The Chosen (14 page)

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

Was the bullet really meant for Josephine?

Or for one of the children?

Reluctantly his thoughts returned to the Paper Boy.

Was it you who did this?

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

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

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

And secondly, he took only children.

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

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

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

So the boys had been driven to the spot.

But how had they managed to escape?

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

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

They must have been so cold.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now they were gone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

He looked at her.

‘Yes?’

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

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

‘In what way?’

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

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

‘But twenty minutes is a long time.’

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

Fredrika shook her head.

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

Why had no one seen anything?

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

Alex opened the door of the Snakes’ Nest.

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

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

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

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

If that was the case, then why?

T
he Snakes’ Nest was a really bad name for a meeting room. It carried overtones of a sex club rather than an appropriate venue for a collection of highly skilled investigators. Apart from
that, Alex Recht felt entirely at home in the room, because it looked exactly the same as the Lions’ Den.

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

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

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

‘No.’

‘Any thoughts about who might have been driving?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The room fell silent.

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

‘Later this afternoon.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alex nodded to one of the CSIs to take over.

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

Fredrika raised her hand.

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

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

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

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

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

‘What do you mean?’

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

The CSI nodded to show he’d understood.

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

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

‘That is a possible scenario.’

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

What he had set out to achieve.

Bloody hell.

The realisation struck Alex like a punch in the face.

Fredrika put his thoughts into words:

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

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