Death of a Nightingale (16 page)

2:13.

Stop. She turned her watch so the face was on the inside of her wrist. It made it a little more difficult to check the time and normally helped her control her own personal mini-version of OCD. The improvement was relative—the compulsive checking of the time was replaced by involuntary movements in her lower arm every time she caught herself turning her wrist.

After her divorce, an exciting new development had occurred in the neurosis, she observed dryly. Now the checking of the time was often accompanied by an automatic picturing of what Anton and Ida were doing; she wasn’t quite sure if that was better or worse.

“Nina Borg?”

She looked up. Yet another unfamiliar face, this time a younger man in civilian clothes.

“Detective Inspector Asger Veng, North Zealand Police,” he introduced himself.

“Yes,” she said tiredly. She couldn’t even manage a politely encouraging question mark in her tone.

“May we take a few moments of your time? We have a couple of questions.”

Yes, of course they did. If he had asked her to crawl naked through icy mud, her enthusiasm might have been at much the same level, but it was probably best to get it over with.

“W
HAT HAPPENED
?”

The shout sounded across the parade ground from a small group of freezing people who were huddled in the doorway of one of the family barracks. Nina recognized one of the camp’s long-term inhabitants,
a man from Eritrea, but she had to cast about for his name. Rezene, that’s what he was called. He suffered from violent reflux attacks, so they saw him relatively often at the clinic.

Nina didn’t know what to answer. When it came to the spreading of rumors among the camps’ inhabitants, “wildfire” was an understatement, especially when the police were involved, and rumors were never harmless. They all lived with the threat of deportation as a constant stress factor. Even though Magnus did what he could to minimize it, there were a lot of sleeping pills and sedatives in circulation, and not so long ago, an Iraqi mother had shown up with three packs of nitrazepam that she had recovered from her sixteen-year-old son. When asked what he had been intending to use them for, he said that it was in case the police came to get them, because he would rather die in Denmark than in Iraq.

“It’s okay,” Nina shouted back in careful, simple English. “Someone tried to take a child. The police stopped them.”

It was important to keep statements clear and uncomplicated.

“What child?” shouted Rezene.

“Rina. The little Ukrainian girl.”

“Why ambulance?”

“Some policemen were hurt.”

Detective Inspector Veng put a gentle hand on her elbow. It was presumably meant as a polite reminder of their real errand, but the touch irritated her.

“Yes, all right,” she hissed. “It’s hardly surprising if some of them want to know what the hell is going on.”

“Your director
has
informed them,” said Veng.

Nina had no doubt. Birgit Mariager had been the camp’s director for almost five years now, and clear communication had quickly become one of her main concerns. But Nina also knew that even the clearest communication in the world couldn’t prevent speculation,
questions, rumors and doubt.

“Are they okay? Your two colleagues?”

“We don’t know yet,” he said. “They used a pretty nasty form of gas.”

“There was only one person,” Nina corrected him. “A man.”

“Yes. I heard you said that.”

They had asked even before they managed to open the walk-in. Nina understood that they needed to know who and how many people they were searching for and what kind of resistance they could expect to encounter if they found them, but it had seemed almost brutal to have to bellow her answers through the thick steel door when every shout made Rina’s body start.

The ambulances were gone now, but the children’s barrack was still closed off. Powerful projection lights made the snow glitter, and technicians were busy picking up glass shards and photographing footprints.

“We’ve got permission to use the director’s office,” said Veng. “Let’s get you inside where it’s nice and warm, all right?”

He was trying to be friendly, Nina told herself. It wasn’t reasonable to hate him just because he was young, rested and professionally kind.

The two women who waited in the director’s office were remarkably similar as far as height, weight, dress and hair color were concerned. Slender, blonde, well-dressed and well-groomed. In spite of what must have been a very rushed departure, Birgit had had time to put on both makeup and a freshly ironed white shirt. A fine gold chain ringed her still almost unwrinkled neck.

