by Gard Sveen
“Do you really think that—” Bergmann began.
“It was nice of you to visit,” said Nystrøm, taking the stick out of the panting setter’s mouth. “But I don’t know why you came all this way when it’s so obvious who killed them.”
“So you’re saying that it was Krogh who did it?” said Bergmann, speaking more to himself than to Nystrøm. “He killed Agnes Gerner, Cecilia, and the maid?”
CHAPTER 37
Friday, June 13, 2003
Skogslyckan
Uddevalla, Sweden
Uddevalla probably wasn’t on the list of potential UN world heritage sites, but the town was nicer than Tommy Bergmann had expected. He stopped in a bus pullout near a cemetery and looked at the map he’d picked up at the Hotel Gyldenlöwe. This should be the place. According to the hotel desk clerk, the street that Iver Faalund was last known to have lived on, Östanvindsvägen, was lined with a series of apartment buildings that had been built north of town to house dock workers at the wharf, which had since been shut down.
As he put the car into gear, fragments of his conversation with Hadja the night before popped into his mind. He had called her, overcome with longing, after spending an hour alone in his hotel room. A longing to talk to Hadja, not Hege. She had told him quite candidly that she couldn’t stop thinking about him. That was all he needed to hear in order to get a good night’s sleep. But now he found himself wondering whether it had been such a wise idea to suggest they get together as soon as he got back to Oslo. There was little doubt that she was good for him. But whether he was good for her was another question.
Unlike what he was used to in Norway, the entrance door was not locked. In the stairwell he found a list of the tenants who lived on each floor. There were no buzzers to press, just a list of names in white plastic letters. The elevator on his right chimed, and an old lady got out and swept past him to the door without so much as a word of greeting.
He ran his finger down the list until he found the tenant he was looking for. Iver Faalund. So you’re still alive, thought Bergmann. On the seventh floor the walls of the corridor were painted pale yellow, with a decorative border of blue-and-white sailboats, heeling into an imaginary wind. Bergmann could hear the sounds of a TV coming from the apartment on his left. As he took the last few steps toward the door, he noticed a slight tingling in his fingertips and the soles of his feet. He was breathing faster than usual.
Iver Faalund’s apartment was in the middle of the corridor. Posted on the door was his last name, formed from the same type of plastic letters as downstairs in the vestibule. The whole place reminded Bergmann of an old-fashioned dentist’s office. Only the clinical smell was missing. The sound of the doorbell ringing inside the apartment pierced through the door panels and out into the corridor.
The TV was still blaring from the apartment at the end of the hall, but not a sound came from Faalund’s place. Bergmann pressed the doorbell again. Still no response. He crouched down and looked through the mail slot in the middle of the door. He could see another door inside. If only it had been left open, thought Bergmann. Just as he stood up the elevator door slid open behind him. He turned around and met the eye of an elderly man wearing a blue poplin jacket, a newly pressed white shirt, sharply creased beige slacks, and a white sailor’s cap with a black brim. His face was covered with an intricate network of burst blood vessels, and his nose was more blue than red. He was carrying two bags from the state liquor store.
“Who are you looking for?” said the man in Swedish as he came over to Bergmann.
“You,” said Bergmann. “If you’re Iver Faalund, that is.”
The man paused and stared. He blinked once, then twice. Bergmann would have given anything to know what was going through the man’s head at that moment. It was as if his expression clearly said, “Carl Oscar Krogh.”
“Well, yes, that’s me,” said Faalund.
“You knew Carl Oscar Krogh well,” said Bergmann. “At least that’s what I’ve been told.” He took out his police ID, but Faalund didn’t even glance at it. He merely shifted the bags from his left hand to his right and moved past Bergmann. Without a word he put his key in the lock. His hands were not shaking, and his movements were as confident and practiced as only an inveterate alcoholic could manage. His eyes left little doubt about how he spent his days. They glistened as if he were about to burst into tears.
