The Dinosaur Feather

by S. J. Gazan

  “We know you’re not responsible for Professor Helland’s death. I’ve checked your travel records, and you haven’t been to Europe since 2004, am I right?”

  Clive nodded obediently.

  “You’re here for the Bird Symposium at the Bella Centre?”

  Clive nodded again.

  “You’re giving a presentation there on Saturday?”

  “Yes, Saturday evening.”

  “Where were you in June?” the superintendent wanted to know.

  Clive thought back. June was before Jack had betrayed him, and Kay had moved out.

  “Nowhere,” he replied eventually. “Nowhere at all.”

  June had been windy, and all he wanted to do was work. Kay had ordered him to take a break and they had gone to their cabin, where they lasted two whole weeks together. Kay made salads and he barbecued. They had several visitors, all couples, where the wife was a friend of Kay’s and the husband was utterly dull. Jack and Molly had been busy. Finally, he had resorted to clearing out the shed, and Kay had remarked that this was a strange way to spend a vacation. And that was when Clive had snapped.

  “I don’t want to be on vacation,” he shouted. “My work is too important. Look what happened the last time. I close my eyes for two seconds, and someone finds a feathered dinosaur!”

  Kay gave Clive permission to return to work.

  “And what did you do in July?” the detective asked.

  He had been alone in the house, living on canned food, sausages, and bread.

  “I worked,” he said. “Preparing the presentation I’m giving on Saturday, among other things.”

  The superintendent handed him a sheet of paper. Clive read: You will pay for what you have done.

  “Did you write that?”

  “Of course not,” Clive replied, outraged. “I don’t threaten people.”

  Finally, he was allowed to leave.

  When Clive returned to his hotel, he collapsed on his bed and dreamt about his own funeral. Kay wore a black veil and was in deep distress; the boys, looking suitably cowed, flanked her. The sobbing widow was about to throw herself on his coffin… when the dream suddenly restarted. This time the church was empty. His coffin rested, white and lonely, in front of the altar; the priest rushed in and went through the motions. Clive tried to call out from his coffin, tell him to make more of an effort, but the priest didn’t hear him. Then the door at the back of the church was opened, a solitary mourner entered and took a seat at the farthest pew. The priest beckoned him to the front—after all, there was plenty of room.

  “The deceased had very few friends,” the priest whispered. “Not even his widow is here. I’m delighted to see you.”

  The mourner approached. Suddenly Clive recognized Tybjerg. He sat in the first row, in Kay’s place.

  At first, Clive thought Tybjerg had started clapping, but then he realized someone was knocking on the door to his room. Dazed, he let Michael in. Together they went down to the hotel bar for a drink, where they discussed Helland’s death at length before going to the Bella Centre. It was Wednesday evening and they had time for a quick look around the science fair.

  Michael nudged him.

  “Over here,” he whispered. Clive followed his finger, which was pointing at an electronic screen listing the program for the symposium. Clive squinted.

  “What?”

  “Tybjerg’s name has been removed. Look.” He tapped the screen lightly. “It says ‘Canceled. Please note replacement speaker’ next to the four lectures Tybjerg was due to give.”

  Clive stared at the screen.

  “He must be upset,” he mused. “After all, Helland was his mentor. Imagine how you would feel, if I had been murdered.”

  Michael smiled. “Yes, can you imagine that!”

  Thursday morning Clive ventured into the streets. A cold wind was blowing. He had consulted a map and located the university, where he had an appointment with Johan Fjeldberg. He had walked for thirty minutes when the College of Natural Science appeared to his left. The complex was unappealing: three tall 1960s blocks and several lower, yellow-brick buildings, each one more devoid of charm than the next. He walked through a park. At the museum reception he asked for Professor Fjeldberg, who appeared shortly afterward. Fjeldberg chattered away while he led Clive through a maze of restricted access doors and corridors. This business with Helland was dreadful. Such a good colleague. A brilliant man. Clive smiled and nodded. Fjeldberg said rumor had it Helland had been murdered. Fjeldberg simply refused to believe it.

