The Boy in the Suitcase

by Lene Kaaberbøl

  “Bloody hell, Sigita. It’s your autistic head that’s keeping track of everything. I just pony up when you tell me to.”

  Normally, she would be able to remember. Normally she would know if even a single litas was missing.

  “Besides, you’re making him sound like a gangster. He isn’t.”

  “But he knows people who are,” she said stubbornly. In the river below the steps, a black plastic garbage bag was floating past, buoyed up by the air trapped inside. For one horrible moment all Sigita could think about was that it was large enough to contain a dead child.

  “Look, Sigita. I’m really sorry your boy has disappeared, but Dobrovolskij can’t possibly be involved. For God’s sake, don’t get him mixed up in this.”

  She didn’t say goodbye. She barely managed to turn off the mobile before her abdomen contracted, and she threw up orange juice and warm stomach acids all over her skirt and bare legs.

  NINA TURNED JUST quickly enough to see the boy’s shadow disappear from the doorway. She heard the rapid patter of his bare feet through the living room, then the creak of a door. Her own legs were momentarily paralyzed by a hot, melting sensation, and when she finally managed to move, her ankles and knees wobbled dangerously.

  A couple of long strides took her through the door, and then into the kitchen. Out of the window above the sink she saw his flaxen head bobbing past in the darkness; he was running away. She continued her wobbly flight through the hallway and out onto the veranda. In the humid air outside, her face and throat felt flushed and pulsing with heat.

  The black pines in the plantation behind the house were blurred by mist; she couldn’t see the boy anywhere, but she heard the snapping of branches as he fled among the trees. Following the sound, she took off at the fastest run she could manage.

  Pine boughs whipped against her face, and the tall, dry grass at the forest’s edge was a rustling, prickly barrier, impeding her steps. Fortunately, she could now see the boy’s white hair like a will-o’-the-wisp among the black tree trunks in the gathering darkness. She was closing in on him.

  She ducked the low branches as best she could, then had to veer sharply to one side to avoid the bristling remnants of a fallen tree. Her right ankle protested, but she did manage a second burst of speed. She snatched at the boy’s shoulder, but lost her grip again, and he stumbled on. Her next attempt was more succesful. She caught his arm and clung to it, forcing him to stop.

  Wordlessly, she pulled him down onto the mossy grass and closed her arms around him. Under the twisted T-shirt, his heart was beating fast and hard against his bared ribs, and his breath was a hot flush against her neck.

  Then she heard it.

  It might have been a completely insignficant sound. A faint click, as of a door being cautiously closed, somewhere in the summer night. The sound could come from any of the other cottages skirting the forest’s edge, thought Nina, as she inched backwards into deeper cover, pulling the boy with her. She could no longer see Karin’s cousin’s cottage, but at the end of the winding drive her own red Fiat was perfectly visible.

  More sounds. Footsteps, this time, and a rustling as if someone was moving through tall, dry grass. Nina saw the man from the railway station in her mind’s eye. The pale, narrowed eyes, the tense jaw, the ferocity of the kicks he aimed at the busted locker.

  Had he found Karin and unleashed that fury in her?

  Nina looked at her watch.

  8:36.

  Her watch was usually 29 seconds slower than the more accurate time given by her mobile. For some reason she hadn’t corrected that imprecision. She rather liked having to figure out what time it really was.

  She hugged the boy tight against her chest. His little warm body was twitching, small jerks of protest, but he made no sound. Did he understand the need for silence, or was it merely traumatized resignation?

  She listened again, but the rustle of the footsteps, if that was what they were, had stopped. Should she call the police? She fumbled at the pockets of her jeans, first on the right, then on the left.

  No phone.

  She checked again, but knew it was futile. She had dropped it. Where and when, she had no idea.

  New little bursts of adrenalin exploded in her head. The phone had been her only line of contact to the real world—to Morten, to the network and her job, and now to the police. She was alone now. Completely alone with the boy.

