Chapter 40
Rendezvous was virtually empty when they arrived. Didrik had insisted on dropping by the office to pick something up, and had returned to the cab with a bag containing something wrapped in brown paper.
Ellie was just locking up, but opened the door when Bente waved to her from the cab.
Outside the car the air was fresh; it smelled of an early-summer night, with the fresh dampness of new growth and the dry warmth of asphalt gradually cooling in the chill of the evening.
Didrik came around to her side, and they walked into the bar hand in hand.
Agneta was sitting at a table distractedly stirring a cocktail, her attention focused on her phone. Candy Crush, no doubt. Hanna was behind the bar cleaning up.
She looked up at them. “Back already? Hi, Didrik!” She broke into a smile and hurried over to give him a hug.
“How did it all go?” Bente asked, joining Ellie and Hanna at the bar.
“Above expectations—we’re definitely ready for the real opening,” Ellie assured her.
“That’s great to hear,” Bente told her. “And I have news too. I’ve decided this is what I want to do—full-time.”
“Seriously?” Ellie’s hands flew to her mouth and she let out a cheer. “So you and I are going to run a wine bar together?”
Bente laughed. “I guess so.” She looked at Hanna. “But I don’t want you to give it to me. I’ll run it for you until I can afford to buy it from you.”
“Whatever you want.” Hanna smiled at Bente and Ellie.
“What a dream team.” She grabbed a bottle of Champagne, moving around the bar as if she’d been a bartender all her life.
Maybe it came naturally now that she owned the place.
“I think this calls for bubbles!” She opened the bottle with a loud pop and foam went everywhere, much to everyone’s very vocal delight.
“By the way, I have something new for our wine list,” Bente said, looking at Didrik. “I got a fantastic email from Sylvie today, and she can let us have several cases.”
“From Chateau de Chênes?” he asked.
“From Chateau de Chênes.”
“This all sounds wonderful,” Hanna said. “But for as long as I’m the owner, I insist on coming down at least one evening a week to mix cocktails.”
“You mean after closing time?” Bente said, laughing as Hanna punched her on the arm. Bente accidentally kicked over the paper bag on the floor, and Didrik quickly picked it up. “What have you actually got in there?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” Didrik fished out a package, unwrapped it, and placed an item—a painting—on the bar.
It didn’t take Bente long to recognize the style. “That’s by Sven Steen.”
Didrik nodded. He turned the picture over, and there was Sven’s name . . . or rather Dejje Steen, 1979.
“I don’t understand.”
Didrik told the story of the receipt he had found, signed by Ida Steen. And recounted his conversation with the woman in the gallery.
“And the art dealer was buying paintings by him through intermediaries right up until the eighties?” Bente’s eyes filled with tears. “So he survived? They survived?”
“Sven must have survived, and I’m guessing the man in the painting is Mathieu,” Didrik said.
“But are you sure it’s Mathieu?”
Didrik shook his head.
“Maybe this is just how Sven imagined Mathieu would have looked.” Bente’s voice was trembling.
Didrik placed his hand on hers. “Or that’s actually Mathieu in the picture.”
She smiled, took his hand, and squeezed it. She really hoped he was right. “Maybe we should try talking to Jér?me again. If we bring some information, help prompt his memory, he might be able to recall something.”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
Bente looked back at the painting. So Sven had survived. How amazing was that?
But what had happened to Mathieu?
They called Jér?me the following day, sitting at Bente’s kitchen table.
In an email exchange between Bente and Sylvie the previous evening, Sylvie had offered to go to the care home to be with Jér?me during the conversation.
She thought it might be easier for him to remember if someone he knew was there, someone he associated with the vineyard.
“Hi.” Sylvie appeared on the screen. “Jér?me is here, he’s got a cup of tea and would love to speak to you.
” The image flickered as she adjusted her phone so that they could see the old man.
He stared into the camera, brought his face closer.
It took a minute for him to figure out how to look at the screen and at them.
But once he did, Bente saw that his expression was different from when they’d gone to visit him—much clearer. He suddenly looked younger to her.
They introduced themselves and his face lit up.
“Oh yes—it was you who had some questions about Chateau de Chênes, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right,” Bente said, edging a little nearer to the phone.
“We’ve found a picture painted by a Swedish guy—Sven Steen, although he was known as Dejje Steen.
We’re wondering if you know why there was a Swede living at the vineyard toward the end of the Second World War, and in the years that followed? ”
Jér?me thought for a moment. “I don’t know anything about that,” he said.
Bente’s heart sank. She’d had such high hopes for this call.
This would be the last time they spoke to Jér?me, they couldn’t disturb him again.
They had enough of a story for the TV show.
Maybe they would never know what had really happened to the two men, and she and Didrik would have to accept that.
“So you’re not aware that there was a Swedish guy at the neighboring vineyard?” she tried again.
Jér?me gave a cunning smile. “That’s what I was told to say.
‘I don’t know anything about that,’” he repeated with a secretive glint in his eye.
“That’s what I had to say if anyone asked about them.
Mathieu and Sven.” He looked almost boyish now, and she could see a glimmer of eight-year-old Jér?me.
“Or Dejje, as we called him. It was a name he used to call himself as a child.”
Bente glanced at Didrik, who was also smiling.
They both turned their attention to Jér?me, who took a sip of his tea.
He clasped his hands on the table in front of him.
“But now I think I can tell you everything I know. The only people who might be damaged by it are long dead. I hope you have plenty of time?”