“Hello?” Hanne Moritzen answered at the first ring. She sounded sleepy and distant. When he introduced himself, she went very quiet for a moment.
“Is Asger all right?” she whispered, almost inaudibly. Søren had done this a million times before, so he quickly reassured her.
“I’m not calling about your family.”
He heard her breathe a sigh of relief and gave her two seconds to process the false alarm before saying, “I would very much welcome your help regarding some parasites we’ve found in connection with a death. Yesterday, Bøje Knudsen, the Deputy Medical Examiner, told me no one knows more about parasites than you.”
Professor Moritzen was clearly relieved.
“Is it urgent? I drove up to my cottage late last night, and I wasn’t planning on returning to Copenhagen until Wednesday.”
Søren thought about it, and they agreed he would call her back when he knew more about just how urgent it was. Professor Moritzen wanted to know what questions he might have and Søren concluded the conversation by saying: “I’m afraid I can’t disclose that at this stage, but I’ll obviously explain the circumstances to you, if it turns out we need your expertise. For now, I would like to thank you for your time.”
Søren was about to hang up when Professor Moritzen said, “Does this have anything to do with the death of Lars Helland?”
“You knew Lars Helland?” Søren said before he could stop himself.
“Yes, we both worked at the institute, but in different departments. I’ve just heard what’s happened. I’m very sorry.” She sounded genuinely upset. They ended the conversation.
Søren parked in the basement under Bellahøj police station and was slow-clapped by his colleagues when he arrived for the morning briefing, five minutes late. He summarized Bøje’s unofficial conclusion and saw how nausea colored every face. Søren’s colleague reported on his visit to Helland’s widow and daughter the day before. This had, not surprisingly, been depressing. The daughter, Nanna, had been on her own, and the officer had stayed with her while Mrs. Helland rushed home. The girl had cried her heart out, and her mother sat on the sofa hugging her for a long time before the officer had been able to ask them questions. A family friend was called to comfort the daughter. Mrs. Helland insisted her husband was in great shape. He was a cycle-racing enthusiast, a hobby he had enjoyed for years, and he also played squash and was a runner, but then Mrs. Helland remembered Helland’s father had died from a heart attack at an early age, and soon convinced herself that a similar fate had now robbed her of her husband. At this point, everyone looked at Søren, as though a collective decision had been made that he would be the one to go back to the villa in Herlev and break the news to the widow about Helland’s uninvited guests.
No one touched the pastries, quivering with yellow custard, on the table.
At noon, Søren and Henrik arrived at the Serum Institute. It was yet another trip through a bewildering maze of clinical corridors, and Søren gave up trying to find his bearings. The woman escorting them swept through the building with familiar ease, pressed buttons, turned corners, opened doors, and led them, at last, to a light and pleasant laboratory. A woman rose from one of the microscopes, smiled, and introduced herself as Dr. Bjerregaard. She offered them a seat in a low office at the center of the room.
“I’ve looked at the samples,” she said, once they had sat down. “And there’s no doubt the parasite is an advanced cystic stage of the pork tapeworm, Taenia solium. It takes between seven to nine weeks for a viable cysticercus to grow and, in my opinion, the patient was infected three to four months ago, at the most.” She looked briefly at the two police officers.
“Taenia solium is a member of the phylum Platyhelminthes, or as they’re more commonly known, flatworms. In its adult stage, Taenia solium is a parasite in humans where it feeds on intestinal fluid. Inside the intestines, it deposits proglottids, as they are called, which leave their host through feces. Each proglottid contains approximately forty thousand fertilized eggs. From human feces, the eggs access the secondary host, also known as an intermediate host, which, in the case of Taenia solium, are pigs. Pigs acting as intermediate hosts, by the way, are the primary reason why Taenia solium cysticercosis is mainly found in countries where animals and humans are in close contact, for example, in households in developing countries where people defecate in areas accessible to pigs. We know of hardly any cases in the West, where animals and humans live separately, nor in Muslim or Jewish areas, where pork isn’t consumed.”