The Last Pilgrim

by Gard Sveen

  She’d seen this coming the very first time she spoke to Waldhorst. If only she hadn’t met the Pilgrim. Then she’d have nothing to lose.

  Dear God. Have mercy on me.

  “My dear Ms. Gerner,” said Peter Waldhorst as he closed the door behind them. Agnes found herself standing in a large hall with dark herringbone-patterned parquet flooring and burgundy wallpaper. Large oil paintings, a mix of portraits and landscapes, lined the walls. As far as she could tell, they’d been painted by Christian Krohg, Nikolai Astrup, and Lars Hertervig. Agnes peered into the living room through the open French doors. The family who had lived here must have been precipitously thrown out. They’d left behind a fortune in art and furnishings. No doubt cash and stocks as well, and who knows what else.

  From somewhere inside the large apartment, she could hear music playing on a gramophone.

  “Don’t look so scared, my dear.” Waldhorst was now standing beside her. He smelled of aftershave and toothpaste, yet Agnes also noticed a trace of alcohol on his breath—had he had a few drinks before she arrived? The thought made her pulse slow to a manageable rate. He actually seemed more nervous than she was. She loosened her grip on her purse and stopped thinking about the cyanide capsule inside.

  Waldhorst placed his hand on her back and ushered her through the living room, filled with Louis XVI furniture and heavy double-lined drapes that were partially drawn in front of the windows. They continued on through the open doors to the library, just as the last notes of music died away. The walls were lined with bookcases, separated by still more paintings. Next to one of the windows stood a mahogany desk. An extinguished cigar lay in the ashtray, papers were strewn across the surface of the desk, and there was a single framed photograph of a young man.

  Agnes realized only now what Waldhorst had been playing on the gramophone in the corner. The Comedian Harmonists. But that music was banned. The Comedian Harmonists hadn’t performed in Germany since the early ’30s, and as far as she knew, most of the musicians had fled Germany shortly thereafter. Either Waldhorst had brought the record with him, or it had been left behind by the Berkowitz family. But the mere fact that he’d played a record by a group with several Jewish musicians put her immediately on her guard.

  Waldhorst went over to the gramophone and set the needle back on the record. “Mein kleiner grüner Kaktus” started playing from the speaker, prompting an involuntary smile from Agnes. But maybe it was simply a reflection of the smile on Waldhorst’s face as he whistled softly, moving about the room in search of some unknown object. Or maybe it was sheer panic as she realized that Waldhorst would never have played music by the Comedian Harmonists without some specific purpose in mind. No doubt he was trying to provoke a reaction from her. A few record covers were scattered on the floor. She tried to see what they were, but she recognized only Zarah Leander’s face.

  “Do you live here all alone?” asked Agnes.

  Waldhorst smiled briefly and motioned toward the two Chesterfield sofas, separated by an antique coffee table.

  “All alone,” said Waldhorst. “Would you like a drink?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “No?” said Waldhorst. “Just a small one? It’s after the lunch hour. A sherry, perhaps?”

  Agnes felt chilled by the cold upholstery as she sat down on the sofa. She set her purse on her lap and nodded. Waldhorst’s face was pale; he’d probably been sitting in this room all day. The only daylight came in through the window near the desk. The rest of the room was dimly lit, as if right before or just after dawn.

  Agnes accepted the crystal glass from Waldhorst, whose hand shook slightly, like the leaves on the chestnut trees outside when a light breeze blew through them. Waldhorst poured himself a generous amount of whisky, then set the carafe back inside the bar, which was an open globe—the sort that Agnes remembered from her childhood.

  “Skål,” said Waldhorst, sitting down on the sofa across from her. For several minutes he sat there motionless, staring out the window, holding his glass in both hands.

  Agnes opened her mouth to say something, but before she could speak, Waldhorst said, “Cigarette?” He took a cigarette case from the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

  After lighting her cigarette—made of strong Turkish tobacco that burned her throat—he went back to the gramophone, took off the Comedian Harmonists record, and dropped it on the floor.

