On Sunday evening Søren was lying comfortably on the living-room floor at home in Humlebæk playing picture bingo with Lily while he enjoyed an unobstructed view of her mother’s well-shaped rear through the kitchen door. The telephone rang and it was ‘only me, Henrik’. Søren briefly considered ignoring it, but ended up answering. He regretted it almost immediately.
‘So, what’s up? Am I disturbing your Sunday downtime?’ Søren was about to answer that, yes, Henrik was.
‘Then again,’ Henrik chuckled, ‘Sunday, Thursday, same thing for the unemployed, innit?’
‘What do you want?’ Søren said.
‘Now, now, don’t go all helpful on me,’ Henrik said. ‘I want to talk to Anna, as it happens. Is she there?’ He snorted.
‘Anna, Henrik wants to talk to you,’ Søren called, in the direction of the kitchen. His blood was boiling. The extractor hood was on so Anna just turned towards his voice and signalled she would be there in two seconds. ‘She’s coming,’ Søren said. ‘What do you want to talk to her about?’
‘It’s confidential,’ Henrik said. ‘Police business.’
Søren put the phone on the sofa and turned over a card.
‘Mine!’ Lily said.
Søren turned over another card. He could hear Henrik say: ‘Hello? Hello?’
‘Triplets!’
‘Mine!’ Lily said.
‘Hello?’ Henrik shouted.
‘Who is that little voice shouting?’ Lily asked.
‘Only Uncle Henrik,’ Søren said loudly, and turned over another card. It was a trumpet and also Lily’s. He threw a rug over the telephone.
Anna entered the living room, wiping her hands on her trousers and looking puzzled. Søren fished out the telephone and handed it to her. On realising that it was Henrik, she mouthed, ‘WTF,’ to Søren. ‘Anna Bella here,’ she said. They exchanged a few pleasantries, but then Anna suddenly disappeared down the passage to her study.
‘Yes, sure,’ Søren heard her say. ‘All right, I might be able to . . . Fine. But probably not until after Easter – I’ve got an application deadline coming up . . . Oh, I see, that’s a bit difficult to say no to . . . OK, deal.’
Søren could no longer hear what she was saying and Lily shouted, ‘Bingo!’
*
‘The police have hired me for a project,’ Anna said, when she returned ten minutes later. ‘As a kind of researcher.’
‘They’ve what?’
‘Yes – I’m to write a profile of Kristian Storm so that Henrik can understand his research and why it was controversial.’
‘But why? I thought he killed himself.’
‘Hmm,’ Anna said. ‘Henrik wasn’t quite so sure. He’s talked to Trine Rønn, who found the body, and her distress and her flat refusal to accept that Storm took his own life seem to have made an impression on him. Besides, he also wants to dig deeper into the contradictions. On the one hand Storm was a hero to all his students, while on the other he was one of the most vilified men in modern research. He said he was going to let everything simmer for a little while.’
‘You’re kidding?’
‘No, I was rather impressed with Henrik,’ Anna said. ‘You can never tell, can you? I like the fact that he’s prepared to keep an open mind while he gathers more information. That’s not like him, is it? It’s probably the prospect of the new baby that has mellowed him. By the way, when is Jeanette due? We haven’t seen them for ages . . . Socially, I mean.’ Anna stretched to give Søren a kiss, but he was as rigid as a statue.
‘Hey, what’s wrong?’ Anna demanded, and sent him a teasing look. ‘Henrik clearly isn’t the only police officer who needs Anna Bella Nor’s help to solve the case.’
‘How much is he paying you?’ he asked.
‘More than enough for me to say yes,’ Anna said, with a wide grin.
*
Monday morning was Søren’s second unemployed weekday. He and Lily waved Anna off when she cycled to the station to catch the train to the university. By now Lily’s rash was all over her body and face, and Søren let her watch television while he cleared up after breakfast, did the laundry and took some meat out of the freezer for dinner. Anna had been brimming with enthusiasm all morning, talking about her profile of Kristian Storm, and when Søren had asked about her incredibly urgent grant application, she had brushed it aside. They were bound to get it done sooner or later, she said, and, besides, she was waiting for Anders T. to finish his part of the project description.
Søren felt jealousy creep through him again as he cleared up. When he thought about it, Anna could always come up with a good reason for having to go to the university. There was always something that demanded her attention and dragged her out of the house into the Institute of Biology. Until now he had accepted it as the dedication of the scientist. After all, he knew what it was like. When he’d had an unresolved case on his desk, back in the days when he had a job, he could think of nothing else, and was only half present in any other activity until the killer had been caught. Even though scientific research was different, he was starting to understand. It was a permanent state that could last a lifetime, rather than a race against a killer who might strike again. He began to wonder if Anna was simply using the university as an excuse to get away from him and Lily, dried porridge and snotty noses. Anders T. was laidback, undemanding and bound to make Anna laugh. Søren loved it when she threw back her head and roared with laughter. In the beginning, in the heyday of their relationship, he had been the one to set her off.
He sat down with his coffee next to the computer in the living room and looked up the Institute of Biology and the Department of Immunology. Under Staff he found photographs of all employees and students, and a brief presentation of their area of research. He started by studying the photograph of Kristian Storm, a ruddy, pleasant-looking man, with nice eyes and a full head of hair. Next in line was Thor Albert Larsen whom, to Søren’s surprise, the camera appeared to love. Søren continued clicking and paid special attention to the students’ faces. Trine Rønn was an attractive blonde, whom Søren had never met so her friendship with Anna could not be close. Marie Skov Just, however, was surprisingly familiar, though Søren could not place her. She had bright blue eyes, nut-brown hair in a practical style and a clear, soft presence, like a water-colour painting. She was someone who definitely did not lose her temper when she got angry, Søren thought. If she ever did get angry.
Anna and he had lived together for more than eighteen months and Søren was still just as taken aback when Anna flew into a rage. She had been known to call him an idiot. One day the words ‘monumental prat’ had escaped her lips.
Monumental prat?
No one could accuse Anna of suffering from nice-girl syndrome.
She always apologised afterwards. She hadn’t meant it. But, she explained, when she got angry she couldn’t control what came out of her mouth. She said it was just like when she was little and got car sick and had to throw up straight away. There was no holding back. Søren had suffered dreadfully from travel sickness when he was a boy so he could empathise. But why did she have to take it out on him?
Søren studied the photograph of Marie Skov Just. Where on earth had he seen her before? It had to have been in connection with the campus murders. She was a lovely-looking woman so he must have noticed her subconsciously.
He went through the rest of the department and drafted a group email to the students, signed it with his official police signature and hit send before he had time to change his mind. In his email he asked them to get back to him if, in connection with their work with Kristian Storm, they had noticed anything unusual. Even the smallest thing was of interest, he had stressed.
Lily called to him from the sofa: she was hungry again. Søren made her two slices of rye bread with liver pâté and fished out pickled beetroot slices from a jar, which he put on top. She told him she was thirsty, too; he gave her a glass of milk and she spilled a little on the sofa. He mopped it up and gave her another glass. Then he went for a shower, and just as he had massaged shampoo into his hair, Lily appeared in the doorway with her duvet.
‘I spilled milk all over my duvet. It was an accident.’
Søren sighed, got out of the shower and resolutely shoved the duvet, still in its cover, into the washing machine.
Lily said, ‘Søren, you can’t wash a whole duvet,’ but he assured her he could.
Then he felt her forehead and found she was not particularly hot. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Put some clothes on and we’ll go for a ride.’
‘But I’m ill,’ Lily objected.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Søren said firmly. ‘Measles need fresh air. Especially German ones. Otherwise they get cabin fever and start chewing the sofa.’
Twenty minutes later, Lily sat warmly wrapped up in her child seat on the bar of Søren’s bicycle while they rode the two kilometres to Kystbanen. They took his bike on the train, got off at Nørreport station and cycled onwards to Nørrebro. They stopped in Elmegade to buy takeaway bagels and three monstrously large slices of chocolate cake.
‘What are we doing now?’
‘Bringing your mum a surprise lunch,’ Søren said. ‘But first we’ll make a quick stop to see if her friend Trine happens to be at work today. Do you know her?’
‘No,’ Lily said, and continued in a hopeful voice, ‘Then are we going to the museum?’
‘Not today, sweetheart,’ Søren said. ‘But perhaps tomorrow.’
*
‘Oh, we’re back here again, are we?’ Lily said loudly, when she and Søren entered the Department of Immunology. Søren said a silent prayer that they would not bump into Thor Albert Larsen, who might well start to wonder if police officers made a habit of bringing their children to work every day. Fortunately the door to Thor’s office was closed. However, the door to Trine Rønn’s office was ajar and Søren knocked on it. Lily had lagged behind because she was busy admiring the sea of flowers in front of Storm’s door, which had not reduced since last Friday. Søren heard her say, ‘They’re pretty.’