  The crash of a door being slammed rang through the silence.

  Her heart gave a wild leap and raced even faster under her sweat-soaked T-shirt. She stumbled to her feet, still with the boy locked in her arms.

  And then she ran.

  The boy’s body was tense with resistance and difficult to manage, and she felt the extra weight now in her knees and ankles. She was getting older, she thought, too old to be fleeing with a child in her arms.

  Seconds later, she reached the Fiat and yanked open the door to the driver’s seat. She glanced up at the cottage through the foliage of the birches flanking the drive. She could see no signs of any human presence up there, and for a moment she began to doubt her senses. Had the footsteps really been footsteps? Or had it really just been the wind rustling the grass, or perhaps Mr. Kitty? Her phone. Should she go back and look for it? Did she dare? She felt an irrational urge to protect the still, unliving body in there, to guard it against… .

  Against what? It was too late. For Karin, everything was too late. Now Nina had to think of the boy, and of herself. Yet still she hesitated, child on her hip, as she peered through the dusty, dry leaves. Then she froze. A light had come on in the kitchen, and she saw someone move about in there. Then the dark form seemed to grow bigger as it approached the window, and for a moment, she saw the pale outline of a face.

  Nina practically threw the boy into the passenger seat. She thrust the key into the ignition with frantic haste, and the second the engine caught, she backed wildly down the lane, careening from one side of the road to the other. The long grass hissed against the sides of the car, and once, a stone or a root knocked against the undercarriage. The other cottages all had black, dark windows and empty drives. No help to be had there. Gravel from the road whipped up against the windscreen when she finally managed to turn the car around and continued, still at much too furious a speed, down the partially paved road towards the sea. It was only then she realized that she had forgotten to turn on the headlights.

  She had forgotten to turn on the lights, and the boy next to her had begun to scream so loudly that anyone would think she was trying to kill him.

  Nina forced a deep breath into her abdomen, slowed the car a fraction, and turned on the lights with a dry little click. The boy’s screaming softened into sobs, but he was now crouched on the floor of the car, his arms clutched around his head. And suddenly, amidst the soft, gurgling sobs, intelligible words began to form.

  “Mama. Noriu pas Mama!”

  Sweet Jesus, she thought. He has a mother somewhere.

  JAN HAD DECIDED to spend the night in the company’s downtown flat in Laksegade. This was mainly in order to avoid Anne. With her peculiar Anne-radar she had naturally spotted something wasn’t going quite according to plan, and right now he had to keep his distance from her, or she might realize just how much of a shambles the whole thing was. Besides, it would be much easier to deal with Karin without Anne somewhere in the vicinity.

  He bought a TV dinner in Magasin’s delicatessen and heated it in the microwave of the small kitchen. Karin’s betrayal still left a bitterness in his mouth. How he could be so wrong? But it would seem she was both less loyal and more mercenary than he would have guessed. At home, in her flat above the garage, he had found only two things worth noticing: the empty briefcase and a note announcing in bold letters, “I QUIT.”

  So that was gratitude for you. Normally, he was a better judge of whom to guard against, and whom to trust. And Karin had known what was at stake. Even now, he couldn’t quite rid himself of the feeling that it was all a misu
nderstandng. That once he got to talk to her, everything would work itself out.

  But the Lithuanian hadn’t called, which had to mean he hadn’t found her. Jan felt his stomach cramp at the thought of what this would do to him and his life. The chances that it would ever be normal again lessened with each hour that went by. He didn’t exactly have all the time in the world—didn’t she understand that?

  He made himself a cup of coffee and tried to watch the news, but he couldn’t concentrate. Perhaps he should go for a run in Kongens Have? But he hadn’t brought his running clothes or shoes, and although Magasin’s Men’s Department was just around the corner, he didn’t feel like another shopping expedition. He had already purchased a shirt and some underwear for tomorrow, the way he often did when he had been working so late that making the drive back to the house wasn’t practical.

