A Death in Sweden(43)

“What did you see?”

“Who knows if I saw what I thought, or if I imagined it. The man was along the street, he stepped out and waited for her as she approached. And I thought she hesitated when she saw him, almost as if she might turn back. But she didn’t and I went back to my work without thinking. I was perhaps the last person to see her alive.” But then he corrected himself, forlorn as he said, “Second last.”

Dan could see how that one tiny detail, the moment’s hesitation he’d witnessed in Sabine’s footsteps, so easily discounted at the time, would have preyed on his mind in the years since. What if he’d followed her out, called to her? What if?

“You didn’t see him clearly,” said Inger.

“A shadow, nothing more.”

Pressing him, she said, “You mean a silhouette?”

“Yes, of course.”

“But from a silhouette you can see, sometimes, how a man is dressed, how big he is, even how old sometimes.”

“The police asked me this too.” He laughed as if at some private joke. “I think he was older than us, only because . . . All I could see was that he wore a long coat, a heavy coat, like you wear over a suit, so he looked like a banker or finance worker or something like that. But it’s guessing, no?”

“It’s better than nothing,” said Inger, which seemed to please him.

And when they stood to leave a short while later, he seemed oddly energized, and pointed at them, saying, “You’re gonna get this guy, I know it.”

Inger looked about to speak, but Dan replied first, and said, “We will, and he’ll pay for it.”

They left and walked a hundred yards or so before seeing a cab. That suited Dan anyway, because it gave him a chance to study the street. The same car was parked a little way up, but there was no one else, which suggested they were biding their time.

In the cab, Inger said, “Do you think we’ll be safe in the hotel?”

“For now, and after the guy came for me in Limoges, he knows I’ll be ready for that, so I think he’ll try something else. Probably when I’m out on the street.” He thought of Mike Naismith in Baltimore and said, “Probably need to take care crossing the road.”

“And what time do you meet your contact this evening?”

It was the one meeting that had been set down for him, Patrick’s DGSE contact dictating the time and the location.

“Nine. I have a few hours yet.”

She didn’t respond and he turned to find that she was staring at him intently, a look in her eyes that made it perfectly clear how she wanted to spend those few hours, a directness he found refreshing, and almost instantly arousing. He smiled in response, and willed the taxi to move faster, willed the traffic to clear, willed himself some place only with her.





Chapter Twenty-six


There was no time for talking afterwards, as much as he just wanted to lie there in bed with her, as much as he had a thousand questions and things he wanted to know about her. He was falling for her, ridiculously, because he doubted she was being so foolish—she probably saw him as an enjoyable fling, but hardly boyfriend material, and definitely nothing more than that. And he felt even more ridiculous for hoping he might be wrong.

He was dressed again and ready to leave when he glanced back at her, lying in the bed, the sight of her scrambling his thoughts. He walked back, kissed her again.

“How long will you be?”

He shrugged, shook his head, making clear he didn’t know, but that the answer should have been obvious—he wanted to be back as quickly as possible. He kissed her again and left, down the service stairs, through the kitchen where no one seemed to pay any attention, out into a side street and quickly into the city.

The bar was in Rue Delambre in Montparnasse, a little too far to walk, but he walked all the same, cutting quickly along streets, keeping an eye all the time on the cars moving around him, on the people.

He was as certain as he could be that he’d reached the bar without being followed, but he didn’t hesitate for long out on the street once he was there. It was a small place, a bar to one side with white-jacketed barmen, a couple of alcoves at the back, maybe a dozen customers in all, though it was still early. He’d never been there before.

Immediately, he saw a guy of about Patrick’s age raise his hand from the back of the room. Dan nodded in response and walked towards him. He was rougher around the edges than Patrick White, his hair with a slightly wild salt-and-pepper look to it, a jacket but with an open shirt, the look of an aging film star. He also looked like he’d been able to handle himself when he was younger, and probably still could.

“Dan Hendricks?”

“Georges Florian?”

He smiled, shaking his hand, and said, “Please, join me.” There was a bottle of red wine on the table, one glass already full. He filled a second glass as Dan sat down and they drank.

“Patrick speaks very highly of you,” said Florian. He narrowed his eyes then, calculating, and said, “Did you take Habibi?”

It seemed everyone wanted to know if he’d taken Habibi.

Dan smiled and said, “He disappeared from Paris. I assumed your people had taken him.”

“I knew it,” said Florian, ignoring the tongue-in-cheek denial. He shook his head, pleased with himself, as if he’d just solved a long-standing mystery. Then he grew somber and said, “I know you were a friend of Benoit Claudel. I didn’t know he was dead until Patrick told me.”