‘Come in,’ said a lovely voice from the office, and when Søren pushed open the door, a blonde woman gave him a quizzical look.
‘Trine Rønn?’ Søren said stupidly, and the woman laughed.
‘I’m flattered, but I’m about twenty-five years older than Trine. Who wants to know?’
‘Søren Marhauge from the Violent Crimes Unit,’ Søren said, hoping that Lily would stay in the corridor so he could preserve his authority.
The woman held out her hand. ‘Merethe Hermansen. I’m the chief secretary here in the department. You’re quite right. It is Trine’s office, or Trine and Rasmus’s office, to be precise. Rasmus is abroad and Trine isn’t here either. She was the one who found Storm in . . .’ Merethe’s gaze slipped from Søren’s face to hip height where Lily’s head had appeared.
‘Hello,’ Lily said.
‘Hello, you,’ Merethe replied.
‘Please may I play with that?’ Lily asked, pointing to a Spanish flamenco dancer on the desk.
Merethe replied that, sadly, she could not. ‘I’m just here to pick up some papers that Trine wants me to send to her. She’s not feeling very well and decided to work from home today, so she called me to . . .’ Merethe came to a halt as if she had realised that her explanation was unnecessary. ‘I’m sorry to ask,’ she then said to Søren, ‘but do you have any ID?’
‘I promise I’ll be careful,’ Lily said and put on her cutest face, which Søren could never resist.
Merethe looked despairingly from Søren to Lily, and Søren was quick to exploit the situation. ‘I must come clean and tell you I don’t have my warrant card with me today because I’m not officially on duty. My daughter and I were just on our way to have lunch with my girlfriend, who is also Lily’s mother, Anna Bella Nor, from the Department of Cell Biology and Comparative Zoology; do you know her?’
‘Søren washed his warrant card,’ Lily interjected. ‘And it went all small.’
Søren flashed his most endearing grin and it worked.
‘Of course I know Anna. Here,’ she continued, as she handed the flamenco dancer to Lily. ‘But promise me you’ll be careful. It’s not mine.’
Lily nodded so hard her head nearly fell off.
‘Now that I’ve got you,’ Søren said quickly, ‘do you mind if I ask you a few questions, even though I’m not officially at work? An investigator is never really off duty . . .’
‘An investigator?’ Merethe said suspiciously. ‘What are you investigating? We were told it was suicide. That he hanged himself.’
‘That’s correct,’ Søren said, mentally kicking himself. ‘But we like to explore all avenues before we close a case.’ Merethe continued to look sceptical, but said that Søren should go ahead and ask.
‘What was the mood like here in the department?’ Søren began.
‘Storm has created a really good working environment,’ Merethe said, without hesitation, ‘and the academic staff members are not embroiled in internal conflicts, as I know they are in some other departments. These days, scientists have become each other’s rivals and they fight tooth and nail for funds and prestige. But not ours. Once your PhD thesis has been approved by either Storm or Thor, your career as a scientist is reasonably secure. No one walks around coveting what the others have, if they themselves have enough, do they? Now, I’m not a scientist myself but I’ve worked in this department for more than a decade.’
Søren nodded. ‘So overall the mood is good?’
Merethe nodded, but then she wavered. ‘The only thing I would say . . .’ Suddenly she seemed embarrassed. ‘Well, I don’t suppose it’s a very scientific point to make . . . almost the contrary. And it’s not because I’m a superstitious person . . . But we have been struck by a run of bad luck, or rather Storm has, I suppose I should say, ever since he got involved in that project in Africa.’
‘What do you mean?’
Merethe thought about it. ‘I just think it’s . . . remarkable, to put it mildly, that Storm has faced so many obstacles ever since he started the Belem project.’
‘What kind of obstacles?’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘to begin with it all looked very promising. Storm came back from Guinea-Bissau and was over the moon because he and his Swedish colleague, Olof Bengtsson, had made this ground-breaking observation in their dataset. He summoned us all for a briefing, and I had never heard him so . . . triumphant. What they had seen was quite simply huge and we should prepare ourselves for considerable attention, he said. We all got really excited about it and the corridor was practically buzzing. But things started going wrong almost immediately. First Olof Bengtsson jumped ship from the Guinea-Bissau project. Storm was completely down in the dumps that morning, and when I asked him what on earth had happened, he told me that Bengtsson had fobbed him off with some lame excuse about a new job. Storm soldiered on, but shortly afterwards, Silas drowned.’
‘Silas?’
‘Storm’s PhD student and right-hand man. A dreadful accident in Africa. As you would expect, everyone was terribly upset, especially Storm and the whole Belem team who had known him well. Tim, Storm’s other PhD student in Guinea-Bissau, grieved for months, and a statistician from Aarhus, Berit Dahl Mogensen, who was otherwise deeply committed to the project, flew back from Bissau as fast as she could and cut all links to Belem soon afterwards. As a result the work ground to a halt for several months. Then, on top of that, let’s not forget the professional opposition Storm has had to battle. It would be enough to send anyone on sick leave with stress. One moment the future looked bright with the promise of publications and workshops all over the globe, but every time events were either cancelled at the eleventh hour or turned out to be irrelevant. Storm also had major problems securing the funding, even though he’s a highly respected and experienced scientist. He ended up selling his own house to keep Belem going during a period when there was absolutely no funding available. Eventually the project was allocated an annual grant from the Serum Institute, and soon afterwards Marie Skov’s PhD application was approved. Once again, the future looked bright but – wouldn’t you know it? – just as Marie and Storm published their new results from animal tests carried out last autumn, and she had got her master’s, she was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of twenty-eight, and the DCSD accused her of scientific dishonesty, so everything came to a halt again. And now Storm is dead. Can’t you see that the whole thing is remarkably ill fated?’
She shuddered and added, ‘Storm always told me not to worry about it. That obstacles occur randomly. If you throw a die enough times, he would say, sooner or later you’ll get ten sixes in a row, even though it sounds absolutely impossible. I was not to attach any importance to it. But I’m probably not quite as level-headed.’
‘Were you surprised to hear that Storm had killed himself?’
‘When I came to work last Thursday and the police were here, Thor told me what had happened. I was both shocked and surprised. Storm was like a cork – he would always bob up to the surface. But when I thought about it more deeply, I wasn’t that surprised. Remember, I didn’t see him socially, but I’ve worked with him for the best part of ten years. He was totally wedded to his work, and after he sold his house on Frederiksberg and moved to Baldersgade in outer Nørrebro, it became even more obvious. He had grown up in that house and he used to invite everyone in the department for Christmas drinks. The place was drowning in books and periodicals, as you would expect of a scientist, but it had a nice atmosphere. As if things other than just research were going on there. When he moved to his flat in Baldersgade, he started hosting the Christmas drinks party in the department’s refectory rather than at his home. He said that the flat wasn’t big enough, and I’m sure that was true, but one of the students told me the real reason was that Storm’s home was no longer in a fit state to receive guests. The student had stopped by to pick up a book and could see Storm had yet to unpack his removal crates. There was still plastic packaging around the cooker, she told me. Storm was working the whole time and would often sleep here in the department. It’s fair to say the last few years have been an uphill struggle for him and, though he held his head high and gave us all the impression that he was going to fight until the end, I’m sure it must have taken its toll on him. I think that the allegation of scientific dishonesty and Marie’s illness were the last straw.’ Merethe looked upset.
‘It was truly awful to have to tell Marie,’ she went on. ‘She was at home because, like I said, she’s ill, so I went to tell her in person, rather than call. She slammed the door in my face. She couldn’t take it in at all. Poor girl.’
‘Tell me a bit about Marie Skov,’ Søren asked, showing his curiosity.
Merethe sighed. ‘Storm worshipped her. Even while she was still an undergraduate, he let her co-write several of his publications and she’s still not even thirty. There were jealous murmurings in the corners, but if you ask me, Storm’s favouritism was wholly justified. Marie worked hard and she was not at all pretentious or calculating, which some of the others can be, whether they’re prepared to admit to it or not. When Marie defended her master’s dissertation in September, the audience rose to its feet and applauded her for almost five minutes when she had finished. She was completely bowled over, as if she didn’t have the slightest idea of just how exceptional her presentation had been.’ Merethe interrupted herself and Søren followed her gaze. Trine’s flamenco dancer was pirouetting vertically off the door frame, as if she was on some kind of mood-enhancing substance. Søren firmly took the figure from Lily.
‘Boring,’ Lily said.