  The next record he put on was Zarah Leander. After a few scratchy sounds, Agnes heard the tune “Bei mir bist du schön” begin to play. Also banned. Although Zarah Leander was a Nazi, the song was denounced as Yiddish. A paradox that confused Agnes as well as a great many other people.

  “I suppose you’re aware that you are playing banned music, Mr. Waldhorst?”

  He merely snorted and shook his head.

  “Or should I say Detective Inspector Waldhorst? Why didn’t you tell me you were a detective? I assume you told Gustav the truth. He doesn’t enjoy being treated like a fool.”

  Waldhorst studied her, his expression impassive, as if he simply didn’t understand what she’d said. Then he lit a cigarette for himself and drained his glass. He went over to stand by the window.

  “We’re going to lose this war,” he said.

  Without thinking, Agnes cleared her throat twice. She tapped the ash from her cigarette into the ashtray. Then she raised the cigarette to her lips again, managing to keep her hand from shaking.

  “Somebody ought to kill that man,” said Waldhorst to himself. “That little Austrian corporal.”

  Agnes felt the hair on her arms rise.

  This was exactly what they’d warned her about. All of them had been warned about this. After the Venlo Incident three years earlier—when two British agents in the Netherlands were caught by Gestapo officers pretending to be against the Nazis—the British intelligence service had sent out a directive to display extreme caution if any German officers claimed to be anti-Nazi. The Pilgrim had told her a few months ago that not all operatives in the field had taken the warning seriously, and it had been the downfall of several of them. Nothing was more dangerous, he’d said, than to believe a German who said he was tired of the Führer and wanted to conspire to aid in the fall of the Reich.

  “You should be careful what you say,” Agnes said. “What does your friend Brigadeführer Seeholz think about you saying such things? You’re not only listening to banned music, you’re also demeaning the Führer.”

  Waldhorst turned to face her. His face had an unhealthy pallor, as if he were seriously ill. Only his thick black hair and dark eyebrows indicated there was still life in him.

  “Don’t worry about Seeholz. He’s a boor who couldn’t find a kernel of corn if you stuck it in his mouth. As for the Führer, that Austrian needs only one thing to pull off his wizardry. He needs an audience that truly wishes to believe. The Führer is the only one who has understood that. Don’t you agree, Ms. Gerner?”

  “Agnes,” she said. “Please call me Agnes.”

  Waldhorst shook his head. He rubbed his face, then ran his hands through his hair, which was shiny with pomade.

  “Why did you ask me to come here?” she asked.

  His shoes squeaked as he crossed the floor. An unbearable silence ensued. Waldhorst was once against standing before the gramophone. The record turned a few more times, almost soundlessly, before the needle rose and clicked back to its starting position. The apartment was once again utterly quiet. Only the old grandfather clock in the parlor issued a steady ticking sound.

  “Do you like it?” he asked, holding the record up to show Agnes.

  “It’s a Jewish song,” she said.

  “All right. Then we’ll break it.” Waldhorst snapped it in half and dropped the pieces on the floor. “It was something they left here. Berkowitz . . . Berkowitz!” He said the name as if spitting it out.

  Agnes clutched the sherry glass as she raised it to her lips. For a second she thought she might drop it, but she managed to take a sip without spil
ling.

  “Why have you taken up with Gustav Lande?” asked Waldhorst in a low voice. He was now sitting on the armrest of the Chesterfield sofa across from her.

  “I must go,” said Agnes. She leaned forward and set her glass on the coffee table.

  “Answer me. Is it for money?”

  Agnes stood up, but she felt like she couldn’t move her feet. Her head felt drained of blood. She took a few steps, staggering a bit. The bathroom, she thought. I need to throw up. Or put the capsule in my mouth. I don’t know . . . I . . .

  “Please forgive me,” said Waldhorst behind her. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “But you did,” said Agnes, pausing in the doorway to the living room.

