The Lazarus Solution: The compulsive, breathtaking new historical thriller from the Godfather of Nordic Noir E-Book

Kjell Ola Dahl

• Herausgeber: Orenda Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 476

Beschreibung

When a courier for Sweden's Press and Military Office is killed on his final mission, the Norwegian government-in-exile appoints a writer to find the missing documents … breathtaking WW2 thriller. **International NUMBER ONE bestseller** 'A stylish stand-alone thriller from the godfather of Scandi noir … Ola Dahl ratchets up the tension from the first pages and never lets go' Sunday Times 'Absorbing, heart-rending and perfectly plotted' Denzil Meyrick 'Expertly crafted' John Harvey _________ Summer, 1943. Daniel Berkåk, who works as a courier for the Press and Military Office in Sweden, is killed on his last cross-border mission to Norway. Demobbed sailor Kai Fredly escapes from occupied Norway into Sweden, but finds that the murder of his Nazi-sympathiser brother is drawing the attention of the authorities on both sides of the border. The Norwegian government, currently exiled in London, wants to know what happened to their courier, and the job goes to writer Jomar Kraby, whose first suspect is a Norwegian refugee living in Sweden … a refugee with a past as horrifying as the events still to come … a refugee named Kai Fredly… Both classic crime and a stunning exposé of Norwegian agents in Stockholm during the Second World War, The Lazarus Solution is a compulsive, complex and dazzling historical thriller from one of the genre's finest writers. For fans of Sebastian Faulks, Lars Mytting, Mick Herron and Robert Harris. _______ 'The detail is impressive' Daily Mail 'Kjell Ola Dahl's novels are superb. If you haven't read one, you need to right now' William Ryan 'A dark but richly described backdrop and a relentless, underlying tension … Fans of Nordic noir will be satisfied' Publishers Weekly

Leseprobe

Summer, 1943: Daniel Berkåk, working as a courier for the Press and Military Office in Sweden, is killed on his last cross-border mission to Norway.

Demobbed sailor Kai Fredly escapes occupied Norway into Sweden, but finds the murder of his Nazi-sympathiser brother is drawing the attention of authorities on both sides of the border.

The Norwegian government, currently exiled in London, wants to know what happened to their courier, and the job goes to writer Jomar Kraby, whose first suspect is a Norwegian refugee living in Sweden … a refugee with a past as horrifying as the events still to come … a refugee named Kai Fredly…

Both classic crime and a stunning expose of Norwegian agents in Stockholm during the Second World War, The Lazarus Solution is a compulsive, complex and dazzling historical thriller from one of the genre’s finest writers.

THE LAZARUS SOLUTION

KJELL OLA DAHL Translated by Don Bartlett

CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE12NORWAY, VESTRE AKER, THREE WEEKS EARLIER34STOCKHOLM, THREE WEEKS LATER5678910 1112131415 1617181920212223242526 272829 30 3132 333435 3637383940414243 44 45 46 47 48 49 5051 52 53 54 5556 57585960ABOUT THE AUTHORABOUT THE TRANSLATORCOPYRIGHT

1

Jomar Kraby was late. Gunvor had been waiting for him, but now she wanted him to stay away for a bit longer, because she had spotted Orina, who was early. Slim, dark-haired and wearing light-coloured trousers, Orina stood out from the crowd. Gunvor cast around for the Russian Embassy car, but couldn’t see it. Orina stopped in front of her, and they greeted each other in Soviet fashion, air-kisses on both cheeks, then crossed the street side by side.

Gunvor was seized with a sudden shyness and wondered what to say, as she looked around again for Kraby. He was nowhere to be seen.

Orina talked about the heat wave that had been hanging over Stockholm for several weeks and expressed a hope that it wouldn’t end just yet. She asked Gunvor if she had been swimming much this summer.

They entered Humlegården Park and made a beeline for an empty bench. Gunvor said that she sometimes went to the Vanadis pool on Sundays, which was true; only to sunbathe though, she said. But she hadn’t been swimming for a while – not since they last met anyway. She got panicky in water, she told Orina. This was only partly true. In fact, Gunvor wasn’t at ease in a swimming costume. She could lie on a rug in one, but swan around…? No. Gunvor felt her bottom was too big and her thighs too fat for that – something Orina would never have to worry about.

‘You can swim, though, can’t you?’ Orina asked.

Gunvor nodded.

After sitting down, Gunvor caught sight of the embassy car – a black GAZ – as it pulled over and stopped in Sturegatan.

Orina told her that she loved the sea and had been for a long swim on Sunday. ‘Not many women can do that. I’m proud that I can. I’ll take you along so we can swim together.’

Gunvor felt a warm flush spread through her abdomen at the thought.

Orina said that Madame Kollontai lived on the island of Storholmen, and now Orina’s department was moving there too. She would be stationed there for the next few weeks. ‘So it’ll be harder for me to see you at short notice.’

Gunvor gazed down at Orina’s hands, struck by how elegant all this woman’s movements were. What she wanted to say was knotted inside her.  

Then she burst out with it, heedless of the outcome: ‘Let’s arrange to meet, shall we, just the two of us?’ she said in a rush, fearful of how Orina might react. ‘Then we’ll have more time than we do meeting like this.’

Orina stared straight at her. ‘You and me? Alone?’

Gunvor nodded.

Orina sat on the bench, thinking. Gunvor was suddenly afraid she had gone too far – had let her feelings run away with her. She was about to retract the suggestion, when Orina raised her chin and looked her in the eye.  

‘If there’s somewhere we can swim, perhaps you could come to Storholmen?’ Orina took Gunvor’s hand in hers. ‘One Sunday when I’m free. I’ll have a look for somewhere. Don’t forget your swimming togs though, even if there’s no mention of them on the invitation.’

Orina stood up. Gunvor stayed on the bench and followed her with her eyes. What grace she had; those long legs of hers and the lissome way she walked.

Reaching the GAZ, she turned and waved, then got in. The car drove off – but had to brake for Jomar Kraby, who crossed the street and continued down the pavement.

