The Dinosaur Feather

Chapter 3

It was early Monday morning, October 8. Søren Marhauge was driving to Copenhagen, his car right behind a red Honda. He was Denmark’s youngest police superintendent, based at Copenhagen’s Police Department A, Station 3 in Bellahøj. It was well known that Søren had risen quickly through the ranks because he could “knit backward” as he called it. He possessed an extraordinary eye for the true nature of things, and many of the most spectacular conclusions reached in Department A had been achieved by Søren. At the age of thirty he had been promoted to superintendent. That was seven years ago.

Søren was in a hurry, so he overtook the Honda. He was late because he had stopped in Vangede to have breakfast with Vibe. Vibe and Søren had dated for seventeen years, but three years ago they’d split up. They had lived together in Nørrebro in Copenhagen, but Søren now lived in a house in Humlebæk, north of the city. Vibe had since married and lived with her husband in a house by Nymosen in the suburb of Vangede.

When they were still a couple, Vibe and Søren had done everything together. Picked strawberries, taken the train together all through Europe, traveled to India, shared student housing, and opened a totally unnecessary joint bank account. They had even worn matching rings. In those seventeen years it had never once crossed Søren’s mind that Vibe might not be the right girl for him. Vibe was his girl. The end. They had met at a high school dance, their teenage romance continued into adulthood, and no one ever questioned it, least of all Søren.

Then one morning Vibe woke up wanting to have a baby. Having children wasn’t something they had ever really discussed, and when Vibe first brought it up Søren didn’t take much notice. But the genie was out of the bottle. Vibe’s biological clock had started ticking and soon the putative child became a sore point. Søren didn’t want children. He explained why: he had no parental urges at all. He thought that in itself was a good enough reason. Vibe began screaming at him. Vibe, who had been good-natured and sweet all through their time together, refused to accept his ridiculous position: there are two of us in this relationship, she argued. Søren tried to explain again. Needless to say, he only made matters worse. He went for a walk to think it through. He felt no desire to be a father, but why? For the first time since meeting Vibe, he wondered whether it was because he didn’t love her enough. That evening—without screaming—she made the very same point: if she wanted a child so badly and he wouldn’t give it to her, then it was because he didn’t love her. I do love you, Søren protested, desperately. But you don’t love me enough, Vibe had replied. She had her back to him and was taking off her earrings while Søren thought about what she had said. Slowly, she turned around. Your hesitation says it all, she declared, I think we should split up. Her eyes were challenging him.

Obviously they weren’t going to split up. Vibe was his best friend, his closest and most trusted ally. She knew Elvira and Knud, she knew why he had grown up with his grandparents; she was family and he loved her. Søren hugged her tightly that night and they agreed to give it some time or, more accurately, they agreed that if Søren didn’t change his mind very soon, he would have to go.

Søren was born in Viborg in Jutland. For the first five years of his life he lived with his parents. His maternal grandparents, Knud and Elvira, lived nearby in his mother’s childhood home which lay outside a small village, on a hill, with a garden that sloped steeply down behind the house. The lawn was impossible to mow, and the long tangled grass offered numerous places to hide. Søren had hardly any memories of his earliest childhood, but he remembered Knud and Elvira’s red house vividly, probably because it was there that Knud had told him his parents had been killed in a car crash. Knud and Elvira had been looking after him that weekend; Søren’s parents had borrowed their car and driven off on an adventure. He remembered being told at the far end of the garden one summer’s evening with Spif, the dog, standing next to him, barking. The next childhood memory he could clearly recall was their move to Copenhagen, to the house in Snerlevej. Knud and Elvira were teachers and both got jobs at the nearby public school, which Søren also attended. Søren lived in Snerlevej for the rest of his childhood. Far, far away from the red house.

Søren and Vibe had been together for almost six months when Vibe figured out that a generation was missing between Søren and the couple she—up until that moment—had assumed to be his parents. It hit to her one summer’s day when Søren was in the kitchen making iced tea. Elvira had already gone outside; they could hear her spreading a cloth over the garden table and insects buzzing in the uncut grass. While Søren mixed the tea in a pitcher, Vibe studied the wedding photograph of Søren’s parents that was standing on the sideboard in the dining room. Suddenly a dark cloud of wonder spread across her face, and she scrutinized the photograph as if seeing it properly for the very first time. She looked as if she wanted to say something, but then thought better of it.

Later, they were lying on Søren’s bed listening to records.

“Who were the people in the photograph?” Vibe asked, at last. Søren turned over and folded his hands behind his head.

“My parents,” he said. Vibe was silent for a moment, then she jerked upright.

“But they can’t be,” she burst out.

“Why not?” Søren looked at her.

“Well, because you can’t change your eye color, and in that picture, Knud has brown eyes and…” she frowned. “And now they’re blue. Your parents have blue eyes.” She looked at Søren. “And yours are brown,” she whispered.

Søren rolled over, rested his elbows on the mattress, and cradled his chin in his hands. It would only take a minute to fetch the dusty box from the attic and show it to Vibe. After all, it was no secret that Elvira and Knud were his grandparents, though they never talked about it. It was just the way it was.

