Invisible Murder Read online

  Nina started her exploration in the room that had probably been the foreman’s office. The walls were bare with holes in them and faded areas in the paint where there used to be shelves. There were mattresses and sleeping bags here, too, maybe a couple had managed to win themselves a little privacy. Apart from that there was nothing. The same was true for the actual garage, if she ignored a pile of worn-out tires in one corner and a couple of rusty cans of paint and a container of motor oil sitting on a rickety shelf down by the far end. Nina tried to unscrew the lid off the motor oil, but it only budged reluctantly and greasy dirt and cobwebs fluttered down to the floor in clumps and flakes. It hadn’t been opened recently, and the spray cans of paint were also a nonstarter since the valves were so rusty that they couldn’t be pushed down. Nina continued toward the door next to the foreman’s office and the little kitchenette. It was still closed, but this time no one tried to prevent her from going in. She stepped into the small, dark room and turned on the fluorescent ceiling light. The window was wide open, and a couple of tattered, red curtains fluttered in the faint breeze. A bed frame with no mattress and a scratched, old laminate table were the only furniture in the room. The linoleum floor was worn to a thread, but clean, and there was the faint odor of dishwashing soap and chlorine. There was nothing to see.

  Nina returned to the boy and his mother. She wanted them out of here. She didn’t need to be an expert on poisoning to know that Allan was right—it was potentially hazardous for them to stay in this place.

  “Chemicals,” she said. “Poison. Dangerous for children.” She looked at the boy’s father and waved her hand at the interior of the garage. “You must go somewhere else.”

  The man shook his head.

  “No poison. We stay.”

  He wasn’t a tall man, Nina noticed. One of his shoulders drooped a little, and like his wife, he revealed a number of cavities in his teeth when he spoke. But there was a massive dignity in his refusal. Presumably he was well aware that the garage wasn’t the healthiest place in the world for a child. He may even already have had an inkling that it might be a contributing factor, but he had to reject her suggestion out of hand simply because he had nowhere else to go. Not without risking exposure and losing everything he had gambled when he decided to bring his family to Denmark this summer—the money for the trip, the rent they had already payed for this sorry place, and god knows what other expenses he might owe to people who did not deal kindly with debtors. He had to hope the illness would pass on its own—he had no other option.

  She took a deep breath and studied the boy. She would have to treat him as best she could for now and hope he improved over the next few hours. If not, she really would have to call an ambulance, no matter how much the parents protested. But she wouldn’t fight that particular battle until it was absolutely necessary.

  She pulled a saline drip out of her bag and kneeled down next to the sick boy. The light wasn’t good, but thankfully his mother helped by lifting the boy up and rotating him so she had better access. Nina found the vein in the soft crook of his elbow with her fingertips and hit it on her first try.

  A car door slammed in the parking lot outside.

  The boy’s mother cowered, casting a furtive, pleading glance at her husband, who was on her way over to them in long strides. Without a word he swept the boy up into his arms and carried the boy and the drip bag away in rapid, sturdy steps. The boy’s mother followed, and before Nina had a chance to react, someone shoved her adamantly in the back. The man standing behind her pointed meaningfully to the middle of the garage, where a couple of the other men had quickly and silently pulled one of the worn plywood boards to the side. The father helped his wife and child down into the inspection pit while one of the others ran over to the door and disappeared out into the parking lot. Nina could hear him talking to someone outside. She could only discern the occasional English word and had no idea what the conversation was about. The man next to her pointed into the inspection pit again and tugged at her arm impatiently. Nina pulled herself free in an irritated motion. She got it. For some reason or other, she and the children were supposed to hide, presumably just the way Peter had needed to. The voices outside had moved closer now, and Nina walked over to the edge and hopped down to the bottom of the inspection pit on her own.

  She stepped on something soft that moved, looked down and discovered the sick boy’s mother, who was already sitting on the sunken floor with the boy in her arms. She cradled the hand Nina had stepped on for a brief moment, then moved deeper into the pit to make room for Nina. The rest of the children from the garage followed in quick succession, and Nina tried automatically to receive the small bodies as they were lifted down to her one by one.

  The board was pushed back into place with a heavy, grating sound. The darkness was absolute. Nina could hear the children breathing softly and quickly, but no one said anything. They just sat and listened to the sound of heavy footsteps and voices from the world up above.

