The Chosen (43 page)

The prosecutor had been very clear. Without a confession or further proof, he would never be able to take it to court.

A confession seemed highly unlikely, but they ought to be able to find further proof.

Otherwise it would be back to square one, and in that case Alex had no idea how they were going to save Polly Eisenberg.

At first glance Saul Goldmann didn’t appear to be particularly bothered by the situation, although he had requested the presence of his lawyer throughout the interview.

‘Do you understand why you’re here?’ Alex began.

‘Because for some unknown reason you think I killed not only my own son, but his friend as well. It’s an utterly ridiculous idea, and I hope we can clear this up as quickly as
possible.’

Alex studied him closely.

His facial features were as neat and tidy as the clothes he wore. He seemed to be handling his son’s death much better than his wife, who had broken down completely as she watched her
husband being led out of the office.

‘You say your own son,’ Alex said, ‘but he wasn’t yours, was he?’

He rarely opened an interview with a straight right, but this time he had decided to go for it.

Saul Goldmann couldn’t hide his surprise. His lawyer gave him a quizzical look, but said nothing.

‘What? Of course he was my son.’

‘According to our information, that isn’t the case. You had a vasectomy many years ago.’

‘I’m sorry, but I really don’t see what this has to do with anything.’

‘Then you’d better think again, because obviously we are interested in your relationship to the child we suspect you killed.’

Alex could see that Saul was already seething, which was a good thing. Those who lost control were often the easiest to manipulate, even if they would never admit it themselves.

‘Abraham was my boy,’ Saul said, emphasising every word. ‘I loved him deeply, and I am bereft without him.’

His voice held until the very last word, then broke. Alex wasn’t sure whether that was down to grief or anger.

‘Who’s the Paper Boy?’ he said.

‘You asked me that the last time we met.’

‘And now I’m asking you again. Who’s the Paper Boy?’

Saul’s expression was defiant.

‘An Israeli myth.’

‘Invented by whom?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Who first told you the story?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘Did he really exist?’

‘No, as I’ve already told you, he was an imaginary figure.’

Alex leaned back in his chair.

‘My colleague is currently on her way back from Israel, where she visited the kibbutz where you and Gideon Eisenberg grew up.’

The colour drained from Saul’s face.

‘Are you sure the Paper Boy didn’t exist in reality?’

Saul blinked, but said nothing.

Patience was an undervalued virtue when it came to interviewing a suspect. Alex allowed time to work for him and wondered how long it would be before Saul gave in. As expected, it
didn’t take many minutes.

‘I assume you want me to say that my father was the Paper Boy.’

‘Wasn’t he?’

‘No. It was just something we made up as kids.’

‘But he did abduct and kill children?’

Saul sighed.

‘Yes.’

‘How was he caught?’

There was another long silence, and Saul’s expression changed. He scratched his forehead and let out a low groan.

‘This is pure fantasy. You know that Gideon was my father’s last victim, and you think I attacked his child as an act of revenge. And that I killed my own son as well because
I’m not his biological father.’

He shook his head wearily.

Alex refused to lose heart.

‘Good guess,’ he said. ‘But I’m afraid it only covers part of our theory. Where were you when Simon and Abraham disappeared on their way to the tennis centre?’

‘I’ve already told you – in a business meeting with Mona Samson from Samson Security.’

‘And where was this?’

‘In her apartment on Hantverkargatan.’

‘Why were you in the apartment instead of her office?’

‘Because I was in Kungsholmen anyway.’

‘So she stayed at home rather than going into work, just so that she could meet you?’

‘She said she could just as easily work from home.’

‘But you’ve been to the office on Torsgatan?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did you get to know one another, you and Mona Samson?’

Saul shifted in his seat and glanced at his lawyer, who still hadn’t said a word.

‘We met at a conference in Brussels last spring.’

Classic.

‘How would you describe your relationship?’

Saul’s expression grew wary.

‘Professional.’

‘And that’s all?’

‘Yes.’

