"Were they getting a divorce?" I asked.
The mother looked appalled. "Good Lord, no. We do not accept divorces in our family."
"So they were together after the honeymoon? I don't understand."
The mother's face grew longer and the sister took over.
"It's a family matter," she said, while her mother went to a chair and sat down.
The sister whispered. "But yes, they're still married, technically. Even if they don't live together. When they returned from the honeymoon, they split up. There was no drama to it. Mads didn't love her anymore, he said. Mother made sure the girl never needed for anything. She paid her enough for her to live off the rest of her life. The last I heard, the girl moved back to live with her mother. Mads didn't see her again. He never wanted to. He was really angry with her for some reason. There isn't more to the story than that. Mads wanted a divorce, but mother refused. We don't do divorces in our family. It's a disgrace to the name."
I stared at the woman who was about my age, but seemed so much older. I wasn't surprised that Signe's mother had lied to us about having seen her daughter. I had a feeling she wasn't telling Rebekka the truth.
I looked at my watch and realized it had gotten really late. Morten was waiting outside the hospital room and I knew he badly wanted to go back to the hotel room. But there was something odd about what the sister was telling me, something that didn't add up. If they had no contact. If Mads and Signe didn't see each other anymore, why had they written on each other's Facebook walls? What was it again they had written?
"YNWA," I mumbled.
The mother lifted her head and stared at me. The sister looked at me strangely. "What was that?" she asked.
I shook my head. "Nothing. YNWA is something Liverpool's fans sing. It stands for You'll Never Walk Alone. I just remembered it."
I stared at them. They were both extremely pale all of a sudden. Was it what I had said?
"You know the song?" I asked.
"Mads loved it," the sister replied. "He was a big Liverpool fan."
"I see."
I sensed the tension in the room grow. I wasn't going to get any more out of these people.
"I should go," I said.
"You should," the mother moaned.
I thanked them both for their time, then left the room feeling strange. I had no idea what was up and down in this case. Morten approached me as I came out.
"So what did they say?" he asked.
"Not much. It was more what they didn't say that interested me. I think they're lying. They know something. Something very important."
"Mrs. Frost!"
I turned and saw Doctor Faaborg coming towards me with a smile. "Mrs. Frost, I have to speak to you."
"Hello doctor," I said. "This is Morten, my boyfriend."
"Well, hello there. You're a very lucky fellow. I hope you realize that," Doctor Faaborg said with a grin. "To be the guy that goes home with the great Emma Frost."
"I am and I do," Morten said while they shook hands.
"So what did you want to tell me?" I asked, trying to drown the blush on my cheeks. I never could get used to people seeing me as this big author. It was just me. I was just Emma.
"Well, it is very interesting, in fact. After we spoke last time, I decided to ask about it at our staff meeting this afternoon and you were absolutely right."
"Right about what?"
"About the injection, of course. No one made any injection into Mads Schou's thigh. So the injection-wound in his thigh has to be older. He must have had it when he arrived."
40
April 2012
"WHERE ARE WE GOING, SIGNE?"
Signe was driving the rented scooter up the mountain while Mads was clinging on to her back. The wind was warm in their faces, the city full of lights behind them. In front of them were enthroned the biggest mansions in all of Monaco.
"Signe I'm not sure…Please just tell me what we're doing. I don't want to get into more trouble, I…I really should…"
"Don't be such a wimp," she hissed, sounding awfully a lot like her dad had towards her when she was a child. "You know you want to do this. You know you're going to like it."
"Signe I don't think…"
"Shut up Mads! Just shut up and do as I tell you. You'll thank me later. I'm getting us out of this mess. You don't have a choice. I'm doing this with or without you."
They reached a road and she took a turn sharply. Mads held on to her waist so he wouldn’t fall off. Signe stopped the engine and they both got off the scooter. She looked at Mads who, like her, had his face hidden behind his helmet. She closed his visor so she couldn't see his eyes. "There you go. No one will ever recognize you, in case they have cameras on the wall," she said with a smile and then closed her own.
