A Death in Sweden(34)

He shrugged and said, “Actually, I did, kind of. I had a son nine years ago.” He could see her astonishment, and knew it was the one thing that wouldn’t have shown up in her research. “We weren’t a couple. It was just a fling really, a bit of fun . . .”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a one-night stand or anything like that. What I mean is we both knew we probably wouldn’t stay together. We didn’t even live together. And then Emilia fell pregnant and we had a son. Luca.”

She looked mesmerized by the revelation, and said, “You don’t see him anymore?”

He hesitated, certain he should have made it clearer, sooner. Her face fell in response, as once again she seemed to preempt what he was going to say.

“He died.” He nodded to himself, conscious of how rarely he’d said those words aloud, how rarely he’d even acknowledged them. His son had died, and a bit of Dan had died with him, leaving him not quite whole. “He died. I was away on a job, off the grid, just a couple of weeks, and he got meningitis.” She gasped a little in shock and sorrow. “Killed him within twenty-four hours. When I left he was thriving, you know, eighteen months old, healthy, strong. He’d just started calling me Papa, and then I came back and he was gone, like he’d never been there. Something I always say, you can’t disappear completely, but Luca did. He vanished, like he’d never been there at all.”

She put her hand on his and said, “Dan, I’m sorry, I . . .”

“Wish you hadn’t asked?”

“No, I’m glad I asked, and I’m glad you told me.”

“So you haven’t changed your mind about coming with me?”

She looked nonplussed and said, “Not at all. Why would I? And in fact I know it might sound strange, but it makes me hope more than ever that we’ll find the person who killed Sabine Merel and, if we can bring him to justice, even better.”

Dan nodded, liking her sentiment, though he wasn’t sure of the connection she’d made. Perhaps it was only that so many of the bad things in life were beyond their control, that it was all the more important to take on the things that could be tackled.

For every random death—Luca’s, Redford’s, the other children on that bus—there were those that should not have happened, that demanded justice, and Sabine Merel’s murder was among them.





Chapter Twenty-one


They arrived in Limoges late the following afternoon. Dan had managed to call the Merels from a payphone in Gare Montparnasse so they were at least expecting them. The man he’d spoken to had been surprised at first, but had accepted Dan’s request without any questions. Maybe, after all these years, they were just happy that anyone was showing an interest, no matter who they were.

They booked into the Candide, a grand-looking hotel near the center which had seen better days but still had a dash of old-world charm. And then they immediately took a cab the short distance to the Merels’ house. Dan noticed Inger looking a little nervous now that they were here and about to do this.

He’d never been to Limoges itself, but it reminded him of plenty of other French cities. It had that mixture of old and new piling on top of each other, vying for precedence, a jumble that should have looked anonymous and yet still managed somehow to look entirely French.

The Merels also lived close to the center, in a house set inside its own little oasis behind high, off-white walls. They rang the bell and were buzzed in, the door opening onto a beautiful lawned garden that stretched around the house. And the house itself looked like it belonged in the countryside rather than the middle of the city, a big place with wooden shutters on the windows.

The front door opened before they reached it and a man came out to meet them. For some reason, Dan had been expecting an old man, and he guessed Merel was sixty or thereabouts, but he looked young and fit. His clothes were casual enough, cords and a pale-blue sweater, but again, there was something more youthful and fashionable about the look of them, as if he were someone who worked for a glossy magazine or in the media.

He smiled uncertainly and said, “Mr. Hendricks?” Dan had dropped the idea of using an alias, and doubted Inger could even remember that he’d briefly been David Porter.

“That’s right, thanks for agreeing to meet us, Monsieur Merel. This is Inger Bengtsson—she works for the Swedish government.”

Merel had been about to say something else, but the mention of Inger’s name and her employment threw him briefly.

After a moment, he recovered, greeted Inger first, shook Dan’s hand and said, “Please, call me Sebastien. And do come in.”

He took them inside, the hallway and the rooms off it reinforcing what the outside had already suggested, that these people had money. He showed them into a large sitting room then, a baby grand filling one corner, the top adorned with family photos.

“Please, do sit down. A little drink; some wine, or cognac?”

“Thank you, whatever you’re having.”

Inger nodded, still looking a little nervous, and said, “Yes, anything.”

He smiled, and glanced over at the array of photos before saying, “I’ll be back in a moment. And my wife also—she’s just talking on the telephone.”

He left. Dan could hear his wife now, talking in another room, a low hum, conversational rather than conspiratorial. They were probably surprised by the visit, but he doubted they’d see it as suspicious or something to alert the police about, not after all this time.