The Redbreast(55)

looked at each other in silence.

‘So that’s the first checkpoint?’ Uriah asked

finally. ‘After Salzburg?’ The conductor nodded.

‘Thank you,’ Uriah said.

The conductor cleared his throat: ‘I had a son

your age. He fell at the front, by Dnerp.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘Well, sorry to have woken you, Fräulein. Mein

Herr.’

He saluted and was gone.

Helena made sure the door was completely

closed. Then she hid her face in her hands.

‘How could I have been so naive!’ she sobbed.

‘Don’t cry now,’ he said, putting his arm around

her shoulder. ‘I should have thought of the papers.

After all, I knew I couldn’t just move around

freely.’

‘But what if you tell them you’re on sick leave

and say you felt like going to Paris? That’s a part

of the Third Reich. It’s —’

‘Then they’ll ring the hospital and Brockhard will

say that I absconded.’

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.

HARRY 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