Free Invisible Murder by Lene Kaaberbøl

double bed, so that all he had to do was dump them into the waiting bags. He had done it so many times that he could now pack for a two-week absence in under half an hour.
    “Have you seen my iPod?”
    Nina shook her head. Morten put his arms around her and pulled her to him so her shoulders pressed against his chest. He was so tall that his chin rested naturally on top of her head, and it gave her a feeling of being tugged inside a big, friendly fur coat. He bent to give her a fleeting kiss on the back of her neck before he let her go and once again directed his attention to the piles on the bed.
    “I lent it to Anton, so it could be anywhere.”
    Nina nodded. Anton scattered things throughout the apartment—and everywhere else, too—pretty much at random. In many ways it was like living with an eight-year-old Alzheimer’s patient. Or maybe just with an eight-year-old, Nina corrected herself.
    Morten began the process of transferring the piles into the duffel bags.He was working quickly and methodically now. He put his phone, train pass, and wallet in his jacket pocket, and that was pretty much it.
    Nina felt the dull ache of longing already. It was her fault he had had to take this inconvenient job in the first place. It was all he had been able to get at short notice, and it would take time for him to work his way up from being an itinerant mud logger to a more family-friendly Copenhagen-based job. She hated it, and Morten probably did, too, although he was far too polite to complain about it to her face. Working on the rigs was a cross he had chosen to bear, like he bore everything else life had asked of him, or more accurately, everything else that Nina had put him through. Shaken, not stirred. James Bond-style.
    “When are you leaving, Dad?”
    Ida was standing in the bedroom doorway with an open book in her hand. She was reading
The Lord of the Rings
and had been discussing it with Morten as if she had personally invented the universe, or at least been the one to discover the books. The film version had, of course, been part of her classmates’ stable diet since they were Anton’s age.
    Ida would say things like, “I’m not sure about Tolkien’s view of women,” and Morten would listen to her and answer her without batting an eyelid, never letting on that she had seized on the stalest of topics in one of the most endlessly debated books in the galaxy. James Bond teaching Literature. Nina was profoundly envious.
    “I’m off in a minute,” Morten said, casting a quick glance at his watch, “but call me on the train, and we can say goodnight.”
    Ida smiled, and planted a quick kiss on her father’s cheek. She was wearing scent of some kind, Nina realized. Something sweet and a little too heavy.
    “Keep your fingers crossed for my hockey match,” she said. Then she waved and vanished back into her bedroom without even giving Nina a glance. The sound of muffled music seeped out into the hallway and on into their bedroom, and Nina knew she wouldn’t be seeing any more of Ida tonight.
    Morten didn’t seem to have noticed any of this. He was leaning toward her so she could feel the warmth from his body.
    “We still have our deal, right?” he asked softly.
    Nina nodded. Their deal. Their Big, Important Deal. No underground work for the Network while Morten was away. She hoped no one fromthe ever-changing flock of illegal immigrants that Peter from the Network took under his wing would break an arm or a leg or come down with symptoms of appendicitis in the next fortnight.
    “Of course,” she said.
    “And remember.…” Morten whispered, pulling Nina in tight against him and kissing her mischievously on the nose. Feeling patronized, Nina wrapped her arms around his neck and stood with her nose right up against his throat.
    “Remember
you’re
driving the girls to roller hockey on Wednesday. It’s our turn.”
    Nina nodded quickly. Roller hockey was one of the few of Ida’s activities Nina was still