The Boy in the Suitcase - By Lene Kaaberbol Page 0,70

under the hot shower for a long luxurious moment with her own bottle of eco-friendly shampoo, without perfume and smelling only of simple cleanliness. Afterwards she might pad out into the kitchen on bare feet and set the table for breakfast with oatmeal, raisins, sugar, and milk. The children would have to leave for school, of course, and the boy might then sleep another few hours in Anton’s bed before they had to head back to Vesterbro to find the girl from Helgolandsgade.

She would do it. Yes. She would go home. The relief was deep and physical, as if someone had quite literally lifted a weight off her shoulders. She raised her eyes to the mirror and gave the boy a genuine smile as she eased the car away from the curb and headed for Åboulevarden. Everything looked so different in the morning, even on such a morning as this. Morten would help her. Of course he would. Why had she ever doubted it?

MORTEN MADE COFFEE for the detective sergeant and for himself. The uniformed officer had declined, but accepted a cola instead.

His hands moved mechanically in a set of practiced routines that needed little guidance from his brain: fill kettle, click switch, rinse pot, open coffee can.

You don’t know whether she is dead or alive, a cynical voice inside him whispered. And you’re making coffee.

“Milk or sugar?”

“Milk, please.”

He opened the refrigerator and looked vaguely at flat plastic packages of cured ham, mustard bottles, cucumbers, jars of pickled beets. Half past four in the morning. He could smell the bed-sweat on his own body and felt dysfunctional and unhygienic.

“She said that Karin was ill, or wasn’t feeling very well, I don’t quite recall her exact words. But she had to help her.”

“And when was this?”

“Yesterday afternoon. A little past five. She was supposed to pick up Anton. Er, that’s our youngest. She should have picked him up from daycare. But she had forgotten.”

“Was that unusual?”

He shook his head vaguely, not exactly in denial; it was more a gesture of uncertainty.

“She used to be … a little absent sometimes. But not anymore. No. She … I think she was distracted, perhaps because she was worried about Karin. They were at nursing school together, and they used to be close. But it’s been awhile. Since they saw each other last, I mean.”

He put the bistro pot on the table. Then cups. Milk, in the little Stelton creamer that had been a present to them from his mother and father.

She could be dead. As dead as Karin.

“You haven’t seen her at all?” he asked.

“No. A neighbor heard someone scream, and found the body.”

“Scream? Karin?”

“We don’t think so. We think she had already been dead some time by then. We don’t know where the scream came from, but our witness was definite he had heard it. He didn’t see anyone, but he heard a car drive off. We don’t know what kind of car. We don’t know whether it may have been your wife leaving the scene, or someone else. We still have searchers combing the area with dogs. That was how we found your wife’s mobile.”

Uncertainty was nothing new. He had suffered days and even weeks of it before, when the gaps between her calls had grown too long, and one heard disquieting things on the news. This was worse. More specific. Closer to home. He felt a strange brooding anger. This wasn’t Darfur, dammit. It wasn’t supposed to happen here, not now that she was home again.

The sergeant drank his coffee.

“How tall is your wife?” he asked.

“One meter sixty-nine,” answered Morten automatically. And then froze with the cup halfway to his mouth because he didn’t know whether this was something they needed to know in order to identify her, or her body.

Then he realized there might be a third purpose behind the question.

“You don’t think that … that she … that she might have anything to do with the murder?”

“We are still waiting for the autopsy results. But it would seem that the blows were struck with overwhelming force. We tend to think that the assailant must have been male.”

The reply did not provide any relief.

Suddenly, Anton was in the doorway. His hair was damp with sweat, and the too large Spiderman pajama top had slipped off one shoulder.

“Is Mummy home yet?” he asked, rubbing his face with the back of his hand.

“Not yet,” said Morten.

Anton frowned, and it seemed that it was only now that he registered the presence of two