The Dinosaur Feather

on the door, but there was no reply. He started hammering on it.
    ‘Open the door,’ he commanded.
    There was no sound from inside. Clive went downstairs and watched television. Close to midnight, he fell asleep on the sofa.

CHAPTER 5
     
    She felt unmoved by Professor Helland’s death. Monday evening, as Anna climbed the stairs to her flat, she was ashamed at her reaction. The flat was empty and cold, so she turned up the radiators and closed the door to Lily’s room. She hated Lily not being there, and without a child in the cot the small colourful duvet seemed creepy. She slumped on the sofa where she stayed for a long time, staring into space. At two o’clock she went to bed, but though she was exhausted, she couldn’t fall asleep. She tried thinking about Helland’s wife, who had lost her husband, their daughter, who had lost her father, and about the times Helland had been kind to her. But it was no use. Her heart remained untouched.
    Helland had let her down, indirectly belittling her academic work through his lack of engagement and had, in every respect, been a useless supervisor. For nearly a whole year he had left her floundering. She didn’t care that he was dead, and she almost didn’t care how he had died, either. She tossed and turned, kicking off her duvet. Finally, she got up to go to the lavatory.

     
    After the short preliminary interview, they had been driven to Bellahøj police station in separate cars. Anna with Professor Ewald, Johannes with Professor Jørgensen. Professor Ewald dissolved in floods of tears, her hands were shaking and she kept blowing her nose and fidgeting with a soggy tissue.
    Somewhere along the way, Anna snapped: ‘What are you really crying for? You couldn’t stand Helland.’
    Professor Ewald looked mortified.
    ‘We worked together for twenty-five years. Lars Helland was a good colleague,’ she wailed.
    Anna glared at the window, knowing full well that the two officers in the front were watching everything that was going on in the back. Every word, every breath, every revelation. She was also well aware that she wasn’t coming across as terribly sympathetic.
    At the station they were interviewed again by the World’s Most Irritating Detective. He appeared to have eaten beetroot for lunch; Anna noticed a purple stain at the corner of his mouth when it was her turn. She was asked the same questions as before and she gave the same answers. At one point when she irritably repeated herself and made it clear that she had already answered this question, Søren Marhauge raised his eyebrow a fraction and said: ‘Please understand that we need to do our job properly. An apparently fit and healthy man has been found dead in his office with his tongue bitten off. Imagine he was your husband or your father. I’m sure you would want us to be extra thorough, wouldn’t you?’ His voice was mild but firm and he held her gaze a little too long. Anna looked away. When she had read through and signed her statement, she was free to go.
    It was three o’clock that afternoon when she caught the bus back to the university. She was thinking about Dr Tybjerg. She was due to meet him in an hour. Did he already know what had happened? Anna had no idea how quickly the news would reach the Natural History Museum, but the car park had been teeming with police cars, so it was likely to be soon. Then it struck her that she might be the one who told him. Dr Tybjerg was bound to be deep inside the collection and wouldn’t have spoken to anyone. A strange sense of dread filled her. She turned her head and looked through the glass. The sky was still heavy and grey. Then another thought occurred to her: what if her viva was cancelled? She couldn’t bear to wait any longer. The whole situation was already a nightmare, but if her viva was postponed for weeks, until after Christmas even, she would get seriously depressed and Lily would definitely start calling Cecilie ‘mum’. Last Friday, Anna had handed in four copies of her dissertation; one for Helland, which was now lying, blood-smeared, in a sealed evidence bag somewhere at the police station, one for Dr Tybjerg, one for the unknown external examiner from the University of Århus and one for the University Library for future students to use. Surely the latter copy could be given to Helland’s replacement? Her viva was in two weeks, so someone already familiar with the subject should be able to gain sufficient understanding of the