The Boy in the Suitcase - Lene Kaaberbol [94]
The remains of breakfast were still scattered across the little coffee table in front of the television. Two bowls of souring milk and soggy cornflakes. An unopened, unread newspaper. A meal on the run, diagnosed Nina, taking the bowls into the kitchen where she pitched the contents into the bin and loaded the dishes into the dishwasher. She put fresh cereal into a new bowl for Mikas, adding an extra spoonful of sugar. The boy had eaten only a couple of ice cream cones, a breakfast roll, and a few slices of untoasted bread in the time he had been with her. He had to be just as weak at the knees as she was. And she was acutely aware, now, of the lightheaded feeling that came from not having eaten for too long.
She cut herself two slices of dark rye and sandwiched a thick wedge of salami between them. Cornflakes bowl in one hand, glass of milk in the other, and her solid sandwich clenched between her teeth, she returned to the living room. A strange flickering feeling of happiness settled in her stomach. Home. It felt fantastic. Now all that was missing was Morten and the children.
But there was no rush, just as there was no need to hurry the necessary call to the police. She placed the cereal bowl in front of Mikas and dropped into the armchair next to the couch with a muted thud. Slowly, she chewed her way through the soft rye and the sharp spiciness of the salami, eyes closed, mind gently drifting. When she was done, she climbed to her feet and went into the bedroom, where she pulled off the damp, dirty T-shirt and put on a crisp, clean shirt instead. From the living room, she could hear the rattle of Mikas’s spoon against the bowl.
THE DOORBELL RANG.
It wasn’t the muted scale of the door phone, but the insistent ring of the old-fashioned push-button on the door frame itself. Anton used it when he wanted to announce his presence, though his usual noisy progress up the stairs generally made any other signal redundant. No, it was probably Birgit next door, who must have noticed her arrival after all.
She might even know that the police were looking for Nina. Birgit was nice enough, really, but her curiosity was boundless, and sometimes Nina wished the walls between the flats were just a little thicker. Particularly now, when she could have done with a few more minutes on her own with Mikas.
Resignedly, she reached for the lock catch, but something made her hesitate. It was too quiet out there, she thought. Anton would have been bouncing off the floor, if not the walls, and Birgit usually had the door to her own flat open, yelling over her shoulder at her own children. It was silent out there. No scrabbling feet, no throatclearing or nose-blowing. It was not a natural silence.
Automatically, she put the security chain on the door before opening it enough so that she could see whoever it was. A slender, fair-haired woman stood there on the landing, smiling politely, yet somehow reticently.
“Please,” she said, bending forward slightly. “I think you know my son. I am Mikas’s mother. May I come in?”
Instantly, Nina’s mind was flooded with the fantasies she had entertained earlier, in the car. Mikas’s mother, holding her hand and thanking her, as only one mother could thank another. Her happy ending. It was here, now.
But even as she slid the chain off the lock, she knew something wasn’t right. The woman pushed open the door herself, with a smile that had grown oddly apologetic. As if she didn’t really want to come in, thought Nina. And then she saw that Mikas had come into the hallway behind her. He stood there, still wearing his nice new sandals and holding the breakfast bowl, while a pool of dark yellow pee formed around his feet.
Smiling still, the woman held out her hand to him. He jerked from head to foot, and the bowl slid from his hands and hit the pine floor with a sharp clack.
There was a man behind the fair-haired woman. He must have been standing against the wall on the landing, out of sight until now.