The Chosen Read online

  “Not a thing. She isn’t even in the suspects’ database.”

  “In which case she might be as pure as the driven snow after all; perhaps she just has particularly poor judgment. And bad luck.”

  “I’ll leave it to you to look into; find out if this is about her or her boyfriend. Or possibly both of them. And don’t hang about.”

  Alex looked up.

  “Are we in a hurry?”

  “The Solomon Community is very energetic when it comes to security issues. If they don’t get answers from us fast enough, they’ll start their own investigation. Whatever happens, they’re bound to demand major input from the police, and they’ll do it very publicly.”

  Alex ran a hand over his chin.

  “Maybe not if we tell them that their teacher was living with someone who has a criminal record as long as your arm,” he said. “Surely that will give the impression that they’re recruiting potentially dangerous individuals, which won’t be very good for their image.”

  His boss was already on his way out of the door.

  “Exactly. So make sure you get in touch with them as soon as possible. Go over there and have a chat. Take Fredrika with you.”

  “She’s not in this afternoon, but I’ll call her tonight and let her know what’s going on.”

  His boss frowned.

  “That’s up to you, of course, but don’t you think you ought to call her now and ask her to come in? If she’s in town, that is.”

  “She is in town, and of course I can call her, but she probably won’t answer.”

  “Has something happened?”

  “She’s rehearsing with the orchestra.”

  “Orchestra? What does she play?”

  “The violin. And it makes her feel good, so I’m not going to interrupt her.”

  After being away from the police for almost two years, Fredrika Bergman was back at last. Back at Kungsholmen. Back with Alex. Which was exactly where he had always thought she should be, so he had no intention of quibbling over the odd rehearsal.

  He would make a start on the investigation himself. The teacher had been living with a man who had been in a hell of a lot of trouble, so that was the obvious place to begin.

  “So why am I dealing with this?” Alex asked. “Serious organized crime isn’t my area of responsibility.”

  “The Östermalm police have asked for backup in the initial stages,” his boss explained. “I promised you’d give them a hand. If there’s a clear link to organized crime, just pass the case on to the National Crime Unit.”

  It sounded so simple. Just pass the case on through the system. God knows how easy that would actually be. Alex thought back to the unique team he had led previously, drifting like a jellyfish between the National Crime Unit, the local forces, and the Stockholm city police. On paper they had been part of the Stockholm city police, but in reality they had served several masters. Alex had liked it that way, and if it was up to him, the new team would be no different.

  “I’ll send a car to bring in her partner if he’s at home,” Alex said. “I want to hear what he has to say, see whether we can eliminate him as a suspect.”

  “I shouldn’t think he did it himself,” his boss said. “It’s too crude.”

  “I agree. It sounds like revenge or some other crap. But we still have to talk to the guy. I’m sure he must know who shot her in the back.”

  Only an hour had passed since Fredrika had left Police HQ in Kungsholmen to go to her rehearsal. One hour, but the job no longer existed. Nor did her family or her friends. Not within the vacuum that was created when she settled her violin in the correct position between her chin and shoulder.

  The music carried her as if she had wings. She was flying high above everyone else, pretending she was alone in the universe. It was a dangerous thought. Soloists rarely did well in an ensemble, but for a moment—just one moment—Fredrika Bergman wanted to experience a taste of the life she had never had, to catch a glimpse of the woman she had never become.

  It was the third week of the new, yet familiar era. All her adult life Fredrika had mourned the career as a violinist that she had never had, and would never have. Not only had she grieved, she had searched hard for an alternative future. She had wandered around like a lost soul among the ruins of everything that had once been hers, wondering what to do, because as a child and a teenager she had lived for music. Music was her vocation, and without it life was worth very little.

  Things never turn out as we expect.

  Sometimes they’re better, but often they’re worse.

  Occasionally the memory would resurface, as unwelcome as rain from a summer sky. The memory of a car skidding, ending up on the wrong side of the road, crashing and turning over. With children in the back, parents in the front, skis on the roof. She remembered those cataclysmic seconds when everything was torn apart, and the silence that followed. The scars were still there. Every day she could see them on her arm, white lines that told the story of why she had been unable to put in the necessary hours of practice every day. In despair and emotional turmoil she had buried her violin in the graveyard of the past and become a different person.

  And now she was playing again.

  It was her mother who had found the string ensemble and told her: “This is your chance, Fredrika.” As if Fredrika, who was married to a man twenty-five years older than her, with two small children, had endless hours at her disposal, just waiting for something to fill them.

  But seek and ye shall find, as they say, and for the past three weeks music had been back in her life. For the first time in twenty years, Fredrika felt something that might just be harmony. Her husband and children made her heart whole. She was happy in her work, for once. Reaching this point had been a messy process. The case of the hijacked plane a few months earlier had been the key. Her employer in the Justice Department had sent her back to work with the police on a temporary basis, and Fredrika had realized where she felt at home, where she wanted to be.