“Knud and Elvira are my grandparents,” he said. “My parents died when I was five years old. In a car crash. The photograph on the sideboard is of them. My parents on their wedding day. Their names were Peter and Kristine.”

Vibe lay very still.

It was Jacob Madsen’s father, Herman, who inspired Søren to become a policeman. Jacob also lived in Snerlevej, and he and Søren were friends. Herman Madsen was a sergeant in the CID, and Søren looked up to him. Jacob had an older sister and a mother who worked part time in a library. His family was different than Søren’s. Jacob’s parents weren’t hippies. Not that Elvira and Knud were—not proper hippies anyway—but their left-wing politics regularly created mayhem in the living room, where meetings were held and banners painted. They frequently protested against nuclear power, and though Søren was proud of his grandparents, he always enjoyed walking down the road and into the haven of peace that was Jacob’s house. Jacob’s father would come home from work and make himself comfortable in his winged armchair with the newspaper, Jacob would lie on his bed reading comics, and Jacob’s mother would be in the kitchen making mashed potatoes or hamburgers. At Søren’s they ate oddly concocted casseroles, salads topped with chopped up leftovers, and a lot of oatmeal.

When dinner was ready at Jacob’s house, his mother would strike a small gong and everyone would gather. When Jacob’s father joined them, the children would go very quiet. Sometimes, but not always, he would tell them the stories they were so desperate to hear. They knew from experience that if they pestered him before they had eaten, he would usually remain silent; however, if they were good and only said “pass the salt please,” and let Jacob’s father eat some of his dinner in peace, he would open up.

“Herman, not while we’re at the table,” Jacob’s mother would sigh.

The children waited with bated breath until Herman started telling them about murdered women, kidnapped children, hidden bodies, and vindictive ex-husbands. The two boys, especially, were riveted once Herman got into his stride. At some point he started giving the boys murder mysteries to solve, and Søren got so excited about going to Jacob’s house that Elvira, rather anxiously, asked if it really was all right with the Madsens that Søren ate with them three times a week. Oh, yes, Søren had replied. It became a kind of real-life game of Clue where Herman knew who the killer was, where the murder had been committed, what the motive was, and which murder weapon was used, but it was up to the boys to come up with a plausible scenario. Herman taught them how to think, and Søren displayed considerable aptitude. Though he was only twelve years old, he could spot connections and produce explanations that, at times, were really quite far-fetched, but that to both Søren’s and Herman’s surprise—and to Jacob’s irritation—often turned out to be correct. Søren had no idea how he did it. It was as if he visualized a network of paths through which he could, quite literally, trace the solution to the mystery. He could keep track of everyone involved in the case, even though Herman would frequently throw in some red herrings to confuse the boys. In addition, Søren was a skilled bluffer with the ability to ask seemingly innocent questions, only to suddenly come up with the answer to the whole mystery.

When Jacob went off to boarding school, Søren felt awkward going to his house. Besides, he had started high school and met Vibe, and the riddle-solving faded into the background, except on Sundays when Herman washed the family’s Peugeot on the driveway. Søren would swing by for an update on the week’s events at the police station, and Herman would always have a mystery for him to crack. It wasn’t until Søren was an adult that he started questioning just how much of what Herman had told them had actually been true. After all, he must have had a duty of confidentiality.

At eighteen Søren left home and got his own place in Copenhagen. One day, a year later, when he returned home for a dinner with Elvira and Knud, a moving van was parked outside Jacob’s house, but there was no one around apart from four moving men carrying boxes and furniture. The next time Søren visited his grandparents, two unknown children were playing on Jacob’s old front lawn. Søren watched them and made up his mind to become a policeman.

Søren quickly became the family’s official detective, charged with finding lost items such as reading glasses, user manuals, and tax returns. He asked a lot questions, and nine times out of ten he would locate the missing object. Knud’s reading glasses lay on top of his shoes in the hall where he had bent down to scratch his ankle, the user manual for the coffee maker was in the trunk of the car, on top of a box of telephone books for recycling, and the tax return was found in the ashes in the fireplace because Elvira, in a moment’s distraction, had scrunched it up and thrown it there.

“How do you do it?” Vibe asked one evening when Søren, after a most unusual interrogation, reached the conclusion that her calculator had accidentally ended up in the garbage can in between some old magazines. He even offered to go downstairs to check—there was a chance that the trash might not have been collected yet. Five minutes later, he presented Vibe with her calculator.

“I knit backward,” Søren began. Vibe waited for him to continue.

“When you solve a mystery,” Søren explained, “you should never accept the first and most obvious explanation that presents itself. If you do that, it’s just guessing. You’ll automatically assume that the man with blood on his hands is the murderer and the woman with the gambling debt is the grifter. Sometimes that’s the way it is, but not always. When you knit backward, you don’t guess.”

Vibe nodded.

In December 2003 Vibe attended a course in Barcelona with her business partner, and Søren was home alone. While she was gone, he caught himself enjoying the solitude. Vibe had started to look at him with deeply wounded eyes, and Søren had felt guilty for weeks. The whole point was that he did not want to betray her. In her absence he went to work, organized old photographs, watched The Usual Suspects, which held no interest for Vibe, and read Calvin and Hobbes while sitting on the toilet. At the end of the week he played squash with his friend and colleague, Henrik.

