The Last Pilgrim (43 page)

Peter Waldhorst’s house looked more like a small palace than a residence. Bergmann kept an eye on the pale brown villa as he paid the driver with a twenty-euro bill and asked for a receipt and five euros back. The gable wall faced the street behind a high wrought-iron fence covered in ivy. As the cab drove off he stood on the sidewalk and watched it vanish toward the city center. As he looked around, he realized that Waldhorst’s house was less ostentatious than the others in the neighborhood.

He tried the handle of the gate. Locked. It occurred to him that Vera Holt might have stood there too. How else could she have found out that Krogh was responsible for her father’s death?

Bergmann found the doorbell next to the wrought-iron gate. After quite a long time a woman’s voice answered.

“Bergmann here. I have an—” He was interrupted by a buzzing sound from the lock in the gate.

On the stairs he turned to look around.
What a place,
he thought. Hard to believe that it wasn’t bombed during the war, but it must be true. The neighborhood was filled with the grandest patrician villas he’d ever seen, tucked away behind old gardens and shielded by trees so tall that it seemed they wouldn’t stop until they reached the sky.

A young girl appeared in the doorway. Bergmann assumed that she was Turkish.

“He isn’t home. But he is expecting you.”

She showed him into the huge dark hall.

“When will he be back?”

“Soon,” she said.

Bergmann was led across the ground floor out to the terrace, where the maid suggested he could wait. He’d expected the interior to be furnished in an old, heavy style, but with the exception of the dark parquet flooring, the rooms were bright.

The Turkish girl brought him coffee on a silver tray. When she saw that he had lit a cigarette, she came hurrying back with a crystal ashtray. Something was tugging at Bergmann’s mind as he sat gazing at the shining lake below the garden.

The sun was scorching, even under the big umbrella, but he didn’t let it bother him. He looked at his watch and then went to open the door leading into the house. For a moment he simply took pleasure in the cool air inside. Then he examined the room more closely. There was a dining table with space for twelve at one end, a sitting area at the other, a couple of sideboards, some modern bar furniture, and a couple of modernist oil paintings on the walls.

There’s something not quite right here,
he thought,
something in these rooms.
He walked over to the other end of the room and opened the double doors. He found a dimly lit room dominated by heavy leather furniture. Bookcases with glass doors lined one wall, separated by a liquor cabinet.

There,
Bergmann thought when he saw the photographs on the liquor cabinet. A glimmer of light hovered over the room, and thousands of dust motes danced in the dim rays entering the room from outside.

One by one Bergmann picked up the almost identical silver frames that stood on the polished mahogany cabinet. He recognized people who had similar features to Waldhorst in the photos, most of which were black and white, but none of the pictures showed Waldhorst himself. Of the twenty frames he figured that three of the faces were his children, the rest grandchildren. Most of the old color photos looked like they dated back to the sixties and seventies. A small silver frame held a photo of a German soldier. Bergmann guessed that he was a brother. A mere boy in a black uniform, with stern eyes but a soft expression. Bergmann set it down in the very back, where he’d found it.

He took a step back and reexamined the only photograph that really interested him. It was a black-and-white photo of a young man and a very pregnant woman sitting on a flat rock, somewhere in northern Europe, perhaps even Norway. They were both smiling at the camera. The man, whom Bergmann had a vague sense of having seen somewhere before, had his arm around the woman, who held a cigarette in her hand. He didn’t recognize her—but wasn’t there something familiar about the shape of her mouth?

No, this man . . . it was on the tip of his tongue.

“Herr Bergmann,” said a voice to his left.

A rather short, stocky man stood in the doorway to the hall, dressed all in white: tennis shirt, shorts, tennis shoes. His gray hair was combed straight back, and there were a couple of streaks of dried sweat on his face. Though he was older now, with a slightly stooped posture, Bergmann had no trouble recognizing him. He had the same bushy eyebrows, with eyes set a little too deep and close together for him to be called handsome. Unlike Carl Oscar Krogh.

“Herr Waldhorst,” said Bergmann, moving toward him.

