The Boy in the Suitcase - Lene Kaaberbol [29]
“This is Mikas, Darius.”
“Yes. But….”
She ought to have known. When had she ever been able to count on him? But Mikas … she hadn’t imagined that Mikas meant so little. Darius liked the boy and often played with him for anything up to an hour at a time. And Mikas worshiped his father, who would always appear at the oddest times, carrying armfuls of cellophanewrapped toys.
“Are other people’s toilets really more important to you than your son?” she choked.
“Sigita… .”
She hung up. She knew it wasn’t his job that was stopping him. If it had been something he really wanted to do, like a football match or something, then he called in sick without worrying about it. He was not a career chaser. His job didn’t mean all that much to him.
It wasn’t because he couldn’t, it was because he wouldn’t. He wanted to stay in his new life, probably with a new girlfriend, too, and had no wish to be drawn back to Vilnius and Tauragė , to Sigita and her tiresome demands.
Pling-pliiing. The mobile gave off its tinny “Message received” signal. The text message was from Darius.
Call me when Mikas comes home, it said.
As though Mikas were a runaway dog who would appear on her doorstep when it became sufficiently hungry.
“Are you all right, madam?”
She looked up. An elderly gentleman in a gray suit stood watching her from a few yards away, supported by a black cane.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s … it was just … it’s over now.”
He helped her to her feet and began to collect her scattered belongings.
“It’s important to drink enough when it is this hot,” he said kindly. “Or so my doctor is always telling me. I often forget.”
“Yes. Yes, you are quite right.”
He tipped his pale gray Fedora to her as he left.
“Good afternoon, madam.”
SHE WENT BACK to the police station in Birželio 23-iosios gatvė. Sergeant Gužas’s face took on a look of resignation when he saw her in his doorway.
“Mrs. Ramoškienė. I thought you were going home.”
“It’s not him. Darius didn’t take him” she said. “Don’t you understand that my son has been kidnapped?”
Resignation gave way to tiredness.
“Mrs. Ramoškienė, a few hours ago you claimed that your husband had taken the boy. Am I to understand that this isn’t so?”
“Yes! That’s what I’m telling you.”
“But your neighbor saw—”
“She must have made a mistake. She’s old, her eyesight is not very good. And I think she has only met Darius once.”
Click, click, click. The point of his ballpen appeared and disappeared, appeared and disappeared. A habit of his, it seemed, when he was trying to think. Sigita could barely stand it. She wanted to tear the pen away from him, and only the need to appear rational and sober held her back. He simply has to believe me, she thought. He has to.
Finally, he reached for a notepad.
“Sit down, Mrs. Ramoškienė. Give me your description of the chain of events once more.”
She complied, doing the best she could to reconstruct what had happened. Described to him the tall, fair-haired woman in the cotton coat. Told him about the chocolate. But then she reached the gap. The black hole in her mind into which nearly twenty-four hours had disappeared.
“What’s the name of the kindergarden?”
“Voveraitė. He is in the Chipmunk Group.”
“Is there a phone number?”
She gave it to him. Soon he was talking to the director herself, Mrs. Šaraškienė. The compact ladylike form of the director popped into Sigita’s mind’s eye. Always immaculately dressed in jacket and matching skirt, nylons and low-heeled black pumps, as if she were on her way to a board meeting in a company of some size. She was about fifty, with short chestnut hair and a natural air of authority that instantly silenced even the wildest games whenever she entered one of the homerooms. Sigita was just a little bit afraid of her.
Gužas explained his errand; a child, Mikas Ramoška, had been reported missing. A woman involved in the matter might have made contact with the boy in the kindergarten playgrounds. Was it possible that one or more of the staff had observed this woman, or any other stranger,