“Why was he courting you? I know he was illegally taking antiques out of the country, but I wouldn’t have
thought he’d want to divide his profits with anyone other than the farmer.”
As she spoke, Pix thought, The farmer! Sven! Was Kari aware of this?
Quickly, she added, “The farm on the fjord that the tour visits. The man and his wife are in on this with Carl. They collect the things for him.”
“I know,” said Kari sadly. “I know it all. And yes, Erik was helping them, too.”
Pix didn’t know what to say and the two sat in silence for a moment.
“It’s a very hard thing to find out someone you love, someone you planned to spend your life with, is a weaker person than you thought. Not a bad person, just a weak person. I didn’t find out what was going on until this tour. I was putting my knapsack in the closet on the boat in the staff room, when it slipped from my hands and fell against the back wall. The wall fell forward and I found all these suitcases filled with antiques. I put everything back and told Erik. He told me not to say a word, that he would think what to do. I assumed it was the captain. I was always a little afraid of him, that bushy black beard, and he never said much.
“I was after Erik to tell the police and let them figure it out, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He said it would be bad for the company. Finally, I decided to call my friend Annelise, who is working at the museum in Bergen, and see if she knew of any recent robberies from a museum or someone’s private collection. That’s why I called my grandmother.”
“But you never called Annelise.”
“No, when I was on the phone, Carl came to get me, and he must have overheard me ask for Annelise’s number. He knows her, too, from last winter, when she was living in Oslo. He told me to hurry onto the train; then he talked to Erik and told him he had to keep me quiet. For insurance, he called Sven, who got on the train at Myrdal.”
The train. The stage was set. All the characters were on board.
“Carl told us to sit in the other car. He said that there wasn’t room in the tour’s, but there was. Erik tried-again to convince me that we shouldn’t get involved, that it was none of our business. He didn’t say it was Carl who was doing this. Then finally, he told me everything and we had a big fight. I lost my temper and said things I would give the world to take back. I never thought they would be some of the last words I would say to my Erik.”
“What did he tell you?” Kari was going to need a great deal of time to heal. She’d had a week alone in this dark cell to obsess about it. Now Pix wanted to get the facts, then get them out.
“Toward the end of last summer, Carl asked Erik to put some things in his knapsack and give them back to him when they got to Bergen, where Carl was taking the ferry to Newcastle. You know, there is very little security on it and Carl—now Charles, with his British passport—was well known to the British customs people. They always waved him through with whatever he had. I don’t know why he involved Erik. He’s an evil man and I think he wanted to control Erik, have something on him, corrupt a good person. He paid him well and Erik did it again. I asked him why he didn’t come to me if he needed money, not that I have much, but he could have had it all. He said I didn’t understand. I said it was dishonest and that he had to stop. I told him that I was going to tell the police unless Carl gave everything back. Erik said that would be stupid—people had already spent the money Carl had paid for the things and they didn’t want them anyway. What was the harm? he kept saying. I couldn’t believe it. It seemed like we were talking for hours. One of the women on the tour came into our car—a nice person, Mrs. Feld—and I was embarrassed that she might have seen us quarreling. When she left, I started to cry. I couldn’t make Erik understand. Finally, he said he did and he’d go along with whatever I said, but not until after the trip was over. He didn’t want to upset the tour. I had to be content with that, and it might have ended there, but Carl was nervous. Sven came along and began talking alone to Erik. I had met him on the first trip when we went to his farm and I was surprised to see him on the train, but I assumed he was just coming from Oslo like everyone else.”
“Then what happened?”
“Erik came back to the seat looking very pale and very scared. Sven had threatened him. Erik begged me to promise I wouldn’t say anything about what Carl was doing and he, Erik, would stop immediately. He was so agitated, I got scared, too. ‘What is it?’ I kept asking. Then he blurted out that Sven was working with Carl and was picking up some Viking silver from someone the last day of the tour. He said if anything messed that up, he’d kill us.”
