Running with the Pack

Page 58

It was a cheerless place, even in the bright sunshine. Fraser, moreover, could not shake off a sensation of being observed, which he could only put down to his act of trespass. On the rising slopes above, dark spruces loomed. The way back to the house, he recalled uneasily, had yet to be discovered. Time was already short. Hurriedly, he departed.
Brushing past the outlandish shrubs, he was distracted by a surreptitious movement in the densely tangled branches; something glittered in the shadows. The wings of whatever it was he had aroused whirred disagreeably towards him, and, in the seconds that it took him to think the bird extraordinarily large, he felt its beak slashing at his face. He fell back, protecting his eyes. The bird soared up above the graveyard wall with an eldritch cry, vast as an eagle. As he left, he saw to his distaste that in the fracas one of the cocoons had burst; perhaps the creature had been feeding. Whatever was teeming in the yawning crannies, he didn’t wait to look.
It took a disconcertingly long time to find his way back to the house, and he could not shake of an irrational fear that the bird might reappear. It had drawn blood, but only slightly so, beneath the left ear. By the time he reached the courtyard, the last of the party had gone. There was no minibus. It was almost an hour before he got back to the boat. There was no sign of Eloise.
Guests were already at the tables before his daughter arrived. She looked pale and perplexed.
“Sorry about this, I . . . ” Eloise gave a mirthless laugh. “Well . . . I got lost!”
“Lost?” replied Fraser, incredulous. “Anyway, any luck?”
“Well, yes and no,” she said uncertainly. “Look, let’s have dinner, and we’ll talk about it later.” She was trembling.
“Are you all right?” he asked, concerned.
She gave another hollow laugh. “I had a bit of a fright, that’s all. I wasn’t going to tell you.”
“You mean because of Nielsen?”
“No, no!” she said. “It was after I left Nielsen . . . ”
She hesitated, as if still weighing up whether to say more, then proceeded, very deliberately, as if retracing the memory in her own mind.
“By the time I got away it was getting late. I took a shortcut across the park, instead of going all the way back round. I was glancing up towards the house, thinking how lovely it looked in the evening sun. Then I saw something . . . An animal . . . Running down from the direction of those woods. I thought for a minute it was a fox—from the colour—but it was too big. As it got closer I decided it was some kind of a dog—but an unusually large one. There were sheep grazing—maybe it was rounding them up, or worrying them, or something. But it ran right past! . . . It must’ve been only a few hundred yards away before it dawned on me that it was coming for me! . . . Its eyes! They seemed to be blazing in the sunlight! . . . I don’t think I’ve ever been so terrified in my life! . . . It was a bit like one of those huge German shepherds—you know the type, all shoulders and no neck, shaggy fur—but that’s not what it was!”
She shuddered.
“To be honest, I’ve no idea what it was! . . . I just went into a panic and ran, no idea where I was going. I ended up on a driveway coming down from that old wooden church . . . Luckily, there was a car passing—the minister actually—and he offered me a lift.”
“Did he see it?” exclaimed Fraser. “Didn’t you tell him what you saw?”
“I began to, but, I don’t know, I suddenly didn’t want to, it sounded silly. Anyway, it had disappeared . . . I know this sounds ridiculous, but the last time I looked back I could have sworn it was running on hind legs!”
“Nonsense! It was probably just a farm dog loose, that’s all,” he said, dismissively. “Some kind of Scandinavian breed.”
“Dog loose or not,” she snapped, still trembling. “You know I can’t stand the damned things! . . . This was no bloody farm dog!”
Over dinner their conversation avoided matters unpleasant. Fraser enthused about the afternoon’s botanical treasures, saying nothing about his own encounter with the bird. The business of the dog was dropped. His daughter, he noticed, ate with little relish and drank considerably more wine than was her wont.
Fortified by coffee and cognac, as the Edvard Grieg bore them down the silent fjord, they relaxed at last in the bar. Eloise returned to her tale.
