The Last Pilgrim

by Gard Sveen

  Flatanger cleared his throat.

  “Who’s the most helpful person at the scene of an arson?” Flatanger asked.

  “The pyromaniac,” Bergmann muttered.

  Neither of them spoke for a long moment.

  Finally Flatanger broke the silence.

  “If your theory about Holt’s death is correct, then someone connected to Holt would have a relatively obvious motive, don’t you think?”

  Bergmann didn’t even want to consider that possibility.

  Yet his eyes fell on two words on his computer screen.

  Vera Holt.

  Bergmann hastily left the large meeting room. It was five past ten. The morning meeting hadn’t gone well. He’d been pressured by the police advocate to explain what the Kaj Holt case had to do with the murder of Carl Oscar Krogh, and had barely managed to present a reasonable argument. Iver Faalund’s assertions were serious, but pretty much nothing but guesses, and Bergmann knew it. And the whole affair with Hadja was making him depressed. He should be happy, of course, but despite wanting to see her again as soon as possible, it was never going to work. Not now. Back in his office he picked up his cell phone and dialed her number.

  No, he had to see her face-to-face. But that would have to wait until after Berlin. He stared down at his notebook where he’d written Peter Ward’s phone number on Gustav Freytag Strasse. There was really no reason to put it off any longer.

  A woman picked up the phone just as he was about to give up. He remembered enough German from his school days to understand what the woman said, and to realize that she wasn’t German, but an immigrant, most likely Turkish.

  “I’d like to speak with Peter Ward,” he said in English.

  The woman made a sound, then fell silent, as if she were holding her hand over the mouthpiece.

  “With whom am I speaking?” a man’s voice said in perfect English.

  “Peter Ward?”

  “Who is this?” he said in a friendly tone, but now in almost perfect Norwegian. Only the slight hint of a German accent revealed that the man wasn’t Norwegian.

  Bergmann took a couple of seconds to ponder this.

  How come Waldhorst spoke such good Norwegian after all these years? No doubt he had a phone that displayed the caller’s number and the country code for Norway, 47, but Bergmann felt a bit bewildered for a moment.

  “Tommy Bergmann from the Oslo police.”

  The man on the other end remained silent. Bergmann didn’t know what to make of that.

  “Am I speaking with Peter Waldhorst?”

  “You’re speaking with Peter Ward,” he said, but in a tone that sounded like an admission.

  “I know that you’re Peter Waldhorst.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “I’m investigating a homicide, and I’ve had help from a Norwegian researcher in locating you, I—”

  “Researcher?” said the man. “I don’t know any researcher in Norway.”

  “He’s a former associate professor at the University of Oslo and has colleagues in Berlin.”

  There was a long pause. Only a slight hiss on the line indicated that the man was still there.

  “I would like to be allowed to—” Bergmann began.

  “You would like to ask me a few questions. Why else would you call?”

  Bergmann didn’t answer. Instead he tried to think. The man’s reaction was surprisingly calm; in fact, it conveyed not even the smallest trace of surprise.

  “A few questions about what?” Waldhorst continued.

  “I think you know what this is about. Or don’t you read the Norwegian papers anymore?”

  “Believe me, I haven’t read a Norwegian paper since the summer of ’45, Mr. Bergmann.”

  “It’s about—”

  “On the other hand, I do read the German papers. And even they have published a few articles about Carl Oscar Krogh.” Waldhorst waited.

  “What did you tell Kaj Holt? In Lillehammer.”

  Waldhorst exhaled heavily through his nose. For the first time he sounded like an old man.

  “Have you ever been to Berlin?” he asked. “I prefer to see the people I’m talking to.”

  “I’ll be in Berlin tomorrow.”

  Waldhorst paused. “Good,” he said at last.

  “What did you tell Kaj Holt in Lillehammer?” Bergmann asked again. He knew he shouldn’t have pressed the matter just then, but he couldn’t help himself. He picked up the photograph from Midsummer Eve 1942 that he’d printed and studied the face of the young Peter Waldhorst, whose eyes were fixed on Agnes Gerner. She must have been a real knockout, he thought.

  Waldhorst said nothing.

  “I know that you were stationed in Norway during the war, that you were probably in the Abwehr before you served in the Gestapo, and I hope you might be able to help me with my investigation. We have to evaluate whether Krogh’s murder might have something to do with his activities during the war.”

  Only silence from Berlin.

  After what seemed like a small eternity, Waldhorst said in a low voice, “Let’s speak more about this tomorrow, Mr. Bergmann. You know where to find me.”

  Bergmann didn’t hang up until the dial tone began irritating his ear. The certainty that he’d made a big mistake filled him from head to toe. He shouldn’t have called Waldhorst first; he should have just shown up at his front door and rung the bell. He’d given the man twenty-four hours to think. That was surely more than he needed.

  He placed a brief phone call to Arne Drabløs and said that he’d have to miss handball practice again this week, because he didn’t know how long he’d be in Berlin. The prospect of the cup matches in Göteborg ending with some serious losses couldn’t be avoided, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  After he hung up he opened his notebook and looked at what he’d written. Karen Eline Fredriksen was Karen Eline Krogh. He picked up the phone to call Bente Bull-Krogh.

