“My gun’s in there, yes. The rest is shaving kit and a change of underwear.”
“A Southern Command packet of weekend-leave condoms, too, I hope,” she said. “Remember the daughter you left on Jamaica.”
“I do. Too bad she doesn’t remember me. Why do you bring that up?”
“Thought I’d remind you to keep your weapon on safety this weekend,” she said, but there was a laugh in her voice as she did so.
“Not that it’s really your business, but I really am going there to see her art collection,” Valentine insisted. “It’s a day there, two days around Helsinki, and a day back. I can’t get in that much trouble. I’m not interested in her beyond the paintings. I don’t know that she has a physical interest in me. You have sensitive antennae—would you say she’s into women?”
“I left my lesbian-detection kit in the stable at Seng. Sorry.”
“She knows her art.”
“I’ve seen better ‘art’ beckoning from a New Orleans balcony,” Duvalier said.
Valentine ignored the jibe. “Just think. People used to spend their whole lives involved with… art. You’d study it at school, tour museums, get to know artists and gallery owners. Write books about it. Isn’t it incredible?”
“If you go in for that sort of thing, yeah. A frog in a frying pan doesn’t give a squirt about who owns how many Renoirs, and we’re frogs in frying pans. That’s easy to forget up here.”
Valentine looked down the tracks. The train had arrived and the conductors were helping people find their cars. “Wonder if we’ll ever get to a world again where people can build a life out of art.”
“When did you get this art bug? Usually you’re going on about some book or other that’s interesting you.”
“We’ll have to cut this short, Ali. Train’s boarding. You have fun, too. I’m a little surprised. Von Krebs doesn’t seem—”
“He’s not. I just want to be on the ocean.”
“It’s a gulf of a sea, technically.”
“Well, whatever. Saltwater shoreline. Never had much of a chance for it since our trip to the gulf waters. Be careful, Val.”
“You, too.”
He gave her a nudge with his elbow as he picked up his bag and joined his fellow passengers in going up onto the train. Duvalier saw Eva Stepanek waiting for him by one of the cars.
That evening a messenger tapped on their door as she was brushing her teeth. She was alone. Pistols was out on the town; he’d also made local friends. A couple of the Finnish police working security in the area around the hotel and conference center had found a fellow marksmanship enthusiast and Pistols had gone to the range with them. They were having a boys’ night in one of the bars, trying the local vodkas.
The conference center messenger handed her an envelope made of thick, expensive-looking paper. Her name was written on it in a rather bold, all-capital hand.
She opened it and read the contents.
Wednesday, 7 p.m.—So pleased you decided to come. Boat has been refitted, just finished giving it a test in the open sea. Arrive whenever you like tomorrow.
He included a map and an address. The house was on the coast south of town. Apparently the home even had a name: Summerset House. She assumed Von Krebs had translated the name from Finnish for her.
She’d kept up with her laundry, so she had plenty of clean clothes. She spent an extra half hour in the tub, enjoying having the hotel room to herself.
The next day she took one of the city bikes out to the house. It was only a dozen kilometers outside of town, and her legs enjoyed the exercise.
The houses on this part of the coast road were discreetly hidden by trees at the end of long driveways. A few of the driveways were closed by new growth or gates.
Summerset House on the gulf was low and lean, architecturally fashioned like a glass sandwich between thin roof and foundation. She recognized the style by now as exaggeratedly Scandinavian.
Apart from a few walls and a white brick fireplace, you could see right through most of the house on the ground floor. The angle didn’t reveal whether the same was true on the small second floor, sitting like a pillbox atop the house, with its own rooftop garden.
It was surrounded by a sort of patio made of smoothed river stones. The well-tended look to the house and grounds whispered discreet wealth.
She’d been kind of hoping for a cute little A-frame lodge. She’d seen a few along the coast that looked cozy, the perfect place to return to after enjoying a day in the gloriously invigorating summer sun of the far north. This house looked more like it was waiting for the photographer from Architectural Digest—yes, she’d glanced through old copies a few times in her travels, though the super-glossy pages made for unsanitary wiping.