The Boy in the Suitcase - Lene Kaaberbol [91]
She thought it was probable the police were monitoring her accounts and would make a note of the withdrawal, but she told herself it didn’t matter. Not now.
She had sensed it at the moment she had heard the boy call for his mama at the summer cottage. Now she knew for certain. Mikas did not come from some orphanage in Ukraine or Moscow. He was not an orphan, he was not alone in the world. He had a mother, and from what little information Marija had gained from him, it seemed most likely that he had been abducted. Not sold, borrowed, or given away, but taken. And somehow he had ended up in the clutches of the man who had killed Karin. How and why, the gods only knew, but this was not Nina’s concern.
If the boy’s mother was still alive, she would probably have reported him missing to the Lithuanian police, and it should be a small matter to have the boy returned to Mama Ramoškienė, the daycare, and the trolleybusses of Vilnius. Even the Danish police ought to be able to handle that, she thought. They were usually surprisingly effective at getting people out of the country. They might even make an effort to investigate who was behind the abduction. If for no other reason, then because of Karin’s death. No one could murder proper Danish citizens with impunity.
So. It really was that simple.
A smooth, warm feeling of serenity flowed from her diaphragm into the rest of her body.
She could take Mikas home to Fejøgade, and call the police from there. She might be allowed to remain with him while the police checked up on the information Marija had garnered from him. Nina knew that her perseverance could be quite convincing, and no one could claim it was better for Mikas to be in the care of some burned-out social worker he didn’t know. She wanted to stay with him so that he wouldn’t be left in the hands of strangers, until his mother could be flown in from Vilnius and he would finally be in her arms again.
Nina imagined how the boy’s mother would arrive in a storm of smiles and tears, how she would take Nina’s hands in wordless gratitude. Suddenly, Nina felt tears well up in some soft, dark place inside her. She didn’t cry often, and certainly not in moments of success. Tears of joy were for old women.
But you don’t see all that many happy endings, do you? a small cynical voice commented inside her. Nothing ever really comes out the way you want it to.
“This time, it will,” muttered Nina stubbornly.
LARGE HOUSES MADE Sigita uncomfortable. Somehow, she felt that the people living in them had the authority and the power to decide, to denigrate, and to condemn. No matter how many times she told herself that she was just as good as they were, there was always some little part of her that didn’t listen.
The house in front of her now was huge. So enormous that one couldn’t take it all in at once. It was completly isolated, perched at the top of a cliff overlooking the sea, and buttressed by white walls on all sides. Sigita thought it looked like a fortress, and she was surprised to find the gate open, so that anyone could just walk in. What was the point, then, of building a fortress?
The taxi left. She was still shocked by the cost of it. How could she have imagined that the hundred kilometer ride would be more expensive than the flight from Lithuania to Demark? Now there was almost nothing left of the money she had taken from Jolita. I should have taken all of it, she thought. But taking only some had felt a bit less like stealing. And in the end, Jolita had, after all, consented.
Now she was here. She had no idea what she would do afterwards, and she wasn’t even sure this was the end of her journey. The name on the brass plaque fixed to the white wall was the right one: MARQUART. This was where he lived, the man who collected her children. But she didn’t know if this was where Mikas was.
Trying to make a stealthy approach was pointless—discrete surveillance cameras had already