“I’ll bring you some chocolate,” she said, smiling with unnatural brightness. “And some cola. It’s good for when you’re feeling poorly.” And then she left, walking so quickly she was nearly sprinting. And Sigita suddenly realized why.
It was Thursday.
N
INA PARKED THE
Fiat in the narrow, cobblestoned part of Reventlowsgade, squeezed in between a row of classic Vesterbro tenements on one side and the Tietgensgade embankment on the other. On top of the embankment, the traffic moved past in uneven, noisy jerks.
The boy wriggled as she pulled the shorts up around his skinny waist, but he was apparently pleased with the slightly over-sized sandals. He picked at the velcro straps with his short, soft fingers, and Nina cautiously stroked his hair. She found the water bottles, unscrewed the cap of one of them, and held it out to him.
“Atju.”
The boy accepted the bottle earnestly, and drank with clumsy greed. Some of the water sloshed onto his chin and the new T-shirt, and he silently wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
The motion was so familiar that for a split second, Nina felt as if she might be sitting in a car with an ordinary child on their way home from a long day at the kindergarten. Slowly, she repeated the word to herself. Atju. Wasn’t that the same thing he had said when she gave him the ice cream earlier?
It had to mean thank you.
Nina recognized the slight nod and lowered eyes that most children learn to produce as an automatic reaction. “Thank you” was the first phrase taught by any parents with the slightest ambition to raise a polite child. It couldn’t be a coincidence, thought Nina. Both times, she had been giving him something. The word was clearly designed for such situations. So, thank you. It made her task a little easier, as “Mama” was probably a too universal to be much use.
Nina opened the door and got out of the car. Heat still clung to the pavement and brick walls, and the heavy diesel fumes rising from the central railway station stung her nostrils with every breath. A faint puff of wind whirled a scrunched-up cigarette pack along the curb, until it came to rest against a tuft of yellow grass poking up between the paving stones.
The boy permitted her to lift him from the car only with reluctance, and once out, insisted on walking himself. He became tense and unmanagable in her arms, arching his spine and throwing back his head in silent protest, and when she gave in and let him slide to the sidewalk, she thought she had caught a glint of triumph in his tired eyes. He landed neatly, his new sandals meeting the pavement with a crisp and satisfied smack. Then he reached for her hand as though that was the most natural thing in the world. He was used to walking this way, thought Nina. He was used to holding someone’s hand.
THEY WALKED UP
Stampesgade and turned right along Colbjørnsensgade, and then on to Istedgade. The boy’s hand rested in hers, lightly as a butterfly, as they slowly moved past Kakadu Bar and Saga Hotel. There were still quite a few people about in the warm, dark night; outside the cafés, the guests were sipping beers and lattes and colas, barefooted in sandals, and still dressed only in light summer dresses or shorts.
The first prostitutes Nina saw were African. Two of them, both of them rather solidly built, and dressed in high boots and brightly colored skirts stretched tightly over muscular, firm thighs. The women stood less than five yards from each other, yet they didn’t talk. One had propped herself against a wall with a cigarette between pursed lips, and rummaged hectically through her bag at regular intervals. The other did nothing at all except stand there, watching every car that turned the corner.
No one took any notice of Nina and the boy, and it struck her that they must look relatively normal, walking together like this. A little late to be out and about, certainly, considering the usual bedtime of children his age, but nothing that would raise eyebrows. Vesterbro might contain Copenhagen’s red light district, but it was also a neighborhood full of ordinary families, some of them with young children. Vesterbro was becoming hip, and fashionable cafés had sprung up among the topless bars and porn shops.
The boy dragged his feet a little, but she still felt no resistance in the hand resting confidently in hers. In a doorway a little further down the street, two women argued heatedly. They were both blond, with skinny legs and remarkably similar emaciated faces. The argument stopped abruptly, as suddenly as it has begun, and one of them reached into her handbag and handed a can of beer to the other.
Nina paused, and the boy stood obediently quiet at her side while she tried to obtain eye contact with one of the women, the one now holding the beer can. She, in her turn, ignored Nina and looked at the boy instead.
