Dreamless (27 page)

“Allow me to be blunt with you. You seem like the sort of man who appreciates blunt speech.”

The Swede nodded.

“I’m here to ensure that yon deceased troubadour is allowed to rest in peace.”

“You certainly are blunt. And how to you plan to ensure that?”

“By obtaining an explanation for his mysterious death. You see, there is one thing that doesn’t make sense in this whole strange story.
J’ai une mouche dans le casque,
you might say. I’m almost certain that you came to Norway for the purpose of killing the victim. His present status might bear witness to the fact that you’ve succeeded in your mission. But then I have to ask myself: If you really were the one who took his life and you need to prove his death by taking his body back to your employer—an employer who is so powerful that he does not dare cross the border for fear of the political implications this would have between our two countries—why didn’t you take the body right away? Why go to the trouble of letting someone find him on the shore, only to steal his body back from the hospital? It seems rather … how shall I put it? Absurd.”

The Swede studied Bayer in silence. Perhaps he was again considering how he might disarm the police chief. Bayer thought it was probably best to give the man time to think.

“So I’ve reached the conclusion that you did not kill him.”

“Then why have you followed me here?”

“First,” said Bayer, “because the king of Denmark and Norway, like your king, does not look kindly on grave robbers. On behalf of our highborn ruler I could have put a bullet in your forehead by now, and that would have been the end of it. But I had a different proposal to make. The primary reason for my presence here is that I would like to solve this case. I don’t know what motivates you. But for my part, it is continuity, rationality, seeing that everything falls into place. That is what gives me peace in life.”

“Thank you for this insight into your noble mind,” said the Swede acidly.

“Let me remind you, sir, that I am the one holding a weapon and that you, as a grave robber in a foreign land, are not in a particularly favorable position. Therefore, I ask that you listen to my proposal. There are two parts.”

“Let me hear it,” said the Swede.

“First, I would like you to introduce yourself and tell me what you know about the troubadour’s death. Second, if you are able to confirm the assumptions that I have already made, then you, sir, will help me bury the man here in Norwegian soil. You will not be allowed to mollify your employer by reporting deeds that you did not personally carry out.”

The Swede stared longer at the gun than at Bayer. Then he sighed and said, “My name is Teodor Granqvist. I am Count Erik Gyllenhjärta’s most trusted retainer. And to explain simply: I know this troubadour as Christian Wingmark, and he insulted my master in the most disgraceful manner. The count has every right to seek the revenge he desires. And as you have so shrewdly pointed out, he is waiting for me at the border.”

“I see,” said Bayer. “But you arrived too late to exact this revenge, didn’t you? Our lutist had other talents besides his musical skills. He also knew how to acquire powerful enemies. Am I correct?”

“That appears to be so.”

“You tracked him down to Trondheim. I can tell you are a man of great resources. Kindly tell me that you also know about the circumstances surrounding his death.”

The Swede smiled.

“You’re not entirely without resources yourself. Most importantly, perhaps, is that you don’t give up very easily.”

Then he began to recount what he knew, and Bayer listened with satisfaction. The tale he told was the missing piece in a puzzle that Bayer had tried so many times to complete in his mind. When the Swede was done, Bayer was so elated that he almost forgot to keep his gun raised. But he quickly pulled himself together. Now all that remained was the part of the agreement with which Granqvist would not comply unless the threat of sudden death stood just a few feet away; his life was in the hands of a drunken and erratic police chief from Trondheim.

“I see that you have an excellent shovel tied onto your saddle,” Bayer said, noticing how husky his voice sounded. “And I see a bottle there.” He pointed to the liquor bottle lying next to the fish that had been prepared for the campfire. “You take the shovel, and I’ll take the bottle,” he said.

Granqvist got up and tossed the bottle to Bayer, who reacted faster than the Swede had anticipated, catching it in his left hand without losing his grip on the gun.

“The shovel,” he said sternly. “And no more tricks, please.”

The Swede did as he was told, and together the two men walked a short distance into the woods.

“Dig!” said Bayer. He sat down on a rock and pulled the cork from the bottle with his teeth.

