The Chosen Read online

  “I know.”

  But you want to go, don’t you?

  Of course he wanted to go. Was she being unreasonable if she said no?

  She shook her head.

  “We’ll talk about it when I get home,” she said.

  She went into the hallway and put her shoes back on, picked up her bag. Spencer was standing behind her as she moved to open the door.

  “You know I love you?” he said.

  She smiled but didn’t let him see.

  You don’t get away with it that easily, Professor.

  “I thought so, but it’s nice of you to remind me.”

  She turned around, her hand still resting on the latch.

  He smiled, and she went weak at the knees. There weren’t many men over sixty who looked as good as Spencer. She hoped that she and the children would keep him young for many years to come.

  Her cell phone rang and she fished it out of her pocket.

  Alex. She rejected the call. She went over to Spencer and kissed him.

  “See you later,” she said.

  “I certainly hope so. Anything else would be a disaster.”

  She left her family behind, closed the door of the apartment. When she was outside the building, she called Alex.

  “I’ll take a cab; I’ll be at HQ in ten minutes.”

  Cold and darkness.

  And fear. Because it was too late; because he had done something stupid.

  Simon and Abraham were sitting in a van. It was parked in the middle of a forest, and the man who had locked them in wouldn’t be coming back until the next day. That meant they would be alone in the bitterly cold vehicle all night.

  Both boys were crying with exhaustion. If only they hadn’t gotten into the car. If only they’d caught the bus.

  When Simon thought about the drive out of the city, for some reason it was the windshield wipers he saw in his mind’s eye, scraping back and forth, trying to clear the snow so that the driver could see where he was going. Simon could see the back of his neck.

  He had felt the bonds around his wrists beginning to chafe. Once, when they were younger, he and Abraham had played a war game. Abraham had hurled himself at Simon and tied his hands behind his back with a jump rope. It hadn’t been much fun, and they had never done it again. In the car it wasn’t a game. His hands were tied behind his back for real this time.

  Simon was terrified.

  Why hadn’t he gotten on the bus and left Abraham behind?

  The only thing he knew for sure was that they were in serious trouble. Abraham hadn’t said a word when Simon got into the backseat. Not until the car stopped at the traffic lights. Then he had yelled:

  “He’s got a gun, Si!”

  And Simon had thrown himself at the door, fumbling with the handle, trying to get it open so that he could jump out. But the door was locked, and he was going nowhere.

  “Fasten your seat belt and sit still!” the driver had bellowed, and Simon had done as he was told, trembling with fear.

  “Sorry,” Abraham had whispered, turning to look at Simon.

  “And you shut your mouth,” the man had said.

  Another apology, just as bizarre as the first.

  Simon had wanted to say that everything was okay, that it didn’t matter. That he forgave his friend. But he didn’t dare say a word.

  He didn’t know what the man driving the car wanted; all he knew was that they weren’t heading for the tennis center. They had set off in a completely different direction. They had stopped once, when the man tied their hands and made Abraham move into the backseat.

  It was like being in some horrible film, the kind Simon’s mom and dad wouldn’t let him watch. The mere thought of his parents gave him a burning pain in his belly. He wanted to go home. Right now.

  The man hadn’t driven particularly fast. He actually looked relaxed, which frightened Simon even more. After tying them up, he had dug out their cell phones, switched them off, and removed the batteries. Simon had no idea why, but he realized it wouldn’t make any difference if he could reach his phone: it was useless anyway.

  The car had driven up onto an impressive bridge, and all at once Simon recognized the location. They were heading out toward the big palace where the king and queen lived. Why?

  They passed the palace without stopping. Eventually the man turned off the road and along a smaller track that led straight into the forest. Simon had traveled a great deal with his parents, and he had never seen as many forests as there were in Sweden. Especially not in Israel, where all his relatives lived. In Israel there were only towns and sand. And the sea. Wild and blue.

  The car stopped and the man told them to get out on Abraham’s side. It might have been warm sitting in the back with their coats on, but it was freezing cold standing in the snow. They couldn’t see the palace.

  “Come with me,” the man said.

  Only then had Simon noticed the large van parked a short distance away. A black van without any windows. The man led the way and opened the back doors.

  “Get in.”

  His voice was deep, and he spoke English. Simon wished he hadn’t understood what the man was saying; it would have been easier to fight back. But not the way things were; they both did exactly as they were told. Not even Abraham was going to take on someone who had a gun.

  Inside the van it was dark and cold. There were no seats, just a hard rubber mat on the floor. You couldn’t see the driver’s seat, because someone had put up a wall between the front and the back of the van.

  When they were standing in the van, Simon realized the man wasn’t coming with them. He was still outside in the snow. The two boys automatically backed away when he switched on a flashlight and shone it in their faces.

  And then he said the words that made Simon lose all hope of getting home anytime soon.

  “You can sit down over there under those blankets.” He pointed toward the corner. “You’ll be staying here until daylight.”

