A Death in Sweden(35)

Inger was sitting like a girl outside the principal’s office, but Dan stood and walked over to the piano. There were a lot of people there, suggesting that the Merels had maybe three or even four surviving children, and a whole clutch of grandchildren, a mixture of dark and fair but nothing in between, all of them remarkably attractive.

But there, right in the middle of the frames on display was the hole in the middle of their world. It was unmistakably her, Sabine, but a different picture to the slightly formal one they’d seen in Redford’s office. Here she was smiling, caught off guard at an al fresco dinner, maybe in the garden Dan could see beyond the windows. She was beautiful, but it was more that she was full of life in that picture, full of possibilities and futures—it had to break their hearts every time they looked at it.

Dan didn’t have any pictures of Luca in the Paris apartment. There were several in the house in Italy, and he wondered now if that was why he’d all but abandoned that house, because it was linked always in his mind with the unfinished loss of his child.

One picture in particular, of Luca looking over Dan’s shoulder, smiling at Emilia and therefore at the camera, had torn at his heart. Framed, it had hung in the hall, but on his last visit he’d taken it down and put it in the drawer, exhausted by the emotional pull of it every time he’d tried to walk past.

He heard a noise and turned to see Sebastien Merel coming back in, carrying a tray with a decanter and four glasses. Clearly, given what Dan and Inger had come to talk about, he’d decided cognac would be better.

He saw that Dan was looking at the photographs, and gave a slight acknowledging smile that seemed to speak of the sorrow still weighing him down, but said, “As you can see, we’re blessed, in spite of everything.”

He put the tray down on the table and started to pour four hefty measures. He was still doing it when his wife walked in, the same expensive and attentive informality, the same young looks for someone in her sixties, her hair dark. She apologized in French for keeping them, a rapid but welcoming monologue before her husband stopped her and turned to Inger.

“Inger, you don’t speak French?”

“No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Madame Merel. “Inger? I’m Catherine Merel, Sabine’s mother.”

She turned to Dan and he smiled and said, “I do speak French, so I understood. Delighted to meet you, Madame Merel, and thank you for agreeing to see us.”

They all sat down on two sofas that faced each other across a coffee table. Dan sat next to Inger now, and he noticed Sebastien Merel pat his wife on the leg as he sat down next to her, offering reassurance of some kind. It made Dan hope all the more that they’d be able to offer some closure for this couple, limited as it would be.

Dan and Merel both sipped at their drinks, the fire of the cognac a reminder to Dan of his meeting with Patrick, the meeting that had set him on this road. Inger and Catherine Merel nursed their glasses but he noticed neither of them drank.

Before Dan could start, Merel looked at Inger, puzzled, and said, “Inger, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but what is the involvement of the Swedish government in this?”

“I don’t mind at all. The new evidence concerning your daughter’s murder came to light in Sweden, from someone living there.”

The couple looked even more baffled by that, but Merel said, “So you’re police? You’re working with the French police?”

Dan cut in and said, “It’s bigger than that, Sebastien. Sabine’s murder is part of a complex investigation, the nature of which means it has to be carried out under the radar. It’s best that you don’t ask too many questions, but rest assured that we’ll do everything we can to get to the truth.”

Whether it was something in Dan’s tone or just the words he’d used, Sebastien Merel nodded eagerly and, to Dan’s slight concern, hopefully. He looked at his wife as he said, “Of course, what can we tell you?”

“First, just some basic details. Did Sabine have a boyfriend at the time, or mention that she was seeing anyone? Was she happy with her roommates? Had she seemed nervous at all, or troubled?”

“I think everything was fine, more or less. Only Catherine . . .”

“The last time I spoke to her,” said Catherine Merel. “I think it was two days before, I couldn’t quite . . . I didn’t know what, but I felt something was wrong. I asked her more than once, and finally she laughed and told me I worried too much.”

Inger said, “Her roommates also, they thought everything was fine?”

“One can never tell, at a time like this. I thought everyone was lying to us.”

Dan said, “Do you have contact details for either of the roommates? I appreciate it’s a long time ago, but . . .”

Merel smiled and said, “But of course. Only for one, Sylvie. She always kept in touch. She works for Vogue in Paris.”

His wife smiled a little, perhaps with the bittersweet reminder of what her daughter’s contemporaries were doing now, but then she said to her husband, “And Yousef.”

“Of course, Yousef! He was a colleague of Sabine, and is now quite a successful artist, also in Paris. He was in the studio with her that night.”

The final words were delivered with delicacy, as if there was something fragile about the statement.