Chapter 20

Erik noticed that their walk had taken them to a street with a number of cheap hotels, the kind of place that would rent rooms by the hour to those who engaged in the most ancient trade of all: prostitution.

”Look, how about we check in some of these places, ask if any two women who looked like Weber and Lemaire took or tried to take a room?” he suggested to Hernandez, more to divert her thoughts from Hoffman than out of real hope to find the women. This was like looking for a needle in a haystack, but in fact those hotels, from a fugitive's point of view, had the great advantage of not demanding documents or asking too many questions.

”Let's split up, it’ll go quicker this way,“ Zoe proposed.

Erik started with the hotels on the right side of the road, showing the photos of the two wanted women to the people at the front desk.

No one had seen them.

All the entrance halls were much the same: cold, impersonal, and rather dirty.

The people occupying them had an ugly, mean air, it seemed to Erik, but that was probably only their uncooperative attitude.

They were not very willing to talk to the police, probably because all their affairs were conducted among people with a less than immaculate criminal record.

Erik wondered if the hotel workers would mention seeing the suspects at all, even if they had been there, but ultimately he decided they probably would: the fear of the plague was stronger than the reluctance of having anything to do with the law.

Not that Zoe and Erik mentioned that the two women were infected - they did not want to cause panic - but when a citizen saw a medical police badge, they could usually put two and two together.

Erik questioned every hotel receptionist on his side of the street, with zero results. He stood waiting for Zoe on the street corner. When she emerged from one of the buildings (one of the ugliest and filthiest), she motioned to him to come inside.

The man at the reception, who vaguely reminded Erik of a rat, claimed to have seen the two women.

“They left yesterday, they stayed for one night,” he said.

”And do you know where they were headed to?”

He shrugged: “I don’t know. They wanted to stay longer but had... er... cash problems.”

They tried to obtain more information from him, and scoured the room where the two had reportedly stayed, but found nothing.

Once they were out, Zoe remarked: “The fact that they stopped here and are short of funds confirms your theory that they are not in contact with the rebels .”

“Exactly,” Erik nodded. “So they can’t have gone too far without leaving traces,” he concluded.

When they returned to the headquarters, they encountered a familiar figure outside Lara Meyer’s door.

”Lukas Bonnet!” Zoe exclaimed. “What are you doing here? Have you been called for another interrogation?”

The young man smiled: “No, no, nothing like that. I just stopped by to say hi to Lara. She helped me find a job, and I passed by to thank her.”

Hernandez’s face relaxed: “I see.”

Erik returned to his desk, and observed the rest of their conversation from afar.

Zoe sure seemed to smile a lot in the young man’s presence, and Erik noticed that she placed her hand on his arm. He wondered if they would ever see each other again outside of this bizarre investigation.

Maybe they would.

It was a comforting thought, that people's lives would go ahead despite all the horrible things like the plague and the terror acts of the rebels that were happening around them.

Suddenly, he remembered he had to go home to meet Maja... actually, he was already late. After a last guilty look at the growing stack of files accumulated on his desk, he picked up his coat and headed home.

When Erik arrived at his apartment, everyone was already at the table which, he noticed, was laid out with more care than usual.

“At last!” Thea whispered, greeting him. “What happened?”

“I'm sorry, I was held up in the office...“

“Come on, your dinner has gone cold ages ago.”

“Hey, Dad.” a different voice greeted him.

”Maja! How are you?”

She shrugged: “Fine.”

Since his daughter left home, every time he saw her she looked different. More and more beautiful, but above all more and more grown up: a mixture of self-confidence and preoccupation.

How come the little girl he knew had grown so much in such a short time? Surely a year ago she was still a child...

Peter, meanwhile, was fumbling as usual with his handheld computer, which emitted a frequency of shrill sounds probably belonging to a videogame.

”Hello, Peter. Could you put that thing away please?”

His son rolled his eyes, but put the gadget on the table: “Well, I had to wait for you.”

It was then that Erik noticed the stranger at their table: it was a young man around Maja’s age. He looked tall even when he was sitting; he had very dark eyes and a smile that appeared vaguely fake.

”Marc Werner, nice to meet you,” he said, standing up and shaking his hand. “Maja and I are in the same class.”

As the conversation passed in the direction of the courses, examinations and teachers, Erik was distracted by the urge, probably a professional quirk, to study the young man in front of him.

There was something about him that didn’t seem quite right: every movement was too controlled, too studied, his smiles too bright.

Erik wondered what this Marc might be hiding, and then, immediately, he inwardly smiled at his own paranoia. Marc was probably just a guy trying to make a good impression on the family of the girl he liked.

He had to try and keep under control his tendency to investigate even where there was nothing to discover, Erik decided.

While he had been distracted by his thoughts, Thea had begun to talk about a patient of hers who was convinced that her sister was still alive, somewhere outside Europa.

The woman had left many years ago for a research in the quarantined areas, and she never came back. The woman, however, claimed that she had received a letter from her. Most likely she had fabricated it on her own, in her self-delusion, Thea explained.

”Where did she say it came from?” Marc asked.

“Oh, I don’t remember... from one of the countries destroyed by nuclear war, Italy, or Greece perhaps.”

“The most incredible part is not only that she believes her sister survived, but that there is mail service in those ravaged lands,” Maja smiled. “It is said that it wasn’t much to begin with, even before the war”.

Marc smiled as well: “You know what they say about PIGS. A nuclear disaster must have been an improvement for their services.”

”I don’t remember how she explained that... ah, yes, she says that the letter passed from hand to hand, something like that,” Thea said, shaking her head disconsolately. “I wish I could avoid giving her drugs but... well, I don’t really know how to help her come out of this delusion .”

“What if it’s true?” Peter asked unexpectedly.

”What?“

“You know, that her sister is alive and that she wrote to her. Maybe there are people still alive in Greece, and they have a mail service. Perhaps we aren’t being told the truth.”

Erik smiled indulgently: “You read too many adventure books.”

“Actually I was the one who liked those,” Maja contradicted. “Peter is probably confusing this story with the plot of some videogame.”

Thea laughed while Peter glanced at Maja, looking offended.

”Well, who knows, maybe there are survivors,” Marc chimed in. “After all, it’s been years since someone ventured that far.”

Peter nodded, sitting a bit straighter on his chair: “Yes, exactly.”

Erik rolled his eyes involuntarily. Marc was really trying hard to ingratiate himself with them all, even defending Peter’s outlandish theories.

What a show-off, he thought.

At that moment, the handheld in the pocket of his pants vibrated. Zoe Hernandez, he read on the display.

Thea looked at him disapprovingly.

”I’m sorry, I have to get this, it may be urgent,” he explained. “Hello?”

“Erik,” Zoe’s voice seemed anxious, “I know where the suspects are.”

“What? Where?”

“I’ll give you the address,” Zoe dictated a sixth ring address, which Erik wrote on a napkin, under a very annoyed look from his wife.

“Wait, it’s too far to go by train – it’ll take too much time .”

“I'll pick you up. I've already called two other cars.”

“Zoe, are you sure...?”

“I am totally sure! I’ll be at your place in two minutes.”

“Ok,” Erik finished the call. “I’m sorry,” he told his family, “I really have to go.”

He hoped that Hernandez wasn’t wrong, or they would be in big trouble.