Christine crossed the street, and began wandering the granite footpath that skirted the waterfront. Not for the first time, she wished David were here. She instinctively reached into her back pocket, but her phone wasn’t there. She’d been unable to find it in her room this morning, and running late, she’d shrugged and gone downstairs without it. David would be furious if he knew.

He hadn’t wanted her to come in the first place, and Christine knew his reservations went beyond the simple fact that they were newlyweds. When she invited him to join her, David only made excuses. He mentioned the cost—the physicians group, in recent belt tightening, no longer funded the inclusion of spouses on such boondoggles. Then he’d brought up the issue of his own work, and on that Christine had bitten her tongue. In the end, she knew it was something deeper. Given his fluency in Swedish, she suspected he had served here at some point as an agent for Mossad. If so, his reluctance to come might be a way of forgetting his past, akin to the way her grandfather, a D-Day veteran, had waited decades before returning to the beaches of Normandy. So it was, Christine had come alone.

The sidewalks along the waterfront were busy. Couples walking aimlessly, families with strollers, blond children running teetering circles around grandparents. Christine appraised the buildings along the Strandvägen, and saw noble facades given to grand towers and domes and exposed brickwork. Lining the wide esplanade were rows of massive trees that had likely once shaded horse-drawn carriages, but now were relegated to bursting foliage every spring over electric trams and bumper-to-bumper Volvos. Altogether, she saw a vibrant and contemporary city, but with the bones of Old World dignity.

Christine had skipped breakfast after rising with an unsettled stomach, and lunch at the conference had been less than inspiring, a smorgasbord where she’d nibbled lightly while weighing the bleak afternoon lecture lineup. Now, washed in full sun and a brisk October breeze, she found her appetite rekindled. Christine drifted into a café and was given a table overlooking the waterway. She ordered coffee and a pastry, the traditional Swedish fika, and amused herself by watching the crowds. She noted an unusual number of men pushing strollers, and she remembered being told that this was a product of Sweden’s liberal parenting laws. On the birth of a child, fathers were granted generous paternity leave, and many took advantage to spend time with their newborns. She tried to picture David behind an umbrella stroller. He had come a long way in the last year, but she couldn’t fix that vision in her mind. Not yet, anyway. Christine sweetened and creamed her coffee, and watched the tan swirl blend as she stirred.

When she looked up, a man had appeared out of nowhere.