He felt his cheeks flush when he discovered that he was still holding the photograph in his hand. Without releasing the man’s gaze he put it back.

The man in the doorway smiled, as if to suggest that Bergmann was welcome to snoop around as much as he liked.

Although his hand was sinewy—almost bony and full of liver spots—his handshake was the firmest Bergmann had experienced in a long time. Waldhorst looked him straight in the eye and said in his remarkably clear Norwegian, “Yes, Herr Bergmann, I am Peter Waldhorst.”

Something doesn’t seem right here,
Bergmann thought.
What is it?

CHAPTER 48

Monday, September 14, 1942

Villa Lande

Tuengen Allé

Oslo, Norway

Agnes Gerner sat down in the window seat in Cecilia’s room. The little girl was sitting at her desk reading a book. She liked having Agnes nearby. Once in a while she would look up at the photo of her mother and murmur a few words. Agnes was momentarily seized with guilt at fooling the child into believing there was a future for them. She turned away from Cecilia and rested her forehead against the cold windowpane. A glimpse of early autumn sunshine penetrated the heavy cloud cover. A strip of light passed over the terrace before the clouds moved in once again. It seemed like another lifetime, that evening only a few months ago when she had sat on the terrace with Peter Waldhorst. Could it really be as simple as the Pilgrim had claimed, that Waldhorst was merely in love with her? Both Number 1 and the Pilgrim seemed to have settled on that idea, but she couldn’t make herself believe it. Maybe he was just trying to trick her into making some fatal mistake. But if they were right, someone else in Gustav Lande’s circle must be keeping an eye on her. Someone must be that notorious and cursed fox that Archibald Lafton had warned her about, the apparently dead beast that was waiting and waiting until she was positive it was dead before rising up and ripping out her throat. If it wasn’t Waldhorst—if he was simply in love with her as they claimed—who else did she need to watch out for? She’d considered every individual she’d met through Gustav, and she didn’t suspect any of them—except those wearing German uniforms, of course.

But what if Number 1 and the Pilgrim were right? What if Detective Inspector
Hauptsturmführer
Waldhorst was nothing more than an ordinary man—with flaws and weaknesses—who had fallen in love with her? On the one hand, that might be good news, but it didn’t make things any easier for her. She was now in so deep that she hardly dared think about how she was going to get out alive. And the nausea was still plaguing her. She put her hand on her stomach. There was nothing left inside to throw up.

She had no words for how awful the weekend had been. Only in the last few days had she fully grasped the situation. She must be pregnant, and the Pilgrim must be the father. Gustav always used protection. It was a small miracle that she’d managed to make it through the weekend at all. On Saturday she’d done little more than lean over the toilet bowl. Luckily Gustav had been in Berlin all week and hadn’t returned until just this afternoon. She didn’t know how she was going to continue hiding her nausea from him. It would be all right for a few days, but if she continued to vomit every morning, he would soon understand that something was wrong. And the maid, Johanne Caspersen, always seemed to be following her around. There was something odd about her. Johanne practically cross-examined her every time Agnes was about to leave the house. On the surface, she merely seemed to be showing a normal amount of interest, but beneath her polite façade, it was clear that she harbored a great distrust of Agnes, who could hardly even go back to her own apartment anymore without first coming up with some lie.

She glanced at her watch. She was already late. She’d had her hair done at Moen’s salon on Wednesday, and Number 1 had left her a message asking her to come to an apartment on Kirkeveien today. She reminded herself of the tenant’s name and the password—“Looks like rain this evening”—for the umpteenth time.

This awful nausea,
she thought, giving Cecilia a hug before hurrying along the corridor and down the stairs.

“May I ask where you’re going?”

The voice behind her echoed in the empty hallway. Agnes had initially loved the modern architecture—it gave Gustav Lande a conciliatory trait, almost bordering on anti-Nazism, and the house’s pure lines and bright, open spaces were like a soothing balm during this terrible war—but now the white, transparent surfaces seemed cold and lifeless. These days, she felt as though she were trapped inside a white coffin with a glass lid.

