The Human Flies (K2 and Patricia series) (37 page)

‘I am afraid that I have a number of difficult questions to ask you today . . .’

Andreas Gullestad looked up at me in surprise, and his face stiffened. But he replied, with a friendly smile, that he would do his best to help me – whether the questions were difficult or not.

‘Do you still maintain that the name Deerfoot is unknown to you?’

If I had hoped for some kind of breakthrough, I was disappointed. Andreas Gullestad furrowed his brows. He did not blink, and his voice was just as friendly.

‘I am afraid I am going to have to disappoint you again there. I may perhaps have heard about this person by another name, but the description you have given me so far is still a bit hazy. Do you have any more details that might jog my memory?’

I was more than happy to provide these.

‘Deerfoot was a young guide who helped Harald Olesen when he had to cross the border into Sweden during the war. They made several trips together, the last of which was in February 1944 and ended in tragedy in the mountains between Trysil and Sälen. Not only were three German soldiers killed, but also two Jewish refugees. Deerfoot heroically skied over the mountains with their baby under his anorak and thereby managed to save her life. Does that ring any bells?’

Andreas Gullestad shook his head firmly.

‘No, I am afraid I do still maintain that this Deerfoot is unknown to me. I grew up not so far from there and heard many credible and incredible stories about what went on in the area. I cannot guarantee that I still remember them all, but I would have remembered that one if I had heard it. Do you have any questions from the more recent past that I might be able to answer?’

I nodded and made a swift decision to attack from a different angle.

‘Absolutely. We can instead talk about the mysterious man in the blue raincoat whom you said you had seen here in the building over the Whitsun weekend last year, but not since.’

He nodded pensively, with some reluctance.

‘If I was to say that he was seen wandering the corridors again on the evening that Harald Olesen was murdered, and that if you saw him last year you must have been looking in a mirror, and that it was you who threw a blue raincoat out in the rubbish . . . what would you say then?’

Andreas Gullestad pulled himself up slightly in his chair, put his right hand to his thigh and lifted his left hand to point at something.

‘Then I would say there has been a terrible misunderstanding that I hope can be resolved immediately. I do have a blue raincoat, but as you can see, it is still hanging on the coat hook by the door!’

He was pointing towards the door behind Patricia. Instinctively, I turned round, but could not see a blue raincoat. Nor could I see any coat hooks that the raincoat might hang on. Instead, I saw the shock on Patricia’s face. But it was only when I heard a loud whimper from Sara, followed by a strange thud that I could not place, that I spun my head back round. But it was too late.

It was a very different room that I saw The friendly, harmless Andreas Gullestad had vanished, and his wheelchair had toppled back onto the floor. In the middle of the room stood a man of around my height, his legs like a panther ready to pounce. His face was so changed that it took a few seconds before I recognized him. Andreas Gullestad’s relaxed expression was gone. Despite the different hair colour and rounder cheeks, I could now recognize the young Deerfoot’s intense and focused face from the old photograph. However, the biggest and most worrying change was that I was looking straight down the barrel of a .45-calibre Kongsberg Colt.

XI

‘This is my father’s old army pistol, and it was hidden in a pocket inside the cushion in my wheelchair. I have literally been sitting on the murder weapon for ten days!’

He said this with a shadow of a smile on his lips, but in a voice that was very different and could hardly be described as jolly. It was tense and serious – and threatening rather than friendly. Andreas Gullestad had become a totally different person when he threw back his wheelchair and pulled out a gun. I did not doubt for a moment that this was a man who had shot people before – and was willing to do so again. His finger was ready on the trigger. The only positive thing was that he appeared to be prepared to talk. And with a racing heart, I threw myself at this opening.

‘I know that it is the gun that killed Harald Olesen, but how many people did it kill during the war?’

He nodded in acknowledgement.

‘Four. It was me who shot all three soldiers during the incident in 1944. I could live with that, even though they still haunt my dreams from time to time. War is war, and occupiers are occupiers. What was far worse was that I also shot the mother of your young Swedish friend.’

