The Chosen (3 page)

The music carried her as if she had wings. She was flying high above everyone else, pretending she was alone in the universe. It was a dangerous thought. Soloists rarely did well in an ensemble,
but for a moment –
just one moment
– Fredrika Bergman wanted to experience a taste of the life she had never had, to catch a glimpse of the woman she had never become.

It was the third week of the new, yet familiar era. All her adult life Fredrika had mourned the career as a violinist that she had never had, and would never have. Not only had she grieved, she
had searched hard for an alternative future. She had wandered around like a lost soul among the ruins of everything that had once been hers, wondering what to do, because as a child and a
teenager, she had lived for music. Music was her vocation, and without it life was worth very little.

Things never turn out as we expect.

Sometimes they
’
re better, but often they
’
re worse.

Occasionally the memory would resurface, as unwelcome as rain from a summer sky. The memory of a car skidding, ending up on the wrong side of the road, crashing and turning over. With children
in the back, parents in the front, skis on the roof. She remembered those cataclysmic seconds when everything was torn apart, and the silence that followed. The scars were still there. Every day
she could see them on her arm, white lines that told the story of why she had been unable to put in the necessary hours of practice every day. In despair and emotional turmoil she had buried her
violin in the graveyard of the past, and become a different person.

And now she was playing again.

It was her mother who had found the string ensemble and told her: ‘This is your chance, Fredrika’. As if Fredrika, who was married to a man twenty-five years older than her, with two
small children, had endless hours at her disposal, just waiting for something to fill them.

But seek and ye shall find, as they say, and for the past three weeks music had been back in her life. For the first time in twenty years, Fredrika felt something that might just be harmony. Her
husband and children made her heart whole. She was happy in her work, for once. Reaching this point had been a messy process. The case of the hijacked plane a few months earlier had been the key.
Her employer in the Justice Department had sent her back to work with the police on a temporary basis, and Fredrika had realised where she felt at home, where she wanted to be.

In the police service. On the first of January, she was back. Working with Alex Recht as part of a new investigative team, which was very similar to the one she had been a part of a few years
ago.

Very similar, even though so much had changed.

Harmony. A word that would have made her feel queasy just a couple of years ago. But not now. Now it had acquired a new meaning; it wrapped itself around her soul like cotton wool, and lit a
spark in her eyes. Fredrika Bergman had found peace.

For the time being, at least.

T
here had once been a Jewish bloodline in Alex’s family, but it had been broken several generations ago. Since then, none of his relatives had any links to Judaism, and the only trace that
remained was his surname. Recht.

Nevertheless, he felt that the name gave him certain advantages as he set off for the Solomon Community in Östermalm, as if its Jewish origins would be enough to bring him closer to a
people he had never felt part of.

The air was cold and damp as he got out of the car on Nybrogatan. Bloody awful weather. January at its worst.

The Östermalm police had cordoned off the area around the body. Huddles of curious onlookers were leaning over the plastic tape. Why did blood and death attract so much attention? So many
people shamelessly gravitated towards misery, just so they could feel glad they hadn’t been affected.

He quickly made his way over to the cordon where he could see several younger colleagues in uniform. He had once been like them, young and hungry, always ready to put on his uniform and get out
there to keep the streets safe. He was rather more disillusioned these days.

One of the officers introduced him to the community’s general secretary, a man weighed down by a tragedy that was only a few hours old. He could barely
speak.

‘None of the witnesses is allowed to leave,’ Alex said, placing as much emphasis on the first word as he could muster. ‘As I understand it, a number of parents and children saw
what happened. No one goes home until we’ve spoken to them, or at least made a note of their contact details.’

‘Already done,’ one of his Östermalm colleagues said tersely. Alex realised that he had overstepped the mark. Who was he to come marching onto their turf issuing orders? They
had asked him to help out, not take over.

‘How many witness are we talking about?’ he said, hoping that he had managed to soften his tone.

‘Three parents and four children aged between one and four. And of course various people who happened to be passing when the incident took place. I’ve asked those who came forward to
stick around, but of course I can’t guarantee that’s everyone.’

It shouldn’t be a problem; Alex had been told that the school entrance was covered by CCTV, so it would be fairly straightforward to get an idea of how many people had been passing at the
time of the shooting.

‘Who’s your head of security?’ Alex asked, turning to the general secretary.

‘We don’t have one at the moment. Our security team is running itself until we fill the post.’

Alex looked over at the body. The falling snow was doing its best to bury the scene of the crime, but without success. The warm blood that had poured out of the woman was melting the snowflakes
as effectively as if they had landed on a radiator. She was lying on her stomach, her face on the ground. She had been shot in the back as she turned towards the open door of the school to call to
one of the children. Alex thanked God that the bullet hadn’t hit one of the little ones instead.

‘According to the parents, there was just one single shot,’ said his colleague from Östermalm.

Alex looked at the body. Clearly one shot was all that had been required.

‘Shall we continue inside, where it’s warmer?’ the general secretary suggested.

He led the way into the building, where another man appeared and introduced himself as the headteacher of the Solomon school.

‘I need hardly say that we are devastated by what’s happened, and that we expect the police to give this matter the highest priority,’ the general secretary said.

‘Of course,’ Alex said sincerely. Shooting someone down in broad daylight in the middle of the city wasn’t exactly common.

They sat down in the general secretary’s office. The walls were adorned with pictures of various places in Israel arranged in neat rows – Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Nazareth. Alex had
visited the country several times, and recognised virtually every location. In the window an impressive menorah spread its seven branches: one of the classic symbols of Judaism. Alex wondered
if he had one at home; if so it must be in one of the boxes in the loft.

