Simon couldn’t think clearly.
The Paper Boy.
‘Why does he come to the children at night?’
His voice was no more than a whisper.
The man grew serious.
‘He steals them. Takes them from their parents and tears them to pieces.’
Suddenly the man was angry. He hissed:
‘And you know what? Your father became just like him.’
Simon realised two things simultaneously:
He was in a very dangerous situation. And he had no idea how to get out of it.
The man took a step towards him, and Simon fell backwards in the snow as he tried to move away.
‘Get up and take off your shoes and socks.’
Simon blinked.
‘You heard me. Take off your shoes and socks and I’ll give you a chance.’
Without waiting for Simon to obey, he walked past him and opened the driver’s door of the van. Simon stood there as if he had turned to stone, and saw the man reach inside for something. When he turned around he was holding a rifle.
Simon started crying again.
‘There’s no need to be afraid. If you just do as I say, I’ll give you a chance.’
He lowered the gun as if to show that he meant what he said.
‘Do as I say and I’ll let you go.’
With trembling hands Simon slowly began to undo his shoelaces.
His feet were freezing cold.
And he was weary.
Bone weary.
As he stood barefoot in front of the man, he almost didn’t care what was going to happen.
The man stared at him for a long time.
‘Okay, Simon. Listen carefully. I want you to run as fast as you can. Do you understand?’
Not really.
Run?
Run where?
‘Run! Run like the wind, and you might get away from him.’
Simon blinked again, still numb with cold and shock.
‘Who?’ he whispered. ‘Who’s after me?’
The man raised his gun.
‘I am after you. I am the Paper Boy.’
It was such a beautiful day that you just wanted to get in the car and head out of the city. Drive out into the country and let the children go crazy in the snow.
But a conscientious person like Fredrika Bergman couldn’t do that. Not with a murder and two missing boys to think about. The morning passed in silence as she and Spencer moved around the apartment like two restless souls, getting the children ready for day care.
‘So you’ll pick them up this afternoon?’ she said eventually as she stood in the doorway with her son and daughter in the double buggy.
‘Of course.’
Of course.
Now Fredrika had agreed that he could go away for two weeks, there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her.
Very wise.
Fredrika had hardly slept. The missing boys and memories of the past had kept her awake. In the middle of the night, at God knows what time, she had glanced over at Spencer and realised that he too was wide awake, lying on his side and watching her in the darkness. He couldn’t settle either.
‘I don’t know what I’d do if you left me,’ he had whispered. ‘Are you sure it’s okay if I go?’
He had reached out and touched her chin.
The desire came from nowhere, and she had leaned over and kissed his forehead. His cheeks. His chin. And his mouth.
‘Of course it is,’ she had whispered in return.
The clear air and open sky made life seem even more tranquil as she left the apartment block and ploughed through the fresh snow with the buggy. She was taking the children to day care, then she was going to work. One foot in front of the other. Always moving forwards, never backwards.
Soon she would be there. Get to grips with the case of the missing boys.
She offered up a silent prayer that it wouldn’t be too late by the time they found them.
It was as if Stockholm had become a different city overnight. Someone had shot a teacher, standing on the pavement surrounded by children. And the two boys who had disappeared on their way to a tennis lesson were still missing.
‘I can’t lead both investigations,’ Alex Recht said to his boss first thing in the morning.
‘I’ve asked for the murder to be handed over to the National Crime Unit. I’d like you to focus on the boys.’
Alex was frustrated.
‘But I’ve already made a start on the murder!’
‘Yes, but we didn’t know these boys were going to disappear. I’ve spoken to a colleague in the NCU; they’re very familiar with Josephine’s boyfriend, and would like to take over the case as part of their own work in mapping serious organised crime.’
But what if Josephine had been shot for some other reason? What if her death had nothing to do with her boyfriend?
In that case they would have to pick it up later. They had the capacity to run only one of the two investigations. Alex’s team was still incomplete.
‘We can’t have a team that consists of just two people,’ he had said when it had first been suggested that he should lead a special investigative unit once more.
‘Absolutely not. You’ll have a core team of three, as before. Recruitment will be down to you. If you need additional resources, all you have to do is ask and I’ll allocate colleagues on a temporary basis to assist with any ongoing preliminary investigations.’
But recruitment took time, and at the moment the team consisted of Alex and Fredrika. They had put together an advertisement for the third member, and had started to go through the applications as they came trickling in, but so far none of them had been particularly impressive.
Fredrika sailed into the office, her cheeks rosy after walking to work in the cold; her eyes were brighter than they had been the previous day. Playing the violin was clearly doing her good.
‘Forget the teacher,’ Alex said. ‘We’re working on the boys.’
Fredrika leaned against the wall.
‘Missing kids,’ she said. ‘The perfect first case for our little team, wouldn’t you say?’
She pulled a face.
‘You’re thinking about the little girl who disappeared from the train?’ Alex said. ‘Lilian Sebastiansson?’
As if we could ever forget her.
‘Aren’t you?’
‘Only because it was the first serious case we investigated; otherwise I can’t see any similarities.’
Fredrika shrugged. ‘Maybe not, but children are children, after all.’
Alex knew she was right. He really didn’t like this business of the two missing Jewish boys. The media had gone crazy overnight, wanting more information, more details, but Alex refused to feed them at such an early stage.
‘Is it just you and me?’ Fredrika asked.
‘We can request any additional resources we need, but we’ll be leading the case.’
That wasn’t strictly true. Alex was the boss, not Fredrika, but as there were only two of them that seemed like an unnecessary distinction.
The media had been given pictures of the boys as evening turned into night and the snowstorm reached its peak. Public reaction was instant. Everyone thought they could help. Every single person who had been in inner city Stockholm and seen a child with a rucksack and a woolly hat trudging along unaccompanied by an adult decided it was their duty to get in touch with the police.
‘Have we had any calls that might be useful?’ Fredrika asked.
‘Not yet.’
‘So where do we start?’
‘We’ll go over to the Solomon Community; you interview one set of parents and I’ll take the other. If they’re there, of course. Yesterday the fathers were out searching.’
As he got up and reached for his coat, there was a loud knock on the door and an assistant came in.
‘An elderly lady called and said she’s sure she saw one of the boys at a bus stop on Karlavägen yesterday afternoon.’
‘And what makes her any more reliable than all the rest of the people who’ve called and said more or less the same thing?’ Alex wanted to know as he pulled on his coat.