  “You’re so beautiful,” said Waldhorst. “Gustav Lande is a man with money—and power.”

  Agnes regained her footing.

  “Why did you bring me here?” she said, turning to look at him. He was now sitting on the edge of his desk, an almost ashamed expression on his face.

  “My brother . . .” said Waldhorst, nodding at the framed photograph on his desk.

  Agnes took a few steps back inside the library. She could see the resemblance to Waldhorst, though the picture had to be several years old. It looked like a school photo. The boy in it couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen, but he had the same crooked smile and the same stern eyes, though with a certain softness to his expression.

  Waldhorst picked up one of the papers from the desk, holding it between two fingers. Agnes read a few words upside down. Died for the Führer. She looked back at the photograph.

  “I just needed to see you,” he said, his voice so low Agnes could barely hear him. “I’m a married man, but I find myself thinking about you whenever life gets difficult.”

  Agnes took off her hat and set it on the sofa. Waldhorst merely stared at the floor. She took his hand, then lifted his chin. They stared into each other’s eyes for a moment before he leaned close.

  She let him kiss her.

  “I shouldn’t have said that. You’re an engaged woman.”

  She stroked his cheek, practically bubbling inside. Could it really be this easy?

  “You need to leave now,” said Waldhorst.

  Only when she was back out on the street, waiting for his driver to come back, did she think that nothing in the world was as easy as it appeared at first glance. When she put her key in the lock at Hammerstads Gate, she again had that overwhelming feeling that she’d made a mistake, but she didn’t know what it was. Without knowing why, she sank to the floor in the entryway, buried her face in her hands, and wept.

  CHAPTER 42

  Sunday, June 15, 2003

  Uddevalla, Sweden

  Heavy, cottony gray clouds hovered low over the canal that passed through town, sending one downpour after another over Tommy Bergmann and the few others who had ventured out. He didn’t really know why he hadn’t driven straight to Stockholm after breakfast instead of wandering around under a borrowed umbrella in this godforsaken place.

  He smoked two cigarettes as he watched a pair of ducks bobbing around in the black water of the canal being pummeled with rain. Then he walked up to the square to have an early lunch and maybe allow himself a beer or two. Just as he was sitting down in the Rådhus restaurant, his cell phone rang.

  “I talked to a German colleague,” said Finn Nystrøm.

  “Yes?” said Bergmann as he pointed to an item on the menu to indicate to the waitress what he’d like to order. “On a Sunday? Not bad.”

  “We apostates have to stick together,” Nystrøm said, then laughed.

  “So he’s out of the game too?”

  “No, but he’s not exactly popular either,” said Nystrøm. “A historian by the name of Rudolf Braun. Maybe you’ve heard of him?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Regardless, he’s positive that Waldhorst is living in Berlin under another name, most likely something that sounds British,” said Nystrøm. “He’s going to contact another colleague tomorrow.”

  “Tell him for God’s sake to keep quiet about all this,” said Bergmann. “I don’t want any of this showing up in the newspapers. And not a word about what Faalund said about Krogh. Not even to your dogs.”

  “Don’t worry, Tommy. Regardless, the missing Peter Waldhorst was the personal secretary to the German trade attaché in Oslo during the fall of 1939.”

  “Trade attaché?”

  Bergmann paused, then added, “But . . .”

  “Abwehr,” said Nystrøm. “The relationship between the Abwehr and the Gestapo wasn’t great, but in Norway the boundaries were somewhat fluid. That might explain why Waldhorst showed up in the Gestapo in 1943. Before that, nobody knows how long he worked as personal secretary and what exactly that job entailed. And most of the Abwehr archives and information about their activities went missing after the attempted coup against Hitler in 1944. Some things are known, of course, but the Security Service, the Sicherheitsdienst, took over most of the files and destroyed whatever didn’t suit them. Rumor has it that Waldhorst isn’t on any list of individuals convicted after the war. I’m guessing that he was in Finland for a while or on the Kola Peninsula on the Arctic Ocean front. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to escape with Operation Paperclip.”

