The Nemesis Program

Chapter Twenty-Five

‘D,’ Roberta said, returning to peer at the computer screen. She was wide awake again and had read through the entire correspondence bolt upright. ‘You thinking what I’m thinking?’

‘D for Daniel,’ Ben said. ‘The guy she posted the letter to. Sounds as if they were heavily involved in this together.’ He jumped up, went over to where he’d dumped his leather jacket and took the paper from his pocket that he’d written the details on earlier that night. It was crumpled and dirty but the name ‘Daniel Lund’ and the address near Jäkkwik in Sweden were still legible.

‘So now’s when we have to try and get in contact with him,’ she said. ‘He clearly knows what it’s all about.’

‘And how do you propose to do that?’

‘We have his email address, don’t we?’

Ben shook his head. ‘Read the guy’s messages. He’s either a paranoid nut or he’s genuinely in the same kind of danger as Claudine was, which is a distinct possibility.’

‘Or he’s dead,’ Roberta conceded.

‘Which we also need to consider. Whichever it is, I don’t think he’s going to reply to us. Assuming he’s still living and breathing at this point, the moment our message hits his inbox he’ll bolt like a scared rabbit and we’ll never find him again.’

‘Then what do we do?’

Ben looked at his watch. Sunrise wasn’t that far away, and his head was spinning with tiredness. ‘We try and get a few hours’ sleep. Then we get some more hot coffee and some food in us. Then we go to Sweden. If he’s alive, we’ll find him. If he’s not, at least we’ll know.’

She smiled. ‘You make it sound so simple.’

‘I’m a simple kind of guy,’ he said, but didn’t smile back.

The first time Ben had ever brought Roberta back to the hallowed privacy of his safehouse, in the brusque and unsympathetic manner that had marked the beginning of their acquaintance, he’d made her sleep on the living room floor while he took the sole bedroom. This time round, the bundle of blankets on the rug would be for him.

‘Damn it,’ she said, rooting around in her travel holdall. ‘I was in such a rush leaving home, I forgot to pack my pyjamas.’

‘There’s some old shirts of mine in the cupboard in the hall,’ he told her. ‘Might be a bit baggy on you, but feel free to borrow one.’

‘Thanks.’ She watched him as he arranged his makeshift bed for the night. ‘You know, Ben?’

‘What?’ he said, pausing and looking up.

‘I hate to make you sleep on your own floor. It’s your apartment, after all. And you need to rest as badly as I do.’

‘I’ve kipped in a lot worse places than the floor,’ he said.

‘Spare me the gruesome details. We could always share, you know?’

He looked at her guardedly.

‘You don’t have to be coy. I didn’t mean it that way,’ she said. ‘In any case, apparently we already got over that phase of our relationship a long time ago.’

‘I suppose we did,’ he said.

‘We’re friends, right? And friends can share a bed without it meaning anything, yes?’

‘I suppose they could,’ he said. ‘As long as everyone was clear that it didn’t mean anything. That it couldn’t possibly …’

‘Everyone is clear,’ she said. ‘Don’t make a big deal out of it, okay?’

But neither was unaware of the awkwardness between them as they settled down to grab a few hours’ sleep, as widely spaced apart as the double mattress would allow, with their backs to one another.

‘Goodnight, Ben,’ came her soft voice in the darkness after they’d switched out the lights.

‘Goodnight, Roberta.’

A long silence, then: ‘Ben?’

‘What?’

‘I’m glad you’re with me.’

He said nothing. After a time he heard her breathing fall into the slow, deep rhythm of sleep. He lay and stared into the darkness, grappling with his thoughts and listening to the hypnotic, never-ending background murmur of the Parisian traffic until, sometime after dawn, he slipped away into a restless slumber of his own.