‘Good idea. Because I’m wondering why I can’t get hold of her either.’
It wasn’t an irrelevant question, but nor was it the most important. One of their colleagues had spoken to her, and she had confirmed Saul Goldmann’s alibi. There wasn’t necessarily anything suspicious about the fact that they couldn’t get in touch with her at the moment, but if she was in Israel, it became more difficult to regard her as a person of no interest. She might have been there all the time, in which case Saul didn’t have an alibi.
‘Israel again,’ Alex said. ‘Don’t tell me it’s just a coincidence.’
He was quite right; whichever way they turned, they ended up in Israel.
‘Then again, is that so surprising?’ Fredrika said. ‘After all, we are investigating the murders of members of the Solomon Community, and the victims come from Israel. So it’s not so strange if the case has a geographical bias.’
Alex said something she didn’t hear.
‘Sorry?’
‘I don’t agree. You have a point, but the murder of the two boys and Polly’s abduction have something to do with events that took place in Israel. I’m sure of it. And there are people who obviously know what’s going on, but refuse to talk. Which is annoying the hell out of me.’
They were in agreement on that point.
The sounds around Alex grew quieter, and she assumed he had gone inside.
‘Where are you?’
‘At work. I’m going to stay for a few more hours, then go home. Call me any time if something comes up. And I mean that literally – any time.’
‘Thanks.’
She liked people who made her feel safe, and Alex was one of those people. His voice could bring her down to earth in seconds, blowing away the threatening clouds she thought she could see gathering on the horizon. When he had ended the call, she felt unexpectedly lonely.
Until Isak rang her.
‘I’m on my way to the hotel,’ he said. ‘Wait for me in the restaurant.’
‘I’m already there. What’s happened?’
‘We think we’ve got a name for the Lion.’
LONDON
Wood panelling on the walls and 80s music coming through the speakers. They were in a pub five minutes away from Fred Banks’s house. They had been sitting there for three hours. At first the words had come slowly. Eden had done all the talking. She hadn’t thought through what she was going to say, how she would say it. To begin with she had felt inhibited by the fact that she wasn’t sure how much Fred knew, then she had decided that it didn’t matter.
More important assets than her own integrity were at risk.
She had to make her peace with the past, move on. Ultimately she also had to forgive herself, but neither Fred nor anyone else could help her there. She would have to manage that on her own.
She had practically dragged Fred out onto the street and down to the pub, appealing to the warm heart she knew he had.
He had said he would give her half an hour. If she hadn’t said anything that caught his attention by then, he would walk out. She noted with relief that he was still there, and he had started talking. Tentatively, hesitantly, but he was talking.
Eden was surprised to hear that Angela was no longer in his life. She had found someone else, and was expecting their first child. Fred tried to look as if he didn’t care, but she could see the sorrow as clearly as fire in his eyes.
He had been promoted at work; without turning a hair he admitted that his skilled deception in the investigation into Eden’s affair with Efraim had been a key factor in his success.
‘When I was called to the first meeting, I had no idea what was coming. And when they told me, I laughed in their faces. Said you would rather die than be unfaithful to Mikael. Then I stopped laughing and got angry. Said I would tell you everything. Told them I would walk away, get another job. They let me carry on like a steamroller; then they showed me the pictures.’
He fell silent. Eden had given him her version of events, and now it was his turn. She had put all her cards on the table, told him everything.
Except the fact that Efraim was the father of her children.
‘At first I thought the pictures were fake,’ Fred went on. ‘You with a Mossad operative? It was unthinkable. You had always been so loyal. But the evidence was unequivocal. And I was there the first time you met – do you remember?’
She did. Fred had been at the conference where she met Efraim.
‘I don’t recall you and Efraim speaking to one another,’ she said.
‘We didn’t. But I saw you talking to him, and I was pleased. He made your face light up, and you’d been so low after the miscarriage.’
Eden could have wept.
So it had been obvious that he made her happy. Brightened her life. In order to crush her.
‘The boss explained who he was: a Mossad operative who was well known for his ability to recruit agents. They couldn’t believe their eyes when you were seen with him one day.’
‘So they knew right from the start? And nobody thought of confronting me?’
‘Not right from the start,’ Fred said. ‘But pretty early on they put together a top secret team to monitor your relationship. I wasn’t brought in until about six months later. They had been waiting for you to tell your superiors that you had been the target of a recruitment attempt by the Israelis, but instead you carried on seeing him. They felt it was highly unlikely that you didn’t know who he was, who he worked for.’
Eden shook her head.
‘I hadn’t a clue.’
Fred’s expression hardened.
‘As far as I was concerned, the fact that you were actually having an affair sealed the deal. If you were capable of deceiving the person you said you loved more than anything in the world, I thought you could easily be unfaithful to your employer as well, so to speak.’
Of course. That’s the way friendship worked. It could be a blessing, and it could create problems. In this case it had evidently done both.
‘I’ve explained what drove me into Efraim’s arms.’
She tried to sound defiant, but she couldn’t look Fred in the eye.
‘You’ve explained now, but at the time I didn’t have that information. Nor was I in a position to ask for it. Anyway, I’m still not sure I understand. I can see how you fell for him the first time round, but the second time? When you and Mikael had just had the twins? I don’t get it.’
Eden fixed her gaze on a serviette on the table.
‘It was a very difficult time,’ she said.
As if that were a satisfactory explanation.
Fred didn’t respond. Eden wanted him to tell her more. About Efraim Kiel and how she could get to him.
‘You said that MI5 already knew who Efraim was. How come?’
Fred looked grim.
‘These are sensitive matters,’ he said. ‘Top secret.’
She realised that. This was why she had come to London: to access information that would otherwise be unavailable to her.
‘You have to give me whatever you’ve got,’ she said. ‘Otherwise I’ll never be rid of him.’
Give me the ammunition to blow the bastard into a thousand pieces.
Fred hesitated for a long time.
Eventually he spoke:
‘You know, deep down…’
She waited. Held her breath.
‘Deep down I think I’ve always known that you had walked into a trap. You showed very poor judgement, but you did nothing illegal. And you’re right, the only person you really betrayed was Mikael.’
She could have wept with relief.
‘I’ll tell you what you need to know,’ Fred said. ‘But not here. Let’s go back to my place.’
Nothing much had changed in Fred’s house, except that all the photographs that had adorned the walls of the hallway had been removed. Perhaps Angela had taken them with her, or perhaps they had been thrown away.
Fred went into the kitchen to fetch a bottle of wine, and they sat down in the living room.