  In the police service. On the first of January, she was back. Working with Alex Recht as part of a new investigative team, which was very similar to the one she had been a part of a few years ago.

  Very similar, even though so much had changed.

  Harmony. A word that would have made her feel queasy just a couple of years ago. But not now. Now it had acquired a new meaning; it wrapped itself around her soul like cotton wool and lit a spark in her eyes. Fredrika Bergman had found peace.

  For the time being, at least.

  There had once been a Jewish bloodline in Alex’s family, but it had been broken several generations ago. Since then, none of his relatives had any links to Judaism, and the only trace that remained was his surname. Recht.

  Nevertheless, he felt that the name gave him certain advantages as he set off for the Solomon Community in Östermalm, as if its Jewish origins would be enough to bring him closer to a people he had never felt part of.

  The air was cold and damp as he got out of the car on Nybrogatan. Bloody awful weather. January at its worst.

  The Östermalm police had cordoned off the area around the body. Huddles of curious onlookers were leaning over the plastic tape. Why did blood and death attract so much attention? So many people shamelessly gravitated toward misery, just so they could feel glad they hadn’t been affected.

  He quickly made his way over to the cordon where he could see several younger colleagues in uniform. He had once been like them, young and hungry, always ready to put on his uniform and get out there to keep the streets safe. He was rather more disillusioned these days.

  One of the officers introduced him to the community’s general secretary, a man weighed down by a tragedy that was only a few hours old. He could barely speak.

  “None of the witnesses is allowed to leave,” Alex said, placing as much emphasis on the first word as he could muster. “As I understand it, a number of parents and children saw what happened. No one goes home until we’ve spoken to them or at
least made a note of their contact details.”

  “Already done,” one of his Östermalm colleagues said tersely. Alex realized that he had overstepped the mark. Who was he to come marching onto their turf, issuing orders? They had asked him to help out, not take over.

  “How many witnesses are we talking about?” he said, hoping that he had managed to soften his tone.

  “Three parents and four children aged between one and four. And of course various people who happened to be passing when the incident took place. I’ve asked those who came forward to stick around, but of course I can’t guarantee that’s everyone.”

  It shouldn’t be a problem: Alex had been told that the school entrance was covered by CCTV, so it would be fairly straightforward to get an idea of how many people had been passing at the time of the shooting.

  “Who’s your head of security?” Alex asked, turning to the general secretary.

  “We don’t have one at the moment. Our security team is running itself until we fill the post.”

  Alex looked over at the body. The falling snow was doing its best to bury the scene of the crime, but without success. The warm blood that had poured out of the woman was melting the snowflakes as effectively as if they had landed on a radiator. She was lying on her stomach, her face on the ground. She had been shot in the back as she turned toward the open door of the school to call to one of the children. Alex thanked God that the bullet hadn’t hit one of the little ones instead.

  “According to the parents, there was just one single shot,” said his colleague from Östermalm.

  Alex looked at the body. Clearly one shot was all that had been required.

  “Shall we continue inside, where it’s warmer?” the general secretary suggested.

  He led the way into the building, where another man appeared and introduced himself as the head teacher of the Solomon school.

  “I need hardly say that we are devastated by what’s happened and that we expect the police to give this matter the highest priority,” the general secretary said.

  “Of course,” Alex said sincerely. Shooting someone down in broad daylight in the middle of the city wasn’t exactly common.

  They sat down in the general secretary’s office. The walls were adorned with pictures of various places in Israel arranged in neat rows: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Nazareth. Alex had visited the country several times and recognized virtually every location. In the window an impressive menorah, one of the classic symbols of Judaism, spread its seven branches. Alex wondered if he had one at home; if so, it must be in one of the boxes in the loft.

  “Tell me about the woman who died,” he said, trying to remember her name. “Josephine. How long had she been working for you?”

  “Two years,” the head teacher replied.

  “Which age group did she work with?”

  Alex knew nothing about the way preschools were organized, but he assumed that children of different ages were separated into groups. His own children were grown up now and parents themselves. Sometimes when he listened to their talk of day care and school and dropping off and picking up, he wondered where he had been when they were little. He certainly hadn’t been with them, at any rate.

  “Early years—one to three. She and two colleagues were responsible for a dozen or so children.”

  “Have there been any threats directed against Josephine or the school in the past?”

  The head teacher looked at the general secretary, waiting for him to respond.

  “As I’m sure you know, there are always threats against Jewish interests, irrespective of time or place, unfortunately. But no, we haven’t received any concrete threats recently. Unless you count all the vandalism, that is. Which we do, even if it isn’t directed against individuals.”

  “I know you keep a close eye on people moving around outside your premises; have you noticed anything in particular that you’d like to share?”

  Once again the answer was no; everything had been quiet.