  Then the tears came, and Simon couldn’t stop them.

  Over an hour had passed since then, and he was still crying.

  “I’ve been so stupid,” Abraham sobbed. “I believed him when he said he wanted to talk to us about tennis.”

  Simon didn’t answer. What would he have thought if he’d gotten in the car first? He didn’t know.

  “He said it was a coincidence,” Abraham went on. “He said he was going to email us tonight to ask if we wanted to meet up tomorrow, and then he was driving along and he just happened to see me. I swear that’s what he said.”

  Simon still didn’t speak.

  “I want to go home,” Abraham whispered.

  “Me too.”

  Then they both fell silent.

  And outside it grew colder and colder.

  The underground parking garage was both cold and dark as Alex Recht walked over to the car with Fredrika. She looked excited and pensive at the same time. Alex could almost always read Fredrika Bergman’s body language; she was a mistress of nonverbal communication and had the ability to project several different moods simultaneously.

  Alex focused on the fatal shooting outside the Solomon school and ran through the latest information. Many of his colleagues had been hard at work; witnesses had been interviewed, leads followed up. But so far there were still more questions than answers. A lot more.

  A mantra kept on pounding in his brain.

  The first few hours are the most important. Always and without exception.

  “The perpetrator was lying on a roof on the other side of the street,” Alex said as they got in the car and fastened their seat belts. “It’s difficult to interpret the evidence because of the wind and snow, but the indications are that he—or she—was lying on his or her stomach when the shot was fired. The killer then disappeared the same way he or she got in: through the attic. We’ve spoken to the residents’ association, and apparently people sometimes forget to close the outside door behind them when they come in from the st
reet, so the killer didn’t necessarily need the entry code or a key to get in.”

  “But surely the door leading to the attic must have been locked,” Fredrika said.

  Alex drove out of the grubby parking garage.

  “I’m afraid not. They’re in the process of carrying out some renovations, and the workmen need access to all parts of the building. According to the chair of the association, the attic door is left open all day and locked in the evening.”

  “In that case, there must be a pretty good chance that someone saw the perpetrator arriving or leaving. If there are workmen all over the place, I mean.”

  Alex shook his head, his expression grim.

  “Apparently not.”

  They had found very few traces of the killer. No fingerprints or footprints inside the building, which was interesting given that his or her shoes must have been soaking wet from the snow.

  “But we’ve got footprints on the roof?” Fredrika said.

  “Nothing of any use. The weather more or less destroyed them before the police got up there. The only thing we have is an indentation in the snow, which as I said indicates that the perpetrator was probably lying on his or her stomach.”

  The news that they hadn’t managed to track down the dead woman’s boyfriend worried Alex.

  “He wasn’t in the apartment when the police arrived; we’ve tried his registered cell phone number but there’s no answer. As far as we know, he’s unemployed at the moment.”

  “But is he a suspect?” Fredrika asked. “Do we think he shot his girlfriend?”

  “To be honest, no. Admittedly he has a record as long as your arm, but this shooting is too clean for someone like him. However, I still need to be able to eliminate him from our inquiries. We’ve shown a picture of him to the witnesses who were on Nybrogatan at the time of the incident and just beforehand; no one has seen him. On the other hand, we don’t know how long the killer was waiting for Josephine to come out. We’ve issued an appeal asking anyone who was passing in the hours before the shooting to come forward, but that’s going to mean interviewing a hell of a lot of people. I’m not sure it’s going to be much help, to say the least.”

  Fredrika thought for a moment.

  “Are we even sure that Josephine was the target? He could have been aiming at someone else who was around at the time, and missed.”

  “But in that case he would have tried again, wouldn’t he?”

  “I’m not so sure. The shot would have frightened people, made them start running around all over the place. He might not have gotten a second chance.”

  Alex was doubtful. The woman had been shot in the back. Her death had been inevitable and instantaneous. He couldn’t imagine the bullet had been meant for anyone else, and yet, that didn’t make sense either: Why would someone think of firing from that distance in such terrible weather? It hadn’t been quite so windy at the time, but it had been snowing heavily, with the storm already moving in.

  “We’ll speak to her parents,” he said. “Then we’ll know where we stand.”

  The silence that followed was pleasant and comfortable. Many of his colleagues seemed unable to cope with an absence of noise and would therefore ramble on about nothing at all. But not Fredrika. Alex glanced at her profile; she was thinking something over. Alex was well aware of what his male colleagues thought of her appearance and how many of them harbored inappropriate fantasies about her.

  Which was stupid of them, particularly in view of the fact that she was taken. Married, actually. To a man who was older than Alex and who had been her professor and lover when she was a student in Uppsala, according to the rumors. He would probably never know the truth of the matter; Fredrika shared a great deal, but not confidences of that kind.

  “How was the rehearsal?” he asked.

  She gave a start.

  “Good. Great, thanks.”

  Alex made an attempt to comment on her pensive mood, although he wasn’t at all sure it was a good idea.

