Invisible Murder

by Lene Kaaberbol Agnete Friis

  So what did he want with the nurse and her daughter?

  For one absurd, shaky moment, Søren imagined that the two things had absolutely nothing to do with each other. That Karvinen’s motives had nothing to do with Valby or cesium or dirty bombs.

  “Søren?”

  “Yes. What now?”

  “Just listen to the Geiger counter.”

  Søren stuck one of the two earphones into his ear. The dry, sonar-like beeping was significantly stronger as they approached the garage.

  “Get Radiation Hygiene out here,” he said. “Immediately.”

  He thought back to that flashy PowerPoint presentation. The cesium source didn’t take up much room—the cylinder itself was smaller than an ordinary soup can. Could it be hidden somewhere in this garage?

  He didn’t want this hope to jinx it, but at the very least he knew they had been here. Karvinen fell back into place, inextricably tied to Valby and the dirty bomb scenario. It was all connected. It didn’t make any sense yet, but it was all connected.

  The wind was coming in across the flat fields, carrying the scent of seaweed and brine and jet fuel with it. With a sharp pang of longing, Søren thought of Susse and her white house and the hour’s peace he had snatched for himself earlier in the day. Why had he set up his life so that most of his time was spent trying to get inside the heads of parasites like Karvinen?

  Pull yourself together, he snarled to himself. Think. Do something. You can feel sorry for yourself later.

  Suddenly he noticed a movement in the sea of stinging nettles at the corner of the farmhouse. He glided sideways, closer to the wall, and drew his sidearm. Waiting. Listening.

  The nettles rustled again, and now he could hear something. Scraping, and whining. He slipped along the wall of the house in a couple of stealthy, sideways paces and peeked around the corner.

  A slightly overweight, brown Labrador retriever looked up at him with golden brown eyes and wagged faintly. Then it went back to digging again, dirt and pebbles flying out between its hind legs.

  Søren stuck his gun back in its holster. He was glad he hadn’t had a chance to yell “Police!” or some other inappropriate action line. Instead he made a couple of encouraging clicks with his tongue so the dog looked up from his digging again.

  “What are you up to, boy?” he asked.

  The dog wasn’t just trying to dig up a mouse hole. It had scratched and clawed the entire way around a rusty metal lid like one that might cover a well or sewer access.

  Snow White. Suddenly Søren had a flashback to the cold morning hours outside the garage in Valby, digging up the underground gas tank and the body they had found in that dark, diesel-stinking sarcophagus.

  Fuck.

  No.

  Not again.

  His heart skipped a beat before it hammered on. Not the girl. Please God, not that poor fourteen-year-old girl.

  Then he heard a sound that wasn’t the dog’s whining and scraping. A faint, metallic knocking. Thunk-thunk-thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk-thunk-thunk.

  SOS.

  “Jankowski!” he bellowed. “Get over here! Now!”

  He dropped down onto his knees in the trampled nettles and tried to lift the lid with his fingers, but he couldn’t get a proper grip. A screwdriver, a hook of some kind … something that could fit into those two holes in the lid. He tried with a ballpoint pen, but it snapped. Then he took his pistol and banged out a response rhythm with the butt so that she—in his head it was still the girl, he couldn’t get his mind off her—so that at least she knew someone had heard her and that help was on the way.

  “We’re coming,” he shouted. “We’re going to get you out!”

  IT WAS THE girl. Once they managed to wrench the outer lid away from the opening of the oil tank and cut the padlock off the specially mounted inner lid, what peered up at him was the chilled, pale face of a teenager. Her hands were bloody and her nails broken and chipped, and her fingers were convulsively clutching the bunch of keys she had been using to bang out her faint, scarcely audible SOS. Tears were streaming down her filthy cheeks and kept flowing even after they got her out and wrapped her in silver-colored heat blankets, given her water and sugar and more water.