Agnes let go of the door handle. The cab was waiting at the gate, where the branches of the birch tree hung low. Above the tree was a wall of dark clouds, which at any moment would drown them all—Norwegians and Germans, Nazis and patriots alike—in what looked to be an epic rainstorm.

“Do you ask Herr Lande why he is going into town?” said Agnes, turning to look at the maid, who stood in the kitchen doorway.

The maid didn’t flinch. That ugly, birdlike face of hers hurt Agnes’s eyes. She was not a good person, and Agnes wanted to wipe that smile off her face once and for all.

“I’ll be back tonight,” Agnes said quietly.

“There is only one Mrs. Lande in this family, and unfortunately she is dead.”

Agnes didn’t reply. She put her red hat back on the shelf and took the black one instead. A red hat was more likely to draw attention.

“So who is he? The other man.” The maid took a few steps closer as she dusted the bureau that stood to her right.

Agnes looked at herself in the mirror. Johanne was now standing right behind her. Agnes turned around and met her eye. Swiftly she raised her right arm. The sound of her palm striking the maid’s cheek rang through the large room, like the lash of a whip. Johanne hardly knew what had hit her as she doubled over, holding her cheek. Agnes’s hand stung. With a pounding heart she glanced over at the stairs. But Cecilia wasn’t there. She hadn’t seen what just happened.

Johanne straightened up slowly, still holding her cheek. Her eyes were brimming with tears.

“You’re finished in this house,” said Agnes in a low voice. “Do you understand? As soon as Gustav and I are married, you’re fired!”

With trembling fingers she reached for the door handle. The cold metal soothed the stinging sensation, but only for a moment.

“Poor you,” said Agnes as she stepped out the door. “Condemned to live the life of an old maid.” She felt as though every step she took might be her last. By the time she finally reached the gate and the driver got out of the cab, her legs were barely supporting her.

On the way to Fagerborg Church, she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from crying. As if that weren’t bad enough, she experienced another wave of nausea. Instinctively she pressed her hand to her stomach. In a flash she came to a realization.
Maybe this isn’t the worst possible thing,
she thought as she made the long walk back to Kirkeveien. She’d been given orders to take all sorts of detours to make sure she wasn’t being followed.
Maybe it’s not so bad to be sent on a suicide mission.
Especially now that she’d brought this misfortune upon herself.

By the time she entered the vestibule—which wasn’t as well maintained as her own building on Hammerstads Gate—she’d been wandering one street after another for nearly half an hour. In her view, that had been enough to ascertain that no one was following her. Least of all Peter Waldhorst. When she reached the fourth floor, it occurred to her for the first time that Carl Oscar might not have mentioned Waldhorst to Number 1 at all. How could he—who was precaution personified—take such a chance?

No,
she thought.
No.
She knocked twice, paused, then swiftly knocked twice again. She heard the slow, shuffling footsteps of an old person inside the apartment. An elderly man with big bags under his eyes opened the door. Impeccably attired in suit and tie, he looked as if he’d just gotten home from work. His expression was neutral as he waited for the password.

Agnes felt exhausted as she whispered, “Looks like rain this evening.” She was also hungry. The man nodded silently. Agnes stepped inside, closed the door, and then leaned her back against it. The smell of stale cigar smoke coming from the living room made her press her hand to her mouth.

“Is something wrong?” asked the man with a touch of warmth in his voice.

Agnes shook her head and lowered her hand. She took off her gloves. Even the smell of the leather made what little was left in her stomach rise to her throat.

“The bathroom?” she said. “I just need to . . .”

Agnes walked through the living room without even greeting the man’s wife, who was sitting in an armchair knitting, apparently unfazed by the appearance of a visitor. She hardly noticed Kaj Holt, who was standing in the kitchen doorway, wearing only an undershirt and trousers, his face white. He was holding a Sten gun.

In the bathroom she turned on the cold water and knelt down with her cheek resting on the toilet seat, surrendering to the dry heaves. She just managed to take off her hat before it would have fallen into the toilet bowl.

Holt was waiting for her in the kitchen. His eyes looked empty, as if the war had already been lost, as if they were all dead.