Invisible Murder

IRST NINA KNOCKED on the door, which had a little knocker with a black cast-iron lion’s head. But nothing happened. She was fairly sure she heard footsteps behind the solid front door, but it didn’t open, and she regretted choosing the closest house. She should have moved farther away from the building behind her. If Tommi or Frederik came after her now, she would be totally exposed, standing there in front of this closed door. A wide-open target, a barely moving target. The pain in her side rose and fell with her much-too-rapid breathing, and each time she inhaled, new black dots danced in front of her eyes. They could shoot her right here, and no one would ever find out where Ida was.

She stepped over to the tall, narrow window next to the door and knocked on the glass, alternating between her knuckles and her palm.

“Hello!”

Her voice made almost no sound. The shout was there, in her throat, but her tongue and dry lips refused to cooperate. Anyway, now she could see a face on the other side of the glass. An older man dismissively waving a hand lightly covered with liver spots. Nina looked down at herself. She looked terrible. The dark-blue tracksuit was covered with construction dust, and her right arm jutted out awkwardly to the side to keep her from touching her rib. She tried to smile, but the face inside the window had already started backing away. Farther and farther away. She knocked again, but this time without much conviction.

“Hello? I need help!”

There was no response.

Nina turned around and stared back at the mosque behind her. Its front door was still open, but she didn’t see any sign of Tommi or Frederik. The reflection of a light in the window of one of the portable office trailers at the construction site across the street made her jump, but it was just the streetlights swaying in the heavy wind.

Did she have the strength to try the neighbor’s? Nina looked over at the house next door. Yet another red-brick fort with a single lit window and an impervious front door. She had the utterly stupid desire to cry. Like when she was little, standing alone on the playground with a scraped knee and hundreds of happy, laughing children around her. But it hadn’t done any good then, and it wouldn’t do any good now. She rubbed a hand over her eyes and looked around. There was a birdbath on the little lawn in front of the house, attractively surrounded by fist-sized red, granite rocks.

Nina hobbled down the steps with a firm grasp on the wrought iron railing. One step, two steps … she tried to ignore the pain when she bent down, but as she straightened up with a rock in her hand, she emitted a wheezing groan anyway.

She went back up the stairs and peered in the window. The man had withdrawn so far that she could see only his feet, nervously padding away. She raised the rock and slammed it into the window with all her might. The old man’s double-glazing didn’t surrender until she hit it for the third time, making a hole big enough to pass a fist through. Her reluctant helper had by this time retreated so far back into his hallway that all she could see was his feet, but that didn’t matter.

“Call the police,” she bellowed. “Now!”

SHE SAW THE patrol car long before the pensioner could have even picked up the phone. It drove past her without flashing lights or a siren, pulled up outside the construction site, and turned off its headlights.

Nina grabbed the stair railing and took the three steps down to the front walkway so fast that she crashed to her knees on the flagstones. She got up again and staggered, shuffling and shouting, as fast and as loud as her rib would permit.

“Help.”

She didn’t know how long it had been since Ida had crawled into that oil tank. One hour? Two hours? At any rate it had gotten dark out, and it had been way too long.

“Help.” Nina picked up her pace. “Help. I need help.”

This time she screamed for real.