The Last Pilgrim (53 page)

He tried to read a few articles in the copy of
Dagbladet
that someone had left on the table, but soon gave up.

Reuter tore the wrapper off the ice cream cone he’d bought and tried to find the sports pages in the newspaper. Bergmann couldn’t understand how Reuter could even think of eating ice cream when he was still soaking wet. Bergmann wriggled his toes inside his shoes, feeling the water squelching under his feet. Reuter took a cautious bite of ice cream as he pulled his reading glasses out of his jacket pocket. Bergmann studied his colleague sitting across from him. Considering his paunch, ice cream was the last thing Reuter needed, but that wasn’t what was bothering Bergmann. It was knowing that in a moment Reuter would start licking the ice cream. He would turn the cone around and around, sticking out his tongue to lick the ice cream like an old lady.

“What are you staring at?” said Reuter without looking up.

“Nothing. Inside we’re all the same,” said Bergmann, trying to find a cigarette that was dry enough that he’d have a reasonable chance of lighting it.

Reuter laughed and kept leafing through the newspaper.

As Bergmann got up with the unlit cigarette dangling from his lips, Reuter’s cell phone began vibrating on the table.

That was quick,
thought Bergmann, taking a deep breath. Had Abrahamsen really managed to check the fingerprints already?

Reuter took the call, looking pensive.

“I’ll call you later,” he said into the phone.

“Nothing?” said Bergmann.

Reuter shook his head without replying.

“It’s going to be hell if it turns out that Vera Holt did it,” said Bergmann.

“With a conviction based on a confession and a good dose of insanity, it’s sure to be viewed as a real tragedy,” said Reuter, continuing to lick his ice cream cone.

Bergmann left to have a smoke, standing just outside the front entrance. An old man with almost yellow skin was leaning on a walker a few feet away, trying to stick a hand-rolled cigarette in his mouth.

He tore his eyes away from the old man and thought that maybe Reuter was right. Maybe it would be a blessing if Vera Holt was the perpetrator.

“Has Georg called?”

Reuter shook his head. He jumped when his phone began vibrating on the table a moment later.

“Speak of the devil,” he said. He glanced at Bergmann, his expression that of a five-year-old on Christmas Eve.

“So, what have you got for me?”

Abrahamsen’s voice was loud enough that Bergmann could hear the results of the fingerprint test, but the expression on Reuter’s face said it all.
There’s no point in checking her DNA,
he thought. Those were not her fingerprints on the Hitler Youth knife.

“Not a match?” said Reuter. “Are you sure?”

Bergmann stuck his cigarette pack in his breast pocket, then turned on his heel and headed for the door without saying a word. He jogged along the side of the building to the parking lot of the psychiatric ward.

The earlier downpour had given way to a light drizzle, but Bergmann nonetheless felt like he was freezing. Maybe it was his confusion that was making him feel cold. Complete and utter confusion that only Peter Waldhorst could clear up.

If he were willing to do so.

“Where are you going?” shouted Reuter behind him.

A woman walking by cast an alarmed look at Bergmann and the man chasing after him.

“Where do you think?” said Bergmann, stopping. Reuter was only a few steps away now, his face red, his eyes wild.

Reuter didn’t know what to say. He just stood there, then finally stated the obvious.

“It’s not her, Tommy. It’s not Vera Holt.”

“Get Linda to book me a hotel room,” said Bergmann as he started heading for the car again. “You’ll have to take a cab back.” He held out his hand to Reuter. “Toss me the keys.”

“The keys?” said Reuter.

“The car keys.” Bergmann patted his pockets. Then he pulled his passport out of his inside pocket. It was still there from his trip to Berlin.

At last Reuter seemed to understand that Bergmann was going back, and that he had no time to waste.

“But Waldhorst isn’t on any of the airline passenger lists!” shouted Reuter, catching up. “And he didn’t check into any hotels either . . .”

Bergmann ignored him.

“No Peter Waldhorst. No Peter Ward,” said Reuter as they reached the car. Bergmann tilted his head back and looked up at the brick facade of the psych ward. He no longer felt guilty about suspecting Vera Holt of a murder that she might have had every right to commit, at least according to the Book of Exodus. She might never get out of this hospital, but that might be for the best—both for her and everyone else.

