The Redbreast (19 page)

She leaned against him and sobbed in his lap. He caressed her sleek brown hair.

‘Besides, I should have known that this was too good to be true,’ he said. ‘I mean – me and Schwester Helena in Paris?’

She could hear the smile in his voice.

‘No, I’ll wake up in my hospital bed soon, thinking that was one hell of a dream. And look forward to you bringing me my breakfast. Anyway, you’re on night shift tomorrow. You haven’t forgotten that, have you? Then I can tell you about the time Daniel filched twenty rations from the Swedish unit.’

She lifted a tear-stained face to him.

‘Kiss me, Uriah.’

28
Siljan, Telemark. 22 February 2000.

H
ARRY CHECKED HIS WATCH AGAIN AND CAUTIOUSLY
pressed his foot on the accelerator. The appointment was for four o’clock. If he arrived after dusk, the whole trip would be a waste of time. What was left of the winter tyre tread keyed into the ice with a scrunch. Even though he had only driven forty kilometres on the winding, icy forest path, it seemed several hours since he had turned off the main road. The cheap sunglasses he had bought at the petrol station hadn’t helped much, and his eyes smarted from the bright light reflecting off the snow.

At long last, he caught sight of the police car with the Skien registration number at the edge of the road. He braked warily, pulled over and took the skis off his roof rack. They came from a Trondheim ski manufacturer who had gone bankrupt fifteen years ago. That must have been roughly the same time as he put on the wax, which was now a tough grey mass underneath the skis. He found the track from the path up to the chalet as it had been described. The skis stayed on the track as if glued; he couldn’t have moved sideways if he had wanted to. The sun hung low over the spruce trees when he reached his destination. On the steps of a black log chalet sat two men in anoraks and a boy Harry, who didn’t know any teenagers, guessed to be somewhere between twelve and sixteen.

‘Ove Bertelsen?’ Harry enquired, resting on his ski poles. He was out of breath.

‘That’s me,’ one of the men said, standing up to shake hands. ‘And this is Officer Folldal.’

The second man gave a measured nod.

Harry supposed it must have been the boy who found the cartridge shells.

‘Wonderful to get away from the Oslo air, I imagine,’ Bertelsen said. Harry pulled out a pack of cigarettes. ‘Even more wonderful to get away from the Skien air, I would think.’ Folldal took off his cap and straightened his back.

Bertelsen smiled: ‘Contrary to what people say, the air in Skien is cleaner than in any other Norwegian town.’

Harry cupped his hands round a match and lit his cigarette. ‘Is that right? I’ll have to remember that. Have you found anything?’

‘Over there.’

The other three put on their skis, and with Folldal in the lead they trudged along a track to a clearing in the forest. Folldal pointed with his pole to a black rock protruding twenty centimetres above the snow.

‘The boy found the shells in the snow by that rock. I reckon it was a hunter out practising. You can see the ski tracks nearby. It hasn’t snowed for over a week, so they could well be his. Looks like he was wearing those broad Telemark skis.’

Harry crouched down. He ran a finger along the rock where it met the broad ski track.

‘Or old wooden skis.’

‘Oh yes?’

He held up a tiny splinter of wood.

‘Well, I never,’ Folldal said, looking across at Bertelsen.

Harry turned to the boy. He was wearing a pair of baggy hunting trousers with pockets everywhere and a woollen cap pulled down well over his head.

‘Which side of the rock did you find the cartridges?’

The boy pointed. Harry took off his skis, walked round the rock and lay on his back in the snow. The sky was light blue now, as it is on clear winter days just before the sun goes down. Then he rolled on to his side and peered over the rock. He followed the clearing in the forest where they had come in. There were four tree stumps in the clearing.

‘Did you find any bullets or signs of shooting?’

Folldal scratched the back of his neck. ‘Do you mean, have we examined every tree trunk within a half-kilometre radius?’

Bertelsen discreetly placed a gloved hand over Folldal’s mouth. Harry flicked his ash and studied the glowing end of his cigarette.

‘No, I mean, did you check the tree stumps over there?’

‘And why should we have examined those particular stumps?’ Folldal asked.

