Trondheim, 1767
I am quite convinced that he has been impaled. Horribile dictu.”
“In other words, the venerable chief physician of the city agrees with my assessment. The young gentleman in front of us was killed in a highly irregular fashion.”
Chief of Police Nils Bayer looked at the gaunt, pale doctor who had helped him turn the body onto its side so they could see the back. He saw the beads of sweat on the doctor’s brow, underneath the new gray wig, which he’d had sent from the royal capital in Denmark only a few weeks ago. A wig like that must be hot in the summer, thought Bayer. He himself only used flour to powder his own hair, which he then tied at the nape of his neck. The Creator had been generous, giving him this much hair. It was at least as voluminous and robust as his enormous belly and his powers of perception.
Bayer thought it said a good deal about Dr. Fredrici that he chose to don his wig when they were the only two present. He shifted his gaze to the corpse. Visible between the shoulder blades was a small circular exit wound.
“I also find it highly implausible that he could have carried out this ungodly act on himself,” said the doctor. “Some object struck him with deadly force in the midsection and then forced its way out, at least partially, through his back. The blow must have been delivered from below, possibly by someone who was either shorter or stood in a lower position.”
“Not necessarily. The weapon could also have been thrust into him using an underhand blow by someone of the same height. Don’t you agree?” said Bayer. “What sort of object do you think we’re dealing with here, Dr. Fredrici?”
“That is precisely what troubles me. An ordinary lance or spear is out of the question. The injuries to the abdomen are too extensive for that. Perhaps we’re talking about a large sword and only the very tip penetrated through the back, at the same time as it caused major wounds in front.”
The two men again turned the corpse on its back. Crooking both his index fingers, the doctor pulled open the stomach wound and studied the entrails.
“Both the colon and ventriculus have been damaged. The weapon then continued upward, missing the vertebrae thoracicae, and then making a small hole in the cutis of the back. All this indicates a one-armed thrust from below. But in that case, I fear that a murderer is walking around the city with hugely powerful arms.”
“What about all the blood in the stomach? And yet the back is clean. How can you explain that?”
“It tells us that the deceased most likely bled to death while lying on his stomach.”
“Ergo, he was lying in a different position from the one than when we found him,” said Bayer, pleased to have confirmed the observation that he’d already made.
“Yes, that ought to be our conclusion.”
“What about his fingers? Can they tell us anything about this cadavre silencieux?”
“Nothing more than that they are still in the process of stiffening. Rigor mortis has set in but has not yet reached its peak, which usually occurs after twelve hours.”
“So the corpse is relatively fresh, as I thought. But take a closer look at the fingers,” said Bayer, lifting the fingertips of first one hand, then the other of the corpse. “Can you see that the fingernails are longer on the right hand, while they’re cut short on the left? And on his left hand, the skin of the fingertips seems abnormally rough. Yet his hands have no scars or injuries. This man did not engage in manual labor. What do you think calluses on only one hand might signify?”
“In truth, I have no idea. But something tells me that you have a theory.”
“In all modesty, I have to admit that a tiny suspicion has been aroused in my otherwise-simple brain,” replied Bayer.
At this point the gaunt physician straightened up and glanced down at the police officer, who was still holding up the hands of the corpse.
“My distinguished chief of police, protector of the city and enforcer of the law, we both know that such modesty is ill-suited to a man of your background, nor is it genuine. Kindly tell me what is on your mind,” said the doctor.
Nils Bayer was a bit offended to be so directly castigated. “As I see it, our cadaver was a musician. He played some sort of stringed instrument, using the fingertips of his left hand to press down the strings as he strummed them with the longer fingernails on his right hand.”
The police chief glanced up to bask for a moment in the admiring gaze of the doctor, then looked down at the corpse again. He let go of the hands and did as the doctor had just done. He pulled apart the edges of the wound to peer inside the abdomen. Just inside the flesh, something caught his attention: a tiny, soft, foreign object. He plucked it out, holding it between his thumb and index finger. Then he straightened up and looked at the chief physician.
The doctor was no longer impressed. He looked disgusted. It’s a strange thing about professional folk, thought Bayer. They couldn’t stand to see untrained individuals doing their job. The doctor could carry out the most unpleasant operations on a human body without causing himself the slightest distress, but if he saw somebody merely touching a corpse like this, he turned pale, as if witnessing the most abominable witchcraft. Nils Bayer ignored the look of reproach.
“What do you think this could be?” he said, holding up the thin, soft, bloodstained object just a couple of inches from Fredrici’s face.
“It looks like a tiny scrap of fabric,” said the doctor, visibly shaken.
“And how do you think something like this ended up inside a naked body?”
