interested in. That’s just how policemen are. We can’t help ourselves. Maybe it’s a disease, but who the hell could we consult to find a cure?”
Maybe now there was a hint of color in the director’s face. “I don’t think we’re going to reach any kind of middle ground here.”
“So why don’t you let me see Uffe Lynggaard? To be perfectly honest, what harm could it do? You haven’t locked him up in a damned cage or anything, have you?”
The pictures in Merete Lynggaard’s case file didn’t do full justice to her brother, Uffe. The police photographs, the sketches from the preliminary examination, and a couple of press photos had all shown a young man with a bowed figure. A pale fellow who looked like what he apparently was: an emotionally retarded, passive, slow- witted person. But reality revealed something different.
Uffe was sitting in a pleasant room with pictures on the wall and a view that was at least as good as the one from the director’s office. His bed had been newly made up, and his shoes were freshly polished. His clothes were clean and had nothing institutional about them. He had strong arms and long blond hair. He was broad-shouldered and presumably quite tall. Many would call him handsome. There was nothing driveling or pathetic about Uffe Lynggaard.
The director and supervisory nurse watched from the doorway as Carl moved about the room, but he wasn’t going to give them any reason to criticize his behavior. He would come back again soon, even though he didn’t really have the energy for it. He’d be better prepared next time, and then he would talk to Uffe. But that could wait for now. In the meantime there was plenty for him to study in Uffe’s room. The picture of his sister, smiling at them. His parents, with their arms around each other as they laughed at the camera. The drawings on the wall, which bore no resemblance to the childish drawings usually found on walls in this type of place. Happy drawings. Not ones that might reveal something about the horrible event that had robbed Uffe of speech.
“Are there more drawings? Are there any in there?” Carl asked, pointing at the wardrobe and dresser.
“No,” replied the nurse. “No, Uffe hasn’t drawn anything since he came here. These drawings are all from his home.”
“So what does Uffe do to keep himself occupied during the day?”
She smiled. “Lots of things. He takes walks with the staff, he goes for a run out in the park. Watches TV. He loves that.” The nurse seemed like a kind person. She was the one Carl would consult next time.
“What does he watch?”
“Whatever’s on.”
“Does he react to the programs?”
“Sometimes. He likes to laugh.” She shook her head with pleasure, smiling even more broadly.
“He laughs?”
“Yes, he laughs like a baby. Not self-conscious at all.”
Carl glanced at the director, standing there like a block of ice, and then at Uffe. Merete’s brother hadn’t taken his eyes off Carl since he entered the room. Carl had noticed that. Uffe was observant, but if you looked at him more closely, you could see that his gaze was not fully conscious. His eyes weren’t dead, but whatever Uffe saw, it apparently didn’t sink in very deep. Carl had an urge to startle him, just to see what would happen, but that too could wait.
He took up position next to the window and tried to catch Uffe’s eye. Uffe clearly took things in but failed to comprehend fully what he saw. There was something there, and yet there wasn’t.
“Move over to the other seat, Assad,” Carl told his assistant, who’d been waiting behind the wheel of the car.
“The other seat? You do not then want me to drive?” he asked.
“I’d like to keep this car a while longer, Assad. It has antilock brakes and power steering, and I’d like it to stay that way.”
“And what does that mean then, that you are saying?”
“That you should sit next to me and pay attention to how I’d like you to drive. If I ever let you drive again, that is.”
Carl keyed in their next destination on the GPS, ignoring the flood of Arabic words issuing from Assad’s mouth as he slunk around the car to the passenger’s side.
“Have you ever driven a car in Denmark?” Carl asked as they were well on their way toward Stevns.
Assad’s silence was answer enough.
They found the house in Magleby on a side road all the way out by the fields. Not a private farm or a restored farmhouse, like most in the area, but a genuine brick house from the period when the facade mirrored the soul of a building. There was a dense grove of yew trees, but still the house loomed over them. If the property had been sold for two million kroner, then somebody had gotten themselves a real bargain. And somebody else had been cheated.
The name on the brass doorplate said: “Antique Dealers” and “Peter & Erling Moller-Hansen.” But the person who opened the door looked more like an aristocrat. Delicate complexion, deep blue eyes, and fragrant lotion generously applied all over.
The man was cooperative and accommodating. He politely took Assad’s cap from him and invited both men into a front hall filled with Empire furniture and other bric-a-brac.
No, they hadn’t known Merete Lynggaard or her brother. Not personally, that is; although most of the Lynggaards’ possessions had come with the house, but they were not of any value.
The man offered Carl and Assad green tea served in paper-thin porcelain cups. He sat on the edge of the sofa with his knees together and his feet splayed out, ready to act the role of the responsible citizen to the best of his abilities.
“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.”
