“It was terrible that she drowned like that. It must be an awful way to die. My husband almost died in a waterfall in Yugoslavia once, and that was a horrible experience, let me tell you.”
Carl noticed Assad’s confused expression when the man said “my husband,” but a quick glance was enough to wipe the look off his face. Assad obviously still had a lot to learn about the diversity of Danish living arrangements.
“The police collected all the documents belonging to the Lynggaards,” Carl said. “But since then have you found any diaries, letters or faxes, or maybe just some phone messages that might shed new light on the case?”
The man shook his head. “Everything was gone.” He made a sweeping gesture with his arm, taking in the whole living room. “The furniture was still here, but it was nothing special, and there wasn’t much left in the drawers other than office supplies and a few souvenirs. Scrapbooks with stickers, a few photos, and things like that. I think they must have been quite ordinary people.”
“What about the neighbors? Did they know the Lynggaards?”
“Oh, well, we don’t socialize much with the neighbors, and they haven’t lived here very long, anyway. They said something about having come back to Denmark from abroad. But no, I don’t think the Lynggaards spent much time with anyone else in town. A lot of people didn’t even know that she had a brother.”
“So you haven’t run into anyone around here who knew them?”
“Oh, sure. Helle Andersen. She took care of the brother.”
“She is the home help,” Assad said. “The police interviewed her, but she knew nothing. Except that there came a letter. For Merete Lynggaard, that is. It came the day before she drowned. The home help was the one who received it.”
Carl raised his eyebrows. He really needed to read through the damn case documents himself.
“Did the police find the letter, Assad?”
He shook his head.
Carl turned back to their host. “Does this Helle Andersen live near by?”
“No, in Holtug on the other side of Gjorslev. But she’ll actually be here in ten minutes.”
“Here?”
“Yes, my husband is ill.” He looked down at the floor. “Very ill. So she comes over to help out.”
Fortune smiles on the clueless, thought Carl, and then asked if they might have a tour of the house.
It turned out to be an odyssey in quirky furniture and huge gilded frames. The obligatory amassing of things from a life spent working in an auction house. But the kitchen had been completely remodeled; all the walls painted and the floors refinished. If there was anything left from when Merete Lynggaard lived in the house, it could only be the silverfish skittering about on the dark floor of the bathroom.
“That Uffe, he was so sweet.” A stocky face with dark circles under her eyes and ruddy, plump cheeks were Helle Andersen’s trademarks. The rest of her was covered by a light blue smock in a size that was unlikely to be found in the local clothes shop. “It was crazy to think that he would do anything to hurt his sister, and that’s what I told the police. That they couldn’t have been more wrong.”
“But witnesses saw him hit his sister,” said Carl.
“He could get a bit wild at times. But he didn’t mean anything by it.”
“But he’s a big, strong man. Maybe he happened to push her into the water by accident.”
Helle Andersen rolled her eyes. “Impossible. Uffe was the epitome of gentleness. Sometimes he’d get so upset about something that it would make me upset too, but not very often.”
“You cooked for him?”
“I took care of all sorts of things. So that everything would be nice and neat when Merete came home.”
“And you didn’t see her very often?”
“Once in a while.”
“But not on any of the days right before she died?”
“Oh yes. There was one evening when I took care of Uffe. But then he got so upset, like I said before, that I called Merete to say she had to come home. And she did. He was really in a bad way that time.”
“Did anything out of the ordinary happen that evening?”
“Only the fact that Merete didn’t come home at six o’clock like she usually did. Uffe didn’t like that. He couldn’t understand it was something we’d already talked about and arranged.”
“But she was a member of parliament. Surely this must have been a frequent occurrence?”
“No, not really. Only once in a while, if she had to take a trip. And then it was only for a night or two.”
“So she’d been out traveling on that evening?”
At that point Assad shook his head. It was damned annoying, how much he knew.
“No, she’d gone out to eat,” said Helle.
“I see. Who did she eat with? Do you know?”
“No, nobody knows.”
“Is that also in the report, Assad?”
He nodded. “Sos Norup, the new secretary, saw Merete write down the name of the restaurant in her diary. And someone inside the restaurant remembered that he saw her there. Just not with who.”
There was clearly a lot that Carl needed to study in that report.
“What was the name of the restaurant, Assad?”
“I think it was called Cafe Bankerat. Could that be right?”
Carl turned back to the home help. “Do you know if Merete was on a date? Was she out with a boyfriend?”
A dimple an inch deep appeared in the woman’s cheek. “She might have been. But she didn’t say anything about it to me.”
“And she didn’t mention anything when she came home? After you called her, I mean?”
“No, I left. Uffe was so upset.”
They heard a clattering sound, and the present owner of the house came into the room wearing an expression of pathos, as if the tea tray he was carrying contained all the secrets of gastronomy. “Homemade” was his only remark as he placed several cupcakes on silver plates in front of them.
They stirred memories from a lost childhood. Not good memories, but memories all the same.
Their host handed out the cakes, and Assad demonstrated immediately that he appreciated the offering.
“Helle, it says in the report that someone gave you a letter the day before Merete Lynggaard disappeared. Can you describe it in more detail?” Her statement was undoubtedly included in the report, but she was just going to have to repeat what she’d already said.
“It was a yellow envelope, and the paper was almost like parchment.”
“How big was it?”
She showed them with her hands. Apparently an A5.
“Was anything on the envelope? A stamp or a name?”
“No, nothing.”
“So who brought it over? Did you know the person?”
“No, I didn’t. The doorbell rang, and a man was standing outside. He handed me the envelope.”
“That’s a bit strange, don’t you think? Normally letters come with the post.”
She gave him a little, confidential nudge. “We do have a postman. But this was later in the day. It was actually right in the middle of the news on the radio.”
“At noon?”
She nodded. “He just handed me the envelope, and then he left.”
“Didn’t he say anything?”
“Yes, he said that it was for Merete Lynggaard. That was all.”
“Why didn’t he put it in the letter box?”
“I think it was urgent. Maybe he was afraid that she wouldn’t see it as soon as she came home.”
“But Merete must have known who brought the letter. What did she say about it?”
“I don’t know. I had left by the time she came home.”