  The flat was cramped as a coffin compared to the house, but there was something about it that he liked. His assistant, Marianne, had seen to the redecoration, and she had hit a note that made him feel comfortable here. Sort of a luxury version of a student’s digs. Old armchairs draped with pale rugs. Retro lamps she had found in flea markets. Seven different plates, rather than a single pattern, and equally unmatching coffee mugs. Marianne liked doing that kind of thing. “It needs personality,” she had said. “Or you might as well put people up in a hotel.” Perhaps the place reminded him of the small flat he had shared with his student friend Kristian, back when the world was new, when they both had dreams of becoming IT millionaires. Briefly, he wondered what Kristian was doing now. As far as he knew, Jan had been the only one to make the millionaire dream come true.

  What an absolutely bloody day. He stretched, and felt a twinge from the operation scar just above his hip. He scratched it reflexively. What the hell was the Lithuanian doing? And what the hell was Karin thinking?

  Suddenly, the door phone buzzed aggressively. Jan set the mug on the worktop and went to press the button.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Inger.”

  A fraction of a second ticked by before he realized which Inger. His mother-in-law.

  “Inger,” he said, trying to put a smile into his voice. “Come in!”

  She was slim and fair like Anne, exactly the same figure. Right now she was wearing one of her bright African dresses, her bare, tanned arms sporting four or five carved ebony bracelets. This was the sort of thing Inger could carry off—making something like that look exactly right.

  “Anne said you were here,” she said. “So I thought I would seize the moment.”

  “What a lovely surprise,” said Jan. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “No thank you,” she said. “I just want to talk to you.”

  “Oh dear,” he said, trying for a humorous note. “What have I done now?”

  She didn’t buy his attempt at levity.

  “Anne is upset,” she said.

  “Did she say that?”

  “Of course not. Anne is Anne. She would never say a thing like that. But something isn’t right with her, and I am asking you now. Is it Aleksander?”

  His heart pounded madly.

  “No, no,” he said. “That’s all been taken care of.”

  She looked at him directly. Her eyes weren’t quite as blue as Anne’s were; there was more gray in them.

  “What, then?” she asked. “Is there something wrong between the two of you?”

  His smile felt as if it were glued to his face, and he was sure the lack of naturalness was showing. Why could he never do things right? He admired Inger. She was a wonderful woman, feminine and strong at the same time, just the sort of soulmate a man like Keld deserved. He so wanted her to like him.

  “I would never hurt Anne,” he said.

  Her eyebrows shot up.

  “No,” she said. “I didn’t think you would. But that wasn’t the question I asked.”

  Wrong again. Sometimes he felt as if there were a little man inside his head with one of those ear-splitting buzzers they used on quiz shows whenever a contestant got it wrong.

  “Then I’m not sure I know what you mean,” he said. “We’re fine.”

  She sighed. Shook her head.

  “Do you know,” she said. “I don’t think so.” She got up, hitching the strap from her stylishly fringed handbag onto one bare shoulder.

  “Are you leaving already?” he said.

  “There doesn’t seem to be much point in staying,” she said, and again, he had the feeling that he had failed some test he didn’t really understand.

  “Have you talked to Keld about this?” he burst out.

  Again, she gave him one of those very direct, gray-blue looks. She shook her head once more, but he wasn’t certain it meant no. What if she had been sitting out there in the Taarbæk villa, discussing it with Keld, in the conservatory, perhaps, over a glass of late evening wine and some really good cheese, talking about him, about him and Anne and their marriage, wondering if everything were the way it should be … his stomach became a small, rocksolid lump at the thought.

  “Goodnight,” she said. “I hope you work it out.” She put a hand on his arm for a moment before she left, and he was pretty sure that there was pity in her glance.

