James Benn - Billy Boyle

Vidar Skak rose but didn’t come out from behind his desk. The cherrywood gleamed, every carved corner shining. There were three folders on the desktop, lined up perfectly. Nothing else, not even a pen. Glass double doors behind him opened onto a small balcony. The wall on my right was covered in bookshelves; a quick glance showed that most of the titles were in Norwegian. They looked like law books and bound government reports. Had Skak brought all those books with him? While Knut Birkeland was breaking his back carrying his country’s national treasure, was Skak transporting cases of books? The other wall was covered with photos, all arranged neatly, above a leather sofa. Skak with the king, Skak shaking hands with Winston Churchill, Skak seated at another desk, in another office, probably in Oslo. No trace of family photos, no other picture of that woman on his mantel.

This was Skak’s true surroundings, not his sterile room upstairs. Here, at the center of his power, was the place he called home. No one else would see his bedroom, so it served no purpose other than as a place to sleep and get ready for another day of politics. And this was a good day for Skak, a day of elimination and gain. But was it as simple as good fortune for him and bad luck for Birkeland? Or had Skak made his own luck?

He looked severe, his forehead wrinkled with all the important thoughts going on behind it. He raised his lips in the semblance of a smile, the phony politician’s grin that looks the same in Boston or Oslo. I wondered if they bothered with that anymore in Berlin. Watching Skak trying to smile was like looking at a crack in a mirror; I thought the effort might break his face. He put his hands behind his back and rocked back and forth on his heels, like he was full of energy and life. It made me think of Knut Birkeland, still and cold on the damp ground.

“What can I do for you, Lieutenant Boyle?” He gestured for me to be seated as he adjusted his frock coat so he didn’t sit on the tails. His high starched collar dug into his neck and he twisted his head just a fraction, adjusting the angle he looked at me from to suit the collar. I had seen pictures of men dressed like that, I just didn’t know they still did.

“Nice office. Will you get a new one when you’re the senior adviser?”

“Don’t be impertinent, young man!” The smile vanished.

“My apologies, sir. I just assumed you’d get the job now with Mr. Birkeland out of the way.” He looked at me through angry, narrowed eyes, assessing my value, my ability to help or hinder his advancement.

“Is rudeness a technique of American policemen?”

“Do Norwegian police solve crimes through politeness?” He eased back in his chair and I thought I saw a half grin, half sneer try to creep up one corner of his mouth. It was entirely natural, a real emotion playing out over his face. Gone in a flash, it gave the hint of a highly intelligent man who enjoyed this sort of game.

“Perhaps not,” he admitted. “But why did you refer to crimes? Did not Birkeland jump from his own window?”

“Perhaps not,” I shot back. “Do you think Birkeland was the kind of man to kill himself?”

“I am not qualified to judge such things. I have never known anyone who has taken his own life. It seems abhorrent to me, but perhaps he had his reasons.” Skak leaned back, quietly satisfied at leaving the thought of Birkeland’s reasons dangling in the air, bait for me to rise to. I wasn’t ready to walk into that one yet.

“Well, if you don’t know if he would have killed himself, do you know anyone who wanted him dead?”

“Lieutenant, we have many disagreements here,” Skak pontificated, looking over my shoulder at the photographs on the wall. “Some of those disagreements are about matters of state policy, and some are about military strategy. Most involve the lives of many people. Naturally, these disagreements can become quite heated, and even personal. But to wish someone dead-no, I cannot conceive of that.” He sounded smug, as if he had rehearsed these words until they sounded just perfect. Time to poke this guy.

“Don’t you wish many people dead, sir?”

“What do you mean?”

“The Underground Army. Won’t many of them die if the king authorizes the uprising?”

“You know that’s not the same thing, Lieutenant.”

“No, you won’t have to get your own hands dirty. It’s not the same thing at all.”

“Lieutenant Boyle, this discussion is pointless. If there is something specific I can do for you, please let me know. Otherwise, I am very busy.”

“Mr. Skak, I think you don’t quite understand. This questioning is not voluntary on your part. I’m under orders to investigate the suspicious death of an Allied government official. You are as much a suspect as anyone. More so, perhaps.” The smugness and the smile vanished. He looked like he suddenly realized that it might not be smooth sailing for the future senior adviser. I had no idea if my authority, if I really had any at all, extended to the Norwegians. All I had was Harding’s orders and some backup from Cosgrove. It looked like Skak bought the bluff, though.

“A suspect? More so? Whatever do you mean?”

“The most basic rule of a murder investigation. The one who has the most to gain is automatically a suspect. Birkeland was your competition for senior adviser. He’s gone and now you’re it. Simple.”

“That is idiotic! You don’t even know if he was murdered or killed himself!”

“I know that things aren’t what they seem. And that I will find out what really happened, and why.” I went silent and stared at Skak. Sometimes a confident bluff and determined silence can work on a guy. As I stared at him, I started counting how many pairs of clean socks I had left. It wasn’t many, but it didn’t take Skak long to start talking either. He didn’t strike me as a man comfortable with his own silence. Maybe he didn’t have any clean socks to count.

“I have been told you are looking for a key. What does all this have to do with your search for that key?”

“Good question, Mr. Skak. There was no key inside Mr. Birkeland’s room, which was locked. That means that someone was in his room and locked it from the outside when he or she left.”

“The murderer.”

“Maybe. Or maybe Birkeland did kill himself and someone entered the room after the fact, for some other reason then left and locked it. Did you visit him in his room last night?”

“We were not in the habit of visiting each other in our personal living quarters. We were not… friends, I regret to say.”

“You don’t look like you regret it at all, Mr. Skak.”

“Oh, but I do, I do, young man. If he were alive, I could expose Knut Birkeland for the thief he was. I could have ended his influence with the king and won the post of senior adviser for myself. But now that he is dead, by whatever means, I will certainly be appointed by default, and we will never know what he did with the gold he took.” It was a good answer, and there was a rage in his voice that seemed real to me.

“When did this problem with the gold start?”

“Aboard the Glasgow, after we left Molde. You heard about the crate of coins that broke open. I had been keeping a tally of the crates during our journey. I kept track of every small shipment that Birkeland sent off. It was a good idea, I must admit, to use the fishing fleet. It protected the entire shipment from capture by the Germans, but it also allowed it to slowly leave our control.”

“Did you lose much of the gold?”

“No, the Norwegian people rallied around us through every step of the journey. Everyone helped and no one informed the Germans. But when the last of the shipment, about two hundred crates, distributed to Birkeland’s fleet of fishing vessels in Nordland was unloaded, we ended up two crates short.”