Søren put the dancer on the desk. ‘Anyway, that brings us to the end of my questions,’ he said, addressing Merethe. ‘Thank you so much for your help.’
‘You’re welcome,’ Merethe said. ‘I’m afraid I can’t go to Storm’s funeral on Friday. My grandmother turns a hundred and I promised her months ago to help with the party. So I’ll be travelling to Fyn tomorrow.’
‘On Friday?’ Søren merely said, but Merethe did not detect the hidden question.
‘Yes. In St Stefan’s Church on Nørrebro. Just what Storm would have wanted.’
Søren thanked Merethe warmly and marched off with Lily in tow.
*
For once it did not take Søren and Lily long to find Stairwell One where Anna had her office on the second floor. Lily had been to the Department of Cell Biology and Comparative Zoology lots of times and ran ahead up the steps. When Søren entered the office, she was already sitting on the lap of a happy-looking Anna.
‘What a lovely surprise,’ she said, and sent Søren a quizzical glance. Fortunately Anders T. was nowhere to be seen.
‘German measles is nothing, is it, Lily?’
‘No,’ Lily said. ‘They just need some fresh air. Or they’ll bite.’ Anna giggled, and they ate the bagels and chocolate cake. Between mouthfuls, Anna talked about her profile of Kristian Storm, which she had been working on all morning.
‘So Henrik didn’t call today?’ Søren said casually. He had hoped that Henrik would have changed his mind and cancelled Anna. Henrik was not just wasting Anna’s time, he was also doing his best to taunt Søren. Besides, Søren was convinced that Jørgensen would disapprove strongly of Henrik’s decision to waste money on a profile. The police commissioned profiles only when they were hunting a killer who was still at large.
‘Oh, yes, he rang a moment ago,’ Anna replied, ‘wanting to know when I expect to have finished. I believe he would like me to come to Bellahøj to present it. He’s on loan to Station City this week because of those inner-city rapes, so he wanted to know exactly when I’ll be there so he can be sure to make it. I’m working hard and promised him I’ll have it ready by tomorrow, Wednesday at the latest. Is this common practice for the police? Hiring external researchers like this?’
‘No,’ Søren said.
‘Well, it’s the easiest money I’ve ever made in my career,’ Anna said, with a smile. ‘It’s been super exciting. I’d had no idea that Kristian Storm was that famous and that groundbreaking, yet so vilified. I’ve read up on scientific dishonesty and the process that is set in motion when a scientist is reported to the DCSD. I used to think that the DCSD was a brilliant and typically Danish organisation, created to ensure that justice is done. But now I’m not so sure. I agree, of course, that scientists mustn’t get away with cheating. We’re talking about a lot of grant money here and it should go to honest scientists. But I don’t like the fact that you can remain anonymous when you accuse someone – and it’s unreasonable that the investigation process takes so long. Imagine waiting months or years for a conclusion and never knowing the identity of your accuser. I would start to suspect everyone! It must be an extremely stressful situation, especially once the media catch a whiff of it. Remember the Penkowa case? It was all she-said-he-said, and then Penkowa’s invitation to the Palace was withdrawn because the Queen obviously couldn’t attend a state dinner and sit next to a scientist under investigation and blah-blah. It’s pure soap opera and it inevitably ends up on the front pages. Anyway,’ Anna looked at her watch, ‘I’d better get back to work. Please would you give me Henrik’s number? Whenever he calls me, it shows up as number withheld, and I forgot to ask when I last spoke to him.’
‘I don’t mind calling him for you,’ Søren said.
Anna raised an eyebrow. ‘Don’t tell me you’re jealous of Henrik? Seriously, Søren, get a grip.’
‘No, of course not,’ Søren said quickly, and copied down Henrik’s mobile number from his own phone. ‘But I decide what you wear when you go to Bellahøj to present your profile,’ he added. ‘And it’ll be something very baggy. Possibly a burka.’
Anna threw back her head and laughed. ‘That’s quite all right,’ she said, and gave him a big kiss.
*
Henrik called as Søren was pushing his bicycle across the university car park in the direction of Jagtvej and Lily was jumping up and down next to him. Even though he told himself he was not going to, he took the call.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he barked at Henrik. ‘Have you officially closed the Kristian Storm case, but still not cancelled Anna’s profile? How is that possible? And since when did we hire external researchers with no police background to prepare personal profiles of people who are already dead? This is ridiculous. Does Jørgensen know that you’re spending the unit’s budget on hiring Anna? He didn’t order us to make savings on everything from printer paper to post-mortems only for you to blow the budget on hot air, did he?’
‘Hey, easy does it. You told me yourself I should get a profile done,’ Henrik reminded him.
‘Yes, but I didn’t mean you to hire an external consultant. You should form your own opinion. You’re meant to do the thinking. You’re superintendent now, Henrik. You’re meant to think about what kind of person Kristian Storm was and consider if it has any relevance to his death. And you’re stringing Anna along. She’s working her socks off writing that profile and you won’t be using it for anything.’
‘You don’t know that,’ Henrik said, clearly unperturbed.
‘But you’ve already closed the case?’
‘Not officially. I’m still waiting for Bøje, that slowcoach. He hasn’t filed his report yet.’
Søren thought he must have misheard. ‘So why did you call Thor Albert Larsen to tell him the case is officially closed?’
‘Because I’ve been talking to Bøje and he says he’s a hundred per cent sure that Storm died as a result of hanging and that the injuries match those of the other thirty-seven suicides by hanging he has previous experience of. He told me so this morning. Only he hasn’t had time to sign off his report yet, partly because . . . Yes, because he, too, is feeling the heat from above on account of the inner-city rapes – as would you be if you could be bothered to turn up for work where you would see that we’re all running around like blue-arsed flies because of you and your lack of work ethic. Now get yourself back here, mate. We really need you. I haven’t slept since last Thursday and I’m running on a bad mix of coffee and Red Bull.’
‘Bloody hell, Henrik!’ Søren bellowed. ‘You can’t officially close a case when you haven’t got the final report. Have you completely lost the plot?’
‘Thor Albert Larsen hasn’t stopped calling me since last Thursday and is nearly driving me insane. Paranoid little toerag. He wants to know if, as he puts it, it’s safe for him to go to work because, if there’s even the slightest risk that Kristian Storm was murdered, then he could in principle be the killer’s next victim. Dah, dah daaaaah!’ he drumrolled. ‘I know it’s tough, Søren, but you just have to accept that you’re currently in second place on my list of drama queens. Thor couldn’t give a toss whether Kristian Storm was murdered or killed himself. What he really wants to know is how soon he can move into Storm’s office without being accused of poor taste. He called again this morning, just after I’d spoken to Bøje and got his word that Storm committed suicide, so I told Thor he could safely start packing his removal crates and get ready to move up the ladder. He hasn’t phoned me since . . . Funny, that. As for Tiger Pussy, she’s over the moon about that profile so let her have her fun. She’ll be done tomorrow, Wednesday at the latest, and we can find a few thousand kroner in the budget, don’t you think, Søren? Even Jørgensen thought it was a good idea.’
‘Jørgensen said you had two days to wrap up this case. Two days. And now it’s suddenly OK to hire external experts to carry out research? Have you both lost your minds?’ Søren was shocked, but then it struck him that Jørgensen was trying to tempt him back to work by involving Anna. But even if they hired Sherlock Holmes himself to solve the case, right under Søren’s nose, there was no way he was going back.
‘Talking about insanity,’ Henrik added amicably, ‘I’m actually calling you for a reason. You see, Kristian Storm’s death wasn’t the only suicide – pardon me, Mr Pedant, presumed suicide – we picked up last Thursday. A housewife from Vangede with mental-health problems emptied her medicine cabinet and never woke up again. Right from the start I was sure we were looking at suicide and it was only because the dead woman’s husband had vanished without a trace that I chose to follow a good friend and ex-police officer’s excellent advice and let everything simmer for a while. I spent the time looking into the dead woman’s background and a number of things cropped up, which I think you’ll find interesting. The first thing I came across was an assault charge – retracted in the summer of 1987 – when the woman’s husband, Frank Skov, appears to have attacked his neighbour, a woman called Tove Madsen, as she was about to let herself into her house. According to the report, Frank Skov had accused Tove Madsen, who was his daughter’s childminder, of shaking the kid. Guess who reported it?’
‘Elvis Presley?’
‘Elvis is dead, you numpty. No, your grandfather. Knud Marhauge.’
‘Oh.’ Søren was taken aback.
‘So I made a note of the address of the Skov family. Number nineteen Snerlevej, in Vangede. If I’m not mistaken that’s the street you grew up in.’
‘Yes, number twenty-six.’
