Jussi Adler-Olsen: The Keeper of Lost Causes

When Carl got home, he leaned his bicycle against the shed outside the kitchen, noting that the other two occupants of the house were both there. As usual, his lodger, Morten Holland, had turned the volume all the way up as he listened to opera in the basement, while his stepson’s downloaded blowtorch heavy metal was blasting out of a window upstairs. A less compatible collage of sounds was not to be found anywhere else on the planet.

He forced his way inside the inferno and stomped a couple of times on the floor. Down in the basement Rigoletto was instantly wrapped up in cotton wool. It wasn’t that simple with the boy upstairs. Carl took the stairs in three bounds and didn’t bother to knock on the door.

“Jesper, for God’s sake! The sound waves have shattered two windows down on Pinjevangen. And you’re the one who’s going to pay for them!” he shouted as loud as he could.

The boy had heard the same story before, so he didn’t move a muscle as he hunched over the computer keyboard.

“Hey!” yelled Carl, right in his ear. “Turn it down or I’ll cut the ADSL cable.”

That got a reaction.

Downstairs in the kitchen, Morten had already set plates on the table. Someone in the neighborhood had once labeled him the surrogate mother at number 73, but that wasn’t right. Morten was not a surrogate; he was a real housewife and the best that Carl had ever encountered. He took care of the grocery shopping and laundry, the cooking and cleaning, while opera arias trilled from his sensitive lips. And to cap it all, he even paid rent.

“Did you go to the university today?” asked Carl, knowing what the answer would be. Morten was thirty-three years old, and he’d spent the past thirteen of those years diligently studying all kinds of subjects other than the ones having any direct bearing on the three degree programs in which he was officially enrolled. The result was an overwhelming knowledge about everything except the subjects for which he was receiving financial support and which in the future would presumably earn him a living.

Morten turned his heavy, corpulent back to Carl and stared down the bubbling mass in the pot on the stove. “I’ve decided to study political science.”

He’d mentioned that before; it was just a matter of time before he tried that subject too. “Jesus, Morten, don’t you think you should finish your economics degree first?” Carl couldn’t help asking.

Morten tossed some salt into the pot and began stirring. “Almost everybody in economics votes for the government parties, and that’s just not me.”

“How the hell do you know that? You never even go to class, Morten.”

“I was there yesterday. I told my fellow students a joke about Karina Jensen.”

“A joke about a politician who started out as an extreme left-winger and ended up joining the Liberal Party? Shouldn’t be hard to make a joke about that.”

“‘She’s an example of how to hide a Neanderthal behind a high-brow,’ I said. And nobody laughed.”

Morten was different. An overgrown adolescent and androgynous virgin whose personal relationships consisted of remarks exchanged with random supermarket customers about what they were buying. A little chat by the freezer section about whether spinach was best with or without cream sauce.

“What does it matter if nobody laughed, Morten? There could be lots of reasons for that. I didn’t laugh either, and I don’t vote for the government parties, in case you’d like to know.” Carl shook his head. He knew it was no use. But as long as Morten kept on making a good salary at the video store, it really didn’t matter what the hell he studied or didn’t study. “Political science, eh? Sounds deadly boring.”

Morten shrugged as he sliced a couple of carrots and added them to what was cooking in the pot. He didn’t say anything for a moment, which was unusual for him. Carl knew what was coming.

“Vigga phoned,” said Morten at last with a hint of concern in his voice. In this situation he normally added in English: “Don’t shoot me. I’m just the piano player.” But this time he didn’t say it.

Carl didn’t reply. If Vigga wanted something from him, she could wait to call until he got home.

“I think she’s freezing over there in that garden cottage,” Morten ventured as he shoved the spoon around in the pot.

Carl turned to face him. It smelled damned good, whatever Morten was cooking on the stove. It had been a long time since he’d had such an appetite. “She’s freezing? Maybe she should stuff a couple of her well-fed lovers into the woodstove.”

“What are you guys talking about?” said a voice in the doorway. Behind Jesper, the cacophony from upstairs was again blasting from his room, making the walls in the hallway vibrate.

It was a miracle they could hear each other at all.

Carl spent three days staring alternately at Google and at the walls in the basement room. He’d made himself familiar ad nauseam with the walk down the hall to the toilet, and realized he felt more rested than ever before. Then he counted off the four hundred and fifty-two paces up to the homicide division on the third floor, which was the domain of his former colleagues. He was going to demand that the workmen finish what they were doing in the basement and hang the door back on its hinges so he would at least have something to slam if he was so inclined. And then he would circumspectly remind them that he hadn’t yet received the promised case files. Not because there was any rush, but he had no intention of losing his job before he’d even started.

Maybe he’d expected his former colleagues to stare at him with curiosity when he entered the homicide premises. Was he on the verge of a breakdown? Had his face lost all color after his sojourn in the eternal gloom? He’d expected inquisitive and also scornful looks, but not that everyone would simultaneously slip inside their offices with such a well-orchestrated closing of doors.

“What’s going on here?” he asked a man he’d never seen before who was unpacking moving boxes in the first office.

The man held out his hand. “Peter Vestervig. I’m from City Station. I’m going to be part of Viggo’s team.”

“Viggo’s team? Viggo Brink?” Carl asked. A team leader? Viggo? He must have been appointed the day before.

“That’s right. And you are?” the man asked.

Carl managed a brief handshake and then glanced around the office without replying. There were two other faces he didn’t recognize. “They’re on Viggo’s team too?”

“Not the one over by the window.”

“New furniture, I see.”

“Yes, they just brought it up. Aren’t you Carl Mørck?”

“I used to be,” he said and then walked the rest of the way over to Marcus Jacobsen’s office.

The door was ajar, but even a closed door wouldn’t have stopped Carl from barging in. “So you’re bringing in more staff, Marcus?” he said without preamble, interrupting a meeting.

The homicide chief’s face took on a resigned expression as he glanced at his deputy and one of the office girls. “OK, Carl Mørck has emerged from the depths. We’ll continue in half an hour,” he said, stacking up his papers.

Carl gave Jacobsen’s deputy a surly smile as the man went out the door; the smile he got in return was equally scathing. Vice-Superintendent Lars Bjørn had always known just how to keep the icy feelings between them warm.

“So, how are things going down there, Carl? Are you getting a handle on how to prioritize the cases?”

“You might say that. At least with regard to the ones I’ve received so far.” He pointed behind him. “What’s happening out there?”

“You might well ask.” Marcus raised his eyebrows and straightened the Leaning Tower of Pisa, as everyone called the pile of newly received cases on his desk. “Due to the overwhelming case load, we’ve had to put together two more investigative teams.”