The Historians Read online

  The sun had heaved itself up over the horizon and painted the landscape a cold gray. He was going to have to tell the widow. He sighed. He believed they had young children, too.

  As he left, he looked back. The Sami were now standing by the body. One of them gazed up the mountain, then touched his forehead and his heart.

  As if crossing himself.

  7.

  Laura

  Laura sat at her desk, staring at papers without understanding, shuffling them from one pile to another, then back again.

  On the radio, they were talking about the mass graves found in Poland. Tens of thousands of Polish officers apparently killed by the Reds. Laura’s chest felt tight as she listened. No one wanted Germany to win, but the alternative was horrific. They said that in the Baltic countries, during the year the Russians were in charge, eighty thousand people had disappeared. It was such an awful, awful world . . . Such a . . .

  She found herself moving the papers across her desk again and forced her hands to still. Stop, she told herself. Just stop. What good did it do to get caught up in the miseries of the world?

  After leaving Erik that night, she hadn’t been able to sleep and then she hadn’t been able to get up. Friday, she’d called in sick for the first time in her whole life. She had then spent the weekend in bed. Slowly, the walls moved closer. The room turned cold. She was shivering, but couldn’t go and get another blanket. She couldn’t cry—daren’t cry. She daren’t move. In the end, she daren’t swallow. She had lain silent in bed, eyes wide open, mouth dry, heart pounding, ripped apart—for that was what the grief felt like; as if she had been cut open and left that way, never to close again.

  She might be ill: she had a headache and a sour taste in her mouth. She should not have come to work. She wasn’t ready. Nothing here was important today. In fact, nothing here might ever feel important again. All that mattered was that Britta, the best friend she’d ever had, was dead. What would have happened, she thought, if Britta had told her what was bothering her that day? Surely together, they would have found a solution and Britta would still be among them, alive, not tortured to death. Tortured . . . She shrank at the thought. If only she had forced her friend to talk.

  One time, Laura had been sad. Funny how the reason had now vanished from her memory, but she remembered that at the time, it had appeared detrimental to her very existence. They’d been at a bar, Laura had tried to put on a good show, and she thought she’d succeeded. Don’t show weakness. People eat you up if you are weak. Her father’s words echoed in her mind. Britta and her date were leaving. Britta came to say goodbye and she could read the misery on Laura’s face. She’d wrapped her arms around Laura. “We need to leave,” her date had said, stooping over her. “We’ll miss the play.” The play was sold out months ahead; it was impossible to get tickets. Britta had been excited about it. And yet Britta had turned on him, despite Laura’s protests: “This is my best friend,” she’d said. “My best friend is hurting. If you don’t get that I must stay here with her, you are more stupid than I thought.” She’d sent him packing. Later, she’d mocked Laura’s father. “Not show weakness? What rubbish! Weak is strong. Messy is strong. Together is strong. And your father . . .” She’d laughed. “He is old and he is dead wrong.” And she’d kissed Laura with an open mouth.

  Laura hadn’t said, but she had felt that her father was right. How she wished she’d been more callous. She tried her best to be strong, and to prove to him that she was, but there was something missing in her; she didn’t have what it took. But Britta loved her regardless. And Britta had stayed.

  Why had Laura not done the same for Britta? What kind of a selfish person does not insist on being told what is going on with their friends? Why hadn’t she wanted to know what was wrong? Who was she becoming?

  “The boss wants to see you,” Dagmar said.

  Laura sighed. She’d be no good to him today. She picked up her notebook and a pen. In his office, Wallenberg nodded to her to sit down.

  “Your friend,” he said, “who was killed . . .”

  Britta? Why was he asking about her? Her stomach clenched.

  “Yes?”

  “She is from Blackåsen.”

  “Yes.”

  “Her father is the foreman of the iron mine.”

  “Yes.” Did she know this? She wasn’t certain. Britta had said her father had thought she was a tart.

  “Her death might not be a coincidence,” Wallenberg said.

  She shook her head, didn’t understand, and then she did.

  “No,” she said. “I didn’t talk to her about my work. Ever.” I never talk to anyone about our work, she thought. She knew how sensitive it was, balancing demands, Swedish iron to Germany, German coal to Sweden. Wallenberg’s connections with the secret opposition in Germany; she’d even been privy to some of those meetings. She had his trust and she wouldn’t betray his confidence; he must know this.

  “I spoke to the police this morning. She was tortured.” Wallenberg picked up a paper from his desk and studied it. Had he obtained a copy of the police report? It shouldn’t surprise her. The Wallenbergs were a prominent Swedish family. The two brothers, Jacob and Marcus, were helping Sweden in their negotiations with Germany and the Allies. Whatever a Wallenberg wanted, he would have no problem obtaining.

  “Perhaps the perpetrator hoped you had told her about the negotiations,” Wallenberg said.

  Laura shrugged. She couldn’t know that.

  “The gun she was killed with was a Walther HP. German.”

  “German?”

  “It doesn’t tell us much,” he said. “They have been imported in rather large numbers. I would expect to find them among the police and the military.”

