the Paper Boy?’ she said to Gideon.

‘Yes, but I’ve no idea how many other people knew about him. It’s years since that story was a part of my life.’

‘But you said you and Carmen talked about it,’ Alex said. ‘That was how Simon chose the name as his alias.’

They didn’t get any further. Fredrika couldn’t decide whether she was satisfied or not. It was obvious that whoever had murdered Simon had done so for deeply personal reasons; she just couldn’t work out what those reasons were, and it seemed that Gideon and Carmen were in the same position.

‘On our last visit you mentioned that you left Israel in 2002,’ Alex said. ‘Could you tell us a little more about that decision?’

Carmen shrugged.

‘I’m afraid there’s nothing more to tell.’

‘It’s going to be difficult for us to move this investigation forward if we don’t have access to relevant information,’ Alex said.

Gideon looked distressed.

‘What do you want us to say? We told you last time why we left Israel. The political situation was so volatile that we wanted to make a fresh start somewhere else.’

Fredrika was trying to work out if he was lying, but it was difficult.

‘We’ve looked at Simon and Abraham’s activities on Super Troopers,’ she said, hoping that Alex would forgive her for changing the subject. ‘In the weeks leading up to their deaths, they were both in contact with a person calling himself the Lion. Were you aware of this?’

Alex picked up the photograph and slipped it back in his pocket. No one needed to look at the face of evil any longer. Carmen and Gideon’s silence suggested that Fredrika’s question had touched a nerve.

‘Simon mentioned the Lion,’ Carmen said eventually. ‘He seemed to be one of the people who had joined the forum in order to coach children and young people in how to improve at various sports, for example. Teach them how to be courageous and go for it.’

‘The desire to win is so controversial here in Sweden,’ Gideon said. ‘Parents who provide elite training for their children often acquire a bad reputation. It’s quite different in other countries, and several contributors to the Super Troopers forum belonged to overseas sports clubs or academies for children. The Lion said he was planning to set up a new tennis academy in Stockholm, but it’s difficult to know how much of that was just talk and how much was true.’

‘Do you know his real name?’

‘Only his first name – Zalman. He’d just moved to Stockholm, or maybe he was about to move here, I don’t remember. He had emigrated to Israel from Russia a few years ago, so he didn’t write to the boys in Hebrew or Swedish, just English.’

‘Did he ever meet Simon and Abraham?’ Fredrika asked.

‘No, definitely not. We would never have agreed to that unless we were there too,’ Carmen said.

Silence. Fredrika could hear the faint sound of traffic, and she thought about all the people who had to work on a Saturday. The silence also allowed other thoughts to rise to the surface: they had no idea who the Lion was. He could be anyone, anyone at all.

It was as if time was standing still in the apartment, which rarely happened in a home with children. Simon was gone, but Polly was still alive. Fredrika wondered where she was, because she obviously wasn’t at home.

‘Do you think he’s involved?’ Carmen said. ‘The Lion, I mean. Zalman.’

‘We’d certainly like to speak to him,’ Alex replied.

Carmen was crying softly again, but Gideon remained motionless and mute.

‘Efraim Kiel,’ Alex said. ‘Do you know anyone by that name?’

There was no mistaking the astonishment on Carmen and Gideon’s faces. Carmen stopped crying immediately.

‘What’s he got to do with anything?’

That’s exactly what we’re wondering, Fredrika thought. Had it been a mistake to mention his name?

‘Possibly nothing at all,’ Alex went on. ‘We’ve discovered that he’s in Stockholm at the moment, helping with security issues at the Solomon Community, but he’s proving rather difficult to get hold of.’

‘Efraim Kiel is in Stockholm?’ Gideon said slowly.

‘How do you know one another?’ Fredrika said, unable to hide the surprise in her voice.

Gideon made a dismissive gesture.

‘We don’t. Not any more. But we did our military service together. Unless of course you’re talking about a different Efraim Kiel.’

‘You don’t have a picture of him?’ Alex said.

‘I don’t think so.’

Fredrika was fascinated by the links that had emerged. They had lived on a kibbutz together, done their military service together. A different context; a different philosophy. Did the fact that Efraim had once known Gideon and Carmen make him more or less interesting? She had no idea.

She spotted a doll lying in a corner. Definitely Polly’s.

But where was she?

Alex had also noticed the doll. He glanced at Fredrika. They had one more thing to discuss with Gideon and Carmen; the most difficult thing of all.