‘I knew it!’ Henrik said triumphantly. ‘But hold your horses. Turns out that Tove Madsen was married to a police officer called Herman Madsen. I didn’t know him personally, but when I mentioned him to Jørgensen, he knew exactly who he was. Herman Madsen’s nickname was Cluedo because he followed a process of deduction and, despite his hopeless method, he had an incredibly high clear-up rate. Jørgensen also told me that Cluedo transferred to Aalborg Police District at some point . . .’
‘Herman Madsen?’ Søren wondered aloud. ‘I knew him really well. I was friends with his son, Jacob, when I was little. It’s thanks to Herman Madsen that I applied to the Police Academy.’
‘And, in truth, that was a day of joy,’ Henrik said, ‘but shut up for a second, will you, because there’s more. Frank Skov was never charged because your grandfather retracted his accusation. Since then, Frank Skov has had contact with the police on only two occasions, once in February of this year and most recently last Wednesday, when we discovered his van near Enghave Plads with blood everywhere and found Skov in his youngest daughter’s flat in Saxogade the following day, where he was sleeping off one hell of a night out.’
Søren and Lily had stopped at a bus stop just before the Tagensvej junction, and Lily was busy climbing onto and jumping down from the bench in the bus shelter, perilously close to a woman who was giving her evil looks.
‘This is all very exciting, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to hang up,’ Søren said.
‘Hold on! I haven’t got to the good part yet,’ Henrik said. ‘We picked Frankie-boy up and took him for a trip to Bella where we quizzed him for a bit, but soon decided it was a waste of time. We got a video recording from some dive on Kultorvet and later CCTV footage from a camera in Magasin’s multi-storey car park, where Frank snoozed in his car for about an hour, and after that a recording from a kiosk in Istedgade where he’s covered in blood and crashing into a shelf of crisps before being thrown out. Frank had been knocking it back all day and couldn’t possibly have been involved in wifey’s death. Didn’t I tell you it was suicide? I have a nose for these things.’ Henrik sniffed.
‘Congratulations.’
‘I personally drove Frank Skov home to nineteen Snerlevej, where I had the honour of meeting the eldest daughter in the family, Julie Claessen. While Frank Skov took a slash, I asked his daughter about the attack in 1987. The girl shut down completely. She couldn’t remember any attack, she said, and even if she could, she didn’t think it was important. Her mother had been very beautiful and her father very clever, so when their young son got acute meningitis and died, the neighbours couldn’t stop twitching their curtains. Now that she thought about it, she did actually remember an unpleasant elderly couple across the road who had been quick to turn up their noses at them when her mother had had a breakdown. It wouldn’t surprise her, she said, if they’d gone to the police simply to harass them.’
‘Now that’s bullshit,’ Søren interrupted him, outraged. ‘Knud and Elvira would never have dreamed of harassing anyone.’
‘Hey, will you shut up? I still haven’t finished. I asked if I could have a look around and—’
‘Why on earth did you do that?’ Søren demanded.
‘I dunno. I find myself doing the strangest things, these days.’ Henrik laughed. ‘Anyway, we wander around the house for a bit and at one point we reach the first floor. Funny old house, by the way, untouched since the seventies, with big floral wallpaper and curry-yellow skirting boards, as if the last thirty years hadn’t happened, which in itself might not be that unusual, but Frank Skov is meant to be some sort of builder or handyman and they’re usually a bit house-proud, aren’t they? The house was totally neglected. Anyway, there we were, upstairs, and when we went inside Frank’s study, guess what the first thing I saw was?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Søren said wearily.
‘You!’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, in a photo in Frank Skov’s study. The only photo on his otherwise bare walls. No page-three girl, mate – more evidence that he can’t possibly be a builder, ha-ha – but, anyway, you’re in that photo. True, you’re in the background, but I still recognised you.’
‘Are you sure? Why on earth would I be in a photo belonging to people I don’t even know?’
‘Of course I’m sure. There are two men in the foreground and Julie confirmed that one of them is Frank, but she didn’t know who the other was. In fact, she’d never seen the picture before, she said. Between Frank and this unknown man, however, there were two younger children, whom Julie called the twins, and in the background to the right, there was one hot chick – you wouldn’t believe how hot she was. Julie said that was her mother, the now late Joan Skov. In the background to the left, next to another boy, there you are with a football under your arm. Julie said she didn’t know who either of you were, but I’m certain that one of them is you. You look like I don’t know what. Christ Almighty, what an eighties outfit. Julie said that her family has owned the house for more than fifty years and that her grandparents lived there before Frank and Joan inherited it. Frank and Joan must have been there while Knud and Elvira lived in the same street. Perhaps Knud and Elvira were friends with them and you happened to drop by. There’s no doubt it’s you.’
‘That’s so weird,’ Søren conceded. ‘Hey, Lily, that’s enough jumping for now, do you hear?’
‘Yes, but I get bored when you’re on the phone,’ Lily protested.
‘All right, I’ve finished now . . . Uncle Henrik just wanted to tell me something exciting.’
‘. . . Marie Skov . . .’ Søren suddenly heard Henrik say.
‘What?’ Søren pricked up his ears and held up his hand so that Lily would be quiet.
‘I’m saying I was having a good laugh at your failed eighties haircut, when Julie Claessen suddenly mentioned that her younger sister had been through a tough time. Here she pointed to the little girl in the photo. First, Marie lost her twin, Julie said, waving at the little boy, and then she’d got breast cancer and now she’s just lost her supervisor and her mother on the same day. “Supervisor?” I asked, thinking she was about to reel off some tedious Scientology sob story, but do you know which supervisor she was referring to? Kristian Storm.’
For one moment Søren’s mind was a reverberating vacuum.
‘That Marie Skov?’ he then said. ‘Kristian Storm’s PhD student, who is currently on sick leave?’
‘Bingo. What a small and very cute world we live in, eh? Made me laugh that the two of you seem to have known each other as kids. Isn’t there something about everyone in the world knowing everybody else through six degrees of separation?’
‘They can’t have been friends of Knud and Elvira,’ Søren said. ‘I have no recollection of ever visiting them so it must be pure chance that I’m in the photo. I wonder if it was taken in Herman Madsen’s garden. That would make more sense. I was there all the time – it was my home from home.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t know about that. A garden is just a garden and I’m glad I haven’t got one.’
‘Jacob and I hung out all the time and we played a lot of football. Perhaps he’s the boy standing next to me. But whatever it is, what a coincidence— Maybe that was why Marie Skov seemed so familiar,’ Søren exclaimed.
‘Her mother, now she was a looker,’ Henrik said dreamily. ‘Though I would be lying if I said she’d passed her looks on to her eldest daughter. She’s the size of a shed! The mother, you can’t have forgotten her? Every teenager’s wet dream of an older woman, even though she can’t have been much over twenty-eight in that photo. Jesus, to begin with I couldn’t believe that the woman in the picture was the one we found on Thursday morning after Julie’s call to the emergency services. But Julie kept saying, “My beautiful mother,” and touching the photograph. It’s not often we get a good-looking corpse, but it happens.’
A silence followed, then Henrik said, ‘Why am I telling you all this? I keep forgetting you’re no longer a police officer. Your new hobby seems to be showing up and wrecking my investigation. I can’t get over how naff you looked in that picture – I can’t stop laughing when I think about it. OK, so the eighties was the decade style forgot, but even so . . . Jesus Christ, Søren, you looked like a plonker!’
‘Says the man who still has a trucker moustache,’ Søren muttered, under his breath.
‘Anyway, this concludes today’s anecdote from the real world,’ Henrik went on. ‘And I’m here now so I’d better hang up.’
‘Where?’
‘I’ve lent myself to Station City,’ Henrik announced proudly. ‘No more typing for Henrik Tejsner. I’m off to solve a couple of high-profile rapes and make the front page of Ekstra Bladet. I’ll call you when I’m famous.’
‘No need,’ Søren said, but Henrik had already hung up.
Søren scooped Lily up, strapped her into her child seat and cycled to Nørreport station. She had grown unusually quiet and Søren concluded all that jumping must have worn her out, but on the train back to Humlebæk, he noticed that her eyes were shining and she seemed dopey. He put her on his lap and she fell asleep soon afterwards.
Was it really true that he was no longer a policeman?
*
After dinner that evening Anna disappeared into her study. Søren had hoped they would have some time to talk. They had put Lily to bed over an hour ago and they rarely had any time, let alone a whole evening, that did not revolve around practical tasks. He had even found a bottle of wine in the cupboard and already poured two glasses.
