The Chosen (25 page)

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.’

T
he 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.

T
he 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.