The Dinosaur Feather

Americana
, picked up the box, retrieved the master key from her running pants and opened the double doors leading to the Vertebrate Collection. The sweet smell of preserved animals and boiled bones enveloped her immediately, and she breathed through her mouth. The doors closed behind her with a deep, soft sigh.
    Only the night light was on, so Dr Tybjerg couldn’t possibly be inside. He would have needed more light to work. Anna was just about to leave when she heard a rustle. The sound was coming from the right-hand side of the room. The blood started racing through her veins.
    She heard another noise. It was a sniffle, followed by the long, slow groan of rusty hinges, then feet, shuffling across the room. Anna kicked off her trainers without making a sound. The labyrinthine rows of cupboards were to her left and, in only four steps, they would conceal her.
    At that moment, someone switched on a study light in the far end of the room and a soft, honeyed glow spread to Anna. Then she heard Dr Tybjerg.
    ‘Ah, well,’ he sighed. He whistled briefly, there was the sound of another hinged lid squeaking. Anna coughed. Tybjerg instantly fell silent and turned off the light. She heard footsteps, and again the creaking sound of a hinged lid. She frowned.
    ‘Dr Tybjerg,’ she called out, tentatively. ‘It’s me, Anna Bella.’
    There was a five second pause, then another creak, after which the lamp was turned on again. Anna walked towards the light and Dr Tybjerg walked towards the sound. They didn’t follow the same path, so when Anna turned a corner and could see the desk with the lamp, Dr Tybjerg wasn’t there. Suddenly, he appeared right behind her. She spun around and took a step backwards.
    ‘Anna,’ he said, sounding fraught. ‘You came after all.’ He stepped past her. Anna tried to understand why on earth Tybjerg was here. There was no obvious sign of collection boxes, bones, a notepad or a magnifying glass.
    ‘What are you doing?’ Anna said, gently putting down the box of
Rhea Americana
on one of the desks. Dr Tybjerg stared at his hands.
    ‘Researching,’ he said.
    ‘In the dark?’
    Dr Tybjerg’s face looked sly and the faint smell of stress from this morning was now mixed with an unmistakable note of stale sweat. He kept looking at his hands. Anna turned on the lamps on the adjacent desks.
    ‘All right, Dr Tybjerg,’ she demanded. ‘What’s going on?’
    Tybjerg didn’t speak for a long time.
    ‘Anna, I’m scared,’ he said at last, glancing up at her. His eyes were dark.
    ‘What are you scared of?’ Anna asked.
    ‘Helland’s dead,’ Tybjerg whispered.
    ‘Yes, Helland had a heart attack. It happens and it’s not infectious.’ Anna tried to gauge if he knew more. Tybjerg looked at her for a long time, as though he was trying to pull himself together.
    ‘I heard about his tongue,’ he said finally, and pointed to his own. ‘The tongue is a mucus-covered muscle, found only in vertebrates. Its upper surface is covered with papillae, of which four different types exist. The filiform papillae, the foliate, the circumvallate and the fungiform . . .’ He stared into space. ‘Why was his tongue severed? I don’t understand. There’s something fishy about this, there’s more to it.’ He paused and looked straight at Anna.
    ‘Mould is a furry layer found on items such as food and it occurs when the relevant surface is infected with, for example,
Mucor
,
Rhizopus
or
Absidia
, not that I’m a mould expert.’ Baffled, he shook his head and let himself flop on to a chair. Anna pulled up a chair for herself and sat down opposite him. She was on her guard.
    ‘I’m not really sure where you’re going with this . . .’ she began.
    ‘He’s here,’ Dr Tybjerg said.
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Freeman.’
    ‘What makes you think that?’
    ‘You don’t get it, do you?’ Tybjerg shook his head in disbelief. ‘There’s a bird symposium this weekend and Freeman is one of the speakers. He’s giving a so-called “cultural contribution”, it says on the Internet – that’s their way of saying that scientifically speaking, his contribution is hogwash. And yet, he’ll be speaking. For a whole hour. On utterly ridiculous subjects, which he’s spoken on twenty times before. It’s just a cover, that’s what it is.’
    ‘What for?’
    ‘I don’t know how he did it, Anna.’ Dr Tybjerg suddenlylooked very worried. ‘But Freeman must have found out about your dissertation. That we intend