Outside the iced building, where a glossy sign shouted OUD data, a straight-backed, smart-looking man in a suit was waiting. He marched straight over to the passenger door of the Vento and opened it for their guest.
‘Professor Ernst Herschel,’ he said, holding out a hand.
At the sight of Arto Söderstedt he froze. It was just for a brief second, but long enough for the detective within Söderstedt to react. Since Herschel’s face immediately returned to normal, he decided to wait and see what happened.
It didn’t feel especially good.
After all, it wasn’t long since he had been told: ‘I must admit it was something of a shock when you walked into the room.’
With that at the back of his mind, he climbed out of the car and looked over to the candied building.
‘This is what it looks like now,’ Ernst Herschel said in a casual tone. ‘The new times are taking over, airbrushing everything else into golden oblivion.’
Then he jumped into the back seat. Söderstedt clambered back in himself. The Vento drove off.
‘We’re heading south towards the Hochschule für Architektur und Bauwesen,’ Herschel explained. ‘I still have my old study there. I’m from the university town of Jena, twenty kilometres to the east. There’s no real university in Weimar, but there are some smaller colleges. One of them rented out rooms for our research.’
The car passed the enormous castle, which looked as though it belonged somewhere else, in a much bigger town. Or why not an empire?
And then they arrived at the Hochschule für Architektur und Bauwesen. As they wandered up a staircase which seemed as though it was drenched in fine old traditions, Arto Söderstedt wondered what the architecture college staff had to say about the iced building in the vicinity.
They came to a cold but elegant study. Elena Basedow set the coffee machine brewing before disappearing out through the doorway.
Assistant staff, Söderstedt thought, sitting down in his assigned seat. Herschel sat down behind the desk.
‘I’m very rarely here these days,’ he said. ‘The final stages of the Pain Centre work are taking place in the Department of History in Jena.’
He held out a list to Söderstedt.
‘I just faxed this off to Stockholm. A list of all staff and all conceivable people who, during the research period in Weimar, might plausibly have heard of… the nature of the experiments. You can have one too. There you go.’
‘Thank you,’ said Arto Söderstedt. ‘And thank you for your cooperation in general. It’s been invaluable.’
‘Your colleague Kerstin Holm managed to convince me. I must admit, I was initially rather sceptical. I still don’t quite understand it all. She said something about a league of some kind, wreaking havoc around Europe with nails like this?’
Herschel opened a drawer in his desk and took out a long, thin, sharp, rusty nail. He handed it to Söderstedt.
‘Jesus,’ Söderstedt said, taking it from him.
It had a heavy legacy, that much was clear. He almost struggled to lift it.
‘Yes,’ he continued as he turned the nail in his hands. ‘That’s right. But we’re having real trouble working out who they are.’
‘The Erinyes,’ said Ernst Herschel.
Söderstedt observed him. Had Kerstin really told him that? Had they got on so well?
Herschel went on:
‘According to the legend, they become Eumenides when Athena civilises them. They’re brought into a modern society, governed by law. Do you think something similar is going to happen now?’
‘Is there a modern society governed by law for them to be incorporated into?’ Söderstedt asked.
Herschel stared at him for a moment. Then he started to laugh, loudly and almost savagely.
When the fit was over, he said: ‘There was one thing I forgot to tell the charming Fräulein Holm. Speaking of a modern society based on law. Do you know what the Pain Centre’s three figureheads were given as a salary bonus?’
Söderstedt had no idea.
‘Dental gold,’ said Herschel.
He paused.
‘They shared their victims’ belongings. Dental gold was the most important source of income. They seem to have collected a considerable amount of it. The more Jews they killed, the more gold they earned. It was an art.’
Söderstedt felt sick to his stomach. Eventually, he spoke.
‘One thing struck me. You faxed a fairly abundant amount of material on Anton Eriksson but you said you also had files on Hans von Heilberg, the head of the centre. I don’t think that material ever made it to Stockholm. It never reached me, at least.’
Herschel nodded. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I probably only sent the Eriksson material. Here is Hans von Heilberg’s file.’
It appeared as though on demand.
Söderstedt paused for a moment before looking through von Heilberg’s file. He was quite sure of what he would find.
He took a deep breath and dived into the file.
He found it immediately. So simple, so obvious.
‘Heilberg, Hans von. Born 18.7.08 in Madgeburg. Father of noble German birth, mother of noble Italian birth. Bilingual.’
It didn’t seem necessary to read on.
Hans von Heilberg was Marco di Spinelli.
That was that.
Mentally, Arto Söderstedt was already en route to Milan. He pushed the papers back over to the surprised Herschel and was just about to get to his feet when he remembered something.
‘Oh, I forgot,’ he said. ‘Stockholm, they told me that the photograph of the third man was badly affected by the fax transmission. It would be good if I could see it.’
For a moment, Ernst Herschel froze. The exact same movement as he had made before. Marco di Spinelli’s voice echoed through Söderstedt: ‘I must admit it was something of a shock when you walked into the room, Signor Sadestatt. You truly do remind me of someone I knew an eternity ago, back in the beginning of time.’ And he saw an image, a photograph of an imposing-looking man anchored in a snowdrift, his hand gripping a sabre. The picture wasn’t only impressive, it was also familiar.
Strangely familiar.
He sighed deeply as the photograph of the Pain Centre’s third man was held out to him. He knew he would see himself.
And sure enough, he did.
The man in the picture was Arto Söderstedt himself.
A shiver passed through him.
‘A remarkable likeness,’ said Ernst Herschel.
Arto Söderstedt jumped to his feet and rushed out of the room.
36
ON THE PLANE between Leipzig and Milan, he finally managed to put his thoughts into some kind of order. By then, the worst of the fury and the worst of the horror had abated.
But everything was utterly clear.
There was no escaping it.
He felt as though he had been driven out of Paradise.
In Finland, Finnish SS men enjoyed the same rights as all other war veterans. Since the Finnish Winter War had been fought against the invading Soviet Union, it was natural that members of the resistance had turned to the USSR’s enemy, Germany. Many of the fighters from the Winter War had later joined the SS. There were always plenty of commemorations.
Just over a year ago, an international scandal had blown up when the society for the memory of the fallen announced plans to build a memorial for the Finnish and German SS men who had died in battle in Ukraine. Only recently, the Jewish community in Helsinki had protested against a special event. The Finnish veterans had invited their German counterparts to an SS memorial event. This raised all kinds of questions about whether Finland should really be sending official invites to German SS veterans, old German Nazis from the organisation responsible for the systematic elimination of millions of Jews in Europe.
It was all a bit too much for the Jewish community to stomach.
But there was, in other words, nothing unusual in Finnish fighters from the Winter War having links to the Nazi SS. They were officially sanctioned as war veterans by the Finnish government.