‘Could I ask about your background?’
The couple exchanged glances.
‘I studied engineering at university in Jerusalem, and I now work in IT security,’ Gideon said. ‘Carmen is an architect.’
Fredrika and Alex already knew that; she had asked about their background.
‘What did you do when you lived in Israel?’
‘The same.’
The answer was curt and evasive.
‘So you don’t have a military background like Abraham’s parents?’
Gideon’s expression was dark as he looked at Fredrika.
‘Everyone in Israel has a “military background”. Like eighty-five per cent of the male population, I did three years’ military service.’
‘Why did you move to Sweden?’ Alex asked.
Carmen sighed.
‘We had family here, and Gideon had been over several times through work. Israel can be… trying. If it’s not the heat, it’s the political situation. We were tired of all the tension. I don’t know if you remember, but 2002 was a terrible year in Israel. That was when the violence reached its absolute peak following the second Intifada. And when we found out we were having a baby…’
She broke off, unable to go on.
And Fredrika, who had carried and given birth to two babies, felt the tears well up.
Get a grip. Get a grip.
Alex looked from Gideon to Carmen, his gaze steady but sympathetic.
‘You can ring me at any time,’ he said, giving them his card. ‘About anything you think could be of interest in the investigation, or if you have questions.’
He got to his feet.
‘We’ll leave you in peace.’
The four of them walked from the kitchen to the hallway. Fredrika thought back to what Carmen had said about their reasons for leaving Israel. It was a cruel irony that they had come to Sweden to escape terror and violence, only to see their firstborn murdered.
She realised she had one more question.
‘Did Simon spend a lot of time on the internet?’
Gideon put his arm around Carmen’s shoulders.
‘No more than other children, I imagine.’
Fredrika had no idea what that meant. Her own children were too young for computers, and if their father had his way, they would never go anywhere near one. They would learn to use a typewriter, and if they wanted to play games, they could play chess.
Carmen leaned against her husband.
‘He discovered a new forum only a month or so ago,’ she said. ‘On the internet, I mean. Abraham showed him, although we didn’t really like it. Super Troopers, it’s called.’
A forum. A place for people to meet. Possibly a place for a killer to find his victims.
‘Why didn’t you like it?’ Alex asked.
‘I got the impression that nobody was being themselves,’ Carmen said. ‘Everyone had an alias, and it was nothing but a place to boast and show off. It seemed to attract young boys so that they could tell each other how to excel at various activities.’
They would have to check this out. It might be a dead end, but it could be important.
‘Did Abraham and Simon also have aliases?’ Fredrika said.
A single tear ran down Carmen’s cheek.
‘Both boys used their real names for some aspects, but they wanted an alias as well. Abraham was keen to make a bold impression as usual, and called himself the Warrior. But not Simon.’
‘No?’
‘No, he called himself the Paper Boy.’
There was no such thing as a lie-in in Eden Lundell’s world. She got up at six and liked to go for a run before she woke the rest of the family. Then she would make breakfast and eat in silence. Her daughters did the same.
Eden loathed noise. Some people seemed to think that kids couldn’t help being loud, but Eden didn’t agree. She had walked out of a restaurant halfway through dinner more than once because children at nearby tables didn’t know how to behave. How hard could it be to turn small people into decent human beings?
Mikael didn’t necessarily agree; he thought she was too harsh, and said that kids have to be allowed to be kids. No one was denying that, but Eden couldn’t see any contradiction between being a child and understanding the importance of not acting like a monster.
She dropped the girls off at day care and walked to work.
Mikael had a meeting with a youth group, and had left home early. He was always keen to get to work, and that gave Eden peace of mind. He was needed out in the real world, beyond the home that he and Eden had built for themselves and their children.
Eden loved her job too. The first thing she did when she got in to the office was to make sure she was up to speed with the counter-terrorism unit’s latest initiative. Meeting after meeting. Why did they have to spend so much time stuck in a room with other people, talking? Talking and talking, as if that was what would bring peace on earth. She remembered the previous day’s sad excursion to Drottningholm; the children lying in the snow. How much would it help them if the grown-ups in the world shut themselves in a room with crap air conditioning and talked?
Not one fucking jot.
The Solomon Community seemed to have abandoned its attempts to get her involved in the case. Just as well, because she didn’t want to know. Her parents would have been bitterly disappointed if they had known that she was turning her back on her people. Since they had left London for Israel, the relationship had been strained. Mikael had actually wanted to go with them, and had put the idea to Eden as a serious suggestion.
She had wondered if he had lost his mind. He wasn’t even Jewish – he was a priest in the Swedish church – so why the hell would he want to emigrate to Israel? A country smaller than the province of Småland, surrounded by countries that in the best case scenario might possibly accept its existence, but would never make the effort to develop good relations. She had said the same thing to her parents, wondering why her British mother and Swedish father wanted to become Israeli citizens.
But no one knew the real reason why she could never consider going to live in Israel.
Efraim Kiel.
The man who had almost cost her everything, the man she sometimes still dreamed of at night, damn him. The man who was now wandering the streets of Stockholm. Much too close for comfort.
When the cavalcade of meetings was finally over, she hurried back to the glass box that served as her office. She closed the door and found the latest surveillance reports. What had Efraim been up to overnight and during the morning?
Not much, as it turned out.
He had left the hotel and gone to the Solomon Community. Just as on the day before, he had stood outside inspecting the bullet hole in the wall. He had also spoken to the security guards before going inside.
Was he a part of the community’s security set-up? She didn’t think so.
But he was obviously interested in the deaths that had shaken the group over the last couple of days. There was nothing strange about that; he had an impressive background in intelligence, and would no doubt be able to make a significant contribution to the investigation.
Eden tapped her pen impatiently on the desk.
The case was being investigated by the Swedish police. There was no way they would let Efraim or anyone else from the community into their work. She opened up the homepages of the major newspapers, glanced through the articles that had already been written about the murders. Alex Recht was quoted in several instances.
Eden knew she could call him; that wouldn’t be a problem. She reached for the phone, then put it down. What would she say? What was it she wanted to know?
Säpo had nothing to do with the cases, and Eden didn’t know any of the victims. She could of course pretend that she was just generally concerned; play the Jewish card. But bearing in mind that she had turned her back on the Solomon Community, that went against the grain.
You see, I do have scruples.