The Last Pilgrim

by Gard Sveen

“Kaj Holt must have written this,” said Bergmann. “He mentions the name Vera somewhere in the other papers.”

  “‘We have a rotten apple in the basket,’” Reuter read almost in a whisper. He repeated the words to himself. Then he took a step back.

  “Look at what was written next to it, but then erased,” said Bergmann.

  Reuter held the page up to the ceiling light, then turned it around twice.

  “Are you saying . . . ?”

  “I think Vera Holt knows something that no one else in Norway does,” he said.

  “The knife,” said Reuter.

  Bergmann nodded.

  “Of course,” said Reuter. “That’s why she killed him with the knife. The Hitler Youth knife.”

  “And that’s why Krogh had to kill Agnes Gerner,” said Bergmann.

  “So the liquidation was not a mistake,” Reuter murmured to himself. “Maybe he’s right after all, that guy of yours in Uddevalla.”

  “Maybe Kaj Holt learned two things in Lillehammer,” said Bergmann. “When Waldhorst told him who the traitor really was, he found out who killed Agnes Gerner and the two others, and he also found out who betrayed the Milorg and the British network in Oslo in the fall of 1942. The same man was responsible in both cases: Carl Oscar Krogh.”

  Reuter stared at Bergmann, a sad look in his eyes.

  “That was why Krogh fled to Sweden,” said Bergmann. “He must have duped more than just his own comrades. Or maybe he was whisked out of Norway by the Germans, and then returned to the right side. In March 1943 he placed the blame on someone else: Gudbrand Svendstuen. And he personally crossed the border to liquidate him. Then he quietly waited in Stockholm for the war to be over.”

  “This is unbelievable,” said Reuter.

  CHAPTER 59

  Friday, September 25, 1942

  Hammerstads Gate

  Oslo, Norway

  Agnes Gerner pressed her face against the door of her apartment as she listened to the footsteps coming up the stairs. Dear God, she prayed, have mercy on me.

  The scent of Christopher Bratchard’s aftershave from King’s Cross station in London suddenly filled her nostrils. She remembered his words. As if he knew that this would happen. That a responsibility too heavy for her to bear would be placed on her shoulders. And that it would be the death of her.

  “May God have mercy on your soul,” she whispered.

  But the footsteps didn’t stop.

  Nine steps left. She had counted every one of them. There could only be nine more to go.

  Nine steps left in her life.

  The glass capsule was pressing against her gums. Now, she thought. I’ll do it now.

  Eight steps, seven, six, five, four. But there was only one person. That was what she couldn’t understand.

  Silently she counted down. As the number of steps diminished, her pulse quickened until she could no longer distinguish her heartbeats. They had become one huge roar inside her body.

  How could it all end like this?

  “How?” she whispered as the doorbell rang.

  She sank down on the doormat and clasped her hands. Then she bowed her face to her hands and said a prayer. The same prayer she’d always said as a child. When her father was alive, when they lived here, in this very city.

  “Agnes?” said a voice through the door.

  She felt as if someone had struck her in the head.

  Her hands were wet with tears.

  The glass capsule was still intact. She stuck two fingers in her mouth and moved the capsule so that it was positioned between her teeth.

  Just before her jaws crushed the glass, she heard the voice again.

  “Agnes?”

  Finally she recognized who it was. She looked down at her left hand.

  Yours forever, she thought.

  She spat the capsule into her purse and closed it. Then she stood up and opened the door.

  Gustav Lande was standing on the threshold. His face seemed to merge with the beige of his coat. His tie was loose, his hat was askew, and his hair hung limply over his forehead. The smell of booze was unmistakable.

  He didn’t even seem to notice that Agnes had been crying.

  “Have you heard?” he said.

  For a long moment he merely stood there, staring at her as though he were a child who had just lost a parent. Like his own daughter.

  Agnes drew him inside.

  “Yes,” she whispered. And then she thanked God.

  “I never want to lose you,” he said. “Promise me that I’ll never lose you.”

