The Boy in the Suitcase - Lene Kaaberbol [7]
She remained by his seat while he made the call. He considered asking her to give him his privacy, but there were passengers all around him, and he wouldn’t be able to speak freely in any case.
Tersely, he instructed Karin to go to his Copenhagen bank for the sum he had just had transferred from Zürich.
“There is a code you have to supply. I’ll text you. And bring one of my document cases, one that has a decent lock. It’s a sizeable sum.”
His awareness of the listening flight attendant was acute, and he had no idea how to say the rest without sounding like something out of a pulp-fiction thriller.
“In fact, I’ll text you everything else,” he said quickly. “There are a number of figures involved. Text me back when you have read my message.”
Though the show was over for now, the flight attendant still stayed demonstratively next to his seat while he texted his message and waited for the reply. It took a worryingly long time to arrive.
OK. But you owe me big-time.
Yes, he wrote to her. I realize that.
He wondered what it would cost him—particularly her compliant silence. Karin had acquired a taste for the finer things in life. But at heart she was a good and loyal person, he told himself soothingly, and she had several compelling reasons to stay on his good side. He had after all been very generous as an employer, and in certain other ways as well.
At that moment, the plane jerked forward and began to move, and he wondered whether he had after all been premature in involving her. But it turned out they were being taxied off the runway to a parking area. The captain explained that they had lost their slot in the busy departure schedule of the airport and were now put on indefinite hold while waiting first for their permission to take off to arrive from Copenhagen, and secondly for a new slot to be assigned to them. He was very sorry, but he was unfortunately forced to switch off the air conditioning while they waited.
Jan closed his eyes and cursed in three languages. Fandens. Scheisse. Fucking hell.
NINA LOOKED THE man right in the eyes.
“I think you had better leave,” she said.
It had no effect. He stepped even closer, deliberately looming over her. She could smell his aftershave. In a different situation it might have been a pleasant scent.
“I know she is here,” he said. “And I demand to see my fiancée right away.”
It was a hot August day, and there were white roses from the garden in the blue vase on her desk. Outside Ellen’s Place the sun was shining on dusty lawns and white benches. Some of the children from the A Block were playing soccer. One team was yelling in Urdu and the other mostly in Romanian, but they seemed to understand each other all the same. Recess, thought Nina with a small, detached part of her brain. Her colleagues Magnus and Pernille had deserted her in favor of the cafeteria ages ago, and she could see the psychologist Susanne Marcussen having lunch with the new district nurse in the outside picnic area. It was 11:55, and except for the soccer game, a heavy siesta-like tranquility had descended on Danish Red Cross Center Furesø, a.k.a. the Coal-House Camp. Or at least, things had been tranquil until the man in front of her had marched into the clinic four minutes ago. She threw a quick look at the telephone on her desk, but whom would she call? The police? So far, he had done nothing illegal.
He was in his late forties, with medium brown hair swept back from his temples, tanned and immaculate in a short-sleeved Hugo Boss shirt and matching tie. Apparently no one had thought to stop him at the gate.
“Get out of my way,” he told her. “I’ll find her myself.”
Nina stood her ground. If he hits me, I can press charges, she thought. It would be worth it.
“This is not a public area,” she said. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
This had even less effect than it had the first time. He looked straight through her to the corridor beyond.
“Natasha,” he called. “Come on. Rina is already waiting in the car.”
What? Nina tried to