  Police. Military. Nothing of this made sense.

  He looked down at the papers again. “Cuts—lots of them, bruises, missing one eye and then shot . . . Her body had been moved after she was killed, placed in the Historical Society in Uppsala.”

  “Moved?”

  “Yes, she wasn’t killed where she was found.”

  She frowned. “How could that be? She was found in the middle of town!”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. But more important is why. Why would they want her body at the Historical Society? What are they trying to do or say with this? There has to be a reason.”

  He was right: why on earth would someone want her to be found at the Historical Society? If the killer had to take the risk of moving her body to get her there, it must mean something. Why there?

  He put the papers down on his desk. “It seems too much of a coincidence that you are on this project; we are trying to substantially reduce the trade with Germany, and now your best friend is killed by a German weapon and in such a manner. And her father is the foreman of the mine. We need to know more.”

  “The police . . .”

  He shook his head. “The police may or may not see the connection. Do you know Britta’s father?”

  “I’ve never met him.”

  “I want you to talk to him. I want you to ask around among her friends, too . . . see if she had received threats, if she feared anyone. I need to know for certain this is not linked to us. I need to know if this has anything to do with Germany.”

  She nodded. She had no other choice.

  He met her gaze, held it. “If there is a connection, I might be putting you in harm’s way. I am aware of this. But there’s no one who’s in a better position to find out. You knew her, you are smart. You know how important our work is.”

  “Of course, I’ll go,” she said. She hesitated. Had to know. “Was she alive . . . Was she alive all along when he hurt her?”

  His face was serious, and he nodded.

  “I am sorry,” he added.

  Back at her desk, she sank down onto her chair. Her legs felt weak. She tried to imagine the events, but it was beyond what she was capable of. She mustn’t go there.

  She understood why Wallenberg thought the way he did
. If Laura had spoken with anyone about her work, it would have been Britta. But she didn’t believe this was the reason for Britta’s death. If it were, they ought to have come for Laura directly. Whoever killed Britta—if they had followed her—must have known that Laura and Britta didn’t often see each other any longer.

  There was the gun, the German gun. But there was a war. A person determined enough could get hold of a gun without too much trouble.

  She thought about the torture. Had Britta told the killer what he wanted to know? Had she been able to? Or had she known it wouldn’t matter whatever she did? Laura shivered.

  Her phone rang, and her hand shot out to lift the receiver.

  “How are you?”

  Erik. She exhaled.

  “I’ve been better,” she said, her voice warm.

  “What you need is a drink. I could use one, too.”

  “I can’t today. Another time, I would love to.” She meant it. “My boss wants me to go back to Uppsala and ask around about Britta.”

  As she said it, she was already cursing herself. She shouldn’t have told him.

  Erik paused. “He can’t ask you to do that. That’s a job for the police. And why would he want it? Britta’s death has nothing to do with him. Or with you.”

  “He’s worried there’s a connection to our trade delegation. He thinks perhaps the killer thought I had told her things.”

  “This has nothing to do with you,” Erik repeated. “You must see that. You know what she was like. There were always hurt people around Britta.”

  You being one of them, she thought. Laura had been jealous of the obvious attraction between Britta and Erik, of being wanted in that way: a desire lingering on, unconsummated. The pain and delight of wanting. But it had hurt Erik, she was certain. “You’re choosing not to remember,” Erik said, and he did sound sad. “You didn’t think her flings mattered, but perhaps those who fell in love with her didn’t agree.”

  “Everyone liked her,” Laura had told the policeman. And that was true. In general. But there had been heartbreaks. Partners who wouldn’t accept it was over. Men showing up in strange places, at strange times, with pleas, demands, threats. Britta had been irresistible, and she had used it to her advantage. She rarely dated the same man twice. Her close friends warned Britta at one point, only for her to belittle their concerns. So they’d left it. They were at university—people were supposed to mess about. But it was quite possible a lover had not been able to let go.

  “I remember,” she said. “Her body was moved after her death, Erik, and then they left her at the Historical Society. Why there?”

  “Why not, Laura?” he said, and she could almost hear him shrug. “It stands mostly empty. Perhaps the killer knew that.”

  Yes, she thought, perhaps.

  “It’s just that it was special to us,” she said.

  “It was special to a lot of people.”

  That was true.

  “You’re still going?” he said.

  “I have to.”

  He sighed. “Have it your own way. But be careful. You don’t know what’s behind this.”

  “I will,” she promised. “I’m only going to see if there appear to be links to Wallenberg’s negotiation team. That’s all.”

  They hung up.

  There had been slighted lovers, that was true. But the Historical Society hadn’t been broken into. The perpetrator had used a key. To take a key meant planning. And he had locked the door behind himself before leaving. She assumed—perhaps wrongly—that a slighted lover would have been acting on impulse. That it would have been clumsy, messy.

  This had been cold.

  Erik had sounded certain, and he knew what it felt like, hurting for love. But then, he hadn’t seen the body.

  SHE AND ERIK should have met up earlier, seeing as they were both in Stockholm. Erik and Britta had been special, that was true, but she and Erik had been friends, too. She remembered once, after a long night out, Erik coming to her apartment wearing Laura’s black feather fascinator.

