The Chosen

by Kristina Ohlsson

She had hated him when she left London, because he had done what his boss told him to do: spied on her. Because he had turned his back on her, betrayed her. Because through his involvement he had complicated the breakup, making her lie to her husband even more. Mikael had never understood why Fred and Angela suddenly went from being friends to enemies. Mikael had been told about the affair with Efraim, but not about her secret lover’s background and the difficulties that created.

  The years had moderated her anger more than she had realized. When she saw Fred she felt nothing but a bottomless sorrow.

  “I’m going nowhere,” she said. “Either let me in or come with me to a place nearby where we can talk.”

  “No chance. I’ve nothing to say to someone like you.”

  “On the contrary. You have a great deal to say to me.”

  He was still staring at her, clearly shocked at her unexpected reappearance in his life. Who knew what stories they had told about her to make her seem like a worse person than she actually was.

  Fred shook his head slowly.

  “If you think I’m going to help you in any way, you’re wrong. I want nothing whatsoever to do with your sort.”

  “My sort?”

  “You betrayed everything we worked for! Every fucking ideal I thought we shared!”

  He was shouting now, his cheeks red, the veins in his neck standing out. As they always used to do when he got really angry.

  Her face wet with icy rain and something that might be tears, Eden said firmly:

  “You’re right, there was a betrayal. But not of you, and not of our organization. The only person I ever betrayed was Mikael, and that’s between him and me.”

  She moved a step closer, making it impossible for him to close the door without squashing her.

  “You don’t know the whole story,” she went on. “You think you do, but you’re wrong. And you have to listen to me now, because I’m afraid I’ve ended up in a very dangerous situation. And I don’t know anyone else who can help me.”

  She could feel the fear spreading from her chest and through her entire body as she spoke. Because she knew she was telling the truth. She was afraid. Afraid of the motives and powers that she didn’t understand but which had brought Efraim to Stockholm. Afraid of Alex Recht’s hints that Efraim might have something to do with his murder inquiry. But most of all she was afraid that everything that was happening hung together in a way she couldn’t yet see, which meant she was unable to protect herself.

  Fred hesitated. Eden knew why: it was because she was asking for help. Eden, who had made a point of needing no one’s help.

  “What’s this about?” he said.

  He was still clutching the door handle, wanting nothing more than to shove her down the steps and forget that she had ever come calling.

  “My family,” she whispered.

  And saw him slowly begin to soften.

  According to the reports he was getting from Fredrika, the weather in Jerusalem was mild and summery. Difficult to imagine how that felt when you were sitting in Alex Recht’s office in Stockholm.

  His plans to go home had been postponed.

  Time was passing. Hour followed hour with inexorable inevitability, and there was no trace of Polly Eisenberg. It was only a matter of time before she was found. Dead, and with a paper bag over her head. With a face drawn on it.

  Eyes, nose, mouth.

  They still didn’t understand what the paper bags meant, nor whether they had anything to do with the so-called Paper Boy. Alex offered up a silent prayer that Fredrika would be able to solve that puzzle during her stay in Israel.

  And the rest.

  Alex was more stressed than he liked to admit. He hated failures that cost lives. They caused too much suffering, too much pain. But with the amount of unanswered questions facing him right now, he found it difficult to see how he could turn this tragedy into success.

  The evidence suggested that there were two perpetrators, yet there was only one murder weapon. Therefore, they must know one another. And at least one of them must know who the Paper Boy was.

  Certain circumstances pointed in the direction of Efraim Kiel, who appeared to have gone to ground. But he had an alibi.

  And then there was the Lion, who had actively sought out the boys online and arranged to meet them. Who could be the person who had picked them up. But that meant he couldn’t be Efraim, who had an alibi for that period of time.

  But he could still be involved.

  There was no getting away from it: Efraim had an alibi for Josephine’s murder and the point at which the boys disappeared, but not for the morning when they were shot. Not as far as the police were aware, anyway. If Efraim Kiel and the Lion were the two people they were looking for, then the Lion was presumably a woman. But in that case why had she called herself Zalman, which was a man’s name? Had she never intended to meet the boys face-to-face?

  Everything would be so much simpler if they just knew who the Lion was or if they could eliminate the person in question from their inquiries.

  Alex couldn’t work out how the perpetrators had been thinking. If it hadn’t been for the gun, the police probably wouldn’t have been able to confirm the link between the murders at such an early stage. They would have had nothing more than circumstantial evidence, supposition.

  Which admittedly would have been confirmed when Polly Eisenberg subsequently disappeared.

  He tried to distance himself from the material, identify the key issues.

  If he assumed that Efraim Kiel and the Lion were working together, why had two Israelis traveled to Stockholm to kill three children?

  Because they had some kind of dispute with the children’s parents, who had left Israel for reasons that were unclear ten years ago, when their sons were born? Revenge was a classic motive for murder, but revenge for what? As long as the parents kept quiet, the investigation would remain at a standstill, unless Fredrika could save it from a distance. She was capable of a great deal, but miracles?

  Alex had his doubts.

