The Last Pilgrim

by Gard Sveen

  “Thank you,” said Bergmann. “Thank you for agreeing to talk to me.”

  “I haven’t said I’d talk, but you can’t sit out here shouting all day.”

  Faalund left the door open as he turned on his heel and went back inside his apartment.

  “I never thought it would happen,” he said.

  “You never thought what would happen?” asked Bergmann, closing the door after him.

  “That a Norwegian policeman would ask me what happened to Kaj. Not a single person in authority has ever asked that question before.”

  They stood in the middle of the living room, staring at each other. Faalund tilted his head to one side, as though to get a good look at Bergmann.

  “Why are you asking about Kaj Holt?” he asked at last.

  Bergmann studied the man standing before him. He looked surprisingly lucid, even though he’d probably already had more to drink that day than Bergmann could have handled at Christmas lunch.

  “We think there might be a connection to the three bodies we found buried in Nordmarka. You’ve heard about that, right?”

  Faalund nodded.

  “I can still read,” he said.

  Bergmann took a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and read the names aloud: “Agnes Gerner, Cecilia Lande, and Johanne Caspersen.”

  Faalund’s expression didn’t change. He walked over to the old easy chair next to the window. The blinds were still closed. He turned on the floor lamp and sank down into the chair with a small sigh. Bergmann followed, sitting down on a worn love seat next to the coffee table.

  “So why are you asking about Holt?” said Faalund in a low voice.

  “Could Krogh have killed them? Those three in Nordmarka?” Bergmann ventured.

  An almost shy smile appeared on Faalund’s face. He ran his hand over his sparse hair, then rubbed his chin. A faint rasping sound was audible.

  “Why would Carl Oscar have killed them?” said Faalund, downing what looked like vodka from a glass on the side table. He stared into his empty glass. Music could be heard playing from the apartment above. Several kids laughed on the front lawn below. Bergmann kept his eyes fixed on the old man, who was tilting his empty glass back and forth. Finally he raised his eyes and looked at Bergmann.

  There’s something there, thought Bergmann. Something hiding behind Iver Faalund’s shiny, clear eyes. He was seldom mistaken about such things, but the old man had been an intelligence officer before the booze took hold of him, so he was presumably more skilled at disguising his weaknesses than Bergmann.

  “Because Agnes Gerner was engaged to a big-time Nazi,” Bergmann said.

  Another small smile appeared on Faalund’s face. He set his glass down on the side table, then picked up the vodka bottle and filled the glass to the brim with a steady hand. His hands probably shake when he’s not drinking, thought Bergmann. He watched the old man grip the small glass in his big hand. Again he knocked back the drink in one gulp and then repeated the ritual. Finally he picked up a pack of Egberts from the table, took out a paper, and rolled himself a perfect cigarette. Bergmann thought he might as well smoke too. He tore the cellophane off a newly purchased pack of Prince cigarettes, but that was as far as he got before Faalund spoke.

  “Agnes Gerner was not a Nazi,” he said. Then he calmly lit his cigarette as if he hadn’t said a word.

  Bergmann crushed the cellophane in his hand.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said. Agnes Gerner was not a Nazi.”

  Bergmann shook his head as he took a cigarette out of the pack. He felt more confused than ever.

  “I don’t know what she was involved in, but something wasn’t right. She wasn’t a Nazi. Kaj mentioned her name once after the war, but he said he didn’t know much about her.”

  Bergmann didn’t say anything.

  “But that was probably a lie,” said Faalund.

  Agnes Gerner wasn’t a Nazi, thought Bergmann. But she was a member of the NS. There weren’t many reasons for joining the NS if you weren’t a Nazi. He began to think more clearly after taking a few drags on his cigarette. If what Faalund had just said was true, that changed everything. What was it he’d heard about Agnes and the Germans earlier in the case? He couldn’t remember.

  “Why haven’t you ever told anyone about this before?” he asked.

  “Why should I have said anything?”

  “But . . .”

  “Because nobody ever asked me. And because no one would have believed a man who was virtually kicked out of the army’s intelligence service fifty years ago,” said Faalund. He refilled his shot glass with vodka. “It would have been my word against the authorities’. And how do you think that would have turned out?” He raised his glass, as if drinking a toast.