Bergmann took the car keys from Reuter, who merely shook his head without saying a word.

“When was Kennedy in Berlin?” Bergmann asked as he pressed the remote. The silvery Ford Mondeo beeped and the car doors unlocked.

Reuter cocked his head to one side, looking as if he thought Bergmann might also need to spend some time in the nearby building.

“‘Ich bin ein Berliner,’”
said Bergmann. “When did he say that?”

Reuter still didn’t reply, but it was easy to tell from his expression that he was seriously considering the question.

“When did Kennedy say that?”

“Just a minute,” said Reuter. “Let me think.”

Bergmann stuck a damp cigarette in his mouth and managed to light it.

“1963,” said Reuter, staring at Bergmann. “June 1963.”

Bergmann opened his notebook. Half the pages were wet from the rain, but the ink hadn’t smeared too badly, and he could still read what he’d written. He turned back a few pages, running his finger over the words.

“1963,” he murmured to himself. That was the summer that Bente Bull-Krogh was in her senior year. A few months before Krogh’s wife thought a woman had called them, though the other person hadn’t said anything on the phone.

Bergmann looked at Reuter, who frowned.

“What is it?” Reuter asked.

Bergmann didn’t reply.

“Tommy?”

No response.

“Why are you asking about that?
‘Ich bin ein Berliner?’
”

“It’s just something that Waldhorst said.”

“1963,” said Reuter.

“1963,” Bergmann repeated, getting in the car.

“What does that have to do with your going to Berlin?”

Bergmann leaned forward and started up the engine. He closed his eyes for a moment, and images of himself with Peter Waldhorst flitted through his mind. The two of them standing next to the taxi outside the hospital.

Chance is nothing but fate, and fate is nothing but chance.

Bergmann started backing up. For a second he was afraid he’d driven over Reuter’s feet as he stood there, throwing out his hands in a plea for him to wait and explain. Bergmann rolled down the window, exhaled a cloud of smoke, and pressed the button for the siren in the center of the dashboard.

Half an hour later he was standing at the SAS ticket counter at Oslo Airport. Afterward, two pints of beer at the bar lowered his pulse to an acceptable level. He laughed at the message he got from Arne Drabløs, who was wondering if he’d abdicated his position as head coach altogether. It occurred to him that maybe he ought to quit coaching after the tournament in Göteborg because of the whole thing with Hadja. He pushed aside any thoughts of her, stowing them away at the very back of his mind.

On the bar napkin he’d written three little words.

I loved her.

Quickly he folded up the napkin.

For several minutes he stared out the bar at the line of people about to board a Norwegian Air flight. He sat there smiling to himself without knowing exactly why.

He needed to start over, connect the dots in this investigation in a different way.

In the fall of 1963 Krogh gets a mysterious phone call.

Waldhorst meets his current wife at Tempelhof in June of the same year.

The maid was not killed after all.

Waldhorst loved Agnes Gerner.

And Carl Oscar Krogh was presumably working for the Germans during the war.

Finally: Agnes Gerner realized what he was up to and was killed.

He stared into his empty beer glass, as though hoping to find the answer at the bottom. He rubbed his hands over his face several times. It seemed hopeless. He could hardly make heads or tails of anything anymore. Had Waldhorst met someone at Tempelhof in 1963 who reminded him of Agnes? Someone who reminded him that Krogh had killed her in 1942?

A wild thought occurred to him as he waited in line to board.

Could Johanne Caspersen be his wife? The woman he’d called Gretchen?

CHAPTER 64

Sunday, September 27, 1942

Villa Lande

Tuengen Allé

Oslo, Norway

As soon as Agnes Gerner entered the kitchen, everything became clear to her. Johanne Caspersen stood with her back turned, placing a couple of logs on the embers in the fireplace. Yet she seemed to have eyes in the back of her head, because she froze as Agnes came into the room. And Agnes knew, she
knew
, that she had been careless, so damned careless that an ugly maid had seen right through her. She just couldn’t figure out what it was she’d done. What little mistake had she made that had put the maid on her trail?