‘Because Märklin make the world’s heaviest rifle. A gun weighing fifteen kilos is not an attractive option for a standing shot, so it would be natural to assume that he rested it on this rock to take aim. Märklin rifles eject bullet casings to the right. Since the spent shells were found on the right of the stone, he must have been shooting in the direction we have come from. So it would not be unreasonable to assume that he positioned something on one of the tree stumps to aim at, would it?’

Bertelsen and Folldal looked at each other. ‘Well, we’d better check that out.’

‘Unless this is a bloody big bark beetle . . .’ Bertelsen said three minutes later, ‘. . . then this is a bloody big bullet hole.’

He kneeled down in the snow and poked his finger into one of the tree stumps. ‘Shit, the bullet’s gone in a long way. I can’t feel it.’

‘Take a look inside,’ Harry said. ‘Why?’

‘To see if it’s gone right through,’ Harry answered.

‘Right through that enormous spruce?’

‘Just take a look and see if you can see daylight.’

Harry heard Folldal snort behind him. Bertelsen put his eye to the hole.

‘Mother of Jesus . . .’

‘Can you see anything?’ Folldal shouted.

‘Only half the course of the bloody Siljan river.’

Harry turned towards Folldal, who had turned his back to him to spit.

Bertelsen got to his feet. ‘A bulletproof vest won’t help much if you’re shot with one of those bastards, will it,’ he groaned.

‘Not at all,’ Harry said. ‘The only thing that would help would be armour-plating.’ He stubbed his cigarette against the tree stump and corrected himself: ‘
Thick
armour-plating.’

He stood on his skis, sliding them back and forth in the snow.

‘We’ll have to have a chat with the people in the neighbouring chalets,’ Bertelsen said. ‘They may have seen or heard something. Or they may feel like admitting they own this rifle from hell.’

‘After we had the arms amnesty last year . . .’ Folldal began, but changed his mind when Bertelsen eyeballed him.

‘Anything else we can do to help?’ Bertelsen asked Harry. ‘Well,’ Harry said, scowling in the direction of the forest path, ‘you couldn’t help me bump-start the car, could you?’

29
Rudolf II Hospital, Vienna. 23 June 1944.

I
T WAS LIKE DÉJÀ VU FOR HELENA
. T
HE WINDOWS WERE
open and the warm summer morning filled the corridor with the perfume of newly mown grass. For two weeks there had been air raids every night, but she didn’t even notice the smell of smoke. She was holding a letter in her hand. A wonderful letter! Even the grumpy matron had to smile when Helena sang out her
Guten Morgen
.

Dr Brockhard looked up from his papers in surprise when Helena burst into his office.

‘Well?’ he said.

He took off his glasses and directed his stiff gaze at her. She caught a glimpse of the wet tongue sucking the ends of his glasses. She took a seat.

‘Christopher,’ she began. She hadn’t used his Christian name since they were small. ‘I have something to tell you.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘That’s exactly what I have been waiting for.’

She knew what he had been waiting for: an explanation for why she still hadn’t complied with his wishes and gone to his flat in the main building despite the fact that he had extended Uriah’s medical certificate twice. Helena had blamed the bombing, saying that she didn’t dare go out. Then he had offered to visit her in her mother’s summer house, which she flatly rejected.

‘I’ll tell you everything,’ she said.

‘Everything?’ he queried with a little smile.

Well
, she thought,
almost everything
. ‘The morning Uriah —’

‘His name is
not
Uriah, Helena.’

‘The morning he disappeared and you raised the alarm, do you remember that?’

‘Naturally.’

Brockhard set down his glasses, parallel with the paper in front of him. ‘I considered reporting his disappearance to the military police. However, he miraculously reappeared with some story about wandering in the forest for half the night.’

‘He wasn’t in the forest. He was on the night train from Salzburg.’

‘Really?’ Brockhard leaned back in his chair with a fixed expression on his face, indicating that he was not a man who liked to express surprise.

‘He caught the night train from Vienna before midnight, got off in Salzburg where he waited for an hour and a half for the night train back again. He arrived at the
Hauptbahnhof
at nine that morning.’