‘Unfortunately there’s another matter we need to bring to your attention,’ he said.

He looked at the doll.

‘Where is your daughter at the moment?’

‘With a friend,’ Carmen replied. ‘Her mother called to ask if it would help if they took Polly out for a few hours. We said yes. She doesn’t understand what’s happened, and she’s finding it difficult to see us so upset.’

Fredrika sympathised completely.

However, there was something in what Carmen had just said that started alarm bells ringing in her head.

Her mother called to ask if it would help if they took Polly out for a few hours.

Out where?

‘Where are they now?’ she asked.

Her pulse rate was rising, her heart pounding.

‘I think they said they were going to Tessin Park,’ Gideon said. ‘There’s a little toboggan run that the kids love.’

‘When are you expecting her home?’ Alex said.

Fredrika could see how serious his expression was.

He’s just as worried as I am.

Carmen glanced at her watch. ‘In an hour. Why do you ask? What’s going on?’

The sound of a telephone sliced through the apartment. Gideon got up so quickly that he knocked over his glass of water.

‘Hello?’

Carmen stood up and followed her husband into the hallway. Gideon came back into the living room, still holding the phone.

‘Has something happened?’ Carmen asked from behind him.

The telephone fell out of Gideon’s hand and crashed to the floor.

‘They can’t find Polly.’

The afternoon sky lay dark and heavy over Stockholm. The sun had made its guest appearance, and didn’t seem to have any plans to return. At least not according to the weather forecast.

‘It looks as if you’ll be able to get away to England tonight, but who knows when you’ll be home,’ Mikael said.

He was lying on his stomach on the bed, checking the weather on his laptop. Eden was busy packing.

‘I always manage to get home,’ she said.

Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. The tremor was only slight, but she was afraid Mikael might notice. She would rather say she had developed an acute form of Parkinson’s disease than tell him the real reason for her anxiety.

I met the biological father of my children today. I’ve met him before, of course. But never with the girls.

She knew he had realised. It had been written all over his face. Ironically, that was what it took for the brilliant Mossad agent to lose his composure.

The children’s voices filled the entire apartment. They were playing with an old dolls’ house their grandmother had given them. Fear squeezed Eden’s heart. Was it safe to leave them with Mikael? Who knew what Efraim Kiel might do now he knew what she had never meant him to find out.

Eden realised she was more frightened of how Efraim would react than of what Mikael would do if he ever found out that he wasn’t the father of the girls he had brought up.

No words would suffice if Mikael learned the truth. Right at the beginning, when she was pregnant and then when the girls had just been born, she had thought about telling him. Saying those terrible words.

I deceived and betrayed you. And I got pregnant. But he doesn’t exist any more, the other man. For me there is only you.

But not one syllable had passed her lips.

She remembered so clearly why she had first fallen for Efraim. Her whole life had been nothing but crap. She had just had a miscarriage, and Mikael had blamed her, saying that if she hadn’t been working so hard, if she had taken better care of herself, she would never have lost the baby.

His words had devastated her, because the doctor told her something different. She would have lost the child anyway. It was a miracle that she had fallen pregnant in the first place; medically speaking, she was virtually sterile.

That afternoon she went home to Mikael and said that she couldn’t see a future for them as a couple. He had pleaded with her, begged for forgiveness. Eden had turned her back on him, left him in limbo. Two days later she met Efraim at a conference organised by the London School of Economics. He had introduced himself as a researcher from the University of Tel Aviv, and she had believed that their meeting was pure chance, just like a fairy tale. At the end of the second day she went back to his hotel room, and stayed there until well after midnight.

That was the start of their affair.

It was cheap and passionate. And just a bit of fun. She stayed with Mikael, but their relationship was broken, and she didn’t know how they were ever going to be able to fix it.

As a researcher it was easy for Efraim to find reasons to visit London on a regular basis, and eventually he was there more or less all the time. With hindsight Eden realised that she had never once visited him at his place of work. Of course not – he didn’t have one.

The most important thing about the affair as far as Eden was concerned was that every time she went to bed with Efraim, it felt like a kind of revenge for the fact that Mikael had blamed her for the miscarriage.

So unbelievably petty.

The memory made her want to throw up. Just once she and Efraim had failed to use protection; Eden couldn’t have cared less. The only thing she was afraid of was an unwanted pregnancy, and according to the doctors, that was the last thing she needed to worry about. She had told Efraim she was already pregnant. She didn’t know why, but afterwards it had been impossible to retract her words.

