Knox is already wiping down surfaces and door hardware. He fishes his paper coffee cup from the trash. Crushes and pockets it.
“Did we get it?” Dulwich asks anxiously.
“We got it. I think we got it.”
“You think, or we did?”
“We don’t need it,” Knox says.
Both Grace and Dulwich are standing. Grace is packing up. Dulwich is at the window wiping down. But Knox wins the attention of both.
“Nine thousand five hundred euros,” Knox says. “Somewhere on that page. You were scrolling fast. Maybe more, maybe less, but the amount doesn’t matter.”
“Because?” Dulwich says. “What the hell are you talking about ‘the amount doesn’t matter’?”
“Kreiger, G.,” Knox says, believing he saw the name during the scrolling. “Gerhardt Kreiger.”
The three separate as a matter of procedure. Dulwich drives off in the Mercedes. They have no idea what kind of heat, if any, the hacking will draw. They entered and departed the office building cognizant of security cameras watching, careful to avoid offering their faces. But they are in the security business and are made painfully aware of how much can be made of little. For twenty-four hours they will make no contact. Communication will be reestablished through coded text messages.
Knox returns to the houseboat via a circuitous and careful route. He doesn’t know what to expect. He wants to find Sonia waiting for him, but is loath to admit it to himself. It’s a romantic notion, one that doesn’t come easily for him. He’s greeted by the proprietor, a wiry man with an Abe Lincoln beard and the rheumy eyes of a morning drinker.
“She paid for a second night,” the man tells Knox.
His sense of relief surprises Knox. He’s inwardly giddy.
“There’s an envelope.”
Knox hurries forward, nearly bumping his head. The envelope is sealed, no name written on it. He tears it open a little too eagerly.
You didn’t pick up. I left you a message.
He silently compliments her on her lack of detail while chastising himself for not switching out his SIM cards and checking messages and texts. The events of the past two hours have put him off his routine.
John, I heard back from Maja’s teacher with an address. Also, the name and address of another student who is also a possible. He notes her careful use of language; she divulges nothing in the message, yet conveys all that is necessary. I will return later today, or call me.
She picks up on the third ring.
Without introduction, he says, “I think a silhouette shot, the mother in front of a window or in a doorway. A kind of spooky anonymity might work very well.”
“I can see that.”
“Will you wait for me? Are you there yet? I’d rather you wait.”
“If you get too protective, it’s over.”
“Noted. I’m an older brother. Cut me some slack.”
“No, I will not.”
“An address?”
She supplies the address and tells him if he’s not there in twenty minutes, not to bother.
He’s stuck with an audiotape loop running in his head: I will return later today. It goes around and around in her Indian-accented English with him reading more into it on each replay. There are other places she could go than the houseboat. She not only wants to see him again, but has decided to see him again, a decision he can live with. Why any of this should matter to him, he doesn’t know. Women are good company, sometimes a physical pleasure. With the constant travel that comes with his job, he has become a seaman or a door-to-door salesman. He has friends, not relationships. So, he can’t help but wonder why he has already decided where he will be sleeping tonight, that he would not dare to let her down. He may be stood up; it may be nothing but an ill-conceived test on her part, but he’s willing to play along. Is eager to play along.
He doesn’t know how she got across town, but she didn’t walk. He had the motorcycle, so it must have been a taxi or tram, and he bristles at the thought. He weaves his way through traffic taking chances he shouldn’t, wondering if this is solely for the sake of the job or if there’s something more to it, something that bears consideration. The camera bag slung across his shoulder now bounces in his lap. He’s constantly checking the time.
He arrives with a few minutes to spare. Introduces himself to the plain-looking Slavic woman who answers the door and is shown inside to an apartment occupied by three generations of women. It’s pillows and rugs, a television and two large futons strapped around the middle with bungee cords that tower in the corner like sentries. Two boys pass through the room on their way from the kitchen, one fourteen, one eight, both suspicious of Knox. They disappear into the apartment’s only bedroom and pull the door shut. A very old woman smokes a cigarette by a partially open window, harboring a comfortable distrust in her unblinking, quiet eyes.
Sonia sits cross-legged amid a pile of decorative pillows, a notepad open at her ankles. Standing across from her is Maja’s mother, who greeted them at the door. In the corner is Maja herself—sleepy-eyed but not missing anything. The girl’s face is young—twelve or thirteen, Knox is guessing—but her eyes contain an unshakable depth that is twice that.
The Dutch is spoken rapid fire as Maja’s mother objects vehemently to the presence of a photographer, all before Knox has unzipped his bag. Again, Knox admires Sonia’s calm under fire. She is unruffled; her voice steady and deliberate as she explains nothing is going to happen without the woman’s consent.
Knox removes the camera, turns it on and shows her the LCD screen on the back of the camera. “We will remove any photographs you do not approve.”
“I swear to it,” Sonia says.
The mother settles. “I ask that you go now.”
Sonia flashes a sideways look at Knox, who wishes the camera did not make a shutter noise. He wants to capture that agonized expression, finds himself thinking as a photographer. Wonders how long he can keep the truth from Sonia.
Unfolding her legs, Sonia comes to her knees and hands Maja’s watercolor to the girl’s mother. She sits back down, indicating she isn’t going anywhere. The mother opens the drawing and squints her eyes shut painfully.
“How did they contact you, Yasmina?” Sonia inquires.
Yasmina shakes her head. The watercolor hangs at her side, pinched between two fingers. Her hands are rough-skinned.
“Have you been to this place?”
“Please . . . go.”
Knox trains the camera on the old biddy by the window, so ensconced she acts as if she doesn’t notice. He adjusts the exposure for the gray glow on the window behind her, tries a shot. Then another. The third time is just right: a spiral of gray smoke, a faceless woman but one whose years are apparent. He is quick to delete the first two.
“Look at the artwork, Maja’s artwork, once again. The girl in the leg iron. Please, look again.”
Surprisingly, Yasmina obeys. Her eyes tick between Sonia and the watercolor.
“Maja,” Sonia asks sweetly, “do you know this girl?”
Mother and daughter exchange glances. “No names,” the girl says.
“What language? Do you all speak Dutch?”
“No talking,” the child replies. “We talk with hands.”
“You approved of this?” Sonia asks the mother.
“Do not judge me.”
“I ask only what the agreement was going in. What you understood the working conditions to be. How it was they contacted you.”