“Hi there, sweetheart.”
Her voice was blurred and bubbly, as though she were talking to them from the bottom of a well. When the boy didn’t react and Nina kept standing there, she finally raised her eyes to Nina’s, with a grimace of confusion on her face.
“Yes?”
Nina took a deep breath. “I’m looking for… .” Nina hesitated, fumbling for the right words. The woman’s gaze was already wandering again. “The Eastern European girls, where are they? Do you know?”
The woman’s pale blue eyes widened in astonishment and distrust. Her pupils moved in tiny rapid jerks, and her mouth tightened. Nina realized she must look like the enemy, that the woman might consider her world to be under attack from the semidetached, permanent-income, husband-toting kind of person who would condescend to and disapprove of people like her. She might suspect Nina of being a journalist, or an outraged wife, or even a tourist vicariously fascinated by the prospect of sleaze and degradation. In any case, the woman clearly did not relish the role of practical guide to Vesterbro’s night life. Her eyes glinted aggressively.
“Why the hell are you asking?”
She moved half a step closer, and Nina felt the heaviness of her breath waver in the air between them.
Truth, she thought. I’ll give her the truth, or a small part of it, at any rate.
“The boy needs his mother,” she said, pulling the child onto her arm. “I have to find her.”
For a few wobbly seconds, the woman maintained her stance, chest pushed forward and eyes glinting. Then the appeal to the maternal instinct had its effect. She slumped, taking another sip of her lager, and studied the boy with renewed interest.
“Poor litte dear,” she said, reaching out to touch his cheek with a bony finger.
He jerked his head out of reach and hid his face against Nina’s shoulder, which made the beer-can woman scowl. She teetered off, pulling her friend with her. But she did answer the question as she went.
“They’re everywhere at the moment,” she said. “Some in Skelbæksgade, some at Halmtorvet. There are probably some in Helgolandsgade, too. They’re bloody everywhere, and you have a long night ahead of you if you don’t know her usual spot.”
“Where do they come from, do you know?”
Nina wasn’t sure the woman heard her, but just before they turned the corner, her friend twisted to look at Nina.
“Most of the white girls are from Russia,” she said. “But there are others, too. Prices are way down because of them. The stupid little tarts ruin it for everyone else.”
T
HE DOOR BUZZER
let off a snarl, startling Sigita out of a strange sort of absence. Not sleep. Nothing as peaceful as sleep.
“This is Evaldas Gužas, from the Department of Missing Persons. May we come in?”
She buzzed them through. Her heart had begun to pound so hard that the material of her shirt was actually quivering with each beat. They have found him, she thought. Holy Virgin, Mother of Christ. Please let it be so. They have found him, and he is all right.
But as soon as she opened her door to Gužas and his companion, she could tell that he was not the bearer of such good news. She still couldn’t help asking.
“Have you found him?”
“No,” said Gužas. “I’m afraid not. But we do have a possible lead. This is my colleague, Detective Sergeant Martynas Valionis. When I told him about the case, it rang a few bells.”
Valionis shook Sigita’s hand.
“May we sit down for a moment?”
“Yes, of course,” said Sigita politely, all the while silently screaming
get on with it
.
Valionis perched on the edge of the white couch, put his briefcase on the coffee table, aligning it with the edge with unconscious perfectionism, and brought out a plastic folder.
“I am about to show you some photographs, Mrs. Ramoškienė. Do you recognize any of these women?”
The photos were not glossy portrait shots, but printed hastily on a none-too-efficient inkjet, it seemed. He held them out to her one at a time.
“No,” she said, to the first one. And the next.
The third photograph showed the woman with the chocolate.
Sigita clenched the paper so hard that she scrunched it.
“It’s her,” she said. “She’s the one who took Mikas.”
Valionis nodded in satisfaction.
“Barbara Woronska,” he said. “From Poland, born in Krakow in 1972. Apparently she has lived in this country for some years, and officially she is working for a company selling alarm and security systems.”
“And unofficially?”
