The Redbreast(150)

The old lady furrowed her brow.

‘Helena Lang, it must have been. Their love for

each other was what caused the tragedy.’

‘What tragedy?’

She stared at Harry and Fritz in surprise and then

looked back at Harry again.

‘Isn’t that why you’re here?’ she said. ‘Because

of the murder?’

86

Palace Gardens. 14 May 2000.

IT WAS SUNDAY. PEOPLE WERE WALKING MORE

SLOWLY THAN usual and the old man kept up with

them as he walked through the Palace Gardens. He

stopped by the guardhouse. The trees were light

green, the colour he liked best of all. All except for

one tree, that is. The tall oak tree in the middle of

the gardens would never be any greener than it was

now. You could already see the difference. After

the tree had awoken from its winter slumber, the

life-giving sap had begun to circulate and spread

the poison around the network of veins. Now it had

reached every single leaf and promoted a luxuriant

growth, which in a week or two would cause the

leaves to wither, go brown and fall, and finally the

tree would die.

But they didn’t know that yet. They obviously

didn’t know anything. Bernt Brandhaug had not

been part of the original plan, and the old man

realised that the killing had confused the police.

Brandhaug’s comments in Dagbladet were just one

of those weird coincidences and he had laughed

out loud when he read them. My God, he had even

agreed with Brandhaug. The defeated should

swing, that is the law of war.

But what about all the other clues he had given

them? They hadn’t even managed to connect the

great betrayal with the execution at Akershus

Fortress. Perhaps it would dawn on them the next

time the cannons were fired on the ramparts.

He looked around for a bench. The pains were

coming closer and closer together now. He didn’t

need to go to Buer to find out that the cancer was

spreading through his whole body; he knew that

himself. It wouldn’t be long now.

He leaned against a tree. A royal birch, the

symbol of occupation. Government and King flee

to England. German bombers are overhead, a line

from a poem written by Nordahl Grieg, made him

feel nauseous. It presented the King’s betrayal as

an honourable retreat, as if leaving his people in

their hour of need were a moral act. And in the

safety of London the King had just been yet another

of these exiled majesties who held moving

speeches for sympathetic upper-class women over

entertaining dinners as they clung to the hope that

their little kingdom would one day want them back.

And when the whole thing was over, there was the

reception as the boat carrying the Crown Prince

moored on the quayside and all those who had

turned out screamed themselves hoarse to drown

out the shame, both their own and the King’s. The

old man turned towards the sun and closed his

eyes.

Shouted commands, boots and AG3 guns smacked

into the gravel. Handover. Changing of the guard.

87

Vienna. 14 May 2000.

‘SO YOU DIDN’T KNOW?’ HELENA MAYER SAID.

She shook her head and Fritz was already on the

phone to get someone to search through old filed

murder cases.

‘I’m sure we’ll find it,’ he whispered. Of that

Harry had no doubt.

‘So the police were positive that Gudbrand

Johansen killed his own doctor?’ Harry asked,

turning to the old lady.

‘Yes, indeed. Christopher Brockhard lived alone

in one of the flats at the hospital. The police said

that Johansen smashed the glass in the outside door

and killed him as he was sleeping in his own bed.’

‘How . . . ?’

Frau Mayer flashed a dramatic finger across her

throat.

‘I saw him myself afterwards,’ she said. ‘You

could almost have believed the doctor had done it

himself, the cut was so neat.’

‘Hm. And why were the police so sure it was

Johansen?’

She laughed.

‘Yes, I can tell you that – because Johansen had

asked the guard which flat Brockhard lived in and

the guard had seen him park outside and go in

through the main entrance. Afterwards he had come

running out, started his car and driven off at full

speed towards Vienna. The next day he was gone

and no one knew where, only that according to his

orders he was supposed to be in Oslo three days

later. The Norwegian police waited for him but he

never turned up.’

‘Apart from the guard’s testimony, can you

remember if the police had any other evidence?’

‘If I can remember? We talked about that murder

for years! The blood on the glass door matched his

blood type. And the police found the same

fingerprints in Brockhard’s bedroom as on Uriah’s