  For several minutes they stood there in the open doorway.

  “I promise,” said Agnes.

  CHAPTER 60

  Early Friday Morning, June 20, 2003

  Police Headquarters

  Oslo, Norway

  After they’d searched Vera Holt’s apartment and taken the items they’d confiscated over to police headquarters, Tommy Bergmann retired to his office. He turned off the light and sat idly in his chair with his feet propped up on his desk, watching the blinds fluttering in the draft coming through the open window. The warm breeze on that summer night should have put him in a good mood, creating the seductive illusion that summer may last forever this time. But the unexpectedly warm temperature only left him feeling more dejected.

  He could no longer put it off.

  After a few more minutes he got out his cell phone and opened the message from Hadja.

  “I miss you too,” he whispered.

  He sighed with resignation. For a long time he tried to think of how to reply to her message, but finally ended up typing: Are you home? Then he sent it off. He glanced at his watch. It was almost one in the morning, but there was nothing to be done about that.

  He had just sat down on the window seat after lighting a cigarette when his cell phone rang. A gust of wind stroked his arm gently, almost like Hadja’s voice.

  “I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said.

  “I’m working the night shift. So I have to be awake.” She sounded happy, clearly relieved that he’d gotten in touch with her.

  He didn’t reply, unsure what to say.

  “Have you been traveling again?” she asked.

  “Berlin.”

  “That’s what I thought. You have such an exciting job.”

  He laughed.

  “Maybe.”

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about you,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Bergmann, as if that was any kind of answer.

  For a moment neither of them spoke.

  “Is something wrong?” asked Hadja.

  “No,” he said. “Or rather . . . I’d like to come over and see you, if that’s okay.”

  She paused.

  “Oh . . . sure, all right.” He could hear the uncertainty in her voice.

  He got a lift from a patrol car up to Hadja’s place. The two officers were young and carefree, just like he used to be, and they provided a few minutes of pleasant distraction. The conversation flowed easily. One of them knew his name because a story had made the rounds among the uniformed officers about an arrest he and Bent had once made. Bergmann did his best to keep the myth alive and contributed yet another anecdote from the old days.

  He got out at Maridalsveien and watched the patrol car’s red taillights disappear, standing just as he’d done in his bedroom that night when Hadja had been with him. But this time he wasn’t feeling nearly as euphoric.

  A great despondency washed over him when he saw her standing in the doorway. She gave him a wave but stayed where she was, in the glaring light of the lobby. He took a deep breath and headed toward the entrance. Dressed in her white uniform, she reminded him of Hege. And yet they were so different.

  For a moment they just stood there looking at each other without saying anything.

  “Do you think I’m moving too fast? That’s not my intention, Tommy. I’m just not very good at hiding my feelings. I throw myself into things.”

  He frowned a
nd fumbled for his pack of cigarettes.

  “That’s a weakness of mine,” she said, raising her hand to touch his cheek.

  He stood there, rocking back and forth. He could have told her that he wanted it to continue, that he would do anything in the world for her. But it wouldn’t end well. Not now.

  He lit a cigarette and offered her one. She shook her head, trying to look him in the eye. He took a deep breath before he spoke.

  “It’s just that . . .” he began.

  “You’re not finished with her,” she said in a low voice.

  He didn’t know what to say to that.

  “Hadja . . .” he said, his voice barely audible.

  “It’s Hege.”

  “It’s just that there are still a lot of things I need to work out, Hadja.”

  She nodded and blinked, her eyes filling with tears. She blinked again and tears spilled down both cheeks.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, slowly raising his hand to her cheek.

  “Go,” she said, her eyes closed. “Please, just go.”

  CHAPTER 61

  Friday, June 20, 2003

  Ullevål Hospital

  Oslo, Norway

  Tommy Bergmann, Fredrik Reuter, and Georg Abrahamsen walked slowly toward the entrance of Building 32 at Ullevål Hospital.

