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he came to her rescue.
    “Sigita? Don’t forget we’re going to Kaliningrad on Saturday, right?”
    Darius. Tanned and fair-haired, with that relaxed and well-trained confidence none of the other boys had. His shirt was left casually open to reveal a crisp white T-shirt underneath, and neither garment had come from Poland.
    “No,” she said. “It’ll be fun. Have you heard that Milda is going to Miami for the holidays?”
    “Oh,” he said. “You must say hello to my uncle, then. He lives there.”
    IT HAD TAKEN her years to see that Darius’s shining armor was eggshell thin. He couldn’t rescue her, had never really been able to. God only knew what he was doing with Mikas right now. Had he brought her little boy with him to some bar where Darius’s party buddies would let him finish their beers? She shuddered. She had to get out of this damned hospital in a hurry.

T HE RAILWAY STATION was crammed with irritable Monday crowds, and there was a nearly visible mist of exhaled breaths and collective sweat in the great central hall. People were tetchy in the heat, with their clothes and their tempers sticking to them, and over the PA came the announcement that the 13:11 to Elsinore was delayed by approximately twenty minutes. Nina felt a tension that made her unwilling to be so physically close to a lot of strangers. She tried to move so that they wouldn’t touch her, but it just wasn’t possible. Finally she reached the stairwell leading down to the left luggage cellar. The sharp smell of cleaning chemicals was weaker here and couldn’t quite mask the stench of well-aged urine. The scratched metal lockers hugged the walls, long white rows with black numbers on them. 56, 55… . She checked the token again. 37-43. Where on earth was section 37?
    She found it at last, in a quiet blind alley leading off the more heavily trafficked main corridor. Right now, there were only two travelers in here—a young couple struggling to fit a large backpack into one of the lockers.
    “It won’t fit,” said the girl. “I told you. It’s too big.”
    By the girl’s accent, Nina took them to be American, or perhaps Canadian. Should she wait until they had left? But other tourists would come, and at least these two were intent on their Battle of the Bulging Rucksack. She pushed the token into the automated system controlling section 37, and there was a crisp metallic click as locker 43 came open.
    Inside was a shiny dark-brown leather suitcase, a little oldfashioned, with a long tear down one side so that the green lining peeked through. Otherwise there was nothing very noticeable about it. No address labels or tags, of course. She knew it would be foolish to open it now. People who pick up their own bags don’t open them to check what is inside. And Karin had said the same thing— don’t open it until you’re out of there . Don’t let anyone see . Oh, Karin. What are you up to? Nina thought. It was difficult to imagine that it might be anything very sinister or serious. Karin was so … “unadventurous” wasn’t quite the word, but still. It was just hard to picture easygoing, hedonistic Karin involved in anything dirty, illegal, or dangerous. But there had been that unwonted panic in her voice: This wasn’t the deal . What had she meant by that?
    Nina dragged the suitcase out of the locker. It was heavier than it looked, at least forty pounds, she guessed. Not easily carried for any length of distance, and the underground parking lot in Nyropsgade, where she had left the Fiat, was a couple of blocks away. But Copenhagen’s Central Station did not provide complimentary trolleys like those in airports, so there was nothing else for it.
    The young couple had begun taking things out of the backpack to slim it sufficiently for the narrow locker. The young man dropped a toilet bag, which hit the floor with a clang and came open. Mascara, eyeliner, hair mousse, and deodorants spilled across the tiles. One of the deodorants