‘Tell me about the woman who died,’ he said, trying to remember her name. ‘Josephine. How long had she been working for you?’

‘Two years,’ the headteacher replied.

‘Which age group did she work with?’

Alex  knew  nothing about  the  way pre-schools  were organised, but he assumed that children of different ages were separated into groups. His own children were grown up now, and parents themselves. Sometimes when he listened to their talk of
day care and school and dropping off and picking up, he wondered where he had been when they were little. He certainly hadn’t been with them, at any rate.

‘Early years – one to three. She and two colleagues were responsible for a dozen or so children.’

‘Have there been any threats directed against Josephine or the school in the past?’

The headteacher looked at the general secretary, waiting for him to respond.

‘As I’m sure you know, there are always threats against Jewish interests, irrespective of time or place, unfortunately. But no, we haven’t received any concrete threats
recently. Unless you count all the vandalism, that is. Which we do, even if it isn’t directed against individuals.’

‘I know you keep a close eye on people moving around outside your premises; have you noticed anything in particular that you’d like to share?’

Once again the answer was no; everything had been quiet.

‘What about you?’ the general secretary said, leaning across the desk. ‘I realise that the investigation is at an early stage, but do you have any leads that you think could
prove interesting?’

There was something about the man’s tone of voice that made Alex suddenly wary. He decided to answer a question with a question, which he directed to both the headteacher and the general
secretary.

‘What do you know about Josephine’s private life?’

A pale smile flitted across the headteacher’s face.

‘She was twenty-eight years old. The daughter of two members of our community who have been close friends of mine for many years. I’ve known Josephine since she was little. She was a
lovely girl.’

But?
There was always a but.

‘But?’

‘She was a little . . . wild. It took time for her to find the right path in life. However, I had no hesitation in giving her the job. She was fantastic with the children.’

A little wild. That could mean anything from ‘She robbed a bank but she didn’t mean any harm,’ to ‘She hitched her way around the world twice before she decided what she
wanted to be when she grew up’. Alex didn’t understand words like ‘wild’. It was new a invention, coined by a generation with too many choices and skewed expectations
of life.

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ he said. ‘Given that you know her parents so well, I assume you’re also aware that she was living with a man fifteen years older than
her, with convictions for a series of serious crimes?’

Their reaction took him by surprise.

They hadn’t had a clue. Or had they? Alex gazed at the man who looked the least surprised: the general secretary. But he was also the person who had most to lose if it appeared that
he had no idea what was going on within his community.

‘There must be some misunderstanding,’ the headteacher said. ‘We didn’t even know she was living with someone.’

Alex remembered that they had been co-habiting for only a few months, according to the records.

‘Surely her parents must have known who she was sharing her home with?’ he said.

‘You’d think so, but then I don’t know how much they saw of her,’ the headteacher said.

Alex immediately decided that he needed to speak to the parents.

‘Where can I get hold of Josephine’s mother and father?’

‘They have an apartment on Sibyllegatan, but I know they were keen to get to the hospital as soon as she’s taken there; they want to see her. Or whatever the procedure is.’

You saw. You felt. You understood.

You went under and fell apart.

‘Any brothers or sisters?’

‘She has a brother in New York.’

So at least the parents still had one child left. That always gave him some small consolation – not that he thought it was possible to replace one child with another. He had almost lost his son
just a few months ago, and nothing could have compensated for such a loss.

Nothing.

Alex hated remembering those hours when everything had been so uncertain and no one knew how it would end. And it was almost more painful to remember the aftermath of the hijacking, which had
cost him so much. All those weeks of frustration, all the footslog that had been necessary to bring his son home; exhausting marathon trips to the USA; endless meetings with government
officials who were unwilling to let him out of the country.

He shook his head. That was all behind him now.

‘I’m assuming that you will treat the information I have given you with the greatest discretion,’ he said, getting to his feet to indicate that the meeting was over.

‘Of course. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if we can help in any way,’ the general secretary said, holding out his hand.

Alex shook it.

‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said.

‘So will we, actually,’ the general secretary said. ‘As I said, we’re in the process of recruiting a new head of security, and one of the applicants has given your name
as a referee.’

‘Really?’ Alex was slightly taken aback.

The general secretary nodded.

‘Peder Rydh. But as I said, we’ll be in touch.’

Peder Rydh.

It still hurt to hear that name.

He still missed his former colleague.

A little while later Alex was standing on Nybrogatan, wondering why he felt so uneasy. It was as if the snowflakes were whispering to him.

This has only just begun. You have no idea of what is to come.

T
he falling snow was like confetti made of glass. Simon suppressed an urge to stick out his tongue to let some of the crystals land on it. The cold made him stamp his feet up and down on the
spot. Why was Abraham always late? He was the kind of person who thought punctuality just didn’t matter. How many hours had Simon stood waiting for him in bus shelters, outside the school,
outside the tennis centre, and in a million other places? If he added it all up, and he was good at that kind of thing, he had probably spent days and days being annoyed with his friend who was
incapable of turning up on time.

Who never apologised.

Just smiled when he eventually showed up.

‘Have you been waiting long?’ he would say.

As if he hadn’t a clue about when they were due to meet, or the fact that they had agreed on a specific time.

The humiliation bothered Simon more often than he was prepared to admit. He no longer knew why it was simply taken for granted that he and Abraham should be friends. Their parents no longer saw
as much of each other as they had in the past, and in school they belonged to different groups. When he thought about it, tennis was really the only thing they had in common, although that had
changed too in recent weeks. They still went along together, but ever since the coach had taken Simon to one side and said that he thought it would be worth putting in a few extra hours of training to
help him move forward, Abraham had begun to withdraw. They no longer played against each other, but against other boys.