by Jo Nesbo
‘I remember the last time you had the same expression, Gudbrand. That was the night you killed the Russian in the bunker.’
Gudbrand shrugged. Edvard laid an icy mitten on Gudbrand’s arm.
‘Listen. Sindre was not a good soldier, perhaps he wasn’t even a good person, but we’re moral individuals and we have to try to maintain a certain standard and dignity in all this. Do you understand?’
‘Can I go now?’
Edvard looked at Gudbrand. The rumours about Hitler no longer triumphing on all fronts had begun to reach them now. Nevertheless, the stream of Norwegian volunteers kept growing, and Daniel and Sindre had already been replaced by two boys from Tynset. New young faces the whole time. Some you remembered, some you forgot as soon as they were gone. Daniel was one that Edvard would remember, he knew that. Just as he knew that, before long, Sindre’s face would be erased from his memory. Rubbed away. Edvard Junior would be two in a few days. He didn’t proceed with this line of thought.
‘Yes, go,’ he said. ‘And keep your head down.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Gudbrand said. ‘I’ll be sure to keep my head down.’
‘Do you remember what Daniel said?’ Edvard asked with a sort of smile. ‘He said we walked so much of the time with a stoop that we would be hunchbacks by the time we returned home.’
A machine gun cackled in the distance.
13
Leningrad. 3 January 1943.
GUDBRAND AWOKE WITH A START. HE BLINKED A COUPLE of times and saw only the outline of the row of planks in the bunk above him. There was a smell of sour wood and earth. Had he screamed? The other men insisted they were no longer kept awake by his screams. He lay there, feeling his pulse slowly calm down. He scratched his side – the lice never slept.
It was the same dream as always that woke him. He could still feel the paws on his chest, see the yellow eyes in the dark, the white predator’s teeth with the stench of blood on them and the saliva that ran and ran. And hear the terrified heaving for breath. Was it his or the predator’s? The dream was like that: he was asleep and awake at the same time, but he couldn’t move. The animal’s jaws were about to close around his throat when the chatter of a machine gun over by the door woke him, and he saw the animal being lifted off the blanket and flung against the earthen wall of the bunker as it was torn to pieces by the bullets. Then it was quiet, and on the floor lay a blood-strewn, amorphous mass of fur. A polecat. And then the man in the doorway stepped out of the dark and into the narrow strip of moonlight, so narrow that it only lit up half of his face. But something in the dream that night had been different. The muzzle of the gun smoked as it should and the man smiled as always, but he had a large black crater in his forehead. Gudbrand could see the moon through the hole in his skull when he turned to face him.
Gudbrand felt the cold draught of air from the open door, turned his head and froze when he saw the dark figure filling the doorway. Was he still dreaming? The figure strode into the room, but it was too dark for Gudbrand to see who it was.
The figure stopped abruptly.
‘Are you awake, Gudbrand?’ The voice was loud and clear. It was Edvard Mosken. A displeased mumble came from the other bunks. Edvard came right up to Gudbrand’s bunk.
‘You’ve got to get up,’ he said.
Gudbrand groaned. ‘You haven’t read the list properly. I’ve just come off watch. It’s Dale’s —’
‘He’s back.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Dale just came and woke me. Daniel’s back.’
‘What are you talking about?’
In the dark, Gudbrand saw only Edvard’s white breath. Then he swung his legs off the bunk and took his boots out from under the blanket. He usually kept them there when he was asleep so the damp soles wouldn’t freeze. He put on his coat, which had been lying on top of the thin woollen blanket, and followed Edvard outside. The stars twinkled above them, but the night sky was growing paler in the east. Somewhere he could hear terrible sobbing. Otherwise it was strangely still.
‘New Dutch recruits,’ Edvard said. ‘They arrived yesterday and are just back from their first trip to no man’s land.’
Dale stood in the middle of the trench in an odd pose, his head tilted to one side and his arms away from his body. He had tied his scarf round his chin and his emaciated face with closed eyes in deep sockets made him look like a beggar.
‘Dale!’ came the sharp command from Edvard. Dale woke up. ‘Show us.’