Bergmann caught a glimpse of the kitchen as Faalund opened the inner door and went inside his apartment. Three empty Stolichnaya bottles stood on the kitchen counter.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” said Faalund, taking off his cap and hanging it on a hook on the wall. He ran his hand over the few strands of white hair that were plastered to his pink skull. Sunlight slipped through the blinds, casting thin stripes across the old parquet floorboards. The apartment seemed well maintained, just like the rest of the housing cooperative, but the place was filled with the unmistakable and impenetrable smell of stale cigarette smoke and years of drinking. Even Bergmann, who smoked more than he should, knew from the smell what the focus of this man’s life must be: drinking and smoking himself to death.
Iver Faalund took off his jacket. The back of his white shirt was soaked with sweat. He picked up the bags and went into the kitchen. Bergmann heard him put the newly purchased bottles away. Then he saw him take out a shot glass from the blue-painted cupboard and twist the cork off the cold bottle he took from the fridge. He filled the glass to the brim and downed it in one gulp. Then he poured himself another.
“I have nothing to say,” said Faalund from the kitchen. “Not to you or to whoever it was you talked to.”
“Then I’ll have to ask you to accompany me to police headquarters to answer questions regarding the Krogh case. You’re the last person left alive who hasn’t told his story. Marius Kolstad died two days ago. Did you know that?”
“I’m a Swedish citizen,” said Faalund. He came over and reached for the handle of the inner door, about to close it in Bergmann’s face. “You can’t ask me to get involved in a Norwegian criminal case.”
Bergmann was caught off guard for a few seconds. He hadn’t thought that far ahead. Of course the man had become a Swedish citizen.
“We need your help,” said Bergmann, putting his hand on the door that was about to close.
“Nobody has needed my help since 1951,” said Faalund. “Then it was thanks and good-bye from the army, and I’ve never looked back. Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .” He looked Bergmann in the eye. His irises were a strange blend of green and brown, and the whites were almost yellow with blood vessels squiggling in all directions.
“But you knew Krogh well,” said Bergmann, his voice sounding more desperate than he’d intended. He couldn’t let this man slip through his fingers. “And Kolstad said they were looking for sensitive information about—”
“And now they’re both dead,” said Faalund, slamming the door shut.
Someone opened the trash chute on the floor above. Bergmann closed his eyes as he listened to a bag of garbage sliding down to the cellar.
He raised his hand to knock on the door, but changed his mind when he heard Faalund turning the deadbolt.
Bergmann banged his hand on the steering wheel. It was Friday afternoon, the sun was shining, and here he sat in a parking lot in downtown Uddevalla, for God’s sake, not even capable of getting an old drunk to talk. When he climbed out of the car, the temperature made him feel like he was closer to the tropics than the North Pole. He cut across the parking lot and headed back to his hotel.
First he phoned Arne Drabløs and asked him to supervise handball practice. He could have driven home in two hours and made it to the gym in time, then spent the evening—or even the whole night—with Hadja. But he couldn’t bear the thought of that, not right now. He could hardly even stand his own company. He sent her a text to say that unfortunately he had to spend the weekend in Sweden. She replied at once that he must have an exciting job, and she looked forw
ard to seeing him when he got back, followed by a smiley face.
Bergmann was lying on his bed in the hotel room, staring up at the ceiling for almost an hour, when his cell rang on the nightstand. He looked at his watch, then picked up his phone. The call was—unsurprisingly—from Fredrik Reuter. Not a person he wanted to talk to at the moment. It had been difficult enough to get Reuter’s okay for this little trip to Sweden, and now he planned to stay the weekend, at taxpayers’ expense. Reuter had been moderately interested in Finn Nystrøm’s theory that Krogh was the one who had killed Agnes Gerner, Cecilia, and the maid. He’d shown the same degree of enthusiasm for Iver Faalund’s possible candidacy as the key witness.
But Reuter needed to establish a credible motive for Krogh’s murder. It turned out that Gudbrand Svendstuen, whom Krogh had liquidated in 1943, had no descendants. So Krogh’s involvement in the deaths of the three victims in Nordmarka seemed to be the only hope of establishing some kind of motive. In addition, Bergmann was trying to solve the mystery of Kaj Holt’s death.
