Quickly, she added, “The farm on the fjord that the tour visits. The man and his wife are in on this with Carl. They collect the things for him.”
“I know,” said Kari sadly. “I know it all. And yes, Erik was helping them, too.”
Pix didn’t know what to say and the two sat in silence for a moment.
“It’s a very hard thing to find out someone you love, someone you planned to spend your life with, is a weaker person than you thought. Not a bad person, just a weak person. I didn’t find out what was going on until this tour. I was putting my knapsack in the closet on the boat in the staff room, when it slipped from my hands and fell against the back wall. The wall fell forward and I found all these suitcases filled with antiques. I put everything back and told Erik. He told me not to say a word, that he would think what to do. I assumed it was the captain. I was always a little afraid of him, that bushy black beard, and he never said much.
“I was after Erik to tell the police and let them figure it out, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He said it would be bad for the company. Finally, I decided to call my friend Annelise, who is working at the museum in Bergen, and see if she knew of any recent robberies from a museum or someone’s private collection. That’s why I called my grandmother.”
“But you never called Annelise.”
“No, when I was on the phone, Carl came to get me, and he must have overheard me ask for Annelise’s number. He knows her, too, from last winter, when she was living in Oslo. He told me to hurry onto the train; then he talked to Erik and told him he had to keep me quiet. For insurance, he called Sven, who got on the train at Myrdal.”
The train. The stage was set. All the characters were on board.
“Carl told us to sit in the other car. He said that there wasn’t room in the tour’s, but there was. Erik tried- again to convince me that we shouldn’t get involved, that it was none of our business. He didn’t say it was Carl who was doing this. Then finally, he told me everything and we had a big fight. I lost my temper and said things I would give the world to take back. I never thought they would be some of the last words I would say to my Erik.”
“What did he tell you?” Kari was going to need a great deal of time to heal. She’d had a week alone in this dark cell to obsess about it. Now Pix wanted to get the facts, then get them out.
“Toward the end of last summer, Carl asked Erik to put some things in his knapsack and give them back to him when they got to Bergen, where Carl was taking the ferry to Newcastle. You know, there is very little security on it and Carl—now Charles, with his British passport—was well known to the British customs people. They always waved him through with whatever he had. I don’t know why he involved Erik. He’s an evil man and I think he wanted to control Erik, have something on him, corrupt a good person. He paid him well and Erik did it again. I asked him why he didn’t come to me if he needed money, not that I have much, but he could have had it all. He said I didn’t understand. I said it was dishonest and that he had to stop. I told him that I was going to tell the police unless Carl gave everything back. Erik said that would be stupid—people had already spent the money Carl had paid for the things and they didn’t want them anyway. What was the harm? he kept saying. I couldn’t believe it. It seemed like we were talking for hours. One of the women on the tour came into our car—a nice person, Mrs. Feld —and I was embarrassed that she might have seen us quarreling. When she left, I started to cry. I couldn’t make Erik understand. Finally, he said he did and he’d go along with whatever I said, but not until after the trip was over. He didn’t want to upset the tour. I had to be content with that, and it might have ended there, but Carl was nervous. Sven came along and began talking alone to Erik. I had met him on the first trip when we went to his farm and I was surprised to see him on the train, but I assumed he was just coming from Oslo like everyone else.”
“Then what happened?”
“Erik came back to the seat looking very pale and very scared. Sven had threatened him. Erik begged me to promise I wouldn’t say anything about what Carl was doing and he, Erik, would stop immediately. He was so agitated, I got scared, too. ‘What is it?’ I kept asking. Then he blurted out that Sven was working with Carl and was picking up some Viking silver from someone the last day of the tour. He said if anything messed that up, he’d kill us.”
“Viking silver! What would that be worth?” For Carl, it would mean a hasty retirement as tour guide and a life of ease on some nice square in London. Of that much, Pix was certain.
“It would depend on what there was, but at least a million dollars.”
No wonder Sven’s threat had been so severe. From his sixties mode of dress and simple life on the farm, it had appeared that he was not caught up in material possessions in the nineties, but care he did—and the fancy boat had been a dead giveaway, Pix reminded herself. He and his lovely young wife would never have to make
“But what farmer would have anything to sell from the Viking times? Wasn’t it all buried in graves?” Pix was thinking of the three large ship burials on the east coast, particularly the Oseberg find, a Viking woman’s tomb, perhaps Queen Asa of Vestfold’s, with its rich treasures. A find even half the size of this would have made international headlines and been impossible to keep secret.
“The Vikings did put their goods—things that would be needed in the afterlife—in the ship burials. But they didn’t put in many silver ornaments or coins. These were considered part of the family’s wealth, like the land. After all, what use would someone have for these things in Valhall? Or maybe that’s just what they told themselves.” Kari gave a slight laugh.
Practical people, like their descendants, Pix reflected—why waste a perfectly good amulet, especially when silver was a scarce commodity.
“So what did they do with it?”
“They did bury the silver, but in hoards—secret hiding places. Every once in a while, someone comes across one of these. It can be in coins, ingots, jewelry.”
“And instead of turning it over to the proper authorities, this person is passing it along to Sven and Carl. No wonder they wanted to keep you quiet until the end of the tour.” And that’s why Kari and she had been locked up. When Carl heard Kari ask for Annelise’s phone number, he’d suspected Kari was onto him, and he had taken drastic, immediate steps.
“Exactly. They will all be wealthy men. But Erik, to his credit, didn’t want any part of it after Sven told him— and he told Sven this. ‘Viking things are different,’ Erik said. I don’t think he realized that the other antiques they were taking out of the country were as important to our history as the Viking find. He thought of them as common objects that everybody had around. He really didn’t know very much about it. But he thought the Viking silver should stay in Norway. Now it was a crime. Before it was just getting around a stupid law, like…well, brewing your own beer.
“When we were getting close to Kjosfossen, he had decided to slip off the train in Voss and tell the police, even though it meant he would have to confess what he had done. I was very proud of him.”
Pix was glad that Kari had this last memory. Erik had been weak and foolish, yet he had resolved to do the right thing. She could always remember that.
Now they were coming close to the moment of his death. Pix wanted to find out—and didn’t. She took Kari’s hand. It was a lot warmer than her own.
“The train stopped so people could take pictures and we got out to answer any questions or provide help. It was also our job to be sure no one was left behind. We were always the last by the waterfall. Carl and Sven came close behind us. I was very scared, but Erik wasn’t. I think it was because there were so many people and he thought, What can they do to us? He knew he was going to the police, but they didn’t, and of course he wasn’t going to say anything. Then it got horrible. Carl was totally crazy. I had never seen him this way. By that time, we were the only ones left. Carl began to scream at Erik for betraying him, for telling me. He said he thought of Erik as a brother, but that he was not to speak to him again, except when he had to. Then he began on me, said that I was a whore and no man would ever have me for a wife. Erik told him to stop, but he kept going. Sven just stood to the side, saying nothing.”
Pix could imagine the scene very well. She remembered Carl’s transformation, the sudden flare of temper at the Glacier Museum as he berated the other guide. Mother had said he was a passionate person. She had been right.
“Carl began to laugh. ‘The joke is on you, Erik.’” Kari lowered her voice. “He said, ‘I know for sure what she’s like, because I slept with her!’ Of course it was a lie, and I yelled this to Erik, only he pushed me aside and went for Carl. Sven tried to break it up, but he tripped and fell. Carl pushed Erik away. The train was starting to move. And