“Nina. Are you okay?”

Nina nodded. Birgit was actually okay. Most of the time.

“Please let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

The other woman, the Birgit clone, presented herself as Deputy
Chief Inspector Mona Heide. At least
her
white shirt didn’t look as if it had just come out of its cellophane wrapper. Her face didn’t either. In spite of the careful makeup, the exhaustion was evident.

“I’ll try to be brief,” she said. “But it’s important for us to find out as much as possible as quickly as possible.”

“Okay.”

“When did you first become aware that something was wrong?”

“I heard a crash. It must have been the gas grenade, or whatever it is they used, shattering the window.”

“And when was that?”

“Six minutes past twelve.”

Heide raised a well-plucked eyebrow. “You’re very precise.”

“I looked at my watch immediately after.” Nina didn’t think there was any reason to mention the OCD.

“Where were you?”

“By the coffee machine.”

“Not in the girl’s room?”

“No. But I had only been away for a few minutes.”

“What happened then?”

Nina explained her quick look in on the policemen, hurrying to Rina’s room, pressing the attack alarm, the clumsy flight to the walk-in.

“Why the walk-in?”

“It’s airtight. I was pretty sure there was gas.”

“And then?”

“And then he came in through the window in the lounge area.”

“You’re sure it was a man?”

“Yes.” She recalled her brief but definitive glimpse. “He was big—both tall and broad. Completely black, including his face—he must have been wearing some kind of mask or hood.”

“And it was just him?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Very sure. Listen, it wasn’t Natasha. I know what you’re thinking, but it wasn’t her. She’s a slight, slender girl. Smaller than I am—one meter sixty at the most, I would guess. And he was alone.”

Heide eyed her calmly. “People often perceive events in a distorted way in situations like this. Everything happens fast, it’s violent, you’re afraid … few people ever describe an attacker as small.”

“He
was
big.”

“Precisely where and for how long did you see him?”

“It was only a glimpse; I was busy trying to open the door to the walk-in. He was entering the cafeteria.”

The crunching of glass, Rina’s breathing, the sweet-and-sour taste in the mouth that was a mixture of adrenaline and gas. The figure behind them, a faceless monster with three shiny eyes …

Three eyes?

“I think … it looked to me as if he had three eyes.”

Veng and Heide exchanged a glance.

“Maybe he was using IR equipment,” said Veng. “Combined with a gas mask?”

Heide nodded. Nina noted that they had finally begun to say “he” and not “they” or “her.”

“Professionally done,” said Heide dryly. “If you can say that about a failed mission.”

“It wasn’t Natasha,” repeated Nina, just to make sure.

“I understand you’ve worked with the family for a few years?” said Veng.

Nina’s mind tripped over the “family” part. In her world, an isolated and traumatized girl with a dead father and a mother who was in prison wasn’t much of a family.

“Since they came here,” she said.

“What has Natasha told you about her life in Ukraine?”

“Nothing. She never talked about her background.”

“So you didn’t know that she was wanted in a criminal investigation there?”

“Of course not. I didn’t even know that she had a husband or that he was dead.”

“Did she have any confidantes here? Among the other inhabitants of the camp or in Denmark in general?”

“Not that I know of. She did get engaged and moved in with … Vestergaard.” At the last moment, she avoided calling him “that bastard” as she usually did. “The only other person I think she really spoke with was a neighbor. I don’t remember her name.”

“Anna Olesen?”

“Yes. That’s right. Neighbor Anna. That’s what Rina called her. I think she was kind to Rina while they lived there. At least I know that Rina liked her, and it usually takes her a long time to attach herself to a new person. I also got the impression that Anna was one of the few people Natasha trusted.”

“And you don’t know anyone else? Anyone from Ukraine, for example?”

“No.” She thought about it. “We have had other Ukrainians here, but I think … I think Natasha avoided them on purpose. It’s a little unusual; often they are very happy to have each other. Have the chance to speak their own language with someone who understands them.”

