The police have walked off with your computer, she texted.
No reply.
Cecilie, too, stayed silent.
At noon Anna went to the cafeteria and bought two sandwiches and two cartons of juice before she made her way to the museum. She let herself into the Vertebrate Collection with her master key. The ceiling light was on and she found Dr. Tybjerg at a desk, writing on a lined pad. Several reference books and boxes of bones were beside him. Tybjerg looked up, startled.
“Oh, it’s you.” He sounded relieved.
“You slept here last night, Dr. Tybjerg, I know you did,” she said.
Tybjerg studied his hands and Anna noticed how his nostril had started to twitch. She placed a sandwich in front of him.
“Why don’t you sleep at home?” she demanded, losing patience with his paranoia. Dr. Tybjerg looked worried.
“Anna,” he begged. “Promise me you won’t tell anyone. Please!”
“Tell anyone what?”
“For the past eight months I’ve been living in my office,” he confessed. “To save money. Traveling to excavations… it all adds up. I lost my apartment. No one knows yet. The last few nights I’ve been sleeping in here. Is that for me?” He touched the sandwich hopefully.
“Yes,” Anna replied, and handed him a carton of juice. She was shocked to see Dr. Tybjerg rip off the wrapping and wolf down the food.
“You’re also hiding from Freeman, aren’t you?” she said.
Tybjerg was eating and didn’t reply. Anna snapped. She removed the lid from one of the boxes, took out a bone, and slammed it down in front of her supervisor.
“This,” she hissed, “is the hand of a bird. It has a half-moon-shaped carpus, which overlaps the basis of the two first metacarpal bones in the wrist common to all maniraptora, that is all birds, both ancient and modern. It’s a homologue feature, which underlines the close kinship of prehistoric birds to modern ones. Freeman disagrees. He thinks the dinosaur’s carpus may have had a feature that, at first glance, could be mistaken for a semilunar, but that the two bones only bear a superficial likeness, and this apparent similarity has no impact on their relationship.” Anna sent the bone skidding across the desk and stuck her hand into the box a second time.
“And this one—” she started.
“Stop,” Dr. Tybjerg implored her.
“—is the pubic bone.” Anna ignored him. “Those of us who know better, know that both theropods and Archaeopteryx and a couple of enantiornithine birds from the early Cretaceous had an enlarged distal on the pubic bone, i.e., another homologue feature. Of course, Freeman denies this. Further, there is the dispute about the position of the pubic bone. And the dispute about feathers, about phylogenetic methods, about the stratigraphic junction, about the ascending process of the talus bone, about everything.” Anna looked at Dr. Tybjerg.
“That’s why he’s come to Denmark, Dr. Tybjerg. To win an argument he has no chance of ever winning; not to kill Helland, or you, or me, or my daughter.”
“Stop it,” Tybjerg howled. His knuckles were white. He rose. “It’s pointless,” he said, taking the rest of his sandwich and disappearing down the dark aisles. She could hear him shuffle around and didn’t know what to do. She slapped her head with the palm of her hand.
Her cell rang on her way back to the department. It was Jens.
“Hi, Dad,” she said.
“Anna, hi.” He sounded breathless. “I’m on a job. In Odense, as it happens.”
“Right,” Anna said. She was walking down the glass corridor that connected the museum and the Institute of Biology.
“Listen, Anna,” he said. “Your mom just called me. She sounded quite upset.”
“Right,” Anna said again.
“What’s going on?” Jens asked. “I understand that you’re under a lot of pressure, but be nice to your mom, please? She does so much for you, Anna sweetheart.”
Anna glowed red-hot with rage. She was speechless.
“She says you screamed at her and hung up. What’s that all about?”
Anna finally got her voice under control.
“Please can you explain to me when my mother became so fragile?” Anna sneered. “Since when is she made of glass? Can you tell me that? She’s had special treatment all my life. My whole freaking life.”
“Anna,” Jens said after a pause. “Calm down.”
“No, I won’t!”
“You calm down right now!” Jens shouted.
“Do you know what you can do? You can call my mother and remind her that Lily is my child. And when she accepts that, then she can call me. For God’s sake, Dad, Cecilie cut Lily’s hair and had her ears pierced without asking me first!”
Jens was silent.
Then he said, “She’s only trying to help.”
“I don’t need any help,” she said. “From you or her.”
At four o’clock that afternoon, she picked Lily up from nursery school.
Chapter 8
Clive woke up in his house on Vancouver Island, wondering why he had slept on the sofa. Then he remembered hitting Kay. He showered and shaved in the guest bedroom. He put eggs on to boil, fried bacon, and made toast and tea. He put plates and utensils on a tray and carried it out to the garden, and then he set the table. The sun was shining, the air was mild and hazy. Kay always put a tablecloth on first, but Clive couldn’t find one. He found some napkins instead and put the plates on top of them. Then he went upstairs to get Kay.
The door to the master bedroom was open and Clive could hear the water running in the master bathroom. He looked into the bedroom and saw Kay’s suitcase on the bed. At that moment, she appeared from the bathroom. She glanced briefly at Clive. They heard a key turn in the front door.
“Mom,” Franz called out. “Where are you?”
Kay went downstairs. Clive heard her say something.
“No, just go sit in the car,” Franz replied.
Franz climbed the stairs to the landing where Clive stood. Franz was tall and tanned, and he worked out. He walked past his father and picked up Kay’s suitcase.
“You’re an idiot, Dad,” Franz said quietly, on his way back.
“And you’re a mama’s boy,” Clive retorted.
Franz sighed and walked down the stairs with the suitcase. Clive couldn’t understand how he had managed to produce such a useless and pathetic excuse for a man. All brawn and no brain. Shortly afterward, he heard Franz rev the engine and drive off.
Downstairs in the kitchen, the saucepan had boiled dry and the eggs were blackened.
The first three days he sequestered himself in the house. He unplugged the telephone, switched off his cell phone, and didn’t check his e-mails. On the third day, the temptation to look became too great, but Kay hadn’t called or e-mailed him. Nor was there anything from Jack.
The kitchen looked a mess. On his first day alone, Clive opened every cupboard and lined up cans and dry foods to take stock of the situation. He had seemed to be well provided for, he had thought at the time, but his supply was dwindling fast. He went down the road to shop and as he walked, he pinched his nostrils. He and Kay had never had a real falling out. During their marriage she had walked out—once—and had been gone for three hours after an argument, but she had never left the family home for three days. He didn’t like it.