And Efraim had said that the fact she was pregnant was irrelevant, because after all, their relationship was just a bit of fun.

I hope you feel the same, Eden?

Both Mikael and the doctor had been wrong. She could get pregnant, and she could carry the child to full term. When she realised she was expecting, it had struck her that she couldn’t actually be sure who the father was, but she had convinced herself that it wouldn’t matter. Efraim obviously didn’t care about her, and becoming a father was what Mikael wanted most in the world. Infidelity was the catalyst Eden needed to fix her marriage. When her relationship with Efraim ebbed away, she tried to tell herself that she didn’t miss him; Efraim had fulfilled his role in her life.

Until the day the girls were born.

Seeing them for the first time had been utterly terrifying.

Because Eden had known immediately.

She had given birth not to Mikael’s children, but to Efraim’s.

‘Are you okay?’

Mikael sounded worried.

‘I’m fine.’

She forced herself to smile. Finished off her packing and closed her suitcase.

She had survived for this long; she wasn’t about to let Efraim win, just by standing in silence in a snow-covered park on a winter’s day.

If only he hadn’t come back. If only he’d left things the way they were.

Because it was in the second round that he had knocked her out.

The realisation of what she had done – gone through an entire pregnancy imagining that it didn’t matter who the father of her children was – had eaten away at her soul. For a while the idea of leaving Mikael to be with Efraim had seemed like the ideal solution.

It had been close.

So very close.

Eden had often thanked her lucky stars that she had never told him that the twins were his. He knew of their existence, and she let him believe they were Mikael’s. That was the only thing that saved her when everything went to hell in a handcart.

She still had a place to retreat to. A place where she had remained ever since; a place where she loved to be.

With Mikael and the girls.

She dropped the case on the floor with a thud, then climbed onto the bed and lay down next to Mikael. He closed the laptop and put his arm around her. Stroked her back.

Efraim could go to hell. Compared to Mikael, he was a big, fat, ice-cold zero.

‘I was thinking,’ Mikael said. ‘As you’re going to be in London anyway, would you have time to call in at that music shop where I always used to go?’

‘You mean the one you used to go to back in the good old days, when you thought you could play the guitar?’

‘That’s the one. I thought maybe you could get Dani a violin for her birthday.’

Eden stiffened involuntarily. Mikael had got it into his head that Dani was a gifted musician, and he wanted her to learn to play an instrument using the Suzuki method. The violin was Dani’s own idea.

‘I’ll have to see,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I’ll have much time for shopping.’

At that moment Alex Recht called, and saved her from a much longer discussion.

‘Another child has gone missing,’ he said.

‘You know I can’t help you with that.’

Another child? But why?

‘I realise that. I wanted to check if you’ve found out any more about Efraim Kiel.’

‘Not yet. Why do you ask?’

‘Because I’m beginning to suspect that he’s somehow involved in all this.’

Emotions and vague assumptions had no place in a serious police inquiry. Alex Recht had learned that the hard way. His early years on the force had been marked by the odd case of misjudgement, errors that had eventually made him the skilled investigator he was today.

Efraim Kiel.

He wasn’t at the hotel where he had said he was staying; he couldn’t be reached on the number he had given. Most importantly, he knew the parents of one of the murdered boys. That was one step too far.

He had called Peder Rydh the previous day, asking questions and digging for information.

Strange guy.

Alex had asked Peder to check whether Efraim still had obligations to fulfil within the Solomon Community, which might explain why he hadn’t left the country. But according to Peder, the general secretary had been very surprised to hear that Kiel was still in Sweden. He had done what he came to do, and the general secretary hadn’t spoken to him since Peder took up his post.

So there was definitely something odd going on.

Alex was at Police HQ. Fredrika had gone home to pack for her trip to Israel; they had decided that she would be away for only two days. She was needed in Stockholm. The corridor outside his office had been silent and deserted in the morning, but since it became clear that another child had gone missing, there had been a constant flurry of activity.

Polly Eisenberg.

Alex looked at the photograph supplied by her parents. Would she meet the same fate as her brother?

Carmen and Gideon Eisenberg seemed to have no idea why this was happening to them. However hard Alex pushed, they were unable to supply him with any useful information.

He had lost his patience. Seen through their shock and despair, and the fear at the thought of losing their youngest child too.

‘You’re lying,’ he had roared in a voice he very rarely used. ‘There isn’t a cat in hell’s chance that you don’t know why someone is abducting and killing your children!’