‘Not for me, thanks. I have work to do,’ Anna had said. ‘I need to finish Kristian Storm’s profile, and I’ve just had a text message from Anders T., telling me he has finally written his part of our application and I must read it before he calls me about it, so . . .’ She glanced briefly at the wine bottle and the two glasses, gave Søren a quick peck on the corner of his mouth and disappeared down the passage.
Søren tipped the contents of one glass into the other and sat down to watch television. Five minutes later he was bored and got up to fetch his laptop to check his emails. He had received one reply to the group email he had sent to Storm’s and Thor’s students. It was from a Niels Sonne, whom Søren remembered from his visit to the Department of Immunology’s website. He was one of the department’s most recent postgraduate students, but didn’t look a day over eighteen: his face was completely unlined and beardless.
Hi Søren Marhauge,
I’m a master’s student at the Department of Immunology, but I’ve been away in Sweden on a Scout camping trip for the past five days. I only heard about the death of Kristian Storm this morning when I returned to the university. Thor Albert Larsen told me that you think Kristian Storm probably died between seven fifteen and eight fifteen Wednesday evening. However, I turned up at the department that Wednesday evening at seven fifteen where I said hello to Storm, who always worked with his door open. I believe I spent forty-five minutes in my office, and when I left, the door to Storm’s office had been closed, but I could hear him shredding something in the printer room. It means the earliest Storm could have died would be eight thirty. Now, I don’t know how literally you treat the time of death, but I thought I should contact you anyway. In fact, I called Bellahøj Police today and left a message for Henrik Tejsner to call me back, but he hasn’t, and as I’m spending the next three days at Syddansk University, working on my master’s, I thought I had better email you instead. I hope I haven’t wasted your time, but you did say that everything was of interest.
Best wishes, Niels Sonne
Søren drummed his fingers on the table.
Suddenly he heard Anna laugh and he walked in his socks down the passage, checking first on Lily before stopping outside the half-open door to Anna’s study.
‘Anders, for Christ’s sake, you muppet,’ he heard Anna say, but she didn’t sound cross at all. ‘Then call me back when you are ready.’ Søren accidentally brushed a picture on the wall and the sound made Anna turn on her office chair and give him a questioning look through the crack in the door.
‘Would you like some tea?’ he mimed. She nodded before turning her attention back to her computer and carrying on with the conversation. Søren went to the kitchen and put on the kettle. Anna’s computer screen had shown that she was logged onto Facebook. Søren hadn’t known she had a Facebook profile. While the water heated, Søren went on Facebook and searched for Anna Bella Nor. When her page came up, he clicked on it, but got a message informing him he had to be friends with her before he could access her profile. Søren created his own profile and sent Anna a friend request. A moment later he heard her giggle down the passage and two seconds later his friend request had been accepted. Flustered at how quickly she had replied, he started clicking around her profile. He found several photographs, including one of himself and Anna together, taken at the start of their relationship, the first party where they had officially been an item. Søren could remember the evening vividly. He had been delirious with happiness and Anna had teased him because he could not hide how besotted he was with her.
My gorgeous man, Anna had written on Facebook. Now it’s official.
Congratulations, you look so sweet together, someone had commented.
Cute couple, someone else had said.
Although the comments were embarrassing, Søren couldn’t help smiling. That was until he reached Anders T.’s comment.
Doesn’t matter that the brother inherited the farm, he had written, because the forces of law and order got the princess. Now irritated by this stupid reference to the typicality of second sons becoming police officers, Søren clicked on Anders T.’s profile. It seemed more open than Anna’s had been until she had accepted him as a friend. Søren was able to view several of Anders T.’s photo albums and was not surprised to discover that his profile picture was a carefully chosen shot of a surfboard and a tanned six-pack against an azure sky, but there were plenty of others as well. Anders T. had more than seven hundred friends and was chatting to some on his wall in a variety of languages. Søren returned to Anna’s profile and started scribbling down her various posts.
Hi, read a message from someone called Sarah. Nice bumping into you in the refectory yesterday! Let’s do lunch soon.
Anna had replied and Søren could see that she had posted a picture on Sarah’s profile, a photograph of two very young biology students with backpacks, insect nets and their arms around each other. Terrestrial ecology sucks, she had written below.
Søren went through all of Anna’s posts methodically and came across a few from Anders T. Now go to bed, you night owl, he had typed four weeks earlier. I can see that you’re still online. Other messages told Anna that she had received a virtual cow, seven chickens, a goat and four rabbits from Anders T. Plus a pitchfork and eight fruit trees. What the hell was that all about?
Søren went through the rest of Anna’s photographs. They were mainly pictures where other people had tagged her, mostly during field trips, it would appear, and a few parties at the faculty, including one where she was standing next to her former supervisor, the late Professor Lars Helland. One photograph nearly gave Søren a heart attack. It had been taken at last year’s Christmas party at the Department of Cell Biology and Comparative Zoology and Anna and Anders T. were wearing matching Santa hats and sitting close together at a table with a red cloth. Anna looked as if she was having a whale of a time and Anders T. gazed at her as if she had just said the funniest thing he had ever heard. But it was his hand on Anna that really bothered Søren. It didn’t rest on her shoulders, where a male friend would put his arm around a woman, but crept sneakily across the middle of her back and subsequently peeked out under the soft spot below Anna’s arm, exactly where her breast began. With a stretch of the imagination.
Then he heard Anna come down the passage and quickly clicked back to his own profile.
‘Did you make some tea? Only I think I would rather have some wine now. Anders T. is driving me up the wall. He’s incredibly talented, but ever since he became single, he’s seriously hard work. By the way, I didn’t know you were on Facebook,’ Anna said. She poured a little wine into a glass and asked if he wanted a top-up.
Søren shook his head. His mouth felt completely dry. ‘I didn’t know you were on Facebook either,’ he said. ‘And I only created my profile because there’s something I want to check. The name of someone I used to know when I was little cropped up in conversation and I decided to see if I could track him down.’
Søren typed Jacob Madsen in the search field and several profiles appeared on his screen.
‘Facebook is huge at the university,’ Anna said behind him. ‘Everyone’s on it. It’s not really my thing. But when I’m working and my brain cells curl up from lack of oxygen, it often helps to take a Facebook break. Everything there is lovely, superficial and a good counterbalance to my work.’ She yawned.
‘Oh, by the way,’ she continued, ‘Thomas called today. He’s got a job at Rigshospitalet and is moving back to Copenhagen. He’s coming over this weekend to do some house-hunting and would like to see Lily.’
‘But Lily’s ill.’ Søren was flustered. ‘She can’t just be taken out and about.’
‘Søren, even though you hate the thought, Thomas is Lily’s dad and he also happens to be a doctor, so they’ll be fine. And, anyway, it’s not for another five days.’
‘Yes, but what if Thomas wants visiting rights?’ Søren asked, now terrified. ‘What if he wants joint custody of Lily?’
Anna raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, seeing that he is her dad, there’s not a whole lot I can do about it. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Thomas talks a good game, but when it comes to the heavy lifting, he usually favours a solution that’s essentially to his own advantage. He would never ask to have Lily half the time, but possibly three to eight.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Eight days with us and three days with him and Gunvor.’
‘Three days?’ Søren stared at her in disbelief. At that moment her mobile rang and she answered it.
‘Hey, I’m talking to you,’ Søren snapped.
Anna glared at him before she composed her voice, said, ‘Just a moment,’ into her phone and let it slide down her thigh. ‘What’s wrong with you today, Søren?’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve been waiting for Anders T.’s comments on our application for four days because he’s been busy with all sorts of other things, but when he called me just now to get my feedback, he hadn’t even turned on his computer. So I have to take this call now, OK? Do you think you could calm down?’ And she went back to her office.
Søren sat on the sofa and scowled. When he thought back to his own childhood, Knud and Elvira seemed to have been there for him all the time. There was always someone at home when he came back from school, always someone who would make him a cup of tea and butter him a bread roll, always someone he could ask for help with his homework or talk to about his day. He knew that his memories might be a little rose-tinted: Knud and Elvira had been schoolteachers, but they had also been politically active so they could not possibly have been around for him the whole time. But it had felt like that and that was what mattered. Knowing he came first. It was important for children to know that, he thought. Lily wasn’t even six yet: what did she know about adult priorities and how important research was to her mother? Nothing. Even so, Lily still sensed how her mother discreetly and deftly managed to occupy her with some activity so that she herself could turn on her computer or look something up in a book. Søren came third, he was well aware of it, and that was just how it was. But surely Anna would not give up Lily for three days after every eight without a fight. It was out of the question, he thought, and shuddered at the prospect.