Gunvor waited until the car had gone. Then she grabbed her bag, stood up and followed him.

Kraby was dressed in black, as always, apart from a red neckerchief. On his head he wore a Panama hat. It wasn’t hard to keep him in her sights. His lean body was arched like a wind-filled sail, his head bent over his feet, as though he was struggling not to be blown backward. With every step he raised one leg high in the air like some spindly insect groping its way forward over unfamiliar terrain. Where the street ended in Stureplan square, he turned left into a restaurant known as the Anglais. Gunvor waited for a few seconds before following him in.

Standing just inside the door, she watched Kraby greet with a bow the Norwegian artists and actors dotted around, then he proceeded to his regular table. Immediately the waiter was at his side, placing a tankard of beer and a small glass of port in front of him. The waiter waited. It was like a ritual. Kraby emptied the port into the beer then raised the glass tankard, drank and put it back down.

Gunvor walked towards his table.

Kraby gave his order: the usual. His voice was hoarse; his face a pale yellow, dominated by a broad mouth, a long nose and very bushy eyebrows. He had been a good-looking man once, Gunvor thought. In his younger days Jomar Kraby must have been quite a Casanova. Now the skin around his skull was beginning to tighten. His eyes were deep set amid a myriad of wrinkles, rippling like water towards the base of his imposing nose. The fingers that held the tankard were long and bony. Two joints on the middle finger of his left hand were missing, the result of carelessness when using a straw cutter on the farm in Lunner where he grew up before moving to the capital and becoming a writer and social commentator. Gunvor had heard him tell the story many times. Malicious tongues, however, maintained that the finger had been chopped in half by a jealous husband, and that it was the relationship with this man’s wife that was the real reason Jomar crossed the border from Norway into Sweden.

He raised his tankard and, with his free hand, pulled out a chair. ‘Take a pew, Gunvor.’

Gunvor sat down. Shortly afterwards the waiter appeared with the food. Kraby was served beef tartare: meat, capers and an egg yolk.

‘This is a luxury I can permit myself for as long as the restaurant has meat and I have money,’ he said, unfolding the serviette wrapped around a knife and fork.

Gunvor shook her head when the waiter turned to her. ‘I’m not staying.’

Kraby broke the yolk with his fork and spread the egg across the meat. ‘Normally I eat tinned sardines on bread.’

Gunvor coughed. ‘Torgersen sends his regards.’

Kraby started eating.

‘He instructed me to tell you to drop by the office.’

Kraby chewed.

‘Today. As soon as you can.’

Kraby swallowed, took a swig of beer and put down the tankard. ‘How is she, our friend Orina Vasilikova?’

Gunvor didn’t answer.

‘I saw the two of you,’ he said. ‘While I finish this, why don’t you go to the toilet and check that you took the right bag when you parted company?’

Gunvor eyed him without speaking.

Nonchalantly, Kraby continued to eat.

‘Well, can I tell Torgersen that you’re coming?’ she asked, getting up.

He didn’t answer.

Gunvor left. His comment about the bags had unsettled her, but she wasn’t sure whether Kraby actually knew what had happened or just said such things to keep her on her toes.

2

After finishing his meal, Jomar Kraby lit a cigarette. It was still early in the Anglais. The worst imposters hadn’t turned up yet. Pandora hadn’t, either. It didn’t matter; he had a meeting to go to. So he paid, went out and made his way to Mäster Samuelsgatan.

Occupied Norway’s Legation in Stockholm was spread across several addresses. The main office was in Banérgatan. The Press Office was there, too, while the Legal Office, the Liaison Office, the Refugee Office and the two Military Offices were housed elsewhere. Ragnar Torgersen was in charge of the Refugee Office’s secretariat. He had a responsible job – there were tens of thousands of Norwegian refugees in Sweden.

The Legation took care of its own security. As Jomar trudged the last few metres up the hill, he saw Borgar Stridsberg on duty in front of the door. His jacket was tight and the bulge by his armpit revealed that he was armed. Jomar came to a halt, said hello and asked him if he had heard from his brother, a shrimp fisherman.

‘No news is good news these days,’ he replied. ‘When they shot my father, I was informed at once. Do you want to see Torgersen?’

Jomar nodded, waited for Stridsberg to open the door, then went in and up the stairs.

In the ante-chamber Gunvor was sitting at her desk behind a typewriter, and she told him to go straight in. Jomar knocked on the glass door and opened it without waiting for a response.

Ragnar Torgersen was sitting behind a huge desk with a pen in his hand, busy taking notes. He was wearing a grey suit, and his tie was knotted so tight the mere sight of it made Jomar gasp. His complexion was ruddy; his head was covered with grizzled hair, cropped, like the spikes on a hedgehog. He was the kind of man who still possessed a touch of the nobility that the Eidsvoll Assembly had tried to eliminate in 1814 when drawing up Norway’s new constitution – a nobility the pince-nez over his nose enhanced. But a dead cast to Torgersen’s eyes also lent him an appearance of inaccessibility, a veil that Jomar was able to see through, because he knew the cause. Torgersen’s only son, Hjalmar, had died the previous autumn while being tortured by a Norwegian collaborator.

There was a deep armchair placed in front of the desk. Torgersen performed his well-rehearsed party piece: he arched both eyebrows in such a way that the spectacles pinched to his nose loosened and fell. He caught them with his left hand and extended his right to indicate the vacant chair to Jomar.

Jomar knew that if he sat in the armchair he would sink right down, as helpless as a duckling in a well. So he took one of the wooden chairs from the conference table by the window, carried it to the desk and seated himself.

Torgersen folded his hands and leaned across. ‘Are you writing anything at the moment, Jomar?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Are you bringing your creative mind to bear on a novel or an essay, or indeed on anything at all?’

‘Not at the moment, no. Why?’

‘Daniel’s dead,’ Torgersen said. ‘Daniel Berkåk. He was shot. In Norway. Just across the border.’

Jomar replied that he had heard the rumours, but not the name of the victim, which was true.