His words had produced sheer hysteria. Polly wasn’t dead yet – or was she?

Was she?

Alex thought about the sun shining on freshly fallen snow earlier in the day, and wondered if Polly, like her brother, was lying in a cold grave somewhere. The thought was unbearable. No more children must be allowed to die. It was out of the question.

Polly’s disappearance had led to a change of plan. The Goldmanns were on their way to Police HQ to answer the same questions Alex and Fredrika had put to the Eisenbergs. Alex intended to show them the photographs of the boys with paper bags over their heads, find out what they knew about the Lion. If they had any sense, they wouldn’t choose to remain silent as their friends had done.

But they weren’t friends, were they? Just four people whose paths had crossed more times than Alex could count. In their childhood and their youth. In the army. At university. Through the move to Sweden, and through their sons.

And now through the fact that their sons had been murdered by the same killer.

An investigator, temporarily assigned to Alex’s team, tapped on his door.

‘The Goldmanns are here. Do you want anyone to sit in on the interview?’

‘No, but I would like to question them separately. Could you take care of Daphne if I start with Saul?’

‘No problem.’ His colleague’s expression darkened. ‘How long has Polly Eisenberg been missing now?’

‘Just under two hours.’

When she was formally reported missing, she had been gone for less than thirty minutes. Under normal circumstances the police would have first checked to make sure that she hadn’t wandered off to the nearest sweet shop or something along those lines, but not this time. Not when her brother had been murdered so recently, and there was reason to believe that Polly might also be at risk.

The police had thrown a ring of steel around Stockholm, and roadblocks were also set up outside the city. The media quickly ran the story as headline news, and the switchboard was inundated with calls from journalists demanding answers that Alex just didn’t have.

‘The parents,’ his colleague said. ‘Do they have an alibi?’

‘Obviously the Eisenbergs do, because they were talking to me and Fredrika when Polly disappeared. I don’t know about the Goldmanns yet.’

It was always the same when the situation was serious: they knew too little, had too many unanswered questions. Alex thought about the different impressions in the snow, on the roof and on Lovön. Small shoes and big shoes. On the same feet? The same gun had been used both times, after all.

He picked up his notes, took the lift down to the basement and walked into the interview room where Saul Goldmann was waiting. Daphne would be questioned up on the ground floor in a room with both curtains and a view, but not Saul. Alex wanted him to realise the gravity of the situation. Saul had given the impression of being quite cocky the last time they met; on this occasion, Alex was determined to make sure he had the upper hand.

‘Thank you for taking the time to come in.’

Saul Goldmann looked exhausted. A man who had lost too much in such a short period of time.

‘No problem,’ he said. ‘Needless to say we will do all we can to help you.’

But his eyes told a different story. His expression was wary, bordering on hostile.

Alex understood, to a certain extent. The last time they met, Saul had been on home turf, secure in his role as a victim. After the meeting with Carmen and Gideon, Alex was determined not to make the same mistake again. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel sorry for the parents, because he did. Immensely sorry. But as long as he was convinced they were withholding information, he had to be hard on them. He was the one who decided what the police needed to know in order to do their job – not the Eisenbergs or the Goldmanns.

He began with the most important question.

‘Where were you between one and two p.m. today?’

For a moment Alex thought he had misjudged the situation, and that Saul Goldmann was about to attack him. The other man was far more disturbed by the question than Alex had expected him to be.

‘What the hell do you mean by that?’

‘I mean exactly what I say, and nothing else. Please answer the question.’

‘Am I suspected of some crime? Do you think I’ve taken Polly? Is that why I’m here?’

Alex slowly put down his pen.

‘In less than a week, three children have gone missing from the Solomon Community here in Stockholm. Two of them have been found dead. One of them was your son. It’s my duty to find out what their close family and friends were doing when those children disappeared. Because however much I wish it wasn’t the case, the perpetrator is usually someone known to the child. So answer the bloody question!’

Adults who feel under pressure often start to behave like children. Alex had seen the phenomenon many times, yet he was still surprised when he saw Saul’s reaction. The man’s eyes shone with defiance.

What was it that he found so infuriating?

‘I was out for a walk. A circuit around Djurgården.’

The most classic of all walks in Stockholm.

‘With Daphne?’

‘Alone.’

‘Did you meet anyone you knew while you were out walking?’

‘No.’

‘Did you make or receive any phone calls?’

‘No.’

So he had no alibi.

That was why he was so angry. Because he was afraid. Afraid of looking like a suspect.

