Chapter 5: Copenhagen

A woman in a yellow raincoat was holding a sign with my name on it in the arrivals hall.

The sign said CLAIRE DANNER in marker, and under it, smaller, SHE IS NOT A SERIAL KILLER, I PROMISE.

"Freja," she said, and shook my good hand. "Holm. I'm the coordinator's problem and your new desk neighbor."

She had cropped white-blonde hair and round glasses, and she took my suitcase before I could argue.

"You limp."

"I twisted my ankle."

"And your hand."

"I cut it."

"On the same night?" Freja looked at me over her glasses. "Okay. Car first, questions never."

I could have hugged her for that.

She drove me through grey, wet streets to a narrow building by a canal, up four flights, and unlocked a small white flat with a slanted ceiling.

"It's yours for six months. Landlord's a friend of the professor's." She held out a key on a green ribbon. "Here."

I stood in the doorway looking at it.

"It's just a key," Freja said gently.

"I know."

I took it.

The man in the grey coat had photographed my boarding pass and my face.

I had watched every passenger behind me on the plane, and the arrivals hall, for his coat.

I hadn't seen it.

That didn't make me feel safe.

It was cold and heavy in my palm.

It was the first key anyone had handed me in years that I didn't have to ask for.

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