The Dinosaur Feather

entered the living room.
    ‘No, not for me, thank you,’ Anna said, declining an offer of wine. Mrs Helland poured herself a glass and downed two large mouthfuls. Anna wondered how much she had already drunk. Had she been over the limit when she drove? Mrs Helland emptied her glass and refilled it.
    ‘Come on, we’re going upstairs. I’ve something to show you.’
    Anna had hung up her jacket in the hall, but put her mobile, the cable ties and the screwdriver in the back pockets of her jeans. Warily, she followed Mrs Helland up the stairs. There was a powerful scent of flowers and when they passed the bathroom, Mrs Helland pushed open the door.
    ‘I brought some of the flowers home,’ she said in a flat voice. On the bathroom floor stood a large cluster of white plastic buckets with multicoloured bouquets. They continued down the corridor, past a half-open door leading to a teenage bedroom, tasteful and tidy compared to how Anna’s room used to look when she was that age. The bed was covered with an old-fashioned crochet blanket, and next to the bed stood a low make-up table with a round mirror, bottles of perfume and an iPod on charge. The curtains were drawn and the windows glared ominously at Anna.
    ‘Nanna insisted on seeing a friend.’ Birgit raised her arms and let them drop. ‘Life goes on.’
    They had reached the end of the corridor and Birgit opened the door to a surprisingly large room. To the left, a desk was pushed against a bare wall and, to the right, there was a built-in couch with scatter cushions covered in coarse fabric. The end wall was one large window and a magnolia tree, naked in winter, grew outside. On the desk was a computer, which turned out to be on when Mrs Helland nudged the mouse.
    ‘I found something today . . .’ she began. Anna looked at the screen and recognised the logo of an online bank she used herself. Mrs Helland logged on using a pin code she copied from a piece of paper. A screen picture of account activities emerged.
    ‘Look at this,’ Mrs Helland said, pointing to the screen. Anna followed her finger, but found it hard to work out what she was meant to be looking at. The blood roared in her ears.
    ‘What is it?’ she stuttered.
    ‘Payments. Every month during the last three years. I’ve checked our bank statements. Seven thousand kroner per month, money Lars transferred from his private account to an Amager Bank account. And do you know who owns that account?’
    Anna shook her head.
    ‘Erik Tybjerg.’
    They both fell silent.
    ‘So what does it mean?’ Anna asked, slowly.
    ‘No idea. But we’re talking about a quarter of a million kroner.’ Birgit let the amount linger in the air. Anna swallowed. Her brain was annoyingly sluggish.
    ‘And you knew nothing about this until today?’
    ‘No. The money came from Lars’s private account. I found the pin code in his desk drawer, and I logged on to see how much money he had left. Nanna got worried today and asked if we could afford to stay in the house and I wanted to know where we stood. When I had accessed the account and found the transfers to Tybjerg, I went through the whole of Lars’s office systematically. Every drawer, every cupboard.’ Mrs Helland had been bending over the computer, now she straightened up and looked at Anna. The tears started rolling down her cheeks.
    ‘You were right,’ she whispered. ‘Lars was ill. Much more than I could have imagined in my worst nightmares.’
    ‘What did you find?’ Anna dreaded the answer.
    ‘A bag filled with blood-soaked tissues.’
    ‘What?’ Anna thought she must have misheard. Mrs Helland went over to the couch, pulled out a drawer and retrieved a plastic bag. It was stuffed full, but seemed light, precisely as if it really was full of tissues. Blood-soaked tissues. Fear started spreading through Anna’s body.
    ‘I found another bag. Behind this one.’ She swallowed. ‘Full of support aids. Support bandages, a neck brace.’ She gave Anna a look of despair. ‘And a teething ring, the kind you give to babies, with deep teeth marks. The police had told me he was covered in bruises, like after a fall. Old injuries. That he must have fallen, that he had fractures to several of his fingers and toes – they even found two healed cuts to his scalp, which weren’t sutured though they ought to have been. I had dismissed what they said, you know, because they suspected me. The police always leave something out and they always say things which