The Keeper of Lost Causes

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  “Well, you know, considering the huge department I’m in charge of, there’s not much chance that he’ll hear about what goes on.”

  Jacobsen tossed his pen on to one of the piles of documents. “Carl, you’ve taken an oath of confidentiality, and the man isn’t a police officer. Just keep that in mind.”

  Carl nodded. He’d be the one to decide what was discussed and where. “How on earth did you find Assad? Through the employment office?”

  “I have no idea. Ask Lars Bjørn. Or ask the man himself.”

  Carl raised a finger. “By the way, I’d like to have a floor plan of the basement, to scale, and showing the points of the compass.”

  Jacobsen was looking a bit tired again. There weren’t many people who dared make such strange requests of him. “You can print out a floor plan from the departmental intranet, Carl. It’s easy!”

  “Here,” said Carl, pointing at the floor plan spread out in front of Assad. “Here you can see that wall over there, and here’s where you’ve put your prayer rug. And here’s the arrow pointing north. So now you can position the rug in exactly the right place.”

  The eyes that turned to look up at him were full of respect. They were going to make a good team.

  “Two people called with the telephone for you. I told both of them that you would be pleased to call them back sometime.”

  “Who were they?”

  “That man who is the director in Frederikssund, and a lady who talked like a machine that cuts through metal.”

  Carl sighed heavily. “Vigga. That’s my wife.” So she’d found out what his new phone number was. Any chance of peace and quiet was now gone.

  “Wife? You have a wife?”

  “Oh, Assad, it’s too complicated to get into right now. Let’s get to know each other better first.”

  Assad pursed his lips and nodded. A trace of sympathy passed over his solemn face.

  “Assad, how exactly did you get this job, anyway?”

  “I know Lars Bjørn.”

  “You know him?”

  Assad smiled. “Yes, I do. I was in his office every single day for a whole month to get job.”

  “You pestered Lars Bjørn about getting a job?”

  “Yes, I love police.”

  Carl didn’t call Vigga back until he was in his living room in Rønneholt Park, breathing in the aroma of the hash that Morten was cooking while listening to emotional operatic arias. He’d thrown together the concoction from what had once been a genuine Parma ham from Super-Best.

  Vigga was OK in small doses, as long as Carl was allowed to decide how much of her to take. It had been difficult over the years, but now that she’d left him, certain rules of the game applied.

  “Damn it, Vigga,” he said. “I don’t like you calling me at work. You know how busy we are.”

  “Carl, sweetheart. Didn’t Morten tell you that I’m freezing out here?”

  “I’m not surprised. It’s a garden cottage, Vigga. It was cobbled together out of shitty building materials. Old boards and crates that were already surplus and worthless in 1945. You can just move somewhere else.”

  “I’m not moving back in with you, Carl.”

  He took a deep breath. “I certainly hope not. It would be hard to squeeze you and your assembly line of confirmation-aged lovers into the sauna downstairs with Morten. But there are plenty of other houses and apartments that do have central heating.”

  “I’ve got a really good solution for the whole thing.”

  No matter what she had in mind, it already sounded expensive. “A really good solution would be a divorce, Vigga,” said Carl. Sooner or later it had to happen. Then she would demand half the value of the house, and during the past few years it had increased considerably, brought on by the insane rise in the housing market in spite of fluctuations. He should have simply demanded a divorce while houses still cost half of what they did today. It was as simple as that. But it was too late now, and he’d be damned if he was going to move.

  He turned his eyes to the vibrating ceiling under Jesper’s room. Even if I took out a loan when we divorced, my expenses couldn’t possibly be more than they are now, he thought. In that case, he imagined she’d have to take back responsibility for her son. They had the biggest electricity bill on this side of town; there was no doubt about that. Jesper had to be the energy company’s elite customer number one.

  “Divorce? No, I don’t want a divorce, Carl. I’ve tried that before, and it wasn’t a good thing. You know that.”

  He shook his head. Then what the hell did she call the situation they’d been living in for the past couple of years?

  “I want to have a gallery, Carl. My very own gallery.”

  OK, here it came. In his mind he saw Vigga’s paintings, which were nothing more than meter-high, deranged blotches of pink and bronze gilding. A gallery? Good idea, if she wanted to make more space in her garden cottage.

  “A gallery, you say? And I imagine that it will have a gigantic furnace. So then you can sit there all day, warming yourself on all the millions of kroner that are going to come pouring in.” Sure. He could see the whole scam.

  “You’ve always been the sarcastic type,” said Vigga. And then she laughed. It was the laugh that got to him every time. That damn seductive laugh. “But it’s really a fantastic idea, Carl. There would be so many possibilities if I had my own gallery. Can’t you just picture it? And maybe one day Jesper will have a famous mother. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  Infamous, Vigga. That’s the proper word, he thought. But what he said was: “So you’ve already found a place, is that right?”

  “Oh, Carl, it’s so charming. And Hugin has already talked to the owner.”

  “Hugin?”

  “Yes, Hugin. He’s a very talented painter.”

  “Better between the bed sheets than on the canvases, I’d guess.”

