The Last Pilgrim (15 page)

Three-quarters of an hour later the team leader told the uniforms to run up and down the street with questionnaires. They were short of investigators. Whitsunday was a particularly bad time to be murdered; everybody knew that. Only Easter was worse. Not only were there hardly any people at work down at police headquarters, it was also hard to get hold of any witnesses. Especially in this part of town, high up on Holmenkollen ridge, where almost everyone who could crawl or walk had taken off for their cabins as soon as school let out.

Bergmann was in the master bedroom on the third floor when Fredrik Reuter came walking across the forecourt. He waved to Reuter, then turned his attention to a dusty photograph of Krogh holding hands with his wife.

Out in the hall he took off his blue latex gloves as he took one last look at the rooms on that floor, which consisted of an office, four bedrooms, and a bathroom. Everything was painstakingly neat, and Bergmann was fairly sure that almost nothing had been touched since Krogh’s wife had died the year before. It looked as though Krogh himself had hardly been up there. Maybe he’d never made it up the stairs.

Most likely the perp hadn’t set foot on the third floor either. A large room lined with green wallpaper and heavy hardwood bookshelves that had probably been Krogh’s office looked completely untouched.

No,
Bergmann thought,
Carl Oscar Krogh was not killed by someone who was out for money.
This was not a burglar who had been surprised to find anyone at home. And he’d bet that Krogh was not the victim of a random madman. No, old Krogh had been subjected to such extreme violence that they were probably dealing with a killer who had a strong personal motive.

Down in the living room, Reuter leaned against the wall, watching Abrahamsen and his team examine the crime scene. One of the assistants looked through the photos on the camera while talking to another tech in a low voice.

Reuter didn’t turn around when Bergmann entered the room.

“Holy shit,” he said to himself. Then to Abrahamsen: “He really looks terrible. Get Forensics to patch him up for the relatives. They have to do a clean job. Got that, Georg?”

Abrahamsen was standing in the terrace doorway looking out at the view.

“Did you hear what I said, Georg?”

“It won’t be easy,” he said without turning around.

“This isn’t good,” said Monsen as he came back in. “This is definitely not good.” He sounded like a boy who had smashed his mother’s porcelain plates.

“Check whether there are any lunatics on the loose at the moment,” said Reuter, looking around for Bergmann. His face was red as a lobster from too much sun over the holiday. A shiny circle on top of his head looked to have been particularly exposed. He looked downright exhausted in his worn sandals, old T-shirt, and shorts, which had surely fit better ten years ago.

“Have you got a smoke?” he asked, reaching out to Bergmann. He looked skeptically at Bergmann’s exercise outfit, then began waving his fingers. “I’ve got to have a smoke, Tommy.” His cell phone rang in his pants pocket. Reuter let the phone ring till it stopped.

Abrahamsen could be heard speaking into a voice recorder. “The head has been almost separated from the body, apparently with a knife. The murder must have taken place with great force, so the perpetrator was probably male.” He held up the knife and went on. “The murder weapon is covered with coagulated blood, tissue remnants, and bone splinters on both the blade and shaft. From what I can see, the words
Blut und Ehre
are engraved horizontally on the blade in cursive script.” He angled it toward the light from the window. “Vertically R2 M M7/2 1937. Solingen . . .”

“Solingen?” Bergmann asked.

“Solingen,” Abrahamsen replied. “Who doesn’t have a Solingen knife in his kitchen drawer?”

“Shut up,” said Reuter from out on the terrace. “Just shut up, all right?”

Bergmann couldn’t recall ever having seen him so pale. He shook his head as he fiddled with his phone.

“The Hitler Youth, right?” Bergmann said at last.

Abrahamsen nodded, noticeably reticent after Reuter’s outburst.

“Put it in a bag,” said Reuter as he came back in from the terrace. He put the cell phone back in his shorts. Then he raised his voice. “How many of you have seen this?”

