A Death in Sweden(49)

So he was right, the café had been near where she lived, and he thought back to it now, imagined being in that neighborhood, getting to know her properly, seeing if there really could be anything more than this between them.

“It was a nice area, what I remember. So maybe I could just sell the place I’ve got here, buy something outright there.”

She was dismissive as she said, “Perhaps you’re used to gullible women, but I’m not one of them.”

And he wanted to tell her, that as ridiculous as this sounded, he was firing up with adrenalin and possibility at the thought of it.

Instead, he said, “Unless I get Brabham off my back I wouldn’t want to be within a thousand miles of you.”

“And if you did?”

He kissed her, and said, “I’m not stupid or crazy. I know we’ve only been together a few days, and even then, in pretty wild circumstances.” He paused, smiled. “That’s why I’d rent a place of my own, to see how it would be. To live like people do. And I wouldn’t if you didn’t want me to. But right now, I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do than move to Stockholm.”

She nodded and said quietly, “I would like that.”

“Really?”

She could see how genuine the doubt and surprise in his voice was, and she laughed and rolled on top of him, holding his face with both hands as she said, “Yes, really.”

And that was how easy it would be, he thought, how easy it would be to find a life with someone like her, someone to be with, to be part of. It was how easy it would be, if Brabham was removed from the picture. That was where the dream fell into shadow at the edges—Brabham, and there’d be no guaranteed future of any kind for Dan until that shadow was dealt with.





Chapter Thirty


They took a cab the next morning, but once again cautious, they had it drop them a block short of the underground garage where he kept his car to make sure there was no one keeping the place under surveillance. It looked clear, and despite the sense of being slowly encircled, Dan knew that for Brabham it would feel the opposite, that his prey was almost impossible to pin down.

They headed down and Dan picked up the spare keys from the office. He took a torch from the glove compartment and looked under the car, then stood again once he was satisfied.

“Looking for a tracker?”

“Or a bomb,” he said, and she laughed a little, unsure whether he was joking or not—he wasn’t.

For the first half hour he checked his mirrors constantly, but as they moved haltingly out of Paris, and then with more speed into the French countryside, he relaxed a little. They weren’t being followed. That didn’t mean they still weren’t being tracked, but it was something.

The days were falling away towards winter, but with the sun shining on it the country looked as if it was basking in one last summer flush, still ripe and full green. A couple of times as they drove, Inger made a comment about it being beautiful, about the view or the sunlight.

She did the same when they were on the back roads and a village came into view on a small rise in front of them, speaking in Swedish before saying, “Such a pretty village.”

“I guess that’s why Gaston Bergeron moved back there.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

But Bergeron’s place was even more idyllic, an old millhouse sitting on its own in the middle of the woods, the stream that ran past it lit up by the sun falling through the trees.

As they got out of the car, Inger breathed in deeply, closing her eyes briefly before saying, “Isn’t this the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen?”

“It’s beautiful, no doubting that, but what is it with everyone hiding out in the woods?”

She smiled, but before she could say anything, a door opened with a bang and a spaniel came sprinting over to them, sniffing around them as if searching for drugs.

Someone called out in French, “What do you want?”

The question wasn’t friendly, and when Dan looked toward the door of the house he saw a surprisingly fit-looking guy casually leveling a shotgun at them. Bergeron had retired, and Dan guessed he was around seventy, but he was tall and broad-shouldered, a thickness around the waist, but no real paunch.

They stayed by the car, and Dan called out, “Monsieur Bergeron, I’m Dan Hendricks and this is Inger Bengtsson. We’re here to ask you about Sabine Merel, the girl who was murdered in Paris fourteen—”

“You don’t have to tell me who she is. Who sent you?”

This could prove tougher than he’d anticipated, but he said, “No one sent us. I spoke to someone last night, someone from the DGSE. He knew Jean Sainval, and he gave us your address.”

“Jean Sainval is dead. I don’t talk to anyone.”

He looked ready to turn away, but Inger stepped out from the partial cover of the car door now and said, “Monsieur Bergeron, do you speak English?”

He nodded as he looked at her, though he didn’t seem swayed as he said, “Where are you from, Sweden?”

“Yes, I am,” she said, her voice full of warmth, as if impressed that he’d got it in one. She walked closer as the dog trotted back to its owner. “Monsieur Bergeron, the man who stole the tape from the DGSE had to hide afterwards because the Americans wanted to kill him. He went to Sweden, and for fourteen years he tried to prove what he’d seen on that tape. He died without finding it. My friend here is also trying to prove it, and the same Americans want to kill him. The same Americans who killed Jean Sainval. We want to stop them, Monsieur Bergeron, but we also want justice for Sabine Merel. We were with her parents two days ago, and we promised them we would do everything we could. In two weeks Sabine would have been thirty-three.”