Invisible Murder (Nina Borg #2) (51 page)

“So you would prefer it if this mosque were … removed?” Important not to use words like “destroyed,” “blown to pieces,” or “contaminated.” Language mattered. He had to try to describe the act in such a way that she wouldn’t distance herself from it.

She shook her head all the same.

“Removed? No, where did you get that idea from? That would ruin everything.”

Søren was too professional to let her see how astonished he was. But it took an act of iron will.

“How would it ruin the whole thing?” he asked neutrally.

“Well, it just wouldn’t have worked then.”

“So you didn’t intend to.…” Oh, now there was no avoiding it. “It was not your intention to blow up the mosque?” That would explain why they hadn’t found any trace of explosives, either at the house on Elmehøjvej or around the cultural center.

She looked indignant.

“Blow it up? Of course not. Why in God’s name would I want to do that? What do you take me for? A criminal?”

And then she told him what she had actually planned to do.

A
S SØREN CYCLED
back from Bispebjerg Hospital, he had an almost irresistible desire to lie in a woman’s arms. Not necessarily to have sex, although that might be nice, too. But to lie next to a warm, receptive body, to talk to a person who was lying so close to him that he could smell her breath, her sweat, her hair and skin. To rest his face in the hollow between her shoulder and her breast and feel her softness and warmth.

There just wasn’t anyone.

Susse was the closest he came, right now. But she was with Ben at some concert in Randers, and besides he couldn’t tell her anything of significance about the case, though much would surely come out later during the trial.

He cycled back to his office in Søborg, even though the Skou-Larsen interview was supposed to have been his last stop for the day. Going home to Hvidovre, to an empty house, a beer, and a microwave dinner from the freezer … no. Not now. Not today.

Torben was heading out to his Audi when Søren turned into the parking lot. He kicked his feet out of the toe clips and dismounted, hot and sweaty because he had ridden as fast as traffic had permitted, but not winded. Maybe he ought to just head down to the fitness room and run his brains out on the treadmill so he could quit thinking about women and emptiness and sources of radioactivity at least for as long as he could keep his pulse up around 190 BPM.

“Well?” Torben asked, turning his back on the Audi for a bit. “How did it go?”

“She was willing to cooperate up to a point. And it looks like she was acting completely on her own. Obviously we should run her through it a
few more times once she is up to slightly longer sessions, but I didn’t get the impression that she was hiding anything.”

“No ties to extremists, no accomplices, no conspiracies?”

“Doesn’t look that way. And I think we should be letting young Mr. Horváth go home soon. Her story supports his. She was actually dealing only with Tamás Rézmüves, his half-brother. Sándor was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Well,
we
can certainly release him,” Torben said. “The question is whether the NBH will.”

“Gábor seemed like a pretty reasonable man. Couldn’t you put in a good word?”

Torben raised his eyebrows. “How did Sándor Horváth manage to win you over into his corner?”

“I just don’t think there’s any reason to ruin his life further.”

Torben studied him for a moment. Then he said, “Okay. I’ll talk to Gábor. That is if you’re sure Mrs. Skou-Larsen’s explanation is credible.”

“As I said, I’d really like to talk to her again. But I’m fairly certain it’ll bear up. She decided to procure some radioactive material over the Internet and install it in the hot water tank in the men’s lavatory in that mosque.”

“Did she say anything about why?”

“Yes.” Søren opened the neck of his anorak, to alleviate some of the sweating. “It wasn’t because she wanted to blow up anyone or anything. She was actually quite indignant when I suggested that. No, she just wanted to ensure that there wouldn’t be so many of ‘them.’ And the reproductive organs are among the first to be affected when someone is exposed to radiation.”

“Damn,” said Torben, his hand moving halfway down to his testicles in a protective gesture before he caught himself.

“Yup. She just wanted to quietly and calmly sterilize the entire population of Muslim men in the area.”

Torben shook his head. “People are crazy,” he said helplessly. “How on earth are we supposed to predict what all the nutcases of this world are going to come up with? Sometimes I wish my job were just solving crimes
after
they’ve been committed. Nice, clean, and simple. Weren’t you headed home?”

“Yes. I’m just going to go work out for a bit first.”

Torben gave him a quick, manly slap on the back. “You want to see if you can outrow me one of these days when the weather’s nice? Bring it on.”

Søren forced a smile. He definitely had a competitive streak, but sometimes he found it tiring that everything had to be an incessant pissing contest.

A
FTER HIS SIXTH
interval running on the treadmill’s 12 percent incline, he gave up. No matter how high he drove his pulse, he couldn’t stop thinking. Frustrated, he took off his sweaty clothes and stood under the faintly chlorine-scented jet of water in the shower room. He lathered up his armpits and crotch. Curled his fingers around his cock and scrotum, wondering at everything this one organ signified. It defined him as a man; it made him a lover; it could have made him a father if he had wanted that and hadn’t just backed away, forcing Susse to have her kids with another man.

It was completely unnecessary to sterilize him, he thought. He had managed that all on his own, with the choices he had made in his life.

