He studied her reaction, trying to judge whether or not she knew he was lying, but she only smiled warmly and said, “It’s your loss.”
“I’m sure. And I should have come here before. I think my dad’s great-grandfather was Swedish.”
“I didn’t know that. Your dad’s American?”
“Was.”
“Of course, sorry. And you’re a dual national, US and UK.”
“You’ve done your homework.”
She wasn’t interested in playing games, though, and seemed genuinely curious as she said, “Which do you feel most, American or English?”
“Oh, equal parts of neither. I’ve never really lived in either country for very long, spent my childhood in Bermuda, Switzerland, Hong Kong, attended international schools. I don’t belong anywhere in particular.”
She nodded, looking intrigued by his description, then said, “Maybe this man we’re going to investigate, maybe he was the same. It seems he lived here a long time and no one missed him. Even now, no one wants to claim him.”
Dan hadn’t thought of that. The guy’s body was lying in a morgue, probably destined for a final resting place even more unmarked and unloved than his own would be one day.
But now Per tuned into the conversation, looking in the rearview as he said, “The people from the village want to bury him, if no one else claims the body. He saved that girl’s life.”
Dan nodded, once again reassessing their comparative places in the world. Whatever Jacques Fillon’s life had been like, he’d at least ended it with something good, a selfless act of heroism. From the report he’d read, the guy might have saved himself if he’d invested the same amount of effort, the same swift response. But he’d reached out to the nearest person and saved her instead.
They drove through R?ne?, a pretty little town lined with birch trees that caught the sunlight and gave the place a feel of spring rather than October.
“What a beautiful place.” Even as he said it though, he could imagine how younger people dreamed only of leaving it, and how easily he would go insane there, his own nomadic history leaving him incapable of ever being part of this kind of community.
As if hearing his thoughts, Inger said, “Yes, it’s quiet. There are no suitable hotels here and the village has nothing, but someone has provided us with a guest cabin they use in the summer for tourists. It should be fine for a couple of days and we can walk from there to the victim’s house, so we don’t need Per the whole time.”
Dan nodded, his mind jumping forward, imagining a couple of days in a cabin with Inger. Briefly, those thoughts were fanciful, noticing her slender frame and small breasts beneath her lambswool sweater, a ballet dancer’s physique.
It was fleeting, before the more practical reality hit home. It was possible they would be there for a couple of nights and he couldn’t imagine there would be much in the way of entertainment. He was used to shacking up in all kinds of places but rubbing along with another person was a different story. She seemed pleasant enough, but he could easily imagine them running out of things to say within an hour or so.
There was no doubting she was attractive. But even on the outside chance that she’d be interested, he had to concentrate his attentions on Jacques Fillon, on who he was and why he’d run all the way up here, on the reasons Brabham and his people had shown an interest.
In one way or another, Dan had bought into Patrick’s argument, that the truths buried in Fillon’s past might just provide the bargaining power to guarantee his own security. So that was the key, to focus on that. And besides, two days together in a cabin might be his idea of a fantasy scenario, but he somehow doubted that it would be Inger’s.
Chapter Nine
They drove directly to the dead man’s place. He’d been living the simple life, that had been the consensus, but it was an attractive red timber house in a private wooded setting, a separate garage, the whole place freshly painted and well maintained.
It wasn’t set out with the same attention to sightlines and security that Charlie’s place boasted, but then Fillon had been able to rely on something else. No one had known he was here, and here was a long way from almost anywhere else.
Per let them in and they walked from room to room around the house. It was clean and simply furnished, almost as if a magazine editor had wanted to create a classic Scandinavian interior. None of the rooms had a TV or computer. One room was lined with bookcases that were full, but there were no books lying around anywhere, no magazines or papers.
The kitchen was well stocked, but again, it was all tidy, hardly the stereotypical bachelor place. Both Dan’s place in Italy and the apartment in Paris probably looked more lived in than this, and that was saying something because he seemed to spend hardly any time in either.