“Viking silver! What would that be worth?” For Carl, it would mean a hasty retirement as tour guide and a life of ease on some nice square in London. Of that much, Pix was certain.
“It would depend on what there was, but at least a million dollars.”
No wonder Sven’s threat had been so severe. From his sixties mode of dress and simple life on the farm, it had appeared that he was not caught up in material possessions in the nineties, but care he did—and the fancy boat had been a dead giveaway, Pix reminded herself. He and his lovely young wife would never have to make gjetost again—or eat it. Where would they go? The Caribbean? So good for the children.
“But what farmer would have anything to sell from the Viking times? Wasn’t it all buried in graves?” Pix was thinking of the three large ship burials on the east coast, particularly the Oseberg find, a Viking woman’s tomb, perhaps Queen Åsa of Vestfold’s, with its rich treasures. A find even half the size of this would have made international headlines and been impossible to keep secret.
“The Vikings did put their goods—things that would be needed in the afterlife—in the ship burials. But they didn’t put in many silver ornaments or coins. These were considered part of the family’s wealth, like the land. After all, what use would someone have for these things in Valhall? Or maybe that’s just what they told themselves.” Kari gave a slight laugh.
Practical people, like their descendants, Pix reflected—why waste a perfectly good amulet, especially when silver was a scarce commodity.
“So what did they do with it?”
“They did bury the silver, but in hoards—secret hiding places. Every once in a while, someone comes across one of these. It can be in coins, ingots, jewelry.”
“And instead of turning it over to the proper authorities, this person is passing it along to Sven and Carl. No wonder they wanted to keep you quiet until the end of the tour.” And that’s why Kari and she had been locked up. When Carl heard Kari ask for Annelise’s phone number, he’d suspected Kari was onto him, and he had taken drastic, immediate steps.
“Exactly. They will all be wealthy men. But Erik, to his credit, didn’t want any part of it after Sven told him—and he told Sven this. ‘Viking things are different,’ Erik said. I don’t think he realized that the other antiques they were taking out of the country were as important to our history as the Viking find. He thought of them as common objects that everybody had around. He really didn’t know very much about it. But he thought the Viking silver should stay in Norway. Now it was a crime. Before it was just getting around a stupid law, like…well, brewing your own beer.
“When we were getting close to Kjosfossen, he had decided to slip off the train in Voss and tell the police, even though it meant he would have to confess what he had done. I was very proud of him.”
Pix was glad that Kari had this last memory. Erik had been weak and foolish, yet he had resolved to do the right thing. She could always remember that.
Now they were coming close to the moment of his death. Pix wanted to find out—and didn’t. She took Kari’s hand. It was a lot warmer than her own.
“The train stopped so people could take pictures and we got out to answer any questions or provide help. It was also our job to be sure no one was left behind. We were always the last by the waterfall. Carl and Sven came close behind us. I was very scared, but Erik wasn’t.
I think it was because there were so many people and he thought, What can they do to us? He knew he was going to the police, but they didn’t, and of course he wasn’t going to say anything. Then it got horrible. Carl was totally crazy. I had never seen him this way. By that time, we were the only ones left. Carl began to scream at Erik for betraying him, for telling me. He said he thought of Erik as a brother, but that he was not to speak to him again, except when he had to. Then he began on me, said that I was a whore and no man would ever have me for a wife. Erik told him to stop, but he kept going. Sven just stood to the side, saying nothing.”
Pix could imagine the scene very well. She remembered Carl’s transformation, the sudden flare of temper at the Glacier Museum as he berated the other guide. Mother had said he was a passionate person. She had been right.
“Carl began to laugh. ‘The joke is on you, Erik.’” Kari lowered her voice. “He said, ‘I know for sure what she’s like, because I slept with her!’ Of course it was a lie, and I yelled this to Erik, only he pushed me aside and went for Carl. Sven tried to break it up, but he tripped and fell. Carl pushed Erik away. The train was starting to move. And Erik fell into Kjosfossen.”