  As he waited for her to pick up, he checked the clock, then double-checked his flight’s departure time to Berlin.

  Bente Bull-Krogh didn’t seem overjoyed to hear his voice, but she had no choice but to invite him out to Bygdøy when he said he had some questions he preferred to ask face-to-face.

  At the end of their brief phone conversation, he said, “Does the name—” but stopped. Does Vera Holt mean anything to you? he silently finished the question.

  “What name?” Bente asked absentmindedly.

  “Let’s talk about it when I see you in person,” he said.

  Down in the garage he sat in the car without being able to make up his mind. Kolstadgata was only a few blocks away. Vera Holt. He had to get hold of her. But he didn’t like changing his plans; now that he’d gotten in touch with Bente, she’d have to come first. As he turned the key in the ignition, he had a vague feeling that he’d overlooked something quite obvious, almost banal. What am I not seeing? He turned off the radio, then switched on the police radio and turned right down Hollendergata. Patrols had been called to a kiosk robbery in Sagene. F-34 responded at once, a young voice, tense but clear. For a moment he missed the life of a uniformed officer—the camaraderie, the pride. After only a few seconds he turned off the police radio.

  Fifteen minutes later he stood on the slate steps in front of Bente’s enormous house. The Filipino maid opened the door and nodded silently at him. Two big Samsonite suitcases stood in the hall next to the stairs.

  Bente was sitting in the larger of the two living rooms, staring out at the rain. Bergmann saw the gray waters of the fjord being pummeled by the rain pouring down from the sky. Even the pine trees seemed to be hanging their heads out in the yard. Leading up from the private beach was a floating dock, bobbing lightly in the water.

  “Have you made any progress?” asked Bente without turning around to look at him.

  The question threw him off balance for a moment. What should he say? That he was rethinking some aspects of the case? That an old alcoholic in Uddevalla h
ad claimed that her father was a double agent during the war?

  “Could be,” Bergmann said. It was a poor answer, but the best he had.

  Bente looked indifferent.

  “This question may sound odd, but . . . could your father have had a bank account in another country, in Switzerland or Liechtenstein or somewhere like that?”

  Finally something seemed to register in Bente’s face. A worried, or perhaps insulted, furrow formed between her eyebrows. But her voice revealed that she wasn’t insulted. She just didn’t understand the relevance of his question.

  “No, or I don’t know. You’ll have to ask his lawyer, but . . .”

  “But what?” said Bergmann.

  She shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “What was his relationship to money? In general.”

  Bente stared at him, appearing not to understand, though there was no longer any doubt. This question offended her, and Bergmann couldn’t blame her.

  “Why in the world are you asking me about such things?”

  Bergmann took a deep breath. He couldn’t very well tell her the truth.

  “We’re trying to get an overall picture of your father.”

  “An overall picture,” she said. She shook her head.

  “Okay, you don’t have to answer. It’s not that important.”

  She opened her mouth to say something but apparently changed her mind.

  “Is that all?” she then asked.

  “I just have some questions about your mother.”

  She didn’t reply, didn’t even have the presence of mind to ask what her mother had to do with her father’s murder. She just sat there, looking out at the rain.

  “Her maiden name was Fredriksen, wasn’t it?”

  Bente gave a slight nod.

  “And she worked at the legation in Stockholm during the war?”

  “Yes, she met Papa in Stockholm after he had to escape from Oslo,” she said, so softly that Bergmann could scarcely distinguish her voice from the sound of the rain hammering on the terrace flagstones outside the French doors.

  “Does the name Kaj Holt mean anything to you?”

  Bente raised her eyes and looked at him properly for the first time since he’d come in. Her face was pale and without makeup, and Bergmann could now see that she was pushing sixty; the past twenty-four hours had made her look ten years older.

  After a while she shook her head faintly.

  “Try to remember,” Bergmann said. “In late May 1945 a Milorg captain who also worked for the Brits was found dead in the Norwegian legation’s apartment in Stockholm. His name was Kaj Holt. Your mother was interviewed as a witness in the case. She identified him on the day his body was found. And the Swedish police placed great weight on her testimony that Holt was suicidal.”

  “I see,” said Bente. “But the name still doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Are you sure that your mother never mentioned him? They worked together for a year and a half at the Norwegian legation in Stockholm. She must have known him well, don’t you think? Holt was also your father’s immediate superior in Oslo during the war. Your father made a great effort to find out what really happened to him. So she never said a word about Holt?”

  “Sorry.”

  “And your father?”

  An old grandfather clock struck the half hour in another room.

  “No, not that I can recall. Is it important?”

  Bergmann checked his watch. He still had to stop and see Vera Holt before he took off for Berlin.

  Twice he opened his mouth to ask the same question, but he stopped both times. Bente accompanied him to the hall.

  He stopped at the front door and nodded at the suitcases.

  “My brother,” said Bente. “He arrived early this morning.”

  “Is he here?” Bergmann asked.

  Bente shook her head. “He’s meeting with the funeral director.”

