by Jo Nesbo
Harry, without much hope, had asked Halvorsen to ring the neigh-bours and ask if they had heard or seen Mosken arrive. And he had asked Møller to talk to the Public Prosecutor to see if they could get a search warrant for both of Mosken’s flats. Harry knew that their arguments were weak and, quite rightly, the Public Prosecutor had answered that he at least wanted to see something that resembled circumstantial evidence before he would give the go-ahead.
No clues. It was time to start panicking.
Harry closed his eyes. Even Juul’s face was still imprinted on his retina. Grey, closed. He had sat slumped in the armchair in Irisveien with the dog lead in his hand.
Then the wheels touched down, and Harry could confirm that he was among the thirty million fortunate ones.
The policeman whom the police boss in Vienna had kindly placed at his disposal as driver, guide and interpreter was standing in the arrivals hall with dark suit, sunglasses, bull-like neck and an A4 piece of paper with mr hole written on it in felt-pen.
The bull-neck introduced himself as Fritz (Someone has to be called Fritz, Harry thought) and led Harry to a navy-blue BMW which a moment later was whizzing north west on the motorway towards the city, past the factory chimneys spewing out white smoke and past well-behaved motorists who tucked into the right as Fritz accelerated.
‘You’ll be staying at the spy hotel,’ Fritz said.
‘The spy hotel?’
‘The venerable old Imperial. That’s where the Russian and the Western agents defected during the cold war. Your boss must be floating in funds.’
They arrived at the Kärntner Ring and Fritz pointed.
‘That’s the spire of Stephansdom you can see across the rooftops to the right,’ he said. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it? Here’s the hotel. I’ll wait while you check in.’
The receptionist at the Imperial smiled when he saw Harry eyeing the reception area with admiration.
‘We’ve renovated it at a cost of forty million schillings so that it’s exactly as it was before the war. It was almost completely destroyed by bombing in 1944 and it was fairly run down a few years ago.’
When Harry left the lift on the second floor it was like walking on springy peat, the carpets were so thick and soft. The room was not particularly big, but there was a broad four-poster bed that looked as if it was at least a hundred years old. On opening the window he could smell the bakery of the cake shop across the street.
‘Helena Mayer lives in Lazarettegasse,’ Fritz informed him when Harry was back in the car again. He hooted at a car switching lanes without signalling.
‘She’s a widow and has two grown-up children. She worked as a teacher after the war until she retired.’
‘Have you spoken to her?’
‘No, but I’ve read her file.’
The address in Lazarettegasse was a property that must have been elegant at one time. But now the paint was peeling from the walls in the spacious stairwell, and the echoes of their shuffling steps mingled with the sound of dripping water.
Helena Mayer stood smiling by the entrance to her flat on the third floor. She had lively brown eyes and apologised for the stairs.
The flat was slightly over-furnished and full of all the knick-knacks people collect over the course of their lives.
‘Please sit down,’ she said. ‘I only speak German, but you may talk to me in English. I can understand well enough,’ she said, turning to Harry.
She brought in a tray with coffee and cakes. ‘Strudel,’ she explained, pointing to the cake dish.
‘Yum,’ Fritz said and helped himself.
‘So you knew Gudbrand Johansen,’ Harry said. ‘Yes, I did. That is, we called him Uriah. He insisted on that. At first we thought he wasn’t all there. Because of his injuries.’
‘What sort of injuries?’
‘Head injuries. And his leg, of course. Dr Brockhard was on the point of amputating it.’
‘But he recovered and was sent to Oslo in the summer of 1944, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes, that was the idea.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Well, he disappeared, didn’t he? And I don’t suppose he turned up in Oslo, did he?’
‘Not as far as I know, no. Tell me, how well did you know Gudbrand Johansen?’
‘Very well. He was extrovert and a good storyteller. I think all the nurses, one after the other, fell in love with him.’
‘You too?’