‘It was a few days before his body was found,’ Torgersen said, leaning back in his chair. ‘You know who Berkåk was, don’t you?’

‘We probably met, said hello.’

‘Berkåk worked closely with the Press Office and the Mi-2 Military Office. When he wasn’t working as a courier in Norway, he was gathering intelligence. Anonymous appearance, not very tall, slim, combed-back blond hair, steely eyes.’ Torgersen raised his hand and placed his index finger against his chin. ‘A lump here, on his chin.’

Jomar nodded pensively. He remembered the man.

‘Berkåk was carrying documents and newspapers,’ Torgersen said. ‘A rucksack full. The latest edition of Håndslag. The idea had been to distribute it across Østland. The documents were for the Resistance leaders, but before he could deliver anything, he was shot. When his body was found, there was no sign of any documents or newspapers.’

‘Were the documents in code?’

‘Of course.’

‘No problem then?’

‘Can’t you see the gravity of this? One of our couriers is murdered and vital documents have gone missing!’

‘You don’t think it was the Germans then?’

Torgersen shook his head. ‘If German soldiers had been behind this, or the border police, they would’ve taken the body with them, but Berkåk was found by a forester, almost by accident. Had he not been, he would’ve been lying there for months.’ He took a deep breath. ‘This is not the first incident. Papers have gone missing from files too. We can’t go on like this. Disloyal is one thing, but now a courier carrying confidential papers is killed. One of our most trusted men, slaughtered like an animal. What’s going to happen next? These are not normal information leaks, Jomar. This is a breach in a dyke. If we can’t plug the leak, we’ll drown. We can’t let this happen.’

‘Trying to fight disloyalty at the Legation would be tilting at windmills,’ Kraby said. ‘There are disloyal staff in all the legations in Stockholm, working for the British, the Germans, the Americans and the Russians. That’s why they’re all here, fishing for info from each other.’

‘This is quite different. Daniel Berkåk was murdered!’

‘Strange,’ Kraby said.

‘What’s strange?’

‘With such leaks, you’d expect the third-party beneficiary to be someone in the German Abwehr in Oslo, such as the man leading the Intelligence Office, Fritz Preiss, but you said the Germans weren’t involved.’

‘Did I?’

Jomar leaned forward and opened the cigarette box on the desk. On seeing the contents, he inclined his head in respect.

‘Of course, it’s possible the information has been passed on to the German authorities in Norway,’ Torgersen said, and then corrected himself: ‘No, actually, I’d say it’s highly likely that it’s been passed on to them. But it wasn’t German soldiers who killed him. Which, of course, makes everything far worse.’

Jomar took a cigarette and examined the side seam. It was probably Virginia tobacco. He ran the cigarette under his nose, sniffed and savoured the aroma, then grabbed the lighter on the desk. It was shaped like a dragon. A flame shot out of the dragon’s mouth when he pressed the tail.  

‘Have you considered the arsonist angle?’ he asked, blowing smoke into the air with the satisfaction of a passionate smoker. ‘Whoever shouts “Fire!” is probably the person who started it.’

Torgersen shook his head firmly. ‘The woodsman who found Berkåk is a thoroughly decent fellow, and our couriers vouched for him. I know it’s easy to suspect him, but in fact I don’t.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Arnfinn Bråtan.’

‘Arnfinn? He was the man who guided me across the border.’ Jomar nodded, persuaded that Torgersen was right. He doubted Arnfinn Bråtan was behind the courier’s death.

Torgersen began to clean his spectacles with the cloth beside the desk pad. ‘The government – ours, in London – wants the case investigated.’

‘It’s interesting to hear all this,’ Jomar said, his eyes half closed, ‘and of course I’m humbled that you’ve let me into your confidence, but I still don’t understand why.’

‘London asked me what I thought, and in my opinion you’re the right man for the job.’

Jomar’s eyebrows shot into the air in disbelief. ‘Have you taken leave of your senses?’

Torgersen shook his head. ‘I’ve thought this through carefully.’

‘How could I – of all people – find out anything about this business?’

‘By using your grey matter.’

‘The Norwegian Legation is full of competent staff who know how to work with this kind of material,’ Jomar said. ‘Politicians, military officers, saboteurs, police from back home, and the quick-witted Norwegians who trained in Scotland.’

‘We can’t broadcast to all and sundry that we’re investigating this. That would sow division. It would set people against each other, and we Norwegian exiles fighting for a free homeland have to stand together. This has to be a covert operation.’

‘So you’ve come to me, an impecunious bohemian and alcoholic?’

Torgersen ignored him. ‘I’m convinced the explanation for this murder is to be found here, in Stockholm. If the situation is as I believe it to be, we have a mole in our midst, someone with sources in the Legation, in which case we need someone who can investigate from the outside. Someone who’s independent and impartial.’

Jomar shook his head, but Torgersen raised a pre-emptive hand. ‘First, no one will suspect that you have a hidden agenda. And, least of all, that you’re running errands for the authorities. In addition, you’re independent, mature and experienced enough not to allow yourself to be duped by the bigwigs. You’re an artist; hence you have the imagination to think outside the box. To my knowledge, you have no personal or careerist agenda within our pathetic political set-up outside Norway. I don’t believe you have any loyalties you should be ashamed of. And, from my experience, you don’t have any hobby horses. At any rate, none I know of. If you’re the person I think you are, you hunt for angles and contexts, which so-called specialists, and particularly bureaucrats, are unable to do. Best of all, however, is your appearance. What you say is true. You look like a bohemian and an alcoholic. It’s the best disguise there is. Even Sherlock Holmes understood that.’

Jomar didn’t allow himself to be taken in by this flattery. He took a deep breath, ready to speak, but Torgersen raised his hand again.

‘As I said, I have the backing of our exiled government in London.’

‘London,’ Jomar said, letting silence reign for a few seconds. ‘What about the heads of the Norwegian Legation here?’

Torgersen folded his hands and breathed in. ‘London turned to me. Directly to me,’ he said, searching for the right words.

