Fredrika briefly went over what she had done and how she would like to proceed. She opened her notebook.
‘I’ve found three numbers that were in contact with the phone before and after the time when Zakaria says he acquired it.’
Sebastian got up and looked over her shoulder.
‘I’ll go and see if we’ve identified those numbers,’ he said. Fredrika gave him the notebook and he was gone.
‘Good idea,’ Eden said.
Fredrika thought she looked distracted, almost as if she was having to make a real effort to hold things together.
‘Shouldn’t we try to speak to Zakaria’s sister as well?’ Fredrika said, mostly for the sake of something to say.
‘We should,’ Eden said. ‘Not least because I can’t for the life of me understand how we missed the fact that he has a sister who lives in Sweden.’
Fredrika couldn’t understand it either, but she didn’t say anything.
Sebastian reappeared just as Eden spoke, having given Fredrika’s notebook to one of his analysts. ‘I looked into the business of the sister; it’s all very peculiar. Nobody in the Immigration Office knew that he had a sister here.’
‘So she’s not an asylum seeker?’ Eden said.
‘We don’t know. She could be, but without having said she’s Zakaria Khelifi’s sister.’
‘But why hasn’t she come forward?’ Eden said. ‘I mean, we’ve been in touch with everyone else who’s close to Zakaria – either they’ve contacted us, or vice versa. Not one of them has mentioned a sister living in Sweden.’
‘We’ll have to speak to his uncle again,’ Fredrika said.
‘Can you take care of that while Sebastian and I see whether we can get anywhere with the phone numbers you’ve found?’
With that the meeting was over, and Sebastian and Fredrika went back to the investigation team area while Eden headed for the lifts.
Fredrika watched her. ‘Where’s she going?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Sebastian replied. ‘You never know where you’re up to with Eden Lundell.’
It might have been a joke, but Fredrika could see that he was serious, and it worried her. The head of counter-terrorism went her own way, usually alone.
In Fredrika’s experience, that was how a person lost their way in life.
44 19:50
Efraim Kiel. Less than twenty-four hours ago, Buster Hansson didn’t even know he existed, and now he couldn’t stop thinking about him. Henrik, the head of counter-espionage, had come to pass on what they had found out about the man MI5 had named as a Mossad agent.
‘How’s that business with the hijacked plane going?’ he asked out of sheer curiosity.
‘I hope it will be okay, but it’s more likely to go badly wrong,’ Buster said. He tried to smile, but it turned into more of a grimace.
‘Really?’
‘Let’s talk about Eden and this Israeli instead,’ Buster said.
‘Of course.’
Henrik opened the brown envelope he had brought with him and handed over a bundle of photographs.
Buster flicked through them; they showed the same man in various locations all over Stockholm. Efraim Kiel. In the foyer of the Diplomat Hotel. In a café in the Old Town. In a bookshop on Drottninggatan. At a bistro on Odenplan, together with another man whom Buster didn’t recognise.
‘Who’s he?’
‘He’s the undersecretary at the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm.’
Buster let out a low whistle.
‘That’s bloody careless.’
‘It certainly is.’
Buster carried on looking through the photographs, but there was no sign of Eden.
‘He hasn’t been anywhere near Kungsholmen or Police HQ?’
‘No, not yet. I have to admit that I’m very doubtful as to whether this guy is a Mossad agent at all. He doesn’t act like one. I spoke to surveillance at length, and he’s behaving just like an ordinary tourist; he hasn’t shown any sign whatsoever of being security conscious.’
‘Such as?’
‘He always moves from point A to point B without hesitation. He doesn’t take a roundabout route, or make any effort to shake off a possible tail. Of course, this could indicate that he’s cool and utterly self-confident – he just doesn’t expect to be followed.’
‘Or else that’s exactly what he expects.’
‘And therefore, he’s making a point of acting as if he has nothing to hide. Of course that could be the case. But at least we know what the Brits told you: that they were convinced he was an intelligence officer, which was why they kept him under surveillance.’
‘And then he was called back to Israel,’ Buster said. ‘Have you managed to dig out any more information about him?’
‘No; this is a very tricky business. I daren’t ask our colleagues too many questions, because I don’t want them to start asking me any follow-up questions.’
‘Eden’s name must not come into this, not under any circumstances.’
‘That’s exactly my problem. We’ve got nothing concrete to put to them,’ Henrik said.
‘In that case, you’ll just have to make something up. This has to be resolved. In the very near future.’
The head of counter-espionage refused to meet Buster’s gaze.
Buster went back to the pictures.
‘I don’t like this,’ he said, tossing them on the desk. ‘I don’t like it one little bit. It just can’t be true. Not now. Not when Eden is leading this whole business with that bloody plane. It would be a total disaster if it turned out that she was an Israeli agent.’
Buster shook his head. That just couldn’t happen. If Eden wasn’t the person she had said she was, then she would take a lot of people down with her.
‘Carry on tailing him,’ he said. ‘We have to know more, we have to be sure of our ground. Then we can decide how to proceed.’
Henrik got to his feet.
‘I’ll keep in touch with surveillance. They’re not very happy, I have to say.’
‘Why not?’
‘They want to know why they’re being given so little information.’
‘They’ll just have to be patient,’ Buster said.
Henrik left the room and Buster was left alone. They would all have to be patient. He had the distinct feeling that they were still a long way from the truth about Eden Lundell.
45 FLIGHT 573
The first-class bar on the ground floor of the plane was empty, as usual. Erik Recht nodded to Lydia, the stewardess who was running the bar, and asked if she’d seen a young man on his own.
‘He was here just now – I think he might have gone to the toilet,’ she replied.
Erik sat down on a bar stool and rested one arm on the shiny counter. Lydia looked anxiously at him.
‘Have you heard anything new?’ she said, so quietly that he could barely hear her.
‘The Americans are being a little difficult, but things will soon sort themselves out.’
Otherwise it’s all over.
‘What do you mean, being a little difficult?’
Erik shook his head. ‘I promise I’ll tell you more once I’ve got a clearer idea of what’s going on,’ he said, hoping that she would be satisfied with that.
She didn’t ask any more questions, but he could see that she wasn’t happy about the lack of information.
‘Is there much talk?’ he said.
The cockpit had become a bubble in which he and Karim were enclosed. He had no idea what the mood was like among the rest of the crew and the passengers.
‘What do you think? It’s incredibly difficult to walk around pretending we’re just circling because of bad weather.’
‘I do understand that.’ Erik’s tone was vague; he was miles away.
‘Can I get you something? Juice? Water?’ Lydia offered.
He asked for a juice, and as Lydia served him a glass of freshly pressed orange, he thought about his father once again. He would have a chat with the guy who had received the text, then he would call Alex. For the first time in his adult life, Erik longed to hear his father’s voice. He hadn’t felt like that since he was a child – if even then. Erik had always felt inadequate; Alex had always found a reason to sigh over something Erik had done or decided to do. The trip to South America had been a kind of high point; after that the fight had gone out of Alex and he had stopped quarrelling with his son. Was that when Erik had become an adult? He didn’t know for sure.