Jussi Adler-Olsen - The Keeper of Lost Causes

Therefore they had moved him to a better room. He was lying on his side and presumably could just catch a glimpse of the convoys of ships out there in the sound.

A year ago the two of them had been sitting in a restaurant in the Bakken amusement park, eating huge portions of roast pork with parsley sauce as Carl griped about Vigga. Now he was sitting here, on the edge of Hardy’s bed, and couldn’t permit himself to gripe about anything at all.

“The police in Sorø had to let the man in the checked shirt go, Hardy,” he said, deciding not to beat around the bush.

“Who?” Hardy asked hoarsely, not moving his head a millimeter.

“He had an alibi. But everybody is convinced he’s the right man. The man who shot you and me and Anker and committed the murders in Sorø. But they still had to let him go. I’m sorry to tell you this, Hardy.”

“I don’t give a shit.” Hardy coughed and then cleared his throat as Carl went over to the other side of the bed and wet a paper towel under the tap. “What good would it do me if they caught him?” said Hardy with saliva in the corners of his mouth.

“We’ll catch him and the others who did it, Hardy,” Carl said, wiping his colleague’s mouth and chin. “I can tell that I’m going to have to get involved soon. Those shits aren’t going to get away with this; no fucking way.”

“Have fun,” Hardy said, and then swallowed, as if preparing to say something else. Then it came: “Anker’s widow was here yesterday. It wasn’t nice, Carl.”

Carl remembered the bitter expression on Elisabeth Høyer’s face. He hadn’t spoken to her since Anker’s death. She hadn’t said a word to him even at the funeral. From the second they informed her about her husband’s death, she had directed all her reproaches at Carl.

“Did she say anything about me?”

Hardy didn’t answer. He just lay there for a while, slowly blinking his eyes. As if the ships out there had taken him on a long voyage.

“And you still won’t help me die, Carl?” he asked finally. Carl stroked his friend’s cheek. “If only I could, Hardy. But I can’t.”

“Then you have to help me go home. Will you promise me that? I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“What does your wife say, Hardy?”

“She doesn’t know yet, Carl. I just decided.”

Carl pictured Minna Henningsen in his mind. She and Hardy had met when they were both very young. By now their son had moved out, and she still looked young. At this point in her life, she probably had enough to attend to.

“Go and talk to her today, Carl. You’d be doing me an awfully big favor.”

Carl looked at the ships in the distance.

The realities of life would probably make Hardy regret that particular request.

After only a few seconds, Carl could see that he’d been right.

Minna Henningsen opened the door to reveal a group of jovial, laughing women. It was a scene that couldn’t possibly fit in with Hardy’s hopes. Six women wearing colorful outfits and pert hats who were making wild plans for the rest of the day.

“It’s the first of May, Carl. This is what we girls in the club always do today. Don’t you remember?” He nodded to a couple of them as she led him out to the kitchen.

It didn’t take Carl long to explain the situation to her, and ten minutes later he was once again out on the street. She had taken his hand and told him how difficult things were for her, and how much she missed her former life. Then she put her head on his shoulder and cried a bit as she tried to explain why she didn’t have the strength to take care of Hardy.

After she dried her eyes, she’d asked him with a timid smile if he might want to come over and have dinner with her sometime. She needed to talk to somebody, she said, but the intent behind her words was as blatant and direct as could be.

Standing on Strand Boulevard, he took in the noise coming from over in Fælled Park. The festivities were in full swing, so maybe the people were once again waking up.

He considered going over to the park for a while and having a beer, for old times’ sake, but he changed his mind and got back in the car.

If I wasn’t so crazy about Mona Ibsen, that stupid psychologist, and if Minna wasn’t married to my paralyzed friend Hardy, I might take her up on her invitation, he thought to himself. Then his cell phone rang.

It was Assad, and he sounded excited.

“Hey, hey, slow down, Assad. Are you still at work? Tell me again. What is it you’re trying to say?”

“They just called from the National Hospital to talk to the homicide boss. I just found out from Lis. Merete Lynggaard has been brought out of her coma.”

Carl’s eyes slid out of focus. “When did it happen?”

“This morning. I thought you would like to know then.”

Carl thanked him, put down the phone, and stared out at the vitality of the trees towering overhead, their light green, trembling branches flush with spring. Deep down he ought to be happy, but he wasn’t. Merete could wind up a vegetable for the rest of her life. Nothing in this world was straightforward. Not even springtime lasted; that was the most painful thing about reliving it every year. Soon the days will start getting shorter again, he thought, hating himself for his pessimistic outlook.

Once more he glanced over at Fælled Park and the gray colossus of the National Hospital looming in the distance.

Then for the second time he put the parking timer on his dashboard and headed for the park and the hospital. “Restart Denmark” was this year’s May Day slogan. People were sitting on the grass with their bottles of beer as a big screen projected Folketing politician Jytte Andersen’s farewell speech all the way to the Freemason Lodge.

A lot of good that was going to do.

Back when Carl and his friends were young, they had sat here in T-shirts, looking like daddy longlegs. Today the collective corpulence was twenty times greater. Now it was an excessively self-satisfied populace that came out to protest. The government had given them their opium: cheap cigarettes, cheap booze, and all kinds of other shit. If these people sitting on the grass disagreed with the government, the problem was only temporary. Their average lifespan was decreasing fast, and soon there wouldn’t be anybody left to get upset over having to watch healthier people’s sporting feats on Danish TV.

Oh yes, the situation was well under control.

* * *

A pack of journalists was already on the scene in the corridor.

When they saw Carl come out of the elevator, they pushed and shoved at each other to make their questions heard.

“Carl Mørck!” shouted a reporter in front. “What do the doctors say about the brain damage sustained by Merete Lynggaard? Do you know?”

“Has the deputy detective superintendent visited Merete Lynggaard before?” asked another.

“Hey, Mørck! What do you think about the job you did? Are you proud of yourself?”

Carl turned toward the voice and looked right into the red-rimmed piggy eyes of Pelle Hyttested, while the other reporters stared daggers at the man, as if he were unworthy of their profession.

Which he was.

Carl answered a couple of the questions and then turned his attention inward as the pressure in his chest got worse. No one had asked him why he was there. He didn’t even know himself.

Maybe he’d expected to see a bigger group of visitors on the ward, but aside from the nurse from Egely, who was sitting on a chair next to Uffe, there were no faces that he recognized. Merete Lynggaard was good material for the media, but as a human being she was just another patient case file. First, two weeks of intensive care provided by decompression doctors in the pressure chamber, followed by a week in the trauma center. Then intensive care in the neurosurgical department, and now here in the neurology ward. Waking her out of the coma was an experiment, said the ward’s head nurse when he asked. She admitted that she knew who Carl was. He was the one who had found Merete Lynggaard. If he’d been anyone else, she would have thrown him out.