She heard a phone ringing through the closed door to the living room.

It’s all over now,
thought Agnes.
They’re calling Gustav to tell him who I really am.

A moment later she regained her composure. At least for the time being.

“I’ll get it,” Lande said. Something in his voice calmed her.

Cecilia was sitting at the table, lost in her own world. A sketch pad had captured all her attention, and she was moving a colored pencil over the paper. Agnes studied her. The child still hadn’t noticed her presence.

Paper,
she thought suddenly.

Peter Waldhorst.

Paper.

Waldhorst.

Nausea rose in her throat. For a moment she was overwhelmed by the thought that he’d backed her into a corner. She knew she ought to be glad that she hadn’t heard from him in a while. But it was precisely that—his silence—that was so ominous. This certainty that at any moment he’d be standing behind her, tearing off his mask of feigned friendliness to reveal the monster he undoubtedly was.

“What would madam like for breakfast?”

Agnes stared straight into the birdlike face, those strange birdlike eyes. There was something in the maid’s expression that instantly banished her sense of calm and control. Johanne was looking at her as if she herself were now the mistress of the house. As if Agnes were already dead.

“I’m sorry,” Agnes whispered so that Cecilia wouldn’t hear. “I shouldn’t have . . .” She stopped herself. What was she actually trying to say? Was she apologizing for slapping her?

The maid had already walked over to the stove where she slammed a cast-iron skillet onto the biggest burner. The door to the living room opened. Gustav Lande came in and stood motionless in the middle of the room. He had on one of his best suits, one he wore only to meetings with the most important people. His tie hung loosely around his neck. Agnes didn’t know who would be traveling with him to Berlin other than Seeholz. Maybe Norway’s
Reichskommissar
Christian Terboven himself. But she had no intention of asking. Never again would she try to find out that sort of information. Right now she had only two options. She could either escape to Sweden—and God only knew how she’d manage that—or keep as low a profile as possible, hiding out here until she could think of a better idea, until someone realized that they needed to get her out of Norway.

Cecilia ran over to her father, and Lande leaned down to hug her. Then he shooed her back to the table. He kept his eyes fixed on Agnes the whole time, a sad look on his face, as if everything he’d ever worked for was suddenly gone.

“I need to talk to you,” he said.

Agnes had to close her eyes for a moment. Something flashed through her mind. A memory from her childhood, on a carousel, somewhere in England, she wasn’t sure where. Her mother and father were standing next to each other, waving to her.

“I don’t want to lose you,” Lande whispered in her ear. The pounding of her heart slowed.
Thank you, dear God,
she thought, savoring the scent of his aftershave.

Lande put his arm around her shoulders and led her into the living room, closing the door behind them. The room was cold, much too cold, and she shivered as Lande motioned for her to sit down on the sofa. A cold gust of wind made her cross her arms. Lande draped a wool blanket around her shoulders. She looked around the room, at the chairs around the dining table, at the dark oak parquet floor, at the gloomy oil paintings that seemed so out of place there, at the cold white walls.
How am I going to get through this?
she wondered just before Lande spoke.

“That was Ernst Seeholz on the phone,” he said, offering her a cigarette. Agnes shook her head. Then he lit one for himself. She was staring at the rain coming down on the terrace outside, picturing herself sitting there in the summer with that stocky little German. Waldhorst.

“He told me that a dozen Resistance fighters were arrested last night.”

Agnes closed her eyes for a moment.

“And you know what?” said Lande. “That hairdresser you go to?”

The Pilgrim. They’ve got the Pilgrim.
That was all Agnes could think of.

“Helge K. Moen,” she said quietly.

“He was one of the people arrested. A damned patriot.” Lande sounded more resigned than angry.

She hoped that he wouldn’t notice the goosebumps on her arms.

“Ernst said that those partisans will be hanged before the week is over. It’s just a question of time before they track down that female assassin and her cohorts.” Lande stared into space, unaware of the burning cigarette he was holding.

Agnes nodded, then leaned forward to take the cigarette out of his hand.