  “What about you?” the general secretary said, leaning across the desk. “I realize that the investigation is at an early stage, but do you have any leads that you think could prove interesting?”

  There was something about the man’s tone of voice that made Alex suddenly wary. He decided to answer a question with a question, which he directed to both the head teacher and the general secretary.

  “What do you know about Josephine’s private life?”

  A pale smile flitted across the head teacher’s face.

  “She was twenty-eight years old. The daughter of two members of our community who have been close friends of mine for many years. I’ve known Josephine since she was little. She was a lovely girl.”

  But? There was always a but.

  “But?”

  “She was a little . . . wild. It took time for her to find the right path in life. However, I had no hesitation in giving her the job. She was fantastic with the children.”

  A little wild. That could mean anything from “She robbed a bank but she didn’t mean any harm” to “She hitched her way around the world twice before she decided what she wanted to be when she grew up.” Alex didn’t understand words like wild. It was a new invention, coined by a generation with too many choices and skewed expectations of life.

  “I’m sure you’re right,” he said. “Given that you know her parents so well, I assume you’re also aware that she was living with a man fifteen years older than her, with convictions for a series of serious crimes?”

  Their reaction took him by surprise.

  They didn’t have a clue. Or did they? Alex gazed at the man who looked the least surprised: the general secretary. But he was also the person who had most to lose if it appeared that he had no idea what was going on within his community.

  “There must be some misunderstanding,” the head teacher said. “We didn’t even know she was living with someone.”

  Alex remembered that they had been cohabiting for only a few months, according to the records.

  “Surely her parents must have known who she was sharing her home with,” he said.

  “You’d think so, but then, I don’t know how much they saw of her,” the head teacher said.

  Alex immediately decided that he needed to speak to the parents.

  “Where can I get hold of Josephine’s mother and father?”

  “They have an apartment on Sibyllegatan, but I know they were keen to get to the hospital as soon as she’s taken there; they want to see her. Or whatever the procedure is.”

  You saw. You felt. You understood.

  You went under and fell apart.

  “Any brothers or sisters?”

  “She has a brother in New York.”

  So at least the parents still had one child left. That always gave him some small consolation—not that he thought it was possible to replace one child with another. He had almost lost his son just a few months ago, and nothing could have compensated for such a loss.

  Nothing.

  Alex hated remembering those hours when everything had been so uncertain and no one knew how it would end. And it was almost more painful to remember the aftermath of the hijacking, which had cost him so much. All those weeks of frustration, all the footslog that had been necessary to bring his son home; exhausting marathon trips to the USA; endless meetings with government officials who were unwilling to let him out of the country.

  He shook his head. That was all behind him now.

  “I’m assuming that you will treat the information I have given you with the greatest discretion,” he said, getting to his feet to indicate that the meeting was over.

  “Of course. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if we can help in any way,” the general secretary said, holding out his hand.

  Alex shook it.

  “I’ll be in touch,” he said.

  “So will we, actually,” the general secretary said. “As I said, we’re in the process of recruiting a new head of security, and one of the appl
icants has given your name as a reference.”

  “Really?” Alex was slightly taken aback.

  The general secretary nodded.

  “Peder Rydh. But as I said, we’ll be in touch.”

  Peder Rydh.

  It still hurt to hear that name.

  He still missed his former colleague.

  A little while later Alex was standing on Nybrogatan, wondering why he felt so uneasy. It was as if the snowflakes were whispering to him.

  This has only just begun. You have no idea of what is to come.

  The falling snow was like confetti made of glass. Simon suppressed an urge to stick out his tongue to let some of the crystals land on it. The cold made him stamp his feet up and down on the spot. Why was Abraham always late? He was the kind of person who thought punctuality just didn’t matter. How many hours had Simon stood waiting for him in bus shelters, outside the school, outside the tennis center, and in a million other places? If he added it all up—and he was good at that kind of thing—he had probably spent days and days being annoyed with his friend, who was incapable of turning up on time.

  Who never apologized.

  Just smiled when he eventually showed up.

  “Have you been waiting long?” he would say.

  As if he didn’t have a clue about when they were due to meet or the fact that they had agreed on a specific time.

  The humiliation bothered Simon more often than he was prepared to admit. He no longer knew why it was simply taken for granted that he and Abraham should be friends. Their parents no longer saw as much of each other as they had in the past, and in school they belonged to different groups. When he thought about it, tennis was really the only thing they had in common, although that had changed, too, in recent weeks. They still went along together, but ever since the coach had taken Simon to one side and said that he thought it would be worth putting in a few extra hours of training to help him move forward, Abraham had begun to withdraw. They no longer played against each other but against other boys.

  Simon was careful to avoid a direct conflict with Abraham, mainly because his friend couldn’t deal with losing in any way. It didn’t matter whether it was in a tennis match or in school: Abraham always had to be right.