The Dinosaur Feather

by S. J. Gazan

  Two years ago, Helland had been elected head of the department, which meant he was given overall responsibility for the two units that made up the department of Cell Biology and Comparative Zoology, and in those two years he had practically brought the department to its knees. Helland’s incredibly poor performance and his cavalier treatment of students as well as budgets had sparked a lot of friction, not only among Jørgensen, Ewald, and Helland, but also between Helland and several of the cell biologists who worked on the floor above. The corridors had frequently echoed with arguments, and Professor Ewald said she had come close to resigning on numerous occasions. Unfortunately, having tenure as a scientist at the college of Natural Science was a dream job and she knew she would never get another post like it. Then there was the responsibility toward the students. Morphology was a popular subject, and she felt duty-bound to educate new morphologists—a task that fell almost exclusively to her because Helland quite simply didn’t appear to share her sense of duty, even though teaching was a compulsory part of their employment contract with the university.

  Søren failed to understand the latter; as far as he had been informed, the department had only two postgraduates, Anna Bella Nor and Johannes Trøjborg, and surely Helland was supervising both of them?

  “Yes…” Professor Ewald hesitated. “But they are his only postgraduate students in the last ten years. During the same period, Professor Jørgensen and I have supervised at least forty postgraduates, of which the vast majority finished their PhDs long ago and are now in full-time employment. Those students are our only hope, and even though it’s undeniably tough to teach undergraduates, supervise postgraduates, and deliver new groundbreaking research that maintains our international reputation as a nation of scientists, you have to take your job seriously, not only as an employee of the college of Natural Science, but also as a human being.” Professor Ewald’s eyes were fiery.

  “The truth is, we were both surprised. At Johannes and Anna. Pleasantly surprised, I hasten to add.” She stopped and looked at Professor Jørgensen.

  “But…” Søren prompted.

  “Neither of them needed a laboratory to do their work,” Professor Jørgensen answered for her. “Johannes wrote a theoretical dissertation, and Anna has done the same.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “They didn’t spend time with Helland in the laboratory; he didn’t have a student trailing after him for years, which meant he didn’t need to do any research because there was no one to keep an eye on him. Johannes and Anna based their dissertations on existing literature, and though that’s almost certainly twice as hard as writing a practical dissertation, it undoubtedly represented a minuscule effort, if any, on Helland’s part. Of course it troubled us. It was the principle of it.”

  A pause followed. Then Professor Ewald said, “Still, it’s dreadful what’s happened. You wouldn’t want that for your worst enemy.” She looked as if she was about to say something else, but stopped and exhaled lightly.

  “Was that what he was?” Søren probed. “Your worst enemy?”

  “No,” Professor Ewald replied firmly. “He was frequently a pain in the ass, he really was. But after twenty-five years, you learn to live with it.”

  Søren cocked his head. At the same time, the light outside changed and the office grew darker, almost black. Professor Ewald leaned forward and switched on a lamp on a low trolley. The base of the lamp was a brass octopus twisting its tentacles up a gnarled stick as though it was trying either to climb out of the sea or pull the white silk shade into the sea with it. Søren wondered if the creature were an invertebrate, too. When Professor Ewald had settled back into her chair, Søren continued.

  “Speaking of pain… have you any idea what the problem with Helland’s eye might have been?” he asked innocently, and looked from one to the other. The professors seemed genuinely baffled.

  “There was something wrong with his eye?” Professor Jørgensen frowned.

  “Johannes and Anna both mentioned a growth of some sort in Helland’s right eye, they said it had become more noticeable in recent months. Did you see anything?”

  The professors considered this. Then Professor Ewald began, tentatively: “This may sound odd…” she sighed, “but I never actually looked at him. Not closely. We would say hello in passing, but since Helland, in his year as head had practically handed over the head of department job to Professor Ravn upstairs, I hadn’t needed to discuss administrative issues with him. That was last spring, wasn’t it?” She looked to Professor Jørgensen for confirmation. He nodded.

  “The atmosphere here was affecting me badly, you see.” She was looking at Søren now. “However, about six months ago I came to a decision. I finally stopped believing things would ever change. I decided to regard Helland as a necessary evil, like a motorway at the end of a garden you have spent precious years cultivating. I didn’t want to leave. I’m fond of the students and I love my research. And last year I realized I had only two choices: I could resign or I could learn to put up with Helland. Since then I haven’t had much contact with him. We used e-mail to exchange internal messages, but apart from that I avoided him. So, no, I hadn’t noticed that something might be wrong with his eye.”

  Søren saw she was resting her hands calmly in her lap and looking straight at him.

  “Me neither,” Professor Jørgensen added.

  “And what about his health in general? Anything stand out?”

  Again both professors looked puzzled. Then Professor Jørgensen remarked, “Something must have been wrong for his heart to stop beating without any warning. He suffered death throes, I imagine? Since he bit off his own tongue?”