  “Krogh is dead. Murdered,” said Bergmann.

  “And besides,” said Faalund, “I wanted to be left in peace. Ever since I moved here in 1951, all I’ve ever wanted is to be left in peace. I got an office job down on the wharf and worked there until I retired, but I never made any friends there.”

  “Why not?”

  “As you may have realized,” said Faalund, “I don’t care much for other people.” He got up and walked past Bergmann.

  And yet you let me in, thought Bergmann. You let me in when I asked you who killed Kaj Holt. That must mean that you’re willing to make an exception for Holt and, by extension, for me.

  Marius Kolstad! The thought occurred to him just as he heard Faalund taking a piss in the bathroom. He put out his cigarette in the crystal ashtray. Could Finn Nystrøm be wrong? Maybe Nystrøm had some reason to be so angry at Krogh that he was willing to lie, laying the blame for the Nordmarka victims at Krogh’s feet.

  Bergmann got up and went over to the window, opening the blinds enough to look out. Another identical apartment building was on his left. Several lower buildings stood across the road, and to his right was a big forest of old-growth oaks.

  Faalund was taking his time in the bathroom, but Bergmann didn’t give it much thought as he walked over to look at the bookshelf in the living room. It was filled with reference works, old novels, and Gerhardsen’s memoirs. There were also a few framed photographs. One showed Faalund with a woman, presumably his wife, taken many years ago. Another photo, much newer, was of a bridal couple. Bergmann assumed the groom must be a grandson, judging by his resemblance. Under the shelves were several drawers. Bergmann was just about to pull one of them out when he heard the toilet flush. Faalund came shuffling toward him. His footsteps sounded heavier, as if something were tormenting him. There was an air of melancholy about him that hadn’t been evident a few minutes earlier.

  “If she wasn’t a Nazi, what was she?” asked Bergmann when Faalund came over to stand beside him.

  “Who knows?” he said as he sat back down in the armchair. “Why did you really ask me about Kaj?”

  “Because I thought you could help with the investigation.”

  “I can’t,” said Faalund.

  “Yet you opened the door.”

  Faalund looked away.

  Only now did Bergmann realize that the shiny gleam in the old man’s eyes was not from vodka alone.

  “Tell me about Kaj Holt,” said Bergmann quietly. “What do you know about him?”

  “Kaj is dead,” said Faalund. “And there’s nothing to be done about it.”

  “Holt survived for five years as Norway’s most wanted man. Then only three weeks after the war ended, he was killed in Stockholm. And I think you know why.”

  “No, I don’t,” said Faalund.

  “Then tell me what you do know about him.”

  Faalund turned to look at Bergmann. He seemed to have regained control of his emotions.

  “Well, Kaj was Carl Oscar’s boss. That’s really all I know. He trained him. They had set up cells with as few as four people in each one, in order to reduce the risk if someone was tortured. The fewer names anyone knew, the better.”

  Bergman
n nodded.

  “What else? You know more about Holt. You haven’t sat here since 1951 without knowing a lot more. I’m sure of that.”

  Faalund made no move to answer.

  “Why did you open the door when I asked you who murdered Kaj Holt?” said Bergmann. “Because he was murdered, wasn’t he?”

  He didn’t know how long the two of them sat there staring at each other. Sunlight fell in streaks over Faalund, who was gripping the arms of his chair so hard that his knuckles turned white.

  “It’s strange,” said Faalund at last. “You’re the first person who has dared to say it out loud.”

  “Say what?”

  “That Carl Oscar . . . that Krogh killed those two women and the little girl up in the woods.”

  Bergmann felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. Two men had said the same thing in the last two days.

  “But I asked you a question,” he said.

  “And I’m telling you the answer,” said Faalund. “It was him. It was Krogh. If anyone could have killed them, it was Carl Oscar Krogh.”

  “I thought you doubted he could have killed Agnes Gerner, since she wasn’t a Nazi.”

  “No. It’s just that I’m positive Agnes was working for Kaj.”

  Bergmann put his pen down on the side table. He shook his head. He no longer understood a thing.

  “And Holt knew that Krogh had killed them?”

  “I think so,” said Faalund in a low voice.

  Bergmann waited in silence.