  He felt very much alone. Without Fredrika, he lacked a sounding board, someone to cast a critical eye over his thoughts and suggestions. The team must be expanded by another permanent member, and fast. As soon as he had time, he would go through the applications again.

  They must be able to find someone. Someone who was worthy of a place on the team.

  Alex knew exactly who he wanted: Peder Rydh. He shouldn’t be grubbing around in the private sector, moving from one contract to the next. Perhaps the matter could be resolved through the Labor Court. Peder hadn’t even been charged; he had simply packed up and left.

  That wasn’t the right thing to do. You had to fight for your successes in order to cope with setbacks.

  But that could wait. Right now his priority was the children from the Solomon Community. He had to find a way to get their parents to talk so that they could move the investigation forward.

  The National Crime Unit had been in touch: a sketch artist had visited the Solomon Community and spoken to the secretary who had taken delivery of the chrysanthemum in the paper bag with a face on it. He had produced a drawing, which was faxed over to Alex.

  He looked at it with a feeling of deep skepticism. The woman in the picture could be just about anybody.

  Alex wondered if Fredrika had guessed correctly: Did this woman have something to do with the murders, and if so, was she the Lion?

  With a mounting sense of irritation he realized that a growing number of people were of interest purely because they couldn’t be identified or reached. Therefore he decided to focus on those they did know and could contact.

  Did he have suspicions about any of these individuals?

  Yes.

  Someone who had appeared unnecessarily defensive and aggressive; someone who was close to the children who had died.

  Saul Goldmann.

  He had clearly found it difficult to cooperate with the police, and he had no alibi for the time when Polly w
ent missing. But why would he have shot his own son? Alex had to work that out before he could move on.

  Unless of course it had been a mistake.

  Perhaps Abraham Goldmann was never meant to die. Perhaps he had been picked up in the car purely so that it would be easier to get Simon to come along.

  Although that seemed unlikely.

  Nevertheless, Alex decided to double-check Saul Goldmann’s alibi for the time when the boys disappeared. If there was one thing he had learned during his years as a police officer, it was that whatever seemed most unlikely at first glance would probably turn out to be the only logical explanation in the end.

  Saul Goldmann had said he was in a meeting when his son went missing. The meeting had taken place in Kungsholmen, not far from where Alex was now. Saul had met an associate at her business premises on Hantverkargatan. This associate, Mona Samson, had confirmed that the meeting had taken place.

  Alex read carefully through what Mona Samson had said.

  Saul Goldmann had arrived as agreed at one o’clock and had left just after five. By that time both Abraham and Simon were missing and Josephine had been shot dead.

  From one till five.

  That was a bloody long meeting.

  Not that it was illegal in any way, but he couldn’t see any indication of what had been discussed. The feeling that something wasn’t right grew stronger; he couldn’t get it out of his mind. Something was grating—something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

  Without hesitation he picked up the phone and called Mona Samson. He wanted to hear her voice, try to sense whether she might be lying. He thought about the indentation in the snow on the roof; the person lying there had probably been a woman. Five foot six. Size 51/2 to 7 shoes.

  There was no reply. Alex didn’t leave a message; instead he got up and put on his jacket. It would take only a few minutes to walk to her office, check things out, ring the bell, see if she was there. Then again, why would she be there on a Sunday?

  He made a mental note of the address and the name of the firm: Samson Security AB. A security firm which, according to its website, specialized in various alarm systems. Alex couldn’t tell how big it was; Mona Samson could well be the sole employee.

  The elevator made its way laboriously down to the ground floor. He went out onto Stråket, which linked the buildings that made up Kronoberg, Stockholm’s Police HQ. How many times had he walked along here? Back and forth, never wanting to be anywhere else. He was very different from Fredrika Bergman, who had taken half a lifetime to work out what she wanted to do.

  How hard could it be?

  You just had to live.

  He emerged via the old building leading onto Scheelegatan. The air was raw and damp. The sun that had shone so brightly the day before was gone. On days like this it was hard to imagine that it would be back later in the year. Stockholm’s weather was hard on those who were tough, and even harder on those who were already weak.

  Hantverkargatan was a long street running all the way from Sankt Eriksgatan down to the city hall. Diana had been to dinner there once and she still talked about it. Candelabras and linen napkins, an orchestra playing, male guests who danced like gods. Listening to her made Alex break out in a sweat. If she wanted candelabras and linen napkins, she could find another man. Although he could dance. Very well, in fact.

  “That’ll do,” she had said when he mentioned it.

  Samson Security AB lay only three blocks from Police HQ, in a very attractive building on the left-hand side. Alex stopped outside the main door.

  He felt at something of a loss.

  What had he actually thought was going to happen here?

  He tried the door. Locked, of course. But there was an intercom with a list of names. He glanced through them: several private individuals, a small number of businesses. Samson Security AB was not one of them.

  There was, however, a Mona Samson. Strange: Why wasn’t the name of the company listed? Did no one ever come here on business?

  But Saul Goldmann had been here.