“Only the two of us, and Bent, the housekeeper, the officer who arrived first, and the other one, his partner,” Bergmann said.

“Okay,” said Reuter. “All of you! Everyone in here.”

Five minutes later, the living room was full of people, in violation of every regulation.

Reuter, whose face had taken on a deep-red flush, said, “Everything, absolutely everything that occurs within these four walls today and in the days to come, must remain within these walls or well inside police headquarters. Those of you who haven’t seen the murder weapon—don’t even ask. Those of you who
have
seen it, speak only to me about it, or if necessary with each other in my presence. Is that understood?”

Bergmann figured that everyone in the room felt the same way he did. This case was already a total mess. And Detective Inspector Fredrik Reuter was on the verge of losing control.

After everyone had left the room, Reuter stood there holding the plastic bag with the knife.

“Come here,” he said to Bergmann. He pointed at the shaft. Then he glanced over at Carl Oscar Krogh. The blood from his slashed throat had begun to turn black. “Covered in prints,” said Reuter. “What does that tell you?”

“That the perp’s a real nutcase,” said Bergmann.

“Or he doesn’t give a damn if he’s caught,” said Reuter.

CHAPTER 23

Tuesday, June 10, 2003

Police Headquarters

Oslo, Norway

Tommy Bergmann leafed through the newspaper.
Dagbladet
had devoted ten whole pages to Krogh, which he thought was inevitable. On Sunday afternoon some idiot in one of the patrol cars had mentioned Krogh’s name over the police radio, and then the whole media circus had begun. He hadn’t expected anything less. But this wasn’t going to turn out well. Maybe he shouldn’t blame people for flying off the handle. And if they’d known what he and a dozen other detectives and uniforms knew, there would have been no chance of saving the situation. Krogh was a former trade minister and a prominent figure in the majority party after the war. Bergmann read in his obituary, “One of the nation builders of Norway has been brutally and senselessly taken from us.”

He looked up when Fredrik Reuter raised his voice. Everyone in the room turned to look in the same direction. Reuter paused for dramatic effect as a photo of Krogh’s body at the crime scene appeared on the screen behind him.

“The boss is the only one who will speak to the press. Not a word from the rest of us.”

“Only Papa,” said Halgeir Sørvaag, making a note to himself. “That’s perfectly fine with me.”

“I’ll be taking charge of the investigation,” said Reuter. “Halgeir’s and Tommy’s teams will join forces for this one.”

Sørvaag heaved a big sigh. He and Bergmann held equal positions as team leaders, but Sørvaag was more ambitious than Bergmann, who had never really understood why he had been named a team leader in the first place. He worked best alone, or with one other person, if need be. He now earned more money than he had before, but he spent too much time supervising four other people—people he didn’t always get along with. The fact that Reuter was taking charge of this case was a breach of all organizational protocols and would result in the worst possible leadership within the police force. But Bergmann had seen this happen before. The chief of the Criminal Division simply needed to show that he was a man of action. Although everyone knew that an investigation always suffered under such decisions, it played well in the media. Unlike Sørvaag, Bergmann actually felt slightly relieved by the fact that he wouldn’t be in charge of this case. It would give him the freedom he craved. Twenty-four hours had already been pretty much wasted because Krogh had met his maker on Whitsunday. Only now, almost forty-eight hours later, had they managed to gather a full staff. And potential witnesses and those who knew the victim had only just returned from their country homes and trips abroad.

A new photo of Krogh appeared on the screen. It was from a newspaper interview conducted only four weeks ago in connection with a VE Day commemoration taking place somewhere in town May 8. Bergmann saw that it had been taken from the terrace where he himself had stood only two days before. Reuter had added a few bullet points to the image. “A little background information about Krogh for those who’d been born after 1975,” he’d explained. Reuter would probably also feel compelled to give them a lecture on the Second World War, describing who the villains and heroes were, and how they were connected. That was something Reuter had taught Bergmann when he came over from the uniformed police. Without villains there would be no heroes. Apparently it was as simple as that.

