The Dinosaur Feather(67)

“Dr. Tybjerg, my dissertation defense is in twelve days, even if we have to hold it down here! I have to do it. Did the office forward my dissertation to you? I handed in three copies last Friday. Have they given you one?”

Tybjerg nodded.

“Have you read it?”

“You need to go now,” Tybjerg said.

“Yes, I do,” Anna said, but she waited. “Perhaps we could leave together?” she suggested.

“No, I’ve a few things to do,” he mumbled. “Just go without me.”

Anna shrugged.

“Okay, bye,” she said. She started walking down the aisle, turned around and said, “See you, Dr. Tybjerg.”

Tybjerg didn’t reply, but turned his back to her. Anna pretended to leave, but slipped back inside and closed the door. She stood very still. Her sneakers were still on the floor where she had left them. She could hear Tybjerg mutter to himself. Anna tiptoed back to the light. Rather than retrace her original route, she walked two aisles further along. Then she peeked around the corner. Tybjerg had opened one of the cabinets and was struggling to pull something out. It was a thin mattress, which he rolled out on the floor. Then he undressed, took out a sleeping bag, climbed into it, and made himself comfortable on the mattress. He started reading a journal and munching an apple. Anna watched him for a little while, then she slipped silently out of the collection and started her run home.


It was 10:15 p.m. when she came down Jagtvejen, and though her speed was good, she was cold in her running clothes. She would defend her dissertation in less than two weeks, she had yet to prepare the one-hour lecture that would precede it, and she still had plenty of revision to do if she was to have a hope of answering the questions that would follow. When she had met with Dr. Tybjerg, she had intended to tell the police where he was the next day. Smoke him out, force him to examine her. Now she was having second thoughts. Tybjerg was clearly terrified and beyond rational argument. What if he had a breakdown? She had already lost one supervisor, and the last thing she needed was for Tybjerg to be out of action. She sped up as if she could run off her frustration.

Anna let herself into the communal stairwell and heard a door open upstairs. The timed light went out and Anna felt a pang of guilt. A run shouldn’t last nearly two hours, not even with the bogus excuse of picking up a book. She reached out to turn on the light, but it came on before she touched the switch. She leaned forward and looked up the stairwell. A cold, defensive shiver ran through her.

Lene’s face appeared in the gap between the banisters, looking down.

“Any problems?” Anna said, shamefaced, taking several steps at a time. Her downstairs neighbor was holding the baby monitor in one hand and Anna’s key in the other.

“Who was that?” Lene asked. The light went out and Anna turned it on again.

“Who?” Anna was confused.

“That guy.”

Anna looked perplexed.

“Didn’t you pass a guy on his way down? He’s just left.”

Anna squinted.

“I didn’t see anyone. I’ve been out running.” Anna was still confused.

“There was a guy here just now,” Lene persisted. “The baby monitor bleeped, and I went upstairs to check that everything was okay. He was sitting on the stairs by your landing. He was waiting for you, he said, and that was fine by me. I said you would be back shortly. Lily was sleeping when I went inside, so I don’t know what set off the monitor. I put her comforter back and was going to call you to find out when you were coming back because we wanted to go to bed. I’d left your front door open, but when I was about to leave, the guy had made himself comfortable on your sofa, and I wasn’t happy about that. I tried calling you to find out if it was okay.”

Anna fished out her cell from her running jacket. Three missed calls.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It was on silent.”

“Because I couldn’t get hold of you, I asked him to wait outside. I explained you had gone running and he would just have to wait on the landing. I’ve never seen him before; I couldn’t just leave him in your apartment when you hadn’t mentioned anything about visitors, could I?”

Anna shook her head.

“I wasn’t expecting anyone,” she managed to say. She felt cold all over.

“But you must have seen him,” Lene insisted. “He only just left.”

“I didn’t see anyone,” Anna said. “Could it have been Johannes, my colleague from the Institute of Biology? Did he have red hair?”

“He wore a cap. And a long coat,” Lene said. “I think he removed his cap when he sat down in your living room, but I don’t know if his hair was red. More brown, I think. I’m not sure.”