The Last Pilgrim

by Gard Sveen

  “A Carl Oscar Krogh?” Bergmann said, thinking, All hell is going to break loose. And Leif fucking Monsen is tossing the grenade right in my lap.

  “Well, I’ve never heard of the guy, but Monsen . . .” said Karlsvik. He let the sentence die out.

  You idiot, Bergmann thought.

  “Anyway. It’s a madhouse up there. The housekeeper found the old man. Reuter’s on his way up from Strömstad, down in Sweden, and he asked Monsen—”

  “The housekeeper?” Bergmann broke in. He looked back at Hadja.

  Karlsvik cleared his throat. Then he said something about a stabbing.

  At first Bergmann thought he’d misunderstood.

  “At least fifty stab wounds?” he repeated quietly.

  “His eyes are gone,” said Karlsvik.

  Bergmann shut his own eyes.

  “I’ve got to go,” he said to Hadja.

  She frowned.

  “Is it that bad?” she said.

  “You’ll have to pretend you didn’t hear anything I said until the news hits the papers.”

  He held out the pack of cigarettes to her. She shook her head.

  “That’s enough for today,” she said, getting up. Bergmann lit himself another, took a deep drag, and exhaled hard through his nose.

  “Can you find Drabløs for me?” he asked, looking at the clock. “Tell him I have to go back to work, and he has to take charge of the last two games. He can call me if he needs to, but it would have to be really important.”

  Hadja nodded.

  “It was so nice to see you again,” she said.

  CHAPTER 19

  Thursday, August 24, 1939

  Seven Oaks Court

  Kent, Great Britain

  If anyone had asked her how many shades of green there were in the world, she would have told them to go to Westerham Ponds and try to count them. Agnes Gerner turned around one last time to gaze down the path lined with willow trees. She could see the water glittering amid the foliage in the distance. Bess was waiting for her at the top of the path. She knew what she would see up there, a vast infinity of green beauty. The rolling landscape would stretch before them, glowing with oxeye daisies and Scottish bluebells and all sorts of butterflies, and far off on the horizon they’d be able to glimpse Seven Oaks Court, the red-brick manor house where she had spent so much of the last six months.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” she heard someone say behind her. Christopher Bratchard had walked a few steps ahead of her on the way back. A gentleman never walked behind a lady in skirts going up a stairway or a slope of any kind.

  Agnes turned to face him. He was staring at her again, as if searching for something—possibly a sign that his feelings were reciprocated. Feelings that an agent handler was forbidden to have. Especially a married one.

  It had been his suggestion that they spend the day out in God’s country, as he called it, on this final day of their last week at Seven Oaks Court. All her instincts had warned her against being out here alone with him, several miles from anyone else. But what could she do? After all, she had placed her life in this man’s hands.

  Very few people knew what had become of her in recent months, and even fewer what she was doing here. Some days even she hardly knew. Less than a year ago it had appeared to be a conscious decision, but it could just as easily be considered a coincidence.

  She had attended a reception at the Norwegian embassy for an occasion she could no longer recall, and during the social hour she expressed an honest observation about her own mother. After her Norwegian father’s death her mother had married a British lord who was threatened with bankruptcy. This man, whom she hated intensely, was a leading supporter of the detestable fascist Oswald Mosley, a fact that distressed her half-British heart. Even worse, her sister in Oslo seemed to have adopted the same outlook as her new stepfather and her mother.

  That evening Agnes had met an attaché from the British embassy in Oslo, who insisted on being addressed as Richard. Later that night, she and her girlfriend, whose father held a high-level post as a diplomat at the embassy, ended up in a newly opened French restaurant in Mayfair with the attaché and some of his friends from Magdalen College in Oxford. She fell hard for him. When he insisted on accompanying her home in a cab after she had imbibed far too much champagne, she wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d ended up in bed together. But instead of making a pass, he had merely kissed her hand as they stood on the stoop. When she, slightly bewildered, finally managed to get the key in the door, he cleared his throat and asked if they could meet the next day.