  “People are paranoid,” he scoffed. “One rumor even claims he was killed by parasites.”

  Clive gave Fjeldberg a horrified look.

  “Parasites?”

  “Yes, his body supposedly was riddled with them,” Fjeldberg snorted.

  They had reached the elevator, and while they waited for it Fjeldberg looked at Clive.

  “How well did you really know him?”

  “Well,” Clive began. The two men entered the elevator. “I knew him quite well. Professionally, we were polar opposites.”

  Fjeldberg nodded.

  “But privately we were really quite good friends,” he lied. “I’ll be there on Saturday, at his funeral, I mean.”

  “I’ve never really understood people who can’t make the distinction between work and friendship,” Fjeldberg mused. “Can you? Helland excelled at keeping things separate. He picked fights with practically everyone, but he never allowed an argument to influence his personal opinion of them. In fact, there were times I thought he was fondest of those he had the biggest fights with. He loved confrontation. There’ll be a huge turnout on Saturday, I imagine. He was a highly respected man. Even by his academic opponents.”

  Clive smiled, and he kept on smiling.

  “Is Erik Tybjerg here?” Clive asked, feigning innocence. “I would like to express my condolences. He’s an old friend. Tybjerg and I fight like cats and dogs, of course, but purely professionally. I think it would be appropriate for me to shake his hand.”

  Fjeldberg glanced at Clive as they stepped out of the elevator.

  “Funny you should mention him,” he began, tentatively. “Because Tybjerg appears to be missing.”

  “Missing?”

  “Yes, several people are looking for him. Including the police.” Professor Fjeldberg gave Clive a mystified look. “He doesn’t respond to e-mails, he doesn’t answer his telephone, and he’s not in his office.”

  “Perhaps he needs some space,” Clive suggested, compassionately. “After the sad news, I mean.”

  What on earth was going on? Surely there was a limit to how many of his arch enemies could die or vanish before he would receive a more heavy-handed treatment by the authorities.

  “Yes, perhaps,” Professor Fjeldberg replied. “Here we are.”

  Clive had heard accounts of the Vertebrate Collection at the Natural History Museum in Denmark and his expectations were high, but even so, a ripple of anticipation ran through him when Fjeldberg and he entered. The ceiling was high and the room was filled to bursting with fine, original wooden cabinets with glass doors. The porcelain handles on the cabinets and drawers bore Latin inscriptions explaining which animals were kept behind the glass. Beautiful, hand-painted posters hung in the few places where there were no cabinets. Everything was unbelievably old and tasteful. There were study areas where each desk was equipped with angle-poise lamps that were at least fifty years old. The desks were made of dark varnished wood, and each had an old, leather-upholstered armchair with wooden armrests.

  “It was the moa skeleton you wanted to see, wasn’t it?” Fjeldberg found a stepladder and started climbing it.

  “Here we go,” he said, opening one of the glass doors.

  “Do you need a hand?” Clive asked. With his thin legs in khaki trousers, Fjeldberg looked old and very frail balancing on the ladder.

  “You can take the old beggar, when I manage to get him out.” Fjeldberg pulled out the drawer and stood
on tiptoes.

  “What on earth?” he exclaimed. “He’s not here.” Professor Fjeldberg felt inside the drawer. Then he climbed down.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  Clive stayed behind, somewhat baffled, while Fjeldberg marched back to the entrance. He switched on the ceiling lights and a rather merciless white glare revealed a layer of dust everywhere.

  “He must be here somewhere,” Clive heard Fjeldberg mutter to himself.

  Clive tried to find him between the cabinets by following the sound of his footsteps, now here, now there, but as Fjeldberg appeared to be checking the room from end to end, he escaped from Clive, who eventually decided to stay put. The room was a little eerie, in a deserted, beautiful way. He shuddered. A Pteropus Lylei hung suspended above his head with its wings unfurled. It had tiny white teeth, and its eyes were hollow sockets.

  “Found it!” Fjeldberg exclaimed triumphantly. Clive started walking and found the old man at a large desk.

