The Keeper of Lost Causes

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  It would be hard to find a more evil villain than Carl Mørck in a spaghetti Western. An amazing piece of reporting, considering what had really happened.

  “I’ve got a final exam today,” said Jesper, rousing Carl from his reverie.

  Carl looked at him over the top of the newspaper. “In what?”

  “Math.”

  That didn’t sound good. “Have you studied for it?”

  Jesper shrugged and got up. As usual, he paid no attention to the plethora of utensils he’d slathered with butter and jam or the rest of the mess he’d left on the table.

  “Just a second, Jesper,” Carl said. “What does that mean?”

  His stepson turned to look at him. “It means that if I don’t do well, I might not quality for the fifth and sixth forms at Allerød. Too bad!”

  Carl pictured Vigga’s reproachful face and lowered the newspaper. The acid revolt in his system was really starting to hurt.

  Out in the parking lot folks were already joking about yesterday’s database breakdown. A couple of people had no idea what they were going to do at work. One’s job was dealing with building permits, and the other’s was medical reimbursements, and both of them usually spent their time staring at computer screens all day.

  On the car radio Carl heard several mayors express criticism of the municipal government reforms, which had indirectly sparked the whole mess. Other people called in to rant about the fact that the ongoing miserable situation with overworked and overburdened municipal employees was now going to get even worse. If the culprit who had shut down the databases ever dared to show up at one of the many hard-hit city halls, the closest emergency ward would no doubt have its hands full.

  At police headquarters everyone was more hopeful; the individual who had caused the problem had already been arrested. As soon as they’d received an explanation from the accused—an older woman who was a computer programmer in the Interior Ministry—to explain how to repair the damage, they would make the whole story public. It would only be a few more hours before everything would return to normal. Total control of society by government bureaucrats, which so many people were sick and tired of, had been reestablished.

  Poor woman.

  Oddly enough, Carl managed to make it down to the basement without running into any of his colleagues, and that was a good thing. The news in the morning papers about Carl’s clash with a psychologically handicapped man in an institution in northern Zealand had undoubtedly already spread to even the lowliest office in that enormous building.

  He just hoped that Marcus Jacobsen’s Wednesday meeting with the commissioner and the other police chiefs wouldn’t focus entirely on the news story.

  He found Assad in his office and wasted no time launching into him.

  After a few seconds Assad started looking groggy. Cheerful assistant that he was, he’d never seen this side of Carl before. But his boss now let him have the full brunt of his anger.

  “You lied to me, Assad,” Carl barked, fixing his eyes on the man. “You never even mentioned the cyclist murder to Hardy. You came up with all those conclusions yourself, and yes, they were good ones, but what you said to me was something else altogether. I simply won’t have it. Do you hear me? This will have consequences.”

  He could almost hear the wheels creaking inside Assad’s head. What was going on in there? Did he have a guilty conscience or what?

  Carl chose to really let him have it. “Don’t bother saying anything, Assad! You’re not bullshitting me anymore! Who the hell are you, really, Assad? I’d like to know. And what were you doing since you weren’t visiting Hardy?” He waved off Assad’s objections. “Yeah, all right, I know you went there, but you never stayed very long. So spit it out, Assad. What’s going on?”

  Assad’s silence couldn’t hide his nervousness. Carl caught glimpses of a hunted animal in the man’s calm expression. If they’d been enemies, Assad presumably would have leaped up to strangle him.

  “Just a second,” said Carl. He turned to look at the computer and brought up Google onto the screen. “I’ve got a couple of questions for you. You get me?”

  Assad didn’t answer.

  “Are you listening at all?”

  Assad murmured something even fainter than the hum of the computer. It was apparently meant as an affirmative reply.

  “It says in your file that you and your wife and two daughters came to Denmark in 1998. You were in the Sandholm refugee camp from 1998 until 2000, and then you were granted asylum.”

  Assad nodded.

  “That was fast.”