At first glance, Henrik was the ultimate cliché. He pumped iron, had a crazy number of tattoos (including a prohibited one on his neck, which had nearly cost him entry to the police academy), and his hair was never more than a few millimeters long. A small, aggressive mustache grew on his upper lip; Søren thought it looked ridiculous. While still a recruit, Henrik had married Jeanette and they had two daughters in quick succession. The girls were older now, teenagers, and Henrik was forever moaning how there was no room for him in their apartment because of all their girly stuff, clothes, shoes, and handbags, and when they go to school, he ranted, they look like bloody hookers, the sort we keep arresting in Vesterbro, and Jeanette just tells me to shut up, it’s the fashion, she says, what’s that all about? And Jeanette had started going to yoga all the time and he wasn’t getting any, what the hell was that all about, no, he missed the good old days, when he was single, blah-blah-blah. His bark was infinitely worse than his bite. Søren knew perfectly well that Henrik loved his wife and daughters and would do anything for them.

Søren hadn’t mentioned to Henrik that he and Vibe were going through a rough patch and whenever Henrik tried to pry with his what’s up, you getting any these days? he deflected him. His private life was nobody’s business. Nor had he told Henrik he was home alone, but when they were cooling off in the locker room after their squash game, Søren blurted out that Vibe had gone to Barcelona. He could have kicked himself. Henrik lit up like a Christmas tree; the two of them were going to hit the town. He called Jeanette from the locker room, and Søren could hear an argument erupt—something to do with their younger daughter—and quietly hoped this would lead to their night out being canceled. But Henrik stood his ground. Bitch, he said, as he hung up, she can go to her power yoga some other fucking time. Time for them to have some beers.

“I don’t know,” Søren said, pulling his sweater over his head. “I was just going to get a pizza and watch a DVD at home. I’m bushed.”

“You’re a boring old fart, that’s what you are,” Henrik scoffed.

Søren said nothing.

They found a small bar in Vesterbro and got drunk. Henrik grew increasingly raucous, and Søren was desperate to leave when Henrik struck up a conversation with two women at the table next to them. One was called Katrine, she was from Århus, but had lived in Copenhagen for a few years while she was training to be a teacher; her course would finish just after Christmas. She was very dark, like a gypsy, even though she spoke with a strong Jutland accent. What did Søren do for a living? They got talking and, at Henrik’s suggestion, they pushed their tables together. Later they went on to a club that Søren had never been to before. He felt strangely animated, oblivious. It was wonderful. His old life seemed so far away.

At two o’clock in the morning he decided to call it a night and went to find a cab. Katrine wanted to share it. She lived on H. C. Ørstedsvej and could be dropped off on the way. Afterward, Søren could barely remember how they had started kissing. It was so random. When the cab stopped outside Katrine’s block, she invited him in. He nodded and paid the cab fare.

Katrine lived in a two-bedroom attic apartment with coconut mats, plants, and lots of books. She went to brush her teeth and he could have left then, but he stayed, flipping through a book with photographs of churches. She even unloaded her washing machine and hung her clothes out to dry on a rack in the living room, as though she was deliberately giving him a chance to reconsider. He told her about Vibe. His girlfriend, who was in Barcelona on business. Katrine just smiled and said Barcelona was great. He stayed. They made love, and it was wonderful. Different, because she wasn’t Vibe. Søren had been unfaithful to Vibe a couple of times at the beginning of their relationship, but that was years ago. Katrine felt and tasted different.

He stayed the night. The next morning Katrine got up and made toast and coffee for them. It was nice. They didn’t exchange telephone numbers, and Søren went home.

Later that afternoon Søren was racked with remorse, the strength of which he hadn’t believed possible. He took a shower, but it was no good. Henrik telephoned and behaved intolerably. She was hot, wasn’t she, eh? Had he done something about it? Of course he hadn’t. Søren pretended to be offended and ended the conversation. Vibe would be back in three days, and during those three days Søren forced himself to think about having children. His guilt had nothing to do with Katrine; he had already forgotten all about her. He had slept with her because he was stressed about Vibe and the baby business. He had tried to relieve his frustration by doing something completely unacceptable and outrageous. He didn’t want to be that guy. Suddenly it was clear to him: he either had to get Vibe pregnant or he had to let her go so she could have children with someone else.

When Vibe came home, she was happy and relaxed. Søren wondered if she, too, had been unfaithful. In the days that followed, they appeared to benefit from their break. Vibe’s eyes no longer held that hurt expression, and she seemed so absorbed by work that she was far too tired to think about having a baby and their relationship. They spent a lovely Christmas with Knud and Elvira, they cuddled in front of the fireplace and exchanged presents; on New Year’s Eve they hugged each other for a long time when the clock struck twelve. Neither of them spoke, but it felt like a commitment. Søren woke up on the first of January believing the crisis had passed.

Then one evening, completely out of the blue, Vibe said that they had to talk about it. Barcelona had been amazing, inspirational, and when she came back, her work had meant as much to her as in the old days when she had worked late practically every night. But since they had completed their latest project, her life had become humdrum.

“And I can still feel it,” she said, quietly. “I want to have a baby. My body wants to have a baby. I can’t help it.”

Søren sat down in the sofa and put his arms around her.

