'Is he an important client?' asked Katherina.
'Very important,' said Jon with a nod. He raised his eyes, stared straight ahead and his courage seemed to flag as she looked at him. Finally he gave her an embarrassed smile. 'Well, okay, maybe I should wait a while.'
When his mobile suddenly rang as he was holding it, they both flinched and Jon almost dropped it.
'Jon Campelli,' he said into the phone after fumbling it up to his ear. 'Kortmann,' he said, looking at Katherina. 'Yes, she's here.' He listened some more, shaking his head a couple of times. 'When?' He glanced at his watch. 'We can be there in fifteen minutes. Fine. Goodbye.'
Katherina expectantly studied Jon's face as he folded his mobile closed and stuck it in his inside pocket.
'Do you remember Lee? The IT guy from the meeting yesterday?'
Katherina nodded.
'He's dead,' said Jon. 'Suicide.'
'When?' asked Katherina, shocked.
'Last night,' replied Jon. 'He was found early this morning.'
'But suicide?' The man she had seen in the reading room of Шsterbro Library hadn't seemed like a candidate for suicide. On the contrary, he radiated an overbearing arrogance which, even though it was annoying, didn't seem outright self-destructive.
Jon shrugged. 'Kortmann isn't convinced either. He wants to meet us at the flat where it happened. I think it's best if we both go over there now.'
Katherina closed up the bookshop and they drove over to the Sydhavn district in Jon's car. Darkness was in the process of taking over the day, and by the time they reached the place, the sky was coloured from deep blue to red.
Lee's flat was in a complex with a view of a commuter-train station and several other grey blocks of flats. Katherina shivered as they climbed out of the car, both from the cold and from the surrounding atmosphere. The car park in front of the building was half-filled, but one car stood out. Among the Polos, Fiats and a long row of Japanese vehicles was a big black Mercedes. In the dark it looked empty, but as they approached a light went on above the back seat. In the glow of the light they could see the outline of someone in the driver's seat and another figure in the back.
When they reached the Mercedes, they recognized Kortmann as the person sitting in the back. He motioned them closer and gestured towards the back door. The inside of the black Mercedes had been customized. Half the back seat had been removed and the floor had been lowered so that Kortmann could easily roll his wheelchair right into the car. The front passenger seat had been turned round so that anyone sitting there would be riding backwards. Jon sat down on this seat while Katherina got in next to Kortmann.
As if on command, the driver got out as soon as Katherina closed the door. Kortmann made sure the driver was far enough away before he started talking.
'Lee was found this morning by one of his colleagues. They both worked in Allerшd, north of Copenhagen, and commuted together in Lee's car every morning. The colleague usually met Lee at his flat because he had a tendency to oversleep. He would often stay up all night, working. That's why his colleague even had his own key, and that was how he happened to find Lee, not asleep but dead.' Kortmann took a deep breath. 'The police found several empty ampoules of insulin on the nightstand. Lee was apparently diabetic. In addition, they found a letter which, according to the colleague, had Lee's signature on it.'
'So it was suicide?' asked Jon.
'All indications are that he took an overdose of insulin,' said Kortmann. 'The police are convinced and have closed the case.'
'But you don't agree?'
Kortmann glanced at Katherina for a moment. For once there was no trace of suspicion in his eyes; it seemed that he was trying to gauge her reaction to what he was telling them.
'I'd like to be sure,' he said. 'Right now this type of coincidence seems highly suspicious, and we shouldn't rule out any possibilities. Partly so as not to overlook anything, but also so we don't panic. Both things could destroy us.'
'But if the police couldn't find anything-' Jon began.
'The police found what they were looking for. They were looking for a suicide and that's what they found. He fitted the profile: young loner-type with no girlfriend or family or social network. Even his colleague confirmed that Lee sometimes seemed paranoid.'
'Then what is it we're looking for?' asked Jon.
'Two things,' replied Kortmann. 'First, any sign that it wasn't suicide after all. Second, we need to know what Lee found on the Internet, if he actually did find something.'
'Are we going to break into a dead man's flat, or do you have a key?' asked Katherina without concealing her sarcasm.
'I actually do have a key, now that you mention it,' Kortmann calmly replied as he pulled an envelope out of his inside pocket. 'Don't ask where I got it.' He handed the envelope to Jon. 'I'll ring while you're up there.'
Jon and Katherina got out of the car, passing the driver on their way to the stairwell. He nodded to them gratefully, rubbing his hands up and down his shirtsleeves as he jogged back to the car.
The flat was on the fourth floor, with the entrance from a hallway with access to nine other flats. As they walked past the cell-like doors, they could hear TVs blaring, children shouting or crying, and petty quarrels brewing. The only thing that Katherina could sense being read were the Danish subtitles to American movies or sitcoms, and as always with those sorts of texts, the images they evoked were vague and diffuse.
At Lee's flat Jon shook the key out of the envelope and unlocked the door. They waited to turn on the light until the door was shut. A rice-paper ceiling lamp revealed a small entryway with a cramped kitchen to one side and a toilet on the other. Straight ahead was the flat's only real room, a space that was a good thirty square metres with windows running along one whole wall.
Even though they could still hear a television from one of the neighbouring flats, Katherina felt as if they'd stepped into a vacuum. It was less than twenty-four hours ago that Lee had died here, but the flat seemed abandoned and devoid of personality.
Jon turned on the rest of the lights, and they silently walked through the flat, careful not to disturb anything or make any unnecessary noise. The kitchen bore all the signs of a bachelor. Dirty dishes and fast-food containers covered most of the table, and large sections of the floor were littered with empty bottles in bulging plastic bags. The toilet hadn't been cleaned in months, and Katherina stayed only long enough to find out that the small medicine cabinet behind the mirror contained nothing more than shaving gear, a toothbrush and other toiletries.
The main room was obviously where Lee had spent all his time. Two walls were covered with shelves filled with books. Against the third wall stood a chest of drawers, a nightstand and a bed – or rather, a bedstead, since the mattress had been removed. In front of the windows was a wide table on which stood two black computer monitors and a printer. The window ledge was overflowing with books and big stacks of printouts that threatened to topple over if anyone got too close.
For a moment Katherina stood in the doorway and looked at the empty bedstead before she stepped inside the room. She wasn't sure they were welcome here, not even if Lee had been alive, and an invisible barrier seemed to have stopped her in the doorway. It was the bookcases that finally made her cross the threshold and approach the rows of books. In contrast to the disarray that marked the rest of the flat, the books had been meticulously arranged, and they were all in very nice condition.
'What sort of books does he read?' she asked Jon, who was crouched down next to the computer table. He pressed a button under the table and the monitors came to life. Then he stood up and joined her in front of the bookcase. She followed along as he scanned the titles.
'A lot of science fiction and fantasy,' he said after looking over the shelves. 'But also some classics.' He pulled out a leather-bound volume and handed it to her. 'Joyce.' Katherina turned it over in her hands, opening it in several places at random. In the back of the book she found a small business card from Libri di Luca.