Jomar let him search. The fact that others in the top echelons of the Legation hadn’t been informed made the case all the more delicate. He couldn’t be part of all this. The mere thought of having to manoeuvre between machinating parties in the administration – it would be like sitting on top of an ant heap, naked.

‘Hundreds of people work in the Legation offices,’ Jomar said. ‘How do you imagine I can find out who the leak is?’

‘What we want to know, Jomar, is why Daniel Berkåk was murdered as he made his way to Norway. We want to know what the motive was. Daniel Berkåk’s dead. There’s nothing we can do about that. What’s so awful is that nothing’s happening about it. The crime has fallen between every conceivable stool. The murder took place in Norway. So no authority in Sweden is interested in investigating the case, even if Berkåk lived in this country. And I can’t phone the Norwegian Statspolitiet, the Stapo, and ask them how the investigation’s going. They’d just snort with derision. They’re not interested in investigating the murder at all. For the Stapo and the German authorities in Oslo, Daniel’s death is a stroke of luck. They’d like to see our couriers dead, and everyone else working against them.’ Torgersen tapped his forefinger on the desk as he continued: ‘Whoever’s behind this has to be punished.’

‘You said yourself the Stapo want the couriers dead. But what if our Nazi friends are behind this?’

‘Then it’ll come out during your investigation,’ Torgersen said, in a slightly irritated tone now. ‘Your employer is the Norwegian government in London – but this is highly unofficial. The government-in-exile has no authority to initiate an investigation in Sweden. You’ll have to work undercover, with the greatest possible discretion, and you will report to me. We have to bring these people to justice, if not here in Sweden, then at home in Norway when we can once again hoist the Norwegian flag over the Palace Square in Oslo.’

Jomar smoked, staring glumly at Torgersen. ‘You’ve missed out a couple of tiny details,’ he said. ‘Such as the fact that Daniel was killed in Norway, and that I had to leave Norway to avoid arrest by the Germans.’

‘As I just said, I’m sure the solution to this case lies in Stockholm.’

‘There are two cases. The leaks are happening in Sweden, but the murder took place in Norway. This might be two sides of the same coin, but it doesn’t have to be. To presuppose that the two cases are connected before starting a thorough investigation would be amateur.’

‘As I said, you’re the right man for the job.’

Jomar didn’t answer.

‘There’s no risk involved for you, Jomar, but I need your help.’ Torgersen sat up straight: ‘Say yes, but not just for me. For Norway, Jomar. Our homeland needs you.’

Jomar met Torgersen’s doleful eyes and asked himself if he wanted this. Working on a practical project was quite different from writing. If he had been at a different stage in his life, he would have remained true to his original position, despite appeals to serve king and country. He would have said ‘no’ out of a fear that committing to worldly activities would destroy his creativity and the urge to write. But it was a long time since Jomar had written anything at all. His brain was desperately searching for something to write about, but it had been doing so for a long time, to no avail. Now, with Torgersen’s questions, he glimpsed a straw to cling to. The assignment was immense, opaque and so impossible that Jomar thought there had to be a loose thread somewhere, a thread he could unravel, and sooner or later this process might provide sustenance for his pen.  

Eventually he said: ‘Who were the documents and newspapers for?’

Torgersen lowered his voice another notch. ‘Only Berkåk knew that.’

Jomar leaned forward, using the opportunity to snaffle another cigarette from the box and put it behind his ear while contemplating the first that was now so short it was almost burning his fingertips. With a heavy heart, he crushed it in the ashtray.

Torgersen opened the desk drawer and took out a wad of banknotes, which he smacked down in front of him. ‘Your remuneration, Jomar. Cash in hand every week.’

Jomar sighed. ‘Look at me.’

Torgersen clipped on his pince-nez.

‘What do you see?’

Torgersen smirked. ‘I see you haven’t shaved today.’

‘I’m an artist,’ Kraby said, ‘a romantic, a dreamer. I’ll drink this money.’

Torgersen shrugged. ‘Drink it then. I don’t care. The fee takes into account that the Swedes censored your last play. You won’t get it published as a book either. You just said you weren’t writing anything new, but you need an income, and you need to activate your imagination and creativity. You still have an analytical mind. You’re the only person I know here in Stockholm who can mix effortlessly with the exiles in the Theatercafé and the social circles around the Norwegian Legation.’

Kraby leaned forward again. ‘What if I can’t solve the crime; what if I can’t shed any light on what happened?’

Again Torgersen shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, then we’ll have tried.’

Jomar thought aloud: ‘For me to have any chance of cracking this, I’ll need to be able to move between circles, mingle with the élite, when they don their best bib and tucker and go to public receptions. The Norwegian Legation’s spread across the whole city. More departments are appearing all the time, and every single sector has its own tin-pot tyrant. Presumably I’ll have to confront them, every single little bag of wind that London hasn’t involved in this investigation. How will my voice carry any weight at all in the conversations I’ll need to have with them?’

Torgersen opened the desk drawer. ‘Finally, a relevant question,’ he said, passing Jomar a document. ‘Here.’

Jomar took the document and held it up to the light. As always, he was impressed by the bureaucrats’ appreciation of finer materials. The paper was top quality, robust, nice to hold in your hand, resembling a parchment from bygone times – a watermark, a monogram at the top, the official stamp and the signatures. It was a letter of authorisation with the king’s seal, signed by two ministers from the government-in-exile: Justice Minister Terje Wold and Foreign Affairs Minister Trygve Lie.

‘You know how rumours spread in Stockholm,’ Kraby said. ‘Two minutes after I’ve spoken to someone, a whole crowd of Norwegians will be speculating about what’s going on.’