“Perhaps it’s time for us to go our separate ways,” he said. The tears started rolling down Vibe’s cheeks.

“So you still don’t want to? Never, under any circumstances?” she asked.

“No.”

Shortly afterward Vibe went to bed. She didn’t kiss him goodnight, she just closed the door to the bedroom. Søren stayed behind feeling like a total dick. He didn’t want to have children. The feeling couldn’t be mistaken, but neither could he fathom what lay behind it. Was it about Vibe? Did he want children with another woman, but not with her? No, he didn’t. So what was it all about? He grabbed a beer from the fridge and turned the TV volume to mute. The world was a dangerous place, that was why. Children might die, children did die, he thought, angrily. It wasn’t all romantic, as Vibe imagined. Children were born only to end up in the morgue; young girls, half-naked, bruised, battered, and dead. Teenage boys high on designer drugs, beaten to a pulp by each other, or smashed up in cars or motorbikes driven by their drunk friends. Søren had accompanied countless parents to the morgue. He didn’t want children. When he had finished his beer, his sadness overwhelmed him. They would have to break up, so Vibe could have her child with another man.

They decided to tell Knud and Elvira together the following Friday. It was a Tuesday and Søren was dreading the moment because Vibe was like a daughter to the old couple. He was convinced they wouldn’t accept the reason for the breakup as they had both hinted, repeatedly, that they would like some great-grandchildren soon. Vibe slept on the sofa the whole week, even though Søren offered her their bed. She didn’t want it. She was fine sleeping in the living room, she said.

That Friday, Søren picked Vibe up from work. They drove to Snerlevej and parked in front of the house. Søren loved to go back to his old home. He loved opening the door with the key he had been given when he turned ten and started making his own way to and from school, he loved the smell in the hall, a mixture of what was cooking in the kitchen and damp coats, boots, shoes, and old wool. There was always a bottle of red wine waiting on the radiator when Vibe and Søren came to visit, always delicious food and warmth, and after dinner they would play Trivial Pursuit, the men against the women. But that evening when Søren unlocked the door, something was clearly very wrong. Vibe followed behind him. They had hugged each other briefly on the garden path, and Søren had asked if she was sure.

“I’m sure I want a child,” she had replied, and looked away. They went inside the house. Søren called out. The hall was cold, there was no smell of food or wine, and the hall light, which was always on when his grandparents were expecting guests, was off. They hung up their coats and exchanged baffled looks before Søren opened the door to the living room. Knud and Elvira were huddled together. Elvira was crying. She was sitting on Knud’s lap, her head resting on his shoulder. Knud had both his arms around her. They stayed like this, even though Vibe and Søren had now entered.

“What’s happened?” Søren exclaimed. Elvira raised her head and looked at him, red-eyed.

“Come here, my love,” she said, patting the sofa. Vibe and Søren stared at them, paralyzed.

“No,” Søren said. “Can’t you just tell me what it is?”

Elvira was ill. She had a tumor in her breast, and the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes. She had been told that very day. It was terminal.

That night they reminisced about Elvira’s life. That was what she wanted. Past summers, the plums, Perle, the goat kid they had bottle-fed in the back garden, about the time Søren had found her wedding ring in a jar of strawberry jam. They laughed and drank wine and ate pizza, which Søren went out to get. They lit candles, and the evening concluded with Vibe and Elvira beating the men so emphatically in Trivial Pursuit that Vibe suggested that Søren and Knud should ask for their school tuition back. At no point did Søren and Vibe tell Knud and Elvira why they had come.

When Katrine telephoned, Søren had almost forgotten her existence. He was at work, it was summer and it was seven months since their one-night stand. The weather had been mild and pleasant, and Vibe and Søren spent all their spare time in the garden in Snerlevej. Elvira was dying. They had installed a hospital bed in the living room for her three weeks prior, and since then she had deteriorated quickly. Vibe and Søren had still not mentioned their split to Knud and Elvira. They couldn’t bear to and had agreed to wait until after Elvira’s death. She deserved to die as happy as possible. Vibe had moved out at the start of April, but when they visited Knud and Elvira, they would catch the same bus or share the car, and when they walked up the garden path, they would hold hands. They still saw each other, both at home in their old apartment and in Vibe’s new one. It felt good, but strange, titillating almost, to make love to Vibe in her new bed, in a bedroom with apple green curtains and wallpaper with tiny flowers, it was almost as if they had only just met. They went to the movies like they used to, went running together every Sunday, and even flew to Paris for a long weekend. A strange calm existed between them; limbo. A few times Vibe had cautiously asked him if his mind was made up, and he had kissed her forehead and said that she deserved better.

“And so does your child,” he had added.

When he realized that it was that Katrine who was calling, his palms grew sweaty. His first thought was genital warts, his second, HIV. Tracking him down had been no easy task, she said with a nervous laugh, because she only knew that his name was Søren and that he worked at Bellahøj police station. She had been put through to several different people, and she was relieved she had finally found the right person. She laughed nervously again, and then she said gravely, “But Bo and I agree that I should.”

Søren was baffled, who was Bo? Bo was her boyfriend, she explained, and she had met him shortly after the night Søren had spent with her. They had just moved in together.

