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The Redbreast(90)



had laughed. Then Mosken became serious again.

‘What smarted was being labelled a traitor. But I

console myself with the fact that we know that we

defended our country with our lives.’

‘Your political views at that time . . .’

‘If they are the same today?’

Harry nodded, and Mosken said with a dry smile,

‘That’s an easy question to answer, Inspector. No.

I was wrong. Simple as that.’

‘You haven’t had any contact with neo-Nazis

since?’

‘God forbid – no! There was a meeting in

Hokksund a few years ago and one of the idiots

rang me up to ask if I would go and talk about the

war. I think they called themselves “Blood and

Honour”. Something like that.’

Mosken leaned across the coffee table. On one

corner there was a pile of magazines, neatly

stacked and aligned with the edge.

‘What is POT actually looking for? Are you

trying to monitor the neo-Nazis? If that’s the case,

you’ve come to the wrong place.’

Harry was unsure how much to tell him at this

point. His answer was honest enough though.

‘I don’t really know what we’re looking for.’

‘That sounds like the POT I know.’

He laughed his magpie cackle again. It was an

unpleasant, high-pitched sound.

Harry later concluded it must have been the





combination of the scornful laugh and the fact that

he wasn’t offered any coffee that made him ask the

next question in the way that he did.

‘How do you think it must have been for your son

to grow up with an ex-Nazi as a father? Do you

think that’s why Edvard Mosken Jr is doing time

for a drugs offence?’

Harry regretted it the second he saw the anger and

pain in the old man’s eyes. He knew that he could

have found out what he wanted without hitting

beneath the belt.

‘The trial was a farce!’ Mosken fizzed. ‘The

defence lawyer they gave my son is the grandson of

the judge who sentenced me after the war. They’re

punishing my child to hide their own shame at what

they did during the war. I —’

He stopped abruptly. Harry waited for him to go

on, but nothing came. Without any prior warning,

he suddenly felt the pack of hounds in the pit of his

stomach tug at the chains. They hadn’t stirred for

quite a while now. They needed a drink.

‘One of the “latter-day saints”?’ Harry asked.

Mosken shrugged. Harry knew the topic was

closed for now. Mosken angled his watch.

‘Planning to go somewhere?’ Harry asked.

‘Going on a walk to my chalet.’

‘Oh yes? Far away?’

‘Grenland. I need to be off before it gets dark.’

Harry stood up. In the hall they stood searching

for suitable parting words when Harry suddenly

remembered something.

‘You said you were wounded in Leningrad during

winter 1944 and were sent to Sinsen School later

that summer. What did you do in the intervening

period?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve just been reading one of Even Juul’s books.

He’s a war historian.’

‘I’m quite aware who Even Juul is,’ Mosken said

with an inscrutable smile.

‘He writes that the Norge regiment was dissolved

in Krasnoje Selo in March 1944. Where were you

from March to the time you arrived at Sinsen

School?’

Mosken held Harry’s gaze for a long while. Then

he opened the front door and peered out.

‘Almost down to zero now,’ he said. ‘You’ll

have to drive carefully.’

Harry nodded. Mosken straightened up, shaded

his eyes and squinted in the direction of the empty

trotting stadium where the grey, oval, gravel track

stood out against the dirty snow.

‘I was in places that once had names,’ Mosken

said, ‘but were so transformed that no one could

recognise them. Our maps only showed paths,

water and minefields, no names. If I tell you I was

in Pärnu in Estonia, that might be true. I don’t know

and nor does anyone else. During the spring and

summer of ’44 I was lying on a stretcher, listening

to machine-gun fire and thinking about death. Not

about where I was.’

Harry drove slowly alongside the river and

stopped at the red lights in front of the town bridge.

The other bridge, which crossed the E18

motorway, ran like a dental brace through the

countryside and obstructed a view of Drammen

fjord. Well, OK, perhaps not everything had been a

success in Drammen. Harry had actually decided

he would stop for a coffee in Børsen on the way

back, but he changed his mind. He remembered

they served beer too.

The lights changed to green. Harry accelerated.