  Christopher Bratchard now held out his arm to her, even though Agnes had no problem walking on the neatly groomed path. She was rescued by Bess, who emerged from the surrounding woods, racing at full speed with her tongue hanging out of her mouth. She cut between them and ran up the path toward Seven Oaks Court. Bratchard smiled and dropped his arm. How I love that dog, Agnes thought. The only thing she didn’t understand was why Christopher had insisted that she bring Bess along for the three weeks down here. Her mother had bought an English setter puppy for her right after her father died. It was practically the only good thing she could say about her.

  “If only life could be like this forever,” Christopher said. He set down his gray field sack, took out a handkerchief from his tweed jacket, and wiped his forehead. Even in this heat he refused to remove his hat.

  Agnes mumbled something in reply, keeping her eye on Bess, who was waiting at the top of the hill. Up there, she recalled, they would pass through a grove of oak trees before they emerged into the meadow. From there it would be less than a half hour back to Seven Oaks Court.

  Just before they reached the hilltop, Bratchard fortunately began cross-checking her to make sure she remembered where and when she was supposed to meet her contact in Oslo.

  “He’ll recognize you,” said Bratchard. It sounded as if he wanted to add, “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.”

  When they reached the top of the hill, they found Bess lying in the shade of a tree. Agnes called to her, wondering how the two of them would get along back home in Oslo. Was Oslo her home? No place was really home anymore.

  Bess came over to them, wagging her tail as she circled them. Bratchard stopped again and pulled something out of his field sack. The folding spade that hung off the sack rapped on the gravel path. When he looked up, she’d expected Bratchard to give her that usual half-flirtatious smile of his, but his expression was serious. His chiseled features only further emphasized that this was not meant to be amusing.

  Agnes looked down at his hand, and he opened it.

  It was a little red ball, a dog’s toy.

  They stood there looking at each other.

  “Here, Bess!” Bratchard called, kneeling down. The dog came running, tail wagging.

  What is he doing? Agnes wondered.

  Bratchard stood up and threw the ball as far as he could down the path toward the grove, and the dog took off after it.

  “Come on,” said Bratchard without looking at Agnes.

  They’d only walked a few steps when the dog came racing back to Bratchard with the ball in her mouth and dropped it in front of him. He picked it up and threw it into the grove once more. They kept walking. Agnes didn’t mind. It was only a whim, nothing more. Seven Oaks Court would soon come into view, and she would go straight to her room and rest until dinner. Tomorrow she would be sitting on the train back to London.

  Just before they entered the grove, where the dog was hunting for the ball, Agnes saw Christopher take something else out of his field sack.

  The sun seemed to vanish from the sky when she saw what he was holding. A big Webley revolver.

  “When we enter the grove,” he said, nodding straight ahead, “you have to shoot the dog.”

  Agnes opened her mouth, but nothing came out. The ground seemed to sway beneath her.

  “I don’t think I . . .” she said softly.

  Bratchard didn’t say a w
ord. He held out the revolver to her. She had shot three pigs in her life, only to prove that she could, but . . . the man was insane.

  “If you don’t do it, I will,” he said.

  They looked at each other until the dog came back. The only thought Agnes had was that she couldn’t start crying.

  As Bratchard held out his left hand to take the ball from the dog, he shoved the revolver into Agnes’s right hand. The knurled grip felt cold, and her wrist almost gave way with the weight of the heavy steel. A Webley would stop a charging bull dead in its tracks in a split second. Agnes turned to look at the skinny English setter chasing the ball that Bratchard had just thrown.

  Their eyes met. His lips were pressed tight, and the shadow of his hat brim had turned his face gray.

  “It’s too late, Agnes. You can’t leave the service.”

  Agnes bit the inside of her cheek. He’s going to kill me, she thought.

  Once more the dog came back.

  She felt her legs go weak under her as she bent down to give Bess one last hug. She’d thought she would have her for ten or twelve years, until she got married and had kids. A happy life, as happy as she could be.

  Bess looked at her as though expecting a reward, then looked at Bratchard. Agnes patted her one last time. Seconds later the dog took off into the grove.