‘I’m aware of that. We’ve managed to live happily alongside rumours ever since the Germans invaded our country. However, this investigation must not become public knowledge. If you hit a brick wall with the bureaucrats, you can show them this document, provided that they take an oath of silence. Afterwards you can explain that the investigation will be followed by a report you send to London – via me. The summary of your actual work won’t be included in the report, but your assignment gives you the right to question people in our Legation. However, this only applies to Norwegians. Our government-in-exile has no authority in Sweden. You should use this document only when it’s absolutely necessary and only with high-ranking Legation officials. Be discreet. You’ll still be Jomar Kraby – the lush and the poet the teetotallers and the hotheads laugh at, as far as their limited abilities allow.’

Jomar Kraby lowered the document. ‘Who knew where and when Daniel Berkåk was going to cross the border?’

‘A coterie only. As he was carrying newspapers, I’d imagine the journey was organised internally at the Press Office.’

‘What about Gunvor?’

‘Gunvor’s salt of the earth. She was with us on the raid against the officers’ brothel in Oslo, known as Löwenbräu.’

‘I know,’ Kraby said. ‘But even women with their hearts in the right place can make a poor choice of comrade. Besides, she’s a Catholic, so she can sin multiple times and always be sure of God’s forgiveness.’

Torgersen rose to his feet, walked to the door and opened it a fraction. ‘Gunvor.’

She came in and stood by the door.

‘Gunvor’s been fully briefed about the assignment,’ Torgersen said.

Jomar said that must therefore mean Daniel Berkåk had been to see her before he set off.  

She nodded. ‘I gave him the documents.’

‘What about the newspapers he had to take with him?’

‘He already had them. The Press Office gave him them.’

‘Did you know when Berkåk would leave?’

‘No one knew. He never spoke about where he was going or when he was leaving. He went back and forth across the border and knew the area like the back of his hand. He had several identities, and no one knew which one he would use on his next trip.’

‘So Berkåk came here, and you gave him the documents. Accordingly, only you and Torgersen knew about them?’

Gunvor shook her head doubtfully. ‘Peder Svinningen in the Legal Office knew about them. Svinningen came to the office while Daniel was here.’

‘What did he want?’

‘He was banging on about refugee routes again. In the Legal Office they think wearen’t capable of administering the flow properly. Whenever anyone comes from the Legal Office, they nag us for maps of the routes and names of the border guides and couriers.’

Jomar glanced across at Torgersen, who was wearing a vexed expression.

‘Nothing’s ever enough for them. Svinningen’s desperate for power and influence. The tune they’re playing at the moment is that the Legal Office should be responsible for our activities. There’s always antagonism. Daniel Berkåk’s murder has raised the stakes. Svinningen and his crew have come up with the notion that Daniel would still be alive if they’d been administering Norwegian refugees in Sweden.’

Jomar Kraby nodded pensively. Rivalry had already reared its ugly head; this suggested Torgersen had a hidden agenda. Svinningen wasn’t only in charge of the Legal Office. He also had a reputation as the strong man in the Norwegian Legation in Stockholm. So what might it mean that the government-in-exile had chosen to ignore a strong man when launching an investigation into Daniel Berkåk’s death?

Jomar thought about the banknotes he had just stuffed into his pocket, observed Torgersen and wondered whether it would be possible to keep this assignment away from the intrigues of various top Legation officials.

Torgersen appeared to have read his mind. ‘This has nothing to do with internal bickering, Jomar. Don’t forget, the initiative comes from London.’

Kraby glanced at Gunvor again. ‘What did you think when Svinningen bumped into Berkåk here?’

‘Not much. Daniel Berkåk knew a lot of people. He knew Svinningen too.’

‘Where did he live?’

‘Hammarby.’

‘Alone?’

Gunvor nodded.

‘A Legation flat?’

She nodded again.

‘So there’s a spare key?’

‘Come with me,’ she said, leading the way to the antechamber and a wall cupboard behind her desk. ‘Here,’ she said, took a key, jotted down the address on a pad, tore the sheet off and passed it to him.

Jomar stuffed both items in his pocket with a smile.

‘What’s the matter?’

Jomar lowered his voice: ‘Just for form’s sake, Gunvor, why do you swap bags with a Soviet Embassy employee?’

‘I don’t,’ she said in an equally muted voice.

Jomar stared at her.

She sighed, looked down, then away and finally straight at him. ‘It was a letter,’ she whispered.

‘A letter from someone in Norway?’

‘It’s harmless.’

He had to smile at her choice of words. Gunvor knew as well as he did that one of the Legal Office’s tasks in Stockholm was to keep an eye on the so-called ‘opposition’ – the collective term Svinningen applied to Norwegian Communists.

‘Of course, Gunvor. Madame Kollontai and the Soviet Embassy are harmless. Is that why we’re whispering to each other?’

‘I’m telling the truth. It was a letter from Norway to one of our allies. The handover has to be discreet because the Legal Office will go mad if it reaches their ears that letters are passing between the Soviet Embassy and our Resistance movement. They don’t accept that diplomacy is about looking both left and right. I deliver one letter and get another back. My job is to pass it on to the intended recipient, and don’t ask me who that is because I can’t say.’

Jomar changed the subject. ‘Are you seeing anyone at the moment?’

‘Seeing?’

‘Are you going out with anyone?’

‘Jomar, I haven’t said a word about Daniel Berkåk, money or anything else related to this office to anyone.’

He grinned. ‘So you’re not seeing anyone? Maybe you’d like to go out with me?’

After a deep intake of breath, she slapped him.

NORWAY, VESTRE AKER, THREE WEEKS EARLIER

3

The oncoming gravel road rushed towards him, bordered on either side by grassy banks and cotoneaster bushes, guelder rose shrubs and lilac trees, their blooms withering now. Gable apexes towering up to the sky revealed the presence of the detached houses concealed by this shrubbery screen. As soon as the building at the top of the hill hove into view, Kai pulled the cord, only to discover that another passenger had already rung; the bulb at the front of the bus was lit.

His seaman’s kit bag slung over his shoulder, Kai made for a flower shop next to a hairdresser’s. Inside, he inhaled the fresh scent of greenery. The female assistant picked out individual carnations from the bucket as he pointed to them. Then she wrapped the bouquet in newspaper.  