She laughed a bright, trill laugh. ‘Me too. But he didn’t want me.’
‘No?’
‘Oh, I was good-looking, I can tell you – it wasn’t that. Uriah wanted someone else.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, her name was Helena too.’
‘Which Helena is that?’
The old lady furrowed her brow.
‘Helena Lang, it must have been. Their love for each other was what caused the tragedy.’
‘What tragedy?’
She stared at Harry and Fritz in surprise and then looked back at Harry again.
‘Isn’t that why you’re here?’ she said. ‘Because of the murder?’
86
Palace Gardens. 14 May 2000.
IT WAS SUNDAY. PEOPLE WERE WALKING MORE SLOWLY THAN usual and the old man kept up with them as he walked through the Palace Gardens. He stopped by the guardhouse. The trees were light green, the colour he liked best of all. All except for one tree, that is. The tall oak tree in the middle of the gardens would never be any greener than it was now. You could already see the difference. After the tree had awoken from its winter slumber, the life-giving sap had begun to circulate and spread the poison around the network of veins. Now it had reached every single leaf and promoted a luxuriant growth, which in a week or two would cause the leaves to wither, go brown and fall, and finally the tree would die.
But they didn’t know that yet. They obviously didn’t know anything. Bernt Brandhaug had not been part of the original plan, and the old man realised that the killing had confused the police. Brandhaug’s comments in Dagbladet were just one of those weird coincidences and he had laughed out loud when he read them. My God, he had even agreed with Brandhaug. The defeated should swing, that is the law of war.
But what about all the other clues he had given them? They hadn’t even managed to connect the great betrayal with the execution at Akershus Fortress. Perhaps it would dawn on them the next time the cannons were fired on the ramparts.
He looked around for a bench. The pains were coming closer and closer together now. He didn’t need to go to Buer to find out that the cancer was spreading through his whole body; he knew that himself. It wouldn’t be long now.
He leaned against a tree. A royal birch, the symbol of occupation. Government and King flee to England. German bombers are overhead, a line from a poem written by Nordahl Grieg, made him feel nauseous. It presented the King’s betrayal as an honourable retreat, as if leaving his people in their hour of need were a moral act. And in the safety of London the King had just been yet another of these exiled majesties who held moving speeches for sympathetic upper-class women over entertaining dinners as they clung to the hope that their little kingdom would one day want them back. And when the whole thing was over, there was the reception as the boat carrying the Crown Prince moored on the quayside and all those who had turned out screamed themselves hoarse to drown out the shame, both their own and the King’s. The old man turned towards the sun and closed his eyes.
Shouted commands, boots and AG3 guns smacked into the gravel. Handover. Changing of the guard.
87
Vienna. 14 May 2000.
‘SO YOU DIDN’T KNOW?’ HELENA MAYER SAID.
She shook her head and Fritz was already on the phone to get someone to search through old filed murder cases.
‘I’m sure we’ll find it,’ he whispered. Of that Harry had no doubt.
‘So the police were positive that Gudbrand Johansen killed his own doctor?’ Harry asked, turning to the old lady.<
br />
‘Yes, indeed. Christopher Brockhard lived alone in one of the flats at the hospital. The police said that Johansen smashed the glass in the outside door and killed him as he was sleeping in his own bed.’
‘How . . . ?’
Frau Mayer flashed a dramatic finger across her throat.
‘I saw him myself afterwards,’ she said. ‘You could almost have believed the doctor had done it himself, the cut was so neat.’
‘Hm. And why were the police so sure it was Johansen?’
She laughed.
‘Yes, I can tell you that – because Johansen had asked the guard which flat Brockhard lived in and the guard had seen him park outside and go in through the main entrance. Afterwards he had come running out, started his car and driven off at full speed towards Vienna. The next day he was gone and no one knew where, only that according to his orders he was supposed to be in Oslo three days later. The Norwegian police waited for him but he never turned up.’
