The Boy in the Suitcase - Lene Kaaberbol [84]
(Goest thou thither, and dig my grave.)
She blinked a couple of times, then scanned the street for any sign of the girl. Would she actually show? If she did, Nina was going to try to buy a few hours of her time. She turned her head, but the boy was still refusing to meet her eyes. Sunlight ricocheted off a window somewhere, forcing him to squint.
(Alas, this world is cold, and all its light is only shadow.)
Nina shuddered, and without thinking drew the blanket up to cover the boy’s legs, despite the heat of the day. At that moment, she saw her. The girl from Helgolandsgade was peering into the car through the rear window, her face a pale outline. Nina jerked in her seat, then nodded, and leaned across to open the passenger door.
“I wil pay you,” she said, hastily. “You just tell me how much you need, and where we can go.”
It was 12:06.
The girl jackknifed herself into the passenger seat, looking quickly up and down Stenogade before closing the door. She smelled strongly of perfume and something sweet and rather chemical, possibly rinse aid. She fumbled in her bag and produced a stick of gum.
“It is five hundred kroner an hour, and three thousand for eight hours. How long will it take?” she answered, throwing a calculating look at the boy in the back.
Then she suddenly smiled at Nina, a crooked and unexpectedly genuine smile.
“He is so little,” she said. “So cute.”
She held out her hand, and Nina shook it, somewhat taken aback.
“Marija,” said the girl slowly and clearly, and Nina nodded.
“I will pay for the eight hours,” she said, offering up a quiet prayer to the bank. She had been uncomfortably close to the overdraft limit the last time she had checked, but she was uncertain whether this was before or after her latest paycheck had registered. She had never been very good at the money thing.
Nina turned the key in the ignition, and then sat in indecision, hands locked around the wheel. Where could they go? MacDonald’s? A café?
No. Suddenly resolute, she turned left onto Vesterbrogade and headed for Amager. They could all do with a bit of fresh air.
THROUGH THE YELLOWED blinds, there was a view of the road, the parking lot, and the grimy concrete walls of some industrial warehouse or other. Every twenty minutes, a bus went past. Jan knew this because he had been sitting there staring out the window for nearly four hours now.
He hadn’t considered that boredom would be a factor. But this was like sitting an exam at which one had offered what little one had to say on the subject inside the first ten minutes, and now had to repeat oneself ad infinitum. Even though the context was hideous, and he really shouldn’t be able to be bored when talking about the brutal murder of someone who had been close to him, this was what had begun to happen. It felt as if his lips were growing thicker with each repetition, his mouth drier. The words wore thin. Concentration faltered. All pretense at naturalness had long since vanished.
“I met Karin Kongsted two and a half years ago, in Bern; she was employed by the clinic that performed my renal surgery. We probably grew more familiar than might otherwise have been the case, due to the fact that we were both Danes on foreign soil; it often works that way. After the operation, I needed fairly frequent check-ups and medical attention, but it was crucial that I didn’t neglect my business any more than I had to. Karin agreed to return to Denmark and work for me in a private capacity, and this proved an excellent solution.”
At the moment he was telling his story to an older detective, a calm, almost flegmatic man whose Jutland roots could still be heard in his intonation. His name was Anders Kvistgård, and he was more rigidly polite than the others, punctiliously addressing Jan as “Mr. Marquart.” In his white shirt, black tie and slightly threadbare navy blue pullover, he looked like a railroad clerk, thought Jan.
Mr. Kvistgård was the third