He nodded as he looked at her, though he didn’t seem swayed as he said, “Where are you from, Sweden?”
“Yes, I am,” she said, her voice full of warmth, as if impressed that he’d got it in one. She walked closer as the dog trotted back to its owner. “Monsieur Bergeron, the man who stole the tape from the DGSE had to hide afterwards because the Americans wanted to kill him. He went to Sweden, and for fourteen years he tried to prove what he’d seen on that tape. He died without finding it. My friend here is also trying to prove it, and the same Americans want to kill him. The same Americans who killed Jean Sainval. We want to stop them, Monsieur Bergeron, but we also want justice for Sabine Merel. We were with her parents two days ago, and we promised them we would do everything we could. In two weeks Sabine would have been thirty-three.”
He nodded, thinking about that for a moment before he said, “Did they have other children?”
“Yes, they did.”
“Still . . .” He scratched the top of the dog’s head before looking back up at Inger as he said, “You should come inside.” He turned and walked into the house. Inger and Dan glanced at each other, and as he closed the doors on the car, she walked on ahead.
For some reason, Dan had imagined Bergeron living on his own out here, but as he stepped into the house it seemed tidier and decorated with more care than he associated with an elderly man living in isolation.
But as Dan joined them in the kitchen, Bergeron said, “I’m sorry, I can give you coffee, but that’s all. My wife is visiting our daughter in Toronto.”
“Coffee is fine, thank you.”
He gestured for them to sit down at the heavy table and then talked to them as he got the coffee, saying, “I’ve thought about it many times, of course, but they left me alone, and it was easier that way. My own daughter wasn’t much older than Sabine Merel. She lives in Canada now, as I said. Our son lives in the village here. If you have children of your own, you always think, what if it had been them. So yes, I thought of it often, and I felt bad many times for never doing more, but I had my own family to worry about too.”
He brought the coffee over to the table and as he sat, Dan said, “Why did you go to Jean Sainval instead of the police?”
“Actually, it was luck. I kept the tapes for that night because I was still on duty when the police arrived across the street, but I didn’t look at them, I just put them in the locker in case the police asked to see them. The next day I was unwell, but when I returned the day after that, I heard that two Americans had been, and that made me suspicious. I looked at the tapes that night, saw clearly the man with Sabine Merel, and I . . . I added everything together. He was from the American Embassy, he had to be, that was why they wanted the tapes. So I thought it was safer to send to Jean. It turned out safer for me, not for him.”
“The police spoke to you afterwards?”
He laughed at the understatement, saying, “Not just the police, everyone, with the Americans there sometimes. I always told them the same thing, almost what I just told you, but I told them as soon as I heard the Americans had asked for the tape I didn’t even look because I knew it had to be dangerous—I just sent it to Jean.”
Inger said, “And they believed you?”
Bergeron shrugged, as if his continuing presence in the world was proof in itself, then said, “I haven’t talked about it since. A journalist came once, ten years after the murder, and I told him to get off my land or I would shoot him.”
Dan smiled, not doubting it for a minute, picturing the journalist jumping back into his car, but then he said, “Why didn’t you do the same to us?”
“I nearly did,” he said with a laugh that was as much in his eyes as on his mouth, a mischievous quality about him. He looked more contemplative then and said, “Luck again, your luck this time. I’ve thought about her many times over the years, and wondered if I had done the wrong thing, for the right reasons perhaps, but still wrong. And maybe because my wife is away, a man gets to think, and this last week I’ve been thinking very much about Sabine Merel. I never met her, saw only that little film and the pictures in the press, but I can’t help thinking . . . I am responsible.”
“There was nothing you could have done.”
“To save her, no. But to find justice, for her, for her family, that was the responsibility given to me, placed into my hands, the thing I’ve been thinking about so much this week. Then you turn up here. It’s like fate.”
To Dan’s surprise, Inger said, “Monsieur Bergeron, I told you people have tried to kill Dan, and they’re still chasing us. If you think talking to us will put you in any danger at all, we should leave right now.”
Bergeron smiled warmly at her, but said, “What is it that you want to know?”