The Dinosaur Feather (36 page)

“No,” he snapped.

“No what?” Søren asked.

“Don’t you dare come in here telling me you promise to share all your little secrets with me from now on. I’ve had enough.” Henrik banged his fist on the desk. “You and I are supposed to interview a suspect together, but do you know what I am? Window-dressing. You just do whatever the hell you like. You tackle one of your own team and dribble the ball across the pitch like a maniac, that’s what you’re doing.” Henrik stabbed his finger at Søren. He was livid.

“Your private life is one thing,” Henrik went on. “And perhaps we’re not as close as I thought we were. When push comes to shove, it doesn’t seem to mean anything that we’ve known each other since we were twenty. Perhaps you’re right only to let me in on major developments. Perhaps that’s just the way you are. Hermetically sealed, though we all can see that you’re up shit’s creek.”

“You’ve got secrets, too,” Søren said with clenched teeth. Henrik looked surprised.

“I’ve no secrets from you, Søren. But you’re right, it’s been a long time since I told you anything, and do you want to know why? To test you, to see if you would even notice, and do you know something? You’ve acted like it suited you just fine that I clammed up as well. And I’m cool with that. If you want us to work together like two fucking oysters, then we will. We were on the job yesterday. There was no way I could tell you that . . .”

“What?” Søren could feel his throat tighten.

“I’m having an affair, all right?” he hissed. “It’s been going on for five weeks. It’s a shit thing. I don’t want to leave Jeanette, but I don’t want to talk about it right now, okay?” Henrik threw a glance in the direction of the open door.

“For five weeks?”

“Yes. It’s a girl from my gym,” he continued. “Her name’s Line. It just happened.” Henrik looked out of the window. Søren closed his eyes for a moment.

“Anyway, we were talking about you,” Henrik continued. “Not me. You pretend everything’s hunky-dory, but we all know it’s just a front. Everyone knows that your sudden absence almost three years ago had fuck all to do with burning out. It wasn’t the job, no way. Something happened that Christmas. I know it. But like I said, it’s your life and if you don’t want to tell anyone, that’s your choice.” He looked up at Søren and his eyes turned frosty. “But when you’re at work, it’s another matter. No one keeps secrets here, and do you know why? Because we’re a team.”

“I’m your governor, Henrik,” Søren protested.

“I don’t care if you’re the prime minister,” Henrik roared. “You can build walls between you and the rest of the world on your own time. When you’re at work, you’re part of a team. I’ve put up with it for years. You act like Sherlock Holmes, and I’m that clown, Watson, staring gormlessly at the great detective while he sits in his bay window, playing his violin, high as a kite, incapable of sharing his ideas and thoughts with those closest to him.”

Søren said nothing. He wanted to defend himself, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. What was there to defend?

“And it hits me twice as hard because I also happen to be your friend,” Henrik said, very subdued all of a sudden. “You’ve shut me out of your private life and your work. As if you don’t need me but would rather do everything on your own. And I don’t believe you can do everything alone, not for a second.” He fell silent, just like in the car the other day, as if he had run out of steam. He started fidgeting with his key ring. Søren closed the door to Henrik’s office. It was now or never.

“Henrik . . .” he began.

Henrik looked up.

“Almost three years ago . . .” Søren swallowed.

It took him ten minutes to tell Henrik the story. He told it staccato. Henrik’s face changed from blotchy red to chalk white. Søren didn’t know what to do with his hands when he had finished. Henrik got up and hugged him.

“Christ almighty, dude,” he said in a thick voice. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

And Søren had no idea why.

Just before 5 p.m. Søren and Henrik visited Stella Marie Frederiksen in Elmegade. She opened the door wearing a rust-colored sweatsuit and slippers shaped like bear paws. Her thick black hair had neon pink extensions. She looked obligingly at the two men and didn’t seem particularly surprised at being visited by the police. She offered them coffee. It wasn’t until she realized why they had come that she went pale. She had been under the impression they were there in connection with her ex-husband, she stuttered. She had gotten a restraining order against him, and a police car had been outside her house for the last three weeks because her husband was wanted by the police.

Yes, she knew Johannes well.

“Is he dead?” she whispered, lifting a small child from the floor and hugging her. The child had burning black eyes underneath thick eyelashes, and Søren instinctively wanted to reach for her.