  “Not back then, Carl. Things are different now.”

  “You’re from Syria, Assad. What city? It doesn’t say in your file.”

  He turned around and saw that Assad’s expression was darker than he’d ever seen it.

  “Am I under your interrogation, Carl?”

  “Yes, you could say that. Any objections?”

  “There are many things I will not tell you, Carl. You will have to respect that then. I have had a bad life. It is mine, not yours.”

  “I understand that. But what city are you from? Is that such a hard question to answer?”

  “I come from a suburb of Sab Abar.”

  Carl typed in the name. “That’s in the middle of nowhere, Assad.”

  “Did I say it was not, Carl?”

  “How far would you say it is from Damascus to Sab Abar?”

  “A day’s journey. More than two hundred kilometers.”

  “A day’s journey?”

  “Things take time there. First you have to go through the city, and then there are the mountains.”

  That matched with what Carl saw on Google Earth. It would be hard to find a more desolate place. “Your name is Hafez el-Assad. At least that’s what it says in the Immigration Service’s documents about you.” He typed in the name on Google and found it instantly. “Isn’t that a rather unfortunate name to be carrying around?”

  Assad shrugged.

  “The name of a dictator who ruled Syria for twenty-nine years! Were your parents members of the Baath Party?”

  “Yes, they were.”

  “So you were named after him?”

  “Several people in my family have that name. I can tell you that.”

  Carl looked into Assad’s dark eyes. The man was in a different state than usual.

  “Who was Hafez el-Assad’s successor?” Carl asked abruptly.

  Assad didn’t even blink. “His son Bashar. Should we then not stop this now, Carl? It is not good for us.”

  “You might be right. So what was the name of the first son, the one who died in a car crash in 1994?”

  “I do not remember right now.”

  “You don’t? That’s odd. Here it says that he was his father’s favorite and chosen successor. His name was Basil. I’d think that everyone your age in Syria would be able to tell me that without hesitation.”

  “That is correct. His name was Basil.” Assad nodded. “But there are so quite many things that I have forgotten, Carl. I do not want to remember. I have . . .” He searched for the word.

  “Suppressed them?”

  “Yes, that sounds right enough.”

  OK, if that’s how he’s going to act I’m not going to get any further like this, thought Carl. He was going to have to shift gears.

  “You know what I think, Assad? I think you’re lying. Your name isn’t Hafez el-Assad at all. It was just the first name that came into your head when you applied for asylum. Am I right? I can just imagine that the guy who falsified your papers had a good laugh over it, didn’t he? Maybe he’s even the same man who helped us with Merete’s phone book. Am I getting warm?”

  “I think we should make a stop now, Carl.”

  “Where are you really from, Assad? Well, I’m used to the name, so why change now, even though it’s really your surname, isn’t it, Hafez?”

  “I am Syrian, and I come from Sab Abar.”

  “You mean a suburb of Sab Ab
ar?”

  “Yes, northeast of downtown.”

  It all sounded very plausible, but Carl had a hard time accepting the information at face value. Maybe ten years and hundreds of interrogations ago. But not anymore. His instincts were grumbling. The way Assad reacted wasn’t quite right.

  “You’re actually from Iraq, aren’t you, Assad? And you’ve got skeletons in the closet that would get you deported from Denmark and sent back to where you came from. Am I right?”

  Assad’s expression changed again. The lines on his forehead were erased. Maybe he’d caught sight of a way out; maybe he was just telling the truth.

  “Iraq? Not at all. Now you are sounding dumb, Carl,” he said, offended. “Come home and see my things, Carl. I brought a suitcase from home. You can talk to my wife. She understands a little English. Or my girls. Then you will know that what I am telling you is right then, Carl. I am a political refugee, and I have been through a lot of bad things. I do not want to talk about it, Carl, so, could you please leave me in peace? It is true that I did not spend a lot of time with Hardy, the way I said, but it is very far, up to Hornbæk. I am trying to help my brother come to Denmark, and that takes time too, Carl. I’m sorry. I will tell you things straight in the future.”