  The old brick buildings that housed the psychiatric patients had always depressed Bergmann. They reminded him of something from his past that he hadn’t been able to place. Maybe it was a memory that he’d repressed, or from so long ago that he wasn’t able to summon it forth. Some days he woke up with the remnants of a dream in his head, flickering fragments of himself in early childhood, running across a bottle-green linoleum floor in the hallway of a building like this one.

  It did nothing to improve his mood that he’d lain awake until four in the morning; it may even have been closer to five. He hadn’t dared to take things further with Hadja, hadn’t dared to take things further with himself. And that had made for a long, sleepless night.

  Vera Holt was sitting in the visitor’s room on the third floor in a hospital gown. Two nurses and a man in a suit were with her. Her eyes were blank and glassy looking, and the wary smile tugging at her lips looked as if it might dissolve into a scream at any moment. Maybe that’s just my imagination, Bergmann thought as he took her hand, which felt cold and clammy.

  “Vera Holt,” she said in a whisper, giving him a nod. Her skin was so pale that he thought it might be possible to see right through her if a lamp was placed behind her. Though her hair had been newly washed and smelled of shampoo, it still looked limp and lifeless, the cat food likely not providing her with sufficient nutrition. He noticed that her fingernails had been cut way down—maybe to ensure that she wouldn’t harm herself—and her hands were crisscrossed with thin scars.

  The balding young man in the suit got up to stand next to her. He introduced himself as Junior Attorney Erik Birkemoe. He told them that he was Vera Holt’s defense attorney. He and Reuter exchanged a few words about the search of her apartment and her status as a suspect in the case.

  “Have you seen Baltus?” said Vera, looking down at the table.

  “Baltus?” said Reuter with a frown.

  Vera didn’t reply. She stared vacantly into space.

  “The cat,” whispered Bergmann.

  “Oh, yes,” said Reuter. “We gave him some food, and . . .” He left it at that. Vera gave him a distracted smile that made her seem simultaneously present and far away.

  “So we’ve carried out a search of Vera Holt’s apartment,” said Reuter after everyone had taken a seat. His tone seemed excessively formal; Bergmann thought that he perhaps wanted to compensate for the fact that Vera had started off the interrogation by asking about her cat.

  He looked at her hands. She was twiddling her thumbs, not quickly and nervously but slowly and sedately. Bergmann could see beneath the cuffs of her sleeves that her wrists were bandaged. He didn’t know why—and he didn’t want to know either.

  Reuter set his briefcase on his lap and took out a medium-sized plastic bag with a slider closure. A felt pen had been used to write the case number and item number on the white space in the middle. Bergmann saw that it contained one of the newspaper clippings about Krogh that they’d found in Vera’s apartment. Seeing how the eyes had been cut out reminded him once more of what Krogh’s dead body had looked like in reality.

  “Are you the one who did this?” asked Reuter, turning to look at Vera.

  She kept on twiddling her thumbs as she opened her mouth and whispered something. It might have been a song or a jingle. Bergmann tried to hear what she was saying, but her words disappeared in the faint hissing from the ventilation system. Reuter glanced at Bergmann, then at the male nurse sitting on Vera’s left.

  The nurse picked up the plastic bag with the newspaper clipping from Reuter’s lap. Reuter made a move as if to stop him, but then changed his mind and sat back. A thudding sound was heard through the closed door behind Bergmann, and someone shrieked. Then it was quiet again. Only the hissing of the ventilation system was audible.

  “Did you hear what he said?” the nurse said to Vera.

  Again, no reaction. Vera stared at her hands as she twiddled her thumbs.

  “Did you show any of these to anyone else?” said Reuter.

  “No one,” she said instantly, though without looking up. After a moment she raised her head and smiled. Then she began to laugh. The sound made the hair on Bergmann’s arms stand on end.

  Just as abruptly she stopped laughing. The junior attorney shifted uneasily on his chair. He looked as if he were seriously starting to regret taking this case.