There was another whimper from Sara. The twitch in Deerfoot’s face was like an echo. It was obvious that he was reliving painful old memories. I tried desperately to encourage him to continue.

‘I had a feeling that Harald Olesen’s report in Sweden was misleading . . . but what actually happened?’

He shook his head slowly.

‘The report was about five minutes from the truth. If it had been right, everything would have been different. The fact that there was an exchange of fire and three German soldiers were killed is true. What is not true is that the refugees we had with us were shot at the same time. We had shot them ourselves a few minutes before.’

Sara’s whimpering increased. Deerfoot’s hand trembled slightly and he continued in an unsteady voice.

‘It has haunted me every hour of the day for the whole of my life since – and it was Harald Olesen’s fault, all of it. He took their lives and ruined mine at the same time. And he had to die for his sins.’

I said nothing more for fear of provoking him. Fortunately, he was still delving deep into his memory.

‘It was hell on earth, and I have relived it every day since and almost every night . . . The endless journey with those hopelessly slow refugees who had never used skis before. Harald and I could easily have escaped from the Germans, but we could not leave the refugees behind. At one point, he said to me that all hope was lost and that I should escape while I could, but I told him that I would stay with him and with them to the bitter end. We hoped that we might be spared when the storm blew up and three of the Germans turned back, but the other three carried on and were getting closer by the hour. We thought that we could hide at the top, but they were gaining ground as we hauled the refugees up with us. They fired at us from further down the mountainside when we finally got to the summit. Then it soon became impossible to see anything, and almost impossible to carry on in the storm. I knew exactly where we were – a matter of miles from the Swedish border – but we would not be able to make it with the refugees in a howling snowstorm. We hid behind a rocky outcrop, with the two increasingly desperate refugees and a crying baby, for the rest of the night, knowing full well that our pursuers might find us at any time. Hour after hour we sat there, each with a gun in our hand, ready to shoot if we suddenly came under fire. Finally, we dared to carry on in the morning once the storm had dropped. Harald hoped that the Germans had turned back, but I had my doubts. It is hard to give up the hunt when you have come so far and are so near. We were all together, exhausted and nervous, when it happened.’

We listened with bated breath. He swallowed several times before he continued.

‘I still do not know exactly what happened, but suddenly, Harald Olesen and the man we had with us were arguing in raised voices. Then there was a shot. And Harald Olesen stood there, paralysed, with a smoking gun in his hand, staring at a dead man in the snow. Then I saw the wife of the fallen refugee screaming and waving her fists at Harald. So I gave it a moment’s thought, then shot her in the head. I have since often wondered why I shot her. I looked up to Harald, not just as a leader, but also as a father figure. My instinct was to protect him under any circumstance. But then, she was unarmed, and I knew that she was. So the answer has to be that I was scared that her screams would let them know where we were, and I was sick and tired of being held back by her and therefore wanted her dead.’

Deerfoot swallowed again before carrying on, but his feet were still dancing – and his finger was still on the trigger.

‘So there I stood. Both refugees lay dead in the snow, and the mother still had a crying baby at her neck. Harald Olesen stood as if petrified, looking down at them. Then I heard the sound of voices and skis from around the crag. For a moment I thought about killing myself, but then decided to risk the small chance that I had to survive. I ran over to the nearest snowdrift and threw myself down behind it. I was lying there when they appeared. Harald Olesen was still in his own world. I realized that my only hope was to kill all three of them by myself – and I only had six bullets left in the gun.’

Deerfoot’s story was almost as tense as the situation we now found ourselves in, and very frightening indeed. He blinked a couple of times, but his hand was now steady and his finger remained on the trigger.