Dale led the way. Gudbrand could feel his heart pumping faster. The cold bit into his cheeks; he still hadn’t managed to freeze out the warm, dreamlike feeling he had brought with him from his bunk. The trench was so narrow that they had to walk in single file, and he could feel Edvard’s eyes in his back.
‘Here,’ Dale said, pointing.
The wind whistled a hoarse tune under the rim of the helmet. On the ammunition boxes was a body with its limbs splayed stiffly out to the sides. The snow which had drifted into the trench had left a thin layer on top of the uniform. Sacking was tied round the head of the corpse.
‘Fucking hell,’ Dale said. He shook his head and stamped his feet.
Edvard didn’t say a word. Gudbrand reckoned he was waiting for him.
‘Why haven’t the corpse-bearers collected him?’ Gudbrand asked finally.
‘They did collect him,’ Edvard said. ‘They were here yesterday afternoon.’
‘So why did they bring him back?’ Gudbrand noticed that Edvard was eyeing him.
‘No one on the general staff knows of any orders to bring him back.’
‘A misunderstanding?’ Gudbrand said. ‘Maybe.’ Edvard flicked a thin, half-smoked cigarette out of a packet, turned away from the wind and lit it with a cupped match. He passed it on after a couple of drags.
‘The men who took him maintain he was put in one of the mass graves in the Northern Sector.’
‘If that’s true, shouldn’t he be buried?’
Edvard shook his head.
‘They aren’t buried until they’ve been burned. And they only burn during the day so that the Russians can’t take advantage of the light. And at night the new mass graves are open and unguarded. Someone must have taken Daniel from there.’
‘Fucking hell,’ Dale said again, taking the cigarette and inhaling greedily.
‘So it’s really true that they burn the bodies,’ Gudbrand said. ‘What for? In this cold?’
‘I know that,’ Dale said. ‘It’s because the ground is frozen. When the temperature rises in springtime, the earth pushes bodies upwards.’ He reluctantly passed on the cigarette. ‘Last winter we buried Vorpenes a long way behind our lines. In the spring we stumbled across him again. Well, what the foxes had left of him at any rate.’
‘The question is,’ Edvard said. ‘How did Daniel end up here?’
Gudbrand shrugged.
‘You had the last watch, Gudbrand.’ Edvard had screwed up one eye and turned the cyclops eye on him. Gudbrand took his time with the cigarette. Dale coughed.
‘I walked past here four times,’ Gudbrand said, sending on the cigarette. ‘He wasn’t here then.’
‘You could have gone up to the Northern Sector during your watch. And there are sledge tracks over here in the snow.’
‘Could have been left by the corpse-bearers,’ Gudbrand said. ‘The tracks are over the last boot prints. And you say you walked past here four times.’
‘Hell, Edvard, I can see it’s Daniel over there too!’ Gudbrand exploded. ‘Of course someone put him there, and probably using a sledge. But if you’re listening to what I’m saying you must be able to see that someone brought him here after I passed for the last time.’
Edvard didn’t answer; instead, visibly annoyed, he ripped the final couple of centimetres of the cigarette out of Dale’s pursed mouth and stared disapprovingly at the wet marks on the cigarette paper. Dale picked the shreds of tobacco off his tongue and scowled.
‘Why in God’s name would
I bother with something like this?’ Gudbrand asked. ‘And how could I possibly drag a body from the Northern Sector over here without being stopped by patrols?’
‘You could have gone through no man’s land.’
Gudbrand shook his head in disbelief. ‘Do you think I’ve gone mad, Edvard? What would I want with Daniel’s body?’
Edvard took the last two drags of the cigarette, dropped the end in the snow and trod it in with his boot. He always did that, he didn’t know why, but he couldn’t stand the sight of smoking cigarette ends. The snow gave with a groan as he twisted his heel.
‘No, I don’t think you dragged Daniel here,’ Edvard said. ‘Because I don’t think it’s Daniel.’
Dale and Gudbrand recoiled.
‘Of course it’s Daniel,’ Gudbrand said.
