Jo Nesbo - The Redbreast

And as I lay on my back in bed in the yellow hotel room, staring at the ceiling and listening to the sounds of the city outside, I tried out our new name on my tongue, Sindre Fauke. It was unfamiliar, but I realised that it might, it could, work.

Nordmarka. 12 July 1944.

… a man called Even Juul. He seems to have swallowed my story whole, like the other Home Front men. And why shouldn't they, anyway? The truth-that I fought at the Eastern Front and am wanted for murder -would be even harder to swallow than my deserting and returning to Norway via Sweden. They have checked their information with their sources and have received confirmation that a person by the name of Sindre Fauke was reported missing, probably a defection to the Russians. The Germans have order in their systems!

I speak fairly standard Norwegian, a result of my having grown up in the USA, I imagine, and no one notices that as Sindre Fauke I have quickly got rid of my Gudbrandsdal dialect. I come from a tiny place in Norway, but even if someone I met in my youth (Youth! My God, it was only three years ago and yet a whole lifetime away) were to turn up I am positive they would not recognise me. I feel so totally different.

What I am much more frightened of is that someone should turn up who knows the real Sindre Fauke. Fortunately, he comes from an even more isolated place than I, if that is possible, but of course he has relatives who could identify him.

I walk around chewing on these things, and my surprise was therefore immense when today they gave me orders to liquidate one of my own (Fauke's) Nasjonal Samling brothers. It is supposed to test whether I have really changed sides or whether I'm an infiltrator. Daniel and I almost burst out laughing-it is as if we had discovered the idea ourselves. They actually asked me to get rid of the people who could blow the whistle on me! I'm well aware the leaders of these pretend-soldiers thought that fratricide was going a bit far, unaccustomed as they are here in these safe forests to the brutality of war. But I have decided to take them at their word before they change their minds. As soon as it is dark I will go down to the town and pick up my gun, which is hidden with my uniform in the left-luggage locker at the station, and take the same night train as I arrived on. I know the name of the closest village to the Faukes' farm, so I have only to ask…

Oslo. 13 May 1945.

Another strange day. The country is still high on liberation fever, and today Crown Prince Olav arrived in Oslo with a government delegation. I could not be bothered to go to the harbour to see, but I heard that 'half Oslo was gathered there. I walked up Karl Johans gate in civilian clothes today even though my 'soldier friends' cannot understand why I do not want to strut around in the Resistance uniform and be given the hero's welcome. It's supposed to be a huge turn-on for young women at the moment. Women and uniforms-if I'm not mistaken they used to love running after the green uniforms in 1940 just the same.

I went up to the Palace to see if the Crown Prince would show himself on the balcony and say a few words. Many more had gathered there too. The guards were changing when I appeared. A pathetic display by German standards, but people were cheering.

I have hopes that the Crown Prince will pour cold water on these so-called good Norwegians who have been sitting like passive spectators for five years without lifting a finger for either side and are now screaming for revenge on the traitors. In fact, I think Crown Prince Olav can understand us as, if the rumours are true, he was the only one out of the King and government who, by offering to remain with Norwegians and share their fate, showed a bit of spine during the capitulation. But the government advised against it. They knew very well that it would put them and the King in a very peculiar light, leaving him in Norway while they themselves made a run for it.

Yes, I have hopes that the young Crown Prince (who unlike the 'latter-day saints' knows how to wear a uniform) can explain to the nation what the soldiers on the Eastern Front achieved, especially since he has seen for himself the danger the Bolsheviks in the east posed (and still do) for our nation. Back in early 1942, as we were preparing to be posted to the Eastern Front, the Crown Prince is said to have had talks with President Roosevelt and expressed concern about the Russians' plans for Norway.

There was some flag-waving, a few songs, and I have never seen the trees greener. But the Crown Prince did not come out on the balcony today. So I will just have to arm myself with patience.

'They've just rung from Vienna. The prints are identical.'

Weber stood in the doorway to the sitting room.

'Fine,' Harry said with an absent nod, immersed in his reading.

'Someone has thrown up in the bin,' Weber said. 'Someone who is very sick. There's more blood than vomit.'

Harry licked his thumb and turned over the next page. 'Right.'

Silence.

'If there's anything else I can help with…'

'Thanks very much, Weber, but that was it.'

Weber inclined his head, but didn't move.

'Shouldn't you radio an alert?' he asked finally.

Harry raised his head and gave Weber an absent-minded look.

'Why?'

'Damned if I know,' Weber said. 'On a don't-need-to-know basis.' Harry smiled, perhaps because of the older policeman's comment. 'No. That's precisely why.'

Weber waited for more, but it didn't come.

'As you wish, Hole. I brought a Smith amp; Wesson with me. It's loaded and there's an extra clip there. Catch!'

Harry looked up just in time to catch the black holster Weber had thrown to him. He took out the revolver. It was oiled and there was a matt shine on the newly polished steel. Of course. It was Weber's own gun.

'Thanks for your help, Weber,' Harry said. 'Take care.'

'I'll try. Have a good… day.'

Weber snorted at the reminder. As he trudged out of the flat Harry was already deeply engrossed in the papers again.

Oslo. 27 August 1945.

Betrayal-betrayal-betrayal! Stunned, I sat there, well concealed in the last row as my woman was led in and sat down in the dock. She gave him, Even Juul, this fleeting but unambiguous smile. And this tiny smile was enough to tell me everything, but I sat there, nailed to the bench, incapable of doing anything except listening and watching. And suffering. The hypocritical liar! Even Juul knows very well who Signe Alsaker is. I was the one who told him about her. He can hardly be blamed. He thinks Daniel Gudeson is dead, but she, she swore fidelity unto death. Yes, I'll say it again: betrayal! And the Crown Prince has not uttered a word. At Akershus Fortress they are shooting men who risked their lives for Norway. The echoes of the shots hang in the air over the city for a second, then they are gone and everything is quieter than before. As if nothing had happened.

Last week I was told that my case was dismissed; my heroic acts outweighed the crimes I had committed. I laughed until the tears flowed as I read the letter. So they think the execution of four defenceless farmers in Gudbrandsdalen is a heroic act, one which outweighs my criminal defence of the home country in Leningrad! I threw a chair at the wall and the landlady came up and I had to apologise. It's enough to drive you insane.

At night I dream of Helena. Only of Helena. I have to try to forget. And the Crown Prince did not say one word. It's unbearable. I think…

Oslo. 17 May 2000.

Harry checked his watch again. He flicked through a few more sheets until his eyes fell on a familiar name.

Schroder's. 23 September 1948.

… a business with good prospects. But today what I had long feared happened.

I was reading the newspaper when I noticed someone standing at my table observing me. I looked up and the blood in my veins froze to ice! He was somewhat run-down, I could see. His clothes were quite worn. He no longer had the erect, rigid bearing I remember. Something about him had gone. But I immediately recognised our old section leader, the man with the cyclops eye.