The Dinosaur Feather(45)

“Does that mean,” Søren said kindly, “Professor Helland was involved in rejecting both your PhD applications?”

“Yes,” Johannes said, calmly. “It does.”

Søren left, a touch perplexed. Johannes was clearly upset about Helland’s death and hunted high and low for a logical explanation; he had accidentally implicated his colleague, Anna Bella Nor, but then had gone on to defend her, as though it was Søren and not Johannes himself who had made the insinuation. Just as well this was a straightforward case, Søren thought, it saved him from having to dig more deeply to find out what Johannes Trøjborg had actually meant.


Anna Bella Nor’s turn was next. They met in the small library, and she sat with her back to him, but turned around warily when he approached. She had short, brown hair, an oval face, and a slender, yet strong body, he thought. There was something sullen about her movements, as though she minded being here very much. Her eyebrows and lashes were dense and black. Her eyes were indescribable; at first sight they seemed muddy, but when she said something with emphasis, they shone golden. To his surprise, the pace of the interview was sluggish—it was clearly a matter of great inconvenience to Anna Bella Nor that Professor Helland had died. She came across as angry and fraught, and at one point she said outright: “My dissertation defense is in two weeks. This really is very bad timing, to put it mildly.”

Søren asked about her relationship with Helland and learned that Helland was slightly better than useless, and Anna had even considered making a formal complaint about him to the Faculty Council. He also learned that Helland had upset everyone, including Johannes, though Johannes wouldn’t admit it.

“Johannes is a friend,” she interjected, and narrowed her eyes, “but he’s horrible at reading people. He’s just too nice, and he has convinced himself it’s his mission on earth to excuse every single reprehensible act. Johannes can always find a reason, and do you know something?” Anna gave Søren a hard stare. “Sometimes even the best explanation isn’t a justification. Professor Helland didn’t care about me at all, and that’s a fact.”

She went on to tell him that Professor Ewald and Professor Jørgensen hadn’t been huge fans of Professor Helland either, and, as far as Anna could see, with good reason. Helland had managed to get himself a seat on every single academic and administrative committee there was, and was consequently responsible for myriad things that affected the daily running of the department. Anna refused to specify what they were: “Trust me, they’ll bore you to death, seriously.”

What Anna was at pains to point out was that Helland had twice removed the electric kettle, which she and Johannes had bought and kept in their study, and taken it to his office without asking. At this point, Søren’s fingers had begun to itch with irritation, and he told Anna to leave out irrelevant information, whereupon Anna looked straight at him and said: “You want to know about Helland’s relationship with his colleagues at the institute? How better to describe the climate that surrounded him than by explaining what a petty, self-important, emotionally stunted fascist he really was?”

Søren was genuinely impressed at how swiftly Anna could weld so many words into such a hard-hitting sentence.

The next thing he wanted to know was if Helland had seemed all right lately.

Anna replied: “I tended to avoid him, but he was always quite odd. The strangest thing recently was his eye. Whatever it was, it was bad.”

She had first seen it in the early summer and thought little of it, but recently she had noticed that the growth had . . .

“Bigger isn’t the right word,” she said. “But it grew more visible, as though it was changing character and hardening.” She fell abruptly silent.

Søren thanked her and asked her to remain at the department from where she would be driven to the police station. Anna demanded to know why and looked most unhappy when Søren explained it was procedure. When he left and closed the door between them, he could feel himself sweating.


The two professors were next on his list. They were speaking quietly in Professor Ewald’s office and exuded an atmosphere of profound trust. When Søren knocked, they both rose and asked him to take a seat in a stylish, but rather uncomfortable chair with a metal back and a thin seat pad. Professor Jørgensen was the doyen of the department and had, Søren quickly realized, partly retired, but was still working on a range of research projects.

At first glance, Professor Ewald came across as the most normal of the four biologists. She was petite, but she had the edge over the rest of them—expensive, well-fitting clothes, a good haircut, modern glasses, and discreet makeup. At second glance, however, he realized that she was fundamentally a worrier. While they spoke, Søren unobtrusively checked out her airy office where every surface was covered with biological specimens. Her subject was invertebrates, she told Søren, and when he looked baffled, she said: “Animals with no spine,” and gestured in a way Søren took to indicate that the numerous animals decorating her shelves and window sills were all such unfortunate creatures.