Invisible Murder (Nina Borg #2) (9 page)

Nina shook her head. Morten put his arms around her and pulled her to him so her shoulders pressed against his chest. He was so tall that his chin rested naturally on top of her head, and it gave her a feeling of being tugged inside a big, friendly fur coat. He bent to give her a fleeting kiss on the back of her neck before he let her go and once again directed his attention to the piles on the bed.

“I lent it to Anton, so it could be anywhere.”

Nina nodded. Anton scattered things throughout the apartment—and everywhere else, too—pretty much at random. In many ways it was like living with an eight-year-old Alzheimer’s patient. Or maybe just with an eight-year-old, Nina corrected herself.

Morten began the process of transferring the piles into the duffel bags.
He was working quickly and methodically now. He put his phone, train pass, and wallet in his jacket pocket, and that was pretty much it.

Nina felt the dull ache of longing already. It was her fault he had had to take this inconvenient job in the first place. It was all he had been able to get at short notice, and it would take time for him to work his way up from being an itinerant mud logger to a more family-friendly Copenhagen-based job. She hated it, and Morten probably did, too, although he was far too polite to complain about it to her face. Working on the rigs was a cross he had chosen to bear, like he bore everything else life had asked of him, or more accurately, everything else that Nina had put him through. Shaken, not stirred. James Bond-style.

“When are you leaving, Dad?”

Ida was standing in the bedroom doorway with an open book in her hand. She was reading
The Lord of the Rings
and had been discussing it with Morten as if she had personally invented the universe, or at least been the one to discover the books. The film version had, of course, been part of her classmates’ stable diet since they were Anton’s age.

Ida would say things like, “I’m not sure about Tolkien’s view of women,” and Morten would listen to her and answer her without batting an eyelid, never letting on that she had seized on the stalest of topics in one of the most endlessly debated books in the galaxy. James Bond teaching Literature. Nina was profoundly envious.

“I’m off in a minute,” Morten said, casting a quick glance at his watch, “but call me on the train, and we can say goodnight.”

Ida smiled, and planted a quick kiss on her father’s cheek. She was wearing scent of some kind, Nina realized. Something sweet and a little too heavy.

“Keep your fingers crossed for my hockey match,” she said. Then she waved and vanished back into her bedroom without even giving Nina a glance. The sound of muffled music seeped out into the hallway and on into their bedroom, and Nina knew she wouldn’t be seeing any more of Ida tonight.

Morten didn’t seem to have noticed any of this. He was leaning toward her so she could feel the warmth from his body.

“We still have our deal, right?” he asked softly.

Nina nodded. Their deal. Their Big, Important Deal. No underground work for the Network while Morten was away. She hoped no one from
the ever-changing flock of illegal immigrants that Peter from the Network took under his wing would break an arm or a leg or come down with symptoms of appendicitis in the next fortnight.

“Of course,” she said.

“And remember.…” Morten whispered, pulling Nina in tight against him and kissing her mischievously on the nose. Feeling patronized, Nina wrapped her arms around his neck and stood with her nose right up against his throat.

“Remember
you’re
driving the girls to roller hockey on Wednesday. It’s our turn.”

Nina nodded quickly. Roller hockey was one of the few of Ida’s activities Nina was still allowed to attend. Maybe more out of necessity than desire on Ida’s part, but Nina had to take what she could get. Morten gently maneuvered his way out of her arms and went to say goodbye to Anton.

N
INA STOOD THERE
for a moment in the hallway, listening to his light, energetic steps descending the stairs. Then she turned around and went back to the kitchen. Ida had turned up her music, and a significant amount of bass penetrated the wall, reaching Nina and the chaotic kitchen table that still hadn’t been cleared. Anton had brushed his teeth and was in bed in his room with a comic book and his bedside light on, and Nina suddenly felt utterly miserable. Alone.

Two weeks, she thought, glancing at the calendar. Come on. The world won’t fall apart in two weeks.

ÁNDOR HAD HIS
half of the window wide open, but it didn’t seem to do much good. There was hardly any draft, just lots of construction dust and street noise. He had taken off his shirt and trousers and was sitting on his bed in just his underwear, studying. Sweat trickled down his chest from his armpits, and the paper stuck damply to his fingers every time he turned a page.

He had left his door ajar to admit at least a trickle of cross ventilation; to Ferenc, that was obviously an invitation.

“When’s your big exam?” Ferenc asked.

“Thursday.” Sándor was hit by a surge of nerves at the mere thought. But he had it under control, he told himself. He knew his stuff. He just needed to take another look at—

His thoughts were interrupted when Ferenc suddenly grabbed hold of him. “Good. We of the Sándor Liberation Committee have officially nominated you the best-prepared student in the history of this university. And we’ve also decided that it’s high time we intervene to prevent your body’s ability to metabolize alcohol from atrophying completely. Put some clothes on, pal.”

Sándor found himself standing in the middle of his room, still wearing only his underwear and desperately clutching
Blackstone’s International Law
.

“Knock it off, Ferenc. I can’t—”

“I’m afraid the Committee’s decision cannot be appealed. Please don’t force us to resort to violence.”

Ferenc wasn’t alone. Out in the hallway stood Henk, a Dutch exchange student who was studying music like Ferenc, and Mihály, who was in Sándor’s class. And also Lujza.

Ferenc threw Sándor’s trousers in his face.

“Here. Hop to it, or you’re going as you are.”

Sándor’s whole body was stiff with passive resistance. It’s just for fun, he told himself, relax. But he couldn’t force the appropriate you-guys-are-crazy grin onto his face, and his lack of response gradually caused the others’ broad smiles to fade.

“Come on, Sándor,” Ferenc said.