“I’ll wait here until you can get approval,” said Bergmann.
“It’s three o’clock on a Friday,” said Reuter.
“I’m staying here until Monday.”
“In Uddevalla? Are you out of your mind?”
“Phone Stockholm,” said Bergmann. “Call your friend there. He’ll find out what he can about Holt and send us the information on Monday. How hard can that be?” Right now he didn’t dare share with Reuter his own theory about why Holt was important to the Krogh case. He hadn’t even managed to get Faalund to talk, so this was hardly the time to try out a theory on Reuter that would completely destroy Krogh’s image.
Reuter sounded like he was about to say something, then changed his mind.
“Call him,” said Bergmann. “Didn’t you say that you might lose your job over this case?”
Reuter sighed in resignation.
“I need you here, not in Sweden. You’re chasing ghosts, Tommy. We have a crime scene, a murder weapon with an almost perfect fingerprint—albeit one that doesn’t match a single print in the registry—and a footprint from a size forty-one or forty-two shoe. All we need is the killer.”
“You won’t find him without me,” said Bergmann.
“I won’t find him unless you’re back in the office.”
“The answer isn’t in Oslo. I need a few days away,” said Bergmann.
“And so you choose Uddevalla of all places?” said Reuter. “Fine.”
“I’m going to get Iver Faalund to talk before I leave here.”
“At least that’s a start,” said Reuter. “Is he holding back about something?”
“I think so.”
“Okay. But this theory that Krogh killed the three females in Nordmarka? Keep that to yourself, for God’s sake. Unless this Faalund guy happens to bring it up himself.”
Bergmann didn’t reply. The fact that Krogh killed them is just the beginning, he thought.
“By the way . . . your friend Halgeir Sørvaag found something odd at Krogh’s house this morning.”
Bergmann wasn’t surprised. A lot could be said about Sørvaag, but he was a demon when it came to tearing apart a crime scene. Only his own sick imagination limited what he might find.
“Something odd?”
“There was a piece of paper inside one of the curtain rods in Krogh’s office on the third floor.”
“He unscrewed the curtain rod?” said Bergmann.
“He unscrewed all the curtain rods and opened all three toilet tanks. You know Halgeir . . .”
“So?” said Bergmann. “What was so odd?”
“There were some numbers written on the paper. Sixteen numbers, to be exact.”
“Sixteen numbers?”
“And inside the curtain rod in the kitchen, he found another piece of paper with sixteen other numbers.”
“A code?” said Bergmann, sitting up in bed. This was a step forward. The question was, in which direction.
“Sixteen numbers suggests a bank account number,” said Reuter.
Bergmann lay back down as a wave of disappointment washed over him. For a moment there, he had thought it might be a breakthrough—the numbers might be an encrypted message—but a bank account? What could that have to do with Krogh’s murder?
“In Switzerland or Liechtenstein or the Cayman Islands—” Reuter began, but Bergmann interrupted him.
“You should check to see if the head of the tax authority has an alibi for Whitsunday.”
Reuter gave a strained laugh that sounded much like the shrieks of the gulls outside the hotel window.
After Bergmann hung up, he went down to the lobby and paid for Internet access. Then he started reading through all the same articles about Krogh and Holt that he’d already read countless times before. Who hated Krogh enough to stab the man beyond recognition with a Hitler Youth knife? Did Kaj Holt have any descendants?
He took his cell phone out of his pocket to tap in Reuter’s number, but then changed his mind. What would he say? That he’d come up with the idea that Krogh himself might have killed Holt to prevent him from talking about the liquidations in Nordmarka? No, thought Bergmann. Even he hardly believed that.
He studied the text about Holt on the screen of the hotel’s old computer once more. There’s something here, Bergmann thought, scanning the article word by word. There’s something so fundamental here—right before my eyes—that I just can’t see it. “It’s so damned close,” he murmured, “so uncomplicated, so fucking simple that it’s blinding me.”