‘I’ve just lost my only child. I needed to be alone. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

Alex moved on; he didn’t want to waste time on the issue of Saul’s alibi at this stage, so he pretended to let it go. It was clear that Saul was surprised. Alex sat calmly opposite him, waiting.

Eventually Saul broke the silence.

‘So was there anything else?’

Alex glanced at his watch. Wished the time wasn’t going so fast. Not just for his own sake, but mainly for Polly Eisenberg’s. Because in spite of all the roadblocks, all the officers who had been called in to work overtime, in spite of the fact that every media outlet in the country was following Polly’s disappearance, Alex had the horrible feeling that he was in the middle of a chain of events over which he had no influence whatsoever.

The chances of finding Polly alive weren’t just small, they were infinitesimal.

And sitting opposite Alex was a man who, like certain others, had chosen not to tell the police everything he knew.

A man who didn’t have an alibi.

That wasn’t enough to make him a suspect, of course. They had to understand the motive in order to find the perpetrator.

‘Yes,’ he said to Saul. ‘There was something else. I have several more questions. Let’s start with something that should be comparatively simple. Do you know a man by the name of Efraim Kiel?’

In the world of fairy tales, limitations were set only by the bounds of imagination, which appealed to Fredrika Bergman. The impossible became possible; the happy ending was obligatory. And as a reader she always had the option of setting the book aside if the story got too unpleasant.

Which was what her daughter did when Fredrika tried to read to her.

‘Yuck,’ she said, knocking the book out of her mother’s hands.

Fredrika picked it up, looked at the dark images. Saga was right. It was a dark and scary story, not the kind of thing she should be reading to a child who was only three.

Her thoughts turned to the tale of the Paper Boy. The story Gideon had grown up with, told with the aim of keeping the children at home in the evenings. In a country like Israel, there was probably good reason to frighten a child in that way. The problem was that the Paper Boy seemed to have come to life – but not in Israel, in Stockholm.

Fredrika had searched online, but no one seemed to have heard of him. Nothing had been written about him. Perhaps her lack of success was due to her inability to read Hebrew; her searches in English and Swedish got her nowhere.

But something told Fredrika that even if she had been able to speak Hebrew, she wouldn’t have found many hits. Carmen had heard of the Paper Boy through Gideon, when she was an adult; he hadn’t featured in her childhood.

The Paper Boy.

Fredrika shuddered. The very concept was too abstract to stimulate the imagination. Why boy and not man? The Paper Man would be more logical. Using a child to frighten a child was tasteless, and surely ineffective: who would be scared of someone called the Paper Boy?

Me. I was scared of everything when I was little.

Fredrika gazed at her daughter, who had already forgotten about the story and was playing with a car instead. A blue car that Spencer had bought for their son. In his rather conservative view of the world, little girls couldn’t possibly be interested in such things. She laughed quietly to herself. Spencer was a good man, in spite of his shortcomings. Almost perfect. And he was perfectly capable of backing down when he was wrong. If his daughter wanted to play with cars, that was fine.

Beyond the fairy stories and the fun lay her trip to Israel. Without Spencer. He wasn’t up to it, that was obvious. She hated the thought of travelling alone, even though it was only for a couple of days.

She tried to shake off her feeling of unease. What could go wrong in such a short time?

Everything. The cataclysmic changes don’t happen over a long period, but from one second to the next.

The sound of her mobile interrupted her thoughts.

‘Could we meet up before you go?’ Alex said.

Fredrika didn’t like the idea at all; she really didn’t want to leave her family again at this stage.

Alex picked up on her reluctance.

‘I can come to you, if that’s easier.’

Fredrika was taken aback.

‘Come here? To the apartment?’

‘It was just a suggestion.’

Why not?

‘Of course,’ she heard herself saying. ‘Good idea.’

Spencer opened the door to Alex a little while later. Fredrika heard them say hello, saw them shake hands. She had to smile as she watched Alex trying to hide his surprise. Just like everyone else, he knew that she lived with a man who was twenty-five years older than her, but he still seemed bemused by how old Spencer actually was. Which was the way most people reacted when they first met him.

Alex glanced over at her, seemingly at a loss. He was acting as if someone had forced him across the threshold at gunpoint, rather than as if the whole thing had been his idea in the first place.

The children realised someone had arrived, and came running.

Like eager little puppies. They certainly weren’t shy.

‘Coffee?’

Alex declined. Fredrika led him into the library and closed the door.