  Bergmann nodded. “I’d like to speak with him again.”

  Bente closed her eyes for a moment and leaned her head against the doorjamb.

  “Could you ask him to call me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thanks for taking the time to see me,” said Bergmann, turning up the collar of his jacket before setting out into the rain.

  He paused for a few seconds on the stairs after the door closed behind him. He’d forgotten to ask her one important thing. Just as he pressed the doorbell, the massive teak door opened. Bente was staring at him.

  “I wasn’t being completely honest,” she said with downcast eyes.

  “What do you mean?” Bergmann hunched his shoulders and looked at her.

  “My mother . . . Once many years ago there was something on a TV program. We were home alone . . .” Bente passed her hand nervously over her hair.

  “What was it about?”

  “About an officer who’d been found dead, I don’t remember in what town . . .”

  Stockholm, Bergmann said to himself.

  “It was so many years ago, I think I was twenty-five or six, home visiting one summer, and Father wasn’t home. I came into the living room and found her in tears. I’ve never seen her cry like that. I sat in the chair beside her until the program was over.”

  “And then?”

  “I remembered it just now, as you walked out the door. Mother said something odd, something I didn’t understand at the time.”

  “What did she say?” Bergmann asked, fixing his gaze on her brother’s luggage just to avoid looking at her.

  “Is it wrong to do anything for the one you love?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That was what Mother said: ‘Is it wrong to do anything for the one you love?’”

  Bente looked at Bergmann as though asking him to interpret that for her. She almost had the innocent look of a child who didn’t understand something an adult had said. A child who, out of naïveté and love, couldn’t grasp the innate wickedness of the world, and worse still, the sins of her own parents.

  “Vera Holt,” said Bergmann. “Have you ever met anyone by that name?”

  Bente furrowed her eyebrows once more. She stared blankly at him and shook her head.

  “What do you think Mother could have meant?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I really have no idea.”

  In the car he sat and smoked two cigarettes in quick succession as the rain poured down the windshield.

  So, maybe it was true.

  Maybe Carl Oscar Krogh really did have Kaj Holt murdered.

  Maybe he even did it himself.

  Bergmann felt calmer as everything fell back into place inside his head. That’s how it must have happened. The confusion, the sudden surges of doubt, were gone. For some reason Agnes, the girl, and the maid had been liquidated by Carl Oscar Krogh. After the war Kaj Holt must have started talking about it, and Krogh had had him silenced. Now someone had slaughtered him in retribution. Either because he killed Agnes and the other two, or because he had gotten rid of Holt. Or maybe both.

  He closed his eyes and listened to the sound of the rain on the car roof. Iver Faalund must be right. What else would have thrown Holt into such a state of turmoil? What else could Waldhorst have told him other than that Krogh was a double agent?

  Bergmann looked at the clock in the police car. He still had time to stop by Kolstadgata.

  He had to find Vera Holt.

  CHAPTER 46

  Wednesday, June 18, 2003

  Kolstadgata 7

  Oslo, Norway

  Kolstadgata 7 was the closest one could come to rock bottom in one of the world’s richest countries. Bergmann had been there countless times before, when he patrolled the area by car many years ago, but he couldn’t recall it ever looking worse than it did today. Outside the main entrance some Somali kids were playing with a couple of garbage bags. There was garbage everywhere, and he could hear kids fighting in the playground on the other side of the building.

  The elevat
or wasn’t working. Bergmann suspected that it hadn’t worked since the last time he had been there. He slowly climbed up to the sixth floor, studying the tagging on the walls. On the third floor the smell of piss was even stronger than he recalled from the old days.

  He pounded hard on a door that had a strip of duct tape stuck to it. The name Holt had been scratched on the tape with a ballpoint pen that had no ink.

  The stairwell door slammed, and a Somali woman came down the hallway with three kids in tow. She gave Bergmann a quick once-over before averting her gaze back to the hall. The biggest of the kids gave him a look that said he could tell from a mile away that he was a cop. The smallest boy turned his head and stared at him. The mother pulled him along and said something unintelligible in a high voice.

  He banged on the door again.

  “Vera Holt?” he said loudly, leaning close to the doorjamb, which was splintered from what looked like several attempted break-ins.

  He waited a moment, then looked at his watch. Damn, he thought. I have to get to the airport soon. He turned around and looked down the row of doors on the other side of the hall. Finally he took a step toward the door across from Vera Holt’s apartment.

  The peephole in the door was black. Somebody in there must have been watching him the whole time.

  As he took another step toward the door, it opened hesitantly until the safety chain wouldn’t go any farther.

  “Whaddaya want?”

  Bergmann held up his police ID, which hung from a cord around his neck.

  “I’d like to talk to Vera Holt.”

  The door closed. He could hear someone fiddling with the chain.

  The woman’s face revealed she’d had a hard life. Bergmann could see the marks of alcoholism in her numerous wrinkles. She pulled her robe tighter. A roll-your-own cigarette hung from her lips. Her toes were sticking out of a pair of old orthopedic sandals.

  She picked at her tongue and studied her fingers. The TV was blaring. An excitable American woman was touting the excellence of some ab-training device.