When Søren’s daughter, who had died as a baby, had been born, her mother, Katrine, and her partner, Bo, had wanted Søren to play a minor role in Maja’s life, at least while she was little. But he had rights and he had pointed this out to them. Søren wanted to be in Maja’s life even if it meant going through the courts. It had felt good to insist. But when it came to Lily, he realised to his horror that he had no rights. Any minute now Anna could announce that she was moving in with Anders T., or Thomas might waltz in and demand to have Lily for several days, weeks even, at a time, and there was nothing Søren could do about it.
Søren grabbed his computer and stared at the screen. Thirty-seven Jacob Madsen profiles had appeared. He clicked on the first three, but it was a hopeless task. The quality of the first profile picture was so poor that he could not be sure if he was looking at the right Jacob Madsen and he was about to give up when he spotted the last profile before the list disappeared off the screen. It was him! Some twenty-plus years older and with less hair, but quite definitely the Jacob Madsen he had known as a boy. Søren clicked on his profile, but could access only the profile picture and practically no information. On the picture, Jacob Madsen was sitting at a garden table with a small Asian boy aged four or five on his lap and an Asian girl of school age standing next to them. A smiling woman in running kit, with lots of curly, blonde hair, stood behind them. They all looked happy and in glowing health. Søren sent Jacob Madsen a friend request.
Just at that moment a friend request from Anders T. popped up on the screen. Søren could not believe his eyes. The nerve of the man. He could hear that Anna was still on the phone at the other end of the house, so Anders T. must be busy on Facebook while giving Anna his so-important-it-couldn’t-possibly-wait feedback on their grant application. Søren slammed shut his laptop and went to bed. Facebook was definitely not for him. Free access to the green-eyed monster of jealousy.
*
On Tuesday morning the clouds hung like heavy bunting across the trees. Lily was still unwell, so when Anna had left for the university, Søren dropped all plans of going by bicycle and put Lily, wrapped in her duvet, into the child seat in the car. They drove to Copenhagen and Lily sang a snotty-nosed version of ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ as suburbs turned into city. Søren parked his car on Danasvej and rang Trine Rønn’s doorbell.
‘I’m Søren Marhauge from Copenhagen Police,’ he said, into the intercom, when Trine replied. After a brief hesitation he and Lily were let into the stairwell. Walking up the stairs took them forever.
‘You slowcoach,’ Søren said, and swung Lily onto his shoulders. She was heavy and he was wheezing like a pair of punctured bellows when they finally reached the fourth floor. Trine had put the security chain on the door and was peering out at them. Søren explained that he was Anna Bella’s boyfriend and that the child was Lily, Anna’s daughter; she was with him because she was ill. Trine looked sceptically at them through the gap in the door.
‘We have German measles,’ Lily announced in a loud voice. ‘And I get to play on Søren’s mobile if I promise to be quiet as a mouse and not bother him, not one single time, and go to the loo on my own if I need a pee.’ On hearing this Trine opened the door and invited them in. She looked upset. Her skin was pale, as if she had been awake for a long time, and she was still in her dressing gown. Søren made Lily comfortable on the sofa and handed her his mobile. Then he followed Trine into the kitchen.
‘I’m alone at the moment,’ she said. ‘My sister is usually here, but she has just left to take my daughter to nursery and do a bit of shopping. My boyfriend is Spanish; he’s in Barcelona visiting his mother, so I’m grateful for her help. I haven’t been able to sleep properly since Thursday. I keep seeing . . . I keep seeing Storm. Would you like a cup of tea?’
Søren nodded and sat down.
They started talking. Trine wondered if someone like Søren was used to the sight of dead bodies and Søren said he was, but that it always made an impression.
‘I just started shaking all over,’ Trine said. ‘His face was very frightening.’
‘It must have been a distressing sight,’ Søren said.
A strange silence arose, then Trine said, ‘Why do you want to question me again? I spoke to the superintendent, Henrik Tejsner, on the phone yesterday and got the impression the police had already made up their minds that Storm killed himself. Tejsner kept saying that the pathologist had just called to confirm that Storm’s death was suicide. I think he said it three times.’
Søren cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry if you feel you have to repeat yourself, but we often work in parallel when we investigate a case. That way we get a more nuanced set of observations than if I simply read my colleague’s report.’ When Trine nodded, Søren quickly continued, ‘It’s my impression that Storm didn’t have any kind of private life. That he was married to his work. Is that correct?’
Trine confirmed it. To her knowledge, Storm had never been married and had no biological children, but he had been very paternal towards all of his students. ‘Most postgraduates whinge about their supervisors, but you had no grounds for that if you were being supervised by Storm. He loved us. He called us “the pillars of the future”, and he always involved us in his research. Evil tongues might say that he exploited us, but I fail to see how. Storm wanted Denmark to be part of the research elite and it was his mission to teach us to carry out proper research. He let us be co-authors on his scientific papers, even if we only contributed with a single graph or a minor statistical analysis, and there was absolutely no requirement for him to do that. But Storm knew that publishing is the only way to get a slice of the pie, both in terms of making a name for ourselves and when it comes to grants and funding. Take Marie Skov, for example. I think her name went on more than twenty papers and she was lead author on several, yet she hasn’t even started her PhD! It would never have happened in another department, with another supervisor, and that was why people were jealous.’
Søren made a mental note that Marie Skov’s name had cropped up yet again and wondered if Trine Rønn was among the jealous ones. She didn’t seem the type.
‘Seems you liked him.’
‘Yes,’ Trine said, and nodded. ‘He belonged to a dying breed of scientists, you could say. He valued curiosity, the importance of making mistakes. He would read Karen Blixen stories aloud during his lectures and say that natural scientists could learn a lot from the baroness. Storm was obsessed with the Danish language.’
‘Yes.’ Trine explained: ‘He wanted us to be able to express ourselves in perfect Danish. Most immunology books are written in English or German, so you quickly end up speaking a kind of hodgepodge Danish with English and German terms thrown in, but Storm insisted that we knew our scientific terminology in Danish as well as in English. He even coined two neologisms and got them recognised by the Danish Language Council. He was genuinely worried about the future of Danish research. “At best we’ll be overtaken,” he would say. “At worst, simply steamrolled.”’
Søren nodded. ‘As you know, we’re working on the theory that Storm killed himself,’ he then said.
‘I thought you were totally convinced that Storm killed himself,’ Trine said sharply. ‘That’s what your colleague said yesterday.’
‘And you don’t agree?’
‘No,’ was all Trine said.
‘Would you care to elaborate? Just a little bit?’
Trine smiled wryly. ‘Sorry. I became very monosyllabic when your colleague rang me yesterday. But I can tell that you’re genuinely interested in my opinion.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Storm taught me properly,’ she began. ‘My GP can no longer give me a prescription for penicillin without my asking hundreds of in-depth questions. I drive every expert crazy because I always want to understand what lies behind their statements. It’s an occupational hazard. Storm’s occupational hazard. Ha. If you knew how many of his students have argued with their families when writing their master’s! Storm and his teaching style were notorious for this. He told his students to look through a range of lenses. He taught us to ask the right questions, then gave us the academic tools and the guts to discover the truth. Both professionally and personally. The bottom line is that I know something about Storm’s so-called suicide just doesn’t add up. I was on maternity leave all of last year and I’ve only been back in the department since Christmas. As you’re aware, Storm had been abroad since the middle of February. But I’ll still claim that I knew him well and he would never— And do you know something?’ she burst out. ‘Just think it through to its conclusion. It’s completely illogical. Why would a man – who was so passionate about his research that he sold his childhood home to finance the Belem project – take his own life just as he was on the verge of a breakthrough? The Serum Institute believed him. The Danish National Research Foundation believed him. Even the editor of Science believed him! I was in Storm’s office three days before he died, and he was ecstatic. Why on earth would he kill himself? It makes no sense.’
Søren nodded again. ‘Tell me about the missing box,’ he said.
Trine looked at him closely. ‘So you believe me?’ she asked.
‘I believe that you believe what you’re saying, and I take that very seriously,’ Søren said.
‘OK,’ Trine said. ‘Storm had had major problems surveying an area in southern Guinea-Bissau. For more than two years the figures that came back were unbelievably good and, frankly, they distorted Storm’s other data, prevented him processing his statistics and thus drawing the conclusions that would enable him to write the paper which would finally convince the rest of the world that some of the WHO’s recommended vaccines cause the child mortality rate in developing countries to shoot up. After Marie had defended her master’s dissertation and presented her laboratory figures, which very much supported Storm’s theory about the non-specific effects of the vaccines, Storm went to Guinea-Bissau to survey the whole of the problematic area one last time. He came back in February and spent almost three weeks analysing his data before he announced joyously to everyone in the department that he had finally cracked it. And, in the middle of this euphoria, he kills himself and his box of precious medical records just happens to go missing?’ Trine gazed sceptically at Søren.
