The Boy in the Suitcase - Lene Kaaberbol [83]
Magnus’s tone had become very Swedish, and the words came pouring over her so quickly that she had no time to answer before he interrupted both himself and her.
“No. Don’t. I don’t even want to know. Only … are you okay? Morten wants to know if you’re okay.”
Nina took a deep breath.
“Yeah. I’m fine,” she told him. “Although I won’t be in today. Will you please tell Morten there is no need to worry.”
It was a while before Magnus answered. She could hear him exhale and inhale, big, deep barrel-chested breaths.
“Well, as long as you’re not dead, I was to tell you.…” Magnus hesitated again, and softened his voice so much that Nina could barely hear him.
“I was to tell you that this is the last time. If you come back alive, this is the last time.”
Nina felt a sharp little snap in her chest and held the receiver at some distance, battling to control her voice.
“Alive,” she laughed, too thinly. “How dramatic. There’s really no need for such melodrama. Why shouldn’t I be alive? I’m perfectly fine. It’s just that there is something I need to do.”
Magnus gave a brief grunt, and when his voice came back on the line, for the first time he had begun to sound angry.
“Well, fine. If you don’t want anybody’s help, Nina, you won’t get it. But Morten sounded shit scared, I tell you. He says the police have found your mobile phone.”
Nina felt a clammy chill along her backbone as he said it. She slammed the receiver down so abruptly that The Grotto’s barman raised his eyebrows and grinned knowingly at the two regular patrons ensconced at the far end of the bar. Nina didn’t care. Impatiently, she collected the boy, pulling him away from the old table soccer game he had become engrossed in. He yipped in protest as she half carried, half dragged him back to the car, but at that moment, she was too stressed to care. She started the car, turned the corner at Halmorvet and continued down Stenosgade while she followed the second hand on the dashboard clock: 13, 14, 15… .
Annoyingly, she caught herself moving her lips. She was counting the seconds under her breath. Sweet Jesus. How crazy was that?
Crazy. Insane. Mentally challenged. (Perhaps even so crazy that you did it on purpose?)
She managed to insert the Fiat into the row of cars parked by the curb in front of the church, in a slot too small for most cars. The boy in the back seat was staring out the window, steadfastly refusing to look at her. The sense of trust and familiarity from their morning bath had vanished, and it was clear that he had not forgiven her for the rough and hasty way she had bundled him into the car.
Sunlight made the digits on the dashboard clock blur in front of her. She leaned back, fumbling for the water bottle and a breakfast roll. She wasn’t hungry, but she recognized this particular kind of lethargy from long hot days without appetite in the camps of Dadaab. If she didn’t eat something now, she would soon be unable to form coherent thought.
She took tiny bites, chewing carefully and washing down the bland starchy meal with gulps of lukewarm water from the bottle. The she opened the car door and stepped onto the sizzling sidewalk.
Jesu Hjerte Kirke, Sacred Heart, Sacre Coeur. The English and French translations were posted helpfully below the Danish name of the church in slightly smaller letters. A very Catholic name, she thought to herself, full of dramatic beauty and signifying very little. The Lithuanian girl must be a Catholic, or she wouldn’t have known about this church.
Mass was announced at 17:00 hours, she noted, but right now the doors were closed, and the huge cast-iron gate to the grounds proved unremittingly locked.
Nina got back in the car again, looking at the church with a vague feeling of unease. It looked like many other city churches in Copenhagen. Red-brick solidity and a couple of striving towers, squeezed in among tenement buildings. It looked cramped compared