But before he could answer she said, “Hold on a moment, please, I’ll just put on a DVD, all right? This is too much for little ears.”

When she had settled her child, they sat down in the kitchen and Søren let Henrik begin. The last time Stella Marie had seen Johannes was at the Red Mask’s September event. The atmosphere at their parties was usually great, but that Friday really had been something special and it was mostly thanks to Johannes. He tended to wear quite restrained outfits and drink beers with his friends, but every now and then he went to town and would arrive dressed up to the nines and set the place on fire. Besides, there had been a goth concert in Horsens so the Red Mask had been relatively quiet that night. Around a hundred people had been present, Stella Marie estimated, and it resulted in an airy and pleasant feel.

“Johannes stood in the corner.” She narrowed her eyes as she retraced the events in her mind. “To the right of the bar, where people tend to congregate. He wore leather, skirt or pants, and some sort of corset under a black string vest, hey, hang on . . .” She rocked back on her chair and woke up her computer.

“I’ve got lots of pictures from that night.”

Before Søren could say they had access to photos from the Red Mask website, Stella Marie had opened a file and started a slide show. Black-clad goths of all shapes and sizes emerged. Some pulled faces and showed their pierced tongues, others had been captured just enjoying themselves, beers half-raised toward lips painted black or in a fit of laughter that caused heavily made-up eyes to squint. Søren instantly recognized Johannes.

“There he is,” Stella Marie said.

“Do you know the person standing next to him?” Søren asked. Stella Marie and Henrik peered at the screen.

“Is anyone standing next to him?” Henrik asked.

Søren pointed to something black flanking Johannes. What he was pointing to wasn’t necessarily a person, but it might be. A part of someone’s back, or thigh, something dark, certainly, brushing against Johannes’s leg. The fabric seemed to be ribbed, and Søren had to concede it might be part of the background.

“We have different seating areas in the bar, crates and old chairs we cover with black cloth to create an impression of total darkness. It might be a table next to him.” Stella Marie shrugged. “I don’t remember exactly who he spoke to,” she added. “I think he spoke to everyone. Like I said, he was on a roll.”

“Does the name YourGuy mean anything to you?” Søren asked.

“No,” Stella Marie shook her head. “But it’s standard to use alibis on our scene. It’s part of the game.”

“What’s yours?” Henrik wanted to know.

“Surprise,” Stella Marie replied.

“I would like a copy of your mailing list,” he said. For a moment, Stella Marie looked doubtful.

“All right, I don’t suppose that’s a problem,” she muttered eventually, returned to her computer, opened a file and pressed print. They sat in silence and Søren studied a shocking pink hair extension that stopped halfway down Stella Marie’s back. When she turned around, she hesitated before she said: “Actually, there was one thing about that night that puzzled me.” She looked tentatively at Søren. “There was a guy I had never seen before. . . . And he really stood out. It’s probably not important, but I’ll tell you anyway.”

“Can we flip through the photos again,” Henrik interrupted her, “and you can point him out to us?”

“I was just coming to that.” She suddenly looked shy. “This guy was absolutely stunning, he had auburn hair, but not dyed like Johannes’s or a lot of other goths, it was genuine. And he was tall. When I saw him, I got the feeling I had seen him somewhere before. I noticed him when he arrived. He was alone, and I’ve no idea if he knew anyone. Later, I saw him by the bar. He was by himself, but it was obvious that people were staring at him. The women circled him like sharks. I started taking pictures for the Red Mask homepage, and I thought it was a good excuse to chat with him. At that point, he was on the right-hand side of the bar where later I saw Johannes entertain the masses.” She smiled. “But when I tried taking his photo, he wouldn’t allow it . . .”

“Wouldn’t allow you to photograph him?”

“No, he put his hand on my camera and pushed it down. He wasn’t aggressive or anything, he just didn’t want his picture taken, and I respected that, of course. When I had uploaded the pictures to the computer, I went through them to see if I had accidentally caught him in one of the other photos. I was curious. But he wasn’t there. Like I said, I took around two hundred and fifty pictures, we were around one hundred guests, so in theory each guest should appear two and a half times, but not this guy. It was as if he hadn’t even been there. But several of my friends had noticed him. He was gorgeous,” Stella Marie emphasized.

“Can you describe him, please? What was he wearing?” Søren asked, his pulse quickening. A man with auburn hair had been waiting for Anna.

