Fredrika didn’t like the idea at all; she really didn’t want to leave her family again at this stage.
Alex picked up on her reluctance.
‘I can come to you, if that’s easier.’
Fredrika was taken aback.
‘Come here? To the apartment?’
‘It was just a suggestion.’
Why not?
‘Of course,’ she heard herself saying. ‘Good idea.’
Spencer opened the door to Alex a little while later. Fredrika heard them say hello, saw them shake hands. She had to smile as she watched Alex trying to hide his surprise. Just like everyone else, he knew that she lived with a man who was twenty-five years older than her, but he still seemed bemused by how old Spencer actually was. Which was the way most people reacted when they first met him.
Alex glanced over at her, seemingly at a loss. He was acting as if someone had forced him across the threshold at gunpoint, rather than as if the whole thing had been his idea in the first place.
The children realised someone had arrived, and came running.
Like eager little puppies. They certainly weren’t shy.
‘Coffee?’
Alex declined. Fredrika led him into the library and closed the door.
‘Right you two, shall we make a start on tea?’ she heard Spencer say to the children. His voice was hoarse; he definitely wasn’t well.
‘He seems nice,’ Alex said, mainly for the sake of having something to say.
‘He is,’ Fredrika said. ‘And good-looking.’
Nothing was as liberating as humour.
Alex laughed uncertainly.
‘Are you on the same flight tomorrow?’ he asked.
Fredrika looked downcast.
‘Spencer’s not coming,’ she said. ‘He isn’t well enough.’
‘But you’re still going?’ Alex asked anxiously.
‘I am.’
He looked relieved.
‘We’ve questioned Saul and Daphne Goldmann,’ he said with an air of resignation. ‘I wish I had some useful information to pass on, but unfortunately that’s not the case. To start with, they had nothing to add to the story of the Paper Boy; they merely confirmed what Gideon and Carmen had told us, that it was used to frighten children.’
‘Saul grew up on the same kibbutz as Gideon,’ Fredrika said, ‘so it’s hardly surprising that he’s heard of the Paper Boy too. But what about Daphne? Was she already familiar with the story?’
‘She was, but that’s not surprising either – she grew up on the neighbouring kibbutz.’
Fredrika made a mental note of that snippet.
‘Do we have the names of these kibbutzim? I’m just wondering whether I ought to try and visit them.’
‘I think you should – if they’re still there, that is. Quite a lot have gone bankrupt or closed down for other reasons.’
Time had moved on from the basic premise of the kibbutz, an idealistic society where everything was owned collectively and no one earned more than anyone else, even though some carried more responsibility than others.
Alex went on:
‘Then they were asked about the Lion. Same again – they had nothing to add to what we had already heard from Gideon and Carmen.’
Fredrika thought about the prospects of finding the Lion in Israel; after all, it was from Jerusalem that his emails had been sent.
‘Have you spoken to the Israeli police?’ she asked.
Alex nodded. ‘We’ve given them everything our tech guys have found out about the Lion, and they’re going to help us search for him. They should have done a fair amount by the time you get there.’
‘So we’ve made a formal request for assistance?’
‘Sweden doesn’t actually have an international agreement with Israel, but as the victims belonged to the Solomon Community, it wasn’t particularly difficult to persuade them to co-operate with us. I don’t think we’d be able to secure an extradition to Sweden, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’
‘How did Daphne and Saul react to the photograph of Abraham with the paper bag over his head?’
‘Like the Eisenbergs, but even more strongly. Particularly Saul – he was very vocal.’
There was nothing strange about that; the pictures were terrible. Fredrika could still see the boys lying there on their backs in the snow, barefoot and with a bullet wound in their chests. And a paper bag on their heads.
‘And still the parents seem unable to help us move forward,’ she said.
‘They insist they have no idea why this is happening to them, but I’m not sure they’re telling the truth. Now that Polly Eisenberg has gone missing too, I’m more convinced than ever that chance has nothing to do with any of this.’
‘Of course not. It’s obvious that there’s a personal motive behind the murders and Polly’s disappearance; the only question is what that motive might be.’
Fredrika thought about the Paper Boy once more, wondering who the perpetrator was. The Paper Boy seemed like a suspect, an evil fairy-tale figure who didn’t exist.
Except that he did exist, because the children who had died on Lovön had been marked in the way that the Paper Boy marked his victims, according to the legend.
‘I’ve spoken to the tech guys about whether it would be possible to trace the Lion’s other contacts,’ Alex said. ‘They’ve spoken to the administrators of Super Troopers, and it turns out that the information was still on the system, in spite of the fact that the Lion had deleted his profile.’
Fredrika felt a flicker of hope.
‘And you’re only telling me this now?’
Alex pulled a face.
‘It was another dead end, I’m afraid. The Lion had no contact with any of the other members.’
Fredrika’s mind was whirling. She didn’t regard that as a dead end at all.
‘Which means he was only interested in Simon and Abraham. But how did he know he would find them on Super Troopers?’
‘That’s a bloody good question. Maybe someone tipped him off?’
Maybe, maybe not. So many questions, so few answers. What a mess. Fredrika tried another tack.
‘We wondered if the Lion could be the person who picked up the boys; did we follow up the car rental idea?’
‘As we don’t have a name to go on, I haven’t set the ball rolling yet,’ Alex said.
‘Didn’t the Lion say his first name was Zalman?’
‘Yes, but that’s not necessarily true. But you’re right; we’ll check it out. He could have two sets of ID papers.’
Could he? Fredrika thought about Efraim Kiel, an Israeli security expert who had entered Sweden and now couldn’t be found. Alex had probably been wise to contact Eden; the police lacked the tools to identify their suspects, which said something about their background. Something very unpleasant.
‘Did the Goldmanns know who Efraim Kiel was?’
‘They knew him from their military service, but that’s all.’
Alex ran a hand over his chin. ‘I have a feeling the parents are hiding a lot of things from us, but I don’t understand why. It’s so bloody frustrating.’
People lied for the strangest reasons, Fredrika knew that. A groundless fear of becoming a suspect was often the main motivation; they got themselves entangled in all kinds of unnecessary lies in order to make life simpler, which had the opposite effect. Always and without exception.
Alex met Fredrika’s gaze.
‘I’m not saying that I expect you to achieve miracles during your trip, but almost… Are you sure you can cope with all this?’
‘I can cope.’
She looked at her watch, working out how long Polly had been missing. Her heart sank as she thought the unthinkable: they weren’t going to find her in time. Not if she had been taken by the same person who had abducted her brother.
Arlanda was a quiet place on a Saturday evening. Eden Lundell loved airports. She was fascinated by the stream of people who had something in common: they were all heading to or from somewhere.
And the sense of being in the midst of that stream usually brought her a feeling of peace.