A Death in Sweden(20)

“Did he ever speak to you, say hello, smile? Did you ever notice him looking at you?”

Siri frowned, as if slightly freaked out by the implication. Dan understood Inger’s line of thought completely though, because there was something undeniably captivating about the girl’s appearance, and he could easily imagine a lonely middle-aged man becoming slightly fixated with her. Was that why he’d saved her?

The girl, in her own way, answered both Inger’s question and Dan’s unspoken one when she said, “I don’t think he ever noticed me. We all sat in the same places every day. He saved me because I was closest. He couldn’t reach the others, but I think if someone else was closer he would have saved them. I think that’s just the kind of person he was. I was lucky.”

Dan smiled, once again thinking how only someone so young could be so blasé about the fickle intricacies of fate. In the years to come, he was sure, the memories of that day would develop their own gravitational pull. Whether she knew it or not, surviving that accident, surviving it in that way, would become one of the defining moments of her life.

Inger said, “I know you answered this before, but you never saw him on the bus coming home?” Siri shook her head. “I thought so. And there’s nothing else you’ve thought of or remembered?”

Siri looked blank for a moment, then said, “People are saying he might have been a criminal, because he was hiding.”

“And what do you think?”

“I think he was a spy. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

Inger smiled, acknowledging the point. Dan smiled too. Did she want to have been rescued by a former spy rather than by a former criminal? Having known plenty of both, Dan wasn’t sure which of them he’d bank on to save him in a crisis.

He also liked to think he would have acted the same way as Fillon if he’d been on that bus, but he had a nagging doubt that it wouldn’t have been so. It just wasn’t in his nature, to choose death, and he wasn’t sure it ever would be, no matter how noble the motive.

“I still take the bus,” Siri said now, unprompted. “But it’s strange because it’s just me. Even the two women who used to get off at the next stop, they don’t come anymore, so for the first twenty minutes, it’s just me on my own.”

Dan looked at her. That had to be tough, twenty minutes each morning, alone with the thoughts and memories of that day, seeing the empty seats where the same people had always sat, people who were now gone.

Inger said, “Were they your friends?”

Siri shook her head, saying, “I was friends with Pia when we were little, but we drifted apart. I didn’t really know the two boys.” She looked around the room, as if taking in the book spines. “I thought a couple of times, if he’d survived, would I have visited him in the hospital, or maybe he would’ve become a friend of my family. You think that’s weird?”

Inger said, “Not at all. I think I would be the same.”

Siri shrugged, and said, “It’s just strange, because until I saw the picture, I could hardly remember what he looked like, but now I’m curious and it’s too late.”

She looked at the bookshelves again, perhaps wondering what they might tell her about the man who’d saved her life. It was understandable that she was curious, and that she thought his books and this house might yield clues but, in truth, Dan suspected they’d tell her no more than she already knew—there was nothing of Jacques Fillon here.





Chapter Twelve


They said goodbye to Siri, then resumed their search. Inger went back upstairs, but joined him again after a little while and the two of them went methodically through the bookshelves, talking sporadically, their backs to each other.

Dan said, “Siri seemed to be handling things pretty well.”

“Incredibly so.” He was aware of her turning, and also turned to look across at her. She smiled a little as she said, “She reminds me of the way I was at that age.”

Dan smiled and said, “I don’t see you all in black, somehow, not even as a teenager.”

She shook her head, dismissing that, saying, “I mean, that wanting to escape. I’m sure that’s even part of her curiosity about Fillon.”

He thought back to the way Inger had mentioned the quietness of R?ne? and wondered if she’d been speaking from experience.

“Did you grow up somewhere like this?”

“Not quite. A small town, yes, but maybe only an hour from Stockholm. It was great actually, but you know, when you’re young . . . Didn’t you want to escape?”

“Kind of, but the opposite way. I always wished I’d grown up in one place, knowing the same kids all the way from kindergarten. That’s being a teenager, I guess, always wanting what you haven’t got.” She nodded, but with a look that suggested he’d just given her a glimpse into who he was. She turned back to the shelves then and so did Dan. “You mentioned her grandparents?”

“She’s an orphan. I think her parents died when she was still very small. So she lives with her grandparents.”

“Jesus. They probably want to wrap her in cotton wool after this.”

She didn’t respond and they worked on, but then she said, “Is your mother still alive?”

“Yeah, but I don’t see her as much as I’d like. She lives in Bermuda. My sister lives there too, with her terrible husband and three kids. So they’re all busy—they get along okay without me.”