  “The autopsy will establish that,” Søren said in a neutral voice.

  “Perhaps he was an undiagnosed epileptic?” Professor Jørgensen suggested.

  “So you never noticed anything?” Søren cut him short.

  “No,” they replied in unison. Søren got ready to leave, but sensed hesitation hanging in the air. He looked closely at Professor Ewald.

  “Did you want to add something?”

  Professor Ewald frowned.

  “This is going to sound silly…” she looked away. “No, it’s too absurd.”

  “Tell me anyway,” Søren prompted her.

  “As I was saying, we e-mailed occasionally about practical matters. For instance, we shared the SEM computer at the end of the corridor and a couple of times Helland didn’t show up when he had booked a session, so I e-mailed him to ask if I could use his slot.”

  “You chose to e-mail him even though his office is about a hundred feet down the corridor?” Søren asked.

  “Yes,” Professor Ewald said, curtly.

  “All right, go on,” Søren said.

  “And if I have to come up with something that might seem a little out of the ordinary, then this is it”—she laughed a hollow laugh—“his spelling was deteriorating.”

  Søren and Professor Jørgensen were speechless.

  “His spelling?” Professor Jørgensen said.

  “Yes,” Professor Ewald replied. “His last two or three e-mails were so appalling I could barely read them. As though he had bashed them out in seconds and simply couldn’t be bothered to spell-check them before hitting ‘send.’ I took it as further evidence of how little respect he had for me. But, now that you mention it, it does seem a bit strange.”

  They both nodded and Søren made a mental note.

  Still convinced that Helland had died from natural causes, Søren arranged for the four biologists to be driven to the police station where he formally interviewed them and their statements were written down and signed. Anna still looked disgruntled.

  As he and Henrik drove down Frederikssundvej, Søren quickly reviewed the case, purely to assure himself that he hadn’t missed anything. Professor Helland clearly couldn’t compete with Santa Claus in the popularity stakes, that much was obvious, but Søren had yet to stumble on anything that might hint at uncontrollabl
e rage, and without that it was quite simply impossible to rip someone’s tongue out. He smiled to himself. Anna Bella was the only one who appeared remotely combative, but the idea that she would mutilate her supervisor was far-fetched.

  “What’s so funny?” Henrik wanted to know.

  “Nothing,” Søren said and looked out of the window.

  At half past four in the afternoon, Søren sat in his office wondering if he could write his report now, even though he was still awaiting the result of the autopsy. It would probably arrive tomorrow, but he was pretty sure he knew what it would say: Lars Helland had died from heart failure. Once he put that in his report, the case would be closed. The only thing stopping him was that he had yet to talk to Professor Helland’s allegedly close colleague, Dr. Tybjerg. After interviewing Anna and her colleagues, he had gone to the Natural History Museum to find him. The place had been like an enchanted forest. Søren had started by asking for Dr. Tybjerg at the reception and had been directed through a door and into a complicated maze of deserted corridors, where he instantly got himself lost. It wasn’t until he had been into four empty offices and knocked on six locked doors, which no one answered, that he met a living human being. It was an old man sitting behind a desk, writing. A huge poster depicting thousands of colorful butterflies of all sizes hung on the wall behind him. The old man directed Søren further down a corridor and up to the third floor where Dr. Tybjerg was supposed to be sitting by the windows overlooking the park.

  Five minutes later, Søren was lost again and when he, finally and with the help of a young woman, found the desk where Dr. Tybjerg was supposed to be when he worked with bones, all he could see was an angle-poise lamp, which was switched on, a pencil, and a chair. He hung around for a while, but after ten minutes he grew impatient and decided he had had enough. He found something that appeared to be a cafeteria and informed the catering assistant, who was wringing out a cloth, that he was a police superintendent and insisted on speaking to Dr. Tybjerg this instant. The woman glanced around, said, “He’s not here,” and resumed cleaning.

  Someone at a table in the cafeteria, however, told Søren Dr. Tybjerg’s office could be found in the basement, in the right-hand wing; that is, down the stairs in the central wing, then right through two swing doors, and then down to the basement. Halfway down one of the basement corridors, the one facing the University Park, was an office and through that office was another office and that belonged to Dr. Tybjerg. Søren stomped back to reception where he asked, in his most polite tone of voice, the student staffing the counter to get hold of Dr. Tybjerg. The student rang various numbers. Søren drummed his fingers on the counter.

  “He’s not in his office, in the collection, the cafeteria, or the library,” she said. “All I can do is e-mail him.”

  Søren left his name and number with a message for Dr. Tybjerg to contact him. Then he drove to Bellahøj police station and worked in his office. He had just made up his mind to go home when his telephone rang.

  “Søren Marhauge.”

  “It’s me.” It was Søren’s secretary, Linda.

  “Hello, me,” Søren said.

  “The Deputy Medical Examiner just called.”