  “What does your colleague think?”

  “More or less what I just told you. As I said yesterday, the Swedes got hold of a bunch of Abwehr and Gestapo after the war. Waldhorst most likely ended up in the United States, either via Sweden or directly.”

  The waitress set a pint and his lunch on the table in front of Bergmann. He didn’t reply, so Nystrøm repeated what he’d just said. Bergmann was looking at an elderly couple who sat in silence at a table next to the window.

  “And you know what? I did a little poking around yesterday in my own archives. I knew that I’d heard that name somewhere. Peter Waldhorst, I mean.”

  “Your archives?”

  “All serious historians have their own archives. Sometimes people donate things to us for free, or they’re willing to sell things for a small sum. I haven’t thrown out anything from the old days, and I’ve even acquired a few more things over the years. And I’ll be damned if I didn’t find a photograph from a dinner party given at Gustav Lande’s home.”

  “Gustav Lande?” said Bergmann.

  “I received a private archive from an old Nazi who died twenty years ago, an attorney from somewhere out in Asker. He’d written in his will that I, of all people, should be given his effects. Apparently I’d made a good impression on him back in the late seventies.”

  “Why would I be interested in a photo of Gustav Lande?”

  “You don’t think Lande is the only one in that picture, do you?” said Nystrøm in a low voice.

  Bergmann said nothing.

  “Visible at the very edge of the picture, which was taken at dinner on Midsummer Eve 1942, is Peter Waldhorst.”

  “Do you know if he ever belonged to the Hitler Youth?”

  For a moment the only sound on the phone line was a faint rustling. The restaurant door opened, and someone could be heard shouting out in the square. Bergmann looked at the last rays of sun disappearing behind the roof of the building across the street.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Can you answer the question?”

  “I don’t know if he did or not.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Bergmann.

  “You’re a terrible liar,” said Nystrøm. “But guess who’s sitting at the other end of the table, near Lande?”

  “I have no idea,” said Bergmann.

  “Waldhorst is looking at her as if he’s about to die.”

  Bergmann grabbed his beer glass. Before taking a sip, he said, “Agnes Gerner.”

  “Bingo,” said Nystrøm.

  “You need to find Waldhorst for me,” said Bergmann. “And scan the photograph and e-mail it to me.”

  Now we’re onto something, he thought. We’re re
ally onto something.

  “This is unbelievable,” Nystrøm murmured. “This whole thing with Krogh . . . If that turns out to be true, it’s unbelievable.”

  If it’s true, thought Bergmann as he hung up, then it’s truly beyond belief.

  He was about to pay the bill when Fredrik Reuter called him.

  This could go either way, he thought when he picked up. Reuter had said very little when Bergmann had recounted his conversation with Iver Faalund the day before. He had seemed to need some time to allow everything to sink in.

  “Get yourself over to Stockholm,” said Reuter before Bergmann even had a chance to say hello. “Ask for Claes Tossmann at the National Police. Ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  One to zero in my favor, thought Bergmann. He paid the bill and tried to walk off the effects of the beer by making a few rounds of the center of town.

  After a half hour on the road, he phoned Drabløs to tell him that he couldn’t make it to handball practice the next day. Drabløs was as easygoing as always and took the news in stride. For a moment Bergmann wished he was more like Drabløs, who kept up an uncomplicated and positive outlook, even when faced with occasional setbacks.

  Talking about handball made him think of Hadja. He pulled over at a gas station and called her. She sounded relieved.

  “I’ve been thinking about you,” she said. He thought he heard her turn over in bed. She’d probably worked the night shift.

  “I’ve been thinking about you too,” he said before he could stop himself. He told himself he was too old to play games, too old to be coy. As if that was the problem. He pushed those other thoughts aside.

  They agreed to get together as soon as he got back to Oslo.