  He stood by the window, watching her walk down the street. From the rear, she could still pass for a young woman, her stride full of energy and grace, her feet turned slightly out. Once, she had laughingly told him she had been a ballet child for three whole years before they kicked her out. “And you never stop walking like a duck after that.” She still took some kind of dancing class in the evenings.

  He discovered he was shaking all over. Stop it, he told himself. In a little while, the Lithuanian will call. He will have found Karin. And there is still time. It will all be fine.

  Just before midnight, the phone rang, but it wasn’t the Nokia. It was Anne, on his personal mobile.

  “The police have been here,” she said, and he could hear the fragile cracks in her voice. “They say that Karin is dead.”

  THE DOBROVOLSKIJS WERE Russian, but not from the Soviet era. The family had lived in Vilnius for more than a hundred years, and old man Dobrovolskij himself, the present patriarch, still inhabited one of the old wooden mansions behind Znamenskaya, the Orthodox Church of the Apparition of the Holy Mother of God. Sigita had been there once before, with Algirdas, and they had been served black Russian tea on the porch, in tall glasses so gilded that they were only barely transparent.

  Sigita paused by the garden gate, suddenly indecisive. Now that she was actually here, it was hard to imagine that the Dobrovolskijs could be holding Mikas somewhere in that beautiful, freshly painted house. And there was no silver Cayenne parked by the curb.

  If Dobrovolskij had anything to do with this, he wouldn’t do it here. Not in his childhood home, so close to the Church its huge silvery dome could be seen through the treetops. Where others tore down the old wooden houses and built modern brick monstrosities as soon as they came into money, Dobrovolskij had instead carefully renovated. The delicately carved trimmings shone with fresh yellow paint, the intricate window frames and shutters likewise; and though there might still be a well in the garden outside, it was for decorative purposes only. Sigita knew for a fact that there were three shiny new bathrooms in the house—that had been part of the agreement between Janus Construction and the old man.

  She had stood there long enough to be noticed. The white lace curtain in one window twitched, and a little later a young darkhaired girl came out onto the porch.

  “Mrs. Dobrovolskaja is asking whether there is anything we can do for you?” she said, her Lithuanian heavily accented. Her slim, girlish figure was dressed in a white T-shirt and a pair of black Calvin Kleins, and Sigita guessed her to be some kind of Russian relative, or perhaps an au pair. Or both.

  Sigita cleared her throat.

  “I’m sorry. This may sound odd. But do you know if Pavel Dobrovolskij still owns a silver Porsche Cayenne?”

&nbs
p; “Has something happened?” The girl focused on Sigita’s plaster cast. “An accident? Is he all right?”

  “No, nothing has happened … or, not in that way. I had a fall on the stairs.”

  “Is it broken?”

  “Yes.”

  “What a pity. I hope it will soon be new again.” She smiled awkwardly. “Forgive me. My Lithuanian is not yet very good. I am Anna, Pavel’s fiancée. How do you know Pavel?”

  “It’s really more my boss who knows him. Algirdas Janusevičius. They do projects together from time to time. My name is Sigita.”

  They shook hands.

  “The Porsche?” said Sigita. “He still has it?”

  Anna smiled.

  “He’s trying to sell it. He calls it an elephant. But no one has bought it yet. If you’re interested, you can see it in Super Auto’s showroom in Pusu gatvė. It’s only two blocks from here.”

  THE PORCHE CAYENNE stood proudly in the best window at Super Auto, behind bars and armored glass, and without license plates. A price sticker announced that Sigita could become the happy owner of this vehicle if only she were willing to pay six years’ wages for it. Algirdas had been right, thought Sigita miserably. There was absolutely no evidence that Dobrovolskij had taken Mikas, or had anything to do with his disappearance.

  Not until she felt that straw break did she realize how hard she had been clinging to it. It had to be Dobrovolskij because Dobrovolskij was someone she knew, he had a face, she knew where he lived. If it was Dobrovolskij, Mikas would come back to her.

  But it wasn’t Dobrovolskij.