Nine, Ten ... Never Sleep Again (10 page)

"Listen to
this sentence.
The
first thing I saw was his arm. When I walked inside the bathroom, his arm was
sticking out from above the bathtub.
"

I looked at Sune who was as thrilled as I was.
We were sitting in the back seat of Peter's Land Rover, each with our laptops
on our laps. I was writing my article and Sune was uploading pictures.

"Look at this," he said and turned the
screen. "Look at the dread in her eyes. You can just feel how freaked out
she is."

"That is a beautiful picture," I said.
"Perfect for the story."

We had landed a scoop. Nothing less. The three
men smoking behind the dumpsters had helped us find the cleaning lady who had
first discovered the body and she was willing to talk to us in her apartment,
not far from the hotel. We were the only ones to find her and get the
interview. She had even given me a new story that I wanted to write next week
when I got back to work. She was about to be thrown out of the country just
because she had left her abusive husband. I promised to run her story and maybe
try and wake up the politicians.

Now I was writing all she had told me about
finding the body in my article. When I was done with that, I wrote another
article about the police and how they had no clue in this case. I had spoken to
them earlier on the phone and gotten the latest details for my articles.

"How about this one?" Sune asked and
showed me another picture of the girl that he had taken while she was talking
to me.

"I love the way she is covering her mouth
with her hand," I said.

"It's perfect too," he said.

I looked at him and smiled. This felt good. I
had forgotten how much I enjoyed working with Sune. He was the only one who
always understood where I wanted to go with a story, what kind of emotions I
wanted to evoke in people reading it. And his pictures always matched what I
was going for.

Jens-Ole freaked out when he heard we had the
girl. "I knew you two would deliver," he yelled. "I knew it. I
just knew it."

I chuckled and put him on speakerphone so Sune
could listen in as well. "The articles are almost done. There is one about
what the police are doing as well. Just a small one, since they're screwed on
this one. They have no idea where to turn, how to deal with this."

"That's what I thought," Jens-Ole
said. "Everybody's doing the police-angle and the possible Eastern
European angle, so we're not going to do much of that. I like the personal
touch to our stories. I'd like more of that."

"Well now you have this one. It's really
good. She was very honest and brutally detailed. You better read it to make
sure it's not too much."

"I don't see how it could be,"
Jens-Ole said.

"Do it anyway, alright?" I said.
"I don't want any complaints afterwards."

"I will. Don't worry. Oh … by the
way?"

I closed my eyes. I knew that sentence. He had
more for us. "Yes? You want something else too, don't you?"

"Well just one more thing."

"It seems there is always just one more
thing," I said, but I didn't feel angry about it. I was happy to be on a
story again. I was thrilled to be out on the road and mostly I was enjoying
spending time with Sune again. Working on a story gave me the right to be with
him without feeling guilty about it. Not too guilty at least.

"Sara, the sweetheart, has been working
hard on this all day and she finally succeeded this afternoon. You can't say no
to this."

"Let's see about that," I said,
wondering about Peter and how he was going to take it. "What've you
got?"

"Sara found the kidney-guy. She spoke to
him earlier on the phone and he agreed to do a solo interview. You know,
details about what happened and what it felt like to wake up missing a part of
you and all that. So far, he has only done that one short TV interview on the
first day in the hospital. Since then, he has refused to talk to any
media."

"Until now, huh?"

"It's a scoop. He hasn't done any longer
interviews. This is yours."

I looked at Sune who was nodding eagerly.

"Don't think we'll pass on that one,"
I said.

"Great. Wonderful. It's in Silkeborg. You
might have to spend the night there. He has agreed to do it late tonight. He's
staying there, but only tonight, he said. He'll go back to Roskilde
tomorrow."

"Ah, he's from Roskilde on Zeeland. Makes
it an even better story for Zeeland Times."

"It sure does. Meet him at the lobby of
Hotel Mercury at nine tonight."

"We'll be there."

"So … how
are you?"
Annabelle asked, looking truly
concerned.

What an actress
.

Henrik could play a game too. He smiled and
tilted his head. "Never better," he said.

"But …But I thought you … I mean I saw you
on TV. They said you …" Annabelle looked down like she didn't want to say
it out loud.

Nicely played. Making me
believe you're all innocent and scared by my story. Very nice. Done a lot of
acting before, have we?

"Ah that. Well, at least I have two kidneys
right?" Henrik laughed manically and grabbed a Danish butter-cookie that
Annabelle had put on the table in front of him.

"It must have been really scary walking up
like that?" She asked sounding concerned.

I'm not buying it, bitch. Too
forced. Too much.

"Oh yes it was. It certainly was a
frightening experience. What was it the police called it? Oh yes. Unfortunate.
An unfortunate experience it was." Henrik took another cookie and chewed
it with his mouth open just to annoy her.

"But you're alright now? I mean they let
you out of the hospital?"

"Except for the fact that I am missing a
KIDNEY, yes, I'm completely fine," he said, yelling the word kidney,
causing Annabelle to jump. Then he laughed. Henrik picked up the coffee cup and
slurped loudly as he drank. She wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"I thought about visiting you at the
hospital … but …"

"Then why didn't you, BITCH?" He said.

