The House by the Fjord (31 page)

‘I can't tell you that now, but I'll know when the time comes.'

Crossing the fjord in the moonlight gave her another angle on its beauty as she sat by one of the windows in the ferry's saloon. When she came ashore, there were no taxis to be seen and as it was such a perfect autumn night she decided to walk to her mountain home. The night was full of little sounds and once, startling her, a deer dashed across her path.

‘Good night, Bambi!' she called after it.

It was as the house came into sight that she saw in the moonlight that a car was parked by it. She was momentarily alarmed until she recognized Harry's number plate. Yet there were no lights anywhere. Ladders and other workmen's gear showed that work on the site had been started that day. The burnt staircase had been cleared away and everything looked set for the more advanced work to begin.

She was about to call out to Harry, but a sudden wariness silenced her. It was all so odd that he should be here at this hour with only the moonlight to illuminate everything for him. Then, when she would have used her key to open the front door of her house, she saw that there was a duplicate key in the lock. As she touched it, the door swung inwards. Instantly, it angered her that Harry should feel free to come and go in the house – even in the night – without ever asking if it was OK. How many other times had he been here without her knowledge?

Normally, she would have lighted one of the oil lamps, but instead she stood listening in the moonlit room for the creak of a floorboard to give her some hint as to where in the house he might be. The total silence soon told her that he was not anywhere indoors. Puzzled, she went across to a side window and looked out in the direction of the
stabbur
. Almost at once there was the momentary flash of a torch through the roof damage and then it was extinguished. Even as she watched, she saw a figure descend by a tall ladder that had been set against the end of the building. The moonlight caught the top rungs as it was swung away and replaced almost silently with some other ladders lying on the ground. Then he stood to brush off the ash and debris from his sweater and trousers, which he must have gathered somewhere under the eaves. Then he turned towards the house.

Increasingly convinced that there was something very strange about Harry's midnight activity, Anna went silently into the room where Ingrid had kept her weaving-loom and stood waiting. When he came back into the house, she would step forward and take him by surprise, demanding to know why he was there. But he did not re-enter the house. Instead, he simply closed the front door from outside and turned the key in the lock.

Emerging from her hiding place, Anna ran across to a front window and watched him drive away. Then, using her own key, she unlocked the door again and went outside to where he had come down the ladder. Gazing upwards, she tried to see if there was anything that would give her a clue as to his purpose in risking such a dangerous entry at such a height, but there was nothing. It was not the upper floor of the
stabbur
that he had entered, but incredibly he had managed to get through the damaged end into the space between the ceiling boards of the upper room and the roof to which there was normally no access. In English, she would have called that space an aperture, for it would not be high enough in there for anyone to stand at full height. She supposed there was a square door, much like a trap door, allowing access to the aperture, but it had passed unnoticed in the weathering of the timber over many years. Harry, being an expert, would have seen it or, with his experience, looked for it, knowing that the room on the upper floor of these buildings was usually open to the rafters.

She decided to say nothing to Harry about his night-time visit, but would wait to see if he should tell her about it and thus disperse the mystery.

Nineteen

Anna awoke to the early arrival of the workmen. When she was dressed and ready for the day she went outside to see what work was already in progress. There were two men and a youth on the site and their van was parked nearby. Both the men were in their fifties. As she approached them, they greeted her. The man on a ladder said his name was Per, and the other man paused in sawing wood to extend a sawdust-covered hand to shake hers. He just said his surname.

‘Larsen.' Then he introduced the strong-looking youth, who was their apprentice, as Bjorn.

‘Have you found anything of interest up in the rafters, Per?' she asked casually, as she looked up at him on the ladder, although he was only level with the lower floor.

‘We haven't been up there yet,' he replied. ‘There's a lot of preliminary work to be done before we start to put the roof to rights. But we do find forgotten or lost things from time to time. The best item I have ever found was an old sword – that's in a museum somewhere now.' Then he gave a nod down to her. ‘Harry Holmsen will take charge of anything found. No treasure will escape his eye.'

‘I should like to take a look into that top space under the eaves. Could you put a longer ladder up for me?'

He did not query her request, well used to his fellow countrywomen climbing mountains and having a head for heights. He descended his own ladder and then he and Bjorn swung a longer one into place for her. She mounted swiftly in her eagerness, but when she reached a viewpoint she could see only a little way into the aperture, for scorched and fallen turf made a screen that Harry must have pushed through, which was why he had taken his time brushing himself down when he was back on the ground again. Had he gone the whole length of the aperture and rearranged the fallen turf again to keep something hidden in the darkness at the far end?

‘I see you will have a lot of work to do with the roof, Per,' she said when she had come down again. ‘It is more than I realized.'

‘Yes, but when we have finished here, it will be as if the fire had never been.'

Harry arrived early in the afternoon and went first to discuss some matter with his workmen before he came to give a knock on Anna's door and enter the house. Anna, who had been expecting him, put aside a letter she was writing to her aunt and looked up.

‘Hi, Anna,' he said cheerfully. ‘I've just been told that you were here. You have two of my best workmen on site now and the
stabbur
could not be in better hands.'

‘Yes, I'm sure of it.'

‘Any chance of a coffee?'

‘Yes,' she said, getting up from her chair. Normally, coffee was offered almost as soon as a visitor had arrived, but she had not felt like being hospitable to Harry.

He followed her out into the kitchen where he looked around. ‘You have made it look very nice here. Have you cooked on the old stove yet?'

‘No. I use this primus for heating things up,' she said, placing the kettle on it. ‘We're hoping to get electricity laid on any day now. I have an electric cooker and a washing machine on order too.'