  “They have my mom,” she said. “And Sándor. He’s OK, he isn’t one of them, please don’t hurt him. And they have that thing.”

  “The cesium unit?” Søren said.

  “Yes. That. They want to sell it to some crazy old guy who’s going to give them half a million kroner for it.”

  “Do you know where?” Søren asked, holding his breath. “Do you know where they’re going to meet?”

  The girl was still breathing in a strangely arrhythmic, jerky way. Søren was amazed she was holding it together as much as she was under the circumstances. That she could talk, think, and respond at all.

  “Lundedalsvej,” she said. “I wrote it down so I would remember it.” She showed him her forearms and the big, black, smeared letters written zigzagged across her skin. “I used my mascara.”

  Søren wanted to give her a hug, but she wasn’t the kind of girl who would have appreciated that. She was so clearly clinging to her self-control with an iron will that reminded him of her mother.

  “Respect,” he said instead, quietly and heartfelt. And was rewarded with a crooked, wobbly teenage smile.

  Jankowski looked pensive.

  “Lundedalsvej.…” he said slowly. “Isn’t that where …?”

  “Yes,” said Søren. “That’s where they’re building that new mosque.”

  REDERIK CAME RUNNING, skipping between the puddles so as not to muddy his boat shoes. Idiot, Sándor thought to himself, he has covered his whole body in protective gear but is still walking around in unprotected shoes.

  “I parked the Touareg a few blocks away,” Frederik said, winded. “So we can dump the van here. I’m assuming you stole it?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Tommi said. “Come on. It’s almost nine-thirty. And put on your mask, otherwise the rest of the hazmat suit isn’t going to do any good.”

  Frederik pulled the hood up over his head and positioned the filter mask and protective goggles over his eyes, nose, and mouth.

  The door to the single-story hall in front of the domed building was locked, but that didn’t slow Tommi down.

  “Take this,” he said passing Frederik the pistol. Frederik took it but held it away from his body, awkwardly, very obviously uncomfortable with the weapon. Somehow that didn’t make Sándor feel any better; he just got the sense that he could now be shot by accident as well as on purpose.

  Tommi had fetched a screwdriver from the van and quickly and efficiently broke open the green double doors to the mosque.

  “Wait here,” he said.

  He took the gun from Frederik and disappeared into the building, but it didn’t take long before he was back in the doorway again. “All clear,” he said. “He’s not here yet.”

  With the paint can balanced between them, Sándor and Nina stepped into the dark reception hall. It smelled of turpentine and new wood, and plastic sheeting rustled under their feet with every step they took. The sharp light from the spotlights outside shone in through the arched windows, but otherwise it was dark, and it was harder to hold the rake handle level when you couldn’t see it.

  “Set it down,” Frederik said. “And stay where you are. Now we wait.”

  He and Tommi stepped out of the light, and that made Sándor feel exposed and vulnerable standing here in the middle of the room, plainly visible as soon as anyone stepped through the door. Next to him, Nina had sat down on the floor with her head between her knees.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “But what are you going to do about it?”

  In the silence they heard the pling of a text message arriving. Tommi tossed the phone to Frederik. “Here,” he said. “See what he wants.”

  There was a pause while Frederik fumbled around with the keys and read the message. �
��He wants it down in the gents’,” he said. “Over to the left.”

  “Can he see us?” Tommi asked. “Where is old Moneybags?”

  “Just do what he says,” Frederik said. “The sooner we get out of here, the better.” His voice was higher than usual, tense and nervous. “Yeah, but not without the money.”

  Frederik crinkled his way across the plastic sheeting in his out-of-place boat shoes, and Sándor heard him open a door. Then there was a click, and the door became a shining rectangle in the darkness.

  “The lights work over here,” Frederik announced unnecessarily.

  “Hello,” Tommi suddenly yelled so loudly that the sound reverberated and startled them all. “Come out, come out, wherever you are! Show me the money!”