“It’s difficult to say. The most likely scenario would be if the victim had been wearing a shirt when he was killed, and the murder weapon tore off a piece of fabric as it entered his body.”
“Are you suggesting that the victim was clothed when he was killed?” asked Bayer.
“Isn’t that what you wish to suggest, chief inspector?”
“That is my conclusion, yes. The victim was killed while clothed. Afterward, his body was stripped and transported here. I wonder why.”
“Something tells me that you have already answered that question,” murmured the chief physician.
“Actually, I haven’t. It’s a mystery to me!”
Bayer gazed out over the dark fjord. He took a hip flask from his waistcoat pocket, took a long swig, and then offered the doctor a drink with an expression that said bibamus, moriendum est (“Let us drink, for death is certain”). Using both hands, Fredrici held the flask in a cruel grip, as if he pictured himself throttling Bayer. Then he emptied the flask in two big gulps.
“It seems as if my presence here has been unnecessary,” said the doctor.
“By no means, my dear Dr. Fredrici. On the contrary, it has been most instructive. What I’m perhaps hoping might be superfluous, at least until times improve, is your fee. You know how limited my funds are as the city’s chief of police. Three hundred riksdaler a year is hardly enough to pay my two officers and finance both an office and a decent home. And when you consider all the crimes that come with the ever-increasing numbers of tradesmen and fortune-seekers . . . I’m certain that you understand my position, and since I know you to be a noble man who gladly purchases medicines to be given free of charge to the city’s needy when disease threatens, I am hoping it will be possible for you, in this instance, to extend your services to the city for the benefit of your own honor.”
“There has never been anything wrong with your gift of speech,” said the doctor curtly.
Then he handed the flask back to Bayer and took his leave without making any mention of a fee. Bayer knew that this time he had gone too far. He knew that the doctor also had trouble making ends meet, that he rarely demanded payment for many of the services he rendered, especially when it came to the truly needy people in the city. And he was planning to sell his country estate and move permanently to a place in the oppressive city air. Bayer was well aware of where the boundaries of common decency lay, and he knew that he’d overstepped them. He also knew that the doctor would quickly forgive him, and that he’d never again hear mention of a fee. But that was not the reason why his stomach was churning so ominously. Above all, he was hungry and thirsty, perhaps mostly the latter. He grabbed his cane and headed back into town. By now the Hoppa might have begun to serve breakfast.
He preferred the Hoppa to any of the other taverns in Trondheim because it happened to have one thing that no other place had. Her name was Ingrid Smeddatter. Her father, a blacksmith, and her mother had both died long ago in a fire, along with all their offspring except for Ingrid, who had been visiting a neighbor when the fire broke out. But Ingrid’s cousin ran the Hoppa tavern, and he’d taken in the orphaned girl. She turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to his business. When she started serving beer, sales increased significantly. Ingrid attracted the menfolk, but she also knew how to spurn the most boorish of the lot. And she was skilled at telling stories, both true and untrue. Right now Bayer was interested in a story based on fact, and he was hoping that she was at work at this early hour.
The Hoppa had only five tables, but they were big, with room for many chairs around each of them. For that reason it was a favorite place for dice games, until the police chief started frequenting the pub. Right now no one was sitting at the tables. Feeling disappointed, Bayer sat down at the table in the back and surveyed the deserted premises. Then he took out a short pipe and a tobacco pouch from the waistcoat pocket not occupied by the flask. He filled his pipe and went over to the fireplace to light it from the embers. Then he went back to the table, slowly sucking on his pipe. In many ways he was not a patient man, but the Hoppa was one of the few places where he chose to hide any sign of irritation. Ingrid deserved as much.
After half an hour he heard someone moving about on the floor above. Then the hatch in the ceiling opened and a ladder was lowered to the floor, not far from where he was sitting. A few moments later, the hem of Ingrid’s skirt came into view as she descended.
He sat at the table, calmly blowing smoke rings into the room. Ingrid was moving more slowly than usual. She fumbled her way down the ladder, as if reluctant to emerge from the night’s dreams, longing to return to her bed. He knew that she detested change. Perhaps that was a feeling shared by everyone who had survived a fire, that the torment of waking up was as great for her as the distress of falling asleep. And that was why she would never marry him.
He watched as she went into the next room, and shortly he could hear the clatter of dishes. Then she carried a big basket of table linens out to the well behind the building. He refilled his pipe, and she didn’t return until he’d finished smoking it. When she came back with a basket filled with dishes, she finally cast a glance in his direction and jumped so hard that she almost dropped the plates and tankards on the floor.
“Sweet heaven, Nils, you nearly scared me out of my wits!” she exclaimed, rolling her eyes.
