through it properly before the university froze me out. You see, there’s a correspondence file in the Ministry of Finance, its economic intelligence section, and it’s to do with Quisling and the Nazis, but it’s marked as a top secret file from the Ministry of Internal Security—all their records were destroyed at the end of the War, so it’s priceless . . . ”
“So?”
“Well,” she sighed. “It’s this name Lindhorst . . . it’s bothered me from the beginning . . . it rings a bell . . . I think I may have seen the name somewhere in that file.”
“I thought you said it was just like MacDonald?” he said wearily.
“I know,” she said, “But the more I thought about it . . . And I think Nielsen mentioned the name too—it was all a bit garbled . . . There’s some funny connection between the Lindhorsts and the von Merkens.”
“Well, we know that,” said Fraser. “A historical one. The portraits . . . And the graves.”
“Graves?” Eloise eyed him curiously.
“Didn’t I mention it?—we were too busy talking about Nielsen!”
Fraser summarised his findings.
Eloise raised her eyebrows when he told her that Sophia von Merkens was a Lindhorst. “Curiouser and curiouser!”
“It’s just a case of persistent intermarriage, that’s all!” he said, shrugging. “Common amongst the upper classes . . . Listen, I’m not really sure where all this is going?”
She frowned. “Nor am I. But I’ve got to go back to that file . . . Look, you’ll enjoy the day exploring Oslo! Enjoy it while it lasts!”
Fraser was, in truth, not in the mood for sightseeing; he felt rather under the weather. It was inflamed where the bird had pecked; perhaps he should have sought first aid. And his nerves were bad; for reasons he could not explain he felt anxious about Eloise, though she was patently capable of looking after herself. He passed a depressing, desultory day, flitting from one attraction to another, unable to focus upon any, even the splendid municipal gardens. The final hour he whiled away in a bar, sipping an outrageously priced lager, awaiting five o’clock, when he had arranged to meet his daughter outside the National Archives Office.
A commotion of some kind surrounded the elegant nineteenth century building, set back in leafy grounds. Traffic was being diverted, blue lights flashing, the sound of police klaxons. The oscillating wail of an approaching ambulance charged the crisis atmosphere. Fraser’s pulse quickened. A large crowd had gathered outside. Yellow- jacketed police bunched around the shrubberies in front of the building. His way was barred by a burly officer, shooing voyeurs away.
“An English girl, some kind of attack,” declared a large American woman, catching his mute entreaties. “I thought it was safe to walk the streets here! I’m from Atlantic City!”
Fraser moved too quickly for the officer, who shouted after him as he ran to the rescue scrum in the bushes.
Eloise was lying in a gathering pool of blood with half her face missing.
Once his identity had been established, the police began asking questions. The ambulance had arrived too late to be of use, if it ever could have been. A doctor at the morgue assured him the severed jugular would have been sufficient to kill outright, quite apart from other ravages; it must be the work of a maniac, someone gone berserk. Nevertheless, Fraser’s every movement that day, every detail of their trip, were checked and double- checked; and the detectives were very inquisitive about Eloise’s purpose in the Archives. A silver-haired, distinguished-looking man in his sixties was introduced to him: Dr. Olaf Müller, Curator of the National Archives. He had questions too.
“Your daughter, Mr. Campbell, it appears, stole something from the Archives, though if this has anything to do with her killing, we are not sure.”
A senior officer, of pale blue eyes and unsmiling face, continued to stare right at Fraser, a radar ready to detect every wayward blip.
“Do you know anything about your daughter’s work, Mr. Campbell?” continued Müller, “She was a professor once at Kristiansand? . . . For example, does this document have any sense to you?” He extracted from a briefcase several sheets of mottled paper printed in old-fashioned type.
Fraser stared blankly at the Norwegian text. The thick type swirled before his eyes like arcane hieroglyphics.
“Sorry, Mr. Campbell, I will try to summarise . . .
“These papers were found concealed on your daughter’s body at the scene. They were clearly hidden to get past our rather poor security . . . This document, it is from 1942, the War? . . . It has the name of a big Swedish arms manufacturer . . . The Swedes, you know, were neutral in the War? This was, what is the phrase—? A double-edged sword! This firm, you see, Mr. Campbell, it traded weapons to the Nazis . . . and, I’m afraid, much, much worse . . . ”
He tapped the papers before him.
“The company,” he went on, “it still exists today, it is multinational now, very famous, though under a different name . . . and it is not good news, this document, for their reputation . . . for international relations . . . or some politicians in Norway and Sweden . . . So we wonder what your daughter was doing, Mr. Campbell? Maybe working for a newspaper?”
Fraser had ceased to listen; a faded photograph had slipped from within the pages of the document in Müller’s hand. It showed top-hatted dignitaries celebrating. There was one face he had seen before—or some-thing very similar. It was remarkable how the same grotesque features reconfigured: as arcane beauty in the female, phenomenal ugliness in the male . . .
“The signature here, Mr. Campbell,” continued Müller, glancing over his gold bifocals, “is the head of the family firm in those days, who you see there in the company photograph with Nazi businessmen in Munich . . . ” He was pointing to a man with formidably high cheek bones and an ugly jutting jaw. “Cornelius Lindhorst, Managing Director of Råbäck Chemicals. A powerful man!”
“Are you feeling alright, Mr. Campbell?” exclaimed Müller, dropping his papers. The silent officer moved forward to steady him as he swayed.
Fraser had arisen from his chair in a great agitation. He was staring behind them, beyond the desk at which they sat, towards the tall third-floor windows.
His interrogators didn’t seem to be aware of the frightful fluttering outside, the scratching at the panes, the darkening of dreadful wings.
INSIDE OUT
ERZEBET YELLOWBOY
Gretchen’s dreams were drenched in forests, luminous and thick. In them she ran until she faded and dissolved, a spill of black ink ever thinning on the surface of a bright moon. That moon, which also shone in her dreams, was fading now as the sun slowly burnished the landscape beyond her open window. Sheer curtains wavered as the day’s first breeze touched them. The hem of one caressed Gretchen’s face as she slept. She pushed it away and watched as mist was swept from the field by a broom made of eldritch light. She did not need an ephemeris. Her blood knew what this night would bring.
She had the day, she thought. Might as well make the most of it; her sisters would insist. They shared an old farmhouse on the far edge of town, rented it from the owners who gave up their crops many years ago. The house was run down, the shingled roof sagged and paint flaked from the wooden siding. Behind it, unkempt fields spread out, sometimes spitting up stalks of corn in late summer. Gretchen’s older sister, May, had her own small garden where lettuce, onions, tomatoes, beans and other greens Gretchen cared nothing for grew wild, almost, for May was a lazy mistress to her own crop. She worked hard, she said, at the grocer’s in town, and besides, rain and sun did most of the growing for her.
Gretchen twisted her black hair in a knot, wishing for the thousandth time for the courage to cut it all off. Her sisters would murder her and she knew it, especially Molly, youngest of the three women. Molly’s hair had never known scissors; she abhorred them. Her hair hung to her thighs in a thin wash of amber, straight as a carpenter’s
