The Boy in the Suitcase - By Lene Kaaberbol Page 0,29

Mikas,” he said. “We’ll look for him.”

At first Sigita felt a vast relief at being believed. She opened her purse and pushed the picture of Mikas out of its plastic pocket. The picture had been taken at the kindergarten’s midsummer celebration, and Mikas was in his Sunday best, with a garland of oak leaves clutched in his hands and an uncertain smile on his face. He had objected to wearing the garland in his hair because he didn’t want to look like a girl, she recalled.

“Thank you,” she said. “Will this do? It’s a good likeness.”

She put it on the desk in front of Gužas. He took it, but there was something in the way he did it, a certain hesitation, as if he wasn’t sure how much use it was going to be. It was then she realized that it was much too soon to feel any kind of relief.

“Mrs. Ramoškienė … is there any chance that the couple who took the boy are someone you know, or perhaps someone you are related to?”

“No, I … don’t think so. I certainly didn’t know the woman. But I didn’t really ask Mrs. Mažekienė about the man because I thought it was Darius.”

“We will try to get a description from your neighbor. Have the kidnappers tried to contact you in any way? Any demands, or threats? And can you think of anyone who might want to pressure you for any reason?”

She shook her head silently. The only thing she could think of was that it might be something to do with Janus Construction, with Dobrovolskij and other clients like him, and the figures she kept only in her head. But how? It didn’t make sense. And in any case, no one had said a thing. No threats. No demands.

She realized that he was watching her intently, and that the clicking of the pen had finally ceased.

“What do they want with him?” she said softly, hardly daring to say it out loud, because it made it that much more real. “Why do people steal someone else’s child?”

“When a child is taken, it is often personal—aimed at a specific child, for specific reasons that might be to do with custody rights, or with something the kidnappers want from the parents. But there is a second category. One where the motives are less personal, and in those cases… .” He hesitated, and she had to prod him on.

“What then?”

“In those cases, the perpetrators just take a child. Any child.”

He didn’t come right out and say it, but she knew immediately what he meant. She knew that children were sold in the same way some people sold women. A crushed and wordless whimper forced itself out of her. Esu kaltas, esu kaltas, esu labai kaltas. It’s all my fault. Desperately, she tried to stop the images that flickered through her head. She wouldn’t, she couldn’t think of Mikas in the hands of people like that. It would destroy her.

“Please. Please, will you find him for me?” she begged, through a hot flood of tears that blurred the room and made intelligible speech almost impossible.

“We will try,” he said. “But let us hope that Mikas belongs to the first category. They are often found, sooner or later.”

Again he didn’t say it, but she could hear the unspoken words all the same: we never find the others.

SHE DIDN’T REALLY have the time.

Nina’s sense of urgency made it feel all wrong to contemplate a mundane shopping expedition, but the devil did, after all, reside in the details, and at a minimum she needed one set of T-shirt, shorts, and sandals sized for a three-year-old if she and the boy were to remain relatively secure and invisible for a while.

She scanned the storefronts on Stationsvej and cursed softly to herself at the lack of choice. There weren’t all that many shops to begin with, and most of them now had closed doors and dead, unlit windows. But as she approached the end of the street, more appeared, and two of them, amazingly enough, sold children’s clothes. Both clearly saw themselves as up-market; one even had a French name—La Maison Des Petites. Outside, the racks sported brightly colored rompers in a trendy retro ’70s style, and when she peered through the window, she spotted a mannequin that looked to be about the right size. And the shop was still open. A big retail chain like Kvickly would have been better, not to mention cheaper, but so far all she had