  Agnes followed. Fine rays of sunlight sliced through the dark-green foliage. Bess was rooting around for the ball in some ferns.

  “Sit,” said Bratchard, standing right behind her about five yards from the dog. Agnes murmured a silent prayer.

  Bess sat and looked up at Agnes with her head tilted to one side.

  Papa, oh Papa, she thought, please forgive me.

  She took a step forward, then one more. Bess remained still, but she had cocked her head even more, as if to say, “What are you doing?” Agnes was nauseated by the smell of the moist earth. She heard the sound of rotten leaves from last winter under her shoes. Nothing else, not even birdsong.

  The dog’s narrow head was in her sights. The revolver no longer felt heavy, and her hand was steady. A thought ran through her mind. I must be sick. Really sick.

  “Now!” Bratchard whispered. “Don’t think. You must never think. Then you’ll find out how long a second is.”

  The boom of the Webley unleashed chaos in the treetops. What sounded like thousands of birds shrieked in fright overhead and they took flight all at once, fleeing the hell below.

  Half of the setter’s long, handsome head was smashed, and a torrent of blood—bright red like that of the pigs’—gushed out from what was left of its mouth. Bess stared at her with her undamaged eye, then dropped to the ground.

  Agnes lowered the revolver.

  “Give her one more,” Bratchard said in a low voice. “She’s still alive.”

  Agnes took a step forward. Her own mouth felt like it was full of blood, and a metallic taste ran down her throat, into her stomach, sickening her. She gulped once, twice. Then she raised the revolver and shot away the rest of the dog’s head. Don’t cry, don’t ever cry, she urged herself. Never cry. That was what her mother had taught her when she was a girl: “You must never cry when someone can see you, Agnes, never.”

  Bratchard took the revolver from her hand. He nodded to himself, watching her intently.

  “You’re crazy,” she said softly, closing her eyes. But no tears ran down her cheek.

  He whispered something, but she didn’t hear him. She tilted her head back and stared up through the branches above them. All the birds were gone; perhaps they would never come back.

  “What did you say?” she whispered.

  His hand was suddenly heavy on her shoulder. He squeezed hard, as if he wanted to crush her with his bare hand.

  “It’ll happen in just a few weeks. Maybe only a matter of days.”

  “And then?” Agnes asked.

  “When Hitler crosses the border into Poland, that will be it. If Norway is ever going to have any honor again, we must declare war on Germany.”

  Agnes said nothing. The blood in her mouth now had a sweet taste that made her think of candy. That blood was a good thing.

  “And then only the crazy people will survive what lies ahead,” he told her.

  “Let me go,” she said. “Let me go, you bastard.”

  Bratchard took her face in his hands and turned her head toward the dog’s ruined body.

  “Only the insane,” he said and let her go.

  She felt him shove something into her left hand. The spade.

  “Now bury her.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Whitsunday, June 8, 2003

  Carl Oscar Krogh’s Residence

  Dr. Holms Vei

  Oslo, Norway

  Tommy Bergmann tried to regain his balance by planting his legs a little farther apart and gripping his cell phone a little tighter. With stiff fingers he pressed the speed-dial number for Dispatch.

  “I need you two to go block off the street,” he said to the two uniforms who had followed him like children, their faces pale. Neither of them had ever seen anything like this before. But Bergmann had, and it may have been that recollection that had knocked the air out of him.

  “Now!” Bergmann said. “And maintain radio silence.”

  The marching boots tramped back through the living room. He didn’t bother yelling at them about destroying the crime scene. They’d already stomped around like elephants in there, totally ignoring regulations.

  Bergmann stepped around the deceased and went out on the terrace where the dog lay. It looked like it was staring at him with its brown eyes. He followed the tether across the yard with his gaze. A white butterfly fluttered over by the fence. He watched it until it vanished from sight.

  He felt sick to his stomach as he reentered the room. It had been years since the last time, but that made no difference. He felt the blood drain from his head and cursed himself for not getting enough sleep last night. The young housekeeper stood in the middle of the Persian carpet, crying in her hands. She’d been standing like that ever since he’d entered the house. The knees of her jeans were bloody. She must have fallen somehow.