  “I think I was . . .” Faalund spoke so quietly that Bergmann could barely hear him.

  “Yes?”

  “I was probably the last person to talk to Kaj. He’d been in Lillehammer that day and was leaving for Stockholm in the evening. I happened to run into him in the office. I knew him well enough to see that something was very wrong.”

  For a moment neither of them spoke. Finally Bergmann gestured toward Faalund, to encourage him to go on.

  “He’d unofficially interrogated a German in Lillehammer. A man by the name of Peter Waldhorst. That’s all he would tell me. I promised not to tell anyone about the interrogation, but a few years later, I made my own inquiries to find out what happened to that German.”

  Faalund explained that he’d found out that Waldhorst had been in the Gestapo in Kirkenes, but all traces of him had disappeared after that. Bergmann took notes automatically, letting Faalund talk. It sounded as though he’d spent several years trying to track him down.

  “What do you think this Waldhorst told Holt?”

  “That Krogh had killed the woman and the girl,” said Faalund, though it sounded more like a question than a statement.

  “But why? I don’t understand . . . You say that Agnes Gerner wasn’t a Nazi, that she most likely worked for Kaj Holt.”

  Faalund cleared his throat, but not a word came out. He filled his glass again, but this time his hand was visibly shaking.

  They sat in silence for a long time until Faalund suddenly exclaimed, “That’s the only answer that makes any sense! Don’t you understand?” He stared at Bergmann, clutching his glass in his big hand. Then he closed his eyes as he raised the glass to his lips.

  “Don’t I understand what?” asked Bergmann quietly.

  Faalund seemed to be gathering his strength. He still had his eyes closed as he took a deep breath.

  “I’m going to tell you what I really think, Bergmann. I never thought I’d ever tell this to a living soul. I think that Kaj doubted it was Gudbrand Svendstuen who betrayed the Resistance in the fall of 1942. Gudbrand didn’t know enough to do any real damage. But we needed a scapegoat, and London needed one too. Liquidating Gudbrand would be enough to frighten off anyone from turning traitor for a long time. Or so we thought. It was wrong, but people were panicking. There was no time to think clearly. And that’s why I think Kaj—either toward the end of the war or right after it was over—made a list of people who actually did possess enough information to have done such major damage.”

  Faalund opened his eyes and looked at Bergmann, who was frowning.

  “Which was why he interrogated Waldhorst. To find out who the real traitor had been.”

  “What are you trying to tell me?” asked Bergmann.

  “What do you think I’m trying to tell you?”

  “So it wasn’t Krogh who liquidated Svendstuen?”

  “A twist of fate,” said Faalund. “The gun was meant to be found in Gudbrand’s hand.”

  “So you’re saying that . . .”

  “Why was there no file on Krogh in Lillehammer?” asked Faalund. “He was the only Resistance member, absolutely the only one, who had no file. Did you know that?”

  “You mean that . . .” said Bergmann, shaking his head. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything more.

  Neither of them spoke for several minutes.

  Bergmann was about to break the silence, but Faalund beat him to it.

  “I think that Carl Oscar Krogh was the double agent Kaj was looking for.” He slapped his big hand on the armrest of his chair. “There. I said it. But I’m just an old drunk, right?”

  “No.”

  Faalund snorted.

  “Go ahead and tell me I’m not just an old drunk.” He drained his glass. His expression had closed and he had a remote look in his eyes, as if to suggest that this conversation was now over for good.

  CHAPTER 39

  Saturday, August 22, 1942

  Villa Lande

  Tuengen Allé

  Oslo, Norway

  Gustav Lande had just tapped his fork against his crystal glass and was now standing at the table with a small piece of paper in his hand. Agnes could see how nervous he was and tried to calm him with a gentle smile, but the page nonetheless slipped out of his fingers, carried away by the warm, fresh breeze blowing in from the open terrace doors. The paper eventually settled on the floor at Lande’s feet.

  The two dozen guests burst out laughing, and finally Lande had to smile too, if a bit uncertainly at first. Then he seemed to give up and joined in, laughing as merrily as he could. But he left the piece of paper on the floor.

