The Dinosaur Feather

fantastic. He had flawless skin and his dark eyebrows and lashes were exquisitely groomed and beautifully arched. A green stone sparkled in one eyebrow and he wore a St Pauli cap with the famous skull emblem pulled over his ears.
    ‘I ran into Karen a couple of days ago. Imagine meeting you both within the same week, how weird is that? She told me. It sounds really exciting! We talked about getting together.’
    Anna frowned. Get together? Him and Karen? Or did he mean Karen and Anna and him? He didn’t seem angry, not at all. More like exulted, bordering on nervous. She certainly was. Through her clothes, her armpits felt clammy.
    ‘A dinosaur biologist, Anna Bella, you show-off! I always thought you wanted to do something else.’
    Anna wrinkled her nose. ‘Let’s walk,’ she suggested. ‘It’s too cold to stand still.’
    He glanced at his watch, then he nodded. They set off.
    ‘If I were to hazard a guess, I would have said you would become a sergeant in the army or something hardcore, where you could boss a lot of people about,’ he laughed.
    Anna gave him a wounded look.
    ‘Ten years and you’re still full of opinions about things you know shit about.’
    ‘Hey, Anna Bella,’ he said, amicably. ‘Let’s not argue.’
    ‘Why not?’ Anna snapped, taken aback by how quickly her old rage flared up. ‘You’ve always had completely the wrong impression of me!’ They had only been walking for fifty metres and Anna wanted to stamp her feet. Troels seemed unperturbed.
    ‘Why didn’t we keep in touch?’ was all he said. ‘You, me and Karen. You were my best friends, and suddenly you disappeared.’
    ‘No,
you
disappeared,’ Anna protested. ‘It was you who disappeared.’
    It was Troels’s turn to frown. ‘Whatever,’ he then said.
    ‘So, what have you been up to?’ Anna said, changing the subject.
    ‘This and that,’ Troels said, unenthusiastically. ‘Went to Milan first, that was all right. Then I moved to New York. Made some money modelling, but perhaps you already know that?’
    ‘No,’ Anna replied.
    ‘Seriously? And here was I thinking I was famous for my good looks.’ He laughed a hollow laugh. ‘In New York I started to paint. That’s why I’ve moved back to Copenhagen. I applied to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. That’s where Ibumped into Karen, at an open evening. It was unbelievable. We had a beer afterwards and talked about you. Unfortunately I was rejected, but I’ll apply again. Since then we’ve met up a couple of times.’ Troels smiled. ‘In fact, I saw her last Tuesday. We had a burger at a café. Karen wanted me to come with her to your viva. As a surprise. I think she would like us to be friends again.’ Troels temporarily looked shy and they walked on in silence.
    ‘Karen said something about someone on your course dying?’ Troels remarked.
    ‘He wasn’t just anybody, he was my supervisor. Heart attack. He was only fifty-seven,’ Anna muttered. It was none of his business. Cecilie should not have told Karen, and Karen should certainly not have told Troels.
    Troels was quiet for a while, then he said: ‘No, one of your friends. A young guy.’
    Anna stopped in her tracks.
    ‘How do you know?’ she said in a low voice.
    ‘From Karen,’ Troels said, casually. ‘She called late last night,’ he admitted. ‘After you had spoken to her. She suggested that we kiss and make up, as she put it. She said you were upset. Distraught, in fact.’
    Anna stared at him in disbelief. ‘And she called last night to tell you that?’
    ‘Yes,’ Troels said, as if this was quite normal. ‘I’d gone to bed, but I was reading. It was way past midnight. She was worried because you were so distressed. She said you needed help immediately. That you needed your old friends. That your voice had sounded strange.’ Troels smiled gently. ‘It’s uncanny because I’ve wanted to contact you for ages. Forgetwhat happened back then and start over.’ He laughed briefly. Anna eyed him suspiciously.
    ‘So the next day you just happen to bump into me?’ She took a step backwards.
    ‘Okay,’ he confessed, grinning broadly. ‘It’s a fair cop. It’s not a coincidence. I saw you on the bus this morning. I was sitting at the back. You got on at Rantzausgade and got off at Bellahøj. I got off there, too, and I waited outside the police station. I’ve been a chicken. I’ve been back from New York since February, and one of the first things I did was to find