  In the middle of the floor lay real-estate mogul and former minister of trade Carl Oscar Krogh. His throat was sliced open and his head pulled back at an almost right angle to his skinny old body. His light-blue tennis shirt was dark with blood except for a small area at the bottom. The smell of urine and excrement filled the room. His face was completely chopped up as if a bird had pecked at him. His eyes were a gelatinous mass mixed with blood and the remains of what must have been his eyelids. Bergmann could only trust the housekeeper’s statement that it was actually Carl Oscar Krogh.

  But the worst part was the man’s chest. Krogh must have been stabbed multiple times in and around the heart. The left side of his rib cage was a mass of bloody pulp. A surprisingly small knife lay on the floor beside Krogh’s left hand.

  Bergmann managed to make it to the guest toilet in the hall. As he bent over the toilet bowl, he thought of what Hadja had said as he left the Sofiemyr gym: “It was so nice to see you again.” If he’d only been smart enough to turn off his phone on his day off.

  When he was finished vomiting he noticed that the white washstand was pink. He was holding on to the faucet, not even thinking that he might have destroyed evidence. He looked straight into the mirror. Exactly the way the perp must have done only a few minutes before. Less than ten, maybe only five. Maybe the housekeeper had even crossed paths with him on her way up here. The hand towel next to the washstand had spots of newly dried blood. There was blood on the walls, even the impression of a hand. The killer must have leaned against the wall. Maybe even he had gotten dizzy from the sight of all that blood. Maybe in a moment of clarity he had realized the insanity of what he had done.

  Bergmann heard a sound behind him. In the mirror he saw the door slowly open.

  A pale, scared face appeared.

  The housekeeper screamed.

 
; She was clearly just as surprised to see Bergmann as he was at the sight of her.

  Thank God, he thought.

  Her face was contorted with fright and she kept on screaming. She pointed at the bloody handprints on the white wall.

  Then she stopped abruptly. Almost as if someone had slashed her throat too.

  “The knife,” she said so softly he could hardly hear her. “You have to look at the knife.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Sunday, September 3, 1939

  King’s Cross Station

  London, Great Britain

  Agnes Gerner’s final thought as the train began to move was that she would always hate the man who stood motionless on the platform.

  Christopher Bratchard stared vacantly ahead in the white light coming through the glass ceiling. Maybe he was embarrassed that he had shown up here at ten minutes to midnight. Maybe his expression was no different than that of everyone around him. Embittered and sad about what was now inevitable. How right he had been on that last day in Kent. There was no turning back. Britain could no longer retreat.

  Now may God bless you all. She whispered the words from Chamberlain’s radio speech that morning to herself, meeting Bratchard’s gaze. A second later his face was gone, replaced by strangers waving handkerchiefs, some of whom were running along the platform, waving and crying.

  Agnes gave a start when the sliding door of the compartment opened. The elderly conductor gave her a quick smile and heaved a suitcase onto the overhead rack. A woman about her age nodded briefly to the men in the compartment and sat down across from her. After exchanging some polite chitchat about how warm the weather was today, Agnes went back to staring out the window to avoid getting into a real conversation. I hate you, Christopher Bratchard, she thought, recalling Bess in her mind’s eye, the shattered head, the open skull, the eye that still stared at her as though the dog couldn’t understand how she could do such a thing.

  She could barely make out the vaulted roof over the departure platform at King’s Cross. He was still somewhere inside, and she wondered how long his aftershave would sting her cheek. She thought of his words in her ear. His bad breath, which he tried to camouflage with mouthwash. His unabashed lust for her. Even Christopher, her own control officer. On his own initiative he’d accompanied her to the door of the train, as if he were her fiancé. As if he would whisper the words “I’ll wait for you” in her ear and run along with the train like so many of the others, or at least walk, wave, do something, anything at all. But no, he had stood motionless and stared into space with his hands in the pockets of his heavy tweed jacket, even though the weather was much too warm for it. The most violent, sultry storms had thundered down upon them all weekend, as if the Lord Himself were casting His wrath upon the world and Chamberlain in particular.