Really?

It was Alex’s turn to sigh.

‘I’m going to give you one more chance to answer my question. Where were you when Simon and Abraham disappeared on their way to the tennis centre?’

Saul leaned forward across the table.

‘I was in Kungsholmen with Mona Samson.’

Alex also leaned forward, meeting Saul halfway.

‘How come you rang Mona Samson at three o’clock that afternoon?’

A rapid blink, but otherwise Saul remained impassive.

‘I can’t answer that.’

‘Can’t or won’t?’

‘Can’t.’

‘Because?’

A thin smile played around Saul’s lips.

‘Because I’d left my phone at home that day. Abraham might have used it and called the wrong number by mistake. Or it could have been my wife. I don’t know, because I
wasn’t at home.’

Fuck.

But Alex hadn’t finished.

‘When you called Mona Samson’s mobile, it was near the bridge – Djurgårdsbron. Had she also left her phone somewhere?’

The lawyer decided to speak up.

‘It’s hardly up to my client to explain where Mona Samson’s mobile phone was that afternoon.’

Alex backed off.

‘Where is Mona Samson at the moment?’

‘I haven’t a clue.’

‘Are you in a relationship with her?’

Saul burst out laughing.

‘I’m sorry, are you serious?’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay, no. No, no, no – I am not in a relationship with Mona.’

The lawyer cleared his throat and looked demonstratively at his watch.

‘If this is all you’ve got, I think we’re just about done here,’ he said.

Pure rage surged through Alex’s body, putting all his senses on full alert. No fucking way was Saul Goldmann getting off so easily.

At that point the interview was interrupted as a colleague knocked on the door and came in.

‘Can I speak to you for a moment?’ he said to Alex.

Alex got up and left the room.

‘This had better be good news,’ he said.

‘It is. Mona Samson has been in touch. She’s retracted her previous statement. Saul Goldmann left her apartment at two o’clock.’

T
he plane was cruising at thirty thousand feet. Fredrika Bergman was in a window seat, feeling stressed because she wasn’t on the spot in Stockholm, where everything was happening, but
calmed by the fact that as long as she was in the air, she was isolated from the rest of the world.

With the help of what she had been told by David and Gali Eisenberg, they now had a viable theory.

Saul Goldmann had become the Paper Boy.

He had murdered Abraham, who was not his biological son.

He had also, after waiting for many years, taken his revenge for the loss of his own father when he was a child. That was why he had targeted Simon and Polly Eisenberg, the children of the man
responsible for sending Saul’s father to prison.

But something was bothering Fredrika; she wasn’t completely satisfied with their conclusions. There were still several unexplained loose ends.

Mona Samson, for example. Was she the person on the roof who had shot Josephine? And was it to conceal her involvement that she was hiding behind this peculiar security company that seemed
to be little more than a facade?

And then there was the Lion. Who might be Saul Goldmann. Or Efraim Kiel. But if Saul was the Lion, then Fredrika didn’t understand why he had chosen to make contact with the boys via email. The Lion was definitely linked to the murders in
some way; if she hadn’t been convinced before, there was no doubt left in her mind when she found out about the name he had given in one of the internet cafés. Therefore, the exchange
of emails must have served a purpose – but what was it, if not to enable him to approach the boys without arousing their suspicion?

Fredrika usually slept whenever she flew, but this time her body rebelled, refused to give in to tiredness.

Because she knew something was wrong.

They had stumbled on something when they started asking the Israeli police questions, and Fredrika couldn’t work out what it was. The only thing she knew for sure was they had come too
close to information that the state of Israel wished to protect.

There was nothing strange about that; such information exists in every country with self-respect. This time, however, it had jeopardised an important police investigation through a refusal to
co-operate. She recalled what Isak Ben-Zwi had said to her: that she wouldn’t learn about the Paper Boy on the kibbutz. That she was deluded if she thought she would find what she was looking
for there.

He had sounded as if he knew who the Paper Boy was.

