The Keeper of Lost Causes (27 page)

Hess tried to smile, but acid indigestion prevented it. “There aren’t many who know that,” he said. “And what about her?”

“Do you have any pictures of her that you haven’t published?”

Hess doubled over, trying to suppress a laugh. “Jesus, how can you ask such a stupid question? I’ve got at least ten thousand of them.”

“Ten thousand! That sounds like a lot.”

“Listen here.” He held up his hand with the fingers splayed out. “Two or three rolls of film every other day for two to three years — how many photos would that make?”

“A lot more than ten thousand, I would think.”

After an hour, and helped along by the calories contained in neat whisky, Jonas Hess was finally alert enough that he could lead the way, without staggering, to his darkroom, which was in a little building made of breeze blocks behind the house.

Here things were quite different from inside his house. Carl had been in plenty of darkrooms before, but none as sterile and neat as this one. The difference between the man in the house and the man in the darkroom was unsettling.

Hess pulled out a metal drawer and dived in. “Here,” he said, handing Carl a folder labeled: MERETE LYNGGAARD: NOVEMBER 13, 2001 TO MARCH 1, 2002. “Those are the negatives from the last period.”

Carl opened the folder, starting at the back. Each plastic sleeve contained the negatives from a whole roll of film, but in the last sleeve there were only five shots. The date had been meticulously printed on it: MARCH 1, 2002 ML.

“You took pictures of her the day before she disappeared?”

“Yes. Nothing special. Just a couple of shots in the parliament courtyard. I often stood in the gate, waiting.”

“Waiting for her?”

“Not just for her. For all the Folketing politicians. If you only knew what surprising groupings I’ve seen appear on that stairway. All it takes is waiting, and one day it happens.”

“But there were apparently no surprises that day, as far as I can see.” Carl took the plastic sleeve out of the folder and placed it on the light table. So these pictures were taken on Friday, when Merete Lynggaard was on her way home. The day before she disappeared.

He leaned down to get a closer look at the negatives.

There it was: She had her briefcase under her arm.

Carl shook his head. Incredible. The very first picture he looked at, and he already had something. Here was the proof in black-and-white. Merete had taken the briefcase home with her. An old, worn-out case with a rip on one side and everything.

“Could I borrow this negative?”

The photographer took another gulp of whisky and wiped his mouth. “I never lend out my negatives. I don’t even sell them. But we can make a copy; I’ll just scan it. I assume the quality doesn’t have to be fit for a queen.” He took in a big breath, then hawked a bit as he laughed.

“Thanks, I’d really appreciate a copy. You can send the bill to my department.” Carl handed the man his card.

Hess looked at the negatives. “Yeah, well, that day there wasn’t anything special. But there hardly ever was when it came to Merete Lynggaard. The biggest deal was in the summertime if it got cold and you could see her nipples through her blouse. I got good money for those shots.”

Again there was that hawking laughter as he went over to a small red refrigerator propped up on a couple of containers that had once held darkroom chemicals. He took out a beer, and seemed to offer it to his visitor, but the contents vanished before Carl even had time to react.

“Of course the scoop would be to catch her with a lover, right?” Hess said, looking for something else to toss down his throat. “And I think that’s what I caught on film a few days earlier.”

He slammed the fridge shut and picked up the folder to leaf through it. “Oh yeah, then there are the ones of Merete talking to a couple of members of the Denmark Party outside the Folketing chambers. I’ve even made contact prints of these negatives.” He chuckled. “I didn’t take the pictures because of who she was talking to but because of the woman standing over there, behind them.” He pointed to a person standing close to Merete. “I guess you can’t see it very well when the image is this size, but just take a look when it’s blown up. That’s the new secretary, and she’s totally gaga about Merete Lynggaard.”

Carl leaned closer. It was definitely Søs Norup. But with an entirely different air about her than there had been in her dragon’s lair in Valby.