When his Internet time was up, the screen switched back to tourist information for Uddevalla. The beach, thought Bergmann. I need to cool off and forget about all this for a few hours. He asked the woman at the front desk to point him to the closest beach and headed off, picking up some sunglasses and two light beers on his way out. It was on a bay southwest of town, surrounded by old oak trees. Quite picturesque, and not too crowded. With a cigarette in hand, he could hardly have been happier. Unfortunately, this idyllic scenario didn’t last long. After finishing off one beer, he caught sight of a beautiful and very pregnant blonde wading in the water, holding the hand of a naked little boy. Bergmann couldn’t take his eyes off her. She reminded him so much of Hege that he had to leave. Back in town, he sat down on the outdoor terrace of a restaurant across the street from his hotel. Though he was sitting in the shade, he kept his sunglasses on.
Am I any less alone than old Iver Faalund up in that apartment building? Bergmann wondered.
He lay awake half the night. He knew that he couldn’t live with Hege, or anyone else, for that matter. Including Hadja.
He didn’t fall asleep until daybreak.
For what seemed like an eternity, he dreamed about sixteen numbers hovering over his head, spinning around as though part of a game or a riddle.
At noon he woke up with a pounding headache. Outside he could hear the sounds of an amusement park. Sixteen numbers, thought Bergmann as he studied the sunlight seeping into his hotel room, falling softly over the desk, the chair, and the clothes he’d tossed on the floor. Carl Oscar Krogh had hidden small pieces of paper with two sixteen-digit numbers on it. Reuter had said the numbers were most likely bank accounts. The kind of account that only the owner himself and maybe one or two bank employees would have access to. And no ordinary banks operated like that. It had to be a bank in Switzerland or Liechtenstein. Or somewhere even farther away.
Carl Oscar Krogh must have hidden money away.
CHAPTER 38
Saturday, June 14, 2003
Skogslyckan
Uddevalla, Sweden
Several retirees sitting at a plastic patio table nodded at Tommy Bergmann as he walked past.
He headed inside. This time he leaned on the doorbell. He could again hear the TV blaring from the apartment down the hall.
He pressed his ear to the door.
Not a sound came from inside. And there was no peephole in the door panel.
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br /> “What happened to Kaj Holt?” Bergmann said loudly from where he stood in the corridor. His words echoed between the walls. “Holt,” he heard. “Kaj Holt.”
Bergmann heard the approach of shuffling footsteps, then the sound of the inner door opening.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” said Faalund through the door. “Get out of here before I call the police.”
“I’m going to sit out here in the hall,” said Bergmann. “Go ahead and call. I’m not going anywhere.”
He squatted down in front of the old door. He glanced at his watch and decided to wait five minutes.
He heard a lock turn and the door to his left opened. An elderly woman stuck her head out and stared at Bergmann with a fearful expression.
“Hello,” he said. There was nothing more to say. She closed her door without a word.
Five minutes later he peered through the mail slot in the door. The old drunk hadn’t closed the inside door this time, so he could see right into the sparsely furnished apartment. There were no knickknacks or souvenirs, as he normally saw in homes belonging to people over eighty. Faalund was nowhere in sight. He must have gone out to sit on the balcony.
“Who murdered Kaj Holt?” shouted Bergmann through the mail slot.
He held his breath for several seconds. The draft coming through the narrow slot suggested that the balcony door stood open. Faalund had to have heard what he’d said.
Then he heard the balcony door closing. The sound of glasses being set on the kitchen counter. A faucet was turned on, then off. Then he saw Faalund’s trouser legs approaching from the kitchen. He had on the same trousers as the day before. Then Faalund closed the inside door and Bergmann saw only darkness through the mail slot.
Damn, he thought. He’s not going to give in.
He had just sat back down on the floor when the door behind him opened. He jumped up too fast, stumbling a bit from the head rush. For a moment he thought he might actually faint, but he pulled himself together and leaned on the doorjamb. Faalund gave him a skeptical look.