"What are we doing?" Mads asked. She could hear he was getting anxious.
"We're getting the money," she said. "Come with me."
She walked down the road along a tall brick wall, then stopped. "This is perfect," she said. She walked along the wall then jumped up and grabbed ahold of the edge, then pulled her body over. Mads followed her closely. They ran towards the house.
"Who lives here?" Mads asked.
She shrugged. "I don't know. But I bet they're rich, don't you?"
"So you're going to steal their money?"
"No. We're going to steal their money." Signe sat down in the grass underneath a window. She pulled out a small bag from her pocket. "Here," she said and handed him one of the small colorful pills from inside the bag. "Take it."
"What is it?" Mads whispered.
"I don't know." She took hers and swallowed.
"Where did you get it from?"
"Some guy at the casino last night. He offered them to me outside the bathroom. I told him I'd suck his dick if he gave them to me for free."
"You did what?"
"Relax. I didn't do it. I took him into the bathroom then knocked him out with a vase and stole all he had. Take it. It'll make you feel great. Like you can conquer the world."
Signe pushed his hands towards his mouth. Why was he all of a sudden being this way again? She leaned over and whispered:
"Listen. Just follow my lead, okay? Just do what I tell you to."
Mads was staring at her through the helmet. She sensed his eyes on hers. Tired of waiting, she took the pill out of his hand, opened the visor and put it inside his mouth. "Now swallow," she said. To her satisfaction, he obeyed. "Now we wait," she said. "Five minutes, the man told me. Five minutes it takes for the drug to reach your blood stream."
"Then what?" Mads asked.
"Then we attack. Quickly in and quickly out. Don't be scared, Mads. It's easy. Easy as one, two, three."
41
April 2014
MORTEN AND I SLEPT better that night. I was exhausted beyond anything and, to my surprise, I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I woke up a couple of times gasping and calling out Maya's name until I realized where I was, in the darkness of a hotel room.
The next morning I felt a little better. Sleep was just what I needed, even if my dreams really worried me. I kept seeing Maya in a dark room all alone crying asking me to come and help her. It had been the same dream every night, but this time there was a twist to it. This time, Victor had been there as well. He had been sitting in the corner with a rat in his hand, gently petting it and telling me how much he loved rats. While we ate breakfast, I kept wondering why he had said that on the phone. He had told me he liked rats. He had never said anything like that before and, knowing him, nothing was coincidental. There was something about rats that he wanted me to know. But what and why?
"Are you alright?" Morten asked.
"Yes. I'm sorry. A little distracted, why?"
"You haven't touched your food yet and I'm almost done. It's very unlike you. Are you thinking about yesterday?"
"That came up as well, yes," I said and drank my orange juice. "I keep wondering if it could be the mother who wa
nted to get the son out of the picture. Maybe to make sure he didn't inherit the money. You should have heard them. They practically said he was a disgrace because he wanted to divorce his wife."
"A little drastic to want him killed because of that, don't you think?" Morten asked with a cute smile.
He was right. Even for a rich upper-class family like this, it was a little drastic. I felt so frustrated once again. I still had no idea who the mysterious woman was or where Signe Schou could be.
"So, what are we up to today?" Morten asked.
"I thought I'd be paying a little surprise visit to Signe Schou's mother. I think I'll take Rebekka with me. No offense, but given her history with her husband and all, I don't think she trusts men very much. I'm not taking any chances. I want the truth from her this time."
"Great. I'll hang out with Sune then," Morten said, annoyed.
"You don't like Sune?" I asked, startled. I loved the guy.
"He’s trouble, Emma. I can't stand turning a blind eye and pretending I don't see him breaking the law again and again. It's very uncomfortable for me."
"I know it’s hard, but please just do it for me, will you?"
I grabbed Morten's hand. I missed being close to him, but it was just so difficult with everything that was going on. All I could think about was Maya. I was sick to my stomach from worry.
