The Considerate Killer by Agnete Friis, Lene Kaaberbøl

lungs and tried not to think about anything else. There were lots of people around her: staff, visitors, patients. This wasn’t a deserted parking garage, and no one was lurking in the shadows with an iron bar . . .
    Ida and Anton were waiting at their grandmother’s. The Viborg visit had been in the cards since forever. Nina knew that Morten had planned a trip for himself, and had a strong suspicion that this holiday involved some female she had not yet met. Still, he had come close to canceling both.
    â€œYou’re not doing it again,” he had said. “You’re not exposing them to that kind of thing one more time.”
    There were times when she missed Morten terribly. His body, which knew hers so well. His love for the children. His care, his warmth, his humor. The odd-ball music he had introduced her to, his complete inability to lose a board game without pouting like a five-year-old, the way he could reach Ida when she couldn’t. But whether she liked it or not—and she didn’t like it—she didn’t see much of that Morten these days. It was as if he was constantly looking for confirmation that he had made the right decision. Her role as the irresponsible adrenaline-junkie seemed set in concrete, and he in turn became the cranky and corrective supervisor. She seriously doubted they would ever be one of those harmonious ex-couples who were each other’s best friends.
    â€œThen you’ll just have to do without,” she muttered under her breath. If they could prevent it from affecting the children, that had to be enough. Life was a bitch, and you just had to get on with it.
    The cell phone growled and shuddered in her pocket. It wasn’t a text, it was just an annoying alarm she had not yet figured out how to turn off—a synthetic “plop” that sounded every time one of her so-called “close friends” updated their Facebook status. But the update was from Ida, so she read it at once.
    Visiting my sweet grandmother. ♥ ♥ ♥
    Three pink hearts? From Ida ? Whose favorite T-shirt was still the one that said I’m only wearing black until they invent something darker ? What on earth was going on?
    She scrolled down to see if there was more of the same, but the rest were the usual world-weary observations.
    Nina knew that several psychological experts counseled parents against spying on their children on Facebook. She didn’t care. After the divorce, she had thrown inhibitions like that to the wind—how else was she supposed to keep tabs on anything? Morten only told her the absolute minimum, and Ida had never been particularly informative, even before the split. Nina had been quite relieved that her friend request had been accepted . . .
    In just a few weeks, she had become surprisingly more knowledgeable about her daughter’s friends, activities and values. She’d already known about the roller hockey club and Ida’s musical taste, which was still for the most part, but not exclusively, the doomsday rock that used to make the walls of the apartment on Østerbro vibrate. But many of the faces in the girlfriend pictures were new, and who the heck was this “Daniel” clutching a bouquet of long-stemmed birthday roses with a besotted and self-conscious expression on his smooth young high school face? A classmate, maybe? Ida had, to Nina’s great surprise, applied for acceptance at Sankt Annæ, an institution known for its high standards and musical tradition, and now went to school with kids—no, young people, Nina corrected herself—from Copenhagen’s cultural elite. A dawning social consciousness showed itself in the form of a “NO to Racism!” campaign and membership of more than one environmental group. Nina was not dissatisfied.
    She peered into the rain. Still no Søren. How far away had he had to park? The parking conditions around the old hospital were of course completely