Once he had had everything. Now he had virtually nothing.
Here comes the king of sand; here comes the king of nothing at all.
Unless you counted Ylva and the boys, which he did, of course. Every day Peder thanked his unlucky star that he had at least been allowed to hold onto his family, even though he had almost lost them too.
After he had lost his job with the police, things had gone downhill. Fast.
He had ended up in an abyss he hadn’t even known existed, rolling in filth in a way not even a pig would have considered. He had staggered home drunk at four in the morning and thrown up in the children’s shoes. Collapsed on Ylva’s lap and wept until there was nothing left. She had leaned forward and whispered in his ear:
‘You can try as hard as you want, Peder, but I’m not leaving you. Not again.’
Counselling had been good, but expensive. It had formed part of his package on leaving the police, thank God. At least they hadn’t chucked him out at thirty thousand feet without a parachute.
He still found it difficult to sleep, and only occasionally slept right through the night. He had spent many long hours lying there wide awake, staring up at the ceiling.
Could he have done anything differently?
Had he really had a choice?
He always reached the same conclusion. No, he couldn’t have done anything differently. No, he hadn’t had a choice. And therefore there was no room for regret.
‘Why don’t I feel guilty?’ he had asked his counsellor. ‘I shot a man in cold blood. Three times. Two of the bullets went into his heart.’
‘You do feel something,’ the counsellor had said. ‘That’s what differentiates you from the man you killed. You know you did the wrong thing.’
No one who knew Peder regarded him as a murderer. He had been confused; he couldn’t be held responsible for his actions. The court had agreed; the man who had been killed had to carry his fair share of blame for the way things turned out. The prosecutor hadn’t been happy. He had appealed against the verdict of the Magistrates’ Court, determined to see Peder convicted of manslaughter or premeditated murder, but the Crown Court had acquitted him as well.
Things had been different when it came to the police. They couldn’t simply disregard the fact that he had voluntarily placed himself in the situation which led to the shooting of a suspect. His actions showed a lack of judgement which, combined with a whole load of other old crap, was enough to lead to his dismissal, as they put it.
Perhaps he could have appealed.
Alex had suggested it, and Peder should have listened. But Alex also said quite a lot of other things. He thought it was time Peder pulled himself together and stopped brooding. Those demands had come much too soon after what had happened; it was as if Alex expected Peder to function like some kind of machine. He couldn’t do it.
Sorry to disappoint you, Alex. I have a heart and a brain, I can’t just stop feeling the way I do.
To hell with the police, there were other careers for someone with Peder’s background. The private security industry was growing, and there were plenty of jobs. It hadn’t been difficult to get a foot in the door; at the moment Peder was working for two agencies who took it in turns to provide him with assignments. One of them had put his name forward for the post of head of security with the Solomon Community. Peder had no objections; admittedly he knew nothing whatsoever about the community, but stuff like that always became clear once you were on the spot. If you weren’t happy, you just moved on.
Alex helped Peder by acting as a referee, and whatever had happened between them in the past, Peder almost always got the jobs he applied for. So Alex must have said something good about him.
Hopefully he would do the same this time.
Peder had already heard that a teacher had been shot dead outside the Solomon school in Östermalm, and had tried to read as much as he could in the media before he went to the meeting. There had been very little concrete information in the flow of news: a young woman, shot in the back. No trace of a suspect so far.
He had briefly considered calling one of his former colleagues to ask for more details, but he had a feeling it was far too early for that. Besides which, he didn’t know who to call. It was a long time since he had had a handle on who was dealing with what.
When he arrived it was clear that he was expected. A security guard asked him for his ID, and he had to pass through a metal detector before entering the building. He could see a police cordon on the opposite side of the street, and officers trudging around. The body had been removed, but he could still see blood on the snow.
Red snow.
Unusual in Stockholm. Unusual anywhere, perhaps.
Peder was shown into a small office where two men were waiting for him. One of them was the man who had called him.
‘Efraim Kiel – thank you for coming at such short notice.’
‘No problem. I realise it’s urgent.’
The other man was the community’s general secretary. Peder was surprised at the title; he had thought it was only major organisations like the United Nations that had a general secretary.
‘You’ve heard what happened?’ Efraim said.
Peder nodded.
‘How far have the police got?’ he asked.
A flash of approval in Efraim’s eyes.
‘That’s exactly what we’re wondering. Perhaps that’s not entirely fair; we think we’ve established a good relationship with the police, and it seems as if they already have an idea of the direction in which they’re going to start looking for the perpetrator. So far, we’re satisfied.’
‘Who’s leading the investigation?’
‘DCI Alex Recht,’ Efraim said. ‘The officer you gave as a referee in your application.’
Peder swallowed hard. This was something new. A few years ago he wouldn’t have been sitting here asking questions about an investigation that was being led by Alex. He would have been a part of the team.
He had lost so much.
‘He’s good,’ he managed to say.
‘That was our impression too.’
Silence followed, and Efraim gazed at Peder for a long time.
‘I’ll be completely honest with you,’ he said eventually. ‘We have another candidate who is perfect for the post of head of security, but he’s not available until the summer, and the community can’t leave the post vacant for that length of time, particularly in view of what has just happened.’
Peder waited for him to continue.
‘If you would consider accepting the post on a temporary basis until July 15, it’s yours. On two conditions.’
Efraim Kiel held up two fingers.
‘Which are?’
‘First of all, we would want you to start immediately, preferably tomorrow. And secondly, that you are able to maintain a good relationship with the police, regardless of your background.’
‘No problem,’ Peder stated firmly. ‘I’m just finishing an assignment with a large company, but I only need a few hours to clear that up. And as for the police… I don’t foresee any difficulties there either.’
He had been surprised at Efraim’s words: ‘regardless of your background’. What did he know about that? Quite a lot, apparently. And yet they still wanted him in such a sensitive position.
As if he could read Peder’s mind, Efraim said:
‘We know you lost your job with the police, and we know why. Given the circumstances, we have no problem with that. Okay?’
Without realising how tense he had become, Peder suddenly relaxed.
‘Okay.’
‘We’ll take up your references this evening, and if you don’t hear anything to the contrary, I’ll expect to see you here at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. There’s a great deal to do, and you’ll have a lot of new routines to get used to.’
An old feeling gradually came to life inside Peder. This was the closest he had been to police work for several years. The adrenalin started pumping, and his heart rate increased.