A Death in Sweden(72)

Dan didn’t have time to react, only to take in the hatred and agitation in Brabham’s expression. Patrick and Canale both flinched in response but stopped, seeing the same volatility Dan could see.

Dan had pushed him too far, and with an odd feeling of resignation, he knew this was it. He’d often wondered how he’d feel when he finally faced certain death, and here it was, an almost out-of-body acceptance that the time had come and he could simply stop trying.

Brabham wasn’t quite ready to pull the trigger, though, and said again now, “You bastard! He was a good kid and he’s a good man, and he doesn’t deserve this, people like you . . .”

Canale said, “Bill . . .”

“No! You know the script, Frank—he broke in here, killed a load of people before we took him down. It’s what he deserves.”

“I’ll testify to that not being true,” said Patrick.

Without taking his eyes off Dan, he said, “What makes you think you’ll testify to anything?” He stepped forward now, as if wanting more certainty. His hand was shaking slightly but the aim was true, the barrel of the gun oddly compelling from Dan’s perspective. “You lowlife piece of scum.”

Dan braced himself. The shot exploded, the room breaking apart. Patrick fell backwards, almost losing his footing. Brabham’s face distorted and crumpled and he seemed to dive sideways to the floor, gun-hand flailing like a last desperate wave.

It took Dan a moment to take in that he hadn’t been shot himself, another to make sense of the scene, the blood, the wound to the side of Brabham’s head, Canale’s own outstretched arm. Dan looked at him, still not entirely certain that this meant he was out of danger.

Maybe Patrick was just as unsure because he spoke first, saying simply, “Frank?”

Canale holstered his gun, looking remarkably calm considering he’d just shot someone in the head at close to point-blank range. And Dan wasn’t na?ve enough to think he’d done it to save his life—there had been some other calculation, perhaps just a realization that Bill had become a liability.

Now Canale said, “It’s a different script, that’s all—it’ll be easier to tidy up this way.” His phone started to ring and when he took it out and looked at it, a flash of anger crossed his face. He looked with contempt at Dan and put the phone back in his pocket.

“We’ll talk, Patrick.” He pointed at Dan, then, and said, “I hope for your sake, Mr. Hendricks, that we never cross paths again.”

Dan didn’t respond, the last couple of minutes having convinced him that he didn’t want to make any more an enemy of Frank Canale than he already had. Besides, he was still too surprised at being alive to throw it away on a quip.

Canale took one more look at Brabham, bloodied and twisted, and strode out of the room, leaving Dan and Patrick with the corpses and a whole load of uncertainty. The only thing Dan really knew for sure was that he’d done what was right. Maybe it wouldn’t prove to be the right thing for his own future, but it had been right all the same, and perhaps against the odds, he was still alive, for the time being at least.





Chapter Forty-three


Patrick looked down at Brabham and said, “What have you done, Dan?”

“You were gonna sit on it, weren’t you?”

“I was going to use it to rein in Harry Brabham, and to bring an end to all of this.” He gestured at the room around them, as if that encompassed Bill Brabham’s entire operation. “And yes, with the tape public . . . I don’t know, who can say what might happen now.”

“You’re saying I might not be safe?”

“I’ve no idea, frankly. I’ll try to keep you safe and, chances are, you will be. I’m just saying, releasing that tape makes everything more volatile.” He gestured towards Brabham as if to demonstrate that point. “Why did you do it?”

“Two reasons. Firstly, Sabine Merel. She was murdered, Patrick, and her family and friends have a right to know what happened, to have peace of mind, and they deserve justice.”

“I wouldn’t bank on justice, even now, and if you think this’ll give them peace of mind, you’re fooling yourself.”

“Maybe, but I know I would want to know, if she’d been my daughter.”

Patrick seemed to accept that, then said, “You said there were two reasons.”

“Yeah, the other’s Jack Redford. I don’t know what kind of affinity I had with the guy, but he was up there in the middle of nowhere, working towards this, and he couldn’t come out of hiding, so he never tracked down the copy. It just felt right to finish his work for him. I didn’t know the guy, but I felt I owed him that much.”

Patrick took in what he said, not passing comment, and said finally, “Well, whatever else happens, you did the job I asked, so I’m grateful for that, even if the denouement proved a little excessive.”

“You gave me their contact details—you must have known I’d come to Berlin at some point.”

“Sure, I thought you’d spy on them. I didn’t honestly anticipate that you’d come and wipe them out.” He laughed a little and Dan laughed too. “So what’s next? You’re done with this?”

“Not quite. I met a guy called Eliot Carter, and he gave me the details for someone called Tom Crossley. You know either of them?”