“And Bo will be the baby’s father,” she then said.

Everything stopped.

Søren didn’t understand a word.

It was surreal.

They spoke for a little while. Afterward he called Vibe and told her that he was working late and please would she go to Elvira and Knud’s on her own and he would join them later? Is everything all right? she wanted to know. No, yes, he stuttered. Something has come up at work, he lied.

He worked through the longest day of his life without any sense of what he was actually doing. At five o’clock he drove to H. C. Ørstedsvej and rang the bell. The nameplate below the bell was new; in addition to Katrine’s name it said Bo Beck Vestergaard. Upstairs, in Katrine’s apartment, the situation became even more bizarre. Katrine was seven months pregnant, her belly beautiful and round.

“We’re really looking forward to the baby,” Bo said, narrowing his eyes.

Bo was assembling a changing table in the corner of the room. He was clearly putting in a lot of effort. However, Søren was the biological father, Katrine said, there was no doubt about it. Katrine didn’t meet Bo until after she had found out she was pregnant, and Bo had been relaxed about the whole thing—after all, they were all adults, and he was very much in love with Katrine. Initially, they had decided not to contact Søren, but as Katrine’s pregnancy progressed, they had second thoughts. They didn’t want to lie to the child, but this was precisely what they were setting themselves up for if they concealed the baby’s real parentage at this early stage.

Søren didn’t know what to think. His jaw had dropped and panic stuck to the inside of his throat like an obstinate fish bone. Bo continued explaining. Søren would be kept informed and the child would be told when it was old enough, but Bo and Katrine agreed it would be too confusing for the child if there were multiple fathers around during the early years. Søren understood, didn’t he? He wouldn’t have to pay child support either, unless he absolutely insisted. Bo had his own business selling musical instruments, and Katrine had gotten a job at a school in Valby; she was currently on maternity leave. They would manage. In fact, they were asking Søren to keep a low profile and not interfere too much. Not until the child itself wanted to meet its biological father. It was clear, as far as Bo was concerned, the need would never arise. Søren nodded, asked a timid question and nodded again. He declared that he would need time to process it all. Bo looked pleased and saw him out.

Søren stumbled out into H. C. Ørstedsvej, clammy with sweat, his mouth dry. In a kiosk he downed two soft drinks straight from the refrigerated case while the shopkeeper eyed him suspiciously. What the hell was he going to say to Vibe? Vibe, who had blind faith in him, who still called him “the straightest guy in the world” to her friends, even though they had broken up, even though he hadn’t been prepared to give her the child she so desperately wanted. He walked down to the lakes and began pacing up and down. He had to convince Bo and Katrine that it would be in everyone’s best interest if Søren never became the baby’s father. Not ever. Not on paper, not in real life. It would hurt Vibe deeply if the truth came out. Besides, he didn’t want to be a father, for Christ’s sake. Not to Vibe’s child, not to Katrine’s, and certainly not to Bo Beck Vestergaard’s. It was completely out of the question. He had donated some sperm, that was all. It should never have happened. Katrine was supposed to have had her period, and afterward she was supposed to meet Bo, and they should have had a baby of their own. Why the hell hadn’t he used a condom? He stopped at Saint Jørgen’s Lake and kicked a low wall hard with his black leather shoe. When he had calmed down, he went to see Knud and Elvira.

“It’s good that you’re here now,” Vibe said quietly, as he entered the living room. At first he couldn’t see Elvira and, for a brief second, he imagined that she had got out of bed, fit and healthy, and gone out into the garden to pick elderflowers, but then he spotted her. She was lying in a fold of the comforter—at least that was how it looked. Søren held her tiny frail hand and sobbed his heart out. Three hours later Elvira sighed softly, and then she was gone.

In the weeks that followed Søren tried to brush aside all thoughts of the baby. There was much to do. A complicated case at work, organizing Elvira’s funeral, and then there was Knud, who was falling apart with grief. When Bo called two and a half weeks later, he screamed furiously into the handset that they should leave him the fuck alone, he hadn’t asked to have a baby, and if Katrine could have been bothered to call him when she found out she was pregnant, he would have told her to get rid of it. Later the same afternoon, Søren called Bo back to apologize. He explained his mother had died and he was under a lot of pressure. To begin with Bo was distant and implacable, but as the conversation progressed, he softened.

“Okay,” he said. “Call us when you’re a bit more on top of things. After all, there’s no hurry. Like we said, we would prefer not to have you hanging around. I’m sorry, but I’m being honest here. We just don’t want to lie to the child. She deserves to know the truth so she can have a secure childhood.”

“It’s a girl?” Søren marveled.

“Yes,” Bo said. “And we’re calling her Maja.”

Søren managed to visit Katrine once before she had her baby, one afternoon when he spontaneously drove past H. C. Ørstedsvej, rang the doorbell, and found her home alone. They didn’t speak much, but she looked undeniably gorgeous on the sofa, big, round, and enigmatic as though she was hatching a golden egg. Suddenly, he heard himself promise to keep his distance, as Bo and Katrine had requested, and that he would be there if the girl wanted to meet her father when she got older. If. They sealed the deal with a cup of coffee and, as there was nothing more to say, Søren left.

