The Keeper of Lost Causes

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  “What? For Christ’s sake, how did that leak out already?” exclaimed the homicide chief, looking even more exhausted.

  Carl shrugged. After ten years as head of the homicide division, the man must be used to the game by now. “I’ve divided up the cases into three categories,” he said, pointing at the piles of folders. “They’re big, complicated cases. I’ve spent days reading through the material. This is going to take a lot of time, Marcus.”

  Jacobsen shifted his gaze away from the TV screen. “Take however much time you need, Carl. Just as long as you produce results once in a while. Let me know if anyone upstairs can assist you.” He attempted a smile. “So which case have you decided to work on first?”

  “Well, er, I’m looking at several initially. But the Merete Lynggaard case will probably be the first.”

  Jacobsen’s face brightened. “Oh yes, that was a strange one. The way she disappeared from the Rødby–Puttgarden ferry. One minute she was there, the next she was gone. And without a single eyewitness.”

  “There are plenty of strange aspects to the case,” said Carl, trying to recall just one.

  “I remember that her brother was accused of pushing her overboard, but the charge was later dropped. Is that a lead you might follow up?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know where he is now, so I’ll have to track him down first. But there are also other lines of inquiry that spring to mind.”

  “I seem to remember the documents saying the brother was committed to an institution in northern Zealand,” said Jacobsen.

  “Oh, right. But he might not be there anymore.” Carl tried to look pensive. Go on back to your office, Mr. Homicide Chief, he thought. All these questions, and so far he’d spent only five minutes reading the case report.

  “He is in something called Egely. In the town of Frederikssund.” The voice came from the doorway where Assad stood, leaning on his mop. He looked like someone from another planet, with his ivory smile and his green rubber gloves and a smock that reached to his ankles.

  The homicide chief stared in bewilderment at this exotic being.

  “Hafez el-Assad,” he said, holding out a rubber-gloved hand.

  “Marcus Jacobsen,” said the homicide chief, shaking the man’s hand. Then he turned to give Carl an inquiring look.

  “This is our new assistant in the department. Assad has heard me talking about the case,” Carl said, giving Assad a look that he chose to ignore.

  “I see,” said Jacobsen.

  “Yes, my Deputy Police Inspector Mørck has really worked hard so. I have just helped a little here and so there, and where one can.” Assad smiled broadly. “What I do not understand is then why Merete Lynggaard was never found in the water. In Syria, where I come from, there are tons of sharks in the water that eat the dead bodies. But if there are not so many sharks in the sea around Denmark, the bodies should probably be found at some point. The bodies get as big as balloons because of all the rotting from inside that blows them up.”

  The homicide chief tried to smile. “Yes, well. The waters around Denmark are deep and wide. It’s not unusual that we fail to find the bodies of people who have drowned. In fact, it’s quite common for someone to fall overboard from a passenger ship in those waters. And often the body is never found.”

  “Assad,” Carl said, looking at his watch. “You can go home now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Assad nodded briefly and picked up the bucket from the floor. After some clattering across the hall, he reappeared in the doorway and said good-bye.

  “Seems like a real character, that Hafez el-Assad,” Jacobsen said when the sound of the man’s footsteps had died away.

  13

  2007

  After the weekend Carl found a memo from the deputy chief on his computer.

  I’ve informed Bak that you’re working on the Merete Lynggaard case. Bak was assigned to the case as part of the Rapid Response Team during the final phase of the investigation, so he’s familiar with the details. Right now he’s slogging away on the cyclist homicide , but he’s prepared to discuss the case with you, preferably as soon as possible.

  Lars Bjørn

  Carl snorted. “Preferably as soon as possible.” Who the hell did Bak think he was, that sanctimonious son of a bitch? Self-righteous, selfimportant, self-promoting. A bureaucrat and yes-man all in one. His wife probably had to fill out a form in triplicate to apply for any erotic fondling below the belt.

  So Bak had investigated a case that had not been solved. How nice. Carl almost felt motivated to try to untie the knots himself.

  He picked up the case file from his desk and asked Assad to make him a cup of coffee. “Not as strong as last time, Assad,” he requested, thinking about the distance to the toilet.

  The Lynggaard case file was undoubtedly the most organized and comprehensive file that Carl had ever seen. It included copies of everything from reports on the health of the brother, Uffe, to transcripts of police interviews, clippings from the tabloids and gossip columns, a couple of videotapes of interviews with Merete Lynggaard, and detailed transcripts of statements from colleagues as well as from passengers on the boat who had seen the brother and sister together on the sun deck. There were photos showing the deck and the railing and the distance down to the water. There were fingerprint analyses taken from the spot where she disappeared. There were addresses of countless passengers who had taken pictures on board the Scandline ferry. There was even a copy of the ship’s log, which revealed how the captain had responded to the whole incident. But there was nothing that could give Carl a real lead.

  I need to watch the videotapes, he thought after reading through the material. He cast a defeated look at the DVD player.

  “I’ve got a job for you, Assad,” he said when the man returned with a steaming cup of coffee. “Go up to the homicide division on the third floor, through the green doors and over to the red hallway until you come to a bulge where—”

  Assad handed Carl the coffee mug, the smell of which from a distance already hinted at likely stomach troubles. “A bulge?” he said with wrinkled brow.

