A Death in Sweden(24)

And in truth, Dan doubted that Fillon had ever really worked on the bike at all. It was obvious when he considered how scrupulously tidy the house was, that this was just for show, the appearance of a time-consuming pastime, the perfect explanation for always being out here if anyone called.

He was still looking at it when he heard Inger’s footsteps padding lightly but swiftly across the grass. She held the keys up to show him, then jumped in the cab and pulled forward. The vehicle had spent so much time in those well-worn ruts over the years that he saw the front of it sink down as the wheels found their second home.

He released the handle and pulled up the hatch as Inger got out of the SUV and came back to join him. He saw concrete in the dark below, and for a moment he was disappointed, fearing she’d been right after all about the work pit. But then he noticed it was a set of steep concrete steps, and he couldn’t help but smile to himself, triumphant, as lights came on automatically, inviting them underground.

“Now that is quite something.”

Inger seemed equally impressed, but said, “Maybe it was already here when he bought the place, you know, like a nuclear shelter.”

“Maybe.” Maybe. But Fillon had been making use of it, for whatever it was that had occupied him all these years, for whatever it was that had spooked Brabham enough to send someone up here from Berlin. It was all here, beneath this garage and this carefully crafted mundanity.

He started down the steps, one flight to a small landing, then another flight in the opposite direction, a metal handrail the whole way down. The depth suggested Inger might have been right about the pre-existing fallout shelter, likewise the heavy metal door they were faced with at the bottom.

She was close behind him and said now, “That’s a relief—I was thinking he might have a keypad or something.”

The door had a simple, if heavy-duty, handle, but Dan said, “I think you’re right about the nuclear shelter—I guess being able to lock it from the inside is the important thing. Besides, look at the way it’s hidden. He didn’t need security.”

Dan lowered the handle and pushed the door open. The lights in the room beyond flickered into life and they stepped inside. Whatever it had been in its former life, it was set out now like a busy office, probably not unlike the one Inger was used to working in.

There was a desk with a computer on it, paperwork, filing cabinets, corkboards around the room, all of them full of papers and photographs, news stories, notes. It was an astonishing thing to see, because Jacques Fillon might have been living in obscurity for the last twelve years, but he’d also been working on something for all that time.

And the nature of the scene in front of them was unmistakable. Fillon’s real consuming passion all these years had not been a motorbike, and he hadn’t spent his evenings reading from his library of books. This was clearly an investigation in front of them, and even at first glance, Dan instinctively knew what he was looking at—it looked like Fillon had spent these last twelve years investigating a crime.





Chapter Fourteen


“He did this,” said Inger, standing in awe. Dan looked at her, and she met his eye and said, “You asked yesterday, what did he do? Well, here’s your answer. He did this.”

Dan nodded, taking in the room which looked like a nerve center for half a dozen operatives. Yet everything, every printout, the corkboards bursting with information, the filing cabinets that he suspected were all full, all of it was the work of one man’s diligence, one man’s obsession.

Inger went to the desk, where she sat down and started to work through the drawers. Dan walked over to one of the corkboards. Even at first glance, he could see that the board related to Bill Brabham, a picture of the guy in the middle of it, though he wasn’t someone Dan recognized.

The next three boards were dedicated to Brabham’s children. One son, Harry, was a South Carolina congressman, the other, George, was co-founder of an Internet company in Silicon Valley. The daughter, Natasha, was an attorney in DC.

Charlie had known these kids when they were young, but Dan doubted he’d have been able to shed much more light on them—their trajectories seemed all too typical for the offspring of the Washington elite. The fact that Fillon had dedicated boards to them just seemed to underline the totality of his obsession with Brabham.

“Now I know why Bill Brabham sent someone up here, because our friend Jacques Fillon seems to have had a real problem with the guy.”

“John Redford.”

“Sorry?” He turned to look at her, and saw that she was holding up an American passport.

“Jacques Fillon was John Redford. Is the name familiar?”

Dan shook his head but walked over and looked at the passport. It had expired, naturally, and the picture was fifteen years younger and a whole lot more alive than the mug-shot he’d seen of Fillon’s corpse. Redford’s corpse. But given the nature of passport photographs, the guy looking out at him was barely less mysterious than he’d been in death.

The Redford of the passport was just an anonymous-looking guy in his late thirties, almost the same age as Dan was now, brown hair, nondescript features. Neither his face nor his name struck a chord, but that was hardly surprising given how long this guy had been out of circulation.

“I wonder if he was Jack Redford. Per said everyone called him Jack.” For some reason, that brought an unwelcome flashback of Jack Carlton in the moments before he’d died on Charlie’s deck, triggering a slight but nagging regret, though in truth he could only regret the details because none of them, not even Jack, would have expected any other outcome.