The Human Flies (K2 and Patricia series) (16 page)

A minute later, I saw Bjørn Erik Svendsen almost running along the pavement below the window. I realized how profoundly the murder would affect his life, and even more so, the other residents of 25 Krebs’ Street. It was strange to think how very different the situation would have been for them, as it would for me, if Harald Olesen had been allowed to die from his illness a few days or weeks later.

I sat there alone leafing backwards and forwards through the diary for an hour, but was none the wiser. I desperately missed Patricia’s voice and was several times about to drive to her home unannounced. But when I later got into the car, I headed not towards Erling Skjalgsson’s Street, but towards the hospital. There was a man waiting there who had been given a message to say that I would come today whom no one dared believe would live another day.

IV

Sadly, his wife had been right. There was not much left of Anton Hansen in 1968, compared with the handsome, dark-haired groom in the photograph from 1928. Forty years later, the same person was a worn and grey bag of bones lying in a white hospital bed. I would have guessed his age to be no less than seventy-five and his weight well under nine stone, despite the fact that he was still at least five foot ten. His hair was grey, his skin pallid, his breathing laboured and his mouth toothless. He had one tube in his left arm and another up his nose, but as he was constantly coughing, they were constantly in danger of falling out.

In other words, Anton Hansen the caretaker appeared to be precisely what he was: a man who had lived a hard life and who was now dying as a result. His eyes lit up when he saw me, but his face and body both remained heavy and, somehow, disillusioned. He gave an almost imperceptible nod in welcome. He lifted his hand from the bed in greeting, but his handshake was without energy or will. There seemed to be something strangely deformed about his hands. It took a couple of minutes before I realized that not only did he lack teeth, he also lacked nails.

‘Detective Inspector Kolbjørn Kristiansen. I am here, as I am sure you understand, in connection with the unsolved murder of your neighbour Harald Olesen.’

He nodded again. His voice was weak but friendly.

‘I thought I was going to die myself when I heard about the murder. Harald Olesen is one of the people I have admired most in this world, and I never imagined that I would outlive him. I had hoped that he would come to my funeral and still have many years before him.’

He gasped for breath and coughed at the same time, but continued remarkably quickly.

‘During the war, everyone who knew his identity worried that he would be shot any day. But now, so many years later . . . it came as a shock, and I cannot imagine who would want to kill him. Not anymore.’

His head fell back on the pillow. I discreetly stood up and moved closer to the bed so he could see me without lifting his head. He nodded gratefully.

‘I admired Harald Olesen during the war, of course, but it was actually later that I fully understood just how strong he was. Harald Olesen was a man of action, someone who could always distinguish what was important and what was not, who always looked to the future. He managed to carry on, even though he must have seen things far worse than I did during the war.’

He coughed again, this time so violently that I looked around for a nurse, but then he carried on speaking.

‘My problem was that I remembered everything so clearly, and then you get caught up in what happened and it is impossible to move on – especially when the experiences are as powerful as those I carried with me from the war.’

It seemed to me that Caretaker Anton Hansen was intellectually fitter than he was physically. But now I was impatient to know more about what happened during the war and about his neighbours, before it was too late.

‘It must have been very peculiar for you and Harald Olesen, as former Resistance fighters, to have a convicted NS member as a neighbour.’

A small smile slid over Anton Hansen’s face, but then quickly gave way to a grimace.

‘Well, yes, but Konrad Jensen has not harmed a fly since the end of the war. I never asked Harald how he felt about having a former Nazi as a neighbour, but it was not a problem for me. In a strange way, it felt as though Konrad and I shared a fate. We were both small, weak men who tried to dance with the big, strong men like Harald Olesen during the war. And we paid for it dearly in later years, each in our own way.’

‘Can you remember any particular events or people from the occupation that may be of significance?’

He heaved a heavy sigh – and then had to gasp for air.

‘My problem is that I remember too much. So much happened during those years, and most of it was secret, so I am not sure what might or might not be important. I remember the happy moments: Liberation Day and the return of the royal family. And I remember the first refugees who we hid in our cellar. There were four of them in 1942 to 1943, and all made it over the border to Sweden. While they were with us, I will never forget that tension. If the Germans had come while they were there, both my wife and I would have been shot along with our guests. We lived together for a few days, with the threat of death hanging over us. The youngest of these guests was a petrified lad of only sixteen or seventeen who spoke both Norwegian and German. He came back ten years later with his wife and child to give us gifts in thanks for our help. That is one of my best memories from after the war.’

Anton Hansen smiled for a moment, until he was once again overwhelmed by a coughing fit.

‘And then there were the three last ones . . . and they were not quite so lucky.’

I moved even closer into his range of vision and indicated impatiently that he should continue.

‘A young couple with a baby who came to us in February 1944. Dark-haired, attractive and well dressed, but terrified by the danger hanging over them. They scarcely dared to let one another or the child out of sight for a moment, and I heard them crying and whispering together in a foreign language every night. They spoke Norwegian, but their intonation was odd and they used lots of strange words, so I realized that they came from another country and had somehow found themselves behind enemy lines in Norway.’

He was seized by an extreme fit of coughing. I was afraid that Anton Hansen would die in the middle of the very interesting story, but his eyes were still shining when his chest calmed down.

‘Harald Olesen had an almost supernatural power in critical situations. He could smell danger like a predator – by instinct more than intellect. On the third afternoon that they were with us, he came and said that he had a feeling that there was an acute danger, and out of consideration to both us and them, he could not let the refugees stay in town any longer. So he came to collect them in his car around two in the morning. It was a hasty farewell. I remember the tiny baby shoe that was left behind on the floor.’

Anton Hansen’s head fell back on the pillow again. I took the opportunity to fire a question.

‘Can you remember what kind of car Harald Olesen was driving?’

