The Keeper of Lost Causes

Carl raised his hand. “The report says that the collision occurred in the oncoming lane. But it sounds like you’re saying that wasn’t necessarily the case. You think it happened in the middle of the road, and at that spot the oncoming vehicle had nothing to do with it. Am I right?”

Bak took a deep breath. “That’s what I thought for a moment, but then I decided otherwise. But now I can see it might have been a possibility, yes. Something or someone could have come into his lane, so Hale had to swerve, and then an oncoming vehicle rammed into his car at full speed right near the central line. Maybe even deliberately. Maybe we could have found signs of acceleration farther along in the oncoming lane if we’d gone another hundred yards down the road. Perhaps the other vehicle sped up in order to be in the perfect position to ram Hale’s car as he swerved into the center of the road to avoid colliding with someone or something.”

“And if that something was a person who stepped into the lane, and if that person and the individual who ran into Hale were in cahoots, then it’s no longer an accident. It’s homicide. And if that’s true, there’s also reason to believe that Merete Lynggaard’s disappearance was part of the same crime,” concluded Jacobsen, jotting down a few notes.

“It’s possible.” Bak was frowning. He wasn’t feeling very good about things at the moment.

Carl stood up. “There were no witnesses, so we’re not going to find out anything more. Right now we’re looking for the driver of the other vehicle.” He turned to face Bak, who seemed to have shrunk inside his black leather jacket.

“I had a suspicion things might have happened the way you just described, Bak. So I just want you to know that you’ve been a big help, in spite of everything. Be sure to come and see me if you remember anything else, OK?”

Bak nodded. He was looking solemn. This had nothing to do with his personal reputation; it had to do with a professional assignment and resolving it properly. The man deserved some respect for that.

Carl almost felt like giving him a pat on the back.

“I have the good and the bad news after my drive to Stevns, Carl,” said Assad.

Carl sighed. “I don’t care which I hear first, Assad. Just go ahead and fire away.”

Assad perched himself on the edge of Carl’s desk. Before long he’d be sitting on Carl’s lap.

“OK, the bad first.” If it was normal for him to accompany bad news with that kind of smile, then he was really going to split his sides laughing when he delivered the good news.

“The man who drove into Daniel Hale’s car is dead too,” Assad said, clearly eager to see Carl’s reaction. “Lis phoned and said it. I have written it just down here.” He pointed to a number of Arabic symbols that could just as well have meant it was going to snow in the Lofoten Islands in the morning.

Carl didn’t have the energy to react. It was so annoying and so typical. Of course the man was dead. Had he really expected anything else? That he was alive and kicking and would immediately confess that he’d impersonated Hale, murdered Lynggaard, and then killed Hale afterward? Nonsense!

“Lis said that he was a thug from out in the sticks, Carl. She said that he was in prison several times for dumb driving. Do you know what she means by ‘thug’ and ‘sticks’?”

Carl nodded wearily.

“Good,” said Assad, and continued reading aloud from his hieroglyphics. At some point Carl was going to have to suggest that his assistant write his notes in Danish.

“He lived in Sk?vinge in northern Zealand,” he went on. “They found him dead then in his bed with quite a lot of vomit in his windpipe and with an alcohol of at least a thousand. He had also taken pills.”

“I see. When did this happen?”

“Not long after the accident. In the report it says that the whole shit with him came from that.”

“You mean he drank himself to death because of the accident?”

“Yes. Because of post-dramatic stress.”

“It’s called post-traumatic stress, Assad.” Carl drummed his fingers on the desk and closed his eyes. There may have been three people out on the road when the collision took place; if so, it was most likely murder. And if it was murder, then the thug from Sk?vinge really did have something to drink himself to death over. But where was the third person, the man or woman who had waded out in front of Daniel Hale’s car, if that was what actually happened? Had he or she also killed themselves with booze?

“What was the man’s name?”

“Dennis. Dennis Knudsen. He was twenty-seven when he died.”

“Do you have the address where he lived? Are there any relatives? Family members?”

“Yes. He lived with his father and his mother.” Assad smiled. “A lot of twenty-seven-year-olds in Damascus do that too.”

Carl raised his eyebrows. That was as far as Assad’s Middle Eastern experiences came into the discussion at the moment. “You said you also had some good news.”

As predicted, Assad’s smile was so big that it practically split his face open. With pride, one would expect.

“Here,” he said, passing Carl a black plastic bag that he’d set down on the floor.

“OK. And what’s this, Assad? Forty pounds of sesame seeds?”

Carl got up, stuck his hand inside, and instantly touched the handle. Suspecting what it was, shivers ran down his spine as he pulled the object out of the plastic bag.

It was exactly as he thought: a worn briefcase. Just like in Jonas Hess’s photograph, with a big rip not only on the side but also on the top.

“What the hell, Assad!” said Carl, slowly sitting down. “Is her diary inside?” He felt a tingling in his arm when Assad nodded. It felt as if he were holding the Holy Grail.

He stared at the briefcase. Take it easy, Carl told himself, and then opened the locks and flipped up the lid. There they all were. Her time system calendar in brown leather. Her Siemens cell phone and charger, handwritten notes on lined paper, a couple of ballpoint pens, and a packet of Kleenex. It was the Holy Grail.

“How. .?” was all he could muster. And then he wondered whether he ought to give it to forensics first, for a closer examination.

Assad’s voice sounded far away. “First I went to see Helle Andersen. She was not home, but then her husband called her on the phone. He was in bed with a hurt back. When she came, I showed her the picture of Daniel Hale, but him she could not remember having seen before.”

Carl stared at the briefcase and its contents. Patience, he thought. Assad would get to the briefcase eventually.

“Was Uffe there when the man brought the letter? Did you remember to ask her that?” He was trying to keep Assad on track.

Assad nodded. “Yes. She says that he was standing right next to her the whole time. He was very interested. He was always that when the doorbell rang.”

“Did she think the man with the letter looked like Hale?”

Assad wrinkled his nose. A good imitation of Helle Andersen. “Not very much. But a little bit. The man with the letter was maybe not as old as him. His hair was a little darker and a little more masculine. Something about his eyes and so on, but that was all she had to say about it.”

“So then you asked her about the briefcase, right?”

Assad’s smile returned. “Yes. She did not know where it was. She remembered it, but she did not know if Merete Lynggaard brought it home with her on the last night then. Because she was not there — remember?”

“Assad, get to the point. Where did you find it?”

“Next to the furnace in their utility room.”

“You went to the house in Magleby to see the antique dealer?”

He nodded. “Helle Andersen said that Merete Lynggaard did everything every day the same way. She noticed this herself over the years. Always the same way. She threw off her shoes in the utility room, but first she looked always in the window. At Uffe. She took every day right away her clothes off and laid it by the washing machine. Not because it was dirty, but because that was where it just lay. She also always put on a bathrobe. And she and her brother watched the same video films then.”

“And what about the briefcase?”