  “Someone has been studying it, but didn’t check it out. And omitted to put it back. It happens. We have a number of students working with birds at the moment. Including one of Helland’s, by the way. It could have been her. Her dissertation defense is coming up, so she has a good excuse, I suppose,” he added and sighed.

  “Oh, so what will she do now?” Clive asked. Professor Fjeldberg sighed again.

  “I don’t know much about it, she’s registered with another department. But as far as I know she’s only waiting to defend her dissertation, then she can graduate. I don’t know who will examine her in Helland’s place. We don’t have that many paleoornithologists in Denmark… Perhaps you might extend your stay and examine her?”

  Clive was well aware that Professor Fjeldberg was teasing him.

  “I would have to fail her,” he said, archly. “If she has written her dissertation in line with Helland and Tybjerg’s scientific arguments, I don’t think she has grasped even elementary evolution, and that surely is a fundamental requirement for a biologist.”

  Fjeldberg looked briefly at Clive and said, “Why don’t we say I let you work here for a couple of hours until…” He glanced at his watch. “12:30 p.m.? Then I’ll pick you up, and we can have a bite to eat. I’ve ordered in, sandwiches and so on.”

  Clive nodded.

  The door closed behind Professor Fjeldberg and Clive was alone. He pulled out a chair, sat down, took out his magnifying glass, and started examining the skeleton. Dinornis Maximus. Fabulous. In relatively recent studies, scientists had successfully isolated DNA from bones of the long-extinct bird and proved the female had been 300 percent heavier and 150 percent taller than the male. Clive wasn’t sure he believed it. He carefully held the talus bone in both hands. He found a pad and made some notes. Then he started looking for the rudimentary front limbs, which had to be in the box somewhere. An hour later, he was in an excellent mood. The synapomorphies between this secondarily flightless bird and, say, Caudipteryx and Protarchaeopteryx, which Tybjerg and Helland alleged were dinosaurs, were striking. More than ever, Clive was convinced that many of the animals, which Helland and Tybjerg claimed were dinosaurs, were in fact secondarily flightless birds from the Cretaceous and not dinosaurs at all. As far as he could determine, their skeletons were practically identical.

  A noise made him turn around. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. It sounded like a suppressed cough, and there was some barely audible scraping; he thought he could hear breathing. He rose and sniffed the air like a deer. The building sighed. Someone walked down the corridor outside. Clive relaxed his shoulders. He was in a public place, he reassured himself, yet he suddenly became very conscious of the far end of the Vertebrate Collection, which was lost in darkness.

  He thought about how Helland had died. It was a revolting death. It was one thing to perish in an instant, another to die slowly as parasites in your tissue grew bigger. Worms, larvae, maggots. Clive shook his head to make the images go away. He hated the little monsters. They should be eliminated from the animal kingdom. He had once had a tick in his groin, which he hadn’t discovered until it was the size of a pea and purple and bloated like a plum. Kay had removed it with tweezers.

  The memory distracted him. The darkness seemed to grow more intense; suddenly he thought the bones stank of old membranes and sweet decomposition. He got up and put the bones he had managed to study back in their box. He opened a couple of cabinets and pulled out some drawers. They were neat and tidy. One drawer contained teeth, another feathers, sorted according to size and color. Some cabinets contained pelts, others held specimens floating in spirit in glass jars. For a long time he gazed at a dissected dromedary eye, which stared back at him. He breathed out. He couldn’t shake off his unease. The darkness was mighty and menacing. He gave up and headed for the exit.

  He found a seat in the corridor and stared out the window. It made no sense to start looking for Fjeldberg, he would only get himself lost. He decided to snooze. When Professor Fjeldberg arrived shortly afterward, he laughed and said the collection tended to have a soporific effect on everyone. Quiet as a womb and a few degrees too warm. They walked down the corridor, and Fjeldberg talked about the weather. After lunch, they discussed a possible joint project, and Clive almost forgot the spooky atmosphere in the collection, almost forgot Helland might have been murdered and Tybjerg was missing. Fjeldberg proposed an interesting project and when the two men parted, the seed to a future collaboration between the University of Copenhagen and UBC had been sown. Clive even dropped his planned rant about the feather exhibition.

