The Boy in the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbøl Read Free Book Online Page A

seemed to collect himself.
    “Sorry, sorry,” he said, rolling his r’s in a way that almost made them into d’s. He stood quite still, letting the police officers calm down from violence alert to dialogue mode. “I pay. Is broken, I pay.”
    Then he suddenly turned his head, looking directly at her. She didn’t know what made him pick her out of the crowd, but she saw his muscles bunch tensely as fury tightened his face and narrowed his eyes. He remained still, and didn’t speak, but even so she sensed the violence he was holding in check.
    What had she done to deserve such rage? She had never seen the man before.
    But of course the locker he had been kicking to pieces was not just any locker. It was number 37-43. And she suddenly knew where the rage had come from.
    She had taken something that was his.
    SHE HAD TO employ every shred of self-control she possessed to stop herself from running all the way back to the car. He won’t be able to follow, she told herself, the police are there. She walked as quickly as she could without turning heads.
    But she remembered how he had shaken them off like a dog shakes a flea from its fur, and the only plan she was able to form was that they had to get away, she and the boy, as far away from that man as they could possibly get.

W HEN THE STOLEN Nokia beeped in his briefcase more than three hours later, Jan’s plane was still sitting on the pavement, and he was still in his business class seat, sweating like a pig. This time no flight attendant swooped down on him when he pulled out his phone. Cabin personnel had long since given up on that particular score, and at least twenty other people around him were engaged in multilingual phone calls, explaining why they would be delayed.
    “Mr. Marquart.” In spite of the hiss and crackle of a bad connection, the man’s fury came through loud and clear, not so much in his words as in his tone of voice.
    “Yes… .”
    “I delivered. As agreed. The woman came and took the goods. But she left no money. You did not pay.”
    What?
    Jan protested. He himself was stuck in a plane, he explained, but he had directed his assistant to go in his stead, and he was sure she had followed his instructions.
    “Mr. Marquart. There was no money.”
    Jan tried to imagine what could have happened.
    “There must be some misunderstanding,” he said. “As soon as I get back, I’ll clear it up.”
    “That would be a very good idea,” said the man, and cut the connection. The very restraint of his phrase sent a chill through Jan even in the midst of the overheated cabin. It signaled that this was a man who did not have to resort to threats. A man best not angered.
    Jan jabbed out Karin’s number with some ferocity. She didn’t answer, and he left no message apart from a curt “Call me!”
    He stared sightlessly at the back of the seat in front of him. Sweated. Sipped the water, and the lukewarm gin and tonic he had accepted a few hours ago when he thought he had accomplished a feasible Plan B. It took him nearly half an hour to accept that he would have to call Anne.
    “Have you seen Karin?” he asked. And listened, while Anne’s soft voice told him that yes, Karin had returned, but had left again rather quickly. She had been in her flat above the garage for only a few minutes.
    “Was she carrying anything?” he asked. “When she arrived? And when she left?”
    “I really don’t know,” said Anne vaguely. “Were you thinking of anything in particular?”
    “No,” he said. “It’s nothing. It’ll have to wait till I get back.”
    As the plane finally started to taxi out onto the runway, he leaned back against the blue leather upholstery, wondering feverishly how he could have been so wrong about her.
    I should have done it myself, he thought bitterly. But that is just so typical. You make immaculate plans. You are in control. And then a fucking seagull wrecks it all.

T HE VILLA IN Vedbæk was perfectly situated, thought Nina.
    It