“He wasn’t in costume. But that’s normal. There’s always a crowd that shows up in regular clothes, people wear what they feel like. So I can’t really remember. Black clothes, I think.” She shrugged. “And like I said, I had a funny feeling of having seen him before. I thought about it the next day, but since then . . . well, I’ve got a lot on my plate.” She nodded in the direction of the little girl who was watching cartoons. “But he might come next time, who knows? Why don’t you join us, you’re both more than welcome.” Stella Marie’s eyes moved teasingly from Søren to Henrik.

“By the way, do you know when the funeral is?” she added. “I’d like to attend. I know plenty of others who would want to go too. It’s tragic that Johannes has died.” A vertical furrow appeared on her forehead. “We’re really going to miss him.”

“Check with the family,” Søren said abruptly. “Johannes’s mother is still alive, so you should contact her.”

“Ah, Johannes’s mother,” Stella Marie exclaimed. “I heard Johannes came from a rich family, but he had turned his back on it. Susanne Winther told me when she was going out with him. And one day, while I was cleaning up after a Red Mask party, a delivery guy came in with two sofas, would you believe it? I was convinced it had to be a mistake, but the guy insisted. Two sofas from Kampe Furniture to be delivered to Stella Marie Frederiksen. Sponsorship. At that point I didn’t know Johannes’s family owned Kampe Furniture, but Susanne told me. I didn’t get a chance to tell Johannes until our next party, and he nearly had a heart attack when he heard it. We never found out how his mother knew about the Red Mask, and I don’t think Johannes ever asked her. But that night he kept saying, ‘My mom loves me!’ He was ecstatic! He made us all laugh because it was so touching.”

“What happened to those sofas?” Henrik asked.

“They’re in our van with the rest of our gear. The bar, the lights, and so on. They’re ultra cool. Black leather, obviously. We don’t really do chintz.” She laughed.

Once again Søren had the feeling that a minute twist to the kaleidoscope had resulted in a completely different picture.

When they were back in the car, Henrik said: “Are you absolutely sure you can trust Susanne Winther?”

“Yes,” Søren said.

“Would a repressed and downtrodden housewife send two sofas?”

“Perhaps it’s not that straightforward, Henrik. There might be a positive side to Johannes’s mother. Things aren’t always black and white.”

Henrik was driving. Søren buried his face in his hands.

“Hey, are you okay?” Henrik said. His anger seemed to have evaporated.

“Do you know what my life has been like?”

“Er, no.”

“Things were just as they looked. A led to B, B led to C, D, and E.”

“Right, and that’s not how it is?”

“No,” Søren said. “Sometimes you’ve got no idea how your life ended up the way it did, there’s only the end product, E, and the starting point, A, and the rest is unknown. The path between the two points is lost.”

“Søren,” Henrik said gently. “I don’t follow.”

“That’s how I operate,” Søren carried on regardless. “I need to be able to retrace my steps and understand what happened. I want life to be like that!” He slammed his hand on the glove compartment. “But sometimes it isn’t, is it? And do you know what that means?” Søren didn’t wait for Henrik’s reply. “It means not everything is what it seems. Many things are. But not all.”

“I still don’t follow,” Henrik said, amicably.

“It’s okay,” Søren said. “I just need to change my life.”

“You need to talk to someone about . . . about Maja,” Henrik said out of the blue. “You really do.”

Søren nodded. They drove on in silence.

“My parents died when I was five years old,” Søren said suddenly.

“I know. You grew up with Knud and Elvira. I knew that.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Søren clutched his forehead. “I’m all over the place right now. I really am.”

“You need to talk to someone about Maja,” Henrik repeated. “If it had happened to my daughters, Christ, I couldn’t have sat here today, no way—”

“Do you think it was enough?” Søren interrupted him.

“What do you mean?”

“My parents dying. When I was five. Unexpectedly. Do you think that’s enough to traumatize a child?”

“It depends on the circumstances.” Henrik sounded confused.

“And that’s precisely what I don’t understand,” Søren said in a hoarse voice. “Of course, losing your parents is tragic. But for God’s sake, I can’t even remember them. And Knud and Elvira loved me. I couldn’t have had better parents or a better upbringing and I’m not just saying that.” He looked out of the side window. “And yet it’s as if something inside me is all crumpled up. Completely tangled. I’m scared.”