"You don't have to like him," I said. "I didn't like Rebekka much in the beginning either. She is very different from me. Especially her choices. I still find it hard to understand why she has chosen to leave her baby at home with her dad in order to go to work."
Morten frowned. "I completely get that. He's more than a year, Emma. She has to get back at some point if she doesn't want to lose her job," Morten said. "Most people put their children in daycare at that age. At least she has her dad taking care of him."
"I guess so. I didn't work until my kids were four, though."
"And what kind of jobs did you get by then?"
He was right. I was away from the job market for eight years. I couldn't get any job once I decided it was finally time to get one. Everything had changed. I didn't have any education, since I was way too young when I became pregnant, so all I could get was small badly paid jobs until I finally started writing for small magazines. And I had become way too dependent on Michael. Once he dropped the bomb and told me he was in love with someone else and leaving us, I could hardly change a light bulb without his help. It was quite a shock to get back to doing everything on my own.
Morten got up from his chair and wiped his mouth with his napkin. "Shall we go?" he asked.
I looked at my plate. I had hardly eaten anything. I grabbed a croissant and wrapped it in my napkin and took it with me. On our way to the office in the car I checked my phone in the hope that someone could have called…in the desperate hope that Maya had somehow found a phone and tried to call me and I just hadn't heard it, even if I did sleep with it very close to me and checked it several times during the night. But there was nothing. Nothing but old photos of my beautiful daughter that I was suddenly afraid I hadn't appreciated enough while I had her.
If I ever got her back, I was never letting her go again. Not if…when, I told myself. When I got her back.
42
April 2014
SIGNE SCHOU'S MOTHER LIVED on the small island of Enoe right outside of Karrebaeksminde. We drove there in Rebekka's car. The car was filled with baby toys on the floor and had a blue baby seat in the back. I had forgotten how much having a baby changed everything in your life, including how you lived and the content in your car.
"Just throw that stuff in the back if it bothers you," Rebekka said as I got into the car. The front seat was packed with cracker-boxes, baby-wipes, toys and a garbage bag. I moved it to the backseat and sat down.
"So, I'm guessing it's a boy?" I said and strapped my seatbelt. I had touched something sticky and my fingers felt gross now. I grabbed a tissue from the box and wiped it clean.
"Sorry about that," Rebekka said and drove off down the road. "And yes. You're right. His name is William. Named after Sune's grandfather."
"I love how you guys manage to work together and still be a couple," I said.
Rebekka took a turn while looking like she was thinking about what I had said. "Well, it isn't always easy," she said.
"Oh. But you make it look easy."
She shrugged. "I guess we're doing okay. It's a lot of work, but I guess that's just life, right?"
I was a little startled to hear that they weren't the all-time happy couple that I had taken them for, but once I thought about it, I knew that nobody was. If my divorce had taught me anything, it was that a relationship took all your effort to make it work. There was no room for slacking off; if you for one second became too comfortable and thought everything was running smoothly while you were busy doing other things and not attending to how your relationship was doing, then snap, it could be over. All it took was ten seconds. Ten seconds where he came to you one afternoon while you were sitting by the computer and told you that you two needed to talk. I still remembered it as one of the most terrifying moments of my life. There I was in my own little world of contentment, not realizing that a few seconds later, my entire world would be ripped apart. The worst part was his coldness when I started pleading with him to stay. I hated that part and regretted it every second of my life. Me crying my eyes out, begging him not to leave and him just starting to pack without a word, without so much as looking in my direction.
Today, I was glad we split up and, looking back, I’d only been fooling myself. We weren't happy. I hadn't been happy at all in that marriage. But it took distance and time to realize that. It was brutal on the children, but in the end, it was best for all of us. Even if I never could forgive him, I guess I in time learned to accept it…accept the fact that he loved someone else. But I hated the fact that I still felt like I hadn't been good enough for him, that he never thought I was good enough.
"I guess you're right," I said.
"And you and Morten? You seem like a great couple," she said and drove onto the bridge leading to Enoe Island.