“Letters? Emails? Telephone contact?”

“I don’t know.” Nina considered. “If she was in contact with anyone while she was serving her sentence, then Vestre Prison must know. While she was here … Of course, Natasha spoke on the phone now and then, but I think it was mostly with Michael Vestergaard or perhaps with Anna. In English, at least, and in the bit of broken Danish she knew.”

“You haven’t heard her speaking Ukrainian with anyone?”

“I don’t think so. All I know is that she was terrified of being sent back. Most people here are, but with Natasha it was … unusually evident. And she was right to be afraid.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think it’s pretty obvious now. Someone is after Rina and her.”

Heide gave a little, irritated shake of her head, causing her gold earrings to dance. “Not much is obvious about this,” she said.

“We can at least agree that Rina is in danger,” said Nina. “What are you planning to do to protect her?”

Heide looked at her coolly. “It wasn’t the girl who was gassed,” she said. “It was the people trying to protect her. It appears as if it is pretty risky to stand between Natasha and her daughter.”

“Damn it. How many times do I need to say it?
It wasn’t Natasha.
”

Easy, easy, Nina told herself. She knew that swearing and yelling would not make this calmly collected woman listen any better to her—on the contrary.

“I think we’re done,” said the deputy chief inspector. “At least for now. If you remember other contacts Natasha may have had, we’d very much like to know, and we will naturally need to ask for a formal statement at some point.”

“So you’re not planning to do anything?”

“We have two colleagues in the hospital right now,” said Heide. “One of them is in critical condition. You may be sure that we are planning to ‘do something.’ ”

Nina’s stomach hurt. It was perfectly clear that Heide’s priority was the hunt for the gas man and Natasha—not Rina’s safety.

Veng had gotten up, a clear sign that Nina was supposed to do the same. He handed her a single sheet of paper. Nina glanced down at it automatically.

Victim support
, she read.
If you have been the victim of violence, rape, a break-in, robbery, an accident, etc., it is natural and completely normal if you experience reactions such as feelings of unreality or loss of control, the inability to act, hyperactivity, emptiness, memory loss, fear of being alone, fear of recurrence, stomach pain, an elevated heart rate, difficulty sleeping, nightmares, guilt, despair.

“They are very good,” he said. “And you are welcome to contact them.”

Nina snapped.

“What the hell makes you think,” she said in her most glacial voice, “that I am anybody’s
victim
?”

Natasha had parked the car in the forest on the other side of the camp this time. The view of the children’s barrack wasn’t quite as good—the depot shacks were in the way—but there were still searching figures with lights and dogs in the woods around her former hideout. The snow had finally stopped falling. It covered the roadblocks and the cars and created an almost unbroken surface between the fence and the barracks, more orange than white because of the sodium vapor in the camp’s streetlights. She couldn’t see Katerina or Nina anywhere. Of course not. It had to be at least at least ten degrees below zero, and it was only 4:30 in the morning. She rubbed her tired eyes. It was useless. Even if she did see Katerina, what was she going to do? Freezing to death was about the only thing she could accomplish by remaining here, if someone didn’t spot her and catch her first. It was unwise, but she couldn’t help herself.

When she realized that the nurse had saved Katerina from the Witch, Natasha had felt a relief and a gratitude so powerful that the darkness around her spun dizzyingly as if she had drunk too many of Robbie’s whiskey shots. The relief was still there, but the gratitude was receding. On the other side of the fence and the sodium lights and the police barricades, that skinny Danish woman was lying with her arms around Natasha’s child, and although she knew that it was neither reasonable nor sensible, Natasha had never for a second been as jealous of the women in Pavel’s life as
she was of Nina right now.

Y
OU
’
RE TOO CLINGY
with that child
, Pavel had said. He had imagined that they would go on vacation together, just the two of them, maybe to Krim, or why not abroad? Why not Berlin? He spoke the language; there was so much he could show her. Or Paris or London if she preferred.