The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen

organized and comprehensive file that Carl had ever seen. It included copies of everything from reports on the health of the brother, Uffe, to transcripts of police interviews, clippings from the tabloids and gossip columns, a couple of videotapes of interviews with Merete Lynggaard, and detailed transcripts of statements from colleagues as well as from passengers on the boat who had seen the brother and sister together on the sun deck. There were photos showing the deck and the railing and the distance down to the water. There were fingerprint analyses taken from the spot where she disappeared. There were addresses of countless passengers who had taken pictures on board the Scandline ferry. There was even a copy of the ship’s log, which revealed how the captain had responded to the whole incident. But there was nothing that could give Carl a real lead.
    I need to watch the videotapes, he thought after reading through the material. He cast a defeated look at the DVD player.
    “I’ve got a job for you, Assad,” he said when the man returned with a steaming cup of coffee. “Go up to the homicide division on the third floor, through the green doors and over to the red hallway until you come to a bulge where—”
    Assad handed Carl the coffee mug, the smell of which from a distance already hinted at likely stomach troubles. “A bulge?” he said with wrinkled brow.
    “Yes, you know, where the red hallway gets wider. Go over to the blonde woman. Her name is Lis. She’s OK. Tell her that you need a videotape player for Carl Mørck. We’re good friends, she and I.” He winked at Assad, who winked back.
    “But if the dark-haired one is the only one there, just forget about it and come back.”
    Assad nodded.
    “And remember to bring back an adapter,” he called after Assad as he ambled down the fluorescent-lit basement corridor.
     
    “It was the dark-haired who just was up there,” said Assad when he returned. “She gave me two video machines and said they do not want them back.” He smiled broadly. “She was also beautiful.”
    Carl shook his head. There must have been a change in personnel.
    The first video was from a TV news program that was broadcast on December 21, 2001, in which Merete Lynggaard commented on an informal health and climate conference she had attended in London. The interview dealt primarily with her discussions with a senator named Bruce Jansen regarding the American attitude toward the work of WHO and the Kyoto Protocol, which in Merete’s opinion warranted great optimism for the future. I wonder if she’s easy to fool, thought Carl. But aside from a certain naïveté, which was no doubt attributable to her age, Merete Lynggaard seemed otherwise level-headed, professional, and precise. She outshone by far the newly appointed interior and health minister, who was standing next to her, looking like a parody of a high-school teacher in a film from the sixties.
    “A really elegant and pretty lady,” remarked Assad from the doorway.
    The second video was from February 20, 2002. Talking on behalf of her party’s environmental spokesperson, Merete Lynggaard offered comments on the conceited environmental skeptic Bjarke Ørnfelt’s report to the Committee Pertaining to Scientific Deception.
    What a name to give to a committee, thought Carl. To think that anything in Denmark could sound so Kafkaesque.
    This time it was an entirely different Merete Lynggaard who appeared on the screen. More real, less of a politician.
    “She is really, really so beautiful there,” said Assad.
    Carl glanced at him. Apparently a woman’s appearance was a particularly valuable factor in his assistant’s worldview. But Carl agreed with him. There was a special aura about Merete during that interview. She exhibited a surplus of that incredibly strong appeal that almost all women are capable of emanating whenever things are going especially well for them. Very telling, but also confusing.
    “Was she pregnant