  “Are you afraid of me?” asked Vera, looking right at Reuter for the first time.

  “No,” said Reuter. “Why should I be?”

  “Everybody’s afraid of me,” she said. “Isn’t that strange?” Her voice was thin and meek, almost like a child’s.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” said Reuter calmly.

  “Mama’s new husband . . . The first time I was only four years old. Finally I killed him, you know. Killed,” she said, her voice so faint the words almost disappeared.

  No one seated at the table made any move to speak. Vera resumed twiddling the thumbs of her scarred hands.

  Reuter picked up the plastic bag with the picture of Krogh.

  “Did someone else give this to you?” he asked.

  Vera shook her head.

  Reuter put down the bag. Then he took another one out of his briefcase. Inside was one of the pages they’d found in her apartment. A page torn from a notepad.

  Reuter handed it to Birkemoe, who held it up to the light.

  “‘We have a rotten apple in the basket,’” he read out loud.

  “Notice what it says next to that,” said Reuter. He turned to look at Bergmann. It was clear that he thought the case was closed, so to speak.

  You haven’t considered the consequences, thought Bergmann. How was this case going to turn out if Holt’s daughter killed Krogh because Krogh had killed her father—or gave someone the orders to do it—in Stockholm?

  “Did your father write this?” asked Reuter.

  Vera nodded.

  “I got everything from her before she died.”

  “From who?”

  “Mama.”

  “I’d like to confer with my client,” Birkemoe said, handing the plastic bag back to Reuter. He took off his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose. He was young, maybe eight or ten years younger than Bergmann. He’d obviously been sent over by one of the partners in the law firm that would take over Vera Holt’s defense if it turned out that the case would get media attention.

  Reuter nodded.

  “I’d just like to confirm one thing,” he said. “Is it true that your client has no alibi for Whitsunday?”

  Birkemoe put his glasses back on and nodded.

  “As you know, we found a number of newspaper articles about the death of the
three females in Nordmarka at Ms. Holt’s home,” Reuter went on. Birkemoe merely grunted, making it clear he thought Reuter was repeating himself unnecessarily.

  “Were you at the home of Carl Oscar Krogh on Sunday, June 8?”

  Vera didn’t seem to hear the question. She clenched her jaw, chanting that barely audible jingle of hers and staring at her hands, which were still steadily moving in the same manner.

  “Well, she’s under arrest,” Reuter told Birkemoe. “And if we could just get her fingerprints . . .”

  Bergmann leaned across the table.

  “Have you ever spoken to a German named Peter?” he asked quietly.

  Vera paused for a moment, not lifting her gaze from the table.

  “Peter Waldhorst. Or Peter Ward?”

  Only silence. Then Vera once again began clenching her jaw and twiddling her thumbs.

  Birkemoe took off his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose a second time. For a moment he sat there with his eyes closed. Finally he put his glasses back on and motioned toward the door.

  Reuter sighed in resignation and then slapped Bergmann on the back.

  “Not exactly a dream client,” he said quietly as they went out into the corridor. Abrahamsen was sitting on a chair a few feet away, reading a newspaper. He glanced up at them.

  “So?” he said.

  Bergmann had an intense urge to get out into the fresh air. He looked down at the newly scrubbed linoleum floor, following it with his gaze until it ended at the far wall with a rectangular window with bars several feet away. He headed down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

  Outside he stood under the awning at the front entrance. A fierce rainstorm had moved in, soaking the ground in a matter of minutes. The road, parking lot, and lawn all looked as though they’d been inundated by a hundred-year flood.

  A few minutes later the door opened behind him. Reuter looked past Bergmann at the torrential rain. Bergmann glanced down at his shoes, suddenly noticing that they were nearly soaked through.

  “So that’s done,” said Abrahamsen behind Reuter. A barely discernible smile appeared on his gaunt face. “Two complete sets of fingerprints, Tommy. What do you think? That young lawyer is probably hoping for a lenient sentence because he cooperated, right?”