‘We’re going to display them in the hall later so that the children can see how many people care.’
‘That’s lovely,’ Peder said. ‘Are they from community members?’
‘Mostly, but some have come from outside.’
She got up and went over to the table.
‘For example, this one arrived yesterday,’ she said, showing Peder a large red flower; he had no idea what it was called.
‘Lovely,’ he said again.
He noticed that the waste bin under the secretary’s desk was overflowing with the discarded paper the flowers had been wrapped in; some had spilled over onto the floor.
‘Goodness, look at the mess,’ she said apologetically when she noticed Peder looking at the bin. ‘I’ll tidy it up in a minute.’
He could see a number of paper bags on the floor, and assumed they had been used for delivery. He crouched down automatically to take a closer look. Ordinary paper bags, some bearing address labels giving details of both the sender and the recipient.
One of the bags caught his attention. A brown, medium-sized bag with no label – but someone had drawn on it.
‘That was one of the first to arrive,’ the secretary said. ‘A beautiful chrysanthemum.’
She pointed and Peder picked up the plant, which was in a plain white pot.
‘No card,’ he said.
‘No,’ the secretary said unhappily. ‘Some of the cards must have fallen off, which is annoying. Or they were attached to the bags, and I just didn’t notice them.’
Peder looked at the bag once again. No name anywhere.
But there was a drawing.
‘Don’t throw this one away,’ he said. ‘Show it to the police.’
‘But why?’
‘Because I think it might be important.’
The morning after yet another night of very little sleep. The dead boys haunted her, mixed up with other cases that Fredrika Bergman had investigated in the past. Cases where children had fared badly.
Life was fragile. Small mistakes could have disastrous consequences. Fredrika had seen it happen more times than she could remember, and yet she was always equally surprised.
She didn’t know whether Carmen and Gideon Eisenberg had made any mistakes that might explain why they had lost their son. There wasn’t a sound when she and Alex walked into their house the morning after they had been told that their son had been shot dead out on the island of Lovön. It had been a long night; that was clear from their exhausted faces.
Did grief have a different shape and colour in a foreign land? Perhaps people dealt differently with heavy losses if they had grown up in a place where peace never seemed to last, where there was always unrest and no one could ever be sure how tomorrow would turn out.
Fredrika realised she felt completely at a loss with the Eisenbergs. Carmen, to whom Fredrika had spoken the previous day, was sitting at the table with her husband. He had reached across the polished surface and placed his hand on hers, and was just gazing at her.
No tears, no screaming.
Not then.
Not in front of Fredrika and Alex.
But she could see that they had been crying, and no doubt there would be more tears once she and Alex had left.
The parents had been given answers to the most important questions at the hospital.
No, it didn’t look as if their son had been subjected to violence or physical abuse before his death.
No, he wouldn’t have suffered when he died; death would have been instantaneous.
However, they had not been told that the boys had had bags on their heads, or that they appeared to have been hunted down by their killer. There would be a time for that kind of information, but this wasn’t it.
There would be a short interview today, nothing more. Not on the first day.
It was less than forty-eight hours since Fredrika and Alex had been talking to Josephine’s parents about the loss of their daughter. Fredrika thought about the three deaths, trying to digest the news that they now had proof that there was a connection.
Her own words still echoed in her brain: the paper bags could be a calling card. A serial killer’s calling card. In which case they could expect more victims.
But that kind of thing just doesn’t happen. The worst nightmares never become reality. And serial killers don’t exist. Not in real life.
Fredrika and Alex were sitting side by side. The table seemed too small for two grieving parents and two stressed-out investigators. The whole kitchen was too small. And the silence was too huge.
It was Alex who broke it.
‘At the moment we don’t know why this has happened,’ he said, speaking slowly as if he were choosing every single word with the greatest care. ‘But I can promise you that we will spare no effort in this case. We will do everything, and I mean everything, to find the person or persons behind the murders of Simon and Abraham.’
He stopped speaking, allowing what he had just said to sink in. That was how he built trust, by focusing on clarity and pledging only what was reasonable. He had said they would do everything they could to find the perpetrator, and that was true. He had not, however, promised that they would succeed, which was also true, unfortunately. Sometimes they failed. It had happened as recently as last autumn, when the person responsible for hijacking Flight 573 had got away.
But they knew who the guilty party was, and they were still looking.
They would never stop.
Sometimes that was as far as they got, even if it was incredibly frustrating.
‘What’s your take on all this?’ Alex said. ‘Do you have any enemies or unresolved disputes?’
They had been asked the question before, and they would be asked again. Sooner or later they would remember something that was key to the inquiry.
Carmen and Gideon Eisenberg looked at one another, and Fredrika knew what they were thinking. Unresolved disputes? Of such magnitude that they had cost their son his life?
They both shook their head.
‘No,’ Gideon said. ‘No, we haven’t.’
At first glance they were a harmonious couple. Same sense of humour, same character. But Fredrika thought she could sense something else beneath the surface. There was a fragility about Gideon that she couldn’t see in Carmen. She was the stronger one, although Fredrika couldn’t imagine how much strength she would need to get through what lay ahead: burying her son, and learning to live with his absence.
‘And what about Simon?’ she said. ‘Did he have any enemies?’
Gideon stared at her as if she had lost her mind.
‘He was a child.’
Fredrika swallowed hard. Children could be cruel; they could do the most unforgivable things. And behind every humiliated child was a frustrated parent, determined to stand up for their offspring.
Alex understood what she was asking.
‘We believe Simon and Abraham were picked up in a car by an adult they knew. Would they have got in the car if they didn’t know that person well?’
‘No,’ Carmen said firmly. ‘Neither of them would have done that, particularly not Abraham.’
Which was interesting, because Abraham wasn’t her son.
‘How can you be so sure?’ Fredrika asked.
‘His parents were very strict about that,’ Gideon said. ‘And we were the same with Simon, although Abraham was more receptive to rules.’
Another peculiar turn of phrase.
‘More receptive to rules.’
‘Both his parents have a military background,’ Carmen explained quietly. ‘Abraham is… was… very impressed by that. Discipline appealed to him, clear guidelines. It went hand in hand with his arrogance. As you know, being late didn’t bother him at all. Simon was a more normal child; he usually did as we said, but occasionally he went his own way.’
‘But he would never have got into a stranger’s car,’ Gideon said, sounding decisive for the first time.
Fredrika allowed her curiosity to take over.