He finally “hopped to it,” as Ferenc put it. He could move again. He set
Blackstone
on his desk and then balanced awkwardly on one foot while he tried to stuff his other foot into his chinos.

“You guys are crazy,” Sándor grumbled, and their smiles returned.

Ferenc patted him on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit,” he said in the fake British accent he was cultivating because it went so well with his Hugh Grant style. Lujza smiled at Sándor, candidly and warmly like in the old days before the baptism.

I can always get up extra early tomorrow, Sándor promised himself. After all, he
was
better prepped than anyone else he knew.

W
HEN THEY GOT
downstairs, there was a police car parked across the street from them. Two officers were just getting out.

Sándor was trying to close the defective front door without much luck. The others stopped to wait for him.

“Just leave it,” Ferenc said. “In five minutes someone else will come out, and then it’ll be wide open again.”

Sándor gave up. When he turned around, the two police officers were a few meters away. The older one, a muscular man whose light-blue uniform shirt had big sweat stains under his arms, checked a printout he had in his hand.

“Does a Sándor Horváth live here?” he asked.

Sándor froze. The other four also suddenly went still, their laughter faded, their faces stiffened.

“What seems to be the problem, officer?” Ferenc asked politely.

“That’s him,” the other officer said, pointing at Sándor.

“Turn around,” the first one said sharply. “Hands up against the wall. Now!”

When Sándor didn’t move, remaining rigid and mute, they grabbed his arm, spun him around, pushed him up against the wall, and kicked at
his ankles until he was leaning against the sun-baked bricks at an angle. If he moved his hands, he would fall over. They frisked him quickly and matter-of-factly.

“What are you doing?” Lujza yelled at them. “Let him go! What is it you think he did?”

“None of your business, little lady,” the one with the sweat stains replied.

“You can’t just.…” Lujza yelled. “Stop!”

Sándor couldn’t see her. He couldn’t see anything except a couple of square meters of crumbling sidewalk and the drop of sweat that was trickling down his nose.

“Sándor,” Mihály said suddenly. “You ask them. If you ask, they have to answer.
The detainee must be informed of the charges
and all that.”

But Sándor couldn’t say a thing. His tongue was just a lump of flesh, his jaw was so tight he might as well have had lockjaw. The officers cuffed his wrists with plastic cable ties and bundled him across the street and into their squad car. He didn’t put up any resistance.

“Sándor!” Of course it was Lujza who was yelling. “We’ll file a complaint. Don’t let them do this to you. There must be someone we can complain to.…”

“Call 1-475-7100,” the older of the two officers said placidly. “It’s toll-free.”

O
NCE WHEN HIS
stepfather Elvis went to record a CD with a band called Chavale, Sándor had been allowed to tag along. That was back when they were playing enough gigs to actually earn a little money, and his stepfather still believed firmly in his Big Break, as he called it. It was also before Tamás was born, so his stepfather would sometimes take him places without referring to him as “Valeria’s kid from before we got married.” Sándor could still remember the feeling of sitting quiet as a mouse on a chair that could spin around, but squeaked when you did it, so you couldn’t. He could remember the men’s concentration and laughter, the smell of their cigarettes, the multitude of buttons on the mixing board, and the pane of glass between the studio and the recording equipment.

The memory popped into his head now because the room they put him in reminded him of that studio. The gray, insulated walls, the pane of glass facing the hallway, and then of course the fact that they were recording everything he said.

“Where were you born, Sándor?” said the man who had introduced himself only as Gábor.

“Galbeno. It’s a village near Miskolc.”

“And your parents?”

Did he mean who were they or where were they born? Sándor’s brain felt as thick as porridge.

“My father was born in Miskolc.”

“Name?”

“Gusztáv Horváth. He’s dead now.” Gusztáv Horváth had keeled over in front of twenty-seven dumbstruck physics students at the Béla Uitz School on a warm day in September almost three years ago.

“And your mother?”

There was that stiffness in his jaws again, as if all his chewing muscles were in spasms. He was having a hard time opening his mouth, and every last bit of spit had evaporated. He didn’t dare lie. This was the NBH.
Nemzetbiztonsági Hivatal
, Hungary’s National Security Service. These days, they might have a fancy home page and a press secretary and even several ombudsmen who were supposed to keep tabs on things and ensure openness and protect the legal rights of the individual, but they were still the NBH.

“Ágnes Horváth.”

The man whose name might be Gábor sat quietly, calmly, and expectantly, and the silence somehow forced Sándor to add the correction. “Or … well, she’s my stepmother.”

Gábor didn’t reveal in any way whether he was satisfied or dissatisfied with the response. He was still waiting. A man in his late forties with light, amber-colored eyes and graying, short-cropped dark hair. Shirt and tie. Strong, rounded shoulders, neck slightly too thick. His broad, calm face was almost gentle, and it wasn’t physical violence that Sándor feared. This was not a man who would push people’s heads into water-logged plastic bags.

“My biological mother’s name is Valeria Rézmüves.” The words tumbled out of his mouth one by one, oddly disjointed. It sound like one of those computerized phone voices, he thought.
You have. Selected. Zero four. Zero eight. Nineteen. Eight five
.

“Gypsy?”

“Yes.”

Rézmüves was a typical Roma name, so it didn’t take any secret archives or supernatural abilities to guess that. Still, Sándor felt exposed. Poorer by one secret.

There’s no reason for people to know about that, Ágnes always said. You’re mine now. That other thing—we don’t talk about that. Do you understand?

He wasn’t even nine yet, but he had already learned that silence was the only reasonably safe response, so he didn’t say anything. And she had just nodded, as if that was precisely what she wanted from him. A child who could keep his mouth shut.

Gábor stood up.