Mercy aka The keeper of lost causes

minutes, if I have to. But don’t you think Tage Baggesen would be sorry to hear that your office refused to assist me?”

There was a lot of crackling on the line, but it was still possible to hear that Baggesen’s voice sounded anything but enthusiastic.

“I’ve got some old messages here, and I just need to have an explanation from you,” Carl said, his tone mild. He’d already seen how the guy could react. “It’s nothing special; just a formality.”

“Go ahead.” The sharp tone of voice was clearly trying to distance itself from their conversation three days ago.

Carl read the messages, one after the other. By the time he got to the last one, Baggesen seemed to have stopped breathing on the other end of the line.

“Baggesen?” Carl said. “Are you still there?”

And then he heard only a beeping on the phone.

I hope he doesn’t throw himself into the river now, thought Carl, trying to remember which one ran through Budapest. He took down the piece of paper with the list of suspects and added Tage Baggesen’s initials to item number four: “‘Colleagues’ at Christiansborg.”

He had just put down the phone when it began to ring.

“Beate Lunderskov,” said a woman’s voice. Carl had no idea who she was.

“We’ve examined Merete Lynggaard’s old hard drive, and I’m sorry to say that it has been very efficiently wiped clean.”

Now it dawned on Carl who she was. One of the women from the Democrats’ office.

“But I thought you kept hard drives because you wanted to save the information on them.”

“That’s true, but apparently nobody informed Merete’s secretary, Sos Norup.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, she’s the one who erased it, according to the note printed very neatly on the back. It says: “Formatted on March 20, 2002, Sos Norup.’ I’m holding it in my hand.”

“But that was almost three weeks after Merete disappeared.”

“Yes, so it would appear.”

Damn Borge Bak and his gang. Had they done anything in this investigation by the book?

“Couldn’t we send it in for closer analysis? There must be people who can retrieve erased data that’s been buried deep,” said Carl.

“I think that’s already been done. Just a minute.” He could hear her rummaging around, and then she was back, a note of satisfaction in her voice. “Yes, here’s the report. They tried to reconstitute the data at the Down Under shop on Store Kongensgade in early April 2002. There’s a detailed explanation as to why they weren’t successful. Do you want me to read it to you?”

“That’s not necessary,” he replied. “Sos Norup apparently knew how to make a proper job of it.”

“Apparently. She was a very meticulous sort of person.”

Carl thanked her and hung up.

He sat there staring for a moment before he lit a cigarette. Then he picked up Merete Lynggaard’s worn diary from the desk and opened it with a feeling that bordered on reverence. That was the way he always felt when he had the chance to examine a lifeline to the last days of a murder victim.

Like the notes he’d already seen, the handwriting in the diary was almost illegible and showed signs of great haste. Capital letters written down in a hurry. Ns and Gs that weren’t closed up; words that ran into each other. He started with the meeting with the placenta special-interest group on Wednesday, February 20, 2002. Farther down on the page it said: “Cafe Bankerat 6:30 p.m.” That was all.

On the following days there was hardly a line that wasn’t filled in; quite a hectic schedule, he could see, but no remarks of a personal nature.

As he approached Merete’s last day at work, a feeling of desperation began settling over him. There was absolutely nothing that might give him any leads. Then he turned to the last page. Friday, March 1, 2002. Two committee meetings and another with lobbyists. That was all. Everything else had been lost to the past.

He pushed the book away and looked down at the empty briefcase. Had it really spent five years behind the furnace for no good reason? Then he picked up the diary again and leafed through the rest of the pages. Like most people, Merete Lynggaard had used only the calendar and the phone list in the back.

He began running through the phone numbers from the beginning. He could have skipped to D or H, but he wanted to keep his disappointment at bay. Under A, B, and C he recognized ninety percent of the names. There was little similarity with his own phone book, which was dominated by names like Jesper and Vigga and a sea of people who lived in Ronneholt Park. It was easy to conclude that Merete hadn’t had many personal friends. In fact, none at all. A beautiful woman with a brain-damaged brother and a hell of a lot of work-and that was it. He reached the letter D, knowing that he wouldn’t find Daniel Hale’s phone number there. Merete didn’t list her contacts by their first names, the way Vigga did; different strokes for different folks. Who the hell would look up Sweden’s prime minister under G for Goran? Besides Vigga, that is.

And then he saw it. The moment he turned the page to H, he knew that the whole case had reached a turning point. They’d talked about an accident, they’d talked about suicide, and finally they’d ended up high and dry. Along the way there had been indications that something was odd about the Lynggaard case, but this page in the phone book practically screamed it out loud. The whole appointment diary was filled with hastily jotted notes. Letters and numbers that even his stepson could have written neater, and that told him nothing. There was nothing pretty about her handwriting; it wasn’t at all what might be expected of a rising star like Merete. But nowhere had she changed her mind about what she’d written. Nothing had been corrected or edited. She knew what she wanted to write every time. Carefully considered, unerring. Except here in her phone book under the letter H. Here something was different. Carl couldn’t be certain that it had anything to do with Daniel Hale’s name, but deep inside, where a cop plumbs his last reserves, he knew that he’d hit the bull’s-eye. Merete had crossed out a name with a thick line of ink. It was no longer possible to read, but underneath it had once said “Daniel Hale” and a phone number. He was sure of it.

Carl smiled. So he was going to need the help of the forensic team after all. They’d better do a good job of it, and quickly.

“Assad,” he called. “Come in here.”

For a moment he heard some clattering out in the corridor, and then Assad was standing in the doorway holding a bucket and wearing the green rubber gloves.

“I’ve got a job for you. The tech guys need to find a way to read this number.” He pointed to the crossed-out line. “Lis can tell you what the procedure is. Tell them we need it ASAP.”

Carl knocked cautiously on the door to Jesper’s room, but of course got no response. Not home, as usual, he thought, noting the absence of the hundred and twelve decibels that normally bombarded the door from inside. But it turned out that Carl was mistaken, which became apparent when he opened the door.

The girl whose breasts Jesper was groping under her blouse let out a shriek that pierced right to the bone, and Jesper’s furious expression underscored the gravity of the situation.

“Sorry,” said Carl reluctantly as Jesper got his hands untangled, and the girl’s cheeks turned as red as the background color of the Che Guevara poster hanging on the wall behind them. Carl knew her. She was no more than fourteen, but looked twenty. She lived on Cedervangen. Her mother had probably looked just like her at one time, but over the years had come to the bitter realization that it wasn’t always an advantage to look older than one was.

“What the hell are you doing here, Carl?” shouted Jesper as he jumped up from the sofa bed.

Carl apologized again and mentioned that he had, in fact, knocked on the door, as the generation gap echoed through the house.

“Just go on with… what you were doing. I just have a quick question for you, Jesper. Do you know where you put your old Playmobil toys?”