He nodded weakly, without raising his head from the pillow.

‘He was driving his black Volvo 1932 model that evening, as always.’

I smiled, hoping to encourage both him and myself.

‘Good, good. And what happened to the refugees after that?’

First a fleeting smile and then a sharp spasm passed over Anton Hansen’s face.

‘I’m afraid I don’t know much about that. We were never told their names or anything else about the people who stayed with us, or which route they followed from here. I never saw them again, but I don’t think it ended well. I asked Harald Olesen about it once, later. He suddenly looked extremely grave and said that they had been very unlucky and that I must never ask again. It would be best if I didn’t know more, he said. So I never asked again. I had the utmost respect for what Harald Olesen said, but I often wondered about it. Images and memories have dogged me through the years. I presume that none of them survived the war.’

He paused briefly, coughed a couple of times and then carried on.

‘On the other hand, one thing I know for sure is that Harald Olesen’s instinct saved both me and my wife that time. Somehow we’d been found out or someone had informed on us. The following morning, I was woken by five soldiers from the Gestapo kicking down my door and tearing the flat apart. The baby shoe on the floor was one of the things they asked about, but luck was with us and it fitted our youngest son.’

There was another short pause. The memories were obviously potent and his voice got weaker.

‘But I was arrested all the same and locked up in Grini Prison Camp. As I was escorted out of the flat that morning, I was sure that it was the last time I would see my wife and children. I was questioned and beaten up for four days before they let me go. On the third day, they said that I would be shot if I didn’t tell them immediately where the refugees had gone and who had gone with them. I said my final farewell to life. But it was just a bluff – they lined me up and pulled their triggers without having loaded the guns. That convinced them that I had nothing to confess. The next day, they let me go. I came home minus three teeth and ten nails, but that did not bother my wife and me. If that had been the worst damage, I guess we would have lived happily ever after. My involvement in the Resistance ended there and then. Harald felt that it was too dangerous for us, and them, to hide any more refugees, and I didn’t protest.’

Anton Hansen was on the verge of tears now. The memories from after the war seemed to be more of a burden than those from the war. His voice was almost a whisper and trembled when he finally continued.

‘Later, I have often thought that I should have said no the first time that Harald Olesen asked if I wanted to work for the Resistance and hide a refugee. I bitterly regret it now when I see the consequences it has had for my wife and children. But if Norway were to be occupied again and Harald Olesen was standing by the kitchen table asking me to help my country by hiding refugees, I still wouldn’t say no. How could I?’

I nodded with as much sympathy as I could muster.

‘Of course not. You made a great contribution to this country and its people, and no one could have foreseen what the consequences would be.’

He smiled for a moment, but this was followed by another spasm and a shadow once again fell over his face.

‘It’s strange how differently we cope with things. No one can predict it. There were children and young women who came home after years in a concentration camp and apparently managed to deal with it easily. They are still happily alive today. Whereas I, a big mature man, never got over those four days in the prison camp. Even here in the hospital, I can be woken in the middle of the night by the Germans storming in, or knocking out my teeth, or I am standing in front of the firing squad. Faces come back to me constantly, whether I am awake or asleep. And often it is the terrified young couple with the baby.’

His persistent use of the word ‘baby’ reminded me of an unresolved question.

‘Do you know if the child was a boy or a girl?’

He gave a feeble shake of the head.

‘Neither my wife nor I was certain about it afterwards, strangely enough. It was important to know and remember as little as possible. The child was only a few months old and in nappies, so it wasn’t easy to tell. I think it was a girl, but I am not sure.’

‘And you have no idea where Harald Olesen drove them?’

He moaned quietly and shook his head.

‘No. Unfortunately, he didn’t say. We were not supposed to know that sort of thing, but I think . . .’

He was seized by a coughing fit again. I felt guilty about pressing the skin-and-bones man in the bed for any more now, but could not leave without hearing the rest of the story.

‘I don’t think he intended to go straight to the border. The Germans kept a strict guard on the roads and there were lots of soldiers in the border region, so the shortest way was often the most dangerous. And it wouldn’t be easy to smuggle two adults and a baby through the roadblocks. I think rather that he took them out into the forest, on foot.’

‘But this was in winter – was there not snow on the ground?’

He nodded weakly, twice.

‘It was the middle of February. They left us on the night of 14 February. It was a difficult situation. Either Harald Olesen had to find a safe hiding place for two parents and a baby of two or three months or they had to get out the skis. I think he had planned the latter. The day before they left, he said in passing that it seemed that he and Deerfoot had to take a trip to the mountains.’

I looked down at the emaciated man on the bed, my question no doubt clear on my face. He smiled disarmingly and then sometime after spoke again with great effort.

‘I understood from what he said that this Deerfoot was some kind of guide whom he used when he took the refugees over to Sweden. I have always imagined in later years that Deerfoot was a young man in his twenties or thirties, but I have no idea where Deerfoot came from or how old he was, and certainly not what he was called. I don’t even know which route they took, as there were many possibilities. They might, for example, have driven east towards Østfold, or north to Hedmark or Oppland. What puzzled me was that Deerfoot was mentioned several times in 1942 and 1943, but never again later. I mentioned him one time after the war, but Harald replied dismissively that things had gone awry for Deerfoot. So without knowing anything for certain, I have always presumed that something terrible happened on that trip, and that as result, Deerfoot and the three refugees died that winter in 1944.’

It certainly did not sound implausible, but I was not going to let this new character in Harald Olesen’s life go that easily.

‘Did you by any chance see this Deerfoot when Olesen came to collect them?’

He shook his head as firmly as his strength allowed.

‘No, no. Harald was alone when he came, and only had the couple and the baby with him when he left. I have never seen or spoken to Deerfoot. That much I do know.’