The Boy in the Suitcase - Lene Kaaberbol [8]
“She’s at school,” she blurted.
He looked down at her, and the smile that curled his lips was so smug that it physically sickened her.
“Not anymore,” he said.
A door clicked open softly. Without turning around, Nina knew that Natasha had come into the corridor.
“Don’t hurt her,” she said.
“Darling, as if I would,” said the man in the Boss shirt. “Shall we go home now? I bought pastries from that bakery you like.”
Natasha nodded briefly.
Nina involuntarily reached out to stop her, but the small, blond Ukrainian girl walked right past her without looking at her. Nina knew the girl was twenty-four, but right now she looked like a lost and terrified teenager.
“I go now,” she said.
“Natasha! You can report him!”
Natasha just shook her head. “For what?” she said.
The man put his hands around her slender neck and drew her close for a provocatively deep kiss. Nina could see the girl stiffen. He let his hands move down her back and slid them inside the tight waistline of her denim jeans until he was clutching both her buttocks. His hands bulged under the fabric. With an abrupt jerk, he forced her pelvis against his own.
Nina could taste the acid of her own stomach. She felt like taking the blue vase and smashing it against the head of that vicious bastard, but she didn’t. She knew that this was a show put on for her benefit, to sneer and parade his victory. The more reaction she gave him, the longer it would continue.
Nina still remembered the brilliant happiness of the Ukrainian girl when she showed off her engagement ring. “I stay in Denmark now,” she had said with a dazzling smile. “My husband is Danish citizen.”
Four months later she showed up at the center with one hastily packed bag and her six-year-old daughter, Rina. She looked as if she had dragged herself out of a war zone. There were no outer signs of violence except for a few minor bruises. Hitting her was not his thing, it seemed. Natasha wouldn’t tell them exactly what he did, she just sat there with tears she could not control rolling down her cheeks in a steady, unstoppable flow. At length, severe abdominal pains had forced her to agree to being examined by Magnus.
Nina had rarely seen Magnus so angry.
“Jävla skitstöfel,” he hissed. “Fy fan, I wish I knew someone with a baseball bat.” When Magnus was particularly upset, his native Swedish tended to come through in his swearing.
“What did he do?” said Nina. “What’s wrong with her?”
“If the bastard would only stick to using his miserable little prick,” said Magnus. “But you should see the lesions she has, in her vagina and in her rectum. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
And now the Bastard was standing right in front of her, kneading Natasha’s buttocks with his greedy hands, while his eyes, gazing across Natasha’s shoulder, never left Nina’s. She had to look away. I could kill him, she thought to herself. Kill, castrate, and dismember. If I thought it would do any good.
But there were thousands like him. Not exactly like him, but thousands of others who circled like sharks, waiting to exploit the desperation of the refugees and take their chunk of the vulnerable flesh.
Eventually, he pulled his hands out of Natasha’s jeans.
“Have a nice day,” he said, and left. Natasha followed him as if he had her on a leash.
Nina jerked the receiver off the phone and dialed an internal number.
“Teacher’s room, this is Ulla speaking.”
“Is it true that the bastard who is to marry Natasha has picked up Rina?” asked Nina.
There was a silence at the other end. “I’ll look,” said the English teacher. Nina waited for six minutes. Then Ulla Svenningsen came back on the line. “I’m sorry,” she said. “He turned up just as the bell went for the recess. He had brought her a popsicle, the children say, and she ran right up to him.”
“Bloody hell, Ulla!”
“Sorry. But this is not a prison, is it? Openness is part of the concept.”
Nina hung up without saying goodbye. She was shaking with fury. Right now she was in no mood to listen to excuses or politically correct sermons on the importance of opening up