Jazmine held her breath and hid in the corner next to the fridge. Did he see me? she wondered. Then a shadow slid past the curtain. She could hear clearly what they were saying out there. She was so scared her heart almost stopped. The two voices were male, and one of them said he hadn’t seen anything. Then the doorbell rang.
Now the woman was moaning in the bathroom again. It was very muffled, but Jazmine could hear it. Could they also hear it outside?
The men on the walkway were having a discussion.
She got such a shock that it made her flinch when they suddenly hammered on the door and one of the men shouted through the mail slot that he had seen someone in there. He wanted to ask questions, he shouted, but Jazmine had no intention of talking to anyone, so she didn’t answer.
Go away! she screamed internally when the other man asked if there was anything to see through the mail slot. It was a good thing that she hadn’t gone into the hallway, because then the game would have been up.
It seemed as if the shadow behind the curtain was moving again—as if someone was trying to look into the kitchen—and then she heard someone tapping on the window. Jazmine looked at the counter under the window. There was nothing to see except dirty dishes and mugs with cutlery in them. What could he get out of that?
“Maybe you didn’t see anything, Assad,” she heard him say out there when the other man had stopped knocking. He said it very clearly, and he also said that they should have brought the key for the apartment. The other one answered that he had a lockpick down in the car.
Jazmine nearly fainted in shock. If they went down to get it, her life would be over. Yes, the woman in the bathroom was alive, but still. Jazmine had just imagined herself surrounded by colors and hot-blooded men with black hair, but it turned out none of it was real. That was going to be hard to swallow.
But then the first man said that he would leave it to their colleagues in homicide, after which their voices grew fainter. Jazmine thought she heard them enter the next-door apartment. Yes, now she could hear their voices faintly through the wall. It meant that she was off the hook for now—but maybe not for long. One of them had hinted that there would be people from homicide coming out here. But what did they actually know, since they would do that? Was it something about Denise? Why didn’t she just call? It was driving her mad. It had all sounded so simple. Denise was just meant to blackmail Anne-Line and if necessary do the same thing to her as they had done to the woman in the bathroom. Keep her hostage until she gave in and handed over the lottery money. But she could still call, so why didn’t she?
Stupid bitch! It was her own fault, because Jazmine couldn’t stay here. If she took all the money from the robbery, Denise could keep Anne-Line Svendsen’s money. Jazmine didn’t care. Weren’t they meant to split everything when Denise returned anyway?
She frowned, going over everything in her head again. What did they mean when they said that homicide would be paying a visit? Had something gone wrong at Anne-Line’s place somehow? Was that what this was about?
They had agreed that if Denise didn’t turn up, Jazmine should make an anonymous call to the police and blow the whistle on Anne-Line Svendsen. But did she dare? They could trace her call, and it was even easier if you called from a cell phone. Denise obviously hadn’t thought about that.
The way things were going, Jazmine didn’t give a fuck as long as she could save her own neck. Hadn’t she done what she was supposed to? Hadn’t she arranged for them to have the names in their passports changed later tonight on their way to the bus station? So it was just tough luck that Denise wouldn’t get hers.
Now the woman in the bathroom was moaning again.
“Shut up,” she hissed as she walked past the bathroom door. If the police were coming, they could give the woman some water. She also stank of piss and shit, and Jazmine couldn’t stand it.
It took her only five minutes to pack her clothes.
One quick glance out of the window revealed that the coast was clear. She could still hear the muffled sound of the men’s voices through the wall, so she would just have to be quick.
She slung the canvas bag with the money over her shoulder, grabbed the suitcase, and lifted the kitchen curtain again.
Just as a precaution, she glanced down at the parking area. There didn’t appear to be any other police, because there was just one car with a light on the roof. The other cars were just the regular sort you expected to find in the suburbs. Not the type Jazmine would drive when she finally made it to Italy. She smiled to herself thinking about convertibles with white leather seats. She had always wanted a car like that.
Suddenly she heard the two men leaving and locking up the apartment next door. Then they had a brief conversation with a woman on the walkway.
Just wait until they’ve left and the coast is clear, she thought as she tried to follow what was happening outside.
She heard a few suppressed sighs from the bathroom, as if the woman had started crying. Jazmine did feel sorry for her, but what could she do? Maybe Denise would kill her when she came back and realized that Jazmine had done a runner. She could just imagine how she would react when she realized that there wouldn’t be a false passport waiting for her and that the woman in the bathroom was suddenly a threat because she knew too much.
But that was Denise’s call, not hers.
She saw the police car leaving and pulled the curtain back a little more so she could make sure they were really gone.
Then she suddenly noticed a figure moving in a small car a few spaces to the right. And when the woman removed her sunglasses and looked up toward her, Jazmine froze.
It was her caseworker, Anne-Line! But then where was Denise?
Jazmine felt sick. What should she do?
The woman in the car was looking directly up at her, and the look in her eyes said it all. Anne-Line Svendsen was not scared. She looked perfectly composed, so Denise couldn’t have succeeded in her mission. But where was she? Jazmine thought the worst and was overcome with panic.
She just had to get out of there. And there was only one way out apart from the main door: over the balcony and down.
She ran to the bedroom and grabbed all the sheets from the cupboard.
She tied some sheets together, hoping it would be enough to reach the ground. Then she rushed into the sitting room, tied one end around a door handle, pushed the balcony door to one side, threw the makeshift rope and her suitcase over the side, slung the canvas bag over her shoulder, and climbed down.
The friction from the sheets chafed her hands, but then Jazmine had never bragged about her acrobatic prowess.
She looked around as she clambered down. Thankfully there didn’t appear to be anyone at home in the downstairs apartment. Then she saw that the suitcase had sprung open from the fall and that her clothes had been flung in all directions.
I don’t have time to pick them up, she thought. So when she reached the ground she just started running.