  Alex rang the bell. No response. He tried again. Not a sound from Mona Samson.

  So he tried someone else, with more success. A deep male voice answered. When Alex explained who he was and asked if he could come in, the door buzzed and he was soon standing in the foyer. People with nothing to hide rarely refused to cooperate when the police asked for help.

  Mona Samson lived on the third floor. The elevator was broken, so Alex had to walk. That didn’t bother him; it enabled him to get a better idea of the property.

  There were four doors on the level where Mona Samson lived. Alex tried her doorbell, heard the sound reverberating through the apartment. As he had expected, no one came.

  With a certain amount of hesitation he rang her neighbor’s doorbell. The man who answered the door was wearing shorts in spite of the cold. Alex recognized his voice; it was the man who had let him in off the street.

  Alex introduced himself again and showed his police ID.

  “I’m looking for Mona Samson. I don’t suppose you know where I can get hold of her?”

  “Has something happened?”

  A legitimate question when the police turned up on a Sunday afternoon.

  “No, nothing serious, but I do need to speak to her.”

  The man thought for a moment.

  “Hang on, I’ll ask my partner. He has a better idea than I do of what the neighbors get up to.”

  He turned away and called out:

  “Andreas, do you know where Mona is? The police are looking for her.”

  Excellent, now the entire building knew what was going on.

  A red-haired man ambled into the hallway. He nodded to Alex and, like his partner, asked whether something had happened. Alex repeated his answer.

  “I have no idea where she is,” Andreas said. “I bumped into her in the laundry room on Tuesday, but I haven’t seen her since.”

  Alex couldn’t help feeling disappointed. His resigned expression made Andreas keep talking. “She might have gone home,” he said. “She does that sometimes.”

  “Home?”

  “To Israel. That’s where she’s from.”

  ISRAEL

  The American Colony Hotel: an oasis consisting of beautiful stone buildings and a lush, green garden, situated only ten minutes’ walk from the so-called Damascus Gate in the wall around the Old City. Originally built by a group of Americans and Swedes, the same Swedes that Selma Lagerlöf later wrote about in her book Jerusalem.

  Fredrika Bergman was given a room in the building known as the East House. It was a small, minimalist, but charming room with a high ceiling. Lovely double-aspect windows. A bathroom so stunning that Spencer would have insisted they sleep in the shower.

  Darling, you should be here with me.

  Isak Ben-Zwi had dropped her off about an hour earlier. She had stayed in the hotel and had lunch in the magnificent restaurant. If the background to her trip hadn’t been so horrific, she would have felt privileged; as it was, she just felt burdened.

  She sat in the restaurant for a while and worked. To Spencer’s surprise and delight, she had taken her violin with her.

  “I thought you were going there to work,” he had said.

  “I am, but there’s always time for meditation.”

  Meditation. That was how she referred to the time she spent playing the violin, so that people would understand what it meant to her. An essential breathing space.

  But now that she was actually there, that was the last thing on her mind. She was sitting with her back to the wall, eyes fixed on her laptop. She liked to have people around her, the noise and bustle reminding her that the reality with which she was confronted in her work was not her own life. She was not the one who had lost her children. It was someone else.

  And for that she was deeply grateful.

  Daphne and Saul Goldmann.

  Carmen and Gideon Eisenberg.

  Alex wanted her to find out more a
bout their past, to try to understand why they had left Israel and moved to Sweden, because neither he nor Fredrika believed that the move had been motivated only by the feeble reasons the families themselves had put forward—although Fredrika did sympathize when it came to the issue of security. It was doomed to be a fragile commodity in Israel: conflict followed conflict, and the people never had any peace. Perhaps eventually some had had enough and simply pulled up stakes and left. Particularly if they had children.

  In the car on the way from the airport, Isak had said that security had improved. The first years after the outbreak of the second intifada had been extremely difficult. Fredrika realized that he was speaking from an Israeli perspective. The calm surrounding her in Jerusalem seemed deceptive, like a bubble that could burst at any moment, because presumably the Palestinians didn’t share the Israeli view that things had gotten better.

  She was ashamed as she shook off thoughts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as if it were an unwelcome insect, but she just didn’t have room for that kind of thing alongside the immediate crisis she was here to try and solve. A crisis involving two murdered children.

  The same questions that had haunted her over the past few days were still going around and around in her head. She wrote them down. Read through them. Again. There was nothing new to add. She must have patience, wait for the results of the Israeli efforts to identify the Lion, so that they could either eliminate him or establish what role he had played.

  And then there were the kibbutzim where she hoped to find out more about the Paper Boy and about the past history of the Eisenberg and Goldmann families.

  Her phone rang, making her jump.

  “We need to take a closer look at Saul Goldmann,” Alex said.

  Fredrika listened attentively as he went through what he had found out.

  Another trail leading to Israel. Another Israeli citizen.

  “Why would Saul Goldmann kill his own son?” she said. “Or be involved in his murder?”

  “That’s what we need to find out,” Alex said.

  “Do you think the Goldmann lead is more promising than Efraim Kiel and the Lion?”