‘I'll see what influence I have with the local electricity board to get you some priority.'

‘No,' she said firmly, wanting no favours from him. ‘Our order is in and we have been told it will be fulfilled next week. Until then, if we stay the night, we still have to carry hot water upstairs to the bath.' She knew from the journal that Ingrid had used a tin bath for herself and her children in the kitchen on bath nights. There had been one paragraph in the journal about the enjoyment of sharing it with Magnus and how most of the water had ended up on the kitchen floor.

Harry took the coffee that she handed to him, eyeing her speculatively under lowered lids. ‘You really have taken to this house in spite of a lack of facilities, haven't you? But I don't want you to forget that if ever your circumstances change, my offer to buy or rent from you still stands.'

She glanced at him sharply. ‘Are you suggesting that my marriage might not last?'

He shrugged. ‘Who knows what can happen in these unsettled times? Alex played the field extensively before he met you.'

She felt too angry to answer him and went back into the living room. Again he sauntered after her, and, with his mug of coffee in his hand, he went to study one of the framed prints of Magnus's paintings. She sat down at the table where she had been writing and took up her pen in what she hoped would be a hint to him not to stop long.

‘Magnus really could paint,' he commented admiringly, still regarding the print. ‘It's a pity the family did not overlook some of his work when this house was cleared. Then you would have had a nice little nest-egg. One of his mountain scenes went for the highest price his work has ever fetched at a recent New York auction.'

Her interest sharpened. Did he think that there still might be a painting or two somewhere in the house? Was that why he had gone secretly into the attic in the hope of finding a painting to take for himself? At an auction, a seller could have his identity withheld and nobody would have been any the wiser. Another question came into her mind. Had he been using the door key to search this house when she and Alex were absent, even though he had had ample opportunity to look everywhere when he repaired the house after the Germans had crashed their way into it? He had read Ingrid's journal and would know that she had written about a special hiding place that nobody could ever find.

Anna felt anger blaze in her at his deviousness, but she kept it under control. At least she knew now that there was nothing in the aperture or else he would have brought it down with him.

He chatted until he had finished his coffee, not seeming to notice her lack of response since he clearly enjoyed the sound of his own voice. ‘I'll be going now,' he said finally, putting down his emptied mug on the nearest ledge. ‘Shall you be staying long this time?'

‘I'm not sure. Probably until Alex comes home on Friday evening.' Then, as Harry reached the door, she added, ‘I believe you have my other key to the house, Harry. May I have it?'

‘Yes!' he said willingly. ‘I'm glad you reminded me! I have meant to hand it over to you several times, but have forgotten to do it.'

He had already taken it out of his pocket and he placed it within her reach on the table. Then he bade her goodbye and off he went. She wondered if he had had a duplicate key made since he had surrendered it so willingly. Then she let her gaze drift slowly around the room. Had Ingrid hidden a painting or two in that secret hiding place she had mentioned? She had written about the avaricious dealers ready to snatch Magnus's work off the walls, although that was just her humorous way of describing their greed. And yet? Maybe she had been afraid of having a certain painting stolen from her, one that she liked more than the rest of them. At least it was not the one where Magnus had included her as a blob of orange paint, which Anna treasured.

When Alex came home, Anna told him about Harry's nocturnal visit. ‘It was so odd! He could go up in that aperture any time during the day, but instead he chose to go there by night with a torch! Yet he can't have found anything or else I would have seen that he was carrying something when he came down again.'

‘I'll take a look there myself at the weekend,' he said. ‘I had no idea there was access to that space under the rafters.'

‘It is likely that we should never have known about it if it had not been for the damage to the roof in the fire.'

‘The
stabbur
could have burned like a torch if nobody had spotted the fire in time. Then, if there is something of value up there, it would have been lost forever.'

The following Sunday morning, with the workmen absent, Alex went up the ladder and climbed through into the aperture. Anna, standing below, watched his long legs disappear. After about ten minutes he reappeared.

‘I need some tools. There is a false wall partitioning off the far end and I'm going to knock through it.'

He went into the house and found what he wanted from tools he had brought there when putting up shelves and doing other small chores. This time he was so long in the aperture that Anna guessed the partition must be very solid, for there was a great deal of banging before finally there was silence. She waited impatiently and then anxiously for him to reappear. When he did, his expression told her that something was seriously wrong. He was looking shocked and saddened.

‘What is it?' she cried as he descended. ‘What did you find?'

He dropped his tools on to the ground and took hold of her by the shoulders. ‘I found an old wedding chest up there.'

She gasped. ‘That was Ingrid's secret hiding place! She said nobody would ever find it!'

He shook his head. ‘This is nothing to do with Ingrid or anything she ever thought of hiding there. Its contents are far more recent and must have been there for the past six or seven years.'

‘Dating back to the occupation?' she whispered in mounting horror, for he looked so grave.

‘I believe I have found the remains of the resistance fighter whose death has remained a mystery ever since he disappeared. I must get to the nearest phone and call the police.'

She thought of the following few hours as a nightmare when she looked back afterwards on that hideous time. A police car arrived very quickly and the two young policemen who sprang out looked stern and important, neither having come in contact with such a serious crime before. One hastened up the ladder to investigate. Soon afterwards he emerged to give a grim nod to confirm what he had found. He made immediate contact with the police station at Molde, while his companion began to cordon off the
stabbur
. Then senior officers came by launch across the fjord, and both Alex and Anna made clear and precise statements to them. They were informed that two detectives were already flying up from Oslo and would question them again. In the meantime, the house had to be vacated as it was located in the crime scene and was about to be cordoned off too.