My Name is Jensen by Heidi Amsinck

Author:Heidi Amsinck
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Muswell Press
Published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

51

Saturday 12:23

When he saw her, Liron did something he had never done before. He reached into the front seat of his mini-van and pulled out a tiny folding chair. He pushed her into the seat and covered her legs with a woollen blanket. Then he made her a chai latte, heady with cinnamon, ginger and cardamom, and left her to breathe in the fragrant steam while he took care of his other customers, none of whom looked brainless enough to have got themselves sacked from their jobs.

She checked the news on her phone. Impossible to miss the story under the bright yellow ‘BREAKING’ banner. The election campaign had been momentarily forgotten in favour of grainy photos of police tape and emergency vehicles, which did little to hide the absence of any actual information on the third stabbing. In the vacuum, the usual ‘experts’ had rushed in, pointing fingers at the government for allowing the vulnerable to be picked off in the street one by one. The government had responded with new emergency shelters and round-the-clock street patrols across the capital.

‘These killings are going to stop right now,’ said the prime minister on the steps of Christiansborg, child-sized, flanked by the chests of her minders.

‘I messed up,’ said Jensen when Liron had finished the lunch-time rush. ‘No job, no place to live, and a teenager is in hospital because of me.’

‘Not the boy I met, your apprentice? He was so fucking nice. I gave him drinks on the house. Liron fucking never gives away coffee for free. Never ever.’

He made her tell him everything, from when she first discovered the body in Magstræde to her conversation with Margrethe. He was surprisingly gentle.

‘Tell Uncle Liron. What do you want to do now?’

‘I want to go to Riget to see Gustav, make sure he is OK, but I don’t even know where he is.’

‘Wait,’ Liron said, getting his phone out. ‘What’s his full name? ‘

‘Gustav Skov.’

‘One of my customers works there. I am asking her.’

‘Do you keep phone numbers for all your regulars?’

She couldn’t recall ever giving him hers. Somehow that had never felt like the right thing to do.

He smiled, showing a mouthful of crooked teeth and gold fillings. ‘This one’s special.’

Ten minutes later, by the time she had finished her tea, his phone pinged.

‘Gustav Skov? Admitted last night?’

Jensen nodded.

A forwarded message with Gustav’s ward and room number lit up her phone.

‘Told you, just ask your Uncle Liron.’

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