‘Right you two, shall we make a start on tea?’ she heard Spencer say to the children. His voice was hoarse; he definitely wasn’t well.

‘He seems nice,’ Alex said, mainly for the sake of having something to say.

‘He is,’ Fredrika said. ‘And good-looking.’

Nothing was as liberating as humour.

Alex laughed uncertainly.

‘Are you on the same flight tomorrow?’ he asked.

Fredrika looked downcast.

‘Spencer’s not coming,’ she said. ‘He isn’t well enough.’

‘But you’re still going?’ Alex asked anxiously.

‘I am.’

He looked relieved.

‘We’ve questioned Saul and Daphne Goldmann,’ he said with an air of resignation. ‘I wish I had some useful information to pass on, but unfortunately that’s not the case. To start with, they had nothing to add to the story of the Paper Boy; they merely confirmed what Gideon and Carmen had told us, that it was used to frighten children.’

‘Saul grew up on the same kibbutz as Gideon,’ Fredrika said, ‘so it’s hardly surprising that he’s heard of the Paper Boy too. But what about Daphne? Was she already familiar with the story?’

‘She was, but that’s not surprising either – she grew up on the neighbouring kibbutz.’

Fredrika made a mental note of that snippet.

‘Do we have the names of these kibbutzim? I’m just wondering whether I ought to try and visit them.’

‘I think you should – if they’re still there, that is. Quite a lot have gone bankrupt or closed down for other reasons.’

Time had moved on from the basic premise of the kibbutz, an idealistic society where everything was owned collectively and no one earned more than anyone else, even though some carried more responsibility than others.

Alex went on:

‘Then they were asked about the Lion. Same again – they had nothing to add to what we had already heard from Gideon and Carmen.’

Fredrika thought about the prospects of finding the Lion in Israel; after all, it was from Jerusalem that his emails had been sent.

‘Have you spoken to the Israeli police?’ she asked.

Alex nodded. ‘We’ve given them everything our tech guys have found out about the Lion, and they’re going to help us search for him. They should have done a fair amount by the time you get there.’

‘So we’ve made a formal request for assistance?’

‘Sweden doesn’t actually have an international agreement with Israel, but as the victims belonged to the Solomon Community, it wasn’t particularly difficult to persuade them to co-operate with us. I don’t think we’d be able to secure an extradition to Sweden, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’

‘How did Daphne and Saul react to the photograph of Abraham with the paper bag over his head?’

‘Like the Eisenbergs, but even more strongly. Particularly Saul – he was very vocal.’

There was nothing strange about that; the pictures were terrible. Fredrika could still see the boys lying there on their backs in the snow, barefoot and with a bullet wound in their chests. And a paper bag on their heads.

‘And still the parents seem unable to help us move forward,’ she said.

‘They insist they have no idea why this is happening to them, but I’m not sure they’re telling the truth. Now that Polly Eisenberg has gone missing too, I’m more convinced than ever that chance has nothing to do with any of this.’

‘Of course not. It’s obvious that there’s a personal motive behind the murders and Polly’s disappearance; the only question is what that motive might be.’

Fredrika thought about the Paper Boy once more, wondering who the perpetrator was. The Paper Boy seemed like a suspect, an evil fairy-tale figure who didn’t exist.

Except that he did exist, because the children who had died on Lovön had been marked in the way that the Paper Boy marked his victims, according to the legend.

‘I’ve spoken to the tech guys about whether it would be possible to trace the Lion’s other contacts,’ Alex said. ‘They’ve spoken to the administrators of Super Troopers, and it turns out that the information was still on the system, in spite of the fact that the Lion had deleted his profile.’

Fredrika felt a flicker of hope.

‘And you’re only telling me this now?’

Alex pulled a face.

‘It was another dead end, I’m afraid. The Lion had no contact with any of the other members.’

Fredrika’s mind was whirling. She didn’t regard that as a dead end at all.

‘Which means he was only interested in Simon and Abraham. But how did he know he would find them on Super Troopers?’

‘That’s a bloody good question. Maybe someone tipped him off?’

Maybe, maybe not. So many questions, so few answers. What a mess. Fredrika tried another tack.

‘We wondered if the Lion could be the person who picked up the boys; did we follow up the car rental idea?’

‘As we don’t have a name to go on, I haven’t set the ball rolling yet,’ Alex said.

‘Didn’t the Lion say his first name was Zalman?’

