‘Unfortunately I can’t tell from the records; sometimes staff forget to make a note if a meeting is cancelled or postponed.’
‘In that case I want to speak to the manager in question. Right now.’
The administrator realised the seriousness of the situation, and said that she would contact her colleague immediately and ask him to call the police.
Alex’s phone rang a few minutes later.
‘I have a very simple question,’ he said. ‘According to your admin staff, Gideon Eisenberg was in a meeting with you at the bank between two thirty and four thirty last Wednesday. Can you confirm that the meeting actually took place?’
The answer came immediately.
‘No, it was postponed. Did I forget to make a note in the visitor database?’
Yes you did, you fucking idiot.
‘Why was the meeting postponed?’
‘Gideon rang and said he was ill.’
Alex ended the call with a brief thank you, and ran out into the corridor. He gathered his colleagues in the Snakes’ Nest. They listened as he explained the latest twist in the case.
‘We need to bring in Gideon and Carmen Eisenberg,’ he said. ‘Right away.’
He thought he ought to call Peder, tell him he was partly right: someone else had taken Polly.
He wished Fredrika was there. She would have been a godsend when it came to interviewing Carmen, but then again she could do that when her plane landed. It wouldn’t do any harm for Carmen to sit and wait.
‘Are we sure that Gideon is the guilty party?’ one of his colleagues said. His expression said it all; he was far from sure.
‘No,’ Alex said. ‘But we now know that he doesn’t have an alibi. And we have Saul’s account, which I’m inclined to believe. So we have to bring Gideon in; anything else is out of the question.’
They were out of the Snakes’ Nest as quickly as they had assembled there.
Alex went in one of the cars to the Eisenbergs’ apartment in Östermalm. Sitting in his office waiting from them to return wasn’t an option; there was too much adrenalin coursing around his body.
He texted Diana from the back seat:
‘Will be late again. Love you. See you later.’
The car skidded on the snow which had not yet been cleared from the road. They were driving insanely fast, blue lights flashing, sometimes in the wrong lane facing the oncoming traffic. A younger colleague was at the wheel, still hungry for the kicks everyone thought were a daily part of police work, but which in fact very rarely came along.
They couldn’t go fast enough for Alex. He was convinced they were running out of time.
They raced along Strandvägen towards Djurgården, then turned onto Styrmansgatan. As they passed the theatre and Nybrogatan, Alex thought about Peder, and his idea that they were looking for two perpetrators who were at odds.
Alex wasn’t sure he understood what Peder meant. At this stage he wasn’t even convinced they were looking for two perpetrators. Gideon Eisenberg was no taller than one metre seventy; he could easily have been the person who lay on the roof and shot Josephine, then worn shoes that were too big for him out on Lovön. The CSIs had said that while it looked as if the boys had slithered and stumbled in the snow, the killer’s tracks were even and controlled. That could work if he had been wearing oversized shoes, making him move more slowly.
They had found absolutely nothing when Saul Goldmann’s office and apartment were searched. No murder weapon, no shoes. Alex hoped they would have more success with Gideon Eisenberg.
They pulled up half a block away. No one had forewarned the Eisenbergs; they had just assumed Gideon and Carmen would be at home.
Which they were, fortunately. Carmen answered the door, and Alex and two colleagues stepped into the hallway. Carmen was paler than any living person Alex had ever seen.
‘Have you come to see Gideon?’ she whispered.
Alex nodded.
‘He’s in the living room.’
They walked through the wide hallway to the living room door, and stopped dead.
‘I found him when I got home.’
Carmen’s voice was barely audible.
Gideon was hanging from a hook on the ceiling. Someone had taken down the chandelier and hanged him with a noose. CSI and forensics would determine if he had done it himself, but that was Alex’s instinctive reaction.
‘He left this.’
Carmen handed him a sheet of white paper.
‘It was on the kitchen table.’
Alex took the paper and read the brief message.
Forgive me.
The plane landed twenty minutes ahead of schedule. The passengers got to their feet as soon as it stopped moving, and Fredrika Bergman took out her mobile phone. Her first call was to Spencer; she missed his voice. Missed being close to him.
I’m home, darling.
He still sounded hoarse:
‘That was a short trip.’
‘It was no fun without you, so I hurried home to Sweden.’
He laughed quietly.
‘Did you manage to play your violin?’
Fredrika thought about the instrument she had taken with her; she hadn’t played it once.
‘The trip would have been a complete fiasco without it.’
Spencer laughed again, but subsided in a fit of coughing.
‘Will you be home soon?’ he said eventually.
‘I won’t be long, but I just have to call in at work first.’
How many times had she said that over the past few days? Feeling incredibly guilty, she called Alex. He answered right away, and she listened to what he had to tell her without saying a word.
They had arrested Saul Goldmann.
Gideon Eisenberg had hanged himself.
And Carmen had been taken to the custody suite at Kronoberg.
‘I’d like you to interview her,’ Alex said. ‘There’s a chance she might know where Polly is.’
‘If that’s the case are we really going to lock up the only person who knows where she is?’
‘Too bloody right we are, to put her under pressure, if nothing else. Besides, I don’t believe Carmen is the only person who knows where Polly is. You don’t just leave a five-year-old; she has to be with another adult. And don’t forget, Carmen and Gideon were with us when their daughter went missing, so if she is involved, she must have had help.’
Fredrika was picked up by a patrol car at the airport, and driven into the city with blue lights flashing. She had never made the trip from Arlanda at such speed. Trees and buildings were lost in a blur. She sat in the back seat, trying to gather her thoughts and work out what she wanted to ask Carmen Eisenberg.
Where is your daughter?
Where have you hidden her?
She thought about David and Gali Eisenberg in Israel, and wanted to weep. Now they had lost not only a grandchild, but their son too.
It was more difficult to drive fast once they reached the city. The streets had still not been cleared properly, and the car skidded several times. Eventually they arrived, dropped Fredrika off outside the entrance on Kungsholmsgatan and sped away.
She picked up her bags and went inside, into the warmth.
Alex was in his office. He got up and gave her a hug. Held her tight, as if he wanted proof that she had survived the trip.
‘Can you cope with this?’ he asked.
‘No problem. I’ll just take off my coat.’
Her office looked exactly as she had left it a few days earlier. The next time she went to Israel she would stay longer. The sense of being away had already left her; the only thing on her mind now was how to begin the interview with Carmen.
‘What kind of shape is she in?’ she asked Alex on the way down to the room where Carmen was waiting.
‘She’s in shock.’
Which was only to be expected when someone had lost her son and her husband within a week.
Alex was going to sit in on the interview, which was a good thing; Fredrika wasn’t sure if she could remember all the details he had given her.