  “Yes, you know, where the red hallway gets wider. Go over to the blonde woman. Her name is Lis. She’s OK. Tell her that you need a videotape player for Carl Mørck. We’re good friends, she and I.” He winked at Assad, who winked back.

  “But if the dark-haired one is the only one there, just forget about it and come back.”

  Assad nodded.

  “And remember to bring back an adapter,” he called after Assad as he ambled down the fluorescent-lit basement corridor.

  “It was the dark-haired who just was up there,” said Assad when he returned. “She gave me two video machines and said they do not want them back.” He smiled broadly. “She was also beautiful.”

  Carl shook his head. There must have been a change in personnel.

  The first video was from a TV news program that was broadcast on December 21, 2001, in which Merete Lynggaard commented on an informal health and climate conference she had attended in London. The interview dealt primarily with her discussions with a senator named Bruce Jansen regarding the American attitude toward the work of WHO and the Kyoto Protocol, which in Merete’s opinion warranted great optimism for the future. I wonder if she’s easy to fool, thought Carl. But aside from a certain naïveté, which was no doubt attributable to her age, Merete Lynggaard seemed otherwise level-headed, professional, and precise. She outshone by far the newly appointed interior and health minister, who was standing next to her, looking like a parody of a high-school teacher in a film from the sixties.

  “A really elegant and pretty lady,” remarked Assad from the doorway.

  The second video was from February 20, 2002. Talking on behalf of her party’s environmental spokesperson, Merete Lynggaard offered comments on the conceited environmental skeptic Bjarke Ørnfelt’s report to the Committee Pertaining to Scientific Deception.

  What a name to give to a committee, thought Carl. To think that any
thing in Denmark could sound so Kafkaesque.

  This time it was an entirely different Merete Lynggaard who appeared on the screen. More real, less of a politician.

  “She is really, really so beautiful there,” said Assad.

  Carl glanced at him. Apparently a woman’s appearance was a particularly valuable factor in his assistant’s worldview. But Carl agreed with him. There was a special aura about Merete during that interview. She exhibited a surplus of that incredibly strong appeal that almost all women are capable of emanating whenever things are going especially well for them. Very telling, but also confusing.

  “Was she pregnant then?” asked Assad. Judging by a number of family members in his photos, it was a feminine condition with which he was quite familiar.

  Carl lit a cigarette and leafed through the case file again. For obvious reasons, there was no autopsy report that might help him answer that question, since the body had never been found. And when he skimmed through the gossip columns, there were blatant hints that she wasn’t particularly interested in men, although of course that didn’t preclude her from getting pregnant. But when he took a closer look, he realized that she hadn’t been seen in intimate contact with anyone at all, man or woman.

  “She was probably only just fallen in love,” concluded Assad as he waved the cigarette smoke away. He had now moved so close to the screen that he was practically crawling inside it. “That little patch of red on her cheek there. Look!”

  Carl shook his head. “I’ll bet it was only two degrees Celsius that day. Outdoor interviews always make politicians look healthier, Assad. Why do you think they’d put up with them, otherwise?”

  But Assad was right. There was a marked difference between the previous interview and this one. Something had happened to Merete in the meantime. There was no way that Bjarke Ørnfelt, a crackpot professional lobbyist who specialized in splitting facts about natural disasters into unrecognizable atoms, could have made Merete Lynggaard glow so tastily.

  Carl stared into space for a moment. In every investigation there was always a moment when a detective fervently wished that he could have met the victim alive. This time it was happening earlier than usual.

  “Assad. Phone that institution, Egely, where Merete Lynggaard’s brother was placed, and make an appointment on behalf of Deputy Detective Superintendent Mørck.”

  “Deputy Detective Superintendent Mørck? Who is that?”

  Carl tapped his finger to his temple. Was the man just plain stupid? “Who do you think?”

  Assad shook his head. “Well, inside my head I thought you were deputy police superintendent. Is that not what it is called now, since the new police reform?”

  Carl took a deep breath. That fucking police reform. He didn’t give a shit about it.

  The director at Egely called back ten minutes later, not even trying to hide his curiosity about what this might concern. Evidently Assad had improvised a bit, but what the hell could Carl expect from an assistant with a doctoral degree in rubber gloves and plastic buckets? After all, everybody had to crawl before they could walk.

  He glanced over at his assistant and gave him an encouraging nod when he looked up from his Sudoku puzzle.

  It took only thirty seconds for Carl to explain things to the director, whose reply was swift and brief. Uffe Lynggaard never spoke a word, so the deputy detective superintendent would gain nothing by trying to talk to him. In addition, although Uffe was both mute and difficult to reach, he had not been placed under legal guardianship. And since Uffe Lynggaard had not given permission for anyone at the institution to speak on his behalf, they couldn’t say anything either. It was a real Catch-22.

  “I’m familiar with the procedures. Of course I’m not trying to commit a breach of confidentiality. But I’m investigating his sister’s disappearance, so I think that Uffe might actually benefit a great deal from speaking to me.”

