“UNO!”
Lulu held her last card up in front of her mouth and looked triumphantly across the dining table at Martin.
“What the heck, you little rascal?” he laughed. “How did you get rid of all your cards already?”
Martin drew three more from the deck, got a wild card, and played it. “Change to red!”
Lulu threw a red eight down on the table and thrust her arms up. “Ta-da!”
“That’s the third time in a row!” Martin said, skeptically shaking his head. “I think you must be cheating.”
“No way.” Lulu tossed her hair and started gathering up the cards from the table.
“Yes way. You must be,” he joked.
“No, I’m not. Heloise, Martin says I’m cheating.”
“He’s just a poor loser.” Heloise smiled, setting the tray with the plates down on the table. “Could you two please set the table? Dinner’s almost ready now.”
Heloise could hear Martin and Lulu laughing together as she returned to the stove to get the pots with the pasta and sauce. It was nice to have them both in the apartment, but it also made it clear to Heloise that this was the closest they were ever going to come to resembling a real family: Heloise, the boyfriend, and the godchild. A mock version of the nuclear family that she would always keep at arm’s length.
“What did you do today?” Martin asked once they were all seated.
Heloise took the pasta fork and asked Lulu to hold out her plate.
“Karen Aagaard foisted a story off on me, so I’ve been working on that,” she said and spun a ball of linguine onto Lulu’s plate.
“Foisted?” Martin asked. “What do you mean by that?”
“I was working on something with Gerda, which Aagaard vetoed because she wanted me to dig into something else.”
“What does she want you to dig into?”
“That case the media is all crazed about right now. You know the one.” Heloise gave him a look.
Martin glanced over at Lulu, who was pouring sauce on her pasta, and then asked in English, “About the missing kid?”
Heloise nodded and opened the bottle of wine.
“Uh, you know I can speak English, right?” Lulu said, twirling linguine around her fork.
“You can?” Martin asked.
Lulu shoveled the bite into her mouth. “Mm-hmm.”
“How did you get to be so clever?”
“I’m eight years old!”
“Yeah, but when I was eight, I wasn’t as bright as you are,” he said. “How can you already know how to speak English?”
“Netflix,” she said and swallowed. “Plus, we take English at school. Are you writing about Lukas?” She looked at Heloise.
Heloise ran her fingers through her hair. “Well, that’s what my boss wants me to do, so …”
“Because you think he’s dead?”
“Whoa, hey!” Martin put his hand on top of Lulu’s. “No one thinks he’s dead. The chances are still really good that the police will find him soon. We actually know the lead detective working on the case and he is incredibly good at what he does. He’ll find Lukas. Isn’t that right, Helo?”
Heloise looked down at her plate to avoid making eye contact with Lulu.
“Mm-hmm,” she said and nodded. “He’ll find him … One way or another.”
“Yes, it’ll end well, the whole thing,” Martin said. He winked at Lulu and took a mouthful of pasta.
Heloise cleared her throat and reached for her wineglass without looking at either of them.
“Or maybe it won’t,” she mumbled. “You never know. I think it’s a good idea to be realistic about this.”
Heloise noticed Martin’s jaw muscles stop chewing. He gave her a look that indicated she could sugarcoat things a little more.
Heloise squirmed in her chair. “But no matter what, you’ll be fine,” she told Lulu. “You’ve got a lot of people looking out for you, beautiful.”
Lulu looked at them in turn. Her eyes were suddenly serious.
“I think he’s dead.”
Heloise looked puzzled. “Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know. He’s just … weird.”
“Weird how?” Heloise set down her silverware.
Lulu shrugged, searching for words. “I don’t know, like … Sometimes he’s a lot of fun. He kids around with me and stuff. But other times he seems so … so angry.”
“In what way?”
“Well, I think he likes me,” she began.
“Of course. Who doesn’t?” Martin smiled.
“But then the other day I passed him on the stairs at school. At recess, you know?”
Heloise nodded to get her to continue.
“I bumped into him and then he went completely nuts.”
“Why?”
“How should I know?!” Lulu shrugged theatrically. “He just flipped out. He was yelling and screaming and then Patrick came over to comfort him, but …”
“Who’s Patrick?”
“One of the recess monitors. He just wanted to help us solve the conflict, but Lukas kicked him and hit him in the stomach and then Patrick got, like, super mad.”