Maja was born on September 8, 2004. Bo called him after the birth. He was rather monosyllabic and merely informed him the child had been born and that mother and baby were doing well. Then he hung up. Three days later Søren went to Frederiksberg Hospital. He had been racked with doubt, but in the end he had been unable to stay away. He bought a teddy bear for the baby and a bottle of lemon-scented lotion for Katrine. The young clerk in the drugstore helped him choose it. In the hospital corridor he hesitated before he entered the ward. What if they had visitors, what if it was inappropriate? But, for God’s sake, they had chosen to involve him, so they had only themselves to blame. And, anyway, he wasn’t some asshole who just stayed away.

To his surprise, the ward was nearly empty. There were no visitors and three empty beds waited for newly delivered mothers and their babies. Only the bed by the window was occupied, by Katrine, who was sitting with a faraway expression on her face. She looked up and smiled, almost as if she didn’t recognize him, then she lowered her eyes. Søren approached her gingerly and placed his presents on one of the empty beds. Then he saw Maja. She was absolutely tiny and swaddled in a white blanket. The bear he had bought for her was five times her size. Maja’s hair was long and black and her face all scrunched up. She was the spitting image of him. Søren was speechless. He looked at Katrine, then he leaned forward and kissed her forehead.

Everything changed. Not because there was a child at Frederiksberg Hospital who happened to share his genes, not because of her remarkable likeness to him, not because he had fathered another human being, technically, at least. No, it was because his brain was swelling to twice its normal size. He started to laugh out loud. Elvira had died, Knud was in mourning, and his relationship with Vibe was characterized by grief and anger, and yet he raced down Jagtvejen in his car, roaring with laughter. He hadn’t wanted a child. He still didn’t want a child. He hadn’t wanted to sit down to talk it over with Vibe or Katrine or any other woman. But now that she was here, he wanted Maja. With every fiber of his being. He would never let her out of his sight, he would protect her against all evil. The feeling was like an unbreakable chain anchored in his stomach. That night he made a plan. He would visit Bo and Katrine as soon as possible and make it clear to them that the deal was off.

It was a fortnight before Bo said it was okay for him to visit. When Søren arrived, he had rehearsed his speech so many times, he was no longer nervous.

“I’ve decided that I want to be her dad.”

Bo and Katrine had offered him coffee. Bo’s cup froze in mid-air. He gave Søren an outraged look.

“You’ve what? You’ve no right to do that.”

He slammed the cup down on the table. The noise startled Maja.

“Bo,” Katrine began, cautiously. “Let’s just hear Søren out.” She looked up at Søren and smiled an almost imperceptible smile. Bo got up and went to the window, his back shaking.

“I know I can’t be with her every day,” Søren continued. “Probably not even every week, but I want to be in her life and not just as a last resort you call when you’ve got no one else. I’m in this for good. Bo is your boyfriend,” he said, looking at Katrine, “and I realize that he will probably be Maja’s dad in her heart. The one she plays with when she comes home from nursery, the one who reads her bedtime stories, the one she’ll hate when she becomes a teenager.” Katrine smiled. “And also the one who, on some level, will mean the most to her.” Bo’s back started to calm down. “But I want to be involved, and if you won’t let me…” he took a deep breath, “then I will go to court.” A deadly silence descended on the room.

Bo stayed where he was with his back to them, but Katrine said, “Okay, Søren. It’s okay.”

Bo didn’t turn around, not even when Søren left.

From then on, Søren visited them every week. Maja was becoming increasingly alert and Bo less frosty. Søren made an effort when he was there. He asked Bo questions and listened attentively when Bo told him about a particularly bad diapering incident, a sleepless night, or an expression that might have been a smile. What he really felt like doing was bundling Bo up and hurling him out the window.

One November afternoon he found Katrine and Maja home alone. Katrine was breastfeeding, so Søren put the kettle on. When Maja had been fed, Katrine made coffee while Søren changed Maja’s diaper and put clean clothes on her. From the kitchen, Katrine called out with a question about Vibe. Until now they had avoided talking about personal issues completely, primarily because Bo was always hovering by the front door in the hope that Søren might be overcome by a sudden urge to leave. Not surprisingly, this rather put a damper on their intimacy. Søren’s reply was evasive, but when she had sat down again and Maja was lying between them, the whole story spilled out of him. His relationship with Vibe, which had started when they were teenagers, had to end because Vibe so fervently wanted to have a baby, and he didn’t; Elvira, who had died never knowing that Vibe and he were no longer a couple though they still saw each other, and now Knud, who tried to carry on the traditional family Sunday lunch ignorant of the fact that Vibe and Søren lived separate lives and pretended to be a couple purely to shield him from further pain. When Søren had finished, he picked up the little girl. They stood by the window and watched the cars. Maja opened and closed her mouth, and Søren told her that a blue Ford Fiesta had just run a red light. “He’s lucky your daddy is busy holding you,” he whispered, “or he would have given him a ticket.” Katrine, still sitting on the sofa, asked if Vibe even knew about Maja. Søren didn’t reply for a long time. Then he shook his head.