  Nina tried to calm her breathing. The whole thing had happened so quickly that she hadn’t had a chance to feel scared, but now she could feel her heart pounding fiercely. The pit she was sitting in was easily a meter and a half deep and only just wide enough that she could sit with her legs bent and her back up against the wall. The darkness around her felt dense and suffocating, and the smell of old motor oil tore at her nostrils. A small, warm body touched hers, and she pulled away, startled. But even here in the pulsing darkness, the children were still completely quiet. She got the distinct impression that they had done this before.

  The boy with the drip. She had to make sure the mother understood that the infusion bag needed to be held high so the flow wouldn’t be reversed. Nina crawled noiselessly on all fours past the sitting children toward the rear of the pit. It was slow going because apparently the ever-changing inhabitants of the garage had been using the inspection pit for trash disposal for a long time, and the floor was covered in rubble, paper bags, and old plastic bottles. The darkness was dense around her, but now she could make out gray cracks of light between the plywood boards overhead, and about halfway to the back, she finally found the boy’s mother, sitting in complete silence with the child in her arms.

  He was asleep. His soft breaths faltered a little each time as he breathed in, and he didn’t respond when she felt her way to the drip in his right arm. The IV tube was positioned correctly despite their rough and rapid retreat into the inspection pit, and Nina felt her way to the bag of saline which was in the woman’s lap—way too low. Nina crawled around to the other side and perched the bag on the woman’s shoulder so it was at least a little higher than the boy.

  It seemed as if the mother understood what Nina was trying to do. She lifted the bag in her outstretched arm and held it there, though it must be uncomfortable for her. Everything was still being done without a sound. Above them the boards groaned whenever someone walked over them, and Nina could hear voices. There was some kind of argument, but the sound was muffled and subdued, and she couldn’t understand what was being said.

  “Ápolónö.”

  Nina turned in the darkness toward the whispering voice. She had heard the man who had let her into the garage call her the same thing. Ápolónö, nurse. The woman’s voice was so soft and trembling that it almost disappeared in the darkness.

  “Rosszul. Sick. Why?”

  The woman flitted like a black shadow just a couple of hand-widths away. She moved nearer.

  “I don’t know,” Nina admitted.

  She tried to sound calm and soothing. She wanted the woman to shut up. She didn’t know what would happen if they were discovered, but something told her it wouldn’t be good.

  “Ápolónö!”

  The woman whispered again and was now so close that Nina could feel the warmth of her breath on her cheek. A thin, boney hand grabbed her arm.

  “Please, ápolónö. He die. Please. He die.”

  An image from one of the Coal-House Camp’s claustro
phobically small family rooms popped into Nina’s mind. Paracetamol to treat mortal fear, she thought. Paracetamol and a saline drip.

  “He’ll be fine. Nothing serious.”

  Nina tried to sound calm and cheerful and put a reassuring hand on the boy’s stomach. There was a multitude of reasons to fear death in the half-lit world of poverty in which these Roma lived. It was human and totally understandable. Still, Nina could feel the woman’s terror, the darkness, and the cramped space starting to close in around her. The woman’s gaunt hand rested heavily on hers and held on tight. Squeezing her fingers too hard and for too long.

  Nina twisted free and pulled away, away from the warm crush of human bodies. She crawled father back into the inspection pit, over heaps of trash, a broken bottle, nuts and bolts, old newspapers, and finally found a small patch of unused floor space all the way down by the wall at the far end. Beneath her sand grated against the concrete floor, and although the fine, small grains dug into the palms of her hands, it was better here.

  It had grown quiet up in the garage above them. A door slammed somewhere far away, and after a few minutes, the plywood boards were pulled aside. The light from the lone fluorescent tube fell down into the inspection pit and one by one the children were pulled up. The woman with the sick boy cast a quick glance into the darkness for Nina before she passed the boy up to his father and was herself helped up and out shortly thereafter. The men waved Nina toward the opening. “Come, ápolónö. Boss men gone. Is all OK now.”

  NINA STAYED AT the garage for a few hours.

