Fraser was besieged by an unutterable desolation, an anxiety bordering on terror; a feeling, almost, of physical malaise. He glanced into the brooding gloom of the encroaching forest, imagining voracious eyes . . . What a terrible place to die! . . .
Rapidly, he retreated—out of the glade, over the gate, back to the sanctuary of the gardens. He found himself on an elevated path, lined by a laurel hedge. The path was veering right, away from the direction of the lake, back into the woods; the direction did not feel right. The red-circled notice confronting him was unambiguous: Adgang Forbudt!
The map confirmed matters: here the path entered the red zone; he should have been lower down. It looked quicker, though, to proceed now straight ahead, through the wood, and pick up an alternative track that would bring him to the front of the house, to its courtyard.
In less than a quarter of a mile the trees thinned. The way back to the house, however, was less obvious than the map suggested. To his right was an ascending path; ahead, on a natural elevation, partly obscured by bushes, was an intriguing structure. He hesitated, then curiosity triumphed over caution. Curving steps led up through straggling shrubbery to a high stone wall, inset by an ornate metal gate. Another sign confronted him: Gravelund. Privat! Adgang Forbudt!
Fraser stepped up towards the gate.
Two luxuriant shrubs, of an exquisitely ghastly beauty, overhung it, forcing him to stoop. They were of a species he could not identify. Twisting copper boles with striated bark rose up into olive-shaded evergreen foliage. The blossom was remarkable, as if illumined from within. The thickly-bunched outsize scarlet flowers had splayed-back petals and prominent stamens. The blooms were exotic, outré, almost horrible; they exuded a pungent aroma, swiftly transforming from the delightful to the disagreeable. Most disgusting were the strange appendages that hung from the lower branches, two on one shrub, one on the other, like cocoons of thickly-matted straw.
The graveyard, evidently a family burial ground, resembled nothing so much as a walled garden run to seed. Wisteria and ivy clambered riotously up the walls, choking bedraggled fruit trees. Most of the graves were flat slabs, tangled with briars, weathered, neglected. There was no funerary ornamentation, not even so much as a simple cross; doubtless, the Norwegians took all this business more soberly. Fraser perambulated idly, casting his eye over the inscriptions.
The graves were arranged in strict order of decease. The name Lindhorst, he noticed, featured on quite a few. Here at the very end of the line was the resting place of Sophia von Merkens: it, too, bore above her married title the name Lindhorst. Though his knowledge of the language was limited, he guessed the lengthy dedication on her stone outlined her lineage. Inscribed also was, presumably, her place of birth—somewhere in “Sverige;” the slab was badly chipped, the exact location obscure, except for the initial letter “R.”
It was a cheerless place, even in the bright sunshine. Fraser, moreover, could not shake off a sensation of being observed, which he could only put down to his act of trespass. On the rising slopes above, dark spruces loomed. The way back to the house, he recalled uneasily, had yet to be discovered. Time was already short. Hurriedly, he departed.
Brushing past the outlandish shrubs, he was distracted by a surreptitious movement in the densely tangled branches; something glittered in the shadows. The wings of whatever it was he had aroused whirred disagreeably towards him, and, in the seconds that it took him to think the bird extraordinarily large, he felt its beak slashing at his face. He fell back, protecting his eyes. The bird soared up above the graveyard wall with an eldritch cry, vast as an eagle. As he left, he saw to his distaste that in the fracas one of the cocoons had burst; perhaps the creature had been feeding. Whatever was teeming in the yawning crannies, he didn’t wait to look.
It took a disconcertingly long time to find his way back to the house, and he could not shake of an irrational fear that the bird might reappear. It had drawn blood, but only slightly so, beneath the left ear. By the time he reached the courtyard, the last of the party had gone. There was no minibus. It was almost an hour before he got back to the boat. There was no sign of Eloise.
Guests were already at the tables before his daughter arrived. She looked pale and perplexed.
“Sorry about this, I . . . ” Eloise gave a mirthless laugh. “Well . . . I got lost!”
“Lost?” replied Fraser, incredulous. “Anyway, any luck?”
“Well, yes and no,” she said uncertainly. “Look, let’s have dinner, and we’ll talk about it later.” She was trembling.
“Are you all right?” he asked, concerned.
She gave another hollow laugh. “I had a bit of a fright, that’s all. I wasn’t going to tell you.”
“You mean because of Nielsen?”
“No, no!” she said. “It was after I left Nielsen . . . ”
She hesitated, as if still weighing up whether to say more, then proceeded, very deliberately, as if retracing the memory in her own mind.
“By the time I got away it was getting late. I took a shortcut across the park, instead of going all the way back round. I was glancing up towards the house, thinking how lovely it looked in the evening sun. Then I saw something . . . An animal . . . Running down from the direction of those woods. I thought for a minute it was a fox—from the colour—but it was too big. As it got closer I decided it was some kind of a dog—but an unusually large one. There were sheep grazing—maybe it was rounding them up, or worrying them, or something. But it ran right past! . . . It must’ve been only a few hundred yards away before it dawned on me that it was coming for me! . . . Its eyes! They seemed to be blazing in the sunlight! . . . I don’t think I’ve ever been so terrified in my life! . . . It was a bit like one of those huge German shepherds—you know the type, all shoulders and no neck, shaggy fur—but that’s not what it was!”
She shuddered.
“To be honest, I’ve no idea what it was! . . . I just went into a panic and ran, no idea where I was going. I ended up on a driveway coming down from that old wooden church . . . Luckily, there was a car passing—the minister actually—and he offered me a lift.”
“Did he see it?” exclaimed Fraser. “Didn’t you tell him what you saw?”
“I began to, but, I don’t know, I suddenly didn’t want to, it sounded silly. Anyway, it had disappeared . . . I know this sounds ridiculous, but the last time I looked back I could have sworn it was running on hind legs!”
“Nonsense! It was probably just a farm dog loose, that’s all,” he said, dismissively. “Some kind of Scandinavian breed.”
“Dog loose or not,” she snapped, still trembling. “You know I can’t stand the damned things! . . . This was no bloody farm dog!”
Over dinner their conversation avoided matters unpleasant. Fraser enthused about the afternoon’s botanical treasures, saying nothing about his own encounter with the bird. The business of the dog was dropped. His daughter, he noticed, ate with little relish and drank considerably more wine than was her wont.
Fortified by coffee and cognac, as the Edvard Grieg bore them down the silent fjord, they relaxed at last in the bar. Eloise returned to her tale.
“Nielsen was a servant in the von Merkens household during the War. A lot of what he said I couldn’t quite get—he spoke in a curious dialect, and it was all very rambling. I’d like to think what he said was the ravings of senility, or alcohol. But there were too many plausible details. Anders von Merkens, as I’ve long suspected, was a collaborator. Quisling and other leading Nazis were frequent house guests at Rødal, where Sophia was famous for hosting lavish parties. One night there was a terrible massacre, exactly as Akerø said.”