The Dinosaur Feather

When Søren knocked, they both rose and asked him to take a seat in a stylish, but rather uncomfortable chair with a metal back and a thin seat pad. Professor Jørgensen was the doyen of the department and had, Søren quickly realised, partly retired, but was still working on a range of research projects.
    At first glance, Professor Ewald came across as the most normal of the four biologists. She was petite, but she had the edge over the rest of them – expensive, well-fitting clothes, a good haircut, modern glasses and discreet make-up. At second glance, however, he realised that she was fundamentally a worrier. While they spoke, Søren unobtrusively checked out her airy office where every surface was covered with biological specimens. Her subject was invertebrates, shetold Søren, and when he looked baffled, she said: ‘Animals with no spine,’ and gestured in a way Søren took to indicate that the numerous animals decorating her shelves and window sills were all such unfortunate creatures.
    The professors were terribly upset. Professor Ewald admitted openly that she was plagued by horrible guilt, and Professor Jørgensen nodded in agreement: they had both loathed Helland. Unequivocally. Helland and Ewald had worked in the department for over twenty-five years, Jørgensen even longer, and when they looked back at their careers, the only fly in the ointment had been Helland. He had poisoned the working environment and prevented joint and targeted research by constantly looking after number one. Further, he was a member of several administrative committees and Professor Ewald and Professor Jørgensen strongly agreed this was the equivalent of giving a baby a razor for a dummy. Helland had no administrative skills whatsoever, and yet he got himself elected chair of several university bodies, with chaotic consequences for the department every single time. Once, for example, Helland forgot the submission date for joint grant applications, despite the fact that he had been reminded of the approaching deadline on an almost daily basis in the preceding six months. The department had been forced to survive a whole term on the remains of the previous year’s grants, students had to pay for photocopied hand-outs, the annual field trip was cancelled and they had been forced to use faulty microscopes.
    Two years ago, Helland had been elected head of the department, which meant he was given overall responsibility for the two units which made up the Department of Cell Biologyand Comparative Zoology, and in those two years he had practically brought the department to its knees. Helland’s incredibly poor performance and his cavalier treatment of students as well as budgets had sparked huge friction, especially between Jørgensen, Ewald and Helland, but also between Helland and several of the cell biologists who worked on the floor above. The corridors had frequently echoed with rows, and Professor Ewald said she had come close to resigning on numerous occasions. Unfortunately, having tenure as a scientist at the Faculty of Natural Science was a dream job and she knew she would never get another post like it. Then there was the responsibility towards the students. Morphology was a popular subject and she felt duty-bound to educate new morphologists – a task that fell almost exclusively to her because Helland quite simply didn’t appear to share her sense of duty, even though teaching was a compulsory part of their employment contract with the university.
    Søren failed to understand the latter; as far as he had been informed, the department had only two postgraduates, Anna Bella Nor and Johannes Trøjborg, and surely Helland was supervising both of them?
    ‘Yes . . .’ Professor Ewald hesitated. ‘But they are his only postgraduate students in the last
ten
years. During the same period, Professor Jørgensen and I have supervised at least forty postgraduates, of which the vast majority finished their PhDs long ago and are now in full-time employment. Those students are our
only
hope, and even though it’s undeniably tough to teach undergraduates, supervise postgraduates, and deliver new ground-breaking research which maintains our international reputation as a nation of scientists, you haveto take your job seriously, not only as an employee of the Faculty of Natural Science, but also as a human being.’ Professor Ewald’s eyes were fiery.
    ‘The truth is, we were both surprised. At Johannes and Anna. Pleasantly