Death of a Nightingale

The wind was picking up. A corner of the red tarp on the stable roof flapped wildly, and the snow blew like smoke from the ridge of the thatch, so that for one distorted second, Nina’s eyes insisted on telling her that the roof was on fire.

The light was on in the main house and in the courtyard, but otherwise the sky was dark, the pitch black that was a winter night in the country.

She gave the driver her credit card and blindly signed the receipt he handed her. He hadn’t been eager to come all the way out here, had cursed the weather and the driving conditions and the long trip back to town. But she had said something, she didn’t even remember what, that had made him to shut up and drive pretty abruptly. Now he was so eager to get out of the yard again that his wheels started to spin by the gable, and he had to let the car roll back a length before he could clear the little rise that led to the road.

The light came on in the hall, and the front door opened.

“Can I help you?” A small, slender silhouette stood in the lit square of the doorway.

“Anna?” said Nina. “It’s Nina Borg. I don’t know if you remember me.”

A moment passed. Then Anna Olesen took a step back so the light fell on her hair and face.

“The nurse,” she said. “You were here the night when Natasha …”

“Yes.”

“Come in.”

THE FIRE GLOWED behind the glass doors of the big white brick oven between the kitchen and the living room. Anna placed a Bodum glass mug in front of Nina.

“It’s tea,” she said. “I can make coffee too. But that’ll take a few minutes.”

“Tea is fine.”

Tea, coffee … Nina didn’t care. Her gaze wandered across the neat dining room table, the stove with two bubbling pots, preparations for dinner. For one or for two?

No Rina, anyway. Not here.

“I came to ask if you had seen Rina.”

Anna wrinkled her eyebrows. “Little Katerina? A man came to ask the same thing a little while ago. But why on earth would I have?”

“She has disappeared from … the camp.” At the last minute Nina chose to simplify the explanation. “And our only clue to where she might have gone is that she called here.”

“Here? When?”

“This morning. Between nine and ten.” Between 9:40 and 9:42, to be exact, but Nina had learned that people usually looked at her oddly when she gave the time down to the minute.

“I was probably still out with the dog then.”

“Who was the man? The one who asked for her?”

“One of the policemen searching Michael’s house. A DI somebody or other, I don’t recall his name. But why would Katerina call me? I haven’t seen her in … well, since then.”

“She’s had a couple of hard days. Maybe she needed to talk with someone who would understand her.” But that person couldn’t have been Anna, Nina thought suddenly, because Rina had spoken in Ukrainian. “You haven’t seen Natasha, have you?” she asked casually.

Anna pushed her reading glasses into her hair and smiled sarcastically. “My dear, I know that Natasha is wanted by every police authority in the entire country. If I was really hiding her in my leaky hayloft, do you think I would tell you? But you’re welcome to look.”

“No, no, it doesn’t matter.” If Natasha was here, it certainly wouldn’t be in the hayloft. But Nina couldn’t really believe that she would dare to come here. Michael Vestergaard’s house lay just on the other side of the hill; it must have been swarming with police for the past twenty-four hours. No doubt Anna had been questioned as well, by people who were somewhat more professional at that kind of thing than Nina was.

“How long has Katerina been missing?”

“For almost four hours.”

“If she was really on her way here, she should have been here long ago. Unless …”

“Unless what?”

“The bus doesn’t go down Tundra Lane; its nearest stop is at Isterødvej. That’s quite a walk. And in this weather …”

“Are you saying you think she might have gotten lost?”

“Henrik cleared the road with the tractor again just before you came. You and your taxi were lucky you didn’t try an hour earlier.”

“We have to look for her. Or …” She glanced at Anna and noticed, really for the first time, that she was, in fact, talking to a fairly senior citizen. “I have to, anyway.”

“Wait,” said Anna. “I’ll come. I just need to put some proper clothes on.”

Five minutes later they were on their way out into the blizzard, armed with two powerful flashlights and, in Anna’s case, a handful of dog biscuits and a leash.

“If that stupid dog would only come when I call her, she could help us. She’s actually a trained scent hound.”

Nina had only the vaguest notion of what that meant. Something to do with finding animals hurt or killed in traffic. Or something.

Killed in traffic. She stared out into the darkness and wished those words hadn’t popped into her head.