Her voice was flat and after the last words, it was hard to know what to say. As Pix squeezed the girl’s hand hard, Kari began again.
“We all stood absolutely still. Then Carl said, ‘Oh shit! Look what you did! to me and he ran toward the train. I
started to follow, but Sven grabbed me. The next thing I knew, I was on the farm. I don’t know how he got me from the train tracks there, but Carl must have called Sven’s wife from Flåm. My head had a lump, so I know he hit me.”
“Carl made another call, too.” Pix told her about the message the stationmaster at Voss had received that they were eloping and Carl’s telephone conversation with her grandmother later that night at the hotel in Bergen.
Kari stood up and paced rapidly up and down. She was incensed.
“How could anyone have believed, that! The whole time I’ve been wondering how Carl could have covered up our disappearance, but this idea never occurred to me.”
“Because, my dear, you don’t have a criminal mind.” Pix was angry, too. The man was a monster. “But,” she reminded Kari, “your grandmother didn’t believe it. She knows you.”
“The police must have, then. What has been going on?”
Pix told her as delicately as possible the theories in various papers, reassuring her that it was already old news. Kari paced even more furiously.
“They think I killed Erik! And ran off someplace! How could I? My knapsack with all my money was on the train still, under my seat.”
Pix told her the bad news. “I’m afraid Carl and Sven thought of that. The knapsacks were left where they were and ended up in the lost luggage back in Oslo, but yours was missing your wallet and passport.”
“So, I’m guilty.” Kari sat down, then jumped up again. “If I ever see Carl again, I will kill him!”
Pix needed to get something cleared up. “Why did you and Erik have your passports?”
“Erik told me to bring mine, that you never knew when you might need it.”
Shades of Faith Fairchild, Pix thought. Oh Faith, where are you when I need you now!
“I think he may have been planning to surprise me with a trip at the end of the summer, after our jobs ended. Maybe to Greece or someplace like that.”
Greece. Sunny places. Olive groves. Pix thought of the picture of Kari’s parents. She hadn’t told Kari about the newspapers dredging up the circumstances of her mother’s death. She also didn’t think it was the time and place to talk about Hanna’s origins. She did want to know about Sven, though.
“Kari, did Sven look familiar to you? Is it possible that you knew him before? He threatened you, but he brought you here, and you mentioned they were giving you food. He hasn’t harmed you. Maybe because he knew you?”
“Why do you ask? It’s true he said he would kill us, but that is very different from doing it. I saw his face when Erik went into the water, and he was horrified. Why kill me? Murder is very serious, very different from what he’s doing with Carl. Just before they pick up the Viking silver, they will probably bring food and water here. Enough until some hikers find us. Or maybe they’ll drug us again and leave the door unlocked. I’ve thought about it a lot. There’s not much else to do here.”
Pix decided to leave the matter at that for now. Yet Kari was being rather naïve. With that much money at stake, Pix was sure the leap from one crime to another would not be a big one.
“I don’t think we can depend on their good natures. At the least, it would be just as easy to leave us here. I hope you’re right and they will come one more time to appease their consciences, if they have any. Then we can be ready for them. And now we have to flunk of a plan.”
Pix always felt better when she thought she knew what she was doing.
The day had gone by very slowly, despite the tour of Balestrand and other diversions offered by the hotel and Scandie Sights. By dinner, tempers were short and the various tour members were either sitting by themselves or in small isolated family groups. Inspector Marcussen looked at the tables as he filled his plate with medisterkaker from the array of hot dishes at the hotel’s smörgåsbord. The fragrant meat cakes were accompanied by sauerkraut flavored with caraway seeds. Having already finished several helpings of herring and other fish, he couldn’t think of a better Sunday-night supper. The Scandie Sights tour members, however, with the exception of the younger Petersons, seemed to have lost their appetites.