‘The three soldiers were young: two were around twenty-five, and one was barely a day over twenty-one. An unexpected sight awaited them: two dead refugees in the snow and Harald Olesen standing there, out of his senses. I was not that far away from them and kept my aim as long as I dared. But when one of them pointed to my tracks in the snow, there was no time to think anymore. So I fired at the one who was closest, then quickly moved my aim to the next. The first one fell straightaway, and the second before he could pull his gun, but the third managed to do this and fired at me several times. Twice I just managed to throw myself to the side in the snowdrift before the bullets hit the spot where I had been. In the end, I stood up and aimed at him. My first shot missed. He spun round and aimed. We shot at each other at the same time. I felt the pressure as the bullet sliced past my ear, but my bullet hit him in the cheek. He stood there and swayed for a moment, with his gun trained on me, but then fell, the blood shooting up into the air. When I fired again, I hit him in the middle of the forehead. The scene that met my eyes when I came out from behind the snowdrift was gruesome. Five dead people in the snow. The only man standing was Harald Olesen, and he was apparently still paralysed.’

A hard expression slipped over Deerfoot’s face. His story was dramatic and it struck me that it was possibly the first time he had told it to anyone. His eyes were fixed on me – and the gun was still alarmingly pointed at me.

‘Do you remember the young German soldier I mentioned to you, the one who had tried to comfort me when they came to get my father? He was one of the three who had pursued us now – the second one to be shot. He was still alive when I went over to him. He tried to say something to me. “
En
. . .” He started twice without managing to say the word. I have later thought that he was perhaps trying to say “
Entschuldigung
” – that he was trying to apologize to me, who had shot him. It was an awful situation; he was not much more than a boy himself. I put my gun to his head and looked away while I pulled the trigger. He still comes back to haunt me – only last night I was woken by the sight of his face.’

Once again Deerfoot’s eyes became glazed, but they were still looking straight at me, and I was in no doubt that he would shoot me immediately if I so much as took a step towards him. I nodded as calmly as I could in the hope that he would continue the story.

‘The worst shock was still to come, though. After I had fired my final shot, I looked up and saw that Harald Olesen had raised his gun and was aiming at me. He said something vague about me having seen him kill a refugee so I had to die. I expected him to pull the trigger and kill me at any moment. God knows what I said. My guess is that it was probably that he had seen me kill her and that it was our shared secret. And that he would never find his way back on his own and that the baby would freeze to death in the cold without me. I think it was the latter that made him finally lower his gun and hand me the child. In which case it was the baby who saved me, and I then saved her in turn. You apparently know the rest of what happened. He stayed behind to bury the dead in a nearby cave. I skied for my life all the way to Sälen, first to get out of Harald Olesen’s firing range and then to save the baby’s life. It became an obsession: having killed her mother, I at least had to do something to save her life.’

Deerfoot was back in the present and reacted immediately when I carefully raised my hands.

‘Stay still! Both I and the gun have killed before!’

His voice was controlled, but had a dangerous undercurrent of desperation. I nodded as soothingly as I could. It was hard to see how we would get out of this alive. The only hope was to keep the dialogue going. Suddenly, Sara’s soft voice came to my aid.

‘Thank you for saving my life. I forgive you for killing my mother – you were young and you were in a situation in which you feared for your own life. Finally knowing what happened will help to ease the burden of grief. Do you remember where the cave is?’

Deerfoot cast half a glance in her direction. A tear twinkled in her eye as she spoke. But he continued to keep his focus on me – and his finger itching on the trigger.

‘I know exactly where the cave is. But you will only find remnants of the clothes and bones of the five people who were fated to die there together one winter day in 1944. I have never been back, but have never managed to move on from there all the same. I was a wreck in 1946 and 1947, when the papers were writing about the two border guides who killed the Feldmann couple. And in later years I have lived with the memories, every hour and every day – and with the fear of being discovered one day and ending up as a new Feldmann murderer on the front of every newspaper.’

He fell silent. His finger started to tremble on the trigger.

I carried on talking, out of sheer desperation.

‘Why did you not leave the pistol behind when you killed Harald Olesen?’

A painful expression flooded Deerfoot’s face.