Invisible Murder

T HAD BEEN strangely quiet inside Nina’s head since the PET man had left. Her head still ached a little and there was a very faint, whooshing throb, like in the water pipes she used to listen to before she fell asleep in the room she had had as a teenager back home in Viborg. Nina pushed the tray of uneaten rissoles and overdone cold carrots aside, leaned back, and closed her eyes. She couldn’t sleep, but she didn’t have anywhere good to send her thoughts, so instead she allowed herself to slide into the gray throbbing, whooshing semidarkness inside her eyelids instead.

She heard the sounds a second before it happened.

The door that slid open almost imperceptibly, soft rubber soles padding across the gray linoleum, first by the door, then a little closer. The little click as the door closed automatically behind the intruder. Then, abruptly, something big and warm was pressed against her mouth, and Nina’s eyes flew open. Her head was being pushed so deeply into the pillow that it almost closed around her face, and the sense of being suffocated caused panic to explode through her for a second. Trying to move her head was hopeless, the man crouched over her was now putting his weight behind the outstretched arm and hand while Nina frantically batted at the air around her. She grabbed for the face, the hair, the neck, and arms of her attacker, but he moved quickly and avoided her blows. The man’s little finger had been pushed up under her nose, and she had to fight for every single scrap of air for her lungs. As if she were breathing through wet gauze. And in the middle of her frenzied panic, she could see a gaunt face with a wide grin swaying back and forth over her. The eyes gleamed, distant and exhilarated. He’s on drugs, Nina managed to conclude. An addict looking for morphine or maybe someone who was mentally ill, lost in the wrong part of the hospital. His breath was heavy and sharp and smelled of cigarettes and peppermint. The man was making an effort to catch her eyes, and for some reason or other, that made her slow down. She tried to aim her blows better. Make them harder. But the hand that was pressed so solidly over her mouth didn’t budge a millimeter, and eventually she lay perfectly still as she tried to breathe through the one, almost free nostril.

It seemed like that was what he had been waiting for.

The man eased up on the pressure on her mouth a little bit and reached for something with his free hand. Nina tried to follow his movements with her eyes, but her head was still being pushed so far down in the pillow that it obscured her view like a white mountain range. She couldn’t see much besides the ceiling, the man’s arm, and little bits of his head and upper body. All that smothering softness drowned out even the sounds. Some notion of escape occurred to her. The man still had a hand over her mouth, but he was only holding her with one arm. Maybe she could slide free and pull the alarm cord that was hanging right over her bed.

Then a black object appeared right over her face. It took a couple of seconds before she was able to focus on it, and yet another moment before she realized what it was. A mobile phone. It was on, and the screen showed a picture with a dark, almost-black background. In the foreground there was a person who had been photographed from above. The girl’s pale face glowed white in the darkness. The eyes were slightly narrowed and the facial expression frozen in that defiant face she always made, when she was trying not to cry.

Ida.

Nina didn’t scream.

She could tell he was expecting her to, because he clamped his hand down tighter over her mouth before he pushed the button. But Nina couldn’t scream. Nothing inside her was working. There was only silence and cold and the picture dancing on the black phone in front of her. Something started moving on the tiny screen. The sound of footsteps on a floor that echoed in a strangely hollow way. The man doing the filming said something or other, but Nina couldn’t hear what it was, and now she could see Ida take a step back. As if she were trying to disappear into the darkness. Where? Nina desperately tried to gauge the location of the recording. It wasn’t home in their apartment—the wall behind Ida was a hideous dark purple color—but otherwise there wasn’t anything that revealed where she was.

The angle changed. Now the photographer was standing over Ida, speaking once more.

“Say hi to Mommy.

Smile.”

Ida’s eyes flitted toward the camera, then she looked directly at the man holding the phone and angrily jutted out her chin. “Smile.”

Ida shook her head, took two steps farther back, and bumped into the purple wall. The phone was right up against her face now. A finger slid slowly over her chin, pushed its way tentatively between her lips, and made its way over to the corner of her mouth. Pulled it upward into a grotesque, crooked grin.

“Smile for Mommy.”

