the restaurants fronting Kungstradgarden, formerly the royal gardens, would be just the ticket. I would sit on the terrace in my new red-and-green sweater and drink beer and eat smorgasbord and look at the flowers and watch the children play.
All those amenities were available. In the cooler northern climate the flowers that had come and gone in Munich were still blooming their heads off. The lilacs filled the air with scent, and neatly cultivated beds of freesia and roses made patches of colour between the paths where the children ran. But as I sat there poking at my food, I finally came to grips with my problem. That morning I had seen – actually seen and noticed – thirty ski sweaters and two thousand faces. Instead of admiring handsome modern streets and quaint markets, I had been searching for a well-known profile.
Not Leif’s. John haunted me like the ghost of an old murder. I hadn’t seen him for over twenty-four hours. Instead of reassuring me, that fact only made me exceedingly nervous.
His inadequate disguise at the airport might have been a precaution against me. He couldn’t be sure I would not be followed off the plane by half a dozen Munich cops. (I was sorry now I hadn’t thought of it.) However, by the time I reached the currency exchange, he had had me under surveillance for some time, and he must have been reasonably certain I was alone. My jovial hail wouldn’t have sent him scuttling for cover if I were the only person he had to worry about. My first assumption had been correct after all. Somebody was on his trail.
I had expected to hear from him before this. I had left the hotel that morning and walked, aimlessly and slowly, hoping he would seize the opportunity to contact me.
Men had tried to contact me. Two student types, a little Japanese gent draped with cameras, and a well- dressed, sanctimonious-looking man whose nationality was obscure, but whose command of English included some surprising words. None had been John. If he was following me, he was doing it very skilfully. If someone else was following me, he or she was also doing it very skilfully. In the bloom of my carefree youth I used to think I was a match for any number of villains, but I was older and wiser now, and I had to admit I probably wouldn’t spot a specific pursuer unless he was bright blue or wore a clown costume. People are so annoyingly conformist. All middle-aged, middle-sized businessmen dress alike, and students are the most conservative of all; most of the males were sporting beards that summer, and ninety per cent of them, male and female, wore designer jeans and T-shirts. A couple at a table nearby resembled most of the young people I had seen that morning: dark glasses covered the upper halves of their faces, and her close-cropped brown hair and his whiskers were part of the informal uniform they all slavishly followed.
My eyes moved over the other diners. The only thing I could be sure of was that Leif wasn’t among them. His height made him as conspicuous as a clown or a painted Pict. Whatever disguise he might adopt, he couldn’t hide that.
Then my roving eye focused on something that was familiar – a shabby grey sweater and a massive head of grey hair. His shoulders had an obsequious stoop as he addressed a group of older women sitting at a table for six. The women were laughing and shaking their heads.
As if he felt my eyes upon him, the little man straightened and turned. Across the width of the room our glances locked. He bowed and smiled. Balancing his briefcase awkwardly on one arm, he opened it and reached inside. The card he held up, like a picket’s poster, was only too familiar. There I was, in featureless outline, for all the restaurant to see.
I couldn’t be angry; he was so eager and so proud of his work, and so obviously in need of assistance in selling his unusual product. When he gestured at me, at the silhouette, and at the ladies, I nodded, embarrassed but unable to resist the appeal. With an even deeper bow he turned back to the women to make his pitch. They had the unmistakable stamp of happy American widows taking their annual summer holiday. I had seen a number of such parties in Munich. They clung to the bouffant hairdos of twenty years ago, and they always wore nice knit pantsuits. Now they were peering at me through their bifocals, nodding and laughing as the silhouette cutter demonstrated his skill -with me as the model.
I felt like one of those antique advertising posters that have two big hands with pointing fingers indicating the object of interest. One of the ladies waved at me. With a shrug I waved back. The silhouette cutter sat down and took out his materials. He had made his sale.
