“There’s another one,” said the officer. He was right. It sat in a fold to the right of Asger’s pillow. Søren looked up at the wall. There was another one.
“Okay, boys,” he said, keeping very calm. “I’m coming out.” He retreated with as much dignity as he could muster and closed the door to Asger’s bedroom. A shiver went down his spine.
“Fucking hell,” he said again.
“What do we do now?” one of the officers asked.
“No one is going in there,” Søren ordered. Not that anyone wanted to.
The ambulance arrived, then Bøje, another two sergeants, two crime scene officers, and a wizened man from Animal Control who had come to remove the scorpions. He went into Asger’s bedroom with two of the crime scene officers who were there to make sure he didn’t destroy any evidence. Wearing special gloves, he removed eight Buthidae scorpions, he explained over his shoulder to Søren, very likely to belong to the Leiurus Questriatus family. Their venom was poisonous, but a sting by only one scorpion, he continued, was unlikely to have killed Asger. A child or an older person might have died, but not a young man. However, no one could survive eight scorpions, the man said and shook his head gravely.
“My guess is that he—or someone—placed the animals under his blanket,” he added.
“Why?” Søren asked him.
“As a rule scorpions don’t attack,” he replied. “They’ll only sting if they’re trapped or provoked. By a blanket, for example.” And off he went with the scorpions.
Asger’s body was removed, and the crime scene officers got to work. Everything reeked of suicide. There were eight empty transport tanks in a hidden angle behind the bed and below Asger’s half-open hand, which hung over the bed lay a book entitled The World’s Most Dangerous Scorpions. Søren watched the stripped bed. All that loneliness, he thought. He had found a note in the kitchen. The handwriting was microscopic and the space between the lines so small that Søren could barely read it. The letter was placed in a bag, which was then sealed. Søren sighed. He knew what it would say. Forgive me. My life is dreadful. I don’t want to live any longer. PS. I killed my dad. Aside from the latter, all suicide notes were written from a template. All that loneliness, he thought again. With a heavy heart, he went back to Professor Moritzen.
Chapter 20
It was Monday October 15, the first weekday morning of the autumn intersession, and Anna was woken up by Lily balancing a plate of fruit. Anna tried to appear awake. The previous night she had told Karen about Troels, Karen had cried and cried, and it had been past four in the morning by the time they went to bed.
“Rabbit food,” Lily said. “Auntie Karen says it’s called rabbit food.” Anna could hear Karen light a fire in the stove in the living room, and she lifted her daughter up into the bed and made her comfortable.
“Yum,” she said, stroking Lily’s hair. “I love rabbit food.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“All rabbits know about rabbit food,” Anna declared.
“But you’re not a rabbit!” Lily squealed with delight. Karen appeared in the door. She looked tired, smiled and said good morning.
“My mom says she’s a rabbit,” Lily informed her.
Karen smiled.
“Your mom is a biologist, so if she says she’s a rabbit, then she must be.”
Lily started eating Anna’s carrot sticks, dropping only a few pieces on the bed sheets.
“Er,” Karen said, looking at Anna, “are you free today?”
“Not entirely,” Anna replied, checking her watch. “I’ve got two things to do. One is at the Natural History Museum. You want to come along? There’s an exhibition about feathers and a real glacier you can touch and lots of animals and short films. Lily loves that kind of thing.”
“What are you doing there?”
“I’m meeting someone. In the Vertebrate Collection at eleven o’clock. I would like you to come. I’ll be an hour, max. You can have a hot dog in the meantime. Then I need to stop off at Bellahøj police station and… well, we’ll see.” She smiled and Karen sat down on her bed.
Anna felt a pang of guilty conscience.
“Are you okay?” She scrutinized Karen.
“I still don’t understand it,” she said and the tears welled up in her eyes.
“Come on, lie down here,” Anna said gently. Karen snuggled up and Anna held her close.
“I hope they sentence him to treatment of some kind,” Karen said. “That they help him.”
Anna nodded.
“Where do you think he is now?”
“Bellahøj police station,” Anna said. “I’m being interviewed at 1 p.m., then he goes before a judge and he’ll probably be remanded in custody.”
“I would like to visit him, if I’m allowed to. Would you come with me?”
“No,” Anna said, stroking Karen’s hair.
“Okay,” Karen said into Anna’s arm.
At 10:30 a.m. they arrived at the Natural History Museum. They looked at all the colorful plastic animals, pencils, and posters in the museum shop by the entrance. Karen bought Lily a dinosaur eraser while Anna hung up their coats.
“I thought you were meeting someone?”
“I am, in half an hour.”
They strolled through the exhibition and lingered for a long time in front of the different displays.
“I didn’t know birds were dinosaurs!” Karen exclaimed as she studied a poster depicting the 200-million-year evolution of the feather. Anna smiled.
“So a sparrow is a dinosaur?” Karen wanted to know. Anna nodded.
“And when we eat chicken, we’re really eating dinosaurs?”
“Yep! And I like mine with roasted potatoes,” Anna said.
“Roasted potatoes! They must be extinct by now, surely?” Karen teased her. Anna elbowed her.
“Ahhhh, Mom, that’s so cute,” Lily burst out. She was standing in front of a low display case containing a model of a baby Tyrannosaurus. It was the size of a small dog, had giant feet and was covered by a soft, insulating layer of down. Anna leaned forward, gazing at the small body.
“What is it?” Karen asked her.
“A feathered baby Tyrannosaurus.”
“Right,” Karen said.
“Fascinating, isn’t it?” Anna remarked.
“What is?”
“That it has feathers.”
“I think it’s more fascinating that its arms are so short. Must have been a real nuisance.”
At that moment, Lily spotted a sign with an ice-cream cone on it at the far end of the lobby where the café was located.
“Ice cream,” she shrieked, taking off.
Karen chased after her.
“So sorry, I’ve ruined your daughter,” she called back over her shoulder.
“That’s quite all right,” Anna called back. “I’ll be off now. Back in an hour, all right? I’ll come and find you when I’ve finished.”
Karen waved without turning around.
Anna let herself into the university through a concealed door in the Whale Room, which had been painted two shades of blue to blend in. She caught a glimpse of the bench where she had sat with Troels, before the door slammed shut behind her and she was in the strange, but now familiar, system of corridors. She started walking and when she turned into the corridor leading to the Vertebrate Collection, Professor Freeman was already there. She knew he wouldn’t have been able to resist! Even so, a wave of triumph rippled through her. Freeman had taken off his jacket and was holding it under his arms, which were folded across his chest. Everything about him exuded rejection. Anna’s heart started pounding, and she concentrated on holding out a hand, which didn’t shake.