‘Or someone with the same build,’ Edvard said. ‘And the same unit insignia on the uniform.’
‘The sacking . . .’
‘So you can see a difference in the sacking, can you?’ Edvard jeered, but it was Gudbrand he was watching.
‘It’s Daniel,’ Gudbrand said with a swallow. ‘I recognise the boots.’
‘So you think we should just call the corpse-bearers and ask them to take him away again, do you?’ Edvard asked. ‘Without taking a closer look. That was what you were counting on, wasn’t it?’
‘Go to hell, Edvard!’
‘I’m not so sure it’s my turn this time, Gudbrand. Take off the sacking, Dale.’
Dale gaped at the other two, who were glowering at each other like two rampant bulls.
‘Do you hear me?’ Edvard shouted. ‘Cut away the sacking!’
‘I’d prefer not to —’
‘It’s an order. This minute!’
Dale continued to hesitate. He looked from one to the other and at the rigid corpse on the ammunition chests. Then he shrugged his shoulders, unbuttoned his jacket and put his hand inside.
‘Wait!’ Edvard shouted. ‘Ask if you can borrow Gudbrand’s bayonet.’ Now Dale really was at sea. He looked quizzically at Gudbrand, who was shaking his head.
‘What do you mean?’ Edvard asked, still face to face with Gudbrand. ‘Your standing orders are that you must always carry a bayonet, and you don’t have one on you?’
Gudbrand didn’t answer.
‘You, the ultimate killing machine with a bayonet, Gudbrand. You haven’t simply lost it, have you?’
Gudbrand still didn’t answer. ‘In that case, yes, you’ll have to use your own, Dale.’
Gudbrand felt an irrepressible urge to tear the large staring eye out of the section leader’s head. Rottenführer, that’s what he was! Or rather a ‘Rat-führer’. A rat with a rat’s eyes and a rat’s brain. Didn’t he understand anything?
They heard a ripping noise behind them as the bayonet cut through the sacking, then a gasp from Dale. Both men whirled round. There, in the red light of the dawning day, a white face with a hideous grin stared up at them with a third black gaping eye in the forehead. It was Daniel alright, no question about it.
14
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 4 November 1999.
BERNT BRANDHAUG LOOKED AT HIS WATCH AND FROWNED. Eighty-two seconds, seven more than usual. Then he strode over the threshold to the meeting room, sang out his hearty ‘Good morning’ and smiled his famous white smile to the four faces turned towards him.
Kurt Meirik, POT, sat on one side of the table with Rakel (complete with unbecoming hairslide, power suit and severe expression). It struck him that the suit seemed a little too expensive for a secretary. He still held to his intuition that she was divorced, but perhaps she had married well. Or did she have wealthy parents? The fact that she was here again, at a meeting that Brandhaug had signalled should take place in total privacy, suggested she was higher up in POT than he had at first assumed. He determined to find out more about her.
Anne Størksen sat on the other side of the table with the tall, thin Crime Squad boss, what was his name? First of all it took him more than eighty seconds to get to the meeting room, and now he couldn’t remember a name – was he getting old?
He hadn’t even thought this through to the end when the previous night’s events came back into his mind. He had invited Lise, the young Foreign Office probationer, out to what he called a little working lunch. Afterwards he offered her a drink at the Continental Hotel where, under the auspices of the Foreign Office, he had a permanent room at his disposal for meetings which required a little more discretion. Lise had not been difficult to ask out, she was an ambitious girl. But it had gone badly. A one-off, a drink too many perhaps, but surely he wasn’t getting too old. Brandhaug shoved the idea to the back of his mind and sat down.
‘Thank you for being able to come at such short notice,’ he began. ‘The confidential nature of this meeting does not need to be emphasised, of course, but I will do so anyway since not everyone has had so much experience of the business in hand.’
He cast a swift glance at everyone except Rakel, making it clear that the message was intended for her. Then he turned towards Anne Størksen.
‘By the way, how is your man?’
The Chief Constable looked at him in some confusion. ‘Your police man?’ Brandhaug hastened to say. ‘Hole, isn’t that what he’s called?’