‘Yes, but that’s not necessarily true. But you’re right; we’ll check it out. He could have two sets of ID papers.’

Could he? Fredrika thought about Efraim Kiel, an Israeli security expert who had entered Sweden and now couldn’t be found. Alex had probably been wise to contact Eden; the police lacked the tools to identify their suspects, which said something about their background. Something very unpleasant.

‘Did the Goldmanns know who Efraim Kiel was?’

‘They knew him from their military service, but that’s all.’

Alex ran a hand over his chin. ‘I have a feeling the parents are hiding a lot of things from us, but I don’t understand why. It’s so bloody frustrating.’

People lied for the strangest reasons, Fredrika knew that. A groundless fear of becoming a suspect was often the main motivation; they got themselves entangled in all kinds of unnecessary lies in order to make life simpler, which had the opposite effect. Always and without exception.

Alex met Fredrika’s gaze.

‘I’m not saying that I expect you to achieve miracles during your trip, but almost… Are you sure you can cope with all this?’

‘I can cope.’

She looked at her watch, working out how long Polly had been missing. Her heart sank as she thought the unthinkable: they weren’t going to find her in time. Not if she had been taken by the same person who had abducted her brother.

Arlanda was a quiet place on a Saturday evening. Eden Lundell loved airports. She was fascinated by the stream of people who had something in common: they were all heading to or from somewhere.

And the sense of being in the midst of that stream usually brought her a feeling of peace.

However, peace was sadly lacking as Eden sat waiting for her flight to London. Stress crawled under her skin, making it impossible for her to sit still.

I shouldn’t have left Mikael and the children alone.

In many families it was the man who was the hunter-gatherer, who protected his family, took on the physical responsibility. But not in Eden’s case. From a purely physical point of view, Mikael was the perfect warrior; Eden had no doubt that he would give up his life for her and their daughters. The only problem was that death was rarely a particularly productive option. It was noble, but not very sensible. If Mikael chose that option, both he and the children would be gone in two seconds.

The thought made her feel sick. She dug out her phone and called home.

‘Has something happened?’ Mikael said anxiously, highlighting the fact that Eden didn’t usually do that kind of thing.

‘I just wanted to check on you,’ she said.

‘You left forty minutes ago.’

‘Speak soon.’

She ended the call, cursing herself. She never got nervous. There was no room for weakness. And fear was the greatest weakness of all.

Eden realised she was watching the people around her, scanning her surroundings like radar, alert for the slightest deviation from the norm.

Efraim. What would she do if he sought her out again?

Because his appearance in the park had been anything but a chance encounter. He wanted something.

He’s deliberately stressing me out. Provoking me. I just don’t understand why.

Alex Recht thought that Efraim might have something to do with the murder of the two boys, and that he had taken another child.

But Alex didn’t know that Säpo had been watching Efraim, shadowing his movements outside the hotel; at least insofar as he was willing to be be shadowed.

Where the hell had Säpo been when he turned up in the park?

Eden had realised something then: she would never be free of Efraim. Not unless that was what he wanted. She thought about the gaps in the surveillance reports, the fact that Efraim appeared to be spending far too many hours in his hotel room. They had changed their approach after Eden had pointed out the failings in their routine; they had located alternative exits from the hotel, which were now covered.

But Eden knew that wasn’t enough. His appearance in the park proved her point.

A catastrophic incident. Thinking about it caused her physical pain.

Her mobile rang; it was GD.

‘I’m afraid I have some bad news,’ he said.

‘So have I.’

She hadn’t got round to telling her boss about what had happened earlier. She felt a surge of pure rage. If the surveillance operatives hadn’t been such amateurs, Efraim would never have been able to get so close to her. God only knew what he had been up to during all those missing hours.

She thought about the two boys, lying in the snow with paper bags over their heads.

She pushed the suspicion aside; it was impossible.

Surely the man who was the father of her children couldn’t have murdered someone else’s sons?

‘You first,’ Buster said.

Eden gave a brief outline of Efraim’s appearance in the park, but she omitted the worst part of all: the fact that Efraim had seen Dani, and realised what she hadn’t told him before they broke up. Eden’s silent revenge, her darkest secret.

Buster didn’t say a word.

‘Are you still there?’ Eden said.

‘I am. So the bastard came and found you? In the park, when you were with your family?’

Technically, some of them are his family.

‘Yes. So it’s obvious that the surveillance just isn’t working.’

Don’t sound angry, don’t flare up. It was so easy to ignore people who flew off the handle.

