She didn’t, but took some consolation from the words. She certainly needed hope.
He dropped her off and drove on. Fredrika picked up her case and walked over to the guard. What the hell was she doing here?
This whole thing was a lunatic project in a country which was one of the most challenging in the entire world in terms of security. It would have been much easier with Isak by her side.
The rain was falling heavily now, and she increased her speed. The guard stared at her with suspicion.
‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘I’d like to speak to the Goldmann and Eisenberg families, if they’re available. It’s about their sons.’
Being on unfamiliar ground with a task that was far from clear wasn’t ideal. Fredrika realised this when she was shown into David and Gali Eisenberg’s house. The place where Gideon Eisenberg had grown up.
‘I’m sorry to turn up unannounced and at such an early hour,’ she said once they were seated at the kitchen table. ‘But we really need your help with our investigation.’
It was nine o’clock; she had left Jerusalem at seven thirty.
‘Is this about Simon and Polly?’ Gali asked
She looked as if she were on the verge of tears. Fredrika shuffled uncomfortably; this was an impossible situation.
‘It is. And I have to begin by saying that you are under no obligation to talk to me. I am with the Swedish police, and I don’t have the authority to conduct an investigation in Israel. But I was here on another matter, and wanted to take the opportunity to meet you.’
‘We’re happy to help the police in any way we can,’ David assured her.
They seemed like decent people. Calm and collected. And so sad.
‘Do you have other children apart from Gideon?’
‘A daughter,’ Gali said. ‘She lives in Haifa.’
Not too far away; that must be some consolation when their son had moved all the way to Stockholm.
The house was small and simply furnished. If Fredrika understood correctly, everything on a kibbutz was owned collectively. Therefore, the house was not theirs, but had been allocated to them as a place to live. The very thought of not owning her home, or at least having a contract with the landlord, made Fredrika’s head spin.
She began by asking a question to which she already knew the answer.
‘How long is it since Gideon left Israel?’
Gali sighed.
‘It’s exactly ten years.’
‘Do you remember what motivated the move to Stockholm? I understand they left at the same time as the Goldmann family.’
There was no mistaking the reaction. As soon as Fredrika mentioned the name Goldmann, both Gali and David stiffened.
‘It was just a coincidence really,’ David said. ‘The fact that they moved at the same time.’
‘It all happened so fast,’ Gali said. ‘One day the decision was made, and we didn’t understand it at all. They left just a few weeks after Simon was born.’
‘So something must have happened, something that meant they didn’t want to go on living here,’ Fredrika said.
‘Gideon always found it very difficult to talk about his job,’ David said, with some hesitation. ‘And we respected that. As far as we know, the decision had something to do with his work, but we never found out what happened.’
Gali shook her head sorrowfully.
‘They just disappeared. We’ve been over to visit them many times, of course, and they’ve been here, but things just aren’t the same.’
‘You said Gideon found it difficult to talk about his job,’ Fredrika said, turning to David. ‘What did you mean by that?’
‘It seemed as if everything he was involved in was top secret.’
‘You mean at the firm where he worked?’
David looked confused.
‘Firm? Gideon didn’t work for a firm. He was employed by the military until he moved. Just like the others.’
A thought flitted through her mind. The others?
David straightened up.
‘If you want any more information, you need to ask Gideon,’ he said. ‘He’s in the best position to know what he can and can’t reveal about his past.’
He realised he had said too much, and Fredrika knew she wouldn’t get any more out of him.
She tried a different tack.
‘Of course. We’ve already spoken to Gideon, and will be doing so again. A moment ago you said “just like the others”. That he was employed by the military just like the others. I assume you were referring to Saul and Daphne Goldmann?’
They’d said they stayed on in the army for a year or so after their military service, hadn’t they? A year or so. But if Fredrika was right, it now seemed that they had stayed on until they left Israel.
‘That’s right,’ David said.
He had looked relieved when Fredrika started talking; he didn’t need to feel as if he were betraying his son.
‘And Efraim Kiel,’ Gali said.
‘Efraim Kiel?’
‘Gideon, Saul, Daphne and Efraim did their military service together, then pursued a career in the army. Efraim was the only one who stayed in Israel.’
‘That’s probably because he was the most successful,’ David said with a melancholy smile. ‘He was always a winner, always the leader.’
‘Did he also grow up on this kibbutz?’
‘No, his parents lived in Netanya, but the boys went to junior and high school together.’
One thread after another was woven together, the pattern growing clearer all the time.
Efraim Kiel had come up yet again. Efraim Kiel, who didn’t have an alibi for the murder of the two boys. The man Alex couldn’t track down.
And once again it was apparent that Simon and Abraham’s parents had lied. None of them had revealed that they had gone to school with Efraim, and spent time in the army together; they had said only that they did their military service with him.
As an investigator, Fredrika had to ask herself why. She also wondered if they were lying for reasons relevant to the inquiry, or because of something completely different. The sense of chasing lost souls became stronger the more she dug into the past. Was it because their work had been top secret?
‘Do Saul Goldmann’s parents live nearby? I’d really like to speak to them too.’
A shadow passed across the kitchen table. The rain hammered against the window pane, and the Swedish cold felt like a distant memory. In Israel it was like the Swedish summer.
‘Unfortunately they are no longer with us,’ Gali said. She looked sad, but Fredrika could see something else in her eyes, something indefinable that had nothing to do with sorrow.
Something that looked a lot like relief, in fact.
‘Were they very old?’ she asked.
David cleared his throat.
‘Aida died in a car accident last year. And Avital… Avital took his own life.’
Silence fell in the small kitchen.
Avital? It was a coincidence, of course. The Lion had called himself Avital Greenburg. But Saul’s father was Avital Goldmann.
‘It must have been very difficult for Saul, losing both his parents when he’s so young himself,’ Fredrika said. Saul was only forty-five; most people don’t expect to lose their parents until much later in life.
‘I shouldn’t think he misses them,’ David said, getting up from the table. ‘He didn’t even come to his mother’s funeral.’
Gali stroked his back as he passed her on his way to the sink.
‘David, we know nothing about all that,’ she said.
‘If he wasn’t close to them in the past, perhaps he’s thinking about them now that he’s lost his own son,’ Fredrika said, trying to smooth things over.
David switched on the coffee machine, and it came to life with a series of noises. The atmosphere in the kitchen was oppressive, as if the air was full of unspoken words.
‘I shouldn’t think Saul cares about the boy either,’ he said.
At that Gali slammed her fist down on the table.