  “You forgot something,” he’d said.

  “What?” she’d asked. “Is it the bowtie?”

  He’d laughed and handed her the hat.

  “Surely someone like you would have a drink for a thirsty man?”

  She’d opened a bottle of champagne and they’d stood by her window drinking straight from the bottle, passing it between them, looking out on students making their way home in the early morning hours.

  “Fucking upper-class brats,” he’d said, swaying. There had been something like hatred in his voice.

  “I’m one, too,” she’d reminded him, gently.

  He had stirred, turned to her, smiled and toasted her. “You are a particularly lovely upper-class brat,” he’d said. “A beautiful, delightful upper-class brat. A goddess, even . . .”

  For a moment, she’d thought they might kiss, but a car horn honked, they both looked up and the moment was gone.

  Perhaps they hadn’t met up earlier because it had to be the five of them for things to make sense, she thought now; for them to make sense. She would have spent time with Britta on her own, of course, but the others? And now, the war had taken them in such different directions. It had taken her to restaurants, hotels and negotiation rooms. She didn’t want to imagine where it’d taken Matti and Karl-Henrik.

  Her head still hurt. She sighed, tasted her own sour breath and felt nauseous again.

  “Ask around,” Wallenberg had said. Well, the first one she wanted to talk to again was Andreas. He was there when it started and knew more than he had wanted to tell her, she was certain. She needed to find out who Britta’s friends were now. She should see Professor Lindahl, too.

  The phone rang again. This time it was Ackerman, the policeman.

  “I want you to come in and meet with us again,” he said.

  Was he the one who had given Wallenberg a copy of the police report?

  “I’ve told you what I know,” she said.

  “There have been developments. We need to ask you more questions.”

  She had no reason to feel worried, and yet she did. Perhaps this was how you felt when you were meeting the police. She didn’t know; didn’t have that experience. They agreed to meet again the following day.

  As they hung up, she realized she felt better. How peculiar. But it was action, she thought; doing, and not just sitting and thinking. A project. Dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s for Wallenberg and, at the same time, helping Britta. She would find out if there were any German connections in Britta’s life or other people asking questions about mines. That shouldn’t be too hard. Uppsala was small: people ought to have noticed. She stood up. She’d pack a bag. Stay the night.

  8.

  Jens

  Foreign Minister Christian Günther paced in the office to which he had called Jens. He passed his enormous desk, the gilded gigantic mirror, the statuette unidentifiable to Jens.

  Staffan Söderblom had left as Jens arrived. Jens wished he knew what they had talked about.

  “It will not do,” Günther said to Jens, punctuating each word. Will. Not.

  His face was drawn, but the gaze behind the round glasses was intense. He was talking about the German mines found in Swedish waters. About Ulven’s men dead at the bottom of the sea.

  Jens thought about the German response to their protest—simply referring to a Swedish order of 1940, according to which Swedish submarines should avoid diving exercises when German ships were close. The order did exist. They had gone and found it, the minister harrumphing when he saw his own signature.

  “I want you to draft a response,” Günther said. “State that Swedish ships on Swedish waters can do whatever they want, and that German mines on Swedish territory are completely unacceptable.”

  Jens wrote it down.

  “Send it to the Swedish delegation in Germany,” Günther said. “Have them pass the message on.”

  Jens nodded.

  “They won
’t need to have any meetings,” Günther grumbled.

  Everyone knew whatever was sent to the Swedish delegation in Berlin made its way seamlessly to the Gestapo and the SS.

  “Anything else?”

  “Have a word with the US ambassador—see what they are up to in Finland, with the Russians. If anything,” he added. “Who would listen to us?”

  Günther’s warnings to the Allies about the Soviet Union had become a consistent feature since Stalingrad. He was worried; they all were. But so far, Jens had seen no proof that the warnings were being heeded.

  Günther sat down in his chair. “That’s all for now.”

  Jens hesitated.

  “Yes?” Günther looked up.

  “I was at a dinner yesterday.” Jens hoped he wouldn’t have to say it was his fiancée, Kristina, who had arranged it. “Karl Schnurre attended.”

  “So Hitler’s emissary is back in town?” Günther leaned back in his chair. He steepled his fingertips, considering.

  “He told me to tell you not to inquire about the fate of Jews. Said it was ‘annoying people at the highest level.’ I told him the fate of the Jews mattered to us Swedes. Said he only had to look to the Swedish response to the deportation of the Norwegian Jews to see that.”

  Günther exhaled. “And we will work harder than ever,” he vowed. “Save as many as we can.”

  “Schnurre said something bizarre, though. He said, ‘You think you Swedes are clean?’ and that we should look in our own cupboards.”

  Günther shrugged. “They’ll never see they’ve done wrong,” he said, speaking about the Germans. “I think if the entire world so judged them, they wouldn’t see it. Anything else?”

  Jens hesitated. “The archivist, Daniel Jonsson, had a word with me.”

  Günther’s brows shot together. “What does he want this time?”