When he left Maja and Katrine an hour later, he had made up his mind. Katrine had given him a photograph of Maja, which he had put in his wallet, behind his driving license, and the time had come. Knud would learn that Vibe and Søren were no longer together, and Knud and Vibe would learn of Maja’s existence. He dreaded Vibe’s reaction, there was no denying that, but he suddenly yearned to tell the old man that he was a great-grandfather. He started by calling Vibe to check that she was free this Sunday—she was, she had no plans apart from their usual lunch at Snerlevej. Then he called Knud. No one answered the telephone. He called back later the same day, but still nothing. In the evening, he grew increasingly worried and drove to his childhood home. He had called Knud fifteen times at least, and there had been no reply.

Søren found Knud in the kitchen, sitting on a chair facing the garden. His hand, resting in his lap, held a framed photograph of Elvira. On the kitchen table were two bags of groceries. Knud appeared incapable of summoning the energy to put them away. Søren hugged him tenderly.

“Is it very bad today?” he asked, carefully taking the photograph from Knud. In the picture Elvira was old and wrinkled and yet irresistibly alive. Knud turned his head and stared blankly at Søren.

“I’ve got cancer,” he said, smiling weakly. “That’s how bad it is.”

That Sunday, they had lunch in Snerlevej as usual. Vibe had offered to make lasagna and salad. It was bizarre. Knud had bowel cancer, which had spread to his liver. There was nothing the doctors could do.

“And here was I thinking cancer wasn’t infectious,” Knud remarked dryly. He seemed neither scared nor sad; on the contrary, he praised the food and had second helpings. Afterward he suggested they have a cigarette.

“But you don’t smoke.” Søren was taken aback.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “I do now.”

They lit cigarettes and flicked the ashes onto their plates. It had been ten years since Vibe and Søren had quit smoking, and the three of them coughed and spluttered like teenagers. They all started to laugh and that was when Vibe suddenly exclaimed:

“Wasn’t there something you wanted to talk to us about, Søren?” She gave him a searching look. “It certainly sounded like it the other day.”

Now Knud was looking at him, too.

“Nah,” Søren said. “You must have misunderstood. Everything’s fine.”

On December 18, when Maja was just over three months old, Bo, Maja, and Katrine flew to Thailand for Christmas. Søren loathed the idea. Thailand was far away, they would be staying at some hotel on an island, and he was convinced that Maja would have forgotten all about him by the next time she saw him. Katrine was busy packing when he came to wish them Merry Christmas. Bo, fortunately, was out. He gave Maja the world’s tiniest bracelet with a four-leaf clover pendant.

“She really is far too young for jewelry,” Katrine smiled. Søren watched her while she folded Maja’s tiny onesies and placed them in the suitcase.

“Why can’t you stay here?” he blurted out. Katrine laughed. Then she asked him if he had told his family about Maja yet. Søren was just about to lie, but he hesitated a fraction of a second. Katrine shook her head.

“How long are you going to keep your daughter a secret?”

Søren went to the window with Maja in his arms. This time, it was a Nissan Altima that ran a red light.

“I’ll tell my grandfather on Christmas,” he said. “When I’ve got some time off and everything has calmed down a bit.”

“I would like to meet him,” Katrine said.

His eyes widened. “Are you serious?”

“Yes,” Katrine replied. “I really would. If you ever have the guts to tell him.” Katrine winked at Søren. “Perhaps we could have lunch together, when we’re back, all of us.”

“Including Bo?” Søren winked back at her.

“Yes, of course,” Katrine smiled.

Søren nodded. Then he laid Maja on the fleece blanket on the floor. She waved her arms, kicked her legs, and stuck out her tongue. She was starting to lose her hair, and her deep blue eyes studied Søren with curiosity. For the next half hour they drank coffee and chatted before Søren left. He kissed Maja’s soft forehead and squeezed her tiny foot, warm and wriggling, inside her footed pajamas.

After Christmas, Vibe and Søren spent four days in Sweden where Vibe had borrowed a cottage from her business partner. Søren intended to confess to Vibe while they were there, and when they returned to Copenhagen he would also tell Knud about Maja. The woods behind the cottage seemed endless, and the snow scattered like crystals from the trees when a squirrel leapt or the wind stirred. Søren chopped firewood and gazed at the forest, briefly tempted to swap his life for one that was simpler and more manageable.

They played board games, read books, talked about Elvira, about the first Christmas without her and about Knud, who was putting on a brave face and had insisted they go to Sweden. Søren had rung him twice, but had only gotten the answering machine and he was just starting to worry when he received a voice mail from Knud. Everything was fine. Vibe and Søren spoke conspicuously little about their relationship, as though they had agreed to a truce.

“We’re like brother and sister,” Vibe exclaimed one day and lowered the book she was reading. Søren was standing by the window, looking out at the wild garden; he was thinking about Maja, how he was going to break the news, how he would tell Vibe. Now was an obvious moment. Right now. But Vibe was cuddled up in a blanket, her cheeks flushed with the heat from the wood stove, a pot of tea on the table, and she looked so peaceful. For the first time in a long time.

They made love only once. New Year’s Eve. After a lot of salmon and wine. It felt familiar and comforting. They left early in the morning on January 2. Søren had still not told her about Maja.

They had stopped at a service station to buy milk when Søren saw the newspaper headlines: ASIAN TSUNAMI DEATH TOLL REACHES 200,000.

