The Keeper of Lost Causes

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  He got a hug from Kenn, who liked to supervise the grill, and was handed an ice-cold can of beer. He put one of the scorched-meat briquettes on a plate and went into the living room, feeling everyone watching him indulgently. They never asked him questions if he didn’t volunteer any comments; it was one of the things that he really appreciated about his neighbors. Whenever a case was rummaging around in his brain, it would be easier to track down a competent local politician than to make contact with Carl, and they all knew it. This time it wasn’t a case knocking around in his brain; the only thing preoccupying his thoughts was Hardy.

  Because Carl felt genuinely torn.

  Maybe he should reconsider the situation. He could certainly find a way to kill Hardy without anyone raising the alarm afterward. An air bubble in his IV, a firm hand placed over his mouth. It would be over quickly, because Hardy would offer no resistance.

  But could he do it? Did he want to? It was a hell of a dilemma. To help or not to help? And what was the right kind of help? Maybe it would help Hardy more if Carl pulled himself together and went up to see Marcus and demanded to have his old cases back. When it came right down to it, he didn’t give a damn who he was assigned to work with, and he didn’t give a shit what they said about it. If it would help Hardy to nail the bastards who had shot them out in Amager, then he was the man to do it. Personally, he was sick of the case. If he did find those assholes, he’d just shoot them down, and who would benefit from that? Not him, at any rate.

  “Carl, could you lend me a C-note?” It was his stepson, Jesper, forcing his way into Carl’s thought processes. The boy evidently had one foot out the door already. His pals in Lyngby knew that if they invited Jesper, there was a good chance he would arrive with some beers in tow. Jesper had friends in the neighborhood who sold beer by the case to kids under sixteen. They cost a few kroner more, but what did that matter if he could get his stepfather to pay for the party?

  “Isn’t this the third time in a week, Jesper?” said Carl, pulling a hundredkroner bill out of his wallet. “No matter what, you’re going to school tomorrow, got it?”

  “OK,” he said.

  “Have you done your homework?”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  So he hadn’t.

  Carl frowned.

  “Relax, Carl. I don’t feel like doing my tenth year at Engholm. I’ll just transfer to Allerød.”

  That was little consolation. Then Carl would have to keep an eye on Jesper to make sure he did well in school.

  “Keep smilin’,” intoned the boy on his way to the bicycle shed.

  That was easier said than done.

  “Is it the Lynggaard case that’s worrying you, Carl?” Morten asked as he gathered up the last of the empty bottles. He never went back downstairs until the whole kitchen sparkled. He knew his limits. The next morning his head was going to be as big and sensitive as the prime minister’s ego. If anything needed cleaning, it had to be done now.

  “I’m thinking mostly about Hardy, not so much about the Lynggaard case. The leads have gone cold, and nobody gives a shit about it, anyway. Including me.”

  “But wasn’t the Lynggaard case solved?” said Morten, sniffling. “She drowned, didn’t she? What more is there to say about it?”

  “Hmm, is that what you think? But why did she drown? That’s the question I keep asking myself. There was no storm, no rough seas, and she was apparently quite healthy. Her finances were good, she was attractive, she was on her way to building a big career for herself. Maybe she was a bit lonely, but at some point she would have solved that problem too.”

  He shook his head. Who was he kidding? Of course the case interested him. Just like all cases in which the questions piled up, one after the other.

  He lit a cigarette and grabbed a can of beer that one of the guests had opened but never drunk. It was lukewarm and tasted slightly flat.

  “What annoys me the most is that she was so intelligent. It’s always difficult when victims are as smart as she was. As I see it, she had no real reason to commit suicide. No obvious enemies. Her brother loved her. So why did she disappear? If that was your background, Morten, would you jump into the deep?”

  He looked at Carl, his eyes red-rimmed. “It was an accident, Carl. Haven’t you ever felt dizzy when you leaned over a boat railing and looked down at the sea? But if it really was murder, then either her brother did it, or there was some political motivation, if you ask me. Why wouldn’t a prospective leader of the Democrats have enemies, especially one who looked so stunning?” He nodded ponderously and had trouble raising his head again. “Everyone hated her. Can’t you see that? All the people she’d outstripped in her own party. And the ruling parties. Do you think the prime minister and his cronies were happy to see that luscious babe getting all that airtime on TV? You said yourself that she was brilliant.” Morten wrung out the dishcloth and draped it over the tap. “Everybody knew that she’d be the one to form the opposition coalition at the next election. She knew how to pull in the votes, damn it.” He spat into the sink. “Next time I’m not drinking any of Sysser’s retsina. Where the hell does she buy that rotgut? It makes my throat as dry as a desert.”

  Outside in the circular courtyard, Carl ran into several colleagues who were on their way home. Over by the far wall behind the colonnade, Bak was having an intense conversation with one of his men. They gave Carl a look as if he’d spat on them and offended their honor.

  “Buffoon briefing?” he fired off, his words echoing among the pillars as he turned his back on them.

  An explanation came from Bente Hansen, who had been a member of his former team. He met her in the vestibule. “You were right, Carl. They found the piece of the victim’s ear in the witness’s flat. Congratulations, old boy!”