‘Which is exactly why I called,’ Buster said. ‘Because something has gone terribly wrong with our surveillance. I rang to warn you Eden. I’m very sorry that it was too late.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They haven’t seen him since yesterday. Eventually they went into the hotel and spoke to the receptionist; he’d checked out.’

‘So now we have no idea where he is?’

‘Correct.’

She forced herself to breathe calmly.

‘Have they seen anything of the person who’s leaving him messages?’

‘Not yet.’

Not yet. As if they had all the time in the world.

‘Alex Recht has been in touch again,’ she said. ‘They seem to think that Efraim might be involved in the murders of those two children from the Solomon Community.’

‘Shit.’

Buster’s voice was a stress-filled exhalation.

‘The question is whether we can provide him with an alibi,’ Eden said. ‘Although that seems unlikely, under the circumstances.’

‘But why are they interested in Kiel?’ Buster wanted to know.

Eden passed on what Alex had told her. The police had nothing concrete to go on, but their suspicions were growing, and the fact that he was so difficult to get hold of didn’t exactly help his case.

‘It definitely sounds as if we ought to tell them that we’re following him too,’ Buster said. ‘Where are you, by the way?’

‘Arlanda.’

‘Eden, please don’t do anything stupid. Where are you going?’

‘I’ll tell you when it’s over.’

‘No you bloody won’t. You’ll tell me right…’

‘I’ll be away on Monday, but I should be back on Tuesday.’

‘Just so you know – I can’t support you if you’re running your own race. I want to make that perfectly clear.’

Behind Eden, on the other side of the huge windows, the illuminated runways sparkled with frost and snow. She would soon be on her way.

‘You can’t help me with this, Buster.’

‘How do you know? You won’t even let me try.’

‘You have tried. Efraim ended up following me and my children to the toboggan run.’

‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am about that.’

‘I know. But it’s not enough. Säpo can’t access the information we need. Only I can do that, on my own.’

A plane taxied past the window, its white metallic bulk moving slowly towards the runway.

Eden’s flight was called; it was time to board.

‘I have to go.’

‘Will you call Alex Recht, or shall I ask someone else to do it?’

Eden thought for a second.

‘I’ll speak to him when I land.’

She was about to end the call, but Buster hadn’t finished.

‘Be honest with me, Eden. Just between the two of us. Do you think Efraim Kiel is involved in the murders?’

She stopped.

Pictured him. Tall, dark and tanned. Hand in hand at a market in Jerusalem. Whispering in her ear, telling her how much he loved her.

The most treacherous, lying bastard she had ever met in her entire life.

‘I don’t know,’ she said.

And realised to her horror that she meant what she said.

She didn’t know what she thought about the question of Efraim Kiel’s guilt.

As long as she had any doubt on that issue, she couldn’t be sure that her family was safe.

Up on deck the air was cold and damp. The wind seared his cheeks, brought tears to his eyes. Efraim Kiel stood alone at the rail, watching the dark water foam against the metal hull. It was ten o’clock at night. The following morning they would be in Helsinki; he would fly back to Stockholm before lunch. Good.

He thought about the latest message from the Paper Boy and realised someone had been watching him. And he hadn’t noticed.

Although it wasn’t the fact of being followed that bothered him the most. Much more critical was the question of what would happen when the Paper Boy discovered that the next victim had disappeared. Would he choose someone else, or let it lie?

Efraim knew better than to count on the latter.

The Paper Boy never gives up; he always comes back.

Efraim was aware that his options were limited. The Paper Boy was impatient, and with good reason. However, Efraim must engender a meeting with him, explain why the hunt must end. Justice had been done, vengeance served. So the game must stop. Immediately.

It won’t get any better than this. You have to accept that.

The water carrying the ship billowed beneath the hull. Anyone with a tendency towards seasickness had chosen the wrong night to sail. The northerly climate was merciless. Only the darkness was worse. Efraim couldn’t remember when he had last felt so tired.

The cold made him shiver, reminding him of why he had gone up on deck in the first place. He wasn’t dressed for the biting wind that had come with nightfall. Soon he would have to go back inside.

He looked around, to the right and to the left. There was no one there, no one to see him. Quickly he bent down, unzipped his bag with gloved hands. Felt for the object he had wrapped in towels and items of clothing. It was right at the bottom.

Efraim’s hands closed around the black metal with practised ease.

He stood up, leaned over the rail.

Not a living soul saw him as he dropped the gun that had killed three people into the sea.