The call from the Solomon school in Östermalm didn’t make any sense at first. A pre-school teacher had been shot. In front of children and parents. Probably by a sniper who must have been on a roof on the other side of the road.
Incomprehensible.
As far as DCI Alex Recht was concerned, the Solomon Community was a closed book. He knew it was one of Stockholm’s Jewish communities, but that was all. He couldn’t understand why the case had landed on his desk. If the motive was anti-Semitism, then it should be investigated by the National Crime Unit’s specialist team who dealt with hate crimes. Maybe the National Security Police, Säpo, should be involved. But why Alex’s team, which had only just been formed and wasn’t yet ready for a major challenge? And even more importantly, who the hell would have a reason to shoot a pre-school teacher in broad daylight in front of a group of adults and kids?
‘Her new partner,’ Alex’s boss said, tossing a computer printout onto his desk. ‘This is no hate crime, although that’s how the internet editions of the papers are reporting it. This is linked to serious organised crime, and if you look under a few stones I’m sure you’ll discover that the poor little schoolteacher who got shot in the back isn’t quite as pure as the snow she’s lying on.’
Alex picked up the printout, which was an extract from the serious crimes database.
‘This is her partner?’
‘Yep.’
The words in front of him were all too familiar. Drugs-related offences. Unlawful threats. Assaulting a police officer. Resisting arrest. Aggravated theft. Armed robbery. Procurement.
‘Anything on the teacher herself?’
‘Not a thing. She isn’t even in the suspects’ database.’
‘In which case she might be as pure as the driven snow after all; perhaps she just has particularly poor judgement. And bad luck.’
‘I’ll leave it to you to look into; find out if this is about her or her boyfriend. Or possibly both of them. And don’t hang about.’
Alex looked up.
‘Are we in a hurry?’
‘The Solomon Community is very energetic when it comes to security issues. If they don’t get answers from us fast enough, they’ll start their own investigation. Whatever happens, they’re bound to demand major input from the police, and they’ll do it very publicly.’
Alex ran a hand over his chin.
‘Maybe not if we tell them that their teacher was living with someone who has a criminal record as long as your arm,’ he said. ‘Surely that will give the impression that they’re recruiting potentially dangerous individuals, which won’t be very good for their image.’
His boss was already on his way out of the door.
‘Exactly. So make sure you get in touch with them as soon as possible. Go over there and have a chat. Take Fredrika with you.’
‘She’s not in this afternoon, but I’ll call her tonight and let her know what’s going on.’
His boss frowned.
‘That’s up to you, of course, but don’t you think you ought to call her now and ask her to come in? If she’s in town, that is.’
‘She is in town, and of course I can call her, but she probably won’t answer.’
‘Has something happened?’
‘She’s rehearsing with the orchestra.’
‘Orchestra? What does she play?’
‘The violin. And it makes her feel good, so I’m not going to interrupt her.’
After being away from the police for almost two years, Fredrika Bergman was back at last. Back at Kungsholmen. Back with Alex. Which was exactly where he had always thought she should be, so he had no intention of quibbling over the odd rehearsal.
He would make a start on the investigation himself. The teacher had been living with a man who had been in a hell of a lot of trouble, so that was the obvious place to begin.
‘So why am I dealing with this?’ Alex asked. ‘Serious organised crime isn’t in my remit.’
‘The Östermalm police have asked for back-up in the initial stages,’ his boss explained. ‘I promised you’d give them a hand. If there’s a clear link to organised crime, just pass the case on to the National Crime Unit.’
It sounded so simple. Just pass the case on through the system. God knows how easy that would actually be. Alex thought back to the unique team he had led previously, drifting like a jellyfish between the National Crime Unit, the local forces and the Stockholm City police. On paper they had been part of the Stockholm City police, but in reality they had served several masters. Alex had liked it that way, and if it was up to him, the new team would be no different.
‘I’ll send a car to bring in her partner if he’s at home,’ Alex said. ‘I want to hear what he has to say, see whether we can eliminate him as a suspect.’
‘I shouldn’t think he did it himself,’ his boss said. ‘It’s too crude.’
‘I agree. It sounds like revenge or some other crap. But we still have to talk to the guy. I’m sure he must know who shot her in the back.’
Only an hour had passed since Fredrika had left Police HQ in Kungsholmen to go to her rehearsal. One hour, but the job no longer existed. Nor did her family or her friends. Not within the vacuum that was created when she settled her violin in the correct position between her chin and shoulder.
The music carried her as if she had wings. She was flying high above everyone else, pretending she was alone in the universe. It was a dangerous thought. Soloists rarely did well in an ensemble, but for a moment – just one moment – Fredrika Bergman wanted to experience a taste of the life she had never had, to catch a glimpse of the woman she had never become.
It was the third week of the new, yet familiar era. All her adult life Fredrika had mourned the career as a violinist that she had never had, and would never have. Not only had she grieved, she had searched hard for an alternative future. She had wandered around like a lost soul among the ruins of everything that had once been hers, wondering what to do, because as a child and a teenager, she had lived for music. Music was her vocation, and without it life was worth very little.
Things never turn out as we expect.
Sometimes they’re better, but often they’re worse.
Occasionally the memory would resurface, as unwelcome as rain from a summer sky. The memory of a car skidding, ending up on the wrong side of the road, crashing and turning over. With children in the back, parents in the front, skis on the roof. She remembered those cataclysmic seconds when everything was torn apart, and the silence that followed. The scars were still there. Every day she could see them on her arm, white lines that told the story of why she had been unable to put in the necessary hours of practice every day. In despair and emotional turmoil she had buried her violin in the graveyard of the past, and become a different person.
And now she was playing again.
It was her mother who had found the string ensemble and told her: ‘This is your chance, Fredrika’. As if Fredrika, who was married to a man twenty-five years older than her, with two small children, had endless hours at her disposal, just waiting for something to fill them.
But seek and ye shall find, as they say, and for the past three weeks music had been back in her life. For the first time in twenty years, Fredrika felt something that might just be harmony. Her husband and children made her heart whole. She was happy in her work, for once. Reaching this point had been a messy process. The case of the hijacked plane a few months earlier had been the key. Her employer in the Justice Department had sent her back to work with the police on a temporary basis, and Fredrika had realised where she felt at home, where she wanted to be.
In the police service. On the first of January, she was back. Working with Alex Recht as part of a new investigative team, which was very similar to the one she had been a part of a few years ago.