“Margot Lunde.”
Rhain’s gaze stayed on the courtyard. “Yes.”
“Tromsø. 1947.”
“Yes.”
“Except your mother couldn’t have died in 1947,” I said. “You were born in 1951.”
He didn’t answer immediately. His silence wasn’t evasion. It was older than that.
“No,” he said at last. “She couldn’t have.”
“So the official record is a lie.”
“Yes.” His hands remained in his coat pockets. “I don’t know what they did to her after the official date. The records are sealed. My fatherhas never told me. Bjorn won’t say.”
I walked to stand beside him at the window.
“You’re the son of the woman Morag was talking about.”
His face didn’t change. “Yes.”
“That’s a great deal of information to hand me.”
“I know.”
“Why do it?”
This time, he looked at me. “Because I would like you to make decisions with actual information.”
I let out a breath through my nose. “That’s becoming a theme.”
“As it should.”
“Did Yuki tell you Morag came to see me?”
“No,” he said. “Bjorn did.”
“Of course he did.”
Rhain huffed a quiet laugh, though there was very little humor in it.
“Bjorn tells me most things,” he said. “Usually things I don’t want to hear.”
“Useful man.”
“The best ones are often unbearable.”
I looked at him.
The light from the window caught the side of his face. For the first time, he looked less like the man from the receiving hall and more like someone dressing an inherited wound for public viewing.
“Rhain.”
“Yes.”
“How did she die?”