In his mind’s eye, he once again saw Helle Skou-Larsen’s indignation when he had asked whether she were planning on blowing up the mosque. She did not believe in violence, she had said. She hadn’t been planning on killing anyone. What did she look like, a murderer?

Søren didn’t know what a murderer looked like anymore. And he supposed what she had wanted to commit wasn’t homicide, not in the standard sense. Just a quiet, invisible murder of the future.

INA WAS WAITING
for the night.

It was still light outside, even though it was almost 10 P.M., and she had been lying on the guest bed in the clinic for more than an hour. Since she got out of the taxi, actually, dragging her scant possessions with her. She had bought a sleeping bag. Underwear. Two pairs of jeans. Socks, shorts, and T-shirts. And a toothbrush, of course. It was important to bring a toothbrush to your new home. Magnus had said she could stay at the clinic until she found a place to live, and somehow Nina was thinking that wouldn’t happen right away. A new place to live meant something like an apartment. Maybe somewhere in Østerbro. Two bedrooms would suffice, surely. Then the kids could each have their own, and she could sleep in the living room when they were there. If they ever were. Anton would show up at regular intervals. Ida was less likely to. Nina had been granted permission to hug her one single time since their ordeal. Ida had wrapped both arms around Nina and cried into her neck, but she had also given her a look afterward that was completely different from her normal glare. For the first time in more than a year, it didn’t feel like Ida was mad at her, but more … sick of it all. Disappointed, maybe.

You promised her that as long as you were with her, nothing bad would happen to her, Nina thought. Now she knows that isn’t true. That her mother and father aren’t strong enough to protect her from everything in this world.

Apparently the war between them had been called off and replaced with something else. Nina just didn’t know what. But Ida hadn’t come to see her since.

Morten came to the hospital a few times with Anton and had dutifully asked about her broken rib and her radiation sickness and the long-term effects, and he had also smiled, probably for Anton’s sake, and talked a little about Anton’s school and how the parent-teacher meeting had gone. He had traded shifts so he didn’t need to go back to the North Sea until the summer vacation. He was thinking about looking for a new job, he had said. One where he wouldn’t be away from home for two weeks out of four. But for the time being, his sister was helping with the logistics, and they were lucky that his brother-in-law worked in Copenhagen, not far from Ida and Anton’s school.

They hadn’t discussed difficult issues like custody. Not yet. “That can wait until you’re well again,” he had said.

And now she was well. Or recovered, anyway.

Her body was symptom-free, but the doctors said she should still count on having more infections than normal. She should go to the doctor for regular checkups. And remember to take her pills.

The springs in the guest bed sagged noisily every time she rolled over. The sleeping bag she had just taken out of its plastic wrap was way too warm. North Field Arctic, rated for extreme, subzero temperatures. But the sun had been beating on the clinic’s south-facing windows all day, and the evening was muggy and still. She could hear young men yelling outside, drunk and aggressive.

Nina got up, pulled a shirt on over her underwear and stuck her feet into the loose shorts she’d bought at Kvickly. She left her sleeping bag where it was and walked down the long walkway to the children’s unit. In the security room, the night guard was sitting on the sofa sipping a cup of coffee and watching the ten o’clock news, with its endless scenes of violence and prophecies of doom. They were talking about terrorist threats and the melting polar icecaps and the global financial crisis. Nina snuck past without saying hello.

She found Rina in her room, all the way down at the end of the hall, wrapped up too warmly in the corner of her bed with her eyes closed, her breathing hot and fast. Sometimes she mumbled something or other and lashed out at something in the air. She was on medication now, Nina knew. She was sleeping better now. Nina opened the window facing the
lawn and stood there for a moment looking out into the twilight before she lay down next to Rina.

Nighttime was the worst time at the Coal-House Camp, because at night they were all alone in the dark.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An enormous thank you to the many people and organizations that generously gave their time and knowledge so that this book could be written:

Iringó Nemes

Orsolya Pánczél

Csilla Báder Lakatosné

Lajos Bangó

Magyarországi Roma Parlament, Budapest

Kata E. Fris

János Tódor

Szandra Váraljai

Amaro Drom and the residents of Csenyéte, Hungary

The Institute of Danish Culture in Kecskemét, Hungary

Laokoon Films, Budapest

Hans Jørgen Bonnichsen

Biljana Muncan

Knirke Egede

Hildegunn Brattvåg

Mary Lisa Jayaseelan and the Danish Refugee Council

Anne Karen Ursø and the Danish Red Cross

Christian Riewe

Kim Nielsen

Anita Frank

Lone-emilie Rasmussen

Hans Peter Hansen

Henrik Laier

Gustav Friis

Kirstine Friis

Anna Grue

Alex Uth

Mette Finderup

Lotte Krarup

Lars Ringhof

Bibs Carlsen

Erling Kaaberbøl

Eva Kaaberbøl

Berit Weeler

In addition, the two authors would both like to assert that any errors or oversights are exclusively the fault of the other.