Kai tucked the flowers under his arm and walked down to the railway station. On the platform two German officers were talking. They didn’t notice him as he stood waiting for the train. Kai thought about his elder brother, Atle, who would certainly have engaged them in conversation. Or, at any rate, nodded to them. Atle had always been more courteous than he was. More confident. Bolder. When Kai started school, stories were still circulating about his brother’s derring-do. At the age of ten Atle had climbed up a school drainpipe, three floors, swung himself onto the roof tiles with a clatter and run along the ridge, while down in the playground the pupils cheered and the teachers yelled at him. When Kai left school, Atle’s long-jump, high-jump, 800-metres and 3,000-metres hurdles records still stood. Atle was the coach’s obvious first choice for the Slemdal-Besserud stage of the Holmenkollen relay race. He bounded up the steep hills like a mountain goat and, one by one, left his competitors for dust. At home, Atle was his big brother. A helping hand he could always reach out for. A lodestar – one phase of his life.

There were still only three people on the platform when there was some air movement around the bend. The train pulled in almost without a sound. The headlamps resembled two eyes. The driver in the small cab turned the crank to slow down and the train gently kissed the buffers and drew to a halt. The doors opened with a dry click. A solitary passenger stepped out. Inside the train the conductor noisily straightened the seats. He finally emerged – the signal that the three passengers could board. Kai was the last to get on and found a seat two rows behind the officers. They were speaking German.

The sound of laughter drifted in from the platform. The conductor, who had been standing with the driver, smoking, shouted to someone further away and boarded the train. Kai bought a ticket from him, and sat staring out of the window as they started up.

Soon they passed a military camp – red flags with a black swastika inside a white circle waving in the wind. At the next stop lots of soldiers got on. They moved down the train, all with a rifle strapped to their shoulders. When they saw the two officers, they stopped, raised their arms and shouted ‘Heil Hitler.’ The officers returned the salute.

Kai exchanged glances with a woman sitting opposite him. She rolled her eyes and searched for confirmation that he had no sympathy for their guttural shouts either.

Kai looked away and out of the window again. Thinking about Atle, who had started work on the railways after he had finished full-time education. Atle had been a star at school. But Kai and studying had not been such a natural match. In fact, his schooling had gone so badly that when he’d turned fourteen, his father had taken him to an office where they signed him up for the merchant navy. His mother had cried and refused to allow him to go to sea. Kai and his father had stood firm. They won. That summer Kai signed on as an ordinary seaman on a collier plying between Liverpool and Cuxhaven. This life had created a distance between him and his family, and he’d returned only when his father died. And he hadn’t seen much of Atle before he had to leave again.

The next time Kai signed off, the boat was docked in Marseille, where he met the woman who was to take him with her to Paris. It had all been so natural for them to get together. They were a man and a woman from the same social background, with the same political schooling, the same convictions and the same desire for each other. She had been the one who wanted to go to Spain and defend the Republic. He was the one who went. He still struggled to understand himself – to understand why and how it had happened. One day he was holding hands with a woman in a Paris café; the next he was at war. He couldn’t blame her. She was the way she was – in her infidelity too. The man she fell for was like Kai: a seaman and a Communist. The only difference being that he refused to risk his life. So he stayed around, ready for her to cling on to, so she could avoid the consequences of her politics. That was where she and Kai differed, he thought now. He chose to follow his convictions; she chose passion. He gazed down at his hands: he was still alive and still surrounded by enemies. It is one thing to understand yourself; it is quite another to understand what has happened to your brother.

When Kai and Atle met again, it was at their mother’s funeral. Atle wore a railway uniform when he was at work, but a different one for political meetings: dark blue with a red-and-gold sun cross sewn on the arm. He was wearing it at the funeral. It had struck Kai that Atle would never have had the nerve if his father had still been alive.

Or maybe he would have defied his father? No, he wouldn’t have dared. Wearing the symbol at the funeral wasn’t defiance though, Kai thought. It was outright rejection. Atle might as well have spat on his father’s grave. But that was his business, Kai had reflected, from where he was sitting, grieving the loss of his mother, returning from a civil war and finding himself forced to accept that Atle had become a stranger to him.

Atle had still been charging around like a crazed horse, but his course had by then been set – away from Kai and everything they had in common. It had been no time for Kai to express his bafflement or ask probing questions the evening they got drunk and divvied up whatever there was to inherit from their parents. They were just two brothers who hadn’t seen each other for two years. At that moment, that night, mollified by their reunion and drunk on aquavit, Kai felt their situation was perfectly viable: they were brothers – they might disagree on politics, but they were still brothers.

The following day, though, the wonderment he felt at his brother’s transformation was almost worse to deal with than his hangover. Kai had to accept that Atle’s previous role as his hero was reduced to that of a pest. The kind that wanted to hear stories about the war in Spain. Who wanted to hear about military action and would not take no for an answer. In the end, Kai gave in and told him about a boy chained to the village pump on the day he entered a town square in a lorry. It transpired that the boy, in his teens, was going to be shot. Kai asked the troop leader what the boy had done. Apparently, he had been deployed in the trenches and had decided to desert. He had charged out of the trench towards the enemy, waving a white kerchief and shouting: Don’t shoot, don’t shoot. What the boy hadn’t realised was that the trench where he was posted curved round, and the trench he stumbled into was a continuation of the one he had left. That was why he was chained like a calf to a stake, waiting to be shot by the comrades he had wanted to betray. Kai laughed out loud at the irony of the story, but Atle’s mouth was pinched shut; he didn’t consider the story amusing. Kai could have told him that. War is anything but amusing.

The train stopped in Smestad station. The two German officers got up and made for the doors. When they opened, the officers stepped out, followed by several soldiers. Kai watched them and saw the fortified entrance to yet another military camp with menacing swastika flags flapping in the breeze. The train carried on and Kai pulled the cord.

