Death of a Nightingale

It had taken a long time for winter to loosen its grip, and it had also taken awhile before the hospital let him go. But now most of the snow had melted, and Søren was gradually beginning his rehabilitation.

There was a FOR SALE sign from one of North Zealand’s fancy real estate agents at the entrance to Tundra Lane, but it wasn’t Michael Vestergaard’s house, it turned out. It was Anna Olesen’s thatched yellow farm.

Søren parked the Hyundai next to Anna’s red Mazda. There were pools of melted snow between the cobbles, and crocuses blooming along the house.

It’s been two whole months, he said to himself. It’s a completely different place now.

Still, he could feel his body’s discomfort at being here. This is where you get hurt, it shouted. This is where the pain is!

The old woman who had shot him had been found in a snowdrift by the house’s gable with extensive injuries after a series of hard blows to the temple and the back of the head. She had later been transferred to a hospital in Kiev with astounding haste. It was clear that her condition was so serious that it made no sense to prosecute her, but still the case had gone unusually smoothly, Søren observed dryly. You could not say the same for Jurij Savchuk’s case. He was still stuck in Vestre Prison, awaiting his Danish trial, and no one in Ukraine had expressed any desire to get him back. Apparently not even his squeaky-clean half brother, Babko had reported. Søren and he had called each other a few times to exchange reports and health bulletins.

There was barking from the front hallway. The dog appeared to have survived.

Anna opened the door. She didn’t look quite like herself. It took him a few minutes to realize that she wasn’t wearing any makeup. The eyes were older and more tired, the hair less carefully arranged.

“Is it you?” she said without curiosity. “What do you want? More questions?”

“Not really,” he said. “I came to tell you something.”

She didn’t move, clearly preferring for him not to come inside.

“We haven’t been able to find either Natasha or Katerina,” he said. “And so we haven’t been able to ask Katerina what happened that Sunday. We don’t know where they are. We don’t know how they are doing. We have no idea whether they are still alive.”

“That’s sad.”

“Yes, we are not happy about it. But we have found a witness that saw Katerina get into a red car not far from Damhus Lake.” This was a bit of an exaggeration. The witness had seen “a child who could be Katerina” and the description of the car was equally vague—it was red.

Anna didn’t move a muscle. She didn’t even glance at the Mazda, which Søren had kind of hoped she would. It would have been a lovely, unconscious confirmation.

“Why are you telling me that?” she asked.

“Because I do believe that children can grieve. I do think an eight-year-old girl can miss her dead father terribly. She would probably also be able to buy the juice and cookies herself, in spite of the fact that we haven’t been able to find a store with anyone who remembers seeing her. But there’s one thing I don’t believe. And that is that she would steal a bottle of Valium and try to kill herself.”

Anna Olesen observed him for a long time. Then she closed the door. After a little while, she opened it again.

“I would appreciate it if you would get off my property,” she said. “If there is anything else you feel you have to tell me, you can contact my lawyer.”

Søren remained standing there for a little while, just to irritate her.

ON THE WAY home, he called Nina.

“Did she say anything?” Nina asked.

“Not a word. Not a useful word, at any rate.”

“Do you still believe she did it?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Why would she hurt the child? As far as we know, they had a good relationship.”

“I don’t know. I’m just sure that she did it. Maybe Katerina posed a threat to her—a connection between her and Pavel Doroshenko’s dangerous blackmail. I’ve spoken to her daughter, Kirsten. She had no plans whatsoever to move into that wing Anna was restoring and had, in fact, asked her not to do it. She was afraid her mother’s finances wouldn’t be able to cover the expenses, but that doesn’t appear to have been a problem. On the other hand, there aren’t a lot of bills for the work that was done.”

“Off the books?”

“A good way to place money if you can’t really explain where it comes from.”

“I still don’t understand it. There’s a long way from a bit of blackmail to … to an attempted child murder.”

“Katerina called her. Anna came and picked her up in her red car. Together they went out to Katerina’s nest and had that peculiar tea party, with juice in the cups. Katerina’s cup contained pulverized Valium. In Katerina’s head, they were having a party with her father. Who knows? Maybe Anna was even able to make herself believe that it was for the best. That the child would be spared any more pain, and all that.”

“They spoke Ukrainian together,” said Nina suddenly. “On the telephone when Rina called Anna. Can that have been enough? Enough to make Rina dangerous for her, I mean?”

Søren considered Anna Olesen’s almost perfect Hørsholm façade. She hadn’t been able to help herself, he thought. She wanted so very badly to speak to the child, and in the beginning that would only have been possible in Ukrainian. In Anna’s eyes, this exposure must have seemed terrifying when she realized that her past was catching up with her.

“I can see how it might look that way to her,” he said.

Nina was quiet for a while. “It did seem to me …” she said, then broke off.

“What?”

“When we were searching for Rina. Katerina, I mean. In hindsight, I think Anna was trying to make sure I wouldn’t find Katerina too soon. She made no effort to tell the dog to search, for instance.”

Søren sighed. “Could you swear to that?”

“Not really. It was more of a vague impression.”

“Not conclusive.”

“No.”

Another silence.

“Will you go out there again?” asked Nina.

“Yes,” he admitted. “In a little while.”

“Do you think she’ll say something sooner or later?”

“Not really.”

“Why do it, then?”

“Because she needs to know that someone is watching her.”

He could almost see her shake her head. “You’re not God.”

He laughed. “No, unfortunately not.”

There was another short pause. Ask her, he told himself.

She said goodbye. He cursed. She had saved his life—wasn’t he allowed to ask the woman out to dinner in return? But he didn’t do it. Maybe it was because he still remembered with crystal clarity the moment where his crappy middle-aged knee had cracked so loudly that both Babko and he had been shot as a result.

Maybe he needed to find someone his own age.

And maybe he needed a bigger car.