The Boy in the Suitcase - Lene Kaaberbol [63]
Things were better. Or so he had thought. No, they really were. Olav had helped her. Helped both of them, in fact. During an otherwise fairly routine debriefing after things had become a little rough in Tbilisi, the Norwegian therapist had somehow made Nina realize that she needed help. Not so much because of Tbilisi, Dadaab, or Zambia, but because of the obsessions that drove her to be in Tbilisi, Dadaab, or Zambia.
Nina had come home. Her hair almost shaved to the skull, her body reminiscent of a stick insect’s, but with a new … well, serenity was perhaps not quite the word. Balance, maybe. A cautiously maintained equilibrium that made him believe they might after all be capable of staying together, of loving each other again. They had moved to Copenhagen. A new beginning. She had begun working for the Red Cross Center at the Coal-House Camp, he had become a “mud logger,” as other geologists somewhat condescendingly described his job—collecting and analyzing bore samples from the North Sea oil rigs and other none-too-exotic locations. They both agreed that family was now the priority, if the torn ligaments that bound them together were to have a chance of healing.
Well. He was still here. She was still here. Except that she had lied to him this afternoon. And he didn’t know, he couldn’t be sure, that he would not get a phone call tomorrow or the next day from Zimbabwe or Sierra Leone or some place equally distant and dangerous.
God damn you, Nina. He set down his mug and got up with an unfocused sense of urgency. He wanted to get away from here. Out of the flat. Just for a few hours. Or a few years. If only everything would still be here when he returned.
A LITTLE AFTER four in the morning, the door buzzer woke him. It wasn’t Nina who had lost her key, as he had half expected. It was the police. One in uniform, one in a suit.
“We would like to talk to Nina Borg,” said the suit, presenting his ID with a motion that had become habit many, many years ago.
Morten felt too much coffee turn into acid in his stomach.
“She’s not here,” he said. “She’s staying with a friend. Is anything wrong?”
“May we come in for a moment? I’m afraid this is a murder inquiry.”
THE BARONAS LIVED in a small wooden house which stood like an island amidst an advancing tide of project developments. The bareness of the grounds between the new apartment buildings made their modest garden seem like a veritable jungle. A small red bicycle was padlocked to the fence with heavy duty chains.
Sigita opened the gate and approached the house. A smell of frying onions greeted her; Julija Baronienė was cooking supper, it appeared. Sigita pressed the bell button on the peeling blue doorframe. Almost at once, a boy of twelve or thirteen answered. He was wearing a white shirt and a tie and looked somehow unnaturally clean and well-groomed.
“Good evening,” said Sigita. “May I speak to your mother?”
“Who may I say is calling?” he said cautiously. It sounded as if he had orders not to let just anybody in.
“Tell her it is Mrs. Mažekienė from the school board,” said Sigita, so that the door would not be slammed in her face with the same precipitous speed that had severed the telephone connection.
The boy stood still for a long moment, and Sigita suddenly realized that he was trying to weigh all the possibilities that this might somehow be to do with him. She smiled reassuringly.
“Er, come on in,” he said. “Mama is making supper, but she’ll be right with you.”
“Thank you.”
He showed her into the living room and disappeared, presumably to report to the kitchen. Sigita stood in the middle of the room, taking in her surroundings. The sofa was large, soft, and pale brown, clearly a recent purchase, but apart from that,