“What happened then?”
“Then Lukas got in big trouble. Patrick dragged him down the stairs and tossed him out into the schoolyard. I’ve never seen Patrick so angry before.”
“Who did you say he is, this Patrick guy?”
“One of the teachers.”
“What’s he like?”
“He’s all right, but he spends most of his time with the boys,” Lulu said. “They do role-playing and fencing and stuff like that, and they’re always outside—even when it’s cold. He’s not so good at girl stuff.”
Martin looked at Heloise. “Does this Lukas kid have a diagnosis or something like that?”
Heloise shrugged. Then she looked at Lulu. “Have you seen Lukas flip out other times?”
“Yeah. There’s a kid in Lukas’s class named Toke. Everyone’s scared of him except for Lukas. One day they were out in the schoolyard arguing and then I heard Lukas tell Toke that he was going to kill him.”
Martin raised his eyebrows and glanced briefly at Heloise. Then he turned his attention back to Lulu. “Kill him? Did he really say that?”
Lulu nodded.
“What did the grownups say about that?”
“Nothing. They didn’t hear him say it. And Toke didn’t say anything either, because he always gets the blame whenever there’s trouble, so probably nobody would have believed him. All the grownups really like Lukas, because he’s usually quiet and because he’s super good at every subject, but, well … I heard it.”
“Did you tell your mom about this?” Heloise asked.
Lulu shook her head and took another bite of pasta. “I was right, wasn’t I? This sauce is crazy good.”
Heloise nodded slowly as she thought about what Lulu had said.
When the doorbell rang, she got up. Her stomach dropped when she saw Gerda’s face on the video display. She buzzed her into the building and opened the door of the apartment for her.
“Mom, why are you here already?” Lulu said when Gerda walked in.
“Hi, honey … uh, it’s nice to see you too,” Gerda said, taking off her army green rubber boots. She walked over and kissed her daughter on the top of her head.
“Yeah, hi, but seriously—why do we have to go home so soon? Couldn’t I spend the night with Heloise?”
“Not today, honey.”
“Please?”
“Not today, Lulu.”
“But couldn’t I just stay and watch a little bit of Kung Fu Panda 3? We bought candy and we were going to watch a movie. So can’t you just have a cup of coffee or something before we leave?”
“Sure.” Gerda nodded. “One cup. Okay, so off to the living room with you and then we’ll go home in half an hour.”
“Martin, don’t you want to come watch the movie?” Lulu asked.
Martin gave Gerda a hug. Then he disappeared into the living room with Lulu.
Gerda sat down in the empty chair next to Heloise and put a warm hand on her back.
“Hey,” she said, and just like that all the hard feelings between them were gone. “Thanks for your help. Did you have a good time?” She unzipped her black leather jacket and wriggled out of it.
Heloise nodded. “A great time. How about you? Did you get a handle on whatever situation you needed to get a handle on?”
“Yes and no. Can I have a sip?” Gerda reached for Heloise’s wineglass.
“Yes. I’m assuming that you don’t actually want coffee?” Heloise smiled.
“No, thanks,” Gerda said and drained the wineglass. “One of my former clients has been killed.”
“In Afghanistan?”
“No. In Copenhagen. Can you believe it?”
“Really? Just now? In a training exercise?”
“No, in his bed. Shot in the head.”
“What?” Heloise raised both eyebrows in surprise. She filled the wineglass again and handed it to Gerda.
“I know. right? It’s crazy,” Gerda said. “So we spent the whole day sorting through the entire course of his therapy. We turned over every stone.”
“We?”
Gerda’s and Heloise’s eyes met. “Yes, another trauma psychologist and myself. The client was in therapy with me up until a year and a half ago. Do you remember the guy who had the crush on me and started stalking me online?”
Heloise nodded. “It was him?”
“Yes. He became practically obsessed. It was creepy. So I got one of my coworkers to take over his therapy at that point so that it wouldn’t turn into an even bigger problem.”
“I remember that,” Heloise said. “But I don’t remember your actually being afraid of him.”
“No, not afraid, but … He was an unsavory guy.”
“In what way?”