‘Apart from the guard’s testimony, can you remember if the police had any other evidence?’
‘If I can remember? We talked about that murder for years! The blood on the glass door matched his blood type. And the police found the same fingerprints in Brockhard’s bedroom as on Uriah’s bedside table and bed in the hospital. Furthermore, he had the motive . . .’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, they loved each other, Gudbrand and Helena. But she was to be Christopher’s.’
‘They were engaged?’
‘No, no. But Christopher was crazy about Helena. Everyone knew that. Helena was from a rich family that had been ruined after her father had ended up in prison, and a marriage into the Brockhard family was her and her mother’s way of getting back on their feet. And you know how it is – a young woman has certain obligations to her family. At least, she did, at that time.’
‘Do you know where Helena Lang is today?’
‘But you haven’t touched the strudel, my dear,’ the widow exclaimed.
Harry took a big bite, chewed and nodded in approval to Frau Mayer.
‘No,’ she said. ‘That I don’t know. When it became known that she had been with Johansen on the night of the murder, she was investigated, but they didn’t find anything. She stopped working at the Rudolf II Hospital and moved to Vienna. She started up her own sewing business. Yes, she was a strong, enterprising woman. I occasionally saw her walking in the streets here. But in the mid-fifties she sold up and after that I didn’t hear any more. Someone said she had gone abroad. But I know who you can ask – if she’s alive, mind you. Beatrice Hoffmann, she worked as the house help for the Lang family. After the murder the family could no longer afford her and she worked for a time at the Rudolf II.’
Fritz was already on the telephone again.
A fly buzzed desperately around the window. It was following its own microscopic logic and kept banging into the glass without understanding quite why. Harry stood up.
‘Strudel . . . ?’
‘Next time, Frau Mayer. Right now we don’t have the time.’
‘Why’s that?’ she asked. ‘This happened more than half a century ago. It isn’t going anywhere.’
‘Well . . .’ Harry said, watching the black fly under the lace curtains in the sun.
Fritz received a call on his mobile on the way to the police station and did a highly improper U-turn which made the motorists behind them jump on their horns.
‘Beatrice Hoffmann is alive,’ he said accelerating through the lights. ‘She’s at an old people’s home in Mauerbachstraße. That’s up in the Vienna Woods.’
The BMW turbo squealed with glee. The blocks of flats gave way to half-timbered houses, vineyards and finally the green deciduous forest, with the afternoon sun playing on the leaves and creating a magical atmosphere as they sped along avenues lined with beech and chestnut trees.
A nurse led them out into the large garden.
Beatrice was sitting on a bench in the shade of an enormous, gnarled oak tree. A straw hat dominated the tiny, wrinkled face. Fritz spoke with her in German and explained why they had come. The old woman inclined her head with a smile.
‘I’m ninety years old,’ she said in a shaky voice. ‘And tears still come to my eyes when I think about Fräulein Helena.’
‘Is she still alive?’ Harry asked in his schoolboy German. ‘Do you know where she is?’
‘What’s that he says?’ she asked with her hand behind her ear. Fritz explained.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I know where Helena is.
She’s sitting up there.’ She pointed up into the treetops.
There you go, Harry thought. Senile. But the old lady hadn’t finished speaking.
‘With St Peter. Good Catholics, the Langs, but Helena was the angel in the family. As I said, it always brings tears to my eyes thinking about it.’
‘Do you remember Gudbrand Johansen?’ Harry asked.
‘Uriah,’ Beatrice said. ‘I only met him once. A handsome, charming young man, but sick unfortunately. Who would have believed that such a nice, polite boy would have been able to kill? Their emotions ran away with them, yes, with Helena too. She never got over him, the poor thing. The police never found him and although Helena was never accused of anything, André Brockhard saw to it that she was thrown out of the hospital. She moved into town and did voluntary work for the Archbishop until the family was in such dire financial straits that she was forced to find paid work. So she started a sewing business. Within two years she had fourteen women sewing for her full-time. Her father was released but couldn’t find work after the Jewish banker scandal. Frau Lang took the family’s fall from grace worst. She died after a long illness in 1953 and Herr Lang the same autumn in a car accident. Helena sold the business in 1955 and left the country without any explanation to anyone. I can remember the day. It was 15 May, Austria’s liberation day.’
