Inger was quick to make one connection that Dan hadn’t yet seen. She walked over to the board and said, “It wasn’t new, and I don’t think he planned to fill it. You’re sitting there at the computer, you look up, and what do you see? This picture.” She tapped the board. “He had it here as a reminder, I think, you know, always reminding himself what this was really about.”
Dan knew she was right, knew it instinctively.
“So we have two questions. What did Sabine Merel mean to Jack Redford? And in what way did he believe Brabham might be responsible for her murder?”
“Could she have been Jack’s girlfriend? Or daughter maybe.”
Dan grabbed Redford’s passport off the desk, checked the dates in the article.
“She was nineteen when she was murdered, he would’ve been thirty-seven. I guess it’s possible she could have been his girlfriend, but it’s a big gap, particularly when she’s so young.”
“But probably too small a gap for him to be her father. She could be the daughter of a friend.”
“Maybe. But that brings us on to the other question. I don’t know much about Brabham, so I don’t know if he’s the kind of guy who picks up young girls and murders them for kicks . . .”
He noticed Inger looking over his shoulder, and he knew she was looking at the picture of Brabham on his own corkboard.
He continued, saying, “It’s more likely she was collateral damage in some way, that Redford took exception to it . . .”
“No, it’s bigger.” He looked at her questioningly. “Dan, think of the fact that he disappeared, that he spent all those years putting all of this together, that he built the stockpile in there. In some way, it has to be bigger. You don’t do all of that because you take exception, you do it because you care deeply, or because you have no choice.”
“You’re right. But we have something to go on. We find out everything we can about Sabine Merel and her connections, how she died, where, whether anyone was ever caught or suspected. We find out who Jack Redford was, by which I mean, what he did, what his job was and how that brought him into contact with Sabine and conflict with Brabham.”
She nodded this time and said, “He and Brabham must have known each other for sure, and Brabham must have had a strong reason for sending someone up here to look around Redford’s house.”
“We might find out more about Sabine here, and I want to see if any of the rest of this leads back to her. Patrick should be able to tell us more about Redford.”
“You hope.”
“It depends if he was a company man, or known to them. Looking at his stockpile, I just have the feeling we’re dealing with someone who worked the dark side, and if he did that any time in the last twenty years, Patrick White will know who he is.”
She turned and looked at the picture of Sabine again. Inger was standing in profile to him as a result, a beautiful sight that somehow caused him another little pang of longing, even in the midst of the low-level adrenalin rush he felt now that they’d made a breakthrough. He found himself transfixed, the strand of blonde hair loose behind her ear, the unpierced lobe, the smooth skin of her neck.
Inger stared at the photograph for a few seconds, and finally said, “Whatever he did, he was quite a selfless man, wasn’t he?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, we don’t know his connection to this girl, but whatever it was, he still dedicated a big part of his life to seeking some kind of justice for her.”
“You don’t know that’s what he was looking for.”
“No, but it seems likely, in one form or another. And then his last act, saving the person nearest to him. I’ve seen people in situations like that, perhaps you have too, and they don’t think they’ll be the hero, but they can’t stop themselves when the moment comes.”
“I’ll give you that, his last act was selfless. And maybe this was too.” He smiled. “I’m sorry to say I’m not quite as noble. I’m only looking at saving me.”
She smiled and said, “Maybe your moment just hasn’t come yet.”
Maybe. He liked to think it might be true but, as things stood, his record didn’t look good—he’d delivered plenty of pain in his life, but had never yet saved anyone, not even those who’d mattered most.
Chapter Seventeen