The Boy in the Suitcase - By Lene Kaaberbol Page 0,15

it on purpose.”

“No … no. Of course not. We will just have to manage somehow. But… .”

“Yes. As soon as I can.”

“Take care.” He hung up. She let the hand holding the phone sink into her lap.

Her head hurt. It was as though some great fist were squeezing it in rhythmic throbs, to match the beating of her pulse. She tapped out Darius’s number again.

“You have called Darius Ramoška… .”

She sat for a long time in one of the white wooden chairs by the kitchen table, trying to think.

Then she called the police.

THE BOY LAY unconscious on the back seat, with the checkered picnic blanket covering his thin, unmoving body. And Karin wasn’t answering her phone.

Nina closed her eyes, trying to concentrate. 1:35. It should be 1:35… . Her hands shook slightly as she turned her wrist to check her watch. 1:36, stated the stark, digital numbers. Close enough. Relief flooded through her, making it a bit easier to think.

Sorry, Karin, she silently told her friend. You ask too much, this time. She pulled the blanket a little higher so that it was not immediately obvious a child was asleep beneath it. Rolled down the window just a notch, so air would get into the car. Locked the Fiat and left, walking with long, quick strides she knew were nearly as fast as running.

SHE CUT THROUGH the central hall of the railway station, heading for the green and white sign that proclaimed the local police presence. She entered the small office, wondering what one actually said in such a situation. Good afternoon, I’ve just found a child?

The officer at the reception desk looked tired. Not the easiest job in Copenhagen, probably.

“What can I do for you?” she asked.

“Err … I have a child in my car—”

Nina’s hesitant explanation was interrupted by a crackle from the woman’s radio. Nina couldn’t hear what was being said at the other end, but the officer snapped a hasty “Copy that. I’m on my way,” and headed for the door at a run.

“Please wait here,” she called over her shoulder, but Nina had already followed her back into the central hall. She watched the officer and one of her uniformed colleagues fairly sprint for the stairwell leading down to the left luggage lockers. Following still further, into the basement, was not actually a conscious decision.

She heard the racket as soon as she started down the stairs. Everyone in the facility had stopped their various baggage maneuvers, and some had already gathered at the entrance to the passage where locker number 37-43 was situated. Nina felt a warning flutter along her spine, like an insect moving over her skin, but she still had to look.

A man was kicking at the metal doors with frightening ferocity. She caught a brief glimpse of the back of his head, hair clipped so short it looked almost shaved, and of a set of enormous shoulders encased in a shiny brown leather jacket that was surely too hot for this weather. When the officers reached him, he shook off the first one as if she were a child he no longer wanted to play with. Then he seemed to collect himself.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, rolling his r’s in a way that almost made them into d’s. He stood quite still, letting the police officers calm down from violence alert to dialogue mode. “I pay. Is broken, I pay.”

Then he suddenly turned his head, looking directly at her. She didn’t know what made him pick her out of the crowd, but she saw his muscles bunch tensely as fury tightened his face and narrowed his eyes. He remained still, and didn’t speak, but even so she sensed the violence he was holding in check.

What had she done to deserve such rage? She had never seen the man before.

But of course the locker he had been kicking to pieces was not just any locker. It was number 37-43. And she suddenly knew where the rage had come from.

She had taken something that was his.

SHE HAD TO employ every shred of self-control she possessed to stop herself from running all the way back to the car. He won’t be able to follow, she told herself, the police are there. She walked as quickly as she could without turning heads.

But she remembered how he had shaken them off like a dog shakes a flea from its fur, and the only plan she was able to form was that they had to get away, she and