“I heard about his tongue,” he said finally, and pointed to his own. “The tongue is a mucus-covered muscle, found only in vertebrates. Its upper surface is covered with papillae, of which four different types exist. The filiform papillae, the foliate, the circumvallate, and the fungiform. . . .” He stared into space. “Why was his tongue severed? I don’t understand. There’s something fishy about this, there’s more to it.” He paused and looked straight at Anna.
“Mold is a furry layer found on items such as food, and it occurs when the relevant surface is infected with, for example, Mucor, Rhizopus, or Absidia, not that I’m a mold expert.” Baffled, he shook his head and let himself flop onto a chair. Anna pulled up a chair for herself and sat down opposite him. She was on her guard.
“I’m not really sure where you’re going with this . . .” she began.
“He’s here,” Dr. Tybjerg said.
“Who?”
“Freeman.”
“What makes you think that?”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Tybjerg shook his head in disbelief. “There’s a bird symposium this weekend and Freeman is one of the speakers. He’s giving a so-called ‘cultural contribution,’ it says on the Internet—that’s their way of saying that, scientifically speaking, his contribution is hogwash. And yet, he’ll be speaking. For an entire hour. On utterly ridiculous subjects, which he’s spoken on twenty times before. It’s just a cover, that’s what it is.”
“What for?”
“I don’t know how he did it, Anna.” Dr. Tybjerg suddenly looked very worried. “But Freeman must have found out about your dissertation. That we intend to annihilate him once and for all. Helland and I have spent the last ten years deconstructing Freeman’s scientific credibility, and we’re slowly getting there. He’s cornered now and—”
“Clive Freeman is an old man,” Anna protested.
“He attacked me,” Tybjerg whispered. “Two years ago. In Toronto. He was wearing a ring and he hit me with it, on purpose.” Tybjerg touched his eyebrow, where Anna remembered he had a thin, white scar. She was taken aback.
“Didn’t you report him?” she asked, horrified.
“And he sent threatening e-mails to Helland,” Tybjerg said. “Helland treated it as one big joke, ‘ha-ha, hilarious, don’t you think,’ he would say to me. He just laughed it off, but I saw things differently. I’m the only one of us who has actually met Freeman. Helland always sent me. I’ve debated with him before, but the last time . . .” Tybjerg gulped. “His eyes.”
“What about them?” Anna said.
“They were filled with hate.”
Anna sighed.
“So you’re saying Freeman is using the bird symposium as his excuse to go to Denmark and murder Lars Helland?”
“Yes.”
“And that you’ll be next?”
“Yes.” Tybjerg swallowed a second time.
“I hope you realize just how insane that sounds.”
Tybjerg’s face shut down and Anna instantly regretted her words.
“And what about me?” Anna forced Dr. Tybjerg to look her in the eye.
“I don’t know,” he whispered. “He must have found out we’re about to deal him the fatal blow. I don’t know if he’s made the link to you.” Tybjerg gave Anna a wretched look. “But I think you need to be careful.”
“You’re wrong,” Anna said, lightly.
“Possibly, but I’m not taking any chances.”
“But you’re wrong.”
Tybjerg focused on the darkness. He was in a world of his own.
“Helland died because his body was riddled with parasites,” Anna said and waited for his reaction. Tybjerg continued to stare into space until, slowly, he turned to her.
“I don’t understand.”
“His tissue was full of Taenia solium cysticerci. Thousands of them; several were found in his brain and that’s why his heart failed. The police are currently trying to establish whether the infection was the result of a crime. But whether or not it was deliberate, it couldn’t have been Freeman. The infection had reached an advanced stage. The cysticerci were three to four months old. Big ones.” Anna straightened her back. “So unless you think Freeman came here in the summer to infect Helland, then it couldn’t have been him.”
Tybjerg looked confused.
“I know this from Professor Moritzen and Superintendent Søren Marhauge. By the way, Marhauge is looking for you,” she added.
“Leave now,” Tybjerg suddenly urged her.