‘I lost my temper with your colleague yesterday,’ she continued. ‘He kept going on and on about Storm’s state of mind. Did he seem depressed at having been accused of scientific dishonesty? Was he prone to depression? Had something upset him recently? No, no, and again no. I kept bringing up the box and drawing parallels with the Belem project, I kept mentioning the professional heavy fire Storm was under. Only that Tejsner guy wouldn’t listen. I’m telling you, not in your capacity as a police officer but as Anna’s boyfriend, someone silenced Storm. His death had nothing to do with feeling low or ashamed at being accused of dishonesty. It’s much bigger.’ Trine closed her eyes briefly, then opened them. ‘I just know it.’ She put a hand on her heart. ‘Now that’s not very scientific, but Storm always said that a hunch was enough.’
‘Now about that box . . .’ Søren said. ‘What was it made from?’
‘Cheap, rough cardboard. It was quite battered and someone had scribbled on it with a ballpoint pen. It was about this big.’ Trine demonstrated with her hands. ‘Do you know those IKEA archive boxes you assemble yourself? Roughly that size and the same kind of cardboard. And it was full of medical records.’
‘What exactly did the medical records look like?’
‘They’re yellow notebooks,’ she replied. ‘About the size of a comic and the same format. The data is entered in pencil.’
Søren remembered Niels Sonne’s email. Suddenly he had a very good idea of the location of the box and its contents.
Lily peeped into the kitchen where they were sitting. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
Søren got up and thanked Trine. They exchanged mobile numbers and Søren told her she was welcome to call at any time.
‘Thank you for listening,’ she said.
When Lily and Søren walked down the stairs, he heard Trine put the security chain back on.
*
Søren and Lily had lunch at a café in H.C. Ørsteds Vej, where Anna and Søren had had several dates two years earlier. Søren’s mind was distracted while he removed first the onions, then the cucumber and finally the tomato from Lily’s burger.
‘I don’t like the lettuce, either,’ Lily said.
‘So what you’re saying is you just want the bun and the burger?’
‘And the chips.’
‘Hmm,’ Søren grunted. The thoughts were buzzing around his head. It troubled him that— ‘What was that, sweetheart?’ Lily had said something, but Søren had been miles away.
‘Uncle Henrik called and said that if you don’t get back to him he’ll come round and box your ears.’
Søren blinked. ‘He said that?’
‘Yes,’ Lily said, and made loud gurgling noises with her straw. ‘Lily, it’s probably best if you don’t answer my phone if it happens to ring while you’re playing a game on it, OK?’
‘OK,’ Lily said. ‘Where are we going now?’
‘We’re going to say hi to Linda,’ Søren said.
*
When Søren and Lily arrived at the Violent Crimes Unit, Søren’s secretary, Linda, leaped up from behind her desk and hugged Søren long and hard, as if he had been away on a sabbatical.
‘Hi, Linda,’ he said, hugging her back. ‘Did you really miss me that much?’
‘You’re not serious about quitting, are you?’ she said.
Søren shrugged. ‘A desk job is not for me. Besides, my timing appears to be spot on. Anna is busy and Lily is a bit under the weather so I’m looking after her. We’ll just have to wait and see.’ He shrugged again.
‘I really hope you decide to come back. Jørgensen seems really stressed and Henrik is fast losing the plot. His briefing this morning was one of the worst I’ve ever seen. By the way, is it true that we’ve hired Anna as a researcher?’
‘Yes, she’s writing a profile of . . . Kristian Storm.’
‘The professor who hanged himself?’
Søren nodded and sneaked a glance at Linda’s computer. ‘Never mind about that, how are you?’
Linda replied that she was well and started to tell him about her elder daughter, who was finally pregnant after several IVF attempts. ‘I’m going to be a granny.’ She beamed.
‘Congratulations,’ Søren said, trying discreetly to work out if Linda was logged onto the intranet, but it was difficult to tell from where he was standing. The telephone rang and she answered it. Søren bent down and whispered to Lily, ‘When Linda’s finished talking on the phone, ask her if you can have a fizzy drink.’
‘Can I?’
‘You have to ask Linda,’ he whispered, and winked at her, ‘but I bet she’ll let you.’
When Linda hung up, Lily said, ‘Søren told me to ask you if I can have a fizzy drink.’ Søren muttered curses under his breath, but all Linda said was, ‘Oh, did he? I’m sure that’s allowed.’ She ushered Lily down the corridor towards the vending machine in the meeting room.
Søren sat down in front of Linda’s computer and went on to the intranet where he quickly logged onto Polsas, the police case file system, and found a folder named Kristian Storm. It contained numerous documents so Søren selected the whole lot and hit print. He had just logged out of Polsas and stood up when he heard Lily’s chatter as she and Linda returned.
When Lily had finished her drink, they went to Jørgensen’s office to say hello and on the way Søren nipped into the printer room. The preliminary report and other documents on Kristian Storm lay warm and fresh in the printer tray; Søren rolled them up and stuck them in his inside pocket. Jørgensen turned out not to be in his office and somehow Søren was relieved. Jørgensen’s secretary told him he was in a meeting and added, ‘Have you really resigned? Aren’t you going to come back?’
‘Maybe,’ Søren said. ‘Say hi to Jørgensen and tell him I’m open to offers. Very attractive offers.’
*
‘Where are we going now?’ Lily said, when they were back in the car outside the police station. ‘Please can we go home soon? I want to watch a movie.’
Søren looked guiltily at her. ‘We have just one more person to visit and he can be bit difficult, so it’s best if you wait in the car. But you can play a game on my mobile as long as you promise me you won’t answer if it rings. Afterwards, we’ll go home and watch a movie, OK?’
‘Okaaaaay,’ Lily said reluctantly.
*
Bøje Knudsen, the medical examiner, was eating his packed lunch when Søren arrived at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, which was located right next to Rigshospitalet. He sat with his feet on his desk as he munched what looked like a cheese sandwich. His uncombed hair stood out on all sides and he had day-old stubble – Søren had never seen him so unkempt. He had left Lily in the car with his mobile and, even though he had impressed on her that she must stay put, he was keen to get his visit over and done with before she made trouble.
The door to the dissection room was closed, but the stench of formaldehyde permeated everything, including the smell of cheese.
‘Bon appétit,’ Søren said, and felt his lunchtime burger somersault.
‘If you’re here to stress me out, you can piss off,’ Bøje said, and carried on eating, unperturbed. ‘This is the first time I’ve sat down today. I turned up for work at five o’clock this morning and my feet haven’t touched the ground for the last four days due to the Kødbyen rapes. Bernt from Station City is heading the investigation and he’s already called me three times today to moan – I’m sure he would have called me a fourth and fifth time if I hadn’t told him exactly where he could stick his phone. It takes as long as it takes and that has to be fast enough. Even for the justice secretary.’
‘I’m not here to stress you out,’ Søren said. He wondered if Bøje knew that he had quit his job. Not long after Søren had been promoted to deputy chief superintendent, Bøje had called him to complain about Henrik.
‘He has no manners,’ Bøje had said at the time. ‘He threw up in a dustbin twice the last time he was here. Stomach like a girl’s. I preferred you.’
‘I’m here because of that professor from the Institute of Biology,’ Søren said. ‘Are you carrying out an autopsy on him? Are you anywhere near finalising your report? And what’s the state of the case?’
Bøje folded his arms across his chest and glared at Søren. ‘You’re right. I haven’t finalised the case or written my report, but try asking me why I haven’t done it, apart from the simple reason that I’m rushed off my feet with the double murders in Kødbyen.’
‘Double murders?’
‘Yes, another rape victim in intensive care died from her injuries last night, but don’t try changing the subject. Ask me why I haven’t closed the case.’
‘Why haven’t you closed the case?’ Søren said obediently.
‘Because the noose is missing.’
‘The noose?’
‘Yes – would you believe it? The body arrived at the morgue on Thursday morning and just after lunch I was pretty much set to close the case when I discovered that the noose, which the dead man supposedly used to kill himself, was missing. I called Bellahøj straight away, of course, and finally tracked down that moron of a new CSO, Lars Hviid, who confirmed that he had removed the noose from the neck of the deceased and put it in the evidence box along with other items bagged at the scene. Why would he even think of doing something so utterly stupid? And what exactly happened to the evidence box afterwards? He didn’t know because he had been dispatched to a case on Østerbro. After I had bitten off Lars Hviid’s head at the fifth vertebra, I called Tejsner to do the same to him, and do you know what he said? That anyone could see the guy had killed himself. Just take a moment to digest that one. I told Tejsner to get me that noose at once, even if it meant him crocheting a new one and hanging himself in it and – wouldn’t you know it? – he sends over Mehmet, that mummy’s boy, who turned up an hour ago to deliver it. One hour ago. He was very sorry, but the noose had been temporarily misplaced in the evidence room, he said. Just take a further moment to reflect on that.’ Bøje gestured with the last bite of his cheese sandwich towards an evidence bag on the table with a woven red object. Then he turned to Søren. ‘So you have that bunch of total amateurs you call your colleagues to thank for any delay in this case. And do you know what else I’ve heard? Rumour has it that Tejsner stomped all over the crime scene without protective clothing. But that’s just too far-fetched even for me to believe it. Danish police simply haven’t stooped that low yet.’