  “Come on, Carl.” She laughed again. “Be nice.”

  14

  2002

  Merete had been waiting on the restaurant deck. She’d told Uffe to hurry up just before the door to the men’s room slammed behind him. Only waiters were still in the cafeteria at the other end of the ferry; all the passengers had gone down to their cars. Uffe needs to hurry up, she thought, even though the Audi was at the back of the line.

  And that was the last full thought she managed to formulate in her former life.

  The attack came from behind and it was so surprising that she didn’t even have time to scream. But she did notice the hand pressing the rag hard against her mouth and nose, and then, more vaguely, she was aware of someone pushing the black button that opened the door to the stairwell down to the car deck. Finally, she was conscious only of a couple of distant noises and the sight of all the metal walls in the stairwell whirling around, and then everything went black.

  The cement floor underneath her when she woke up was cold, very cold. She lifted her head, feeling an intense pounding inside. Her legs felt heavy, and she could hardly raise her shoulders off the floor. She forced herself into a sitting position and tried to orient herself in the pitch dark. She considered shouting but didn’t dare; instead she took a deep breath, without making a sound. Then she cautiously stretched out her hands to test if there was anything close by. But there was nothing.

  For a long time she just sat there before venturing to stand up, slowly, every nerve on alert. She was determined to lash out at even the slightest sound. She would hit as hard as she could. Hit and kick. She sensed that she was alone, but she might be wrong.

  After a while she felt more clear-headed, and then the fear came creeping in, like an infection. Her skin grew hot, her heart beat harder and faster. Her eyes, blinded by the dark, flickered nervously. She’d read and seen so many terrible things.

  About women who disappeared.

  Then she took a hesitant step forward, holding out her hands. There might be a hole in the floor, an abyss just waiting to swallow her up. There might be sharp implements and g
lass. But her foot found the floor, and there was still nothing in front of her. All of a sudden she stopped and stood motionless.

  Uffe, she thought, feeling her jaw start to quiver. He was on board the ship when it happened.

  It took a couple of hours for her to sketch a floor plan of the room in her mind. The space seemed to be rectangular. Maybe twenty to twenty-five feet in length and at least fifteen feet wide. She had run her fingers over the cold walls; on one of them, at eye level, she’d found a couple of glass panes that felt like two enormous portholes. She’d hammered on them with her shoe, jumping back at each blow. But the glass didn’t break. Then she’d touched the edges of something that felt like an arched doorway set into the wall, although maybe not, because there was no door handle. She’d slid her hands over the wall, in the hope of finding a handle or maybe a light switch somewhere. But the surface was smooth and cold.

  After that she systematically explored the whole room. She cautiously paced from one end to the other, turned around, took a step to the side, and then made her way back. Upon reaching the far wall, she repeated the whole exercise. When she was done, she concluded that she and the dry air were all alone in the room.

  I need to wait over there, next to what feels like a door, she thought. She would sit down at the base of it so she wouldn’t be visible through the glass panes. When someone came in, she’d grab their legs and give them a yank. She’d try to kick the person hard in the head over and over.

  Her muscles tensed and her skin felt clammy. She might have only the one chance.

  After she’d sat there so long that her body had grown stiff and her senses were dulled, she got to her feet and went over to the opposite corner to squat down and pee. She needed to remember which corner she had used. One corner as a toilet. One where she sat and waited by the door, and one where she would sleep. The smell of urine was strong in the desolate cage. She hadn’t had anything to drink since sitting in the ship’s cafeteria, and that could easily have been hours ago. Of course it was possible that she’d been unconscious for only an hour or two, but it could also have been a whole day or more. She had no idea. All she knew was that she wasn’t hungry, just thirsty.

  She stood up, pulled up her trousers, and tried to remember.

  She and Uffe had been the last passengers near the toilets. They were probably also the last ones on the sun deck. At any rate, the two men over by the big picture windows were gone when she and Uffe passed by. She had nodded to the waitress who came out of the cafeteria, and she’d seen a couple of kids punch the door opener before disappearing below deck. Nothing else. She hadn’t noticed anyone coming that close to her. Her only thought had been that Uffe needed to hurry up and come out of the bathroom.

  Oh God, Uffe! What had happened to him? He was so unhappy after he’d hit her. And he’d been so dismayed that his baseball cap was gone. There were still red patches on his cheeks when he went into the toilet. So what kind of shape could he be in by now?

  She heard a click from above that made her cringe. Then she quickly fumbled her way over to the corner with the arched door. She had to be ready if someone came in. Then there was another click, and her heart felt as if it might hammer apart. Only when the fan overhead started up did she realize she could relax a little. The clicking sound must have come from some sort of relay switch.

  She stretched toward the warm air; it was life-giving. What else did she have to cling to?

  And she remained standing there like that until the fan stopped, leaving her with the feeling that the warm air might be her only contact with the outside world. She closed her eyes tight and made herself concentrate so that the sobs trying to force their way out would be kept at bay.

  It was a terrible thought. But maybe it was true. Maybe she’d be left here for all eternity. Hidden away to die. And nobody knew where she was; even she didn’t know. It could be anywhere. Several hours’ drive from the ferryboat landing. In Denmark or Germany, anywhere at all. Maybe even farther away than that.