  The only response was a new text message arriving with a pling. “What?” Frederik mumbled. “Why the hell should we do that?”

  “What did he say?”

  Frederik showed Tommi the text message. Then he waved to Sándor. “Come here. No, damn it. With the thing.”

  Sándor looked at Nina. She had collapsed on the floor, with an arm and a leg flung out to the side in a sloppy way that revealed that she wasn’t just resting.

  “Nina,” he said.

  She didn’t respond.

  “I think she’s fainted,” he said.

  Tommi had his own simple test for that. He sauntered over to Nina’s ragdoll body and kicked her so hard in the side that Sándor grabbed his own rib in automatic empathy. There was absolutely no response.

  If he was going to carry the can alone, he would have to touch it. He couldn’t hold the rake handle in his injured hand, so he had to grab the paint can’s wire handle in his healthy one.

  “At least give me a pair of gloves!” he pleaded.

  Frederik hesitated. Then he removed one of his own pale-yellow work gloves and tossed it onto the floor in front of Sándor.

  “Here.”

  Sándor pulled it on. It was the wrong one, but it was still a whole lot better than touching the thing with his bare hand. He pulled the rake free and set it on the floor. Then he picked up the paint can. He held it as far away from his body as he could. It was heavy, and his arm quivered with the effort.

  The lavatories were tiled in green and blue from floor to ceiling and had gleaming brass taps. There were no doors on the stalls yet, and down at the end, a water heater, some pipes, the main water shut-off valves, and an expansion tank were still exposed, not having been sealed away behind drywall or paneling yet.

  “He wants it inside that,” Tommi said, pointing to the hot water storage tank with the gun. “Just the whatsit, not the whole can.”

  That meant he was going to have to touch the actual source of the radioactivity. Sándor hesitated, on the verge of rebellion. Tommi didn’t. He moved the pistol ever so slightly, so it would just miss Sándor, and fired.

  The shot rang out between the tiled walls and a shower of small, sharp tile fragments sprayed Sándor’s cheek, neck, and shoulder. And they heard a muffled scream from the ceiling over them.

  Sándor and Tommi both looked up. The ceiling wasn’t totally finished. White panels were being mounted on a wood frame, and in the space above that, between bristling unconnected wires and exposed insulation, they could now both see that there was someone up there.

  “You’re coming down,” Tommi hissed. “With or without holes. It’s up to you.”

  At first it didn’t seem like the person intended to obey, but when Tommi raised the gun again, the figure began moving with difficulty. With difficulty, because he or she was impeded by an astronaut-like protective suit of the type used for asbestos removal. The legs came first, and then the rest followed, with a wriggle and a twist, and the ceiling voyeur dropped down onto the floor between Sándor and Tommi.

  The suit made it impossible to tell much other than that it was a human being. But Tommi was far more interested in the padded envelope the figure had taped to its chest.

  “Payday.…” he whispered, tearing the envelope free. “Money, money, money.…”

  He was actually singing it. Hoarsely and off-key, but it was unmistakably Abba.

  Now, Sándor thought. Now, while he’s not paying attention to anything else.

  All he had was the sand-filled paint can. He swung it at the Finn’s head with all his might, at this moment utterly indifferent to where the sand and cesium ended up.

  He missed. Tommi jumped back, dropped the envelope, and fired the gun all in one motion.

  OMEONE HAD SET her on fire, and Nina knew she had to wake up. Now. The strange darkness enveloping her kept dragging her back; even when she succeeded in forcing her eyes open, it was as if her brain refused to come back online. The floor felt hard and cold against her hipbone and her shoulder. Then she realized that she wasn’t actually on fire. The burning, throbbing pain was coming from the lower rib on her right side. A broken rib can perforate the lung, she thought woozily. Avoid sharp movements. But everything was moving. The room was a big teetering, swirling darkness that for a brief, absurd moment made her think of a gigantic hall of mirrors, the kind where everything is crooked and distorted. She was still desperately thirsty, and the floor she was lying on was terribly cold and dusty. There was dust in her mouth and on her hands.