He cleared his throat. It was something he had to do often if he hadn’t spoken or had anything to drink for a while. His throat felt like it was plugged up with congealed gravy from a bad meal. A terrible cough rattled his chest.
“That cough doesn’t sound good,” she said, coming over to him. “You should get Fredrici to listen to your chest. He’ll know what to do. Maybe you ought to smoke your pipe more often and switch to a stronger tobacco.”
“That’s possible. Or maybe I just need someone to take care of me.”
“Don’t start that again,” she said, setting her basket on the table in front of him.
“One day you’ll finally to have to relent,” he teased her as he stuffed his extinguished pipe back in his pocket.
“Why are you here so early? Usually the whole neighborhood is still shaking with your snoring at this hour. I’ve heard that you even keep the prisoners in the jail awake at night. Is it really any wonder that I never let you spend the night here?”
“Your tongue is already wide-awake, I see,” he parried drily. Then he added, “I’ve come to hear a story. And I’m hoping that you might tell it to me.”
“I know plenty of stories,” she said. “Are you thinking of one in particular?”
“Yes, this is a true story. It’s about a troubadour with long red hair. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d been staying at one of the taverns around here. He can’t have been in the city long, because otherwise I would have recognized him.”
“I think I know the man you’re talking about. He’s been here a few times in the past months. Carrying a big old-fashioned lute. We never heard him play it. He was more interested in the dice games, and as the police chief knows, there’s not much of that here lately.”
“This man . . . does he have a name?”
“Yes, but I doubt that it’s the one his mother gave him.”
“What did he call himself?”
“Jon Blund.”
“Jon Blund? That’s a peculiar name to choose.”
“Yes, a peculiar name indeed. But why are you so interested in him? He was just a vagrant.”
“Because this Jon Blund has turned up down on the shore.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s dead. Do you have any idea where he came from, before he ended up in our city?”
“He claimed to have come from here originally. Said he grew up here as a boy and attended grammar school in town. But his accent and vocabulary seemed to indicate that he’d lived for a long time over to the east. . . .”
“And he never mentioned why he’d come back here?”
“No, but I had the impression that he didn’t give much thought to why he wandered. He seemed to be searching for happiness, in one way or another.”
“I understand. When did you last see him here?”
“It must have been more than a week ago.”
“And do you have any idea where he was staying?”
“I think he’d taken lodgings at the inn over in Brattøra, where the sailors often stay, and where ship’s mate Per Jonsen has started serving beer.”
Nils Bayer got to his feet, moving too fast for his stomach and noticing the twinge along his spine. Then he bowed in farewell.
“You’re leaving without even trying to woo me? This troubadour must have made quite an impression on you, my dear Nils,” she said with a laugh.
The sight of her dimples was imprinted in his brain.
“My lovely maiden,” he said, bowing again as he struck the floor with his policeman’s cane. “I can promise you that the wooing will be as copious as your refusals the next time we meet.”
She laughed—a sound that tore at his heartstrings. Then he left before the laughter faded.
He’d forgotten to refill his flask. He’d also forgotten to ask for a drink while he was sitting there. Now he had to walk all the way out to Brattøra with this growing nausea. He hoped the beer served by this ship’s mate was as good as the rumors claimed.
“A red-haired troubadour named Jon Blund? Yes. He’s staying here. But I haven’t seen him since yesterday morning,” said Per Jonsen, the sailor who had come ashore and opened a pub, although he still clung to his former life, both in style of clothing and personal hygiene. It was said that he never noticed if he wet himself when he was busy behind the bar. Also, he never used perfume. He stank accordingly.
“The reason you haven’t seen him is that he has kicked the bucket.” Bayer glared at the old sea dog. On his way over he’d worked up a sweat and was now out of breath. He’d trod in a big horse apple and soiled one of his newly polished boots. He was not happy.
“How about a glass of beer? I had some full barrels delivered this morning,” said the ship’s mate.
The offer instantly put Bayer in a friendlier mood. He gave a slight bow to indicate his acceptance. A glass overflowing with foam was set in front of him, and he downed it in one long gulp, feeling the warmth spread through the depths of his stomach.
“How about a little smoked sausage? On the house, of course.”
Bayer picked up the sausage, chewing as the former ship’s mate refilled his glass.
“So what you’re saying is that my lodger has departed this life? How terrible! Where did you find him?” asked Jonsen.
“On the beach, out past Ilsvika.”
“What was he doing out there?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. What do you know about him?”
“Not much. He arrived from Stockholm a few months ago with only an old lute, a few daler he’d apparently won gambling somewhere, and the clothes on his back. His money pouch was close to empty, especially since his gaming luck had been so bad the past few days. For a while he apparently earned a few coins by singing for the gentry out at Ringve.”
