‘What’s his temperament like?’
‘He’s very similar to his father. He can be hot-headed, but he can also be very considerate. Above all, he’s totally loyal.’
‘To his family? His friends?’
‘To everyone he cares about.’
‘Does he have a lot of friends?’
‘Absolutely.’
Alex thought about Simon, waiting in the cold at the bus stop.
‘We think Abraham was late getting to the bus stop where he was due to meet Simon. Have you any idea what could have delayed him?’
‘No. Abraham always has a thousand things to do, which means he sometimes finds it difficult to keep an eye on the clock.’
She shrugged and reached up to touch a pendant hanging around her neck.
A silver Star of David.
‘My husband and I don’t regard it as a problem. People don’t usually mind waiting for someone who has a reasonable excuse.’
Alex thought this wasn’t necessarily true, but he didn’t say anything. It wasn’t his job to correct a grown woman.
‘It sounds as if Abraham is very driven. Qualities like that can sometimes lead to conflict.’
‘Really?’
Not a hint of irony in her voice. She really didn’t get it.
‘I’m just thinking about other people, who either regard a competitive instinct as provocative, or who are equally competitive themselves. Does Abraham have any enemies?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
Why did he dislike her so much? Alex looked searchingly at the woman sitting opposite him. A woman whose son had been missing for far too long in a bitterly cold Stockholm. Why didn’t he feel any empathy for her situation?
Because her whole attitude rejected empathy and understanding. She was like a predator on the hunt, completely focused on the mission to find her son.
Dead or alive.
‘Is there anywhere Abraham particularly liked to go?’
He disregarded the fact that she had just said that she didn’t believe her son would have gone off of his own accord. Children sometimes got the strangest ideas, and Alex was sure that Abraham was no exception to that rule. Alex also guessed that if he was as driven as he sounded, he could probably carry through quite advanced projects behind his parents’ backs.
‘You mean in Sweden?’
Alex was surprised.
‘Well yes – that’s where we are.’
‘I’m only asking because he loves visiting my parents in Israel,’ Daphne explained. ‘I’m not sure if he has any favourite places here in Sweden. We have a summer cottage that he loves, but he never mentions it in the winter when we’re not there.’
Alex made a mental note of the summer cottage, but he didn’t really think it would get them anywhere.
He was just about to end the interview when his mobile rang. The call came from one of his colleagues at HQ.
They thought they had found the boys.
If Eden Lundell had the choice, she thought she would like to die on a cold winter’s day just like this one. But not until she was old or worthless, of course, whichever came first.
The call had come in just under an hour ago. Someone had reported hearing shooting out at Drottningholm. Two shots at an interval of approximately twenty minutes. Not in the immediate vicinity of the palace, but security had decided to contact Säpo’s personal protection unit anyway. A group of bodyguards accompanied by members of the National Task Force had searched the park and surrounding area, but found nothing out of the ordinary.
They were just about to call off the operation when they found the bodies on the edge of the Royal Drottningholm Golf Club. They were lying on their backs, approximately fifty metres apart.
Eden was informed about the original call only because she was spending a few weeks as acting head of the personal protection unit, while carrying out her duties as head of counter-terrorism at the same time.
‘I know you’re not exactly short of something to do,’ GD had said. ‘But I’d really appreciate it if you could support our bodyguards while their chief is on sick leave for two days a week.’
Eden always had time. Time was something you created, not something you were given. She also felt that the work of the personal protection unit had many links to the activities of her own team.
The discovery of the two bodies was reported directly to Eden and the head of the protection unit. Five minutes later they were in a car heading towards Drottningholm, at Eden’s suggestion.
‘I hope it’s not those boys who went missing in Östermalm yesterday,’ her colleague said.
Who else would it be? Eden thought.
It did her good to get away from Kungsholmen for a while. There had been just one thing on her mind ever since GD called her the previous evening:
Efraim Kiel.
The biggest fuck-up in her entire life.
What the hell was he doing back in Stockholm?
She had had a brief meeting with GD first thing in the morning. Efraim had checked into the same hotel as last time, and was already under surveillance. No doubt he felt safe there. He wouldn’t be able to go anywhere without them knowing exactly what he was up to. Whatever that was supposed to achieve.
They stopped in the avenue leading to Lovö church, where several vehicles were already parked. Eden slammed the car door and greeted the colleague who came over to meet them, a young man she hadn’t seen before.
‘You were the one who ran the investigation into the plane hijacking last year, weren’t you?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I was.’
She had been relatively new to the job back then. A plane carrying four hundred passengers had taken off from Arlanda, and was hijacked high above the clouds. The only person who had so far been held responsible for his actions was the captain, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment in the USA. The chances of his being allowed to serve his sentence in a Swedish prison were negligible, and the prospect of a pardon was even less likely.
They ploughed through the snow, sinking up to their knees.
From a distance they could see only two paper bags, sticking up out of the snow and breaking the line of the landscape. Brown and hard. Both bodies had sunk down, and were difficult to see from a distance.
Two children. Like snuffed-out snow angels with paper bags on their heads.
Two boys. With bare, frozen feet.
Eden crouched down.
‘Fuck,’ the head of the protection unit said behind her.
The forensic pathologist would be able to provide more information about what had happened to the boys, but at first sight there didn’t appear to be any major injuries, apart from the bullet wounds that had presumably killed them.
‘Is this where they died?’ Eden asked one of the CSIs standing a short distance away.
‘We haven’t got that far yet, but yes, I think that seems to be the case. If you look at the tracks in the snow, it looks as if the boys walked or ran to the spot where they are now. They appear to have been shot in the chest.’
Eden looked around.
Children’s footprints in the snow. Bigger prints alongside the small ones. The killer’s. He, or she, had walked up to the victims to check that they really were dead.
And put paper bags over their heads.
Why?
Someone had drawn faces on the paper bags. Big eyes, wide open as if in terror. And big mouths that looked as if they were calling out to someone or something.
‘This isn’t our case,’ her colleague said. ‘I’ve spoken to the police, and they’re on their way.’
Eden gazed at the boys for a moment before she got to her feet. She knew instinctively that the paper bags were important to the killer. They carried a message, directed to someone other than the police.
The only question was – to whom?
But someone else could work that out. Eden had enough problems of her own.
If Efraim Kiel dared to take as much as one single step in her direction, he would pay a higher price than he could ever have imagined.