  Bøje Knudsen, the Deputy Medical Examiner, worked in the basement of Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen’s central hospital. Søren had never been able to decide whether or not he liked him. Bøje had a twinkle in his eye, and though Søren appreciated that a certain amount of professional detachment was required, Bøje still came across as strangely aloof. One day Bøje had read his mind and remarked, “Søren, my dear friend, if I broke down and cried every time I felt like it, the hospital would be flooded. But, trust me, my soul is grieving.” Søren had warmed a little to Bøje, but he had yet to be convinced. Søren himself was more thick-skinned now than he had been at the start of his career, that went without saying, but he told himself this made him neutral and composed rather than cold.

  “Why didn’t you put him through?” Søren asked.

  “He wouldn’t hear of it. He told me to give you his regards and to tell you that if he were you, he would hurry over to the hospital.”

  Just before five o’clock Søren drove to the hospital and parked under two poplars stripped bare by the advancing autumn. The blacktop was slippery with fallen leaves, and the wind seemed to blow simultaneously from all four corners. He felt a profound sense of unease. He announced his arrival at reception and took the elevator down two floors to the Institute of Forensic Medicine. It was the second time in one day he had walked through a desolate grid of interconnecting passages and corridors, but this time he didn’t get lost. He greeted a few familiar faces in passing before he heard music from the radio and Bøje’s humming. He knocked on the open door and entered. Bøje was behind his desk. It looked like he was expecting him.

  “There you are,” he said, as Søren entered.

  Søren took a seat and Bøje glanced at him. Then he looked down at a sheet with indecipherable hieroglyphs and up at Søren again. He rolled his lips and tapped the table once with his finger.

  “Today I performed an autopsy on one Lars Helland,” he began.

  “And?” Søren wished he could extract the information from Bøje now and absorb it later at his own pace.

  “He died from heart failure,” Bøje went on, and nodded. Søren nodded back. It was what he had expected.

  “And his tongue?”

  “He bit it off himself. His heart failed after a series of violent epileptic seizures and because no one was there to put a splint in his mouth, his tongue bore the brunt of the fits.”

  “Right, okay, I might as well get going then,” Søren said, getting up and letting him know through his facial expression he was annoyed at having been summoned to the hospital.

  “In theory, yes,” Bøje shrugged. “Unless I can interest you in a charming detail which, in all likelihood, induced the seizures?”

  Søren sat down again. Bøje peered at Søren over the rim of his reading glasses.

  “It was an agonizing death, Søren,” he then said. “It’s not uncommon for the tongue or the lips to be bitten through in places, but I have never come across a case where the tongue was severed.”

  “I think your memory is faulty. There was the Lejre case and that one from Amager,” Søren objected.

  “Yes, but in those two cases—actually I know of three, but never mind,” Bøje glanced at Søren. “In each severed-tongue case, other instruments were involved. It requires huge force to bite off a tongue. It isn’t something you just decide to do,” he said emphatically, and then his expression softened.

  “And as it doesn’t look like anyone was directly involved in Helland’s death, it’s my theory he experienced extreme convulsions which led, among other things, to the severing of his tongue and heart failure shortly afterward. There is no doubt that Lars Helland died a brutal and painful death.” Bøje was looking urgently at Søren now.

  “But, Søren Marhauge, my friend,” he said, amicably. “That’s nothing compared to the hellish agony he must have suffered while he was alive.” A sincere and almost naked horror briefly revealed itself in Bøje’s eyes, before he managed to herd his feelings back into their box.

  “What do you mean?” Søren asked.

  “He’s riddled with bugs,” Bøje said.

  “Bugs?”

  “Parasites of some sort, but I’m a forensic examiner, not a parasitologist, and I’m ashamed to say I’ve been unable to identify the little devils. All I can tell you is they are everywhere in his tissue. The strongest concentration is found in his muscles and central nervous system. It’s unbelievable. For example, his brain is filled with encysted organic… growths. Do you understand what I’m saying? A parasite of some kind. I’ve sent samples to the chief medical officer at the Serum Institute, obviously. We’ll know what we’re dealing with tomorrow.”

  Søren was speechless.

  “Yes, that’s exactly how I felt when I realized what the poor man had been thr
ough. I can’t imagine how he was able to function on a daily basis.”

  “Where do they come from?” Søren asked eventually.

  “I don’t know.”

  “But is this normal?” Søren wanted to know. He had never heard about parasites in human tissue before. A tapeworm, yes, threadworm, giardiasis, bilharziasis even, he had heard of, and he knew the latter was widespread in the Third World, but they were unwanted guests in the stomach, the intestines and, possibly, in the blood, but not in actual human tissue. It was the most disgusting thing he had ever heard.

  “I don’t know,” Bøje repeated. “Like I said, I’m no parasitologist.”

  “How many of them would you estimate he had in him?” Søren asked.

  Bøje picked up his sheet.

  “Around 2,600 in total, spread across nerve, muscle, and connective tissue… a relatively high concentration in his brain…” Søren held up his hand.