  Ida.

  She pictured Ida in Mr. Suburbia’s arms in the darkness in front of her. And Ida on her way down into her dark, subterranean tomb. Nina could hear voices and turned her head toward the sound. A narrow strip of light shone in from a half-open door a little further into the hall, and she recognized Mr. Suburbia’s family-man silhouette next to the door. Nina swore to herself and lay still. Maybe he would think she was still unconscious. Tommi had probably stationed him there to keep an eye on her. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness now so that she could see the wide double doors that led out to reality. It wouldn’t take more than a few seconds of running, and once she was out.… The pain in her side gave a brutal jab as she inhaled. Perforated lungs. She couldn’t run if she had a punctured lung. If she ran, she could puncture a lung. Her thoughts chased each other around in circles, like white mice in a laboratory maze. It felt as if someone had plunged a chisel under her rib and wrenched at it. She didn’t remember how it happened, but when she carefully ran her fingers over the lower edge of her ribcage, she felt a clear angle that shouldn’t be there. A fracture, it was definitely broken. She wasn’t running anywhere.

  And Ida was still alone in the dark.

  Bang.

  The sound of the shot echoed through the empty, tiled hall and made Mr. Suburbia’s silhouette cower.

  “What the hell is going on?” he muttered.

  He walked over to the doorway but appeared to change his mind and stayed put with his back against the doorframe, peering furtively into the next room. Apparently no one answered him, but they could still hear the Finn in there. It almost sounded as if he were singing.

  Singing?

  Mr. Suburbia glanced over at her, perplexed, then he turned around and disappeared into where Tommi and Sándor were.

  Now, Nina thought. You can’t die here. You have to do it now.

  She tried take shallow breaths as she pushed herself up off the floor with both arms. The pain in her side made everything go black before her eyes, and twice she was forced to stop altogether and wait for the world to slowly come into view again. Then she continued hobbling across the floor toward the exit.

  Which was when the second shot rang out. She was so startled it almost knocked her over. But she still didn’t look back.

  She reached the door. Splinters from the damaged wood around the lock jutted out like barbs, and her fingers were too clumsy to open it silently. The wind from outside grabbed it and blew it all the way open with a distinctive bang. Then she was standing outside in the chilly May evening. The construction site’s puddles glittered yellow-brown in the light from the overhead spotlights. She could see the paved road just a hundred meters away, and on the other side of
it, a row of peaceful looking suburban homes with dark beech hedges and birch trees, their black branches swaying in the cool breeze. There were lights on and people at home in one of the closest ones.

  Help, she thought. Get help for Ida.

  She started walking toward the light, staggering but obstinate, and didn’t stop despite hearing another three shots ring out from inside the mosque behind her.

  HE SHOT RIPPED a hole in his side, right under his ribs. He felt it first as an impact, then as a burning, wet sensation. He was still standing, hadn’t been dramatically hurled backward like in the action movies. He had, however, dropped the paint can.

  “What the fuck are you doing?!”

  The voice was Frederik’s, but it was almost unrecognizable from the shock. Tommi was just laughing, a completely normal laugh, as if someone had said something really funny.

  “Boom!” he said. “You’re dead.” And then the pistol clicked as he let yet another bullet slide forward into the chamber.

  Sándor didn’t want to fall. That would most definitely hurt, and he had already experienced enough pain. But his legs didn’t ask for permission. They just crumpled beneath him, so he fell to his knees, and after that forward, and then onto his side. And, yes, it hurt.

  There was yet another shot, but Sándor didn’t feel anything. While the bang was still ringing in his ears, he saw the asbestos-suited figure spin halfway round and topple over onto the floor. Ah, he got shot this time, not you, Sándor thought with a strange sensation of remoteness, as if it were some sort of public statement that didn’t pertain to him.