  Carl leaned back. He was almost to the point where he wanted to smother his skeptical brain in the sugar water that Assad was dishing out. “I don’t understand how you could acclimate yourself so quickly to doing police work, Assad. I certainly appreciate your help. You’re a spooky kind of guy, but you do have skills. Where does it come from?”

  “Spooky? What is that? Something to do with ghosts and things like that?” He gave Carl a guileless look. Yes, he did have skills, all right. Maybe he had a natural talent. Maybe everything he’d said was true. Perhaps it was just Carl who was turning into a sulky grouch.

  “It doesn’t say anything about your education in the file, Assad. What kind of training did you have?”

  He shrugged. “There was not very much, Carl. My father owned a small company that sold tinned goods. I know everything about how long a tin of stewed tomatoes can last at fifty degrees Celsius.”

  Carl tried to smile. “And then you couldn’t keep out of politics, and you ended up with the wrong name. Is that it?”

  “Yes, something like that.”

  “And you were tortured?”

  “Yes. Carl, I do not want to talk about that. You have not seen how I can get when I feel bad. I cannot talk about it, OK?”

  “OK.” Carl nodded. “And from now on you’re going to tell me what you’re doing during work hours. Do you get me?”

  Assad gave his boss a thumbs-up.

  The expression in Carl’s eyes allowed Assad’s gaze to relax. Then he held up his hand for a high-five, and Assad smacked it.

  So that was that.

  “OK, Assad. Let’s move on. We’ve got other things to think about,” said Carl. “We need to locate this Lars Henrik Jensen. I’m hoping it won’t be long before we’ll be able to log on to the Civil Registration System, but until then, let’s try to find his mother, Ulla Jensen. A man out at Risø . . .” He saw that Assad wanted to ask him what Risø was, but that could wait. “A man told me that she lives south of Copenhagen.”

  “Is Ulla Jensen an unusual name?”

  Carl shook his head. “Now that we know the name of the father’s company, we have more angles we can check. To start off, I’m going to call the Registry of Companies. We can only hope that it hasn’t been shut down too. In the meantime, go through the address-finder directory and look for the name Ulla Jensen. Try Brøndbyerne and then move south. Vallensbæk, maybe Glostrup, Tåstrup, Greve-Kildebrønde. Don’t search all the way to Køge, because that’s where the company was located before. Try north of there.”

  Assad looked relieved. He was just about to go out the door but turned around to give Carl a hug. His beard stubble was like needles, and his aftershave was some cheap knock-off brand, but the sentiment was genuine.

  Carl sat at his desk for a moment, letting the feeling wash over him after Assad had waltzed across the hall to his own office. It was almost like having his old team back.

  The answer came from both sources at once. The Registry of Companies had been functioning without interruption throughout the computer crash, and it took only five seconds on the keyboard for them to identify HJ Industries. It was owned by Trabeka Holding, a German firm, and they’d be happy to look for more information if Carl was interested. They couldn’t see who the owners were, but that could be found out if they contacted their German colleagues. After they gave Carl the address, he shouted over to Assad that he could stop his search, but Assad shouted back that he’d already found a couple of possible addresses.

  They compared results. There it was. Ulla Jensen lived on the site of the bankrupt HJ Industries, on Strøhusvej in Greve.

  Carl looked it up on the map. It was only a few hundred yards away from where Daniel Hale had burned to death on the Kappelev highway. He remembered standing there. It was the road he’d looked down as they’d surveyed the countryside.

  He felt the adrenaline starting to pump faster. Now they had an address. And they could drive there in twenty minutes.

  “Should we call down there first then, Carl?” Assad handed him the phone number.

  He gave his helper a blank look. So it wasn’t always pearls of wisdom that fell from the man’s lips. “That’s a great idea, Assad, if we want to find an empty house.”