  “But he doesn’t talk. I just told you that.”

  “Actually, a lot of people that we interview don’t talk, but we manage all the same. We’re good at deciphering nonverbal signals over here in Department Q.”

  “Department Q?”

  “Yes, we’re an elite investigative team here at police headquarters. When can I come out to see him?”

  Carl heard the man sigh. He wasn’t stupid. He recognized a bulldog when he met one.

  “Let me see what I can do. I’ll get back to you,” he said then.

  “What exactly did you tell that man when you called him up, Assad?” yelled Carl when he put down the receiver.

  “That man? I told him that you would talk only to the chief and not to a director.”

  “The director is the chief, Assad.”

  Carl took a deep breath, got up, and went over to his assistant, looking him in the eye. “Don’t you know the word ‘director’? A director is a kind of boss.” They nodded to each other; all right then. “Assad, tomorrow I want you to pick me up in Allerød, where I live. We’re going to take a drive. Do you understand?”

  He shrugged.

  “And there’s not going to be any problem with that when we’re out driving around, is there?” Carl pointed at the prayer rug.

  “I can roll it up.”

  “All right. But how do you know which way Mecca is?”

  Assad pointed to his head, as if he had a GPS system implanted in his temporal lobe. “And if a person is still a little like he does not know where, then there is this.” He picked up one of the magazines from the bookshelf to reveal a compass underneath.

  “Huh,” said Carl, staring at the massive conglomeration of metal pipes running along the ceiling. “But that compass isn’t going to work down here.”

  Assad again pointed at his head.

  “So, I suppose you just have a sense of where it is. And you don’t have to be precise, is that it?”

  “Allah is great. He has such wide shoulders.”

  Carl stuck out his lower lip in a pout. Of course Allah did. What was he thinking, anyway?

  Four pairs of eyes with dark rings underneath turned to look at Carl as he entered team leader Bak’s office. No one could have any doubt that the team was under extreme pressure. On the wall hung a big map of Valby Park showing crucial aspects of the current case: the crime scene; where the murder weapon, an old-fashioned cut-throat razor, had been found; the place where the witness saw the victim and the suspected perpetrator together; and finally, the route the witness took through the park. Everything had been measured and thoroughly analyzed, and none of it made any sense.

  “Our talk is going to have to wait until later, Carl,” said Bak, tugging at the sleeve of the black leather jacket that he’d inherited from the former homicide chief. That jacket was Bak’s most treasured possession, proof that he was particularly fantastic, and he rarely took it off. The rumbling radiators were pumping out at least forty degrees of heat into the room, but it didn’t matter. Besides, he was probably counting on heading out the door at any moment.

  Carl looked at the photos pinned up on the bulletin board behind the team members, and it was not an encouraging sight. Evidently the body of the victim had been mutilated after death. Deep gashes in the chest, half of one ear cut off. On his white shirt a cross had been drawn with the victim’s own blood. Carl assumed that the cut-off ear had served as the pen. The frost-covered grass around the bicycle had been trampled flat, and the bike had also been smashed, so the spokes in the front wheel were completely crushed. The victim’s satchel lay open on the ground, and textbooks from the business school were scattered all over.

  “Our talk has to wait until later, you say? OK. But before then could you just ignore your brain-dead efforts for a moment and tell me what your key witness says about the individual she saw talking to the victim right before the murder?”

  The four men looked at him as if he’d desecrated a grave.

  Bak’s eyes had a dead expression. “It’s not your case, Carl. We’ll talk later. Believe it or not, we’re rea
lly busy up here.”

  He nodded. “Oh, sure, I can see that in your well-fed faces. Of course you’re busy. I imagine that you’ve already sent people out to search the witness’s place of residence after she was hospitalized, right?”

  The others exchanged glances. Annoyed, but also with a questioning look.

  So they hadn’t. Excellent.

  Marcus Jacobsen had just sat down in his office when Carl came in. As usual, the homicide chief was well groomed. The parting in his hair was sharp as a knife, his eyes attentive and alert.

  “Marcus, did you search the witness’s residence after her suicide attempt?” asked Carl, pointing at the case folder that was lying in the middle of Jacobsen’s desk.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You haven’t found the piece missing from the victim’s ear, have you?”

  “No, not yet. Are you saying that it might be in the witness’s home?”

  “If I were you, I’d go and look for it, boss.”

  “If it really was sent to her, I’m sure she got rid of it.”

  “So look through the garbage cans down in the yard. And take a good look in the toilet.”

  “It would have been flushed away by now, Carl.”

  “Haven’t you heard the story about the shit that kept reappearing no matter how many times the toilet was flushed?”

  “OK, Carl. I’ll take it under advisement.”

  “The pride of the department, Mr. Yes-man Bak, didn’t want to talk to me.”

  “Well, then you’ll just have to wait, Carl. Your cases aren’t about to run off anywhere.”

  “I just wanted you to know. It’s going to set me back in my schedule.”

  “Then I suggest you take a look at one of the other cases in the meantime.” He picked up his pen and tapped it on the edge of the desk. “So, about that strange guy you have working for you downstairs . . . You’re not involving him in any of the investigative work, are you?”