There was no one around as he strolled into Vestre Cemetery and passed the heavy architecture of the chapel and the crematorium. A sweet fragrance Kai was unable to identify wafted through the air. Did it come from the flowers in the beds or the pile of earth beside the open grave? The clay mass was partly covered by a tarpaulin. The black hole awaiting the coffin yawned open to the sky. Kai went looking for another grave, but couldn’t remember exactly where it was, so he started examining the names on the stones.

At last he found it. The sparse grass in front of the headstone told him it hadn’t been dug long. Beneath the names of his mother and father, and after the date of decease, a third name had been engraved: Atle Fredly.

Kai had no close family anymore, no one to go home to. For several months he had lived with the realisation that he was on his own, but as he read the three names, the definitive finality instilled in him a gravity he had not felt before. He remained like this, standing, thinking, stirred by a memory, a smell. The smell of Atle. The smell of sun.

He knelt down, unwrapped the carnations and placed the bouquet in front of the gravestone. Straightening up, he spotted a woman on the shingle some distance away. She was pushing an elderly man in a wheelchair. He was sitting slightly hunched up and crooked, with a rigid grimace on his face, while the woman stared at Kai. She was wearing a plain cardigan over a dress. Her bag hung from a strap over her shoulder, and from under her smart hat blonde curls protruded. Kai looked away and again focused on the grave. He read the date of decease once more. Atle had made it to thirty-two before departing this life. Kai was five years younger. Atle had died in the war – in a Norway that was still at war. It was by no means a foregone conclusion that Kai would live any longer than his brother.

When he raised his head again, the woman and the man in the wheelchair were making for a bench. Kai reflected for a few more minutes. He was completely alone in the world now. No one would always have him in their thoughts.

Finally, he tore himself away. The sun beat down on his forehead as he followed the path to Frogner Park and the Vigeland sculptures. The last time he had been here, a few years ago, this park had been under construction. They had made some progress now. Statues of men and women towered up on both sides of the bridge and along flag-stone paths laid in symmetrical patterns. In the distance, children could be heard playing.

The din the stonemasons were making drowned out the children’s shouts as he approached Tørtberg. Kai contemplated the huge wooden structure that had risen around the sculptures. The contours of a massive column could be discerned through small peepholes in the plank-work surrounding and hiding it and the workers inside. As he continued down towards the construction site – which was to be a water fountain – he heard someone behind him. It was the woman pushing the wheelchair. She nodded to Kai, who politely returned the gesture.

Kai found a bench in the area above the pond, sat down and watched the odd couple. The man was bent over in the wheelchair, and his hat was perched perilously on his head. The woman placed the chair in such a way that he could see across the pond. Then she turned and approached Kai with a determined step. When she stopped in front of him, he stood up and shook her proffered hand. She introduced herself as Sara Krefting. Her voice was deep and soft, and suited her. Now her head was bare. Her hair was golden yellow and thick, and held in place with slides. Her eyes were light blue, and a smile revealed a line of perfect teeth.

‘I saw you in the cemetery,’ she said. ‘You’re Atle’s brother, aren’t you? I knew him. You’re different, but there are some similarities.’

Kai nodded. Feeling that he had to explain himself – why he had laid the flowers. However, he felt no inclination to tell her the truth, so he used a story that chimed with the seaman’s kit bag. He said he had been at sea and had signed off just today. That was why he hadn’t been able to attend the funeral.

In response to what he told her, she straightened up and scrutinised him more closely. ‘You signed off? Today? From a boat?’

He nodded.

‘A German boat, you mean?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘Do you know how your brother died?’

Kai said he knew what the priest had written to him after they found Alte’s body. It must have been a brutal death. Had there been any developments, did she know?

She didn’t answer; her expression became more pensive.

‘How do you know my brother?’

She nodded towards the kit bag on the bench. ‘If you’ve just come ashore, have you got somewhere to stay?’

Kai picked it up. ‘I haven’t got round to thinking that far ahead. The plan is to find a cheap boarding house.’

‘Out of the question,’ she said with a solicitous furrow between her eyes. ‘You can stay with us.’

This was a turn-up for the books. Stay with them?

She read his astonishment. ‘It’s the least we can do for you and your brother. My husband and I.’

They both turned to the old man, who was still sitting at an angle in the wheelchair, a rictus grin on his face.

Kai apologised and explained that he didn’t want to be a burden to anyone.

The words bounced off her. ‘We’ve got more than enough room.’ Her hand gripped his. ‘Promise me you’ll come.’ Once again her expression had taken on the sympathetic, solicitous look. ‘Come and stay with us for a few days. I have some things to tell you about your brother. We have a lot to discuss.’ With that she let go of his hand and rummaged through her handbag. Then passed him a card. ‘Here’s the address. Do you think you can find your way there?’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Give me a couple of hours.’

Kai watched them as she pushed the wheelchair down the flagstone path. He was amazed that she hadn’t introduced him to her husband. Especially as she had invited him to stay in their house. How old could she be? Forty? Forty-five? The husband had to be close on eighty – at least. Unless the illness he was suffering from had aged him. Kai looked down at the card. It said she was a dentist. That made sense, with a smile like hers.

He jumped on the tram outside Frogner Park and stood on the platform all the way down to Studenterlunden. Afterwards he strolled around aimlessly. Passed shop windows and ran a critical eye over himself. Noting that his appearance could be more presentable. So he ended up buying a suit and a couple of shirts in Adelsten Jensen. Choosing them was easy. He didn’t have much money so bought what he could afford – but the suit was a good fit. The sleeves finished where they should, and the assistant, a somewhat haughty individual with a tape measure around his neck and two watery eyes peering over spectacles, knelt down, plucked at the material and concluded there was no need to let out the waist or the legs.

After the clothes had been paid for, how much did he have left? Maybe it was enough for a decent meal. His purchases tucked under his arm, he wandered around, looking for somewhere to eat. He walked straight into two German guards. Kai avoided eye contact, feeling like a slave as he passed them, head down, striding out as briskly as he could.