  Originally it must have been an ordinary farm with a farmhouse, pigsty, and barn arranged around a cobblestone courtyard. The house was so close to the road that they could look right into the rooms. Behind the whitewashed buildings were three or four larger ones. A couple of them had presumably never been put to use. This seemed in any case true of a building thirty to forty feet high, with gaping holes where the windows should have been set in. It was incomprehensible that the authorities had ever allowed something like that to be built. It completely ruined the view down to the fields, where yellow carpets of rapeseed gave way to meadows so green that the color couldn’t possibly be reproduced in any painting.

  Carl scanned the landscape but didn’t see a soul. Not near any of the buildings either. The farmyard seemed just as neglected as everything else. The whitewash on the house was flaking off. Piled up by the road, a little farther to the east, were heaps of junk and building debris. Aside from the dandelions and flowering fruit trees that towered over the corrugated Eternit roof, the whole place looked terribly bleak.

  “There is no car in the courtyard, Carl,” said Assad. “Maybe it was a long time ago when somebody lived here.”

  Carl clenched his teeth, trying to fend off his disappointment. His gut told him that Lars Henrik Jensen wasn’t here. Damn it. Damn it to hell.

  “Let’s go in and look around, Assad,” he said as he parked the car fifty yards farther along the road.

  They set off in silence. Through the hedge they reached the back of the house and a garden where fruit bushes and ground-elder were fighting for space. The bay windows of the house were gray with dirt and age. Everything seemed dead.

  “Look at this,” whispered Assad, pressing his nose against one of the windowpanes.

  Carl leaned in to look. The inside of the house seemed abandoned too. It was almost like Sleeping Beauty’s castle, except there were no banners or thorn bushes. Dust covered the tables, the books, and newspapers, and all sorts of papers. In one corner cardboard boxes were piled up that had never been unpacked, and there were carpets that were still rolled up.

  Here was a family whose life had been interrupted during a happier time.

  “I think they were in the process of moving in when the accident happened, Assad. That’s what the man at Risø said too.”

  “Yes, but look over there in the back then.”

  Assad pointed at a doorway on the other side of the room. Light was streaming in, and the floor behind was polished and shiny.

 
“You’re right,” Carl said. “It looks different.”

  They made their way through an herb garden where the bumblebees buzzed around flowering chives and reached the other side of the house, down in one corner of the courtyard.

  Carl moved close to the windows, which were fastened shut. Through the first panes he was able to get a glimpse of a room with bare walls and a couple of chairs. He pressed his forehead against the window and saw the room take shape. There was no doubt it was in use. A couple of shirts lay on the floor. The blankets on the box mattress had been pushed aside, and on top of them lay a pair of pajamas, a kind that he was certain he’d seen in a department store catalogue not long ago.

  He concentrated on controlling his breathing and instinctively placed his hand on his belt, where he’d worn his service weapon for years. But it was months since he’d carried a gun.

  “Someone slept in that bed recently,” he said quietly to Assad, who was looking through the windows a little farther away.

  “Somebody was also here,” said Assad.

  Carl went over and looked inside. Assad was right. The kitchen was neat and clean. Through a door in the wall directly across from them, they could see the dusty living room that they had looked into from the other side. It was like a mausoleum. A sacred place, not to be disturbed.

  But the kitchen had definitely been in use quite recently.

  “A deep freezer, coffee on the table, an electric kettle. There are also a couple of full bottles of cola over there in the corner,” said Carl.

  He turned toward the pigsty and the other buildings behind it. They could continue their search without getting a court order, but they’d have to suffer the consequences afterward if it proved to be fruitless since they couldn’t very well claim that the opportunity would be lost if they searched the house at some other time. Actually, they could wait until morning. Yes, it might even be better to come back the next day. Maybe someone would be home by then.

  He nodded. It was probably best to wait and follow proper legal procedures. He took a deep breath. In reality, he didn’t feel like doing either.