Søren cleared his throat. ‘At the risk of losing my own head, when do you think you’ll sign off this case?’ he ventured.
‘I thought you said you hadn’t come here to stress me out. I’ll get to it as soon as I can, depending on how busy that psycho in Kødbyen plans on being. Everybody has the right to opt out of life, but no one deserves to be attacked, raped and have their groin molested by a madman with a blunt knife, so, if you don’t mind, I’ll take the liberty of prioritising.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Søren said amicably.
‘But apart from that, I happen to agree with Tejsner, to my intense irritation.’ Bøje grunted. ‘It really does look like suicide. And when something looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s usually a duck, isn’t it, young Søren?’
‘But you’re still not a hundred per cent sure?’ Søren persisted.
‘No, and I never will be, not even if I do an autopsy. Only an idiot is ever a hundred per cent sure.’
‘So, strictly speaking,’ Søren persevered, ‘we’re still talking about a possible suicide, but not a confirmed one? I’m being pedantic purely because suicide was very far from the deceased’s mind. And several of his close colleagues deny suicide is even an option. I’m just telling you.’
‘If you insist on being pedantic, then, yes, it would be correct to call it a possible suicide. It’s certainly not confirmed yet.’
‘Do you have any idea how Superintendent Tejsner reached that conclusion, that it was suicide, and officially closed the investigation?’
‘You bet I do,’ Bøje fumed. ‘It’s because Tejsner is a bloody anarchist with only one agenda, and that’s his own. You’re his superior, Søren. You must cut him down to size. I haven’t said anything to Jørgensen on this occasion, but the next time Tejsner steps out of line like this, I’ll report him. Anyway, I’d better not take it out on you. And, as for your observation that Storm’s colleagues refuse to accept it was suicide, it’s my experience that it’s often very hard for people to come to terms with such things. The realisation that someone so close to you felt that bad and you didn’t know it is never easy.’
‘Thank you,’ Søren said. ‘And please would you do me a favour and call me when you have your conclusion?’
‘I can email you the report. I’m too busy to natter on the phone. I’ll deal with everything on email after midnight,’ Bøje said.
‘Fine. I’ll probably be working from home for the rest of the week because my daughter is ill.’ Søren scribbled down his private email address on a piece of paper and gave it to Bøje.
‘Your daughter? I didn’t know you had children.’
‘No,’ Søren said pensively. ‘I can’t tell you exactly when I became a dad, but I have a strong feeling that it’s already happened.’
*
Once he was outside the Institute of Forensic Medicine, Søren called Anna and she picked up immediately. ‘Do you have twenty minutes?’
‘Twenty?’
‘Yes.’
‘Eh, yes.’
‘Good, then I’ll stop by with Lily in two minutes and pick her up again in twenty-two. I have an errand in your building.’
‘An errand?’
‘I need to ask the caretaker a question.’
‘Anna, I promise to tell you tonight, OK? But Lily is tired and I want to get her home, only I just have to do this one last thing, so if you could tear yourself away for twenty minutes . . .’
‘Of course,’ she said, and Søren had almost hung up when she added, ‘I love it when you knit backwards. Because that’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?’
‘Might be,’ Søren replied.
*
Anna was already waiting in the car park by the entrance to Stairwell One when Søren and Lily arrived.
‘Mum!’ Lily cried, as soon as she spotted Anna, and jumped into her arms the moment Søren had unlocked her seatbelt.
‘Let’s go and browse in the museum shop,’ Anna said. She seemed happy.
‘OK, I’ll meet you there.’ He kissed her.
‘Another,’ she said, pulling him close.
Søren kissed her again.
*
Luckily the caretaker was in his office, which was to the right of the main entrance to the Institute of Biology. He had the radio on and was tinkering with something under a bright light. He was around sixty and looked old fashioned in his dungarees and flat cap. ‘Now what was wrong with the old wooden pointers?’ he wondered out loud, as Søren stuck his head round the door. ‘This electronic rubbish keeps breaking and you can’t whack the students with a laser.’ The caretaker chuckled. Søren shook his hand.
‘My name is Søren Marhauge and I’m with the police.’
‘And you’re Anna Bella’s young chap,’ the caretaker stated.
‘How do you know that?’ he asked, surprised.
The caretaker grinned again and pointed to two shelving units stacked to the rafters with odds and ends; in the gap between them Søren noticed a peephole-sized window where the caretaker had just witnessed them kissing.
‘Aha,’ Søren said.
‘How can I help you?’
‘I’m investigating a few details in connection with Kristian Storm’s suicide – I’m sure you’ll have heard about it.’
‘Yes, of course. It’s tragic. Storm was a nice man. I spoke to him almost every morning when he turned up for work. Many of the older professors around here can be a bit stand-offish, you know. They never say hello or anything like that. But Storm would always stop, and he even came in here for a cup of coffee once or twice . . . I was very sad when I learned what had happened. So what exactly are you investigating?’ The caretaker peered at Søren.
‘A hunch or two,’ Søren replied.
‘Proper police answer.’ He chortled. ‘But I’ll do my best to help you.’
‘Upstairs in the Department of Immunology they have a printer room with a shredder. What happens to all the shredded paper?’ Søren asked.
‘It ends up in a sack, which the cleaners remove every day.’
‘Isn’t it recycled? It’s only paper.’
‘Oh, yes, of course. The sacks end up in a recycling container in the basement. We have separate containers for test tubes and petri dishes and one for metals. They’re emptied once a fortnight.’
‘When was the last collection?’
The caretaker leaned to one side and checked a wall calendar. ‘The eleventh of March.’
‘Do you think I might be allowed to take a look at that container?’
The caretaker picked up a bunch of keys.
*
There were three medium-sized recycling containers lined up in the basement under Building One. In addition to the door through which the caretaker and Søren entered, a broad ramp with a sliding gate led from the basement up to the car park in front of the Institute of Biology.
‘The recycling lorry reverses down it,’ the caretaker said, pointing to the ramp. ‘But there’s also a small side entrance, used by several staff members who park their bicycles down here.’ The caretaker opened the swing lid to the paper container. It was half full, mostly with strips of paper, but also newspaper and cardboard.
‘Right. I’ll take a look around. I’ll be back when I’ve finished.’
‘I’d be happy to help,’ the caretaker offered, and looked very keen, but Søren declined. A moment later he was alone in the basement.
Søren checked the paper strips by grabbing an armful and dropping them on the floor in front of him. The first twenty times he did it were fruitless. White photocopier paper with typed letters, the remains of formulas, exam papers. But when he was a third of his way through the pile, he found what he was looking for: a section of yellow paper strips, which seemed more woolly to the touch than standard white photocopier paper, and shortly afterwards a mass of rough strips. He took a generous handful of both the yellow and the coarse strips, smoothed them out on the floor under a fluorescent light and photographed the result with his mobile. He sent the two best pictures to Trine Rønn, with a message, asking, Is this the paper from Storm’s medical records/box? and found a plastic bag on a shelving unit, which he stuffed to the brim with strips. Before he had finished, Trine had already replied: Yes, definitely. I recognise both the material and Storm’s handwriting. Søren switched off the basement light, returned to the caretaker and asked him to look after the bag with the strips. Then he thanked him for his help and headed for the Museum of Natural History. While he walked, he rang Henrik’s mobile, but got no reply, and then Bellahøj, where he got hold of Linda, who promised to dispatch an officer to the Institute of Biology to collect the plastic bag and add it to Kristian Storm’s case file.
When Søren reached the Museum of Natural History, he spotted Anna and Lily immediately. Anna was in the process of paying for a toy python and Lily looked enormously pleased with herself. When Anna saw him, she gave a guilty shrug and placed two hundred kroner on the counter.
Shortly afterwards, Lily and Søren drove home to Humlebæk. Every time Søren made a right turn, he found himself staring right into the face of the squishy python, which Lily had draped over the passenger seat. ‘Otherwise it can’t see out of the window,’ she insisted.