The Last Pilgrim Read Online Free

recall how many times. He didn’t want to remember anything about what he’d done to her. He only wanted to remember that he mustn’t ever fall in love with another woman who was so much better looking than he was. As Hege was.
    “Goddamn you, Tommy Bergmann,” he muttered.
    The red double door to his left slammed shut.
    He didn’t open his eyes.
    The familiar voice of an old bastard, hoarse from smoking: Dramstad from the Robbery Division, who had nothing better to do on weekends than waste his life down here at HQ.
    “Some fucking amazing weather, isn’t it?” said Dramstad, who according to scuttlebutt managed to live up to his name most days in the week—the man did like his drams.
    Bergmann grunted in reply and cursed himself for having thought about Hege.
    “Yep, it’s some weather, all right,” Dramstad muttered to himself. No, Bergmann thought, opening his eyes wide, letting in a bit too much of the sharp sunlight. This is suicide weather. But he didn’t say a word. He let old Dramstad stand there thinking the weather was just fine.

    Bergmann had just returned to his office to finish up a couple of old reports that miraculously quiet evening when Monsen’s number appeared on the display on his cell phone.
    Monsen cleared his throat. His voice was almost hesitant when he said his name, and Bergmann was reasonably sure he was going to win the modest pot from the bet.
    A few hundred-krone bills would come in handy, he thought as he swung his legs down from his desk, his gaze fixed on one of the high-rises up on Enerhaugen.
    “Some students have found a bunch of old bones.”
    There was a pause. Bergmann felt a frown crease his face.
    “A ways into the Nordmarka forest,” said Monsen, naming the region in Oslo’s north end popular with residents for hiking and skiing.
    “What sort of bones?” Bergmann asked.
    He straightened up and put his left hand over his ear to block out the city noise coming in the open window.
    “Well, human ones, of course,” said Monsen.
    “Human bones? You sure it wasn’t some old mutt they found?”
    Monsen snorted and Bergmann could hear him lighting a smoke at the other end of the line. He took his time. Bergmann could imagine him, maybe running his finger between his collar and his fat neck with the cigarette dangling from his lip.
    “It would have to have been a damned big dog,” said Monsen. “No, they’re pretty sure they’re human bones.”
    “Don’t tell me they’re medical students.”
    “Bingo,” said Monsen. “Four of them, even. You’re going to have to go up there.”
    Bergmann closed his eyes.
    He didn’t want to go back into the woods. He’d seen a dead body in a forest in 1988, and that had almost done him in.
    But they’re old bones, he thought, grabbing his car keys from the desk. I should be able to handle a few old bones.

CHAPTER 3
    Tuesday, May 29, 1945
    Restaurant at the Hotel Cecil
    Stockholm, Sweden
     
    Kaj Holt fixed his gaze on a couple of young girls strolling along the sidewalk on the other side of the street. They stopped to look in a milliner’s shop window. One of them pointed at something, and the other, a stunning brunette, laughed and put her hand to her mouth. Holt imagined the scent of cheap perfume, maybe lily of the valley, enveloping her. Her hands looked delicate and small, and for a few seconds he envisioned them gripped hard around his naked back. Perhaps she could have given him something to live for, dragged him back to the real world. But what would a girl like that want with a man like him?
    He looked away, directing his attention back to Håkan Nordenstam across the table from him. He nodded from time to time, but otherwise let his Swedish lunch partner ramble on. Something about an Englishman they had investigated during the war. An utterly innocuous case, one of no consequence, which he had clearly brought up just to avoid talking about the important things, the dangerous things, such as the fact that