“In every way! Most of the soldiers I see for therapy have been through so many awful experiences during their deployments, things they need to process. It’s often that they’ve lost buddies. They’ve had friends blown up by roadside bombs and had to gather up the bloody pieces so the soldier’s parents back home would have something to bury. Horrifying!” Gerda rubbed her eyes tiredly. “And of course my clients need to process all that. But another thing that weighs on them is that they have killed people. In some situations, killing the enemy doesn’t affect them very much, but …”
“Like when?”
“Like when it comes to members of ISIS or the Taliban who are firing an AK-47 at our troops. Then it’s kill or be killed. That’s not something they generally lose sleep over. But when it’s a civilian who gets killed—especially if it’s a child—many of them have a hard time with that later.”
“And your former client? Was he affected by that?”
“No, that’s what was so creepy. He was almost proud of the notches he had in his belt. I happen to know that on one tour of duty in Afghanistan he shot a whole family when he was clearing a house in a village. Children, uncles, aunts, grandparents—everyone. The BDA reported it as a legitimate enemy killing, but in therapy he admitted that they were unarmed.”
“The BDA?”
“Yeah, it stands for Battle Damage Assessment. The soldiers keep a log of who and how many people they’ve killed and under what circumstances. And in the log this particular episode was described as a by-the-book combat situation, but in reality he made the family line up in a row and then he …” She made the shape of an automatic weapon with her hands and then squeezed the trigger. “And he smiled when he described it.”
Heloise narrowed her eyes in disbelief. “He really told you that?”
“No, he didn’t tell me that story, but I know it from my coworker.”
Heloise hesitated for a moment but couldn’t help but stick with the topic. “The one who took over the client from you?”
“Right,” Gerda said evasively. She took a sip of the wine. “One of the other trauma psychologists at the barracks.”
Heloise had no doubt whom she was alluding to.
“And now he’s dead?” she asked. “The client?”
Gerda nodded.
Heloise shrugged. “Well, that’s how karma works. Have you told the police?”
“Which part?”
“That he killed a bunch of civilians in Afghanistan.”
Gerda shook her head. “The military is responsible for communications with the police. I just attended the in-house meeting at the barracks. Besides, like I said, it wasn’t me that he told his story to.”
“No, it was your coworker.” Heloise nodded sarcastically and bit her lower lip. “Why did he share the story with you? Isn’t the idea that that sort of thing is meant to stay between the psychologist and their client?”
Gerda eyed Heloise for a long moment without saying anything.
“Because he trusts me,” she said. “Like I trust you.”
“Hmm,” Heloise said. She didn’t notice that she had rested her hand on her abdomen until she instinctively removed it again. “I think you ought to tell the police what you know either way.”
Gerda leaned forward in her chair in a way that signaled that the conversation was over.
“Lulu,” she called. “It’s getting late, sweetie. We have to go home now.”
Gerda’s resistance made Heloise think of the barn door and the woods in Rørvig, and she decided she was going to need to come clean to Schäfer. If her intuition was right, she couldn’t keep hiding it from him.
They got up from the table as Lulu walked in from the living room.
“Can I bring the rest of the candy home?”
“Yes, of course.” Heloise smiled and gave her a long hug.
“Oh, you got candy?” Gerda said. She took Lulu’s down jacket down from the row of hooks in the front hall and retrieved her backpack from the floor.
“Yup!”
“Wow, you lucky duck. Did you say thank you?”
Lulu nodded and put on her jacket. “Heloise totally freaked out at the Apple Man at Føtex, though.”
“Freaked out?” Gerda repeated. “Why?”
“Well, I didn’t exactly freak out,” Heloise protested.
“She basically told him to take his yucky apples and scram.” Lulu laughed.
Gerda eyed Heloise indulgently.
Heloise held a finger up to object. “That is not what I said.”
“That was what you meant,” Lulu said.
Gerda didn’t say anything. She just nodded and gave Heloise a hug. “Thanks for all your help today.”
“Any time!”
Heloise could hear Lulu and Gerda laughing all the way down the stairs. She closed and locked her door and turned around. Martin had sat down at the kitchen table and was watching her. He looked like a cat who had just swallowed a canary.
“What?” She smiled.
“You’re good at that.”
“At what?”
“Being with Lulu. She loves you.”
Heloise’s smile stiffened. This was not a conversation she was interested in having.
“Do you know what you’re good at?” she said instead.
She got up and grasped him by his shirt collar and slowly pulled him up off the chair.
“Come on,” she said.
She took him by the hand and led him into the bedroom.