Lene Kaaberbol - Invisible Murder

“Who the hell do you think you are?” she hissed, slowly getting up from her chair. Her knees wobbled beneath her as she straightened, and she was forced to support herself with one hand on the wall behind her to regain her balance, but that didn’t matter. “I haven’t done anything to you or to anyone else for that matter. All I did was buy some diarrhea pills, salt, sugar, and bottled water for a couple of Roma children who really needed it.” Nina was forced to pause for breath. Exertion and rage sizzled and throbbed in her temples. “I hope you find what you’re looking for out there in Valby, but the rest of my life is none of your damn business, and I’m not going to trot it out for your inspection, so you can just get the hell out of here and leave me alone. If you want to haul me off to jail for that, you’re more than welcome. It just so happens I don’t have anywhere else to stay right now.”

She tried to forget the gown, the mesh underwear and the white legs as she pointed to the door with a trembling finger. Even if he tried to act on his threat, he probably wouldn’t be allowed to yank her out of a hospital bed. Happily the PET man seemed to have drawn the same conclusion.

“My card,” he said, handing her a small, white card with tasteful black lettering. Søren Kirkegård , it said. Inspector . “In case you change your mind.”

He stood there for a moment with his arm outstretched, holding the card out to her but ended up leaving it on the table next to his empty coffee cup. Then he loaded his things back into his briefcase, calmly and methodically, nodded briefly, and left. The door closed behind him with a subtle click, and Nina stood there for a second, glaring at it with the remnants of her anger. Then she staggered over to her bed and sat down while she tried to get control of her breathing.

“It’ll be okay,” she told herself. “This will all work itself out.” But as she said it, she realized she wasn’t quite sure what was going to work out. The trouble with the PET, the apartment, the nausea, or Morten. Just all of it, she thought. Please make all of it turn out all right. And hopefully soon.

ÁNDOR’S LEFT HANDwas the only thing tying him to reality. He wanted to disappear into the black fogs that shrouded his consciousness, but the aching pulse in his hand was an anchor that wouldn’t let go. He was stuck, even though it had been hours—he had no sense of how many—since Tommi had grabbed hold of his hand and yanked it free from the nails which were still lodged in the floorboard. No messing around with pliers or a hacksaw, just a hard, wet yank that unfortunately hadn’t even made him faint.

He was in a room next to the eggplant-colored one, lying on a rug that smelled strongly of brown Labrador retriever. In the adjoining living room he could hear Tommi and Frederik arguing over breakfast. He had figured out why they spoke English together. Tommi wasn’t Danish. According to Frederik he was a “Finnish pea brain.” Can’t you get it into that Finnish pea brain of yours that.…

Frederik had showed up again an hour ago with pastries, Nescafé, juice, and newspapers, after having been home to spend the night with his wife and those two point five kids in Søllerød.

“Right, let’s plan this,” he had said in an enthusiastic tone, as if they were going to organize an orienteering activity for the local Boy Scout troop. But the “Be Prepared!” mood had quickly turned belligerent.

“… of course I want the money,” Frederik snapped at Tommi. “I’ve got bills to pay, the Valby place is a dead loss now, and this dump is useless as long as that thing is out in the garage. And in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re having an economic downturn.”

“So what’s the problem? We can dump the damn thing in a creek somewhere and be left with fuck-all, or we can dump it on the buyer and walk away with a cool half million. And if you really need to play the good citizen, we can always just call the cops later.”

“The problem, you dimwit, is that we don’t have a buyer. I drove past that nurse’s building, and the whole street is full of police and cordons. She’s the only one who knows where that Gypsy’s stupid jacket is.”

“Couldn’t we just sell it to someone else?”

“Do you know anyone who wants to buy a can of hot cesium? By all means, speak up if you do.”

It was quiet in the living room for a few seconds.

“Why didn’t you get milk?” Tommi complained. “You know I don’t drink it black.”

“Shut up, Tommi. You should be happy I even brought food.” Silence again. Then a newspaper rustling. “Holy shit,” Frederik said.

“What?”

“That’s her. It has to be!”

“Who?”

Frederik didn’t answer him. Instead there was a scraping sound from a table or a chair, and a few seconds later, Frederik was bending over Sándor.

“Look!” he said and thrust the front page of the newspaper right in Sándor’s face. “Is that her?”

Sándor reluctantly opened his eyes. The front page of the paper proclaimed something or other dramatic in big red letters, but it was the picture next to the headline that Frederik was frenetically jabbing at with his index finger.

An official looking photo of a serious woman with short, dark hair and intense gray eyes. It was her. The nurse who had patched up his eyebrow. The nurse who had his jacket.

“Well?” Frederik poked him insistently on the shoulder. It sent a wave of pain all the way out to his fingers and back again.

“Uh, maybe. Yes,” he said, just to make the man go away.

Frederik went back to the living room and slapped the newspaper down in front of Tommi.

“Well, at least now we know where she is,” he said.

ØREN MARCHED INTOthe meeting room with a seething sense of rage and no real target for it. The fact that he hadn’t heard about the attack on Nina Borg’s teenage daughter until he was in the middle of questioning her was an almost unforgiveable mistake, and yet the explanation was so simple that he couldn’t rake anyone over the coals for it.

“The attack in Fejøgade was reported by a Morten Sindahl Christensen” was the explanation provided by the young detective he had phoned while driving back from Rigshospitalet. “It doesn’t say anything about a Nina Borg.” Søren could hear her fingers flying over the keys. “I’ll send you the case file right away.”

He had printed out the report as soon as he got back to his office in Søborg and managed to skim through it before the group meeting. It made unpleasant reading. The three men who had broken into Nina Borg’s apartment Saturday night hadn’t exactly raped and pillaged, but it wasn’t far off. And the girl was only fourteen years old. In addition to the violence and the sexual aspects of the attack, it was very clear that this wasn’t your ordinary break-in. Nothing was stolen, apart from the girl’s school bag and some personal papers, and one of the three English-speaking men had repeatedly asked for Nina, which made it all the more irritating that the officers investigating the case hadn’t flagged it right away. Nina’s husband stated in the same report that his wife was in the hospital and would no longer be living in Fejøgade because they had decided to separate and, moreover, he had no idea why three angry foreigners were looking for his wife. If only the investigating officers had taken the trouble to dig a little deeper.… He left a message asking Mikael to drive over and see if the daughter could recognize Sándor Horváth’s passport photo and asked the crime team to prioritize the case. There was nothing more to be done, and there was no reason to waste time apportioning blame. Yet his anger wouldn’t abate.