“I have no idea whether there was anything going on between them, or whether it was just all in the secretary’s imagination. But what the hell! Don’t you think that photo would have brought in a nice sum one day?” Hess mused as he turned the page to the next set of negatives.

“Here it is,” he said, placing a moist finger in the middle of the plastic sleeve. “I remembered it was on the twenty-fifth of February, because that’s my sister’s birthday. I thought I could buy her a nice present if that picture turned out to be a goldmine. Here it is.”

He took out the plastic sleeve and placed it on the light table. “See, that was the shot I was thinking about. She’s talking to some man out on the steps of the parliament building.” Then he pointed at the photo just above it. “Take a look at that picture. I think she looks upset. There’s something in her eyes that shows she’s uncomfortable.” He handed Carl a magnifying glass.

How the hell could anyone see something like that in a negative? Her eyes were nothing but two white dots.

“She noticed me taking pictures, so I split. I don’t think she got a good look at me. Afterward I tried to photograph the man, but the only shot I got was from behind because he left the courtyard in the other direction, toward the bridge. But it was probably just some random guy who tried to accost her as he went by. There’d be plenty of others if they thought they could get away with it.”

“Do you have contact prints of this series too?”

Hess swallowed a couple more acid eruptions, looking as if his throat were on fire. “Prints? I can make you some if you run down to the offlicense and buy me some beer in the meantime.”

Carl nodded. “But first I have a question for you. If you were so obsessed about getting a picture of Merete Lynggaard with a lover, you must have taken photos of her at her house in Stevns. Am I right?”

Hess didn’t look up as he studied the pictures they’d been looking at.

“Of course. I was down there lots of times.”

“So there’s something I don’t understand. You must have seen her with her handicapped brother, Uffe. Yes?”

“Oh sure, plenty of times.” Hess put an
X
on the plastic sleeve next to one of the negatives. “Here’s a really good shot of her and that guy. I can give you a copy. Maybe you’ll know who he is. Then you can tell me, OK?”

Carl nodded again. “But why didn’t you take any good pictures of Merete and Uffe together, so the whole world would know why she was always in such a hurry to get home from Christiansborg?”

“I didn’t do it because a member of my own family is handicapped. My sister.”

“But you take photographs for a living.”

Hess gave him an apathetic look. If Carl didn’t go and get those beers soon, he wasn’t going to get any copies.

“Hey, you know what?” replied the photographer, looking Carl right in the eye. “Just because somebody is a shit, it doesn’t mean he has no integrity. Like yourself, for example.”

Carl walked along the pedestrian street from Allerød Station, noting with annoyance that the street scene was looking more and more miserable. Concrete boxes camouflaged as luxury apartments were already towering over the Kvickly supermarket, and soon even the snug, old, one-story houses on the other side of the road would be gone. What had previously been a picturesque feast for the eyes had now turned into a tunnel of dolled-up concrete. A few years ago he wouldn’t have thought it possible, but now it had reached his own town. Thanks to politicians like Erhard Jakobsen in Bagsværd, Urban Hansen in Copenhagen, and God only knew who in Charlottenlund. Homey, precious townscapes shattered. An abundance of mayors and town councils with no taste. These hideous new buildings were clear proof of that.

The barbecue gang at Carl’s house in Rønneholt Park was in full swing, thanks to the continuing good weather. It was 6:24 p.m. on March 22, 2007—and spring had officially arrived.

In honor of the day, Morten had donned flowing robes that he’d bartered for during a trip to Morocco. Dressed in that outfit, he could have easily started up a new sect in ten seconds flat. “Just in time, Carl,” he said, dumping some spare ribs on to his plate.

