CHAPTER 12
Cotton left the palace.
Evening had arrived, the sun lower in the western sky, but far from setting. He navigated the nearly empty main courtyard and passed the cathedral, eventually finding the Stortorget, a bustling square that sat in the heart of old town.
He knew its history.
In medieval days people came here to draw water from a community well, to trade, to jeer at those confined in stocks as punishment, or to simply amuse themselves.
Today it was dominated by shops, cafés, and the Alfred Nobel museum, the entire area pedestrian-only.
His gaze searched the streams of people flowing in every direction, trying to assess the presence of any threat.
Which was proving difficult.
Three streets had their origin off the square.
Kopmangatan, Svartmangatan, and Skomakargatan, each lined by elegant seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Germanic-style buildings.
Princess Lysa’s apartment sat just to the east among a block of multistory residences.
The building was owned by the Crown but was situated outside the official palace grounds.
According to the information he’d been provided, when in town, Lysa walked the side streets and alleys of old town regularly with her dog.
That fact was well known among Stockholmers, whom she loved to greet.
Certainly her house staff knew, by now, that something was wrong, and they were definitely a possible security breach, but the prime minister had said that they were all being closely monitored and should not be a problem, noting that Swedes know their duty.
He found Kopmangatan and started walking away from the main square on wet, worn cobbles.
Voices swept by in gusts all around him in a variety of languages.
More shops lined the way. He smelled spices, baking bread, and brewing coffee.
It seemed another busy summer evening, even though the rain had yet to fully stop.
He concluded that there was way too much activity here for anything nefarious to have occurred.
Too many witnesses. And cameras, which he saw everywhere.
He located the princess’ apartment building.
Four-story. Nondescript. Ordinary in every way.
And kept walking, his soles meeting the street in half slaps that echoed off the walls around him.
The path steadily narrowed, making it only accessible to foot traffic.
Quiet too, with no visible cameras. Definitely a possible locale now.
He came to a small courtyard between the buildings.
A tall tree, erect and richly leafed, dominated the space in a grassy patch with pavement all around, along with something curious.
A small iron table, only a few inches high, that supported an iron sculpture.
A figure, a little boy, maybe six inches high, sitting with his arms wrapped around updrawn knees.
A sea of coins surrounded him. Like some sort of monument or memorial.
He looked around.
The buildings were all brightly colored and dotted with windows, the symmetry marred only by a wrought-iron spiral staircase that wound its way up one side and acted as an escape route.
A screened cage at the bottom locked off access.
He stepped over and examined the gateway.
It required a key to open from the outside, but a knob did the trick from the inside.
Made sense. If there was a fire, no time to find a key to get out.
There were two ways into and out of the courtyard.
The narrow street he’d just traversed and another opening through an archway in the building to his left that led back toward the palace and a street bustling with traffic.
He spotted the ornate entrance to the state treasury in the distance and the small guardhouse.
Had to be Slottsbacken. Where the attempt had been made earlier on his and Stephanie’s lives.
He stepped beneath the archway, out of the rain, and noticed something else.
In the passageway there was another iron gateway with no lock.
Beyond, a metal staircase led down into the earth.
He stared back out to the courtyard. Not a good place to stage a kidnapping.
He counted fifty-four windows across four stories from what were surely apartments.
No way for the bad guys to know if anyone was watching, and that was assuming the princess had even come this way.
Every door to every apartment needed to be knocked on and the occupants interviewed.
That was the only way anything meaningful could be learned.
But he knew that was not going to happen.
He walked out into the open, beneath the bushy tree, and stood before the monument.
The number of coins seemed to suggest this was a place people sought out.
Why? That was unknown. He was about to leave when, in one of the fourth-floor windows, he caught sight of a face.
Older. Male. Watching intently, though trying hard not to be noticed.
He was immediately reminded of the busybodies back in central Georgia.
Every street had them. They missed little.
Like the classic Mrs. Kravitz from Bewitched screaming for Abner to come and see what was happening at the Stevens’ residence.
He wondered if this gentleman was equally nosy.
Since it was the only face he’d seen in any of the windows, and he had precious few other leads, he decided, What the hell, give it a try.
He stepped back beneath the archway.
A staircase led upward and he climbed to the fourth floor.
The hallway before him was so narrow that two people could not pass each other without one having to turn a shoulder.
Doors stretched every twelve feet or so.
He found the one that should be the correct apartment and knocked.
He heard footsteps and noticed the peephole, an eye most likely pressed tight to the little brass circle.
The door opened to reveal a stolid, bland-faced older man with a shock of brilliant silver hair and eyes dwarfed by round horn-rimmed spectacles.
One hand rested on a shiny walking stick.
“I saw you watching me,” he said to the man in English. “Could I ask you some questions?”
“About what?”
Be clever. “That little iron sculpture. Do you know what it is?”
“Of course I do.”
He caught a hint of British in the English. “I’m new to town. Could you tell me about it?”
“He is J?rnpojke. Iron Boy Looking at the Moon. Some call him Olle.”
“And his significance?”
“He represents the young citizens of Stockholm, the children that had to work hard back in the old times. You leave a coin, or a treat, or just clap his head to find your good luck. Stealing the coins means bad luck, as the child sees everything and forgets nothing.”
He decided to give it a try. “Did you see anything unusual yesterday? From your window?”
“I saw nothing.”
He doubted that. “This is important.”
“I am sure it is. But it does not involve me.”
“My name is Cotton Malone. Yours?”
He was trying to establish a rapport, hoping that his instincts about this old man proved correct.
“I am Lars.”
He noticed that no surname was offered, so he left that alone and went with the truth. “A woman was kidnapped yesterday. We think it happened around here, but we are not sure.”
“It was Princess Lysa.”
“You saw?”
The old man nodded.
Though the place smelled stale and uninviting, he had to ask, “Can I come in so we can talk more?”
Hesitation. He waited. Don’t rush him.
Finally, the old man gestured.
And he stepped inside.