The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen Read Free Book Online Page A

House. Now the space held a desk and chair, a broom cupboard, and all the fluorescent tubes that Carl had thrown out of his own office. Marcus Jacobsen had taken Carl’s request literally and hired a man to do the cleaning and any other necessary tasks, but Marcus required that his assistant clean the rest of the basement as well. This was something Carl was going to get changed at some later date, which Jacobsen was no doubt expecting. It was all part of a tug of war to decide who was going to handle what — and, more specifically, when it would all get done. No matter how one looked at it, it was Carl who was sitting in the dark depths of the basement while the others were upstairs with a view of Tivoli. There needed to be a series of trade-offs, in order to strike a balance.
     
     
     
    At one o’clock in the afternoon that day, two secretaries from Admin finally arrived with the case files. They told Carl they contained only the general documents, and if he wanted more extensive background materials, he’d have to send in a requisition form. At least now he had two people from his old department that he could consult. Or at least one of the secretaries: Lis, a warm, fair-haired woman with provocative, slightly overlapping front teeth. With her he would have liked to exchange much more than ideas.
    He asked the secretaries to set their stacks of folders on either end of the desk. “Do I happen to see a twinkle in your eye, or do you always look so fantastic, Lis?” he asked the blonde.
    The brunette gave her colleague a look that could have made even Einstein feel like a fool. It had probably been a long time since she herself had been the recipient of such a remark.
    “Carl, dear,” said the fair-haired Lis, as she always did. “The twinkle in my eye is reserved for my husband and children. When are you going to accept that?”
    “I’ll accept it the day the light vanishes and eternal darkness swallows me up along with the rest of the earth,” he replied, not exactly understating his case.
    Even before the two secretaries had turned down the corridor and headed for the stairs, the brunette was voicing her indignation.
     
    For the first couple of hours Carl didn’t even glance at the case files. But he did muster the energy to count the folders; that was a form of work, after all. There were at least forty, but he didn’t open any of them. Plenty of time for that. At least another twenty years before retirement, he figured, as he played a couple more games of Spider Solitaire. If he won the next game, he’d consider taking a look at the pile of folders on his right.
    After he made his way through at least two dozen games, his cell phone rang. He looked at the display but didn’t recognize the number: 3545-and-something. It was a Copenhagen number.
    “Yeah,” he said, expecting to hear Vigga’s overwrought voice. She was always able to find some sympathetic soul to lend her a cell phone. “Get your own phone, Mum!” Jesper was always saying. “It’s fucking annoying that I have to call your neighbors to get hold of you.”
    “Yes, hello,” said the voice, and it sounded nothing like Vigga. “This is Birte Martinsen. I’m a psychologist at the Clinic for Spinal Cord Injuries. I’m just ringing to inform you that when one of the assistant nurses gave Hardy Henningsen some water this morning, he tried to suck it down into his lungs. He’s OK, but very depressed, and he’s been asking for you. Could you possibly come and visit? I think it would help him.”
     
    Carl was allowed to be alone in the room with Hardy, even though the psychologist clearly would have liked to listen in on their conversation.
    “So, did you just get sick and tired of it all, old boy?” he said, taking Hardy’s hand. There was a tremor of life in it. Carl had noticed that before. Right now the tips of his middle and index fingers curled slightly, as if they wanted to beckon Carl closer.
    “What is it, Hardy?” he