“Any thoughts?” Reuter asked the room. “Everything is of interest. There are no stupid questions.” He squeezed the bridge of his nose and briefly closed his eyes in a way that made Bergmann think he’d prefer not to open them again until the day was over.

“The preliminary autopsy report,” Sørvaag said as he leaned across the table and held out a file folder. He grinned, briefly showing his crooked teeth. “I’ll never understand what the hell is so interesting about a person’s last meal or when he ate it, considering that his head was chopped off,” he said.

Reuter didn’t bother contradicting him. He merely held out his right hand in a peremptory manner.

“We need to find out who butchered Carl Oscar Krogh on Whitsunday,” said Sørvaag, “and the only thing Forensics seems to care about is what was in the guy’s stomach. Have any of you ever solved a homicide based on the fact that the poor devil had eggs and bacon a couple of hours before he was killed?”

Sørvaag dropped the folder on the table.

“Why don’t we try for a more constructive approach.” Reuter’s voice suggested that he was getting annoyed. If Sørvaag kept this up, he might kiss the whole Krogh case good-bye.

“There has to be a connection,” said Bergmann. “We haven’t found anything else related to Krogh. No disputes, no debts, not a fucking thing.”

“Connection?” said Reuter, rubbing his face, which could have been described as boyish if not for the fine lines around his eyes. “What sort of connection?” He glared at his soggy baguette and reluctantly took a bite.

“Two weeks ago, we found the skeletons of two women and a child up in the woods—”

“What are you getting at?” asked Reuter, waving his hand at Bergmann.

“And two weeks later, Krogh is killed—by someone who must hate him so intensely that he gouges out the old man’s eyes, hacks his chest to pieces, and practically decapitates him. I think the perp is somehow related to Agnes, Johanne, or Cecilia. Someone with a Hitler Youth knife.”

“Okay. That’s a start. But how, damn it?” said Reuter.

“Yes, what’s the motive for killing Krogh?” said a newly hired whippersnapper from Sørvaag’s team. Bergmann couldn’t recall his name, but he was growing increasingly annoyed with his tendency to ask smartass questions.

Sørvaag raised his hand, wanting to attract even more attention than usual.

“What if the perp is a Nazi?” he said.

“There aren’t any Nazis,” said Reuter.

“A neo-Nazi who bought a Hitler Youth knife on the Internet,” said Sørvaag.

“Forget it,” said Bergmann. “Even if some crazy neo-Nazi hated Krogh because he killed Nazis during the war, most of them today would rather direct their anger at foreigners. Don’t you agree?”

“How old does someone have to be to kill another person?” said Reuter.

Sørvaag grinned.

“What are you talking about?”

“Just think about it,” said Reuter. “Those three individuals up in Nordmarka were most likely liquidated during the war, right? What if Krogh knew who killed them, and the murderer were still alive?”

“And now he’s killed Krogh?”

“Improbable but still possible,” said Bergmann.

“It might not be as crazy as it sounds.” Reuter raised his coffee cup toward Sørvaag, as though awaiting a response. Sørvaag frowned. Reuter continued. “Well, if Krogh lived to be eighty-plus years old, then whoever killed those three people could still be alive. Someone of Krogh’s own age who was naturally strong and still in good health could have killed him.”

“But why now?” said Bergmann, directing the query more to himself than to his colleagues.

“Maybe Krogh had called up the guy,” said Reuter. “Maybe he threatened him after the skeletons were found.”

“It’s possible,” said Sørvaag.

Reuter ignored him and turned to Bergmann.

“Tommy, I want you to put together a bio of the old man and give it to me first thing in the morning. The rest of you need to do some good, old-fashioned detective work,” he said. He pulled up one last image, which outlined specific tasks for each team member. Then he clapped his hands, as he usually did, like some sort of amateur handball coach.