  “I’ll see you on Saturday,” Professor Fjeldberg said, and pressed Clive’s hand warmly.

  Later that evening, Clive and Michael had dinner at a fancy restaurant. Clive studied the menu with dismay and was about to object when Michael said, “The department is paying!”

  “What do you mean?” Clive said, surprised.

  “The board told me to treat you to a meal fit for a king. This restaurant has a Michelin star.” Michael leaned across the table to whisper this information.

  “Why?”

  “Because their food is superb.”

  “No, I mean why have you been told to treat me to a meal fit for a king?”

  “You deserve it,” Michael laughed and raised his glass in a toast. There was a tiny, insincere glint in the corner of his eye. Clive was suddenly reminded of the evening when he had called Michael, and Michael, according to his daughter, had been at a meeting at the university, though he had told Clive he was babysitting. He confronted Michael with this. Michael smiled.

  “I don’t really remember. When did you say it was?”

  Clive continued to stare at him.

  “It was the day I returned from my sick leave. The day you gave me the result of the cartilage condensation experiment.”

  “Ah.” Michael’s face lit up. “That’s right. We had a departmental meeting, and—”

  “You held a departmental meeting without me?” Clive interrupted him and lowered his menu.

  “Yes, because you didn’t show up. We decided you probably weren’t feeling well enough yet. We actually didn’t start until seven thirty—in case you were late.”

  Clive said nothing. He had no recollection of there being a departmental meeting that night. He always attended such meetings. Irritated, he raised his menu.

  “I don’t know about you,” he said. “But I’m having the lobster.”

  Chapter 9

  Anna’s cell rang while she was shopping in the Netto supermarket on Jagtvejen. She didn’t recognize the number.

  “Yes,” she said, absentmindedly.

  “Anna Bella,” a hesitant voice began.

  “Yes, that’s me. Who is it?”

  “Birgit Helland.”

  Anna froze.

  “Is this a good time?” Mrs. Helland asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Anna lied, trying desperately to think of something appropriate to say when you unexpectedly find yourself talking to the widow of a
man you couldn’t stand.

  “My condolences,” she said, sounding like an idiot, and quickly added: “It must be very hard for you.”

  “Thank you,” Mrs. Helland said quietly. “I have something for you,” she continued. “From Lars. I thought perhaps you might like to visit to collect it. I would like to meet you. Lars often spoke about you.” Birgit Helland’s voice was subdued but determined, as though she had rehearsed her lines. Anna had no idea how to respond.

  “For me? Er, yes, of course. Do you want me to come over now or later?”

  “Now would be good. If you can. The funeral is on Saturday, and on Sunday Nanna and I will go away for a while. So, if you could manage today, that would be good. Otherwise it won’t be for some weeks, and… well, I would like to meet you. I’m really sorry he can’t be there for you. Really very sorry. He was so looking forward to your dissertation defense.”

  I bet he was looking forward to grilling me and failing me, Anna thought, but Mrs. Helland said: “He was so proud of you.”

  Anna thought she must have misheard.

  “Pardon?” she said.

  “When can you get here?” Mrs. Helland asked.

  “I just need to take my groceries home and then I’ll make my way to your house.”

  “I appreciate it,” Mrs. Helland said. “See you very soon.”

  The Hellands’s villa was in a suburb called Herlev, set back from the road and hidden behind a maze of scrub and bushes crippled by the frost. The gate was freshly painted. Anna heard birdsong in the front garden and spotted several feeding tables laden with seed balls and sheaves of wheat. She rang the doorbell. Birgit Helland was a tiny woman, just under five feet tall. Her eyes were red and her smile was pale.

  “Hello, Anna,” she said, holding out a hand that felt more like a small piece of animal hide than something human. The house was clean and tidy, airy, and light. In the living room were books from floor to ceiling on the windowless wall facing a colossal garden. Mrs. Helland invited Anna to sit down on one of two white, wool-upholstered sofas and disappeared into the kitchen. Shortly afterward she appeared with cups and a teapot, which she placed on the coffee table.