‘Hm.’ Brockhard focused on the pen he held between his fingertips. ‘And what did he give as his reason for this idiotic excursion?’

‘Umm,’ Helena said, unaware that she was smiling, ‘you may remember that I was also late that morning.’

‘Yeess . . .’

‘I was also returning from Salzburg.’

‘Is that so?’

‘That is so.’

‘I think you will have to explain, Helena.’

She explained while staring at Brockhard’s fingertips. A drop of blood had formed under the pen nib.

‘I see,’ said Brockhard when she had finished.‘You thought you would go to Paris. And how long did you think you could hide there?’

‘It’s probably obvious that we didn’t think much at all. Uriah thought we should go to America. To New York.’

Brockhard laughed drily. ‘You’re a very sensible girl, Helena. I can see that this turncoat must have blinded you with his beguiling lies about America. But do you know what?’

‘What?’

‘I forgive you.’

On seeing her gawp he continued,‘Yes, I forgive you. Perhaps you ought to be punished, but I know how restless young girls’ hearts can be.’

‘It’s not forgiveness I —’

‘How’s your mother? It must be hard for her now that you are alone. Was it three years’ imprisonment your father was given?’

‘Four. Would you please listen, Christopher?’

‘I beg of you, do not do or say anything you might come to regret, Helena. What you have told me changes nothing. The deal remains the same.’

‘No!’ Helena stood up so quickly that her chair toppled over and now she smacked the letter she had been kneading in her hand on to the desk.

‘See for yourself! You no longer have any power over me. Or Uriah.’ Brockhard glanced at the letter. The opened brown envelope didn’t mean a thing to him. He took out the letter, put on his glasses and began to read.

Waffen-SS

Berlin, 22 June

We have received a request from the Chief of Norwegian Police, Jonas Lie, to hand you over with immediate effect to the police in Oslo for further service. Since you are a Norwegian citizen, we see no reason not to comply. This order therefore countermands your previous orders to join the Wehrmacht. You will be advised of details regarding the meeting point and timing by the Norwegian police authorities.

Heinrich Himmler

Oberkommandierender der Schutzstaffel (SS)

Brockhard had to look at the signature twice. Heinrich Himmler in person! Then he held up the letter to the light.

‘You can check it if you like, but I assure you it is genuine,’ Helena said.

Through the open window she could hear birds singing in the garden. Brockhard cleared his throat twice before speaking.

‘So you wrote a letter to the Chief of Police in Norway?’

‘Uriah wrote to him. I simply posted it.’

‘You posted it?’

‘Yes. Or no, actually. I telegraphed it.’

‘A whole application? That must have cost —’

‘It was urgent.’

‘Heinrich Himmler . . .’ he said, more to himself than to her. ‘I’m sorry, Christopher.’

Again the dry laugh. ‘Are you? Haven’t you accomplished exactly what you wanted, Helena?’

She forced a friendly smile.

‘I have a favour to ask of you, Christopher.’

‘Oh?’

‘Uriah wants me to go with him to Norway. I need a recommendation from the hospital to be able to apply for a travel permit.’

‘And now you’re afraid I’ll put a spoke in your wheel?’

‘Your father is on the governing board.’

‘Yes, I could create problems for you.’ He rubbed his chin. The intense stare had fixed itself on to a point on her forehead.

‘Whatever happens, Christopher, you can’t stop us. Uriah and I love each other. Do you understand?’

‘Why should I do a favour for a soldier’s whore?’

Helena’s mouth hung open. Even from someone she despised, someone who was clearly acting in passion, the word stung like a slap. But before she managed to answer, Brockhard’s face had crumpled as if he were the one to have been hit.

‘Forgive me, Helena. I . . . damn!’ He abruptly turned his back on her. Helena wanted to get up and leave, but she couldn’t find the words to liberate herself. His voice was strained as he added: ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, Helena.’

‘Christopher . . .’

‘You don’t understand. I’m not saying this out of arrogance, but I have qualities which in time I know you would grow to appreciate. I may have gone too far, but remember that I always acted with your best interests at heart.’