The Boy in the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbøl Page B

spoke when he gave her detailed instructions on how to make Ida’s lunch box, or how to dress Anton for school. He spoke slowly and clearly, enunciating each syllable, all the while trying to fix her eyes on him as though she were hard of hearing, or mentally defective, or both. More than anything, she could see it in his eyes when he packed his bags for his monthly shifts on the company’s North Sea oil rigs. Leaving her alone with the children had begun to scare him.
    He no longer believed her. He no longer believed in anything she said.
    Nor did Allan, it would seem. But at least he was not about to stop her. The suitcase boy was not his responsibility, and never would be. Only for that reason was he letting her go.
    “Keep the IV going until the unit is empty,” said Allan. “After that, I want you gone. Don’t let anyone see you leave. And Nina… .”
    He caught her eyes again, and she could see that his impatient irritation had returned.
    “I’m through with this,” he said. “Don’t come back.”

A ND IT is your claim that your husband has abducted Mikas?”
    “Evaldas Gužas from the Department of Missing Persons looked at Sigita with visible skepticism.
    “We are separated,” she said.
    “But he is the father of the child?”
    She could feel herself blushing. “Of course.”
    The office was stifling in the summer heat, and a house fly buzzed desperately in the window overlooking the street, caught between the net curtain and the glass. Gužas’s desk looked to be a scarred veteran of the Soviet era, several years older than Gužas himself was. Sigita would have preferred an older policeman, not this young, black-haired, sharp-featured man of thirty at the most. He had doffed his blue-gray jacket and loosened his burgundy tie, so that he looked for all the world like a café patron on holiday. It didn’t give a serious impression, she thought. She wanted experience, steadfastness, and efficiency, and she wasn’t sure she was getting it.
    “And this alleged abduction … you say it happened Saturday?”
    “Saturday afternoon. Yes.”
    “And you waited two days to come to us because … ?”
    He left his unfinished sentence hanging in the humid air.
    She nearly lowered her eyes, but resisted the impulse. He would only see it as uncertainty and become even more skeptical than he already was.
    “I was in hospital until this morning.”
    “I see. Can you relate to me the circumstances of the alleged abduction?” he asked.
    “My neighbor saw my husband and a strange young woman take Mikas to a car and drive off with him.”
    “Did the child resist?”
    “Not … not as far as Mrs. Mažekienė was able to see. But you see, the woman has been spying on us for some time, at least two or three days, and she gave Mikas chocolate. That’s not normal!”
    He clicked his ballpoint pen a couple of times, watching her all the while.
    “And where were you when this happened?”
    Now she could not keep the uncertainty from coming out in her voice.
    “I … I don’t remember clearly,” she said. “I’ve suffered a concussion. Perhaps … perhaps they attacked me.”
    The words felt odd in her mouth because she didn’t herself believe that Darius was capable of something like that. But the woman. She didn’t know the woman, did she?
    “And at which hospital were you treated?”
    Her heart dropped like a stone. “Vilkpėdės,” she said, hoping that would be the end of it. But of course it wasn’t. He reached for the phone.
    “Which ward?”
    “M1.”
    She sat there on the uncomfortabe plastic chair, frustrated and powerless, as he was put through to the ward and had a brief conversation with someone at the other end. The fly kept buzzing and bumping into the glass. Gužas listened more than he talked, but she could guess what he was being told. Alcohol content in the blood, fall on the stairs.
    “Mrs. Ramoškienė,” he said, replacing the receiver. “Don’t you think you should simply go