She nodded to Møller, who had to clear his throat twice before he got going.
‘Fine, under the circumstances. He’s shaken of course. But . . . OK.’ He shrugged to show that there wasn’t a lot more to say.
Brandhaug raised a recently plucked eyebrow.
‘Not so shaken that there might be the risk of a leak, I trust?’
‘Erm,’ Møller said. He saw the Chief Constable quickly turn towards him with a sidelong glance. ‘I don’t believe so. He’s aware of the delicate nature of the matter. And of course he has been sworn to secrecy about what happened.’
‘The same is true for the other police officers involved at the scene,’ Anne Størksen added with alacrity.
‘Let’s hope this is under control then,’ Brandhaug said. ‘I’ll just give you a brief update on the situation. I have just had a long conversation with the American ambassador and I believe I may say that we have agreed on the most important points in this tragic matter.’
He looked at each of them in turn. They gazed at him in an atmosphere of tense expectation. Waited for what he, Bernt Brandhaug, could tell them. The despondency he had felt a few seconds before seemed to have been erased.
‘The ambassador was able to tell me that the Secret Service agent whom your man’, – he motioned towards Møller and the Chief Constable – ‘shot at the toll barrier is in a stable condition and he is off the danger list. His dorsal vertebrae are damaged and there is internal haemorrhaging, but the bulletproof vest saved him. I regret that we were unable to discover this information earlier, but for understandable reasons we have attempted to keep all communication about this affair to a minimum. Only the most essential details have been exchanged between a small number of involved parties.’
‘Where is he?’ Møller asked.
‘Strictly speaking, you don’t need to know that, Inspector Møller.’
He looked at Møller, whose face had assumed a strange expression. There was an oppressive silence in the room for a second. It was always a little embarrassing when someone had to be reminded that they were not allowed to know more than they needed for their job. Brandhaug smiled and spread his hands in regret as if to say: I can well understand you asking, but that’s the way it is. Møller nodded and looked down at the table.
‘OK,’ Brandhaug said. ‘I can tell you this much – after the operation he was flown to a military hospital in Germany.’
‘Right.’ Møller scratched the back of his neck. ‘Erm . . .’
Brandhaug waited.
‘I assume it’s fine to let Hole know this? That the SS agent is recovering, I mean. It will make the situation . . . um . . . easier for him.’
Brandhaug looked at Møller
. He had difficulty working out the head of Crime Squad.
‘That’s fine.’
‘What was it that you and the ambassador agreed on?’ It was Rakel.
‘I’m coming to that,’ Brandhaug said gently. Actually it was his next point, but he disliked being interrupted in this way. ‘First of all, I would like to commend Møller and the Oslo police on their quick appraisal at the scene. If the reports are correct, it took a mere twelve minutes for the agent to receive professional medical attention.’
‘Hole and his colleague, Ellen Gjelten, drove him to Aker Hospital,’ Anne Størksen said.
‘Admirably quick reactions,’ Brandhaug said.‘And that is a view which is shared by the American ambassador.’
Møller and the Chief Constable exchanged glances. ‘Furthermore, the ambassador has spoken to the Secret Service and there is no question of instituting proceedings from the American side. Naturally.’
‘Naturally,’ Meirik chimed in.
‘We also agreed that the error resided in the main with the Americans. The agent in the toll booth should never have been there. That is, it was permitted, but the Norwegian liaison officer at the scene should have been notified. The Norwegian policeman who was at the post at which the agent came into the zone, and who should have – sorry, could have – informed the liaison officer, reacted only to the ID the agent showed him. The standing orders were that Secret Service agents had access to all secure areas, and the policeman therefore saw no reason to report it further. In retrospect, we may say that he ought to have done.’
He looked at Anne Størksen, who gave no indication that she would protest.
‘The good news is that at this juncture it does not appear that anything has come out. I have not, however, called this meeting to discuss what we should do as a best-case scenario, which is precious little more than sit tight. I presume we do not need to consider such a thing. It would be absurdly naive to believe that this shooting incident will not leak out sooner or later.’