  Agnes surveyed the guests as she held Cecilia’s hand. At Brigadier Seeholz’s request, the little girl had been allowed to come downstairs. No one should need to sleep on such a beautiful summer evening, he’d said. And Agnes had to admit that he was right. She looked down at the little hand in her own. Both were suntanned after spending the summer at Rødtangen. Cecilia’s hair was blonder, and Agnes thought it still smelled of sunshine and hope. If a Nazi could produce such a wonderful child, there must be hope for everyone in this world, maybe even herself. Cecilia’s hip even seemed to be doing better after the summer; all the swimming that she’d done with Agnes had worked miracles for the little girl.

  Lande again tapped on his glass. Agnes knew what was coming. Her blood vessels constricted and she felt a pounding against her skin. Her pulse had quickened so suddenly that she hadn’t had time to register it. Gustav gave her a smile, and she smiled back, but then lowered her eyes. Seeholz’s chair creaked as he sat beside her. She glanced at him, but then regretted looking in that direction as she met the eye of Peter Waldhorst, seated across from her. He smiled briefly and silently raised his glass to her. Then he downed his drink and began looking around the room. He signaled to the waiter, who moved soundlessly around the table to pull out the bottle of white wine that was sitting in a cooler in front of Waldhorst. Waldhorst leaned toward the woman seated next to him and whispered something in her ear as all other conversation faded.

  “My dear friends,” said Lande. A slight break in his voice indicated he was still not in complete control of the situation. “We . . . How should I say this? We have gathered here so often, though in my opinion not often enough, but today . . . Well, I have invited all of you here to officially salute General von Manstein and the Führer for the fall of Sevastopol this summer.”

  The group broke into spontaneous cheering, thanking both the
Führer and every soldier who had given his life in the fight against the Bolsheviks. Agnes found herself thinking about her own sister—something she did only rarely—who was somewhere between the Führer’s Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia and either Moscow or Sevastopol.

  “But there’s more. There’s more!” Lande picked up his Bohemian-crystal wine glass. “There are two other very special reasons I’ve invited you here to my . . . modernist home.” Lande raised his glass to Seeholz, who had claimed earlier that evening—only half jokingly—that the house could be said to be too much in the Bauhaus style. “First of all,” he said. “Business.”

  “Business,” said Seeholz, giving Agnes a poke. “Always business, right?”

  Seeholz’s remark caused a quiet murmuring around the table, if for no other reason than to give him the attention he craved. Cecilia clutched Agnes’s hand and looked up at her, her green eyes shining. Agnes pulled her close, setting her on her lap.

  “Second, love,” said Lande.

  “Finally,” said Seeholz. This time there was loud laughter.

  “So first, let’s talk about molybdenum,” said Lande.

  “That’s our love,” replied Waldhorst from the end of the table as he drained his glass. Laughter resounded through the dining room. The fresh breeze again swept through the room, fluttering the linen drapes at the French doors. The drapes billowed into the room for a moment, then fell back into place. Agnes looked at the other guests before turning her gaze to Waldhorst. He was staring at her, as though gazing right through her, deep into her soul. She dismissed the idea and bent over Cecilia, stroking the child’s cheek, breathing in the scent of her newly washed hair, noting her quick pulse, thinking that she and the Pilgrim should have had a child like this. If only you were mine, Agnes thought, taking the soft little hand in her own.

  “As you all know,” said Lande, taking a step back, “thanks to my friend Ernst Seeholz, I am the fortunate investor in the Knaben mines.”

  “Now, now,” said Seeholz.

  “Knaben is a valuable asset to our cause but, as we all must acknowledge, it’s not enough,” said Lande. “The Führer needs more of this wonderful metal to break the Bolsheviks and bury Stalin and his cohorts forever. I’m pleased to tell you now that I had a meeting yesterday with Research Director Rolborg of Knaben Mines. And it was a breakthrough meeting. As I’ve said before, I’ve put this man—who can only be called a geological genius—in charge of mapping the occurrence of molybdenum all over Norway. And he has discovered a deposit of historic proportions in Hurdal, of all places. Rolborg thinks it can produce six times as much as Knaben. Rolborg is the only person who knows the exact details for now. I don’t know where the site is, or how much ore there is, but he’s the most honest man I know, and I have no reason to doubt his claims.”