"Excuse me?" She said looking
perplexed.

"Why didn't you?" He repeated.

"Well they said on TV that you were
married. I didn't want to …"

"Didn't want to what? Didn't want to HARM
me? Didn't want to make me SUFFER?"

"I didn't want to destroy your personal
life. I mean, I guessed you didn't want your wife to know about me," she
said, moving around in her chair like it was uncomfortable to sit in. Henrik
discovered he liked to see her squirm in the chair. He liked the way she kept
touching her cellphone and holding it close to her in case she needed to call
for help. It amused him the way she avoided his eyes. The hand touching her
chest and the redness of the skin on her throat. She was nervous. He made her
nervous.

"So what can I do for you?" She asked.

"What can I do for you?" He said,
imitating her voice, making it sound all shrill and annoying.

She looked at him. She was biting her lip. Then
she looked at the phone again and pushed a button like she wanted to make sure
it was on. "Listen," she said nervously. Her voice was slightly shivering.
"I have to be somewhere …"

"No you don't," Henrik said.

"Excuse me?"

"You don't have somewhere to be. You're
just saying that to get rid of me. Why Annabelle? Why do you want to get rid of
me?"

Annabelle blushed. She shook her head and moved
her hands fast. "I … I …"

"You don't know what to say?" He
interrupted her. "Let me help you. I make you feel uncomfortable, don't
I?"

She bit her lips and looked at him, then nodded.
"Yes. Okay yes. This meeting. You coming here and yelling at me makes me
feel slightly uncomfortable."

"Why do you think that is?" Henrik
said before slurping more coffee.

"What do you mean?"

"Why do you think me being here makes you
feel so uncomfortable?" He asked again, slightly annoyed.

"I don't know … I guess it might be the yelling,
maybe it's just the way you look at me. Like I owe you something. Like you want
to …"

"Like I want to what, Annabelle?"

"Like you want to … hurt me or
something," Annabelle sighed and shook her head. "This conversation
is getting a little strange."

"You know what I think is strange?"
Henrik asked and didn't wait for her to answer. "I think it's a little
strange that I have amazing sex with a woman one night in a hotel and then the
next morning … I wake up and oops, something is missing. Oh my, oh my.
Something pretty VITAL is gone from inside of me. Now how on earth did that
happen?"

Annabelle covered her mouth. "Oh my
God," she exclaimed. "You think … you think I had something to do
with it, don't you?"

"BINGO!" Henrik yelled and slammed his
clenched fist into the coffee table causing all the cups to rattle.

Annabelle let out a shriek and got up from her
chair. "Get out," she said. "Get out of my apartment right
now."

Henrik made the sound of a game show buzzer on
TV. "WRONG answer."

"What do you want from me?" She asked
with a shivering voice.

Henrik scratched his chin and looked up.
"Mmm, let me see. What do I really want from you?"

"I already talked to the police. I told
them everything I know. I told them how I met you at the bar. I told them all
your bad pick-up lines. I told them about our sex in the hotel room and I told
them that I left, that you were awake the last time I saw you and being a real
prick."

Henrik laughed manically and slurped more
coffee. "Well then, it’s all good, isn't it?" He said. "It's
absolutely PEACHY." Then his face turned angry. "Except for the fact
that I don't buy it."

"It's the truth. I swear. I had nothing to
do with what happened to you. Look at me I'm just a little girl. How would I be
able to hold you down? I wouldn't even know where to look for the kidney. I
faint just seeing blood."

"Ah, come on. Do you really think I'd fall
for that? You could have had help, couldn't you? You could have some guy
waiting in the hallway once you exited the room and he could have entered the
room. It's as simple as that. How much did he pay you, huh?"

"I … I have no idea what you're talking
about. There was no guy. There was only me when I left that night. I might not
have closed the door properly, so maybe the guy could have come in that way or
something, I don't know. I was pretty pissed at the time. Don't think I worried
much about closing the door properly."

Henrik closed his eyes. He was getting sick of
this conversation. "How much did he pay you?" He asked again.

"I … no one paid me anything."

"HOW MUCH?"

"Nothing. Why aren't you listening to what
I say? I didn't do anything. I came to the bar to meet a nice guy. Guess that
makes me a horrible judge of people, huh?"

"I don't believe you," Henrik said.

"Then what do you want me to say? That I'm
sorry? ‘Cause I am truly very sorry for what happened to you, but it had
nothing to do with me."

"Still don't believe you."

"I'm telling the truth. What do you want
from me?"

"I want to know where my kidney is."

"Excuse me?" She asked. "You want
what, exactly?"

Henrik got up and stormed towards the girl. He
grabbed her around the throat and pushed her backwards against the wall. She
was spurting and gasping for air. Henrik kept squeezing while staring into her
eyes until no more sound came out of her throat and her body became limp in his
hands. Then he let her slide to the ground.

Panting, he bent down and whispered in her ear:
"I want to know who has my kidney."