  The boy improved on the saline solution and was awake long enough to eat a couple of crackers and drink half a bottle of juice. He was still pale as a corpse, and the bigger children were complaining of headaches. But all things considered Nina thought the situation was under relative control. She had even managed to clean the trash out of the inspection pit, although she had had to do most of the work herself; she had more luck getting the garage’s residents to help clean up the grounds, which she also insisted on. Maybe they didn’t want her hanging around outside too much; they obviously thought it were best if no one found out she was here.

  “Don’t let the children play where the garbage is,” she said, miming and pointing. “Don’t let them put things in their mouths.” She wrote her mobile number on a piece of paper for the boy’s mother. “Call me if he is still sick tomorrow, okay? I have to go now.”

  She tried to get the woman to look her in the eye, but whatever connection there might have been between the two of them earlier was gone. The boy’s parents had had a big argument about something, and ever since, the mother had just sat there with the child in her lap, whispering into his soft, dark hair, a low-pitched stream of words that seemed more complaint than comfort.

  Nina stood there holding out the slip of paper for several seconds. She felt her old irritation welling up again. Why was it so hard to help these people? They were treating her as a stranger once more, someone to be eyed with mistrust. But just as she was starting to think she would have to leave the note on the ground, the woman took it after all, in a quick, snatching motion, and stuffed it in the pocket of her fleece jacket.

  HERE WAS A kind of Internet café on the ferry to Denmark. Or a computer, at any rate. It had been crammed into a minute glass enclosure that served as a business lounge, and Sándor sat down with the sense of being in forbidden territory. Lord knows there wasn’t much about him right now that was business class. It had taken them two days to hobble their way north through Germany—with a radiator that was being kept artificially alive by Wondarweld cylinder block sealant and frequently adding water—and that had been more than his scant travel wardrobe had been prepared for. He was wearing a pair of recycled underpants that he had been forced to wash in a gas station restroom outside of Teupitz. Under his shirt he was itching incessantly, possibly because of the hair that was growing back after the shaving binge caused by his exam nerves. At any rate, he hoped that was all it was.

  He was so tired that at first he couldn’t remember the password for his webmail. Eventually he turned off his mind, hoping his fingers would remember better than his brain cells.

  There was a long e-mail from Lujza. Even though he didn’t know how much time he would have before he got kicked out or the ferry docked, he couldn’t help but read it. Dearest Sándor, I don’t know what’s going on in your life, and you won’t tell me, it began. And then it continued with an in-depth description of her feelings, her confusion and powerlessness, her anger at being shut out. And worst of all: the feeling of betrayal she was left with because you haven’t let me get to know you. The conclusion was, of course, unavoidable. Lujza wasn’t the let’s-just-be-friends type, nor was she the kind who dabbled in restrained platitudes like “It’s not you, it’s me.” I don’t think I have the strength to love someone who hasn’t got the courage to be himself, she wrote. And I can’t be with you without loving you. I would have rather said this to your face, but you didn’t give me that chance. And then just: Goodbye. No affectionate greeting, no hopes for the future, no cracks in the wall of her rejection.

  His whole body was trembling. He didn’t know why it came as such a shock, since he knew very well that he had done it to himself, that he was the one who had severed his ties to her and not the other way around. Suddenly he missed her scent, her hands, the heat of her body, missed her so much he felt hollow inside. Even missed the frightening feeling of being carried along when she latched onto some preposterous cause, sinking her teeth into it and shaking it half to death. But how could he go back? Even if he found Tamás now, got the money one way or another, if he made it back to Budapest again … he still wouldn’t be going back to the same life.

  He scrolled down through the list of messages in his inbox until he got to one from tamas49 at a Hotmail address. The e-mail was longer than the text messages and just as desperate.

  Phrala, I don’t know if you will help me. Maybe, maybe not. But you will help Mom and the girls, won’t you? It’s for them, all of this. I would do it myself if I could, but I’m sicker than a dog. I can’t stand. Having trouble seeing. Don’t respond, just come. I’ll try to hide my phone once I’m done writing this message, but if they find it and you have responded, then they might see what you write. I don’t trust them. I only trust you. Write this down and delete the message. You’ll find out the rest when you get here.

  There was an address and some columns of numbers. One column was dates, he was pretty sure, but he didn’t know what to make of the second. Phone numbers, maybe? They looked a little short, only eight digits. But they must be phone numbers after all because Tamás had added underneath: Only texts, no calls. Hurry.