The brief interlude had distracted and entertained me, but as soon as it was over, I started worrying at the old problem again like a dog with a used bone. Only a few hours earlier, I had determined to ignore all the intriguing little clues that led into trails of meaningless conjecture and possible disaster. It would be my own fault if I followed one of those trails. Nobody was bothering me. Yet, knowing John, I couldn’t believe I was in the clear. He wouldn’t drag me all the way up here and abandon . . . not me, he’d do that in a second . . . abandon the purpose for which he had summoned me. Even his apparent inaction had meaning, and my own inaction might be leaving me wide open to his next ploy.
Naturally I had thought of the most obvious reason for his failure to get in touch with me. The people who had been chasing him might have caught up with him. If they were police, he could be in jail. If they weren’t . . .
I imagined myself calling the Stockholm morgue. ‘Got any surplus bodies today? A man about thirty-five, five eleven and a half, slight, fair-haired – or maybe black, or grey, or bald . . .’
There was bound to be someone of that description lying around. Any large city has its share of murders and suicides and accidents. The extensive stretches of water in Stockholm must be a temptation to despairing lovers, drunken tourists, and exasperated spouses.
I didn’t really believe he was dead. No, he was skulking around somewhere, plotting and planning in a Machiavellian fashion.
I finished my beer and summoned the waiter. As I fumbled for the money to pay the check, I felt a surge of well-being. Indecision is the one thing that drives me crazy. Probably the decision I had reached was the wrong one, but it was better than doing nothing.
On my way out I passed the table where the man in grey was at work. Two of the ladies were giggling over their portraits, and he was engaged on number three. Seeing me, the chubbiest of the girls (I’m sure that’s how they referred to themselves) gave me a dimpled grin and held up her silhouette. It was a masterpiece, subtly flattering, and even more subtly caricaturing her worst feature – multiple chins, pinched mouth, receding forehead. I did not pause to admire it, I just smiled and nodded and went on. The ladies smiled and nodded. People at nearby tables smiled and nodded. The silhouette cutter smiled and nodded . . . And I’m sure any astute reader of thrillers has surely, by this time, caught the implications I flat-out missed. Take the ‘had I but known’ comment as read.
Innocent and stupid and unaware, I ambled into the park and paused to consult my map. Strandvagen, the wide boulevard along the waterfront, looked like the most direct route. And I had better hurry. Museums keep peculiar hours; some are open in the evening, some close at four o’dock.
The long white boats glided over the water, carrying carefree tourists on their way. I wished I were one of them. I wasn’t even sure why I was heading for the Statens Historiska Museum. I wanted to refresh my memories of Viking art objects and take some notes to replace the ones in my lost notebook, but my real reason was far less sensible. The dream kept itching at my mind. I could account rationally for almost all the elements of it, including the anxiety that had led me to visualize a masterpiece threatened with destruction. Any art object John was after had a poor chance of survival; it would probably vanish into the limbo of lost treasures. But I couldn’t explain the chalice itself. Why that, of all the other examples in museums – the Kingston brooch, the golden horns from Gallehus? I wanted a closer look at that chalice, and I needed the address of the private museum that owned it. Someone at the National Museum of Antiquities would be able to supply that information.
I was only a block or two from the museum when I saw a stationer’s and went in to get a replacement for my notebook. It was then that, with the abruptness of pure illogic, I remembered the name of the place I was looking for.
The clerk was very helpful. He looked up the name and address and showed me where it was on the map. As I might have expected, I had gone in the wrong direction. The Hansson Collection was on Riddarholm Island on the far side of Gamla Stan.
Every large city has places like the Hansson Collection – small, privately endowed museums that are dedicated to a particular specialty and are visited only by experts in that specialty and by compulsive tourists who follow lists of ‘things to see.’ The building in which it was housed had once been a private residence – that of Mr Hansson, I assumed. It was a beautiful seventeenth-century mansion in the ornate Dutch Renaissance style, with
