Chapter 15

Erik poured the oatmeal into his cup, topping it with soy milk. He thought it tasted like pressed cardboard. According to some people, soy milk was supposed to be indistinguishable from cow's milk’s, but Erik didn’t buy that. That soy stuff had nothing to do with the milk he remembered from his childhood.

Not that he had much choice, anyway: with rationing, real milk was difficult to find, and very expensive. Erik already spent more than he should on the cigarettes he bought secretly from a neighbour, who in his turn got them from God knows where. And those little tubes of tobacco became more and more expensive by the month... but Erik had so few guilty pleasures in his life that he just couldn’t bring himself to give up that small daily satisfaction.

”You look worried,” Thea’s voice startled him. “What’s going on?”

Erik looked into his wife’s eyes, which were big, honest, and had a look tainted with concern.

”Um... “ he started.

He remembered that there had been a time, before Maja and Peter were born, when and Thea did nothing but talk.

They had differing opinions about virtually any subject, but he liked that.

When the medical police had been created, she tried to talk him out of joining it. She did not approve of it. According to her, the medical police was a dictatorial government measure which Erik should not back up. But the pay was better there, and there were career opportunities... and then when Maja needed medical care for that her asthma problem, it didn’t seem like he had any real choice.

And although in the end, his enlisting with the medical police had been a mutual decision – sort of - Erik still felt that this was when a new detachment began to emerge between him and his wife.

The world around them had changed... they didn’t have the luxury to make choices anymore.

The plague had changed everything: it had divided healthy people from the infected, loyal citizens from the rebels, the living from the dead.

Erik and Thea didn’t have anything to discuss anymore. All the decisions had already been taken for them.

Erik wasn’t sure Thea could really understand his work and his life: the fact that for years he had lived with a never-ending mission, with that feeling of danger that never quite disappeared.

At the same time, he could no longer bring himself to be interested in the anecdotes she told him about her patients. All their problems seemed so silly... what did they know of real trouble? About being, every single day, just one step away from infection and death? Yet he missed the relationship he used to have with Thea: her observations, her intelligence, her sense of humour.

He wished he could confide in her again... but he didn’t know where to start.

”I had some problems at the office,” he said at last.

”Oh, I’m sorry, dear,” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure it will all work out. By the way, I hope you make it for dinner tomorrow night.”

“Why?”

“Maja is coming! And she’s bringing a friend, “ Thea added significantly. “I wonder what sort of a young man he is. Maja never says anything about what she does at work, about the courses, if she has friends, how she likes it... “

Erik nodded: their daughter had always been reserved, and this became even more pronounced when she moved out. Or maybe she simply felt she could no longer talk to them? It was a sad thought.

After breakfast Erik went to the station to catch the train.

While he was traveling toward the third ring, he thought about the events of the last days.

He and Hernandez had searched Sophie Weber’s apartment, but predictably found no clue as to where she might be at the moment.

As to the other suspect, Emma Lemaire, they had had some difficulty finding her address; evidently Hoffman restricted access to the police search system, since many data appeared encrypted.

Hernandez was still working on it.

She had started to suggest, very cautiously, that maybe Hoffman was making a deliberate obstruction, but Erik did not comment.

In any case Zoe had found, in a roundabout way, the number of the lab technician, Lukas Bonnet.

They looked for him at his address twice the day before, but did not find him. A quick search of his apartment revealed very few personal belongings and nothing that would help them in their search.

It looked like another dead end, until it turned out that, coincidentally, Lara Meyer knew Lukas’s mother, and in less than no time she got them his mobile number.

They summoned Bonnet to the police headquarters, and he had assured them that he would show up that morning.

”Don’t scare him, guys,“ Lara Meyer had said, “He's a nice boy.”

When Erik arrived at the office, Hernandez told him that Bonnet was already in the questioning room downstairs. Erik noticed that she had chosen a room as far away from Hoffman’s office as she could.

He didn’t really know what to think of this situation: both Hoffman and Hernandez seemed to suspect one another, and Erik could not tell which of them was in good faith, or even if they were not both lying.

In the meantime he decided to continue helping Zoe Hernandez in the search for the two suspects, primarily because, despite everything, his partner seemed sincere, and it was much easier to trust her than slimy Hoffman.

Moreover, the spy could also be a third party that neither of them suspected.

He also considered it his duty to try everything possible to stop the infection, even if it meant disobeying his superior.

Lukas Bonnet was a young man who looked between twenty-five and thirty years old. He seemed uncertain as to why he was summoned to the headquarters.

Nothing particularly interesting emerged from the interview with him: yes, he had worked for Amanda Solarin for about a year, no, he did not know Sophie Weber very well because they had never spent time together outside work hours, yes, he had been screened for the plague that very morning and he was clean.

”So, you really don’t know why Sophie Weber decided to flee from the authorities?“ Hernandez asked.

Bonnet looked at Zoe, wide-eyed: “I don’t know... I think... maybe she was scared by the arrest and the blood, and now she’s still on the run, terrified...“

Erik raised an eyebrow: could the guy really be that naïve? After about half an hour, he realized that Zoe’s questions had become more relaxed, a lot less like an interrogation. She seemed to be smiling more often than she normally did. Maybe she liked this Bonnet man.

It wasn’t impossible: he was around the same age as her, and looked like a decent guy, plus there were his good looks.

Actually the young man appeared completely innocent... maybe even too innocent.

His answers seemed really too naive to be true. Erik wondered whether the benign facade might actually be a clever strategy.

When Bonnet left, Erik felt slightly disappointed: talking to him had led them nowhere.

”That was a bit of a waste of time, wasn’t it?” He said when the lab technician was gone.

Zoe looked at him: “Um, I wouldn’t say so.”

“Right, because you have a crush on that Lukas,” Erik goaded her. “I wouldn’t think someone like that could be your type.”

His partner merely shrugged: “He would be anyone’s type,” the shadow of a smile crossed her face. “Besides, that’s rich coming from you, given how you get all slack-jawed when you look at Lara.”

Erik blushed: “Slack-jawed?” he repeated, in a wounded tone.

“Anyway, in the midst of all his nonsense, he also said something interesting .”

“What?”

“He said that he had always made regular exams because the lab also kept infected blood for research purposes. Solarin studied the disease and its possible treatments, in addition to her regular medical practice. Perhaps the rebels were so determined not to let us take her because she found something they needed.”

Now that Zoe pointed this out, Erik was surprised not to have made the connection earlier.

“... or maybe something they wanted to disappear,” he added.