The initial report from Gitte was also very discouraging. The Roma they had picked up at the repair shop all denied seeing anything, no matter which language they were asked in. The police had been forced to use physical force in order to send the children to Bispebjerg Hospital to be examined, and according to Gitte, the adults who had accompanied them had been panicky and terrified to let the children out of their sight.
“They clammed up as if their lives depended on it,” as Gitte put it. Søren sank a little farther back in the desk chair, wondering whether the Roma were afraid because they had something to do with the source of the radioactivity or if they were just scared to death whenever they had any kind of official interaction. The latter was at least as likely as the former. There were places in Eastern Europe where Roma women who gave birth in the hospital risked leaving with their fallopian tubes tied. And wasn’t there something about Sweden forcibly taking Roma children into care well into the 1970s as standard practice? He had read something about that a few years earlier when the police were trying to get a handle on the integration problems in Elsinore. And then there was Peter himself, who had flatly refused to give them the name of this friend of his who had put him in touch with the Roma in Valby. Søren was increasingly convinced that the “friend” was Peter himself. He only had a vague idea why Peter would make such a bumbling attempt to distance himself from the first contact with the garage in Valby, but it would certainly have to be looked into more closely, and Søren had arranged a search warrant for the man’s home address.
He didn’t look like your classic terrorist, but then again you never could tell. Looking up Peter Erhardsen in the POLSAG register revealed that he had been arrested a couple years earlier at a demonstration at the Sandholm refugee camp, where the fence had been cut and several hundred activists had stormed in. Probably to improve conditions for the asylum seekers, which did not necessarily mean that Peter Erhardsen was anything more dire than a soft-hearted humanist. He was, however, definitely an activist, and Søren hadn’t felt entirely comfortable with the near-religious zeal he thought he glimpsed beneath Peter’s pale-faced nervousness.
The timer on his phone beeped. A quick shave with borrowed amenities and fifteen minutes for coffee and contemplation was what he had allotted himself. Now it was over. It was time to meet Peter’s partner-in-activism, the nurse, Nina Borg.
“Is this okay?” He pulled out a shiny little digital recorder, pressed record, and set it on the table without waiting for her response. Then he cleared his throat and aimed a pair of surprisingly Paul Newman-blue eyes at her.
“Valby.… You told the Emergency Management Agency that you thought the source was in the inspection pit. What gave you that idea? Did you see something?”
Nina’s mouth felt strangely dry, but she was no longer sure if the radiation was to blame. She had spent most of the morning sitting in bed, staring mutely at the hospital phone even though deep down she knew Morten wasn’t going to call. She could still taste her tears at the corners of her mouth. She forced herself to look the PET man in the eyes.
“Before we talk about this, I just want to ask how the children are doing.”
He looked puzzled. Then he pulled a folder out of his bag and flipped a little through the papers in it.
“Yesterday, Sunday, May seventeenth, the Emergency Management Agency evacuated a defunct auto repair shop at 35 Gasbetonvej, in Valby. The evacuees totaled twenty men, five women, and seven children between the ages of three and eighteen. All seven children were taken to the Infectious Diseases Ward at Bispebjerg Hospital. Four of the children presented mild to moderate symptoms of radiation sickness, but were evaluated and found not to require any treatment. One child was slightly dehydrated because of several days of nausea and vomiting. The boy is being given fluids now. They’re all expected to make a full recovery.”
Nina felt a flood of relief rush through her. Since she had been diagnosed with radiation sickness, she hadn’t been able to find out anything about the children. The nurses knew nothing, and the doctors from the National Institute for Radiation Hygiene had acted like it was top-secret information of the most confidential nature. Even Magnus hadn’t been able to drag anything out of his colleagues at Bispebjerg.
The PET man regarded her calmly.
“In other words there’s nothing to indicate that the children were seriously harmed. So, if we could turn our attention back to the question. Did you see the source of the radiation?”
“No. It was pitch black down there. And, besides, I wouldn’t have any idea what something like that looked like.”
“I’m assuming you guessed it was in the inspection pit because you and the children were down there?”
Nina nodded, squirming in the chair. It was hot in the room, and her thighs were sticking damply to the plastic seat. She felt uncomfortable in the floppy hospital gown, granny underwear, and bare legs. Her own clothes had been thrown away, and there was no one at home to bring her new clothes. They sealed off the apartment, Morten had said. The image of his back framed in the doorway flitted through her mind. She pushed it aside with a deep breath and forced her attention back to the conversation. The inspection pit.
“Yes. When I was out there Friday night, the children and I were ordered into the inspection pit. And I think the children had been down there many times.”
“Ordered, you say. By who?”
“The people at the garage.”
“And why? Do you know?”
Nina shrugged. “Someone came. The Roma called them ‘boss men.’ ”
“More than one, then.”
“Yes. I heard them arguing up above, but I couldn’t hear much of what they were saying. It sounded like it was about money, maybe rent. I’m assuming there weren’t supposed to be children or people like me at the repair shop. Peter … uh, Peter Erhardsen that is … he experienced something similar.”
“And you didn’t see these ‘boss men?’ ”
“No.”
Despite the recorder, he still made a note in his papers. He pulled out a plastic folder from his briefcase and pushed it over in front of her. It contained a single, letter-sized printout of what looked like a passport picture.
“Do you know him?”
There was very little personality in the stiff, over-exposed face. But yes, she was absolutely sure she had seen him before. Was he one of the men from the repair shop? She tried to remember the faces from the cold, flickering glare of the fluorescent light, but they all merged into one. Turned into frozen masks with hostile eyes.
Then it clicked. The gash over his eye. She had seen his face half covered in blood, in the yellow glow of the light in her car. She didn’t know his name, what he had done, or where he was now. Just that the left side of his rib cage must still be fairly sore.
“He … he was out there,” she said. “Who is he?”