After dinner, he would tell them they were free to go in the morning. He couldn’t legitimately keep them here any longer, although he was sure that both the answer to Oscar Melling’s death and Mrs. Miller’s disappearance was known to someone in this room. If he could, he’d keep them in this pleasant jail until that person broke and confessed. But it was impossible. Sidney Harding had besieged his embassy with calls and several other tour members had made a single protest. Marcussen was officially ordered to let them go. Also, the hotel needed the rooms. It had been a minor miracle that they had all been able to stay put for even this long. He sighed. Could he be wrong? Jansen was convinced that Oscar Melling’s death had been an accident and the injury to his back somehow obtained in the fall. And Mrs. Miller? Had she given in to a sudden impulse and wandered off? His wife had once described a sensation she got at times, that she could just keep driving and not return—cross the border and eventually be in Venice. He had been shocked, then amused. Now that the children were grown and out of the house, he hadn’t heard any more about it and they had gone to Venice together last fall. He tried to remember how old Mrs. Miller’s children were. Some still home, but no one at that demanding toddler stage. Carl Bjørnson, one of the guides, had privately confided that he and the other guide had thought Mrs. Miller troubled since her arrival—often agitated and given to long, lonely walks at odd hours. Carl was sure she would turn up, an amnesia victim or some other such thing.
But her mother and Fru Hansen were convinced that someone had done something to her. They were seated at a table, their food in front of them, but eating nothing, deep in conversation. He knew they believed that Kari Hansen’s and Pix Miller’s disappearances were connected—Oscar Melling’s death, too. He considered his food. The meatballs were so good, he thought he might be able to eat some more. The mother’s theory was all very far-fetched. After a meal like this, he was inclined to agree with Jansen that the women had been watching too much American television. Marcussen was opposed to television and worried that his future grandchildren wouldn’t be counted in Norway’s 100 percent literacy rate if things continued the way they were going with all these new channels. Mrs. Rowe and Fru Hansen were leaving the dining room and stopped to speak with him.
“I hope you are enjoying your meal, Inspektør” Fru Hansen said, eyeing his plate. He suddenly felt a bit overindulgent.
“Everyone will be free to leave the ho
tel in the morning. I intend to announce it after dinner,” he told them abruptly. “I’m sorry,” he added, and put his fork down, leaving the rest of his helping untouched.
“We imagined that you couldn’t detain people for too much longer,” Ursula said sympathetically. “Of course, Fru Hansen and I intend to remain until my daughter is found.”
They said good night and left the room. Another group was coming in. Marcussen looked after the two women, handbags on arms, straight spines, no ladders in their hose. They could be here for a long time, he thought dismally, and decided to forgo dessert.
Myrtle “Pix” Miller had never been more awake and alert in her life. She could hear Kari’s regular breathing from across the room. They were taking the watch in turn. Kari had shown Pix the small chink she had found between the boulders, which had been wedged tightly together during the original construction and made more impenetrable, settling into the ground over the years. They had not taken her watch, so looking at a tiny patch of sky, she’d charted the passage of time, painfully aware of how slowly it was moving.
“After Midsummer Eve, after the children are out of school, I’m sure there will be people on walking trips, but now even if we could make enough noise to be heard through these walls, there’s a very slim chance that anyone would be near enough to hear us,” she’d told Pix. Midsummer Eve, Pix thought dismally, was still a week away. She willed the door to open, willed them to make one last food drop, avoiding the possibility of more blood on their hands. Blood—it made her think of the swastika at Stalheim. Carl had seemed genuinely surprised at her assumption that he had killed Oscar. If Oscar had figured out what Carl was up to, he would have been more likely to offer him a North American outlet than blackmail him, Pix now thought. Yet if not Carl, then who killed the old man—and who was the graffiti artist?
Kari had explained to Pix that it was always either Sven or his wife who came to leave some food and a thermos of coffee. The door was quickly opened, a sack dropped in, and he or she was off again. It all took only a few seconds. When Pix had been brought in, Sven had his gun out, telling Kari to get in the far corner of the hut. Once more, his exit was swift. There had been no possibility of rushing out the door or overpowering either person at any time.
The Body in the Fjord ff-8 Page 23