But he obviously didn’t, because otherwise he would have known that Avital Greenburg had once been called exactly that: the Paper Boy.

Could there be more than one Paper Boy?

Of course not. The whole thing must be a mixture of classified information and a misunderstanding.

Fredrika still couldn’t shake off the feeling of unease that was steadily growing stronger.

Evidence was being withheld, for valid or invalid reasons. And that was damaging the investigation, leading them to the wrong conclusions.

Gideon and Saul had lied about their professional background. They had also lied about their reasons for leaving Israel, either because they thought none of this was relevant in the hunt
for whoever had murdered their sons, or because they had no choice, regardless of whether they believed that this tragedy was linked to their past.

The latter alternative worried Fredrika more than anything, because it could mean that the parents knew exactly why someone had chosen to murder their children in particular, and that
they had decided to handle it themselves, without involving the police.

In which case the drama could well have a more apocalyptic resolution than any of them could imagine.

‘T
he apartment is on Mariatorget. I want you and the girls to go there right away. Pack a bag and get a cab. I’ll be there later this evening.’

Eden Lundell was talking as she walked from Säpo HQ to Alex Recht’s office in another building.

‘Eden, I’m just about to start cooking tea for the girls,’ her husband Mikael said wearily. ‘What are you talking about?’

Her heart skipped a beat. She didn’t have time to be gentle and diplomatic; she just wanted him to do as she said.

‘I can’t explain what’s happened, but we won’t be able to stay at home for the next few days. Please do as I say. Get a cab to Police HQ in Kungsholmen and pick up the
key in reception, then go to the apartment and wait for me there.’

She would have spoken to Mikael earlier in the day, but hadn’t been able to get hold of him. That was fine; the girls were safer in some anonymous day care centre than in the
apartment.

Thank God they weren
’
t at the Solomon school.

She heard the sound of clattering in the background, along with her daughters’ non-stop chatter.

Eden’s everyday life; all too often she was much too small a part of that existence.

‘I’ll call you when we’ve eaten,’ Mikael said.

Eden stopped dead.

‘Mikael, for fuck’s sake, this is important. Just do as I say. Get in a cab. You can order pizza when you arrive.’

She had raised her voice because of fear and frustration. It didn’t matter if there were only two people in the entire world who knew that Efraim Kiel was the father of her children;
right now that was one person too many.

‘In that case you need to come home and explain why it’s so urgent,’ Mikael said. ‘Because I am not about to drop everything on some whim of yours.’

Eden could have wept. She hardly ever felt that way, and it frightened her.

‘Can’t you just do as I say? This is important. Really important.’

Her tone was calmer now, and she had lowered her voice to its normal pitch.

Mikael said something to one of the girls.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Okay. But tonight we need to have a proper discussion, because I can’t cope with this. You take off on some secret mission, then you call home and want
us to turn our lives upside down. You just don’t do that. Not if you’re a family.’

She nodded eagerly, overwhelmed with relief. She didn’t care how angry he was as long as he got out of that apartment.

‘Absolutely,’ she said. ‘We’ll talk when I get there. See you later.’

She slipped her mobile into her pocket and ran the rest of the way to Alex’s office, straight up two flights of stairs without waiting for the lift. She had called him a little while
earlier, and he had said he would be there for fifteen minutes, but no longer.

He was alone at his desk when she walked in.

‘Bloody hell, did you run all the way?’

She sat down.

‘I read online that the police had arrested the father of one of the boys as a suspect for the murders. Is that true?’

‘Yes.’

Alex looked wary, as if he wasn’t sure how much he was prepared to tell her.

‘May I ask which of them it was, and why?’

Alex glanced at his watch, then folded his arms.

‘We’ve just taken a break in the interview. I need to be back in ten minutes. Would you mind telling me why this is important to you?’

What could she say to that?

‘As I told you, Säpo has a certain amount of interest in Efraim Kiel,’ she said, choosing her words with care. ‘I just want to rule out any additional links to our
operations in your investigation.’