“She came to our attention for the first time two years ago when a Belgian businessman made a complaint that she had tried to blackmail him. It would appear that the company uses her as an escort for their clients, particularly the foreign ones, when they visit Vilnius.”
“She’s a
prostitute
?” Sigita never would have guessed.
“That is perhaps a little too simple. Our impression is that she works as what’s known as a honey trap. She certainly seems to have an uncommonly high consumption of prescription eyedrops.”
Sigita didn’t understand.
“Eyedrops?”
“Yes. Medicinally, they are used to relax the muscles of the eyes, which is useful in certain instances. But if they are ingested, in a drink, for instance, they have the rather peculiar side effect of causing unconsciousness and deep sleep within a short time. It’s not uncommon for a hard-partying businessman to wake up in some hotel room, picked clean of his Oyster Rolex, cash, and credit cards. But Miss Woronska and her backers seem to have refined the technique a bit. They arrange so-called compromising photographs while our man is unconscious, and afterwards suggest to him that he agrees to an export deal on, shall we say, very lucrative terms for the Lithuanian companies involved. Only this time, the Belgian got stubborn, told them to publish and be damned, and came to us. Miss Woronska was one of the participants in the arranged photograph. The other was some little girl who could hardly have been more than twelve years old. One quite understands why the police have not heard from their other victims.”
Hardly more than twelve … Sigita tried to push away the mental images. She couldn’t make it square with the neat and elegant woman in the cotton coat. When people did something like that for a living, shouldn’t it somehow show?
She stared at the printed page. It was not a classic identification photo of the kind made after arrests. Barbara Woronska was not looking directly at the photographer, her head was turned slightly to the left, bringing out the elegance of her long neck. The quality was grainy, as if the picture had been too much enlarged, and the expression on her face was … peculiar. Her mouth was half open, her eyes stared blankly. Even though only her face and neck were showing in the photo, Sigita suddenly felt convinced that Woronska was not wearing any clothes, and that this was a detail from one of the “compromising photographs.”
“But why … what made you think that she was the one who took Mikas?”
“Two things,” explained Valionis. “Item one: the Belgian had an alarming alcohol content in his blood in spite of swearing to us that he had had only one drink in the company of the delectable Miss Woronska. When our doctor examined him, he found lesions in the man’s throat consistent with intubation—in other words, someone could have inserted a tube and poured alcohol directly into his stomach while he was unconscious. It’s a good way of demoralizing and incapacitating someone, if you are willing to take the risk. People have been known to die from it, from acute alcohol poisoning.”
Sigita’s head came up.
“But … but that is… .”
Evaldas Gužas nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry no one believed you. At this stage, unfortunately, we cannot prove that this was what was done to you, as it is not now possible to distinguish any orignal injury from those stemming from the intubation you had to undergo at the hospital. But everyone I have spoken to has characterized you as a sober and responsible person, so… .” He left the conclusion hanging in the air, unsaid.
Some of Sigita’s general misery eased a little. At least they believed her now. At least they would be serious about looking for Mikas.
“And … Mikas?”
“The other thing that rang a bell was the fact that Barbara Woronska had been identified as one of four possible suspects in another case involving the disappearance of a child,” said Valionis, consulting his notebook briefly.
Sigita’s hands shook.
“A child?”
Valionis nodded.
“A little over a month ago, a desperate mother reported her eight-year-old daughter missing. She had been picked up from the music school where she took piano lessons twice a week by an unknown woman who presented herself as a neighbor. The piano teacher was not suspicious, as the mother works as a nurse and has often sent others to pick up the child when she herself has a late shift. Unfortunately, the piano teacher was not able to give us a very good description and would only say that it might be one of these four women.” He tapped the photographs with one forefinger.
“But where is she now?” said Sigita. “Haven’t you arrested her?”
“Unfortunately not,” said Gužas. “Her place of employment tells us that they haven’t seen her since Thursday, and she has apparently not been living at her official address since March.”
“But how come she is not in jail? With all this, how come she is still out there, stealing other people’s children?”