Teodor Granqvist was a big man, and a powerfully built one. What Bayer possessed in sheer size, Granqvist had in muscle strength. He dug until he hit rock, and they both realized that the troubadour would have to be content with a shallow grave, no more than three feet deep.

“That will have to do,” said Bayer. “Let’s fetch the fiddler. I know he is longing to rest.”

Granqvist led the way back to the riverbank. There he single-handedly lifted the cadaver onto the horse and then led the magnificent steed over to the grave. Bayer, holding his gun, kept a good distance from him, not too far away and not too near. He watched as Granqvist set the bundle in the grave.

It turned out that the grave was not only shallow but also too short, and the corpse lay there with its legs sticking up in the air.

Granqvist grabbed the shovel and jumped down into the grave.

“This won’t take long,” he said as he began hacking at the ground with the shovel to make the grave longer.

Bayer went over to inspect the work. That was when Granqvist saw his chance to attack. He filled the shovel with clay and then with lightning speed tossed the dirt up at Bayer, who was leaning over the grave.

The damp clay struck him like a heavy rag right in the face, filling his mouth and nostrils with soil. He took a step back, gasping for air as he clung to the gun. The Swede leaped out of the grave and lunged at the police chief. Bayer held the gun behind his back, making it difficult for the Swede to grab. Instead the Swede grabbed his left arm and yanked Bayer down into the grave on top of him. Both men landed on the corpse. But the Swede had failed to take Bayer’s weight into consideration and when the police chief fell on him, even from such a modest height, it was enough to knock the wind out of a strong fellow like Teodor Granqvist.

Bayer felt the Swede go limp beneath him. For a moment Bayer lay still. Feeling bruised, he managed to pull himself up onto his knees.

The Swede was winded but not unconscious as he lay there on top of the corpse. Desperately, Bayer tried to crawl out of the grave, but his adversary had mustered his strength and once again reached out for him. This time the Swede got hold of the gun. He grabbed Bayer’s wrist and pulled the pistol toward him. But Bayer was still holding on tight, and as the barrel swung toward the Swede’s chest, the police chief pulled the trigger. It was not a deliberate action; it happened in the heat of battle, a reflexive movement. The gunpowder reacted to the striking of the hammer, exploding into the barrel and sending the bullet into Teodor Granqvist.

It killed the man instantly.

He fell back, and Bayer felt as though it happened so slowly that he seemed to hover in midair. Granqvist struck the sailcloth that was wrapped around the dead troubadour and then rolled down to rest beside him in the grave. Bayer was kneeling beside the legs of the two dead men, and there still wasn’t enough room for the men’s legs; they were stuck up past his shoulders.

Even though Bayer hadn’t eaten a thing since the previous night, there was still something in his stomach that demanded to get out.

Then he sat there shivering for God only knew how long.

Finally, he crawled on all fours out of the grave and crept over to the liquor bottle that was lying near the rock where he’d been sitting only a short time ago. He grabbed it and emptied it in one gulp. Then he tossed the bottle aside with his left hand, which made him realize that he was still holding the gun in his right. Without thinking, he stuck the barrel into his mouth. The steel was still warm from being fired. He closed his lips around the metal.

And pulled the trigger.

Of course he hadn’t reloaded the gun. This was merely an act. Something to cleanse himself.

Then he stood up and took off all his clothes. Slowly, like a sleepwalker, he went down to the river. He waded in until the water was up to his waist. Then he lowered his big, miserable body into the river. He ducked his head under, and for a moment he thought about staying there. But something inside of him wanted to keep on breathing. At last, he raised his head out of the water, gasping for air.

After he had given himself a good washing, he waded back to shore and put his filthy, foul-smelling clothes back on.

Then he did what he had to do. He made room for the men’s legs and even said a few words before he shoveled earth over them. But from the lips of a heathen such as himself, his words were without solace. He buried the gun and Granqvist’s possessions with the bodies. Then he cut the Swede’s horse loose. He went back to Bucephalus and climbed into the saddle.