  Fine. At least something was happening in the murdered cyclist case.

  “Bak and his men have just been out to the National Hospital to make the witness cough up the whole story,” she went on. “But they didn’t get anywhere. She’s terrified.”

  “Then maybe she’s not the one they should be talking to.”

  “Probably not. But then who?”

  “When would you be most likely to commit suicide? If you were under an insane amount of pressure, or if it was the only way to save your kids? I’d say it has something to do with her children.”

  “The children don’t know anything.”

  “No, I’m sure they don’t. But the witness’s mother might.”

  He looked at the bronze lamps on the ceiling. Maybe he should ask for permission to trade cases with Bak. That would undoubtedly shake things up in this colossal building.

  “So, Carl. The whole time I have gone around, thinking thoughts. I think we should go on with the case then.” Assad had already set a steaming cup of coffee in front of Carl. Next to the case files sat a couple of sweet pastries on top of the paper they’d been wrapped in. Apparently he was launching a charm offensive. At any rate, Assad had cleaned up in Carl’s office, and several documents from the case were lined up on his desk, almost as if he was supposed to read them in a specific order. Assad must have been on the job since six in the morning.

  “What have you found for me?” Carl pointed to the papers.

  “Well, here is a bank account statement that tells just what Merete Lynggaard took out during her last weeks. But there is nothing at all with food at any restaurant.”

  “Somebody else paid for her, Assad. It’s not unusual for beautiful women to get off cheaply in such situations.”

  “Yes, exactly, Carl. Very smart. So she got somebody else to pay. I think maybe a politician or some guy.”

  “No doubt. But it wouldn’t be easy to find out who it was.”

  “Yes, I know that, Carl. It was five years ago.” He tapped another piece of paper. “Here is a summary of the things that the police took from her house. I do not see any appointment diary like the woman, her new secretary, talked about. No. But maybe there is diary at Christiansborg. May
be it will show who she was going to meet at the restaurant then.”

  “She probably had her diary in her purse, Assad. And the purse disappeared along with her, didn’t it?”

  He nodded, looking a bit chagrined. “Yes, but, Carl. Maybe we could ask her secretary then. There is a transcribing of her statement. She did not say anything then about the person who ate with Merete. So I think we should ask her again.”

  “It’s called a transcript, Assad! But that’s still five years ago. If she couldn’t remember anything important at the time she was asked, I’ll guarantee she won’t remember anything now.”

  “OK! But it says she could remember that Merete Lynggaard got a telegram for Valentine’s Day, but it was some time after, so. I think one could find out about something like that, couldn’t one?”

  “The telegram doesn’t exist anymore, and we don’t have the exact date. So it would be hard to track down since we don’t even know the name of the company that delivered it.”

  “It was TelegramsOnline.”

  Carl looked at him. Was it possible this guy was a diamond in the rough? It was difficult to tell as long as he was wearing those green rubber gloves. “How do you know that, Assad?”

  “Look there.” He pointed at the transcript of the statement. “The secretary remembered that it said ‘Love & Kisses to Merete’ on the telegram, and there were also two lips. Two red lips.”

  “And?”

  “Well, it had to be a telegram from TelegramsOnline. They print the name on the outside of the telegram. And they always have those two red lips.”

  “Show me.”

  Assad pressed the space bar on Carl’s computer, and the TelegramsOnline home page appeared on the screen. And there it was, the telegram just as Assad had described it.

  “OK. And are you positive that this is the only company that makes these types of telegrams?”

  “Really positive, yes.”

  “But you still don’t have the date, Assad. Was it before or after Valentine’s Day? And who was it from?”

  “We can ask the company. Maybe they have a list of when telegrams were sent to Christiansborg Castle.”

  “That was all done during the first police investigation, wasn’t it?”

  “There is nothing about this in the case file, no. But you have maybe read about something else?” He gave an acidic smile that stopped just short of insubordination.

  “OK, Assad. Fair enough. You can check with the company. That’s a perfect job for you. I’m a little busy right now, so why don’t you use the phone in your own office.”

  Carl gave him a pat on the back and ushered him out. Then he shut the door, lit a cigarette, picked up the Lynggaard file, and sat down in his chair, propping his feet on the desk.

  He might as well dive in.

  It was a stupid case, full of inconsistencies. They’d been searching high and low without any real prioritizing. In short, they had no plausible theories. No clear motive. If her death was suicide, what was the reason for it? The only thing that could be verified was that her car had been parked at the back of the line on the car deck. And that Merete Lynggaard had disappeared.

  Then it occurred to the investigators that she had not been alone. A couple of witnesses had stated that she had argued with a young man on the sun deck. This was documented in a chance photo taken by an elderly couple on a privately arranged shopping trip to Heiligenhafen. And when the photo was made public, word came from City Hall in Store Heddinge that the man in the picture was Merete Lynggaard’s brother.

  Carl actually remembered it all quite well. Reprimands were handed out to the police officers who had overlooked the existence of this brother.

  And new questions arose: If the brother killed her, why did he do it? And where was the brother now?