The picture went black, and Nina felt the man slowly ease up on the pressure on her mouth. He pulled his hand away completely. She turned her head, and it was only now that she could really see the man next to her bed. He wasn’t that much taller than her, she thought, and skinny under that loose T-shirt. He was wearing a pair of very light-blue Levis that were cinched in at the waist with a wide, studded leather belt, its oversized belt buckle featuring a shiny, pale skull. His hair was shoulder-length, dark blond, and looked freshly washed. The rest of him was worn and scruffy and cigarette-ravaged, even though he could hardly be older than thirty. His nose was swollen and bruised on one side, his eyes wide and feverish. Probably snorted a line of crystal meth a few hours ago, Nina thought hostilely, and felt a glint of satisfaction at the thought of how short and miserable this man’s life would be. How his body would be covered with oozing sores from the crank bugs, how he would scream and call for mercy, and how he would die alone and in pain. She would kill him herself right now if she had the slightest opportunity. For what he had done to Ida. She lashed out at him, but there was no strength in her blow, and it only grazed his throat before he grabbed her hand and held it securely.

“Easy, girl.” He spoke to her in accented English.

His voice was quiet and arrogant, as if he were talking to a child, and then he let go of her entirely and let her sit halfway up in bed. He pulled a clear plastic bag out of a duffel bag that was on the floor next to the bed and set it on the covers.

“Put them on,” he said, still in English.

Nina peeled the crackling plastic aside with two fingers and glanced quickly at the contents. It looked like some sort of tracksuit. The price tag was still on, fluttering from the waist of the dark-blue pants.

“Where is she?”

The man looked at her and smiled.

“Really cute daughter you’ve got. She looks like you. Just a little firmer in the flesh. Delicious young cunt. Totally soft to touch.”

His accent might be thick, as if he had a mouth full of gravel, but his vocabulary was convincing.

Nina felt defeated. His words were so harsh. So evil. She could feel her defenses washing away. A floodgate had been opened. The fear that had started to seep into her body at the sight of the first picture of Ida on the phone roared through her now, full strength. It slid into every single thought, formed unwelcome images, and little film clips that churned and rattled and played over and over again in endless loops. Ida in the apartment in front of her three attackers without her clothes on. Ida naked in some basement. Ida in the rearview mirror, a thin, black silhouette on a bicycle in the dark on her way up Fejøgade. That was the last time she had seen her.

Nina tried to inhale again. Tried to think. Should she try to stall for time? Pull the cord to call the nurse? He wouldn’t be able to stop her. All she needed to do was to reach up.

They heard footsteps out in the hall, and the man sat down on the chair next to her bed. He quickly pulled a small, tired-looking bouquet of tulips out of his bag on the floor and placed it on the covers. Water seeped out of the plastic wrap surrounding the green stems, making a big, wet stain on the white bedding. He wasn’t nervous, Nina thought. Everything he did was so calm and effortless. As if this were a totally normal day in his life.

A nurse came into view in the little window in the door just as the man leaned over the bed and placed his free hand over hers. His smiling face had moved in very close to hers, and he had even managed to adopt something that resembled a concerned smiled. A couple of long, bright-red lines stretched from his ear down over his cheek and Nina couldn’t help thinking of Ida’s black-painted fingernails.

“My poor baby,” he said, and behind him Nina could see the nurse’s face disappearing again. Her white clogs clicked quickly on down the hall, and Nina knew that the woman was probably already reporting the latest gossip on the odd patient in the isolation room. By now everyone had probably read about her marital problems in Ekstra Bladet. The news of a man in her room with flowers would add some excitement to the staff’s lunch break.

Nina looked at the man and knew that she wouldn’t put up any resistance. She didn’t dare. He had Ida.

He stood up, pulled Nina’s covers aside, and threw the tracksuit at her with an impatient grunt.

“Put it on. Now!”

Nina pulled the clothes on over her hospital gown without protest and without looking at the man. A feeling of disgust crawled across her skin when she thought of him holding Ida down, touching her. Whatever plans he had for her were immaterial compared to what he planned to do to Ida. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that he had opened the cupboard next to her bed and was rummaging around in the white hospital linens on the shelves. He swore quietly.

“Where the fuck are your shoes?”

Nina leaned against the bed, exhaustion from the effort of putting on the clothes making the room swim around her.

“They threw them away,” she said. “Because of the radiation.”

He swore again, pulled some long, white socks out of the cupboard, and threw them at her.

“Put these on and don’t try anything clever.”

Nina obediently pulled on the socks and found herself standing there in white socks and a pair of dark-blue tracksuit bottoms that were slightly too big. He moved over behind her. She could feel his sharp, warm breath against her ear.

“And now, we go. Pretend you’re healthy and have shoes on,” he said. “And pretend you’re not you.”