“Nielsen was a servant in the von Merkens household during the War. A lot of what he said I couldn’t quite get—he spoke in a curious dialect, and it was all very rambling. I’d like to think what he said was the ravings of senility, or alcohol. But there were too many plausible details. Anders von Merkens, as I’ve long suspected, was a collaborator. Quisling and other leading Nazis were frequent house guests at R?dal, where Sophia was famous for hosting lavish parties. One night there was a terrible massacre, exactly as Aker? said.”
“What, here at R?dal?”
“Somewhere in those woods. Nearby, there’s a track into the mountains that leads eventually to a remote stretch of the Swedish frontier. The Milorg—the Resistance—were helping a party of Bergen Jews, mainly women and children, to escape to Sweden. But they were found out about it. They were rounded up and, well, they put them to death.”
Eloise hesitated, as if hesitating to go on.
“It was worse than a massacre,” she continued. “It was some kind of blood sacrifice . . . The victims were strung from the trees, their throats cut and bled dry . . . Sophia von Merkens, if Nielsen is to be believed, drank of the blood . . . It was June 1942, second anniversary of the German invasion—there was a great banquet in full sway. There was a Swede, a businessman, a brother of Sophia’s. An important man, Nielsen thought, from the way he was treated, the one behind it all . . . and there was more . . . ”
She regarded her Rémy-Martin. “I’ve suddenly gone off this.” White-faced, she left the bar. Thoughtfully, Fraser pushed his own glass away. Other guests looked askance.
By the time they reached Oslo Eloise had recovered her insouciance; and her ardour for research had certainly not abated. Fraser was not at all sure that digging over war crimes was good for anyone, and he told her so.
“You said the authorities weren’t keen on your inquiries. I’d keep out of it. You never know what might happen! I’ve told you, it’s a sensitive topic.”
“I can’t leave it now. There’s a file in the Archives I must get back to.”
“What file? What about it?”
“Oh, it’s a bit complicated. Remember I told you I’d discovered a misplaced file? I didn’t have time to go through it properly before the university froze me out. You see, there’s a correspondence file in the Ministry of Finance, its economic intelligence section, and it’s to do with Quisling and the Nazis, but it’s marked as a top secret file from the Ministry of Internal Security—all their records were destroyed at the end of the War, so it’s priceless . . . ”
“So?”
“Well,” she sighed. “It’s this name Lindhorst . . . it’s bothered me from the beginning . . . it rings a bell . . . I think I may have seen the name somewhere in that file.”
“I thought you said it was just like MacDonald?” he said wearily.
“I know,” she said, “But the more I thought about it . . . And I think Nielsen mentioned the name too—it was all a bit garbled . . . There’s some funny connection between the Lindhorsts and the von Merkens.”
“Well, we know that,” said Fraser. “A historical one. The portraits . . . And the graves.”
“Graves?” Eloise eyed him curiously.
“Didn’t I mention it?—we were too busy talking about Nielsen!”
Fraser summarised his findings.
Eloise raised her eyebrows when he told her that Sophia von Merkens was a Lindhorst. “Curiouser and curiouser!”
“It’s just a case of persistent intermarriage, that’s all!” he said, shrugging. “Common amongst the upper classes . . . Listen, I’m not really sure where all this is going?”
She frowned. “Nor am I. But I’ve got to go back to that file . . . Look, you’ll enjoy the day exploring Oslo! Enjoy it while it lasts!”
Fraser was, in truth, not in the mood for sightseeing; he felt rather under the weather. It was inflamed where the bird had pecked; perhaps he should have sought first aid. And his nerves were bad; for reasons he could not explain he felt anxious about Eloise, though she was patently capable of looking after herself. He passed a depressing, desultory day, flitting from one attraction to another, unable to focus upon any, even the splendid municipal gardens. The final hour he whiled away in a bar, sipping an outrageously priced lager, awaiting five o’clock, when he had arranged to meet his daughter outside the National Archives Office.
A commotion of some kind surrounded the elegant nineteenth century building, set back in leafy grounds. Traffic was being diverted, blue lights flashing, the sound of police klaxons. The oscillating wail of an approaching ambulance charged the crisis atmosphere. Fraser’s pulse quickened. A large crowd had gathered outside. Yellow-jacketed police bunched around the shrubberies in front of the building. His way was barred by a burly officer, shooing voyeurs away.