‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’
He laughed.
‘I know you will. You said that before you left.’
As she slipped her phone back into her bag, she felt a pang of guilt. She had left her children the day before she was due to go to Israel. She had left Spencer with both of them, in spite of the fact that he wasn’t well. They stuck rigidly to certain unwritten rules, one of which was that they didn’t go in for punishment. Leaving someone who was ill home alone with two small children definitely sounded like some kind of penalty.
But the intention was key; she couldn’t possibly have known how the day would turn out.
Once again she and Alex were standing outside Gideon and Carmen Eisenberg’s apartment, and this time they weren’t going to walk away.
‘We won’t start with the possibility that Polly might be in danger,’ Alex decided. ‘We’ll go for the other stuff first.’
Fredrika agreed; it sounded like a sensible approach.
If only they could get the parents to talk.
It was Gideon who opened the door, and at first Fredrika didn’t think it was the same man. Sorrow had eaten away at his soul, leaving him a damaged and broken individual.
‘Sorry to disturb you again,’ Alex began, ‘but we’d like to ask you a few more questions.’
‘Come in.’
Carmen was waiting in the living room. She was sitting in a large armchair, gazing towards one of the windows. The apartment was silent; Fredrika wondered where Polly was.
They sat down, and Alex got straight to the point.
‘The Paper Boy.’
Both parents looked at him, their expressions weary but attentive.
‘You said that was the name Simon used on the Super Troopers forum.’
Gideon cleared his throat. ‘That’s right.’
‘Could you explain why?’
‘What do you mean, why?’
‘Why did he choose that particular name?’
Gideon and Carmen exchanged glances which Fredrika was unable to interpret.
‘It’s just a name,’ Carmen said.
Her tone was neither evasive nor annoyed, but empty of emotion.
‘But he must have got it from somewhere,’ Fredrika said. ‘The Paper Boy. It doesn’t sound like something a ten-year-old boy would choose to be called.’
Carmen looked away.
‘It’s a story,’ Gideon said. ‘A legend, if you like.’
‘It’s not a story I’m familiar with,’ Alex said. ‘What’s it about?’
Gideon sighed. His entire being radiated exhaustion. And something else. Fear.
‘It’s just an Israeli story. Simon heard us talking about it once. I didn’t want to tell him the real story, so I changed it a bit to make it more child-friendly. If I had known he was going to use it as his online alias, I would have asked him to choose something else.’
‘What do you mean, you changed the story?’ Alex said.
Gideon shuffled uncomfortably.
‘People used to talk about the Paper Boy when I was growing up. They said he used to abduct children and do them harm. The story was told so that children would respect the political situation in Israel, and not go rambling around the streets late in the evening or at night. But I didn’t feel it was necessary to give Simon all the details, so I said that when I was little, the Paper Boy was the name we gave to a boy everyone looked up to.’
Simon’s choice of the name immediately sounded more logical.
‘The problem was that Daphne and Saul had chosen to tell Abraham the real version,’ Carmen said. ‘So when Simon started to call himself the Paper Boy on that forum, Abraham reacted quite strongly, wanting to know what he thought he was doing. Simon was upset and tried to change the name, but apparently that wasn’t possible unless he gave up his membership of the forum and reapplied, and he didn’t want to do that.’
‘So he stuck with the Paper Boy,’ Fredrika said.
‘Yes.’
Hesitantly Alex reached into his inside pocket and took out a photograph. Fredrika was only too well aware of its subject.
‘There’s something we have to show you,’ Alex said.
Alex placed the photograph on the table in front of Gideon and Carmen. They stared at the image as if they couldn’t work out what it was.
Carmen was the first to realise.
‘Oh God,’ she said, covering her mouth with her hand.
Her eyes widened and filled with tears.
‘Is that Simon?’ Gideon whispered. He couldn’t take his eyes off the picture of the boy with a paper bag over his head. Barefoot in the snow.
‘I’m afraid so. That’s how we found both Simon and Abraham: barefoot, and with paper bags over their heads.’
Carmen was weeping openly by now.
‘I’m so very sorry we have to show you this,’ Alex said. ‘But we need to know whether you can explain it to us. Why do the boys look like this?’
Fredrika was watching Gideon. He looked as if someone had cast a spell on him. He was staring at his son, his breathing irregular, his face chalk-white.
‘Would you like a glass of water?’ she said.
‘Please.’
She was back in no time. Gideon drank greedily, then pushed the photograph away.
‘That’s how they were supposed to look,’ he said.
Quietly, as if he didn’t want anyone to hear what he was saying.
‘Sorry, who are you talking about?’ Alex asked.
‘The Paper Boy’s victims. He tore off their clothes and left a paper bag as his calling card.’
The atmosphere in the room was oppressive.
‘So we can conclude that whoever killed the boys was familiar with the story of the Paper Boy,’ Alex said. ‘How widespread is this tale? Is it known outside Israel?’
‘I have no idea,’ Gideon said.
‘What about within the Solomon Community?’ Fredrika said. ‘Is anyone else familiar with it, apart from the two of you and Abraham’s parents?’
Carmen shook her head.
‘I don’t think so. I’m not even sure it’s all that widespread in Israel. I’d never heard of it until Gideon told me.’
Fredrika thought that was interesting.
‘But where you grew up, children were told about the Paper Boy?’ she said to Gideon.
‘Yes, but I’ve no idea how many other people knew about him. It’s years since that story was a part of my life.’
‘But you said you and Carmen talked about it,’ Alex said. ‘That was how Simon chose the name as his alias.’
They didn’t get any further. Fredrika couldn’t decide whether she was satisfied or not. It was obvious that whoever had murdered Simon had done so for deeply personal reasons; she just couldn’t work out what those reasons were, and it seemed that Gideon and Carmen were in the same position.
‘On our last visit you mentioned that you left Israel in 2002,’ Alex said. ‘Could you tell us a little more about that decision?’
Carmen shrugged.
‘I’m afraid there’s nothing more to tell.’
‘It’s going to be difficult for us to move this investigation forward if we don’t have access to relevant information,’ Alex said.
Gideon looked distressed.
‘What do you want us to say? We told you last time why we left Israel. The political situation was so volatile that we wanted to make a fresh start somewhere else.’
Fredrika was trying to work out if he was lying, but it was difficult.
‘We’ve looked at Simon and Abraham’s activities on Super Troopers,’ she said, hoping that Alex would forgive her for changing the subject. ‘In the weeks leading up to their deaths, they were both in contact with a person calling himself the Lion. Were you aware of this?’
Alex picked up the photograph and slipped it back in his pocket. No one needed to look at the face of evil any longer. Carmen and Gideon’s silence suggested that Fredrika’s question had touched a nerve.
‘Simon mentioned the Lion,’ Carmen said eventually. ‘He seemed to be one of the people who had joined the forum in order to coach children and young people in how to improve at various sports, for example. Teach them how to be courageous and go for it.’