‘It was after 9/11,’ Fred began. ‘2001. A lot of people thought it was our turn next. Through an undercover informant, MI5 learned that Palestinian terrorists were preparing a major attack on several British embassies around the world. A major investigation team was assembled to look into the threat, but they got nowhere. So they contacted the Israelis. The key player in the plot was supposed to be in a village on the West Bank, to which we had no access. The various attacks were to be carried out by Palestinians living in diaspora across the world.’
Eden listened carefully. She thought about the role the British had played in Palestine after the First World War, and the subsequent chaos which still reigned in 2001. Eden hadn’t started working for MI5 at that stage.
‘The Israelis were interested when they heard what we knew. MI5’s contact on the Israeli side was Efraim Kiel. He led a special team operating on the West Bank, and they had someone in that particular village who was both reliable and willing to co-operate.’
Fred took a sip of his wine, and Eden automatically reached for her glass. She shouldn’t drink; she knew that. But if Fred was drinking, she didn’t want to sit there stone-cold sober. It sent out the wrong signals.
‘Anyway, MI5 set up a joint operation with Mossad in order to track down the man behind the plot, and thus put a stop to it. Efraim Kiel’s team were supposed to locate him with the help of a source on the West Bank. I don’t know how much you remember about the situation in Israel at the beginning of the twenty-first century, but it was no picnic over there.’
Eden remembered those days very well. That was when her parents, particularly her mother, had been radicalised and eventually decided to emigrate to Israel. Eden recalled endless discussions with her mother and father, weeping with rage at the dinner table.
It had always been clear to Eden that disappointment was the strongest impetus for violence, disappointment over everything that didn’t happen, or didn’t happen fast enough.
The West Bank had been in flames during those years, and that was also when the decision was made to start constructing the barrier that now separated the two peoples. Running a source in a Palestinian village at that time must have been doomed to failure.
‘I assume it didn’t end well,’ Eden said.
‘To say the least. What I’m about to tell you stays between us, Eden. It’s more sensitive than everything else I’ve told you put together.’
She nodded. She had no words to express what she was feeling.
‘In February 2002, just before the Israelis moved in and reoccupied the West Bank, they thought they had a breakthrough in the source operation in the Palestinian village. Mossad contacted MI5, and we were offered the chance to be there when they went in to seize the man suspected of being behind the plot. We already had staff in Jerusalem; one of them joined Efraim Kiel’s team and accompanied them to the West Bank. A high-risk project in those days. For example, sometimes Palestinian terrorists or insurgents rigged up booby-trapped buildings.’
Booby traps. Eden had never needed to worry about that kind of danger, but she knew all about them – bombs that went off when someone stood on them; bombs that could be hidden under the floor so that an entire building would collapse on top of the intruder.
‘Efraim’s team ended up standing outside a house they were afraid was booby trapped,’ Fred went on. ‘For that reason they hesitated before going in, and Kiel moved aside to request reinforcements so that they could smoke out anyone who might be inside. At that moment a child emerged, a boy aged about ten. Two members of the team went over and spoke to him, asked if he was home alone or if there were any adults in the house.’
‘They did what?’
‘I know – unbelievable. They didn’t want him in there if they were going to use tear gas, or blow the place up, so they confronted him. But they completely misjudged his reaction. The boy panicked and pulled away from them. He was much faster than they were, of course, and he ran straight back inside through the nearest door, which evidently wasn’t the one through which he had come out. And the team found out whether the house was booby trapped or not.’
The wine became impossible to swallow, stuck in her throat.
‘The house went up,’ Eden said.
Fred nodded, his face expressionless.
‘They didn’t have a chance; in two seconds the whole place was in flames. We later received confirmation that the suspect had died in the explosion. There were no attacks on British embassies. Afterwards, however, MI5 was extremely critical of the way in which the operation had been carried out. A child died that day. How many British citizens do you have to save for it to be worth the life of a Palestinian boy?’
Eden had no answer to that question. She looked down into her glass, feeling wave after wave of nausea. She realised how little she had known about Efraim’s background.
‘We had nothing more to do with Efraim Kiel after that,’ Fred said. ‘Until the day when he approached one of our brightest and best.’
He gave Eden a wry smile, and she couldn’t help but smile back.
‘Were you there on the West Bank?’ she asked.
Fred shook his head.
‘I found out about the operation when I was reading up about Kiel in order to understand who he was. Painful secrets hidden away in the archives under a bizarre code name.’
‘How bizarre can it be?’ Eden said. ‘How do you name an operation that so obviously went against important principles that we’re supposed to represent?’
‘You give it the name the Israelis gave their source. And on this occasion the source on the West Bank who led Efraim Kiel’s team to the main suspect was apparently known as the Paper Boy.’
The longing had been aroused deep inside him on the very first day, when the snow outside the Solomon Community was still red with blood, and the two boys were missing. He had felt his pulse rate increase, felt the surge of adrenalin. And he knew that he had done the wrong thing on the day when he walked away from the police and handed in his badge without even putting up a fight. Had he been crazy? How could he have done something so stupid?
Peder Rydh knew the answer to that question.
He had been out of his mind.
His brother had been murdered, and nothing else mattered.
But now things were different. Peder was different.
I want to go back, he thought. I really, really want my old job back.
There were so many things he missed; being around Alex was one of them. Working with such an experienced investigator so early in his career had been a blessing. Peder’s success could have taken him a very long way if he had played his cards right. It wasn’t just the fact that he had shot his brother’s killer that had landed him in hot water; there were the women too.
So bloody pointless.
Unsatisfactory sex with women for whom he had no respect. You just didn’t behave like that. Not towards them, and definitely not towards your own wife. One thing had led to another, and eventually he had been working so hard at being a bastard that he no longer knew how to be anything else. Until now.
Peder had finally been forced to grow up. The question was whether he had left it too late.
He couldn’t stop thinking about the murders within the Solomon Community. He realised he had begun to regard them as his case, his responsibility. Ylva watched with unspoken anxiety as he became unreachable, lost in his thoughts. She wondered if he was moving away from her again.
They had supper with the children and she took them off for baths and bedtime. Peder loaded the dishwasher, then fetched his laptop.
The newspapers were following the search for Polly Eisenberg. Her parents had gone to ground and were making no comment. Peder had met them only a few times, but they had made a good impression, particularly Carmen, the mother. She seemed calmer than her husband; more comfortable in her own skin.