Europe in Winter (The Fractured Europe Sequence)(42)

“There were three of them,” Juhan said, returning from the bathroom. “And they all had umbrellas.”

Rudi put his phone away. “Umbrellas.”

“Three of them.” Juhan sat down and held out his glass and Rudi refilled it. “Weird. Twitchy. They wanted to go to Lahemaa.”

Rudi sat back and looked at him. “Really?”

“Really.” Juhan drank half his drink and put the glass down on the table. “The one in charge, he had maps of the Park. Said they were botanists and they’d heard of this really rare plant that was only found in this one place and they wanted to photograph it and take samples and stuff. I don’t know; neither of us knew anything about plants.”

Rudi poured himself a drink. “What happened?”

Juhan shrugged. “We took them out to the Park and we lost them.”

“How can you lose three Frenchmen?”

The old man shook his head. “We were... oh, I don’t know where, out in the wilds somewhere, kilometres from Palmse. The French bloke was dicking about with his maps and coordinates and stuff and all of a sudden they all just charged off down a track and your father followed them and he came back half an hour later and said they’d gone.”

Rudi sat very still, an awful realisation beginning to dawn on him. “What happened then?”

“We looked for them for hours, but they were gone. Toomas said he thought they’d fallen into a bog and we’d better make a run for it or we’d be arrested.” He picked up his glass and drained it. “So we left.”

“Jesus Maria,” said Rudi. “You just ran away?”

“We were young. The police would have thought we’d killed them. We didn’t want to go to jail.”

“What happened after that?”

“We watched the papers and the news for a while, in case they turned up. Or their bodies. But the years went by and nothing. I’d almost forgotten about it until I heard your Dad had died.”

I’d almost forgotten about it... “Three men might have died and you just ran away.”

Juhan shrugged. “We weren’t supposed to be there.” This time he reached out and filled his glass himself. “Fucking Frenchmen.”

“I had no idea Paps had ever been to the Park before we moved there.”

“It’s not exactly something you tell your kids.”

“Why are you telling me?”

Juhan sat back and looked sourly at him. “Toomas is gone, I won’t last much longer. I just thought someone should know. In case the bodies turned up one day. At least you can tell the authorities who they were.”

“You don’t seriously think I’m going to get myself involved in this, do you? Gods, just telling me about it makes me an accessory.”

“What you do with it is your business,” Juhan told him. “I’ve done my bit.”

“No, your bit was to contact the Park authorities and get them to search properly and take the consequences. Not just... Christ.” Rudi rubbed his eyes. “I shouldn’t blame you; this was probably all Toomas’s idea,” he said tiredly. “I know how his mind worked. Evil old bastard.”

“What time is it?” Juhan asked.

Rudi looked at his watch and scowled. He looked at the window and discovered that somehow, while they had been exploring the surreal landscape of his father’s life, night had fallen. He’d missed the last ferry back to Virtsu.

Juhan pushed the package across the table to him. “This is for you,” he said.

Rudi looked at it. “What is it?”

“Your father told me to give it you if anything happened to him.”

Rudi sighed. His father had had a great fondness, although when all was said and done very little flair, for the dramatic. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t want it, whatever it is.”

“He gave it me a year or so after the Coup.” Coup, Rudi presumed, being Toomas’s word for the possibly government-sponsored riot which had put an end to his dreams of statehood for the Park. “Not long after we moved him into the flat in Rakvere. ‘Anything happens to me, give it to the boy,’ he said.”

There was no need to ask which boy; his brother Ivari was dead by then, of injuries sustained during the riot. He poked the package with a finger. Then he pushed it back across the table. “I don’t want anything from him, Juhan,” he said. “He made our lives a misery, he drove my mother away – now I learn he was probably responsible for the deaths of three Frenchmen. If you think I’m taking this thing, you’re crazier than he was.”

Juhan regarded him levelly. Then he poured the last of the Scotch into his glass and knocked it back in one. “He said you’d say that.”

“Well then.”

Juhan reached into his jacket again, and, like a stage conjurer, produced another full bottle of Scotch. He snapped the seal on the bottle’s cap, filled their glasses. “He wasn’t a bad man, you know.”

“He was a wizened little monster, Juhan; he damaged every life he ever touched.”

“He did a lot for the Park. Don’t you ever forget that.” Juhan pushed the package back to Rudi. “He didn’t leave a lot. Some books, old recordings. They all went to the Folk Song Society. This is for you.” He sat back and drank his drink.