Karen sent Anna an outraged look and said: “What you just did, Anna Bella, was fucking unnecessary.”
That was ten years ago.
Chapter 6
As Søren began to think about leaving the office on Monday October 8, he was firmly of the opinion that Professor Helland’s death would be classed as one of Mother Nature’s enigmatic early recalls, and decided to wrap up the case as quickly as possible. Lars Helland had dropped dead—that was all there was to it. Hearts stopped beating in Denmark every day; even in people who, like Professor Helland, biked fifteen miles to and from work, and never smoked or drank. Admittedly, the severed tongue was a bit out of the ordinary, even to Søren, but it was a relatively common occurrence for people to sustain serious injuries in the process of dying. Søren had seen broken necks, smashed teeth and skulls, burns, shattered bones, and skewered torsos inflicted by everything from barbecues and radiator valves to lawnmowers and cast iron fences. Helland must have suffered convulsions of some sort and had bitten off his own tongue before he died.
Convinced the case would soon be closed, Søren had started his preliminary interviews at the university. The first person on his list was the rather strange-looking and practically transparent biologist, Johannes Trøjborg, who had reported the death. He had been in the department because he was co-writing a paper with Professor Helland. He was hoping to get his PhD application approved, despite the PhD and Human Resources Committee having already turned his application down—twice. Søren had met many oddballs in his time, people whose head and body decorations were so extreme that you could barely make out the naked person underneath them. Johannes, however, was one of the most peculiar creatures Søren had ever seen. His transparency reminded Søren of those little white creatures you find under paving stones. Johannes’s hands were long, slender and silken, his skin stretched tight and pale across his face and he stooped. Only his red hair and intelligent eyes contradicted Søren’s impression of being in the presence of something stale and musty.
Johannes appeared to have nothing but positive things to say about Helland, and only when Søren held a gun to his head—metaphorically speaking, of course—did he reluctantly agree that Helland’s behavior had recently been unfocused and distracted. But then again, he quickly added, Anna wasn’t the easiest person in the world to get along with, either. Søren failed to see the relevance, and Johannes spluttered as he explained that Anna and he had differed wildly in their opinions on Helland’s qualities, both as a human being and as a supervisor, a topic they had discussed several times over the summer. Johannes paused, then he blurted out that Anna had, in fact, been toying with the idea of playing pranks on Helland. Pranks? Søren gave Johannes a baffled look. What did he mean? Johannes blinked as though he had said too much. Nothing, it was just…. He looked away. Anna was angry with Helland, he admitted at last. She felt he had let her down. She had a young child to look after, so she was already under pressure, and she had grown disproportionately mad at Helland in a way that Johannes didn’t like. They had argued about it. Søren listened.
All of a sudden, Johannes asked Søren if he was aware that someone had made threats against Helland. He mentioned it casually, his tone bordering on flippancy, but then rushed to make it clear Helland himself had laughed and declared the threats to be pranks. Johannes didn’t know the nature of them, he only knew Helland’s interpretation, which was that someone at the university bore a grudge and had decided to send him some nasty e-mails. Søren wanted to know if Johannes suspected the sender might be Anna Bella Nor. Johannes dismissed it instantly. Of course not! It would never cross Anna’s mind. Professor Helland was a member of several committees and his administrative influence was considerable; he knew that he was an obvious target for people’s dissatisfaction. He was on the PhD and Human Resources Committee—to name but one—Johannes explained, and was thus in a position to decide the future academic careers of several biologists.
Søren nodded slowly, thanked him and had just closed the door behind him when he remembered something. Johannes looked up, surprised, when the door opened again and Søren popped his head around it.
“Does that mean,” Søren said kindly, “Professor Helland was involved in rejecting both your PhD applications?”
“Yes,” Johannes said, calmly. “It does.”
Søren left, a touch perplexed. Johannes was clearly upset about Helland’s death and hunted high and low for a logical explanation; he had accidentally implicated his colleague, Anna Bella Nor, but then had gone on to defend her, as though it was Søren and not Johannes himself who had made the insinuation. Just as well this was a straightforward case, Søren thought, it saved him from having to dig more deeply to find out what Johannes Trøjborg had actually meant.
Anna Bella Nor’s turn was next. They met in the small library, and she sat with her back to him, but turned around warily when he approached. She had short, brown hair, an oval face, and a slender, yet strong body, he thought. There was something sullen about her movements, as though she minded being here very much. Her eyebrows and lashes were dense and black. Her eyes were indescribable; at first sight they seemed muddy, but when she said something with emphasis, they shone golden. To his surprise, the pace of the interview was sluggish—it was clearly a matter of great inconvenience to Anna Bella Nor that Professor Helland had died. She came across as angry and fraught, and at one point she said outright: “My dissertation defense is in two weeks. This really is very bad timing, to put it mildly.”
Søren asked about her relationship with Helland and learned that Helland was slightly better than useless, and Anna had even considered making a formal complaint about him to the Faculty Council. He also learned that Helland had upset everyone, including Johannes, though Johannes wouldn’t admit it.
“Johannes is a friend,” she interjected, and narrowed her eyes, “but he’s horrible at reading people. He’s just too nice, and he has convinced himself it’s his mission on earth to excuse every single reprehensible act. Johannes can always find a reason, and do you know something?” Anna gave Søren a hard stare. “Sometimes even the best explanation isn’t a justification. Professor Helland didn’t care about me at all, and that’s a fact.”
She went on to tell him that Professor Ewald and Professor Jørgensen hadn’t been huge fans of Professor Helland either, and, as far as Anna could see, with good reason. Helland had managed to get himself a seat on every single academic and administrative committee there was, and was consequently responsible for myriad things that affected the daily running of the department. Anna refused to specify what they were: “Trust me, they’ll bore you to death, seriously.”
What Anna was at pains to point out was that Helland had twice removed the electric kettle, which she and Johannes had bought and kept in their study, and taken it to his office without asking. At this point, Søren’s fingers had begun to itch with irritation, and he told Anna to leave out irrelevant information, whereupon Anna looked straight at him and said: “You want to know about Helland’s relationship with his colleagues at the institute? How better to describe the climate that surrounded him than by explaining what a petty, self-important, emotionally stunted fascist he really was?”
Søren was genuinely impressed at how swiftly Anna could weld so many words into such a hard-hitting sentence.