He feels a spurt of anger, shakes his head.
‘What on earth do you think you’ve done, for God’s sake?’
But she doesn’t answer. She is not yet ready to share her secret.
EARLIER
More fucking snow. A punishment from God for a crime he wasn’t even aware of. Efraim Kiel was sitting in his hotel room, staring at the grainy images on his computer. He couldn’t see a fucking thing. If he hadn’t stolen the tape from the CCTV camera, he would have gone down to reception and asked what kind of useless fucking camera they were using.
It had been laughably simple to get hold of the film. He had installed similar cameras elsewhere; it had taken him less than an hour to locate the computer where the sequences were saved. Bizarrely, it was in the luggage storage room. It wasn’t clear if this was a temporary arrangement, but he hoped so, otherwise he felt sorry for the hotel management; they must have had terrible advice when they installed their security system.
However, it had made it much easier for Efraim to get hold of the images that would show him who had left the message at the desk. He had his suspicions, but was praying to every higher power he could think of that he would be proved wrong.
And now he was sitting in his room trying to make sense of what he was looking at.
A blizzard.
A chimney sweep in a darkroom.
And that bothered him, because he wouldn’t have expected images from this kind of camera to look like that.
Irritation and a feeling that was entirely unfamiliar to him – anxiety – spread through his body like an itch. Could someone have sabotaged the camera? Put something over the lens?
But how was that possible when reception was always staffed?
He told himself to calm down. There were a thousand ways to get into buildings and areas where you weren’t supposed to be. You dressed up as a tradesman. Someone who had come to install cable TV. A cleaner. Anyone at all who opened doors that were otherwise locked.
The Paper Boy could have easily got into the hotel lobby and done what he wanted to do.
Efraim clenched his fist and pressed it against his forehead. He had to stop thinking about the Paper Boy as an individual, as someone who actually existed.
It’s only a story, a myth. He doesn’t exist.
But in that case, who had sent him the message?
He was starting to think that it must be the Paper Boy who had once lived. Who had not been a myth. But if that was the case, then Efraim had a difficult task ahead, because that Paper Boy couldn’t be left to his own devices; he would need help, someone to bring him to his senses.
Efraim’s heart rate was normally forty-seven beats per minute, but at the moment it was significantly higher. And it was pounding, as if it was having difficulty in pumping the blood around his body. He got up and went into the bathroom. Washed his face and dried it with a hand towel.
He had to pull himself together.
Focus.
The Paper Boy had issued an invitation to the dance, but Efraim wasn’t interested in meeting him halfway. He couldn’t really understand why he didn’t just pack his bag and go home, why he was still here.
Because I know I can’t get away, wherever I hide.
Resolutely he left his hotel room.
As he closed the door, he saw the note.
It was lying on the floor outside his room. Out in the open, so that anyone passing by could read what it said. Then again, they probably wouldn’t understand it, because once again the message was written in Hebrew.
A piece of white paper with black characters.
I can see you
all the time
but you can’t see me.
Strange, don’t you think?
His coffee had gone cold. Peder Rydh didn’t really want it anyway. Perhaps he needed a glass of wine, or a whisky. Although it was too early in the day. Even when he had been at his lowest, he had never drunk alcohol for breakfast.
He was sitting at his desk, frowning. How the hell was he supposed to find the answer Efraim had demanded? He wanted to know whether the person – or persons – who had shot the teacher and the two boys had left behind any kind of calling card. He would never be able to get that kind of detail out of the police, and Alex certainly wouldn’t tell him something like that.
But perhaps he could try someone he knew in the National Crime Unit.
Because hadn’t Alex said that the case of the murdered teacher had been passed over to the team specialising in organised crime? Peder knew at least one of the investigators on that team – not very well, but he didn’t think that was necessary. Not when it came to that particular person.
His colleague answered almost straight away. He sounded stressed at first, then surprised when he realised who was calling.
‘Peder, it’s been a long time!’
You could say that.
‘How are you?’ his colleague said.
‘Fine, thanks.’
After one or two more polite exchanges, Peder explained what he was after. He rarely answered honestly when someone asked ‘How are you?’ or ‘How are things?’ Nobody really wanted to know the truth.
‘Are you involved in the investigation into the fatal shooting outside the Solomon school?’ he said.
His colleague sounded extremely dubious when he replied.
‘The teacher, you mean? Yes, I am.’
‘Listen, I know I’m not part of the job any more,’ Peder said, although it still pained him to say the words out loud. ‘But I’m working as head of security with the Solomon Community, and as I’m sure you understand, what’s happened has given rise to a hell of a lot of questions.’
‘Sorry, but the whole thing is proscribed. I can’t…’
‘I’m not asking you to. I’m just wondering whether you found anything, some object the killer might have left behind. A calling card.’
‘Where?’
That was a good question. Where? What had Efraim meant?
‘Where he was lying when he fired the shot,’ Peder said eventually. ‘Or anywhere else inside the building.’
‘Not a thing. He seems to have been an ice-cold bastard. He just went up there, did what he’d come to do, and left.’
‘Okay. Thanks very much, and I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’
‘No problem, sorry I couldn’t help.’
Peder ended the call, then got to his feet, put on his coat and left the building. The weather had deteriorated; soft clouds filled the sky, making him shiver.
He went across the street to the Solomon school, nodding to the guards outside as he went inside. He recognised the secretary on reception; she had shown him round the previous day. Her greeting was a little subdued; Peder knew there was to be a service for Josephine and the boys in the synagogue later that morning. He wondered if he was expected to attend, or stay away.
‘How can I help?’ she said.
He hardly knew himself. He supposed he was still looking for calling cards, but how could the secretary help him with that?
‘I just wanted to check that everything is okay,’ he said. ‘You haven’t had any strange phone calls, anything like that?’
He sounded like a police officer, but she didn’t appear to react. She shook her head.
‘No, nothing.’
‘Good, that’s excellent. And no unexpected packages or messages?’
‘No.’
Of course not. What had he expected? That the killer would have sent a calling card over by courier?
‘But we have had a huge amount of flowers,’ the secretary said, smiling for the first time. ‘Look.’
She pointed to a table at the other end of the room; it was almost completely covered in flowers and pot plants.