“What’s happened?” Vibe gasped. A strange noise escaped from Søren’s throat. They bought milk and a copy of every newspaper.

“It’s just so awful,” Vibe said, over and over. She was leafing through the newspapers. “It’s unbearable.” With tears streaming down her cheeks, she told him about an Australian mother who had been with her two sons when the tsunami hit and how she hadn’t been strong enough to hold on to them both. She had had to let go of her older son, who was seven. Now he was gone. Vibe dissolved completely. Søren didn’t utter a sound.

“Do you want to come in?” she asked, when Søren had parked in front of her apartment block. Søren shook his head.

Maja, Bo, and Katrine weren’t on the lists of missing persons. Søren checked the homepages of the Danish Foreign Office every thirty minutes every single day. They weren’t there. Why hadn’t they called? He would scream at Katrine when he saw her. Teach her never to be so selfish again. He wondered whom to call. He couldn’t think of anyone. Officially, he had no relationship with the Beck Vestergaard family. He had donated some sperm, and there was no one he could call. Vibe rang him several times, but he could barely breathe and he couldn’t talk to her.

Bo called on January 5 in the evening. Søren had tried to eat some take-out food, but he had lost his appetite. He was standing by the window; the telephone was on the window sill. He answered it after the first ring.

The weight dropped off Søren, and halfway through January he took a sick leave. Bo called every day, but Søren ignored the telephone. Once, Bo tricked him by calling from a different number. Bo screamed at him, and Søren hung up. After that, Søren stopped answering his telephone. Twice, someone banged on his front door in the night. Søren knew it was Bo. He didn’t open the door, instead he lay very still under his comforter. Eventually Bo gave up.

Søren spent his days with Knud, stroking the old man’s hair and watching him waste away.

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” Knud asked. Søren shook his head.

The night before Knud died, he lay in the living room in Snerlevej, hooked up to a morphine drip, dosing himself nearly all the time Søren was there. It wasn’t until nine in the evening that Knud suddenly woke up and reached out for Søren. Knud’s blue eyes were alert, but he struggled to speak.

“Vibe,” he said.

“Vibe isn’t here today. Do you want me to call her?”

Vibe had gone out to dinner. They had agreed that she would leave her cell phone on silent so that Søren could call her if Knud deteriorated. Søren reached for his cell.

Knud made a grunting noise, which stopped Søren in his tracks.

“No, don’t call,” he hissed. His eyes rolled a couple of times, then his eyelids closed heavily and just as Søren decided to get up and make some coffee, Knud’s voice could be heard again.

“You should love your woman,” he wheezed, “like I love Ella.” Knud was the only one who had ever called Elvira “Ella.”

“I look forward to dying,” he said, and now his voice sounded strangely clear, like the Knud Søren used to know.

“Because I’ll see her again.” He smiled faintly. Knud was an arch-atheist. A tear rolled down his cheek.

“And I so want to see her again.”

Søren fought hard not to cry.

“And Vibe…”

“We’ve agreed that I’ll call her,” Søren said again.

“Shut up,” Knud snarled, as though it was less painful to rebuke him with a quick crack of the whip than with a lengthy explanation. Søren glanced at the morphine drip.

“Vibe is like a daughter to Ella and me.” His voice was calm now. “But if you love someone, you should be willing to die for them.” He closed his eyes. Søren sat still like a statue. Knud opened his eyes again and said: “And you’re not willing to die for Vibe. This much I know.” Those were his last words.

Søren rested his head on his grandfather’s emaciated thighs, covered by the blanket, and sobbed. He thought he would never be able to stop. He could feel Knud’s hand move slightly, but Knud was now too weak to reach his head. Søren was Denmark’s youngest police superintendent, he could identify a murderer from the mere twitching of a single, out-of-place eyebrow hair, he could knit backward, and everyone he had ever loved had died and left him behind.

Søren parked his car in the basement under Bellahøj police station. He walked up the stairs, filled the coffee machine in the kitchen, switched it on, and went to his office while the water dripped through the filter. It was all a long time ago now. Elvira, Maja, Knud. Three years. Søren contemplated the sky. It looked like it might snow, even though it was only October. He was rummaging around on his desk, looking for a report he had to finish writing, when Henrik burst in without bothering to knock first.

“Hi, Søren,” Henrik said. “Fancy a lecture at the College of Natural Science?”

Søren looked perplexed, but he reached for his jacket and started putting it on.

“A very upset guy by the name of Johannes Trøjborg dialed 911 an hour ago saying his academic supervisor lay dying in his office. Sejr and Madsen followed the ambulance, and they have just called in to report that the deceased, as he is now, is a Lars Helland, age fifty-seven, a biologist and a professor at the University of Copenhagen. The preliminary findings from the paramedic who attended the scene suggest that Helland died of a heart attack.” Søren started taking off his jacket. “But,” Henrik raised his hand to preempt him and checked his notes, “Professor Helland’s severed tongue was lying on his chest, and young Mr. Trøjborg has lost his shit. The deputy medical coroner and the boys from forensics are on their way. Are you coming?”

Søren rose and zipped his jacket. They went to the garage and drove at high speed to the university. Henrik told a completely unfunny joke, and Søren watched the sky, which looked as if it were about to burst.