Jussi Adler-Olsen - Mercy aka The keeper of lost causes

So Bak had investigated a case that had not been solved. How nice. Carl almost felt motivated to try to untie the knots himself.

He picked up the case file from his desk and asked Assad to make him a cup of coffee. “Not as strong as last time, Assad,” he requested, thinking about the distance to the toilet.

The Lynggaard case file was undoubtedly the most organized and comprehensive file that Carl had ever seen. It included copies of everything from reports on the health of the brother, Uffe, to transcripts of police interviews, clippings from the tabloids and gossip columns, a couple of videotapes of interviews with Merete Lynggaard, and detailed transcripts of statements from colleagues as well as from passengers on the boat who had seen the brother and sister together on the sun deck. There were photos showing the deck and the railing and the distance down to the water. There were fingerprint analyses taken from the spot where she disappeared. There were addresses of countless passengers who had taken pictures on board the Scandline ferry. There was even a copy of the ship’s log, which revealed how the captain had responded to the whole incident. But there was nothing that could give Carl a real lead.

I need to watch the videotapes, he thought after reading through the material. He cast a defeated look at the DVD player.

“I’ve got a job for you, Assad,” he said when the man returned with a steaming cup of coffee. “Go up to the homicide division on the third floor, through the green doors and over to the red hallway until you come to a bulge where-”

Assad handed Carl the coffee mug, the smell of which from a distance already hinted at likely stomach troubles. “A bulge?” he said with wrinkled brow.

“Yes, you know, where the red hallway gets wider. Go over to the blonde woman. Her name is Lis. She’s OK. Tell her that you need a videotape player for Carl Mørck. We’re good friends, she and I.” He winked at Assad, who winked back.

“But if the dark-haired one is the only one there, just forget about it and come back.”

Assad nodded.

“And remember to bring back an adapter,” he called after Assad as he ambled down the fluorescent-lit basement corridor.

“It was the dark-haired who just was up there,” said Assad when he returned. “She gave me two video machines and said they do not want them back.” He smiled broadly. “She was also beautiful.”

Carl shook his head. There must have been a change in personnel.

The first video was from a TV news program that was broadcast on December 21, 2001, in which Merete Lynggaard commented on an informal health and climate conference she had attended in London. The interview dealt primarily with her discussions with a senator named Bruce Jansen regarding the American attitude toward the work of WHO and the Kyoto Protocol, which in Merete’s opinion warranted great optimism for the future. I wonder if she’s easy to fool, thought Carl. But aside from a certain naïveté, which was no doubt attributable to her age, Merete Lynggaard seemed otherwise level-headed, professional, and precise. She outshone by far the newly appointed interior and health minister, who was standing next to her, looking like a parody of a high-school teacher in a film from the sixties.

“A really elegant and pretty lady,” remarked Assad from the doorway.

The second video was from February 20, 2002. Talking on behalf of her party’s environmental spokesperson, Merete Lynggaard offered comments on the conceited environmental skeptic Bjarke Ørnfelt’s report to the Committee Pertaining to Scientific Deception.

What a name to give to a committee, thought Carl. To think that anything in Denmark could sound so Kafkaesque.

This time it was an entirely different Merete Lynggaard who appeared on the screen. More real, less of a politician.

“She is really, really so beautiful there,” said Assad.

Carl glanced at him. Apparently a woman’s appearance was a particularly valuable factor in his assistant’s worldview. But Carl agreed with him. There was a special aura about Merete during that interview. She exhibited a surplus of that incredibly strong appeal that almost all women are capable of emanating whenever things are going especially well for them. Very telling, but also confusing.

“Was she pregnant then?” asked Assad. Judging by a number of family members in his photos, it was a feminine condition with which he was quite familiar.

Carl lit a cigarette and leafed through the case file again. For obvious reasons, there was no autopsy report that might help him answer that question, since the body had never been found. And when he skimmed through the gossip columns, there were blatant hints that she wasn’t particularly interested in men, although of course that didn’t preclude her from getting pregnant. But when he took a closer look, he realized that she hadn’t been seen in intimate contact with anyone at all, man or woman.

“She was probably only just fallen in love,” concluded Assad as he waved the cigarette smoke away. He had now moved so close to the screen that he was practically crawling inside it. “That little patch of red on her cheek there. Look!”

Carl shook his head. “I’ll bet it was only two degrees Celsius that day. Outdoor interviews always make politicians look healthier, Assad. Why do you think they’d put up with them, otherwise?”

But Assad was right. There was a marked difference between the previous interview and this one. Something had happened to Merete in the meantime. There was no way that Bjarke Ørnfelt, a crackpot professional lobbyist who specialized in splitting facts about natural disasters into unrecognizable atoms, could have made Merete Lynggaard glow so tastily.

Carl stared into space for a moment. In every investigation there was always a moment when a detective fervently wished that he could have met the victim alive. This time it was happening earlier than usual.

“Assad. Phone that institution, Egely, where Merete Lynggaard’s brother was placed, and make an appointment on behalf of Deputy Detective Superintendent Mørck.”

“Deputy Detective Superintendent Mørck? Who is that?”

Carl tapped his finger to his temple. Was the man just plain stupid? “Who do you think?”

Assad shook his head. “Well, inside my head I thought you were deputy police superintendent. Is that not what it is called now, since the new police reform?”

Carl took a deep breath. That fucking police reform. He didn’t give a shit about it.

The director at Egely called back ten minutes later, not even trying to hide his curiosity about what this might concern. Evidently Assad had improvised a bit, but what the hell could Carl expect from an assistant with a doctoral degree in rubber gloves and plastic buckets? After all, everybody had to crawl before they could walk.

He glanced over at his assistant and gave him an encouraging nod when he looked up from his Sudoku puzzle.

It took only thirty seconds for Carl to explain things to the director, whose reply was swift and brief. Uffe Lynggaard never spoke a word, so the deputy detective superintendent would gain nothing by trying to talk to him. In addition, although Uffe was both mute and difficult to reach, he had not been placed under legal guardianship. And since Uffe Lynggaard had not given permission for anyone at the institution to speak on his behalf, they couldn’t say anything either. It was a real Catch-22.

“I’m familiar with the procedures. Of course I’m not trying to commit a breach of confidentiality. But I’m investigating his sister’s disappearance, so I think that Uffe might actually benefit a great deal from speaking to me.”

“But he doesn’t talk. I just told you that.”