On his way back to town he gave a wide berth to the hospitable farmer’s property. During the whole ride back he felt like an empty sack swaying on the back of the horse.

Nils Bayer had found the explanation he was seeking, but it had come at a price, and he never would have agreed to it if he’d known beforehand.

30

Singsaker didn’t often try
to hurry Dr. Kittelsen, the grouchy ME in the Department of Pathology and Medical Genetics at St. Olav Hospital. He knew it wouldn’t do any good; it was even counterproductive. Kittelsen was a stubborn old man. But in this case, they were working against the clock, and Kittelsen had been helpful in similar cases in the past. Even though he worked only with the dead, he was capable of a certain empathy when a life was in the balance.

“We’ve had her on the table for less than three hours. This is science, not magic. If you want a neat solution, I suggest you take up reading crime novels,” said Kittelsen in reply to the question he’d just been asked. But Singsaker wasn’t satisfied with this answer, so he rephrased his question.

“So you haven’t found the cause of death?”

“No,” said the doctor, sounding resigned. “This individual has been dead a long time. We may not find a single cause of death; all we can do is rule out a number of possibilities.”

“And can you do that at this stage?”

“You don’t give up, do you, Singsaker?” said Kittelsen with a sigh. The detective realized that was a backhanded sort of compliment.

Then the doctor went on: “The larynx has not been removed, if that’s what you’re concerned about. In fact, there is little sign of violence. No skin punctures or any visible injuries to the skeleton or internal organs. The skull is intact, with no injuries. No external bleeding. And so far, no signs of internal bleeding either.”

“So you’re saying that she wasn’t murdered?” Singsaker was putting words in the doctor’s mouth, but he’d been in this business long enough to know that wasn’t at all what Kittelsen had said.

“No, it’s much too early to reach that conclusion. But she wasn’t killed in any immediately observable way. And a preliminary examination of her airway indicates that she wasn’t strangled. But given the state of the body, these are highly dubious deductions. We don’t have a toxicology report yet, of course, but samples have been sent to the lab. She may have been poisoned. But I would guess that she died of natural causes. Most likely cardiac arrest.”

“Cardiac arrest?”

“Norway’s most common cause of death, Singsaker.”

“Well, I’ll be damned! At her age?”

“At her age, it’s not as common, of course. But it’s not unthinkable if she had high blood pressure, diabetes, or a heart defect.”

“Can you estimate how long she may have been dead?”

“Hard to say. Maybe a week. It depends on the temperature in the room where she was found.”

“We think that it was cold in there for a long time but that someone turned up the heat shortly before we found her,” said Singsaker, thinking of Grongstad’s theory that the flies had been awakened by a sudden change in temperature.

“In that case, she may have been dead for more than a week. But no more than two.”

“I see,” said Singsaker, concluding that she had most likely died about the time of the first murder. If that was true, if she was still alive when Røed captured his first victim, the question was how much she might have known.

“One more thing,” he said. “Were there any maggots inside the body? I’ve heard that they can be used to determine the time of death quite accurately.”

“Have you looked out the window lately, Singsaker?” said Kittelsen drily. “It’s winter. Flies don’t make larvae at this time of year.”

“I know, I know. It’s just that the body was swarming with thousands of flies when we found her.”

“They must have been attic flies. The body is in an advanced stage of decomposition, but not because of any fly larvae.”

Singsaker thanked Kittelsen for his help and put down the phone. Then he went over to Brattberg’s office. Jensen was already there.

*   *   *

“So, what did Dr. Sunshine have to say?” asked Jensen as Singsaker sat down in the chair next to him.

“He was actually pretty helpful this time. But he expressed his usual reservations, of course. What was interesting was that he seemed fairly sure that Anna Røed died of natural causes.”

“What does that tell us?” asked Brattberg.

“I don’t know,” said Singsaker. “She was alive during the first kidnapping. That much is certain. But he might have killed the first victim about the same time that she died. So it’s possible that Anna Røed’s death was the catalyst that pushed him to murder.”

“But why would he leave his wife lying dead in bed for days, possibly weeks?” asked Brattberg.