  “You look as if you’ve got something on your mind.”

  “It’s nothing. It’s just that Spencer’s going away.”

  “So you’ll be on your own with the kids?”

  Fredrika looked as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  “Exactly. If one parent goes away for a few weeks, that leaves just one at home. But I’m sure it’ll sort itself out.”

  Alex’s phone rang. It was a man speaking English who introduced himself as the person responsible for human resources at the Solomon Community. He wanted to know what Alex could tell him about his former colleague, Peder Rydh.

  Alex gave the same answer as always.

  He spoke briefly about one of the most talented police officers he had ever met.

  The press just kept on calling. The journalists were drawn to the dead body in the snow just like those who happened to walk past the scene of the crime. It took them less than an hour to identify the victim, to find out where she lived, and to expose her boyfriend’s background. From then on the reports followed two separate strands: either they talked about the fatal shooting as an example of a hate crime and anti-Semitism, or they suggested that the murder might have links to organized crime in the city. The police said nothing, and the Solomon Community tried to keep any comments as brief as possible.

  Efraim Kiel left the room where the general secretary was dealing with one call after another from the press. It looked as if they finally had a satisfactory solution to the problem of the vacant post: Peder Rydh had made a good impression. Efraim would have liked to avoid making a temporary appointment, but Peder Rydh seemed more than capable of doing the job.

  Efraim got in touch with the three references in Rydh’s application; the last call was to his former boss, Alex Recht.

  He had no problem in eliciting the information he wanted. Just as Efraim had suspected, Peder Rydh had been an extremely conscientious and very popular police officer. A little hotheaded, perhaps, and there were one or two issues regarding his attitude toward female colleagues in the past, but otherwise Alex Recht had nothing negative to say.

  “What’s your personal view of the incident that led to his dismissal?” was Efraim’s final question.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What’s your assessment of the situation? Do you think that what he did—shooting the man who murdered his brother—is indefensible, or can you understand his actions?”

  Alex was silent for a moment, then he said:

  “I have no personal opinion on the matter; I do, however, have a professional view, which I am prepared to share only with my colleagues and superiors.”

  “I understand,” Efraim said, and ended the call.

  With considerable relief he handed over the relevant paperwork. He would spend his last evening in Stockholm checking on how the investigation into Josephine’s murder was going. He really wanted to ask how someone with such poor judgment could have been appointed to a post at the Solomon school, but it was none of his business to allocate blame; the members themselves could do that.

  Efraim’s train of thought was interrupted by the general secretary, who had come to find him, his eyes darting from side to side, his forehead shiny with perspiration.

  “Has someone else been shot?” Efraim asked dryly.

  “I do hope not, but we’ve had a call from one of the families within our community. Two ten-year-old boys appear to have gone missing. They were supposed to have a tennis coaching session after school, but they didn’t turn up. And now no one knows where they are.”

  A quick glance out of the window reminded Efraim of the cold and the heavy snowfall.

  A tragedy was rarely an isolated event. But people never learned.

  • • •

  A grief so deep that it threatened to swallow up all sense and understanding. The interview was necessary, but it would be brief.

  “What do you know about your daughter’s boyfriend?” Fredrika asked the couple sitting opposite her.


  Josephine’s mother and father. They were rather older than Fredrika had expected.

  They were still in shock, their grief fresh and raw. They had seen their daughter in the hospital morgue a little more than an hour ago, and now they were back in their apartment, where life was expected to go on. Fredrika didn’t have the words to explain how that was supposed to happen. Alex had more of an idea, having lost his wife a few years earlier. Sorrow had etched fine lines on his face.

  Josephine’s mother glanced at her husband, who answered:

  “Not much, and we’re not interested either. We just assumed she would eventually realize what a waste of space he was, and leave him.”

  “In what way do you regard him as a waste of space?” Alex said, making an effort to sound as neutral as possible.

  “A man with a criminal record longer than the Torah is hardly likely to have made very many good choices in life.”

  “So how come you knew about his background?”

  Josephine’s father sighed and folded his arms.

  “Contacts,” he said tersely.

  In the police, no doubt, Fredrika thought, and decided not to pursue the matter. Alex seemed to be of the same opinion, and changed tack.

  “Were you aware that they were living together?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were they happy?”

  A sound that was somewhere between a sob and a snort escaped Josephine’s mother.

  “Happy? I’m sorry, is that supposed to be a serious question?”

  She shook her head, angry and upset at the same time.

  “Am I to understand that your daughter was dissatisfied with the relationship?” Fredrika asked gently.

  Or was it just you and your husband who felt that way?

  “Interpret it however you want. I’m not saying that happiness is always the same thing, but the relationship between my daughter—our daughter—and that man was rotten.”

  “Rotten to the core,” Josephine’s father said, as if he felt that his wife’s words needed further clarification. “His only contributions were expensive parties and problems.”

  “He didn’t have a job or an income?”