As afternoon became evening, he was sitting alone at a table by the wall in Cecil’s. His selections from the menu were made with judicious care. He ate and drank only what he could afford. Around him sat German officers with Norwegian women. Power attracts, he thought to himself, and as soon as the thought was articulated, one of the women burst into laughter, revealing a lot of teeth and gums. He looked down and lit a cigarette. The last of his money would go on this meal. He needed a job, and once again he was reminded of the vicious, brutal way in which his brother had lost his life. There was nothing he could do about that though. Being utterly alone was a new situation for him, but it also contained a sense of expectation. Again his thoughts turned to his family, to his father, who had worked at the sausage factory in Fredensborgveien and had been alone at work the day everything went awry. The workers on the new shift found him in the giant meat grinder. He had been trying to free a blockage and had left the motor on while he stood over the machine, poking at the minced meat with a stick. Apparently, the grinder had caught the sleeve of his overall and dragged him up into it. It must have all happened in seconds, the factory foreman said. His mother had cursed his eternal haste, his sloppiness and all his short cuts as much she mourned his passing. For Kai the bereavement was harder. He felt the unpleasantness of the bizarre way his father had died as intensely as his grief. It always hurt Kai to think about his father. His emotions were never pure; his sense of loss was mixed with anger, his sorrow mixed with shame. Nor could he talk about the accident with anyone, not even with his mother or Atle. His brother had felt little shame about his father’s death, but his anguish had been boundless and found release in tears. Atle and his father had argued about everything while he had been alive. When he died, though, Atle turned to mush.

Kai took out the business card the woman in the cemetery had given him and flicked it between his fingers. There was no one waiting for him. ‘Come and stay with us for a few days.’ Should he take her at her word? Or was her invitation just a pleasantry, a polite way of rounding off the conversation because she had known Atle? Should he find accommodation elsewhere? Or should he visit this couple? The answer stared him in the face. He had no money. In a way, this was par for the course. It was as though his brother had sent him this woman. As though Atle had been looking down through a hole in the sky and had sent an angel to help his destitute brother.

4

The house was detached and white, with a hip roof and black tiles, two round pillars at the entrance and blackout curtains in the windows, which lent the building a sombre quality. The wrought-iron gates gave a low whine as he opened and closed them. On the flagstones in front of the door he pulled the cord above the nameplate. Soon he heard footsteps and the door opened. There she stood, like an elf in the light coming from all the rooms. She was wearing a grey skirt and a loose blouse. Her blonde hair hung down to her shoulders.

‘Ah, how nice. Come in.’

Her smile was as gleaming white and friendly as before. A wave of perfume hit him as he crossed the threshold: scents of vanilla, incense and flowers. As he went to remove his shoes, she raised a hand. ‘Don’t bother.’

She was wearing sandals with heels. Kai followed her into a room lit brightly by two chandeliers. The blackout curtains had kept this well hidden from outside. Her husband was sitting in a chair with a glass in his hand.

‘Reidar,’ she said. ‘This is our guest. Atle’s brother.’

Kai bowed, and her husband looked back at him, clearly uninterested.

‘Come with me,’ she said, leading the way up the stairs. Her heels click-clacked on the steps as she climbed, almost sideways, and at quite a pace.

On the first floor there was a corridor. She stopped here and opened a door with a gilt handle.

‘This is the bathroom. It’s yours. Ours is further along.’

There were tiles on the floor, the bath had lion feet and the taps were made of brass. She turned and they almost crashed into each other.

‘Whoops,’ she said with a smile before opening the door opposite the bathroom. ‘Here.’ The ceiling lamp came on when she turned a switch.

The room was large and light. The bed was broad and covered with a crochet quilt. A white wardrobe dominated one wall; an equally white dresser the other. On top was a clock inside a glass dome cloche. The hands appeared to be made of gold and pointed to Roman numerals, indicating that it was just after nine in the evening. There was a mirror hanging above the dressing table. The blackout curtains were drawn in this room too.

‘Hungry?’

‘I’ve just eaten.’

‘Make yourself at home,’ she said. ‘And come downstairs for a drink. We have a lot to talk about.’

For a few seconds he stood listening to her footsteps on the stairs. When all was quiet, he sat down on the edge of the bed. The second hand of the clock glided smoothly past the Roman numerals. He might as well go down, Kai thought. He unpacked his kit bag. Laid his possessions on the dressing table and changed into his new suit and shirt.

Downstairs, the husband was sitting in the same place. Studying an illustrated book through a magnifying glass. Kai caught a glimpse of a hunting lodge, a tiger, and men dressed in khaki and pith helmets.

Kai coughed.

The man didn’t react.

Kai looked around the room. It was like a library, with books lining shelves behind vitrine doors. There was some art on two of the walls. One painting aroused his curiosity: sea, horizon, the sun hanging over an islet at the mouth of a fjord, and an open boat on the water. The other was a jumble of lines and bright colours.

The kitchen door opened. Sara Krefting angled her head when she saw him. Complimented him on his suit, and added that he was young and good-looking. More attractive than his brother. ‘How old are you, Kai?’

‘Twenty-seven.’

She held a bottle in her hand and raised it with a questioning look. It was whisky. It could not have been easy to get hold of. He gave a nod.

‘Just a tiny bit of ice in the glass please, if you have any,’ he said.

She disappeared into the kitchen and he could hear her breaking ice.

Soon she was back; she poured the whisky and passed him the glass. As he took it, she stroked a finger across his hand.

Kai glanced across at her husband, who was still studying the big book, taking no notice of them. When Kai looked back, she met his gaze and stared into his eyes.

He was first to turn away. ‘Nice house you’ve got.’

‘We’re doing the best we can,’ she said. ‘But it isn’t easy. As you can imagine.’ She began to talk in indignant tones about the government that had escaped to London when the Germans invaded.

‘The king just fled,’ she said, her voice tinged with steel. ‘With the whole of the government. They ran off with their tails between their legs. The rest of us can’t do that, run away from problems. We’re forced to sit still and watch while the British lay mines around our coast and sink our Hurtigruten boats, and innocent people drown. Isn’t that right, Reidar?’

‘What?’ The man hadn’t heard.