She tried to sound determined, but failed. As she moved to walk away he grabbed hold of her and held her tight, pressed up against the wall with his face only centimetres from hers.
‘You and your colleagues haven’t told us everything there is to tell.’
The words emerged as a protracted hiss.
When she didn’t reply, the grip on her wrists tightened.
‘The Paper Boy,’ he said. ‘You know who he is, don’t you? That’s why you’ve come here. You and your subterfuge. You want our help to drive out someone you wouldn’t be able to get at otherwise. Fucking liar!’
He let go of her, and she collapsed like a marionette whose strings have been cut.
What the hell was he talking about?
She made an attempt to reason with him.
‘I’ve no idea what you mean, but I can see that you’re very upset. I don’t know what’s happened to make you so angry, but I can assure you that neither I nor my colleagues know anything about the Paper Boy. That’s why we came to you.’
Her torrent of words was interrupted by a scornful laugh.
‘You’ve made me and my men look like idiots! Getting us to run errands that you should have asked your own security service to take care of.’
Security service?
He swore again.
‘Did you think I was going to share that kind of information with you? Did you?’
Fredrika’s entire body was shaking. Something had gone wrong. It was hardly a coincidence that Isak had brought her to the Old City late at night, when he knew the place would be deserted.
She was tired and frightened; she just wanted to go back to the hotel.
‘I promise you, we didn’t and don’t know anything about the Paper Boy. That’s why I’m going to the kibbutz in the morning, to find out more.’
Isak gazed wearily at her.
‘And you think they’ll be able to tell you something? You’re obviously deluded. If you want to go somewhere tomorrow, you’re on your own. I’m done with you and your games.’
With that he turned his back on her and walked away. Fredrika hesitated for a second, then set off after him. He stopped and spun around.
‘Don’t fucking follow me. This is where we go our separate ways. If you have any more questions relating to your investigation in Stockholm, fax them over when you get home.’
She stared after him as he disappeared into the darkness, the sound of his rapid footsteps echoing between the walls and fading away.
She stood there in the cold and the darkness without any idea of what she had done to upset him so much. Perhaps the answer lay in his assertion that he had been used to carry out tasks that should have fallen within the remit of the Swedish security service.
She hadn’t a clue what he meant by that. The only thing she could imagine was that any links to the world of intelligence were stronger and more numerous than they had realised, and that they had inadvertently marched straight into affairs that were both secret and sensitive. But how? And how were they supposed to find whoever was behind the murders if even those in authority were determined to protect their secrets?
But that wasn’t her biggest problem right now. Her biggest problem was finding her way out of the labyrinthine streets of the Old City, with the lights out and not a soul in sight.
Fredrika knew that she wouldn’t be able to find her way back to the Damascus Gate without Isak’s help. However, she thought she could find the Lion Gate, which meant she would be able to get out of the Old City and follow the wall back to her hotel.
Walking as fast as she could, her arms tightly folded across her chest, she set off along the Via Dolorosa once more.
CONCLUSION: FRAGMENT VI
The case has been like an octopus, with each tentacle representing a separate lead. The inspector remembers every single one of them. The leads that took them to Lovön. To Israel. And now to the home of a colleague.
He knows that it is over now.
That the Paper Boy has claimed his last victim.
All that remains is to understand what has happened.
And that will be impossible, because too many people are keeping quiet. Sheltering behind rules he knew nothing about.
During the past few days they have trampled on secrets they didn’t even know existed. Upset people they have never met, without being able to apologise. Because how can you say sorry when you don’t know what you’ve done?
As he stands in the apartment where a family has been smashed to pieces, he has a horrible feeling. A horrible feeling that he has missed something.
Something vital.
Something staring him in the face.
It was something I saw, something that didn’t feel right.
He walks around the apartment once more. It is beautiful. Turn of the century. Stylishly renovated, perfectly in keeping with the period.
As he stands in the hallway, it suddenly strikes him. The bloodstains. They don’t make sense.
He calls one of the CSIs over.
‘You think the man died here in the hallway,’ he says.
‘It looks that way. Check out the concentration of the blood; it’s all over the floor, from one side right across to the other.’
From one side right across to the other.
‘But why are there no bloodstains linking the scene of the murder and the bedroom?’
The CSI has no answer to that question.
‘The witness claims the man was shot in the doorway,’ he says. ‘Maybe he didn’t die right away. Maybe he managed to get to the bedroom before he lost consciousness.’
But the inspector doesn’t think so. Because there is blood in the hallway, where the first silenced shot was allegedly fired.
Then he realises what he saw.
His gaze returns to the wedding photograph. To the man’s face.
His brain stops working.
It can’t be true.
But it is.
He shouts to everyone else in the apartment.
‘Listen to me – there’s a man missing here!’
He looks at the wedding photograph again. The man smiling into the camera is not the same man who was lying on the bed with the children. He is not the children’s father. And he is not married to the woman who was standing here a few minutes ago, saying goodbye to her children.
EARLIER
TIME: BEFORE 22:10
It was as dark as if it were the middle of the night, even though it was morning. It was seven thirty, and Alex Recht was exhausted.
Polly Eisenberg was still missing.
He had expected her to be found dead as quickly as her brother, but that hadn’t happened; however, he had no idea whether that meant she was still alive.
He started the morning by asking Carmen and Gideon Eisenberg to come to Police HQ. He had run out of patience. Someone had to start talking, and it seemed reasonable to expect the missing child’s parents to oblige.
Fredrika had called him late last night, sounding very upset as she told him how her Israeli contact had abandoned her in the Old City in Jerusalem. She said he had ‘gone crazy’ before he walked away, which could only mean that they had stumbled on highly sensitive information, without realising it. He didn’t even want to think about what implications that had for their chances of solving the case.
‘Go and visit the kibbutzim,’ he had said to her. ‘Then get back here as soon as you can.’
‘I will, but I don’t know if it’s going to be any use; Isak seemed to think it would be a complete waste of time.’
Alex had lost track of the days, having worked all weekend. He reminded himself that it was Monday, and Fredrika would be back the following morning. Good. He needed her. More than ever.
Mona Samson was today’s project. She wasn’t answering her phone, and hadn’t responded to the two messages Alex had left on her voicemail.