The Boy in the Suitcase - Lene Kaaberbol [77]
“Fucking hell!”
He hammered both hands against the steering wheel and braked abruptly. Sat there for a moment, fighting his temper.
“She had the boy with her,” said Barbara suddenly.
“Did she?” Jučas glanced at her sharply. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. He was in the back seat. I could see his hair.”
Right now, he would have preferred the money. But the kid was currency in his own way, and better than nothing.
“You said they were going to adopt him,” said Barbara.
“What? Yes. So they are.”
“Then what was he doing in that car? I thought his new parents were picking him up?”
“Yeah, so did I. But this Nina Borg person got in the way.”
“And why was it that you took his clothes off?” she asked. “For the picture?”
He inhaled a mouthful of air and blew it slowly back out. Easy now.
“To make it harder for them to trace him,” he said. “And stop this. You’re only making it worse, asking so many questions.”
He hated the way she was looking at him now. As if she didn’t trust him anymore.
“Hell,” he hissed. “I’m not one of those filthy perverts. And if you think that for a moment, then… .”
“No, ” she said, very quickly. “I don’t think that.”
“Good. ’Cause I’m not.”
HE DROVE AROUND for a bit, on the off chance. But the Fiat stayed gone. Finally he went back and parked near her house again.
“Stay in the car,” he told Barbara. “She’ll be back. Call me when the cops leave, or if you see her and the boy.”
“Where are you going?” she asked, looking at him once more, but this time in a different way. He smiled. It was okay. She still wanted him to look after her, and that was just what he planned on doing.
“I have a couple of things to do,” he said. “It won’t take long.”
IT WAS 7:07, and the public swimming pool in Helgasgade had been open for exactly seven minutes. Nina laid down the deposit for two towels at the ticket booth and continued up the wide brown stairs to the the women’s changing rooms on the first floor.
They were almost alone among the many empty lockers, and the three women there were silent and introverted, folding their clothes with their backs to one another, guarding their privacy in a very public space. One was young, Nina noticed, the two others middle aged in the determinedly well-trained way. None of them looked at Nina and the boy, who stood beside her on the damp, smooth tiles, hunched and slightly shivering in the early morning chill.
Nina took the boy to the bathroom, and he peed obediently, with his pelvis thrust forward and his hands folded behind his neck. Anton had done the same thing, remembered Nina, because he could then claim that there was no need for him to wash his hands afterwards. Perhaps that was a brand of logic universal to little boys. Nina smiled at the thought.
When they returned to the changing rooms, the three women had all gone out into the echoing cavern of the swimming pool area, and Nina proceeded to undress, her movements awkward and heavy. There was a stiffness in her muscles, joints and tendons, like the aftermath of the flu, and she took her time. There was no hurry. She parked the boy on one of the wooden benches fixed to the wall with solid-looking brackets, turned on the water, and let the hot spray hit her chest and stomach.
She hadn’t been eating enough lately. She could see it in the way her ribs protruded under the skin. She had always been skinny, too skinny, but since the birth of her children it seemed nothing stuck to her. Her face had become narrow and somewhat hollowcheeked, and she had lost whatever softness she had once possessed around her collarbones, shoulders, and hips. Forgetting to eat was not a smart move. But it happened whenever she worked too much, or when Morten went off to Esbjerg and the rigs. She simply lost her appetite, and fed the children mechanically without bothering to feed herself.
“We’ll get something to eat later,” she promised the boy. “A big English breakfast, how about that?”
He didn’t react to her voice except to sit and watch her, eyes huge and curious,