  At first they thought that Uffe had fallen overboard, but then they found him a few days later, exhausted and confused, a good distance out on the flatlands of Fehmarn. It was an alert German police officer from Oldenburg who identified Uffe. They never found out how Merete’s brother had managed to get so far. And Uffe himself had nothing to add to the case.

  If he knew anything, he wasn’t letting on.

  The subsequent harsh handling of Uffe Lynggaard revealed just how far up shit creek Carl’s colleagues had been.

  He listened to a couple of cassette tapes from the police interviews and concluded that Uffe had remained as silent as the grave. At first they’d tried the “good cop, bad cop” ploy, but nothing worked. Two psychiatrists had been called in; then later a psychologist from Farum who specialized in that sort of thing. Even Karen Mortensen, a social worker from Stevns municipality, had been brought in to try to pump information out of Uffe.

  To no use.

  Both the German and the Danish authorities had trawled the waters. Police divers had searched the area. A body that washed ashore was put on ice and later autopsied. Fishermen were told to pay particular attention to any objects they found floating in the water—items of clothing, purses, anything at all. But nothing was found that could be traced back to Merete Lynggaard, and the media went even more berserk. Merete was front-page news for almost a month. Old photographs from a secondary-school excursion when she posed in a snug swimsuit came out of hiding. Her high marks at the university were made public and became the subject of analysis by so-called lifestyle experts. New speculation about her sexual preferences made otherwise decent journalists follow in the wake of the tabloid press. And more than anything else the discovery that she had a brother provided plenty of fodder for the sleazy reporters.

  Many of Merete’s closest colleagues jabbered nonsense about how they had imagined something of the kind. That there was something in her private life she’d wanted to hide. Of course they couldn’t have known that it would be a handicapped brother, but it had to be something like that.

  Old photos of the car accident that had killed Merete’s parents and handicapped Uffe appeared on the front page of the morning tabloids when interest in the case began to ebb. Nothing was off-limits. She’d been good material when alive, and she was just as good when she was dead. The hosts on the morning TV programs had a hard time concealing their glee. The war in Bosnia, a prince consort who lost his temper, a suburban mayor’s excessive consumption of red wine, a drowned member of parliament—all the same shit. So long as there were some good photographs to be had.

  They printed big pictures of the double bed in Merete Lynggaard’s house. It was impossible to know where they’d come from, but the headlines were cruel. Did the brother and sister have a sexual relationship? Was that the reason for her death? Why was there only one big bed in that huge house? Everybody in the whole country was supposed to think it was odd.

  When they couldn’t make any more hay out of that topic, the reporters threw themselves into speculations about why Uffe had been released. Was it because heavy-handed police methods had been used? Was it a miscarriage of justice? Or had the brother gotten off easy? Was it more a matter of the naïveté of the judicial system and inadequate handling of the case? There were a few more peeps in the media about Uffe being committed to Egely. After that, news about the case finally petered out. The slow news season in the summer of 2002 turned its focus on the weather and the birth of a Danish prince and the World Cup.

  Oh yes, the Danish press knew all about what the average reader was interested in. Merete Lynggaard was old news.

  And after six months the police investigation, to all intents and purposes, was shut down. There were plenty of other cases.

  Carl took out two pieces of paper and with a ballpoint pen he wrote on one of them:

  SUSPECTS:

  1. Uffe

  2. Unknown postman—the letter about Berlin

  3. The man/woman from Café Bankeråt

  4. “Colleagues” at Christiansborg

  5. Murder resulting from a robbery—how much money in her purse?

  6. Sexual assault

  On the second piece of paper
he wrote:

  CHECK:

  The caseworker in Stevns

  The telegram

  The secretaries at Christiansborg

  Witnesses on the ferry Schleswig-Holstein

  After staring at what he’d written for a moment, he added to the bottom of the second page:

  The foster family after the accident—old classmates at the university. Did she have a tendency to get depressed? Was she pregnant? In love?

  As Carl was closing up the case file, he got a call from upstairs saying that Marcus Jacobsen wanted to see him in the conference room.

  He nodded to Assad as he went past his assistant’s little office. The guy was glued to his phone, looking serious and as if he were concentrating hard. Not the way he usually appeared when he stood in the doorway wearing his green rubber gloves. He was almost like a different person.

  They were all there, everyone who was involved in the investigation of the murdered cyclist. Marcus Jacobsen pointed to the seat that Carl was supposed to take at the conference table, and then Bak began.

  “Our witness, Annelise Kvist, has at long last asked for witness protection. We now know that she received threats that her children would be flayed alive if she didn’t keep quiet about what she saw. She has been withholding information the whole time, and yet in her own way she has been cooperative. All along she has given us hints so that we could move forward with the case, but she has also withheld crucial information. Then came the serious threats, and after that she shut down completely.

  “Let me summarize: The victim’s throat was cut in Valby Park at approximately ten o’clock in the evening. It was dark and cold, and the park was deserted. Even so, Annelise Kvist saw the perpetrator talking to the victim only a few minutes before the murder occurred. That gives us reason to believe it was not premeditated. If it had been, the arrival of Annelise Kvist would presumably have thwarted the whole course of events.”