Fritz saw Harry’s curious expression and explained.
‘Austria is a little unusual. Here we don’t celebrate the day Hitler capitulated, but the day the Allies left the country.’
Beatrice spoke about how she had received news of Helena’s death.
‘We hadn’t heard from her for more than twenty years when one day I received a letter postmarked Paris. She was there on holiday with her husband and daughter, she wrote. It was a kind of final journey, I realised. She didn’t say where she had settled down, whom she had married or what illness she had. Only that she hadn’t long to live and she wanted me to light a candle for her in Stephansdom. She was an unusual person, Helena was. She was seven years old when she came to me in the kitchen and turned these grave eyes on me. “Humans were created by God to love,” she said.’
A tear ran down the old lady’s lined cheek.
‘I’ll never forget it. Seven years old. I think she decided then and there how she was going to live her life. And even though it definitely wasn’t as she had imagined and her trials were many and sore, I’m convinced she believed it to the bottom of her heart all her life – that humans were created by God to love. That’s how she was.’
‘Do you still have the letter?’ Harry asked.
She wiped away her tears and nodded.
‘I have it in my room. Let me sit here and reminisce a little. We can go there afterwards. By the way, this will be the first hot night of the year.’
They sat in silence, listening to the rustle of the branches and the small birds singing as the sun went down behind Sophienalpe, as each of them thought of those gone before. Insects jumped and danced in the pillars of light under the trees. Harry thought about Ellen. He spotted a bird he could have sworn was the flycatcher he had seen pictures of in the bird book.
‘Let’s go,’ said Beatrice.
Her room was small and plain, but light and snug. A bed stood against the back wall, which was covered with pictures of all sizes. Beatrice rummaged through some papers in a large dressing-table drawer.
‘I have a system, so I’ll find it,’ sh
e said. Naturally, Harry thought.
At that moment his eyes fell on a photograph in a silver frame.
‘Here’s the letter,’ Beatrice said.
Harry didn’t answer. He stared at the photograph and didn’t react until he heard her voice right behind him.
‘That photograph was taken while Helena was working at the hospital. She was beautiful, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes, she was,’ Harry said. ‘There’s something oddly familiar about her.’
‘Nothing odd about her,’ Beatrice said. ‘They’ve been painting her on icons for almost two thousand years.’
It was a hot night. Hot and sultry. Harry tossed and turned in the four-poster, threw the blanket on the floor and pulled the sheet off the bed as he tried to shut out all his thoughts and sleep. For a moment he had considered the minibar, but then he remembered he had taken the minibar key off the ring and handed it in to reception. He heard voices in the corridor outside. Someone grabbed the handle of his door and he shot up in bed, but no one came in. Then the voices were inside, their breath hot against his skin, the ripping sound of clothes being shredded, but when he opened his eyes he saw flashes of light and he knew it was lightning.
A rumble of thunder, sounding like distant explosions, came first from one part of town, then another. He went to sleep again and kissed her, took off her white nightdress. Her skin was white and cold and uneven from sweating, from the terror; he held her for a long, long time until she was warm, until she came back to life in his arms, like a flower filmed over a whole spring and then played back at breakneck speed.
He continued to kiss her, on the neck, on the inside of her arms, on the stomach, not with insistence, not even teasingly, but half to comfort her, half comatose, as if he could vanish at any moment. And when she followed, waveringly, because she thought it was safe where they were going, he continued to lead her until they arrived in a landscape not even he recognised, and when he turned it was too late and she threw herself into his embrace, cursing him, begging him and tearing at him with her strong hands until his skin bled.