Bjarke Habersaat's suicide at home is discovered during a visit by Carl Mørck, Assad, and Rose. The scene becomes more than a death investigation when a short note addressed to his father and June Habersaat's account of their last call place the suicide within a family exchange: she had just told Bjarke about his father. The timing makes that call central to the aftermath, though the evidence does not establish what Bjarke intended or whether the news alone explains his decision.

Discovery and circumstances

Assad stops at the doorway, and Carl understands the reason when he catches up. Inside, Bjarke is seated in a large, worn armchair, with a bottle of paint thinner nearby. He is dead, having taken his own life. The room's heavy haze initially suggests one explanation to Assad; Carl corrects him, identifying the smell as a combination of hash and cellulose thinner. The exchange establishes that the first impressions at the scene are incomplete, even as the death itself is apparent.

Rose tries to get past the two men, while Carl attempts to hold her back. Her urgency gives the discovery an immediate human dimension: the room is not only a crime-scene setting to be secured but a place where people arriving with the investigators must confront Bjarke's death. Carl then leaves Rose with the others and goes outside. His brief withdrawal precedes the practical work of the investigation, which proceeds rapidly.

Investigation and the note

The search of Bjarke's room, the seizure of his computer and the knife connected with his death, the collection of technical data, and the postmortem and removal of the body are completed in quick succession. Carl has reached only his fifth cigarette when John Birkedal appears with an investigator and a technician, carrying a scrap of paper sealed in a plastic bag. Its entire message is: “Sorry, Dad.”

The note's brevity gives it force without clarifying its purpose. Carl finds the message moving in its directness, but also notices whom it does not address. He wonders why Bjarke wrote to his father rather than to his mother, especially since June was alive and could receive such a message. This is Carl's question about the note, not an explanation supplied by Bjarke: the scrap confirms an address to the father but does not reveal why Bjarke chose it, what he meant to apologize for, or how he regarded his mother at that moment.

The physical evidence and the note serve different functions in the scene. The room and the investigative procedures establish the circumstances of a death; the few words on paper open a question about family attachment that the procedures cannot settle. By preserving the message as evidence, the investigators also preserve the distinction between what can be recorded and what remains unknown.

June Habersaat receives the news

Carl, Assad, and Rose go to June to tell her that Bjarke is dead. Carl states that her son took his own life and gives the medical officer's estimate: approximately four o'clock. June asks about the time and explains that it was just after she had called Bjarke and told him about his father. She does not offer a further account. The disclosure ties the last call to the estimated time of death, but it does not establish that June could have anticipated what followed or that the call was the sole cause.

June's response is rendered through a pause and restrained physical gestures rather than an extended explanation. She sits for a moment, strokes her arm, and struggles to respond; then she says no more. The investigators remain with her for half an hour. Rose holds June's hand until Carl signals that they can leave. The length of that visit and Rose's gesture mark a change in the investigators' role: after delivering the facts, they stay with the person whose relationship to Bjarke makes those facts personal.

What the aftermath establishes

The episode brings together three distinct forms of evidence: the condition of the room, the medical officer's estimate of the time, and the note addressed to Bjarke's father. June's recollection adds a fourth, placing her call just after that estimated time. Together they establish a sequence, but not a complete account of Bjarke's thoughts. The narrative allows the reader to recognize the possible significance of the call while withholding any claim that the note or the timing definitively explains the suicide.

That restraint makes the message's choice of addressee especially consequential. The father receives Bjarke's only written apology, while June, who has just spoken with her son and is available to hear the news, receives no equivalent message in the evidence presented here. Carl registers the contrast, but the investigation cannot convert it into certainty about Bjarke's intentions. The scene's emotional weight therefore rests partly on what remains unanswered: a precisely timed death, a call about the father, and a note that says very little but directs attention toward him.