He gave her a penetrating look until the frown on her brow smoothed.
“Yes, as a matter of fact,” she said, cottoning on. “There’s the lake down there, of course. But I’m afraid it’s too far because this bucket’s got a hole in it.”
–
Marco was silent most of the way back to police HQ, and Carl understood him well.
Judging by what the lad had told them, this had been the worst and the best day of his life rolled into one.
“What’s on your mind, Marco?”
He shook his head.
“Why won’t Marco say anything, Assad?” he asked over his shoulder.
“I think perhaps he is trying to assess his situation at the moment,” came the reply.
Carl looked at Marco in the passenger seat. “Is that right, Marco? Are you wondering what’s going to happen now?”
The lad seemed smaller than ever.
“Is that it?”
Marco lowered his gaze and nodded his head slowly.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking that all the things I dreamed about are never going to happen. Now they’ll put me in a detainment center and then I’ll be thrown out of the country.”
Carl frowned and looked into the rearview mirror, where Rose and Assad were exchanging glances. Marco’s state of mind was clearly affecting them.
“That’s not at all certain, Marco,” Carl replied, trying to ease Marco’s mind. With his sparse knowledge of state policy regarding illegal immigrants, he realized this wasn’t much consolation.
“What would you do if you could decide for yourself?”
Marco sighed. “I just want to be completely ordinary. Go to school, study, look after myself.”
It wasn’t much to ask, and yet.
“You’re only fifteen, Marco. You’re too young to look after yourself.”
The boy turned his head to look at Carl with raised eyebrows. Of course I can, his expression said.
“Where would you live, Marco?” Carl went on.
“Anywhere. As long as I can be left in peace.”
“And you think things would work out? Without going back to crime?”
“I know it would.”
Carl looked out at the traffic crawling along Bispeengbuen, and at the surrounding buildings. Out there among the twinkling lights were thousands of human lives that failed to make the grade when society needed them. So what better chance did this boy have?
“What makes you think you’ll be able to take care of yourself when so many others can’t, Marco?”
“Because I have the will.”
Carl glanced into the rearview mirror again. The two of them were just sitting there, surprisingly passive. This wasn’t an easy situation to deal with on his own, dammit.
He took a deep breath and let out a sigh as he thought back to the look on Malene Kristoffersen’s face when they said good-bye, the way she’d stood there with William Stark’s last will and testament in her hand. It was a document that would change their lives significantly. Tilde would be able to continue her treatment, and they’d be given the freedom to do as they pleased.
All because he’d happened to have a lighter and lit a little bonfire.
Carl nodded and caught Assad’s eye in the mirror.
“Assad! That bloke you know, the one who’s good at forging identity papers, do you still have any contact with him?”
He felt a pat on each shoulder, and now both of them were all smiles.
But then when he turned to Marco, he saw that the boy was shaking all over.
“Is something wrong, Marco?”
The boy leaned forward in his seat, trying to make his limbs obey and his body relax, but he couldn’t.
“I’m not sure I understand, Carl,” he said after a moment. “Do you mean…” And then he began to cry.
Carl reached out and stroked the boy’s back.
“Rose and Assad, you tell him. He’ll believe it from you.”
“It’s all up to you, Marco,” Assad pronounced.
“Yeah,” Rose added. “But we don’t want to know where you are until you’ve found a proper place to live. We don’t want to hear that you’ve taken root in some Dumpster in some town in Jutland, you get it?”
And now they heard the boy laugh. Apparently he was beginning to believe in it himself.
“But listen, Marco,” Carl added. “Not a word about this to anyone, understand? Not even your kids or grandkids, OK? In return, we expect you to tell us everything you know about Zola and the clan in Kregme, and all the stunts you were pulling out on the streets. If you do that, our colleagues back in town will have something new and concrete to go on, and it’ll be a big win-win situation all round.”
Marco nodded and was silent for a moment. “What will happen with Miryam?” he asked.
“We’ll have to see. She’s probably not the one who will be the hardest for us to help. She’s been very cooperative.”
“OK, then I’ll be cooperative, too.” He sat still for a while and stared out over the city. “Is it really true, all this?” he asked eventually.
They nodded, all three.
“I just don’t get it,” Marco said, shaking his head. “But thank you so much.” Then came another slight pause. “Can we make a detour to Østerbro?” he said. “There’s something I need to do first.”
–
They pulled up in front of a doorway where a pair of teenagers stood making out. Marco asked Carl, Rose, and Assad to go in with him.
There was no answer when they rang the bell, so Carl pounded his fist against the door.
“Police!” he shouted, loud enough for everyone in the apartment building to hear.
It did the trick.
The two occupants seemed both frightened and reluctant when they saw four people standing at their front door, but at the sight of Marco their expression turned to intense anger.
“That one, we won’t let in. Or you either, for that matter. Where’s your ID, anyway?” one of them demanded, full of skepticism.
Carl pulled out his badge and stuck it in front of their faces. The two men exchanged glances, still shoulder to shoulder and unwilling to let them in.
Then Rose stepped forward. “We’d like a bit of consideration here, so if you gentlemen don’t mind, please step aside so as not to inadvertently prevent three officers of the law from carrying out their duty. The pair of you seem a bit slow-witted if you ask me, but I’m pretty sure you can understand that excessive denseness can easily be rewarded with correspondingly large doses of rage and nice, tight handcuffs.”
Carl was thunderstruck. It was almost like listening to himself.
The upshot was that the two men frowned simultaneously, then thought the better of it and stepped back to allow the frothing goth inside.
Then Marco beckoned them on to the little bedroom that could have fit into Assad’s cubbyhole at HQ three times over.
He opened a drawer and rummaged about until finding what he was looking for: an old-fashioned metal comb. He raised it in the air before getting down on his knees at the wall opposite the narrow bed.
Placing the comb in the groove between the floor and the baseboard, he ran it back and forth until he located the indentation where the comb found purchase.
Then, with a sharp tug accompanied by the protests of the two men, the baseboard gave way.
The relief that passed through Marco’s body was clearly visible to all.
He stuck his fingers into the hole and pulled out a clear plastic bag.
“Look,” he said, holding it up in front of them. “Now I have sixty-five thousand kroner to make a start. So you needn’t worry about me living in a Dumpster, Rose.”
43
Summer 2011
Carl looked at the two notes on the desk in front of him. They’d been there for a month and a half now, staring at him every time he’d tried to tidy up. Wasn’t it about time he chucked them out?
He tipped back on the rear legs of his chair and tried to picture the two women in his mind’s eye. Strange, how quickly faces from the past were erased.