Lene Kaaberbol - Invisible Murder

“… she said that?” The lilting Thai accent was obvious; her eyes were bright and ready for a fight. She laughed a short, hard laugh and snorted disdainfully. Clicked her tongue when the lead interrogator asked about one of her acquaintances. “She’s full of lies. Lies. And she’s jealous!”

Birgitte stopped the DVD and clicked on another file.

“Now watch this. This recording is from this morning.”

At first Søren thought she had selected the wrong file. It wasn’t the same woman. And yet it was. But Malee Rasmussen’s smile was so strained that her face resembled one of those grotesque grinning Balinese masks that his ex-wife Susse had bought on a trip back in the ’90s. If she was in her late thirties in that first clip, she must be forty-two or forty-three here, but she looked ten years older than that. Her makeup was so very cliché for the prostitution world that it looked like stage makeup, and although her voice was still light and lilting, there was no trace of vitality left in that hardened face.

“What happened to her?” he asked. “She’s … is she sick or something?”

“Not that we know of. But there are rumors that she has a new backer. And that he’s taught her some new tricks. The hard way. As you’ll see, she’s not very forthcoming these days.”

The camera zoomed out a bit, and Malee’s whole body could be seen. Her short, sturdy silhouette was dressed in a mint green dress with flowers around the neckline and matching stiletto heels. Her legs were crossed. Her hands lay motionless in her lap, but she was rapidly whipping her foot back and forth as the questions were repeated interminably. Who was using the repair shop? Who had the keys? Why had she bought it anyway? Where had she gotten the money from?

Malee’s forehead glistened damply under her elaborately arranged black hair. She was still smiling, and at regular intervals, she chose to respond but only to repeat what she had already said.

“I didn’t know there was anyone at the repair shop. It was an investment. I haven’t been there since February. I didn’t know there was anyone there. The repair shop is just real estate. An investment.”

“Try to catch her eyes right there.”

Birgitte rewound a couple of seconds and started it playing again. Søren looked at the woman again. Her eyes flickered nervously in the midst of the hardened mask of her face.

Birgitte shook her head.

“I don’t know who or what she’s afraid of now, but it certainly isn’t us. I don’t think we’re going to get anything else out of her, but I’ve asked the Fraud Squad to dig a little deeper into her finances. Maybe that will give us a few names.”

“Something happened to her,” Søren maintained. “It would be good to know what.”

“Yes. She wasn’t exactly a lovey-dovey person before, and she’s always been quite tough on her girls. But now.…”

Søren looked at the pale, fossilized face on the screen. “What now?”

Birgitte snapped her computer shut and placed it in her briefcase.

“We don’t know. But we’ve talked to girls who’ve worked for her, and they refuse to testify. There’s a whisper that you get buried alive if you don’t do what Malee says. That you wind up in the ‘Coffin.’ ”

Buried alive.… Søren thought of Snow White.

REDERIK WASN’T TAKINGany chances. There was no more pretense of civility left, no more armchairs and offers of beer—now Sándor was sitting on the floor next to the radiator, with his healthy hand strapped to the water pipe with two narrow black cable ties that reminded him of that paralyzing moment outside his dorm when he was arrested. He felt less dazed now, but also … more distant. As if he were standing on the other side of a border and looking back at a life he couldn’t get back into. His left hand throbbed heavily, like the bass line from a bad speaker, a rhythm he couldn’t ignore but also couldn’t quite accept as part of him. His own pulse. Which shouldn’t be there.

Frederik was leaning over the slightly too-low coffee table, working on a laptop, surrounded by folders that appeared to contain various corporate accounts. Now and then he would set down the computer and punch some numbers into an old-fashioned pocket calculator with rapid, practiced fingers.

“Could I have a little water?” Sándor asked.

Frederik lifted his eyes from the computer screen.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Not until Tommi gets back.”

“I’m thirsty.”

“Sorry. I’m not getting close to you. Not as long as we’re alone here.” He started typing again, but just for a few seconds. Then he glanced at Sándor and asked him, “Where did that come from?”

“What?”

“That … outburst. Most people, they’re sort of … you can sort of see it in them. They have to gear themselves up. There are signs. You seemed totally calm and laid back, right up until—boom. Like those pitbulls that just attack without any warning.” Frederik looked absurdly well-shaved and normal—today in a freshly pressed light-blue shirt, light linen pants and yet another Ralph Lauren sweater, which was now draped effortlessly over his rounded shoulders. Mr. Clean, thought Sándor. Respectability itself. But Mr. Clean had sat by and watched Tamás die.

Sándor didn’t reply. Frederik shrugged and pulled a plastic water bottle out of his computer bag.

“Here,” he said, and rolled it across the floor to Sándor.

Sándor looked down at the bottle. He could just reach it with his zip-tied right hand. But he couldn’t unscrew the plastic lid with his injured left hand.

“I can’t open it,” he said.

“Oh, right,” Frederik said. “I don’t suppose you can.” But he didn’t do anything to help.

Having a bottle of water in his hand without being able to drink it was worse than just sitting there being thirsty. Was that intentional on Frederik’s part? Sándor didn’t know. They sat there looking at each other for a bit, two quiet, respectable men who were both a lot less respectable under the surface.

A T THE ORPHANAGEthey didn’t hit the kids. But they did believe in calm, cleanliness, order—and consistency. “They might as well learn it now” was the pervasive pedagogical principle. That was why they had the Yard.

It was actually just a glorified air shaft, about eight meters on each side, with a floor of frost-ravaged paving and a scrawny rowan tree in a concrete planter in the middle. The four-story orphanage buildings towered around it, but there were only windows from the second floor up. On the ground floor, the only openings were for the ventilation ducts from the kitchen and bathrooms, and one lone, solid door.

“Tell Miss Erszébet you’re sorry,” said the tall old gadjo who was apparently the Big Man here. But Sándor didn’t want to say he was sorry.

“You can’t take them,” Sándor yelled instead, as loudly as he could. “I’m their brother!”

“Look at me, Sándor,” the gadjos ’ Big Man said. “You have to learn not to lose your temper. Here at the orphanage, we behave properly. You may come back inside when you are ready to apologize. Calmly, quietly, and politely.”

And then the door was shut and locked.

It was getting late. Sándor wasn’t afraid of being out in the open air; it wasn’t even dark yet. In Galbeno, people tended to be inside their houses only when it was time to go to bed or when the weather was bad. What else were you going to do in them?

But this wasn’t “the open air.” This was just a brick and concrete room without a roof.

He screamed and cried in rage and kicked the door, but there was already something half-hearted about his kicks. Some of the man’s calm relentlessness had stuck with him, a little it-won’t-do-any-good-anyway parasite that invaded his eight-year-old’s determination and sapped his strength.