  And with death slowly emerging as the likely end to this whole scenario, she imagined the weapon that thirst and hunger would aim at her. The lingering death, in which her body would short-circuit bit by bit, the relay switches of self-preservation shutting down one after the other. And at last the apathetic, ultimate slumber that would set her free.

  There aren’t many people who will miss me, she thought. Uffe, of course. He would miss her. Poor, poor Uffe. But she’d never let anyone but her brother get close to her. She’d locked out everyone else and caged herself in.

  She tried very hard to hold back the tears, but without success. Was this really what life had held for her? Was it going to end like this? Without children, without happiness, without having a chance to realize all that she’d dreamed of doing during the years she was alone with Uffe? Without being able to fulfill the obligation that she’d taken on ever since her parents died?

  It was a bitter, depressing feeling, and infinitely lonely. That was why she now heard herself sobbing quietly.

  She was overwhelmed by the awareness that Uffe would be all alone in the world, and she imagined that this was the most terrible thing that could happen to her. For a long time it filled her consciousness completely. She was going to die alone, like an animal, silently and unaccounted for, while Uffe and everyone else would have to live on without knowing. And when she had exhausted all her tears, it occurred to her that maybe this wasn’t over yet. And things might get worse. She could be in for a cruel death. She might have been relegated to a fate so horrible that death would come as a relief. But first she might have to endure pain and bestiality. She’d heard all about such things. Exploitation, rape, and torture. Maybe eyes were watching her right now. Cameras with infrared sensors observing her through the glass. Eyes that meant to harm her. Ears that were listening.

  She looked toward the glass panes and tried to appear calm.

  “Please, have mercy on me,” she whispered softly into the darkness.

  15

  2007

  A Peugeot 607 is considered to be a relatively quiet vehicle, but that was hardly the case during Assad’s frantic parking maneuvers on the road directly outside Carl’s bedroom window.

  “Awesome,” muttered Jesper as he stared out the window. Carl couldn’t recall the last time his stepson had said even one word so early in the morning. But it sure as hell was appropriate.

  “I left you a note from Vigga,” Morten called out after Carl as he headed out the door. But he wasn’t about to read any note from Vigga. The prospect of receiving an invitation to look at galleries in the company of an undoubtedly narrow-hipped artist named Hugin who painted big blotches on canvas wasn’t exactly at the top of Carl’s list right now.

  “Hello,” greeted Assad as he stood leaning against the driver’s door. On his head he wore a camel-hair cap of unknown origin. He looked like anything but a private chauffeur assigned to the criminal police department, if such a title even existed. Carl glanced up at the sky. It was pale blue and clear; the temperature was tolerable.

  “I know just exactly the location of Egely,” said Assad, pointing at the GPS as Carl got into the passenger seat. Carl cast a weary glance at the image on the screen. He saw an X on a road that was a comfortable distance from the waters of Roskilde Fjord, so that the residents of the nursing home wouldn’t be likely to fall in, but close enough so the director would have a good view of most of the delights of northern Zealand, if he ever bothered to look out of the window. That was where institutions for mentally disturbed patients were often placed. God only knew for whose sake the location had actually been chosen.

  Assad started the engine, put the car in reverse, and sped backward along Magnolievangen, stopping only when the rear of the vehicle was halfway up on the grass embankment on the other side of Rønneholt Parkvei. Before Carl’s body could even react, Assad had slammed through the gears and was now cruising along at ninety kilometers an hour, where the speed limit was only fifty. />
  “Stop, damn it!” yelled Carl just before they entered the roundabout at the end of the road. But Assad merely gave him a sly look, like a cab driver in Beirut, and yanked the steering wheel hard to the right. The next second they were headed for the motorway.

  “Fast car!” shouted Assad, flooring the accelerator as they entered the slip road.

  Maybe it would put a damper on him if Carl pulled that cap down over his rapturous face.

  Egely was a whitewashed building that splendidly proclaimed its purpose. No one ever entered voluntarily, and it was far from easy for anyone to get out. It was obvious that this was not a place for finger-painting or guitar lessons. This was where people with money and status placed the weak members of their families.

  Private care, in the spirit of the government itself.

  The director’s office matched the overall impression, and the director himself, an unsmiling, bony and pallid-looking man, suited the interior as if specifically designed for it.

  “Uffe Lynggaard’s expenses here are paid by the proceeds from funds deposited in the Lynggaard trust,” replied the director to Carl’s question.

  Carl glanced at the bookshelf, which held numerous case files, many of them labeled with the word “trust.”

  “I see. And how exactly was the trust created?”

  “An inheritance from his parents, who were both killed in a car accident which also injured Uffe. And an inheritance from his sister, of course.”

  “She was a member of parliament, so I don’t imagine we’re talking about large sums of money.”

  “No, but the sale of their house brought in two million kroner, when a presumption of death was handed down by court order not too long ago. Thank God for that. At the moment the trust is worth about twenty-two million kroner, but I’m sure you already know that.”