A Death in Sweden(76)

She looked shyly at Inger, then at Dan, and said, “Hello.”

She was in black again, but this time wearing a shapeless black sweater. Her skin was a little clearer than when they’d seen her a few weeks ago, and it reminded him once more that she would undoubtedly be a beautiful woman. Looking at her grandmother, he could see the same bone structure, the same lively eyes.

Dan took out the two letters he’d found in Redford’s safe-deposit box, which had disappointed him at first, until he’d actually looked at them, at what they said. One had also proved Eliot Carter right and Tom wrong, though that hardly mattered now.

He smiled then, and said, “Siri, the man who saved you was an American. His name wasn’t Jacques Fillon, it was Jack Redford. He did top-secret work, mainly for the US government.”

She smiled, the shyness falling away as she said, “So I was right, about him being a spy.”

Inger nodded and said, “We didn’t know for sure when we met you—we found out later.”

Dan continued, saying, “About fourteen years ago, something went wrong, his life was put in danger and he chose a new identity and disappeared. Two years or so later, he turned up here.”

Dr. Nystr?m said, “Is this connected with what we saw on the news, the congressman and the murder in Paris?”

His wife gestured to her husband and Siri, and said, “They both thought the same thing.”

“Because of the dates, that’s all,” said Doctor Nystr?m.

Siri nodded in agreement with her grandfather. It was interesting to see the dynamic between them, that they’d discussed this and somehow come to the right conclusion.

Dan said, “It is connected. Jack Redford knew the truth, and that knowledge put him in danger. But it was no accident that he came here. You see, he’d received a letter, from a woman he’d known in Beirut.”

The sudden shift in the story didn’t seem to be lost on the grandparents. With the mention of Beirut, Mrs. Nystr?m caught her breath, and put her hand over her mouth. Her husband’s eyes were fixed on Dan. Siri alone was looking confused, perhaps not knowing enough of the story to piece it together.

“The woman told Jack she’d had his baby. But because of this job that had gone wrong, he knew it wasn’t safe to be near her. I’m guessing that, somehow, he discovered two years later that she’d died, cancer, and that was when he did what he did.”

He reached into his jacket, and placed the photograph on the table in front of her. He pointed to the man in it.

“That’s Jack Redford, and that sitting next to him is your mother, Maria. She was beautiful, and even though I only saw you once, that day out at Jack’s house, I recognized her face immediately I saw this picture.”

Both of Siri’s grandparents had tears moistening their eyes now, though Siri only stared in wonder at the photo, studying it, apparently mesmerized by the long-lost evening captured there, and by the two key people she had never really known. “That was why he moved here, that was why he rode the bus every day, because it was the only way he had of seeing you. And that was why he saved you that day, not because you were the nearest person to him, but because you were the only person to him; you were his daughter, everything he had in the world.”

They were silent for a moment, and then Dr. Nystr?m said, “It’s incredible.”

Dan nodded agreement and said, “Here are two letters that he left in a safe-deposit box in Paris. One is the letter from Maria telling him about Siri. The other’s essentially his last will and testament, though it also explains why he had to disappear. It’s addressed to Maria, and he makes clear that everything he has is left to her and the baby.”

The enormity of it finally seemed to hit Siri, the fact that she had seen her father every day for years and never known it was him, the fact that he’d saved her, that she had found him only now, when it was too late.

“But he never even spoke to me. We never even said hello.”

“Because he couldn’t. Because he was Jacques Fillon.”

Dan’s mind flitted back to Luca. Many times in the early years he’d dreamed that it was a mistake, that Luca wasn’t dead but had been taken away and was being raised by a relative. And often after those dreams, he’d imagined how it would be to meet him again, years later, a stranger, the joy and the sorrow of such an impossible meeting. So he understood all too well the exquisite pain Jack Redford must have felt each day, to be so close, and yet as far away as ever.

Siri looked at her grandparents, then turned to Inger with a helpless smile, and said, “I’ve tried to remember what he was saying to me before the crash, but my music—I could see him speaking, but . . . I’ve tried many times.”

Mrs. Nystr?m added, “I’ve told her not to think about it, but now, with this, maybe I’m wrong.”

Inger smiled sympathetically and said, “I think you can imagine the things he might have said. There’s not much more you can do.”

Siri picked up the photograph to look at it more closely.

Mrs. Nystr?m glanced at her, but then breathed in deeply and was composed as she said, “This is very difficult to take in, but we’re so grateful to you, Mr. Hendricks, for finding out, and for coming to tell us.”

“It was my pleasure. I never knew Jack Redford, but everything I’ve found out about him suggests he was a remarkable man.”