Invisible Murder

INA FOUND ANTON behind the school gym. He had taken off his sweatshirt and T-shirt, and his blond hair was sticking out in damp, sweaty spikes as he concentrated on pounding a heavy, green plastic ball against the wall. He kicked it, changed direction, kicked it again. The ball sang through the air with each well-aimed kick, and even though he had his back to her, Nina could tell right away that he was in a good mood.

She let her bag flop down on the ground and ran up to him just as he was about to whack yet another volley at the wall.

“I’ve got this one,” she yelled, and just managed to catch Anton’s grin of satisfaction before she kicked at the ball, striking it at an unfortunate angle and sending it careening past the corner of the gym out onto the playground.

“Hi, Mom.”

He was panting happily, and he cast one last wistful glance at the ball before he pulled his yellow T-shirt over his head and ran a hand through his sweaty hair. He’s getting so big, Nina thought, a warm wave of tenderness sloshing around pleasantly somewhere in her stomach. Occasionally she still had that feeling when she looked at Ida, as well, but these days it was mostly when Ida was asleep, her face resting childlike on her pillow. The rest of the time, words seemed to fall flat between them in a heavy, tangled mess, if they spoke to each other at all. The unfortunate roller hockey fiasco was just the latest example.

Things had always been more difficult with Ida, Nina thought, recalling Ida’s contorted little face in the highchair that terrible panicky day when she had dumped everything on Morten—including Ida—and had run away to foreign parts for several months. It was hard for her to explain why she had done it, even now, except that Ida had seemed so fragile, and she had become convinced that she would damage this tiny, helpless being with her own damaged life if she stayed. They had got off to a bad start, and though they had had a couple of peaceful years of something that had felt like normality with pasta necklaces, mother-and-daughter trips to the movies, and help with homework at the kitchen table, Nina had always had the sense that it was the calm before the storm. As if Ida were only waiting for a chance to relegate Nina once and for all to where she really belonged: Mom Hell. The place reserved for bad mothers, career women, alcoholics, and mentally unstable women where they might suffer for all eternity because they had dared to reproduce despite a complete absence of maternal qualifications.

They went inside the after-school club, where Anton crossed himself off the list as usual, and Nina quickly raked the contents of his locker into his backpack.

Her mobile phone rang.

Nina looked at the display and recognized the number just as she pressed the green button. Oh, hell. Peter from the Network.

It had been a while since she had last heard from him, and for once that had suited her just fine. There had been plenty of crises at the Coal-House Camp in the past few months, and after that whole business with the boy in the suitcase last year, Morten had been adamant about putting the brakes on her Network involvement. They had had the Big Important Talk—she had permission to continue her work with the Network, but on the condition that she stayed home when Morten was away on the rigs. Anything else would be “treating her own family like shit,” as Morten had so poetically expressed it, and even though their marriage was going through an unusually good patch, Nina still had the sneaking suspicion she was being forced to resit an exam in Virtues of Danish Family Life 101. She didn’t want to find out what would happen if she flunked.

“We need you in Valby. If you make it before 4 P.M. I can meet you there.”

Peter spoke with authority in his voice, as if he were Barack Obama personally shutting down Guantanamo. He hardly even waited for her to say hello.

“No go, Peter,” Nina said, noting the time automatically: 3:44 P.M. exactly. “I can’t today. Morten is away in the North Sea, and I’m literally up to my ears in my son’s leftover lunch. You have to find someone else.”

Peter was quiet for a moment on the other end of the line.

“Can’t you leave him on his own for a while? It won’t take more than an hour.”

Nina tried to quell her rising irritation. Although she had never actually said so, Peter should know by now that saying no was not an easy thing for her. She felt an unreasonable burst of resentment that he wouldn’t just accept it when she actually did decline a request.

“No, I can’t just leave him,” she hissed. “He is eight years old, for God’s sake. What’s the problem, anyway?”

“This guy from Hungary,” Peter said neutrally. “Not that old, maybe sixteen or seventeen. He just arrived and is staying with about fifty other people in this derelict garage in Valby, and he’s sick as a dog. Vomiting and diarrhea. I think it must be some kind of food poisoning, and I could really use a little help.”

Nina breathed a little easier. Peter painted the picture with irritating clarity, and of course someone should probably to try to figure out if it was food poisoning or just an ordinary case of the trots. But all things considered, it didn’t sound like anything she needed to be involved in.

“Hungary is part of the EU,” she said. “No one is going to deport him. Send him to the doctor with a stool sample, and buy some rehydration powder, cola, and lots of mineral water. He’ll be back on his feet in a couple of days,” she said quickly.

“You know damn well he won’t see a doctor,” Peter said, raising his voice a bit. “He would have to pay for it himself, and these boys aren’t exactly loaded. They’re Roma, most of them. They don’t understand a word of English, German, or French, and they’re totally paranoid about any kind of authority figure. They made me hide in the goddamn inspection pit just because someone knocked on the door. I couldn’t get through to them at all.” Peter didn’t usually swear, and it sounded almost comical when he did. Nina guessed his visit to the inspection pit had put a couple dents in his dignity. “You simply have to help,” he continued. “I have no idea what to do with them.”

“I’m sorry, Peter.” She gave Anton a quick smile, realizing that last part had eased her guilty conscience further. Even she, Save-The-World Woman, as Morten sarcastically referred to her, sometimes found the Roma hard to love. She had once stood in the middle of a crowd of Roma trying to examine a boy with a fever and a tooth abscess the size of a ping pong ball. Aman—presumably the boy’s father—had alternately begged and threatened her, and ultimately the whole crowd had stormed off in a huff, spluttering and gesticulating, dragging the sick boy with them. She had been more nervous than she usually was when she was called out at night, and the thought of fifty Roma packed into a repair shop in Valby gave her an unexpectedly uneasy feeling. They had presumably traveled up to Denmark by bus, hoping to scrape together some money over the summer through begging or trickery. It didn’t make their physical ailments any less uncomfortable, but damn it.…

“I’ll call you later,” Peter said, his voice icy. “And in the future it would be helpful if you could send me Morten’s schedule so I’ll know when we can count on you.”

Then he was gone.

Nina let her phone slip back into her jacket pocket and hoisted up Anton’s bag. Did he really need to be so bossy? But she knew Peter had trouble finding both people and funds at the moment. The Network had a limited circle of supporters, and the financial crisis hadn’t exactly helped their bottom line. Also, the new nurse Peter had found in the autumn had recently moved away from Copenhagen to settle on the West Coast with her husband and kids and a German shepherd puppy. Peter would calm down eventually. He had no other choice.