His neighbor Sysser Petersen already seemed a bit tipsy, but bore it with dignity. “I just don’t feel like doing this anymore,” she said. “I’m going to sell my dump and move.” She took a big gulp of red wine. “Down at Social Services we spend more time filling out stupid forms than helping citizens. Did you know that, Carl? Let those smug government ministers give it a try. If they had to fill out forms to get their free dinners and free chauffeurs and free rent and their enormous salaries and free junkets and free secretaries and all that other shit, they wouldn’t have any time left for eating or sleeping or driving or anything else. Can’t you just picture it? If the prime minister had to sit down and tick off a list of what he wanted to discuss with his ministers before the meeting even got started? In triplicate, printed out from a computer that only worked every other day. And first he’d have to get it approved by some government official before he was even allowed to speak. It would wear the man out.” And with that, she threw back her head and howled with laughter.

Carl nodded. Soon the discussion would turn to the cultural minister’s right to muzzle the media, or whether there was anyone who remembered the arguments for breaking up the counties of Denmark, or the hospitals or the tax system, for that matter. And the talk wouldn’t end until the last drop had been drunk and the last spare rib sucked clean.

He gave Sysser a little hug, patted Kenn on the shoulder, and took his plate up to his room. They were all more or less in total agreement. More than half of the country wished the prime minister would go to hell, and they would keep wishing the same thing tomorrow and the day after, until finally all the misfortune that he’d brought flooding in over Denmark and its citizens had been rectified.

It would take decades.

But Carl had other things on his mind at the moment.

At three o’clock in the
morning Carl opened his eyes to pitch darkness. In the back of his mind he had a vague memory of red-checked shirts and nail guns and a clear sense that one of the shirts in Sorø did have the right pattern. His pulse was racing and his mood was glum; he was definitely not feeling good. He simply didn’t have the energy to think about the case, but who could stop the nightmares or keep his sheets from getting clammy?

And now he had to deal with that slimy journalist Pelle Hyttested. Was he going to start digging around? Was one of the headlines in the next issue of
Gossip
really going to be about a police detective who had fucked up?

What a mess. Just the thought of it made his abdominal muscles contract so they felt like armor plate for the rest of the night.

“You look tired,” said the homicide chief.

Carl dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand. “Have you told Bak that he needs to be here?”

“He’ll be here in five minutes,” said Marcus, leaning forward. “I noticed that you haven’t signed up for the management course yet. The deadline is coming up soon, you know.”

“I guess I’ll just have to wait until next time, won’t I?”

“You know we have a plan here, don’t you, Carl? When your department starts showing results, it would be only natural that you got help from your former colleagues. But it won’t do any good if you don’t have the authority that the title of police superintendent would give you. You don’t really have a choice, Carl. You
have
to take that course.”

“It won’t make me a better investigator, sitting in a classroom sharpening pencils.”

“You’re the head of a new department here, and the title goes along with the baggage. You’re taking the course — or you’ll have to find somewhere else to do your investigating.”

Carl stared out of the window at the Golden Tower in Tivoli Gardens, which a couple of workmen were making ready for the new season. Four or five times up and down on that monstrous ride and Marcus Jacobsen would be begging him mercy.

“I’ll take that into consideration, Mr. Superintendent.”

The mood was a bit chilly when Børge Bak came in with his black leather jacket draped neatly over his shoulders.

Carl didn’t wait for the homicide chief to initiate the conversation. “So, Bak! That was a hell of a job you lot did on the Lynggaard case. You were up to your necks in signs that everything wasn’t as it should be. Had the whole team caught sleeping sickness, or what?”

Bak’s eyes were like steel, but Carl was damned if he was going to look away.

“So now I want to know if there’s anything else in the case that you’re keeping to yourself,” Carl went on. “Was there someone or something that put the brakes on your excellent investigation, Børge?”

At this point the homicide chief was clearly considering putting on his reading glasses so he could hide behind them, but the scowl on Bak’s face demanded some sort of intervention.

“If we just ignore the last couple of remarks that Carl delivered in his inimitable style”—Marcus raised his eyebrows as he glanced at Carl for a moment—“then it’s easy to understand his point of view, since he’s just discovered that the deceased Daniel Hale was not the man that Merete Lynggaard met at Christiansborg. Which is something that should have been uncovered during the previous investigation. We have to give him that.”