“I need your opinion,” Nina said, trying for Peter’s crisply managerial tone of voice. “I’m standing in an old auto repair shop in Valby with a lot of very sick children. One of them in particular is dehydrated, and I can’t really figure out how bad it is. I think it’s a stomach virus of some kind, but they’ve been sick for several days now and apparently it’s mostly the children who are getting sick.”
Allan sighed.
“Tell me more. Vomiting, diarrhea, fever, blood?”
Nina summed up the situation and waited patiently while Allan chewed on a pen on the other end of the line.
“Hmm. It’s a little odd that they’re having multiple bouts of it,” he said. “Maybe it’s some kind of poisoning. Industrial waste, heavy metals, or gasoline fumes could cause those kinds of symptoms if they were exposed to them for long enough. Might also explain the pattern of recurrences. Did you ask where the kids have been playing?”
“Thanks,” she said quickly. “What else?”
“Virus, bacteria, it could be anything. Make sure you wash your hands really well and get yourself some gloves and a face mask. You know the drill. Obviously the boy’s going to need fluids, and then I think it would be good for all involved if the group left the repair shop if there’s any way to make that happen. And be careful yourself.”
Click.
He was gone before she had a chance to say a proper goodbye. Allan really didn’t want to know, and he also wanted to avoid any request for impromptu house calls. And he was right. She might have asked if he hadn’t wrapped up the conversation so quickly.
Poisoning. Nina didn’t have much experience with that kind of thing, but this was an old auto mechanic’s garage, and there could still be gasoline or other organic solvents stored on the premises. The children might have drunk or inhaled some toxic substance by accident.
She looked at the child’s father who was standing next to her expectantly. His forehead was wet with sweat.
“What did the children do yesterday? Where were they?”
“Big children work. My son here. To rest. Get stronger.”
Nina started her exploration in the room that had probably been the foreman’s office. The walls were bare with holes in them and faded areas in the paint where there used to be shelves. There were mattresses and sleeping bags here, too, maybe a couple had managed to win themselves a little privacy. Apart from that there was nothing. The same was true for the actual garage, if she ignored a pile of worn-out tires in one corner and a couple of rusty cans of paint and a container of motor oil sitting on a rickety shelf down by the far end. Nina tried to unscrew the lid off the motor oil, but it only budged reluctantly and greasy dirt and cobwebs fluttered down to the floor in clumps and flakes. It hadn’t been opened recently, and the spray cans of paint were also a nonstarter since the valves were so rusty that they couldn’t be pushed down. Nina continued toward the door next to the foreman’s office and the little kitchenette. It was still closed, but this time no one tried to prevent her from going in. She stepped into the small, dark room and turned on the fluorescent ceiling light. The window was wide open, and a couple of tattered, red curtains fluttered in the faint breeze. A bed frame with no mattress and a scratched, old laminate table were the only furniture in the room. The linoleum floor was worn to a thread, but clean, and there was the faint odor of dishwashing soap and chlorine. There was nothing to see.
Nina returned to the boy and his mother. She wanted them out of here. She didn’t need to be an expert on poisoning to know that Allan was right—it was potentially hazardous for them to stay in this place.
“Chemicals,” she said. “Poison. Dangerous for children.” She looked at the boy’s father and waved her hand at the interior of the garage. “You must go somewhere else.”
The man shook his head.
“No poison. We stay.”
He wasn’t a tall man, Nina noticed. One of his shoulders drooped a little, and like his wife, he revealed a number of cavities in his teeth when he spoke. But there was a massive dignity in his refusal. Presumably he was well aware that the garage wasn’t the healthiest place in the world for a child. He may even already have had an inkling that it might be a contributing factor, but he had to reject her suggestion out of hand simply because he had nowhere else to go. Not without risking exposure and losing everything he had gambled when he decided to bring his family to Denmark this summer—the money for the trip, the rent they had already payed for this sorry place, and god knows what other expenses he might owe to people who did not deal kindly with debtors. He had to hope the illness would pass on its own—he had no other option.
She took a deep breath and studied the boy. She would have to treat him as best she could for now and hope he improved over the next few hours. If not, she really would have to call an ambulance, no matter how much the parents protested. But she wouldn’t fight that particular battle until it was absolutely necessary.
She pulled a saline drip out of her bag and kneeled down next to the sick boy. The light wasn’t good, but thankfully his mother helped by lifting the boy up and rotating him so she had better access. Nina found the vein in the soft crook of his elbow with her fingertips and hit it on her first try.
A car door slammed in the parking lot outside.
The boy’s mother cowered, casting a furtive, pleading glance at her husband, who was on her way over to them in long strides. Without a word he swept the boy up into his arms and carried the boy and the drip bag away in rapid, sturdy steps. The boy’s mother followed, and before Nina had a chance to react, someone shoved her adamantly in the back. The man standing behind her pointed meaningfully to the middle of the garage, where a couple of the other men had quickly and silently pulled one of the worn plywood boards to the side. The father helped his wife and child down into the inspection pit while one of the others ran over to the door and disappeared out into the parking lot. Nina could hear him talking to someone outside. She could only discern the occasional English word and had no idea what the conversation was about. The man next to her pointed into the inspection pit again and tugged at her arm impatiently. Nina pulled herself free in an irritated motion. She got it. For some reason or other, she and the children were supposed to hide, presumably just the way Peter had needed to. The voices outside had moved closer now, and Nina walked over to the edge and hopped down to the bottom of the inspection pit on her own.
She stepped on something soft that moved, looked down and discovered the sick boy’s mother, who was already sitting on the sunken floor with the boy in her arms. She cradled the hand Nina had stepped on for a brief moment, then moved deeper into the pit to make room for Nina. The rest of the children from the garage followed in quick succession, and Nina tried automatically to receive the small bodies as they were lifted down to her one by one.
The board was pushed back into place with a heavy, grating sound. The darkness was absolute. Nina could hear the children breathing softly and quickly, but no one said anything. They just sat and listened to the sound of heavy footsteps and voices from the world up above.
Nina tried to calm her breathing. The whole thing had happened so quickly that she hadn’t had a chance to feel scared, but now she could feel her heart pounding fiercely. The pit she was sitting in was easily a meter and a half deep and only just wide enough that she could sit with her legs bent and her back up against the wall. The darkness around her felt dense and suffocating, and the smell of old motor oil tore at her nostrils. A small, warm body touched hers, and she pulled away, startled. But even here in the pulsing darkness, the children were still completely quiet. She got the distinct impression that they had done this before.