Nina.
Allan shook his head.
“His respiration is okay. Blood pressure is a little on the low side, and he is somewhat dehydrated, but I think he will simply sleep off whatever it is and wake naturally. And in any case, we can’t give an antidote when we have no idea what the original substance was.”
Nina nodded slowly, dodging Allan’s gaze. She knew what he had to say next.
“You will of course take him to a hospital.”
“But you said he would wake on his own… .”
Allan gestured, indicating his collection of medical reference books.
“There’s a million drugs out there that someone could have given him, and I have no idea what is really wrong with him, nor do I have the facilities to do the proper tests. You simply have to take him to Hvidovre.”
Nina made no reply at first.
She had had so little time to look at the child. At first she had thought him to be barely three years old, but now, examining his face, she thought he was merely small for his age. Closer to four, perhaps. She touched his cheek gently, tracing the soft lines of the mouth. His hair was short and so fair it was nearly white, the skin parchment thin and almost bluish in the light streaming through the blinds.
“I don’t know where he’s from,” she said. “I don’t think he is Danish, and I know someone is looking for him. Someone who wants to … use him for something.”
Again, Allan frowned.
“Pedophilia?”
Nina shrugged, trying to recall as much as she could about the man who had been kicking at the locker. Huge. That was the main impression. Perhaps thirty years old, with hair so short it hardly left an impression of color. Brown, perhaps? Like the weatherinappropriate leather jacket. She tried to imagine the police issuing an APB and knew immediately that this description would match any number of large men. And she pictured the boy, alone in a hospital room, while some social worker or child care specialist sat in the staff room filling out endless forms. Would they be able to protect the boy against the rage she had seen in the man’s eyes? Once he woke up, what would the Danish authorities do with him? Send him to some institution or refugee center like the Coal-House Camp? Nina suppressed a shudder. Natasha’s bastard of a fiancé had sauntered straight into the camp to pick up Rina without anyone even noticing she had gone. Far too many of the socalled unaccompanied minors simply disappeared from the camps after a few days. They were collected by their owners.
“I’m not letting them take him to the camps,” she snapped, glancing around the office. “Children vanish from them almost every day. He’s not going to any of those places.”
Finally she saw what she was looking for. Behind the matte glass doors of the cabinets by the door she made out the contours of Allan’s special emergency kit, which she knew to contain a couple of bags of IV fluid.
Last year, Allan had gone with her to attend an elderly man who had fled the Sandholm asylum center and was hiding with some relatives in the city. He had been due to be sent back to some refugee camp in Lebanon, but instead he was slumped on a mattress in a loft above an old tenement flat in Nørrebro. It was at least 115 degrees Fahrenheit up there under the rafters, and in other circumstances it might have been a rather trivial case of heat stroke. But because they didn’t have the range of equipment an ordinary ambulance would have had, they nearly lost him. Since then, the infusion sets had been a fixture in Allan’s emergency bag. As yet, he had not had to use them, as far as she knew. He wanted out. In fact, he had wanted out for a long time, but there was not exactly a waiting list for the unofficial post of MD to the illegal immigrants that the network struggled to aid, and Nina had hung on to his phone number. Just in case, she thought with a sardonic inner smile that didn’t quite reach her lips. Just in case she came across a three-year-old
Allan shook his head.
“His respiration is okay. Blood pressure is a little on the low side, and he is somewhat dehydrated, but I think he will simply sleep off whatever it is and wake naturally. And in any case, we can’t give an antidote when we have no idea what the original substance was.”
Nina nodded slowly, dodging Allan’s gaze. She knew what he had to say next.
“You will of course take him to a hospital.”
“But you said he would wake on his own… .”
Allan gestured, indicating his collection of medical reference books.
“There’s a million drugs out there that someone could have given him, and I have no idea what is really wrong with him, nor do I have the facilities to do the proper tests. You simply have to take him to Hvidovre.”
Nina made no reply at first.
She had had so little time to look at the child. At first she had thought him to be barely three years old, but now, examining his face, she thought he was merely small for his age. Closer to four, perhaps. She touched his cheek gently, tracing the soft lines of the mouth. His hair was short and so fair it was nearly white, the skin parchment thin and almost bluish in the light streaming through the blinds.
“I don’t know where he’s from,” she said. “I don’t think he is Danish, and I know someone is looking for him. Someone who wants to … use him for something.”
Again, Allan frowned.
“Pedophilia?”
Nina shrugged, trying to recall as much as she could about the man who had been kicking at the locker. Huge. That was the main impression. Perhaps thirty years old, with hair so short it hardly left an impression of color. Brown, perhaps? Like the weatherinappropriate leather jacket. She tried to imagine the police issuing an APB and knew immediately that this description would match any number of large men. And she pictured the boy, alone in a hospital room, while some social worker or child care specialist sat in the staff room filling out endless forms. Would they be able to protect the boy against the rage she had seen in the man’s eyes? Once he woke up, what would the Danish authorities do with him? Send him to some institution or refugee center like the Coal-House Camp? Nina suppressed a shudder. Natasha’s bastard of a fiancé had sauntered straight into the camp to pick up Rina without anyone even noticing she had gone. Far too many of the socalled unaccompanied minors simply disappeared from the camps after a few days. They were collected by their owners.
“I’m not letting them take him to the camps,” she snapped, glancing around the office. “Children vanish from them almost every day. He’s not going to any of those places.”
Finally she saw what she was looking for. Behind the matte glass doors of the cabinets by the door she made out the contours of Allan’s special emergency kit, which she knew to contain a couple of bags of IV fluid.
Last year, Allan had gone with her to attend an elderly man who had fled the Sandholm asylum center and was hiding with some relatives in the city. He had been due to be sent back to some refugee camp in Lebanon, but instead he was slumped on a mattress in a loft above an old tenement flat in Nørrebro. It was at least 115 degrees Fahrenheit up there under the rafters, and in other circumstances it might have been a rather trivial case of heat stroke. But because they didn’t have the range of equipment an ordinary ambulance would have had, they nearly lost him. Since then, the infusion sets had been a fixture in Allan’s emergency bag. As yet, he had not had to use them, as far as she knew. He wanted out. In fact, he had wanted out for a long time, but there was not exactly a waiting list for the unofficial post of MD to the illegal immigrants that the network struggled to aid, and Nina had hung on to his phone number. Just in case, she thought with a sardonic inner smile that didn’t quite reach her lips. Just in case she came across a three-year-old
Similar Books
