The Dinosaur Feather

didn’t close it behind him. His footsteps echoed down the stairs, then he was gone.
    Karen sent Anna an outraged look and said: ‘What you just did, Anna Bella, was frigging unnecessary.’
    That was ten years ago.

CHAPTER 6
     
    As Søren began to think about leaving the office on Monday 8 October, he was firmly of the opinion that Professor Helland’s death would be classed as one of Mother Nature’s enigmatic early recalls, and decided to wrap up the case as quickly as possible. Lars Helland had dropped dead – that was all there was to it. Hearts stopped beating in Denmark every day; even in people who, like Professor Helland, cycled twenty-five kilometres to and from work, and never smoked or drank. Admittedly, the severed tongue was a bit out of the ordinary, even to Søren, but it was a relatively common occurrence for people to sustain serious injuries in the process of dying. Søren had seen broken necks, smashed teeth and skulls, burns, shattered bones and skewered torsos, inflicted by everything from barbecues and radiator valves to lawnmowers and cast iron fences. Helland must have suffered convulsions of some sort and bitten off his own tongue before he died.
    Convinced that the case would soon be closed, Søren had started his preliminary interviews at the university. The first person on his list was the rather strange-looking and practically transparent biologist, Johannes Trøjborg, who hadreported the death. He had been in the department because he was co-writing a paper with Professor Helland. He was hoping to get his PhD application approved, even though the PhD and Human Resources Committee had already turned his application down – twice. Søren had met many oddballs in his time, people whose head and body decorations were so extreme that you could barely make out the naked person underneath them. Johannes, however, was one of the most peculiar creatures Søren had ever seen. His transparency reminded Søren of those little white creatures you find under paving stones. Johannes’s hands were long, slender and silken, his skin stretched tight and pale across his face and he stooped. Only his ginger hair and intelligent eyes contradicted Søren’s impression of being in the presence of something stale and musty.
    Johannes appeared to have nothing but positive things to say about Helland, and only when Søren held a gun to his head – metaphorically speaking, of course – did he reluctantly agree that Helland’s behaviour had recently been unfocused and distracted. But then again, he quickly added, Anna wasn’t the easiest person in the world to get on with, either. Søren failed to see the relevance and Johannes spluttered as he explained that Anna and he had differed wildly in their opinions on Helland’s qualities, both as a human being and as a supervisor, a topic they had discussed several times over the summer. Johannes paused, then he blurted out that Anna had, in fact, been toying with the idea of playing pranks on Helland. Pranks? Søren gave Johannes a baffled look. What did he mean? Johannes blinked as though he had said too much. Nothing, it was just . . . He looked away. Anna wasangry with Helland, he admitted at last. She felt he had let her down. She had a young child to look after, so she was already under pressure, and she had grown disproportionately mad at Helland in a way that Johannes didn’t like. They had argued about it. Søren listened.
    All of a sudden, Johannes asked Søren if he was aware that someone had made threats against Helland. He mentioned it casually, his tone bordering on flippancy, but then rushed to make it clear that Helland himself had laughed and declared the threats to be pranks. Johannes didn’t know the nature of them, he only knew Helland’s interpretation, which was that someone at the university bore a grudge and had decided to send him some nasty e-mails. Søren wanted to know if Johannes suspected the sender might be Anna Bella Nor. Johannes dismissed it instantly. Of course not! It would never cross Anna’s mind. Professor Helland was a member of several committees and his administrative influence was considerable; he knew that he was an obvious target for people’s dissatisfaction. He was on the PhD and Human Resources Committee – to name but one – Johannes explained, and was thus in a position to decide the future academic careers of several biologists.
    Søren nodded slowly, thanked him and had just closed the door behind