A Death in Sweden(36)

Dan said, “The boy they questioned. The accusations of racism.”

“Anyone who knew Yousef at all would know it was ridiculous for him to be questioned.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s the most gentle person.” He turned again to his wife and offered her a smile, something almost apologetic about it, then faced forward and said, “Sabine was punched in the face, I’m sure you have read. One single punch, they think, but it was powerful enough to break her nose, fracture her cheekbone and knock out two teeth.” Dan was conscious of Inger taking a drink of her cognac for the first time. “They think he waited until she was fully conscious again. She was face down. He was kneeling on her back, with so much force that he also broke two ribs. Then he strangled her with her own scarf, and even then his violence was beyond belief, crushing her windpipe, rupturing blood vessels in her neck. I repeat, if you knew Yousef, you would know that’s impossible for him.”

Catherine Merel’s face had sunk as she’d listened, the story so familiar and yet still visibly sapping her will and her energy as she sat there.

“Thank you for telling us about it,” said Dan. “And we’d really appreciate those details for Sylvie and Yousef, and perhaps if you could call them, tell them we’ll visit in the next day or two.”

“Of course, if it helps.”

“There was one other thing I wanted to ask. Had Sabine ever mentioned any American friends, any American connections at all?”

Catherine Merel looked up again, an urgency about her, and she said, “You think she was killed by an American? Somebody important?”

Inger said, “Why do you say important?”

Her tone was accusatory in response, saying, “It is what you said. It’s bigger than the police. And now you ask about Americans. You know something you’re not telling us.”

Dan quickly cut in and said, “We know lots of things, Madame Merel, but nothing certain. I wouldn’t play games with you. I know it means too much.”

She nodded, accepting what he was saying, acknowledging the final point, that it meant too much, and she turned to Inger with a brittle smile and said, “I have some photographs, if you would like to see?”

“I’d like that very much,” said Inger.

She got up and crossed the room, coming back with a photograph album.

Merel smiled and said, “Dan, please, let’s leave the ladies to look at photographs. If you come to the study with me, I’ll get you those details, and see if there’s anyone else who might be of assistance.”

Dan could imagine Inger’s response to being cast in that way, the ladies left in the drawing room while the men got on with business, but he was relieved not to have to look at photos himself. He followed Merel into the study and stood there in silence as he made a note of the two names with addresses and phone numbers.

He looked up then and said, “We have a contact for the police too, but I imagine you have that side of things covered?”

“Yes, we do.” On the one hand, he was thinking a police contact might have been useful, but it seemed unlikely the kind of person they’d been given as a liaison would be much use to Dan. Merel handed him the piece of paper and he said, “Thanks. I hope we’ll be back in time to visit them tomorrow.”

“I’ll call this evening and let them know.” He glanced at the door, then, and said, “It’s impossible for you to know how important this is for us, for our whole family. But for my wife, especially, it’s become . . . an obsession. The finding of the murderer.”

“I understand.”

Merel nodded, but as if he hadn’t heard.

“I worry sometimes, what will happen to her if the murderer is found, because then there is no barrier left between us and our loss—we have to face it raw.”

“I understand that too.”

“Yes, I believe you do, Dan. I see in the newspaper, reports of murder, and it’s such a simple thing; a man is murdered here, a woman there, covered in a few lines, so easily forgotten. But it’s complex too, no? For those of us left, it’s a puzzle we’ll never solve, no matter what we learn.”

“You still want to know.”

“Naturally,” said Merel. He looked ready to say something else, but only fell back sadly on the same word. “Naturally.”

Dan could barely imagine the level of their grief, but he could understand how this unsolved crime, the need to find the person who’d taken her from them, had become something to hang their lives on. And if it went, if the murderer was caught, they would have to face all over again the stark early morning truth that it solved nothing, that Sabine was still lost for ever.

Even knowing that, though, as he stood there in Merel’s study, vaguely aware of Catherine Merel and Inger talking in the other room, Dan wanted nothing more than to provide this decent and dignified couple with those answers. If it secured his own future into the bargain, all well and good, but if it didn’t, at least he’d have done one irrefutably good thing in his life, and finished the work that a better man than him had started.





Chapter Twenty-two


They took a cab back to the hotel, the streets busy with the buzz of early evening. Inger seemed subdued, but he wasn’t sure what to say and his own energy levels had taken a knock, so they sat in silence.