  Someone had courteously provided a little notepad and a pen with the ferry company’s logo next to the computer. Sándor wrote down both the address and the series of numbers. He checked to make sure he had it right and then obediently deleted the e-mail. I can’t stand. Having trouble seeing. Tamás, what the hell is wrong with you? And who are “they”? Who don’t you trust?

  He sat for a while staring at the pale gray computer screen. He had to find Tamás now, as quickly as possible.

  “The ferry will be docking in a few moments. We kindly ask passengers to return to the car deck.…”

  Sándor stuck the slip of paper in his jacket pocket and stood up.

  DOWNSTAIRS IN THE car deck, the driver was standing with one foot on the bottom step of the bus, forcing Sándor to edge past him to get back on again. While he still had one foot on the briny and slippery oil-spattered deck, the man suddenly shifted forward, trapping Sándor against the door.

  “Your card,” he said.

  It took Sándor a second to understand what he meant. It felt like several weeks since he had stood on the highway ramp outside Schwartzheide and stolen his own Visa card from another man’s pocket. But now apparently the driver had discovered his “theft.”

  “But it’s my card.”

  “Did you go to t
he duty free shop on the ferry?”

  “No.…” Sándor said, confused.

  The driver stuck his hands into Sándor’s pockets, both his jacket and his trousers, frisking him like a nosy customs agent. “What are you doing?” Sándor protested.

  “What do you think? If even one of us smuggles so much as a carton of cigarettes, they’ll detain the whole bus. And believe me, they’re going to check us. Thoroughly, if you catch my drift. People like us, we always get checked.”

  It hadn’t occurred to Sándor that the reason the driver had confiscated their credit cards was that he had to maintain this kind of discipline. Sándor stood passively as the man patted him down, running his hands inside his waistband and then sliding them down his thighs. He just hoped they were far enough inside the bus that this humiliation wasn’t providing a moment of entertainment for all the other ferry passengers. Finally the driver loaded everything he had found—a handkerchief, wallet, comb, the slip of paper with Tamás’s numbers on it, the Morgan Kane book he was currently rereading—back into Sándor’s arms.

  “OK,” he said. “But when it’s time to go back, I’m going to need your card again. Are you coming?”

  Sándor nodded, stuffing his possessions back into his various pockets. Just at that moment, the bow doors began to slide open, and the driver hurried to take his seat and get his ailing bus started.

  “When will we be in Copenhagen?” Sándor asked.

  “In an hour and a half, if I can get this rust bucket going. If not it might be faster to walk.”

  “Is Valby close to Copenhagen?” That was the name of the town in the address Tamás had given him.

  “It’s in Copenhagen, dimwit. That’s where we’re going. Go get in your seat, and shut the fuck up.”

  HWACK!

  Nina aimed a quick, precise blow at the vicious little gnat that had been hounding her for the past thirty seconds. First it had gone for the back of her neck, then it had changed tactics and tried her lips, eyes, and ears. Now it was smeared across her bare shoulder, a small disgusting streak of blood. She brushed the worst of it away and looked around at the crowd of happy people with the growing sense that she had landed on some alien planet. Class 2A’s first big overnight field trip. When Nina was a kid, that kind of thing was between the kids and the school. These days the parents were supposed to come along to “get to know each other.” And that was just one horror on a long list of social activities requiring creative costumes, fake smiles, and liters of mediocre coffee. Thank god the school year was drawing to an end; she was completely and utterly fed-up. But here they were, in one final binge of get-togetherness, in an old Boy Scout cabin near Solrød Beach, and everything was exactly the way she had pictured it. It was dark and dank and smelled of damp wood and sweaty feet. The kitchen was a grease pit, and a quick glance at the sleeping facilities revealed that, just as she had feared, everyone was supposed to sleep in one common bunkroom, which meant getting a whole lot better acquainted with the other parents than she was prepared to. The fact that she had had a pounding headache ever since she returned from Valby the previous evening did nothing to improve her mood. She had taken a cocktail of aspirin with codeine and Paracetamol that usually worked for most kinds of pain, but without much success so far. The low evening sun pierced her eyes, and invisible knives stabbed into her temples every time she turned her head toward the light.