"We are. He's the most supportive and loving man I have ever been with. He's amazing, really. He loves my kids and I can't believe how sweet he always is. Sometimes I feel like he's from another planet. I've never met a guy quite like him," I said and looked out at the ocean underneath us. The sun had been shining all morning and it made the ocean sparkle. It was gorgeous.
"But…?" Rebekka said.
I looked at her. What did she mean by that? "Excuse me?"
"I sense there is a but in there somewhere," she said.
I shook my head. That was a strange thing to say, I thought. I didn't like it. Of course Morten and I had fights, yes, but all couples had that. It was very rare, though.
But that's not what it is, is it? You know there is a but in there. You know you have your doubts about him. You know you’ve thought about it too, but won't admit it to yourself. Because from the outside, he is perfect and you keep telling yourself that he is, but there is something missing. There is something vital missing from your relationship and you know it. Rebekka sees it. She knows.
"I don't know," I said as Rebekka drove into a driveway and stopped the car. "I guess all couples have their issues, you know?"
Rebekka nodded. "Guess so."
I felt like she saw right through me. What was this feeling all of a sudden? Was I really having doubts about Morten? I guess I was. He was sweet and perfect and all, but I wasn't exactly getting what I needed from him. The thought made me feel awful. I loved him, I really did, but where was the passion? He hadn't exactly swept me off my feet. I knew he loved me and showed me in his actions, but we were supposed to be in love, we were supposed to be all over each other and we weren't. Not just because of Maya being gone, no it had been going on long before that. The passion simply wasn't there and I needed it. I needed it badly. I shook the thought. I was just being ridiculous. Morten was
perfect. End of story.
"Let's go knock on the door," Rebekka said and got out.
I followed her and looked at the big old white villa in front of us with views over the ocean. I was quite surprised that Signe Schou's mother could afford to live in a place like this. Wasn't she supposed to be poor?
43
April 2014
MADS WAS ANXIOUS. They had been doing all kinds of tests on him all morning. He was trying to move his pinky again and again and he knew they saw it, but he was afraid they wouldn't realize that he did it deliberately.
All night, he had been awake inside of his darkness recalling pictures of his life, trying to stick to the happy wonderful days and not all the bad ones.
Signe had been the love of his life, but the more he thought about her and their marriage, the more he realized that he might not have been in love with her as much as he was in love with what she represented. At least not in the beginning.
They had only seen each other for a week before he had presented her to his mother. Today, he knew that it wasn't because he was so head over heels in love with her that he just needed to show her off to his family, like he had told her he was. No, he had another reason; he had a completely different agenda.
Signe was the complete opposite of his mother. She came from a poor very broken family, she dressed provocatively and she had short boyish hair. She was what his mother would call bad company, a rebel, and Mads loved that about her. She was nothing like the kind of woman his mother wanted him to marry.
So, he fell in love. He adored her despite her many tantrums and strange desires that led to very destructive behavior…behavior that would end up terminating his love for her once he realized just how dangerous she really was.
But how could he have known? How could he have foreseen what was going to happen to them? He had been blinded by his love for her and the love of the life they had together. The adventurous side to her was different. He had never encountered anything like it before. It was thrilling and exciting, until the day it went overboard. Oh, the many times he had regretted not having left her the first time. It could have been so easy for him to just leave her there in Egypt when she had started flirting with the bartender. He never understood why he didn't. But a part of him had felt intrigued. Aroused even. He wanted to see how far she was going to take it, how far she would go. And then, much to his surprise, she had gone all the way. She had walked into the restroom with that guy and let him touch her, let him…oh, how he had felt bad in those seconds after the door had closed. How brutal it had been to sit out there in the bar and picture what she was doing with him in there. That was when all sense and sensibility inside of him had been replaced with anger. Furious anger so deep he was ready to kill for it. The jealousy had felt so overpowering, there was nothing else he could do. Mads had hit the bartender so hard he had smashed his head on the porcelain sink. And it had felt so good. He had felt so good punching him. So incredible powerful…for the first time in his life.