Just beyond the quay lay the yellow skeleton of a boat. Five men were working on it. ‘They are using nothing but axes?’ Jill said.
‘That is so,’ Dahler answered. ‘They use nothing but the axe. That is the way the Vikings build their boats. And up at Fjaerland they have always built their fishings boats that way. They can make carpets from local wool and stockings and jerseys — all by the method and in the pattern that they have always used. Nothing is new here — except the hotel and the steamers.’
We ran past a little wooden church, past the hotel, half-hidden in trees, and in to the wooden piles of the jetty. ‘Is that your partner’s boat?’ I asked Sunde, pointing to a small tock-a-tock lying just beyond the quay. But he shook his head. His partner hadn’t arrived and as though that were an omen, I suddenly had the feeling that things weren’t going to go well.
I left the others and went up to the hotel alone. A waitress in national costume of black with embroidered bodice and frilled lace blouse stood in the entrance hall. ‘Is Mr Ulvik in the hotel?’ I asked.
She shook her head and laughed. ‘Et oyeblikk sa skal jeg finne eieren.’
I waited. There were tiers of postcards, all of ice and snow and violent, blasted crags. Behind the porter’s desk hung handmade rugs in brilliant colours, belts stamped out of leather and strange shaped walking sticks. On the desk were several pairs of slippers made by hand from what I later discovered to be reindeer. They had originally been made by the inhabitants for walking on frozen snow, but were now produced for the tourist trade on which the village lived. In a corner of the hall were piled rucksacks, rope, climbing boots, ice axes and a pair of skis. The atmosphere of the place was so different from the islands.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs. I looked up. A short, fat little man hurried towards me. He wore a black suit and white collar and looked as out of place as a clerk in a gymnasium. He held out a white, podgy hand. ‘You are Mr Gansert, perhaps,’ he said. There was a gleam of gold fillings in his wide smile.
‘Are you Mr Ulvik?’ I asked.
‘Yes. That is me.’ He spoke English with a slight American accent. ‘Come. We will go into the lounge. You have had tea?’
‘Not yet,’ I said.
‘Then we have some tea.’ He took hold of my arm and led me into a room where walls and ceiling were delicately hand-painted. The place was empty. ‘It is early in the season,’ he said. ‘Fjaerland is too cold yet. The hotel is only just open.’ He ordered tea and then said, ‘Now Mr Gansert, I must tell you that I have not got what you want. Our application for the exhumation of this man, Bernt Olsen, is — how do you say it? — quashed.’
‘Quashed!’ I exclaimed. ‘Why?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I do not know.’ The waitress came in with a tray laden with cakes and buttered toast. When she had gone, he said, ‘First, everything goes well, you understand. I see the doctor at Leikanger. We go to the police. They say there will be no difficulty. They take a telephone to Bergen. I am in Leikanger all yesterday. The application is granted and I make the necessary arrangements. And then, just as I am leaving to catch the steamer, the police tell me the arrangements must be cancelled. They have the telephone from Bergen to say that it has been decided after all that there are no reasons for the exhume.’
‘Look,’ I said angrily. ‘I told you I didn’t care how much it cost. Did you get on to the lawyers at Bergen?’
His white hand with its fat little fingers caressed my arm as though he were a doctor soothing a fractious patient. ‘Please believe me, Mr Gansert. I do everything that is possible to do. I telephone our lawyers. I telephone to a man very high in the police at Bergen. I even telephone Oslo, to one of the members of the Storting. But it is impossible. Something is blocking it. It is against policy, I fear.’
Against policy! That could mean only one thing. Jorgensen had used his influence to prevent the exhumation. Why? That was what puzzled me. Why was he scared to have Farnell’s body exhumed? Had the man been murdered? And had Jorgensen had something to do with it? I drank my tea in silence, trying to figure it out. Jorgensen wouldn’t directly involve himself in a thing like that. But where big money was involved I knew these things could happen — they could happen in England and they could happen in Norway. ‘Who is blocking the application?’ I asked Ulvik.
‘I do not know,’ he answered. ‘I try to find out. But everyone is very careful. I think somebody very important.’
I looked at him. He fidgeted nervously under my gaze. Had he been bought? But I dismissed the thought. I didn’t like him. But he was the company’s agent. And the company was shrewd enough not to employ foreign representatives who could be bought. But still, the money might be bigger than usually available for bribes.