Bayer nodded.
“Can I see his room?”
“Well, he’s dead, isn’t he? I hardly think he’d mind,” said Jonsen with salt spray in his voice.
Jonsen led the way upstairs and unlocked the door. It was a small, drafty room that bore witness to a simple and restless life. It contained only a bed and a chair on which the lodger could place his clothes. At first glance Nils Bayer noticed two things: The troubadour’s clothing was gone, but his lute leaned against the wall. Then he caught sight of a book lying on the pillow. It was a book in folio format, with soft covers. A notebook. He went over to pick up the book and turn the pages. It contained mostly fragments of texts, little rhymes and clever phrases. In some places musical notes accompanied the texts.
Bayer was not a musical man, and he liked music only in the company of strong drink. He couldn’t say much about the musical notation on these pages. But he could tell that some of the completed texts had a certain distinction and finesse, and that the dead man must have had a talent for the art of words, and at least some amount of education.
One ballad in particular drew his attention. An introduction had been written to the song, explaining that this was not just any ordinary lullaby. It promised that anyone who heard it would fall asleep. In an aside, the author had added that this song would bring him the fame that he deserved, if only he could find the money to have it printed. Bayer read the words to the whole lullaby and had to admit that it was both beautifully poetic and gently humorous.
But the notebook revealed nothing that brought him any closer to why the man had died, this mystery that had begun to fill him with a thirst that was almost as strong as his thirst for beer. He tucked the notebook under his arm, thanked the innkeeper, and left the room. Down by the wharf he found a coach for hire that could take him to the office. He decided he’d walked enough for one day.
The police station was located on the floor below his bedchamber, with an excellent view of the jail across the street. Nils Bayer sat in his office thinking about Jon Blund.
I don’t know what it is about that name, he thought, but it has a sinister ring to it. In truth, a gloomy gray light had settled over this day, while the ungodly forces that had brought the horrors of the day into view remained hidden under a pitch-black veil. He’d opened the police log to write his report, but he realized that these sorts of musings were material for a poet, not a public official. His thoughts were not yet clear enough to be recorded in the log. This seemed to have clouded his mind and made him sluggish. And there was no one with whom he could discuss the matter.
Police prosecutor Sivert Bekk was out at Brattøra to inspect a Dutch ship that had docked the night before. The two officers whom Bayer employed, to whom he paid much too high a wage, were the illiterate and quarrelsome Torsten Reutz and the good-natured Jacob Torp. Both had been sent out to investigate. Reutz was to inquire at all of the city’s taverns to find out whether any brawls had taken place the previous night and, if so, whether weapons had been drawn. Once the occurrence of such an event had been established, the officer was charged with finding out whether anyone had been injured or killed during one of these fights. This had to be done, even though Bayer was convinced that Jon Blund was not killed in a common pub brawl.
The other police officer, Torp, had been told to ask the city’s coachmen whether they’d seen anything unusual during the night, such as passengers behaving oddly or wearing tattered and bloody clothing. Coachmen were often good witnesses. Unfortunately, the police chief had recently beaten a recalcitrant coachman with his police cane so hard that it broke, and the man had borne the imprint of the police emblem on his back for weeks afterward. Not that the coachman hadn’t deserved it. He had behaved shockingly toward Torsten Reutz, who had done nothing more than attempt to mediate in an argument between two coachmen waiting for their masters outside the cathedral one Sunday morning. The mediation failed, and the coachmen wound up in a scuffle. Reutz had found himself with no recourse but to summon Bayer himself, and when the more hot-tempered of the two coachmen hadn’t shown the chief the respect that his office deserved, Bayer had had no choice but to reprimand him. Regrettably, the coachman’s master was a powerful man in town, and he had filed suit against the police chief. The case had not resulted in any fine, but Bayer had lost the cooperation of the city’s coachmen. He was still hoping that Officer Torp, his most loyal assistant, would be able to get some information out of them.
Bayer was thinking about money—a never-ending topic for him. Four years ago, he’d paid the monstrous sum of 2,400 riksdaler to secure the position as Trondheim’s police chief. It was sheer madness, of course. But it was those sorts of whims that governed his life. The loan he’d been forced to take at the time made it completely impossible for him to live on the three hundred riksdaler, the salary that came with the job. For that reason, he’d been fighting a long battle to be paid one skilling for every barrel of salt and grain that came into the city, such as the police chief in Kristiansand was allowed. He had also traveled all the way to Copenhagen to appeal to the king to increase his income by other means. But the chief administrative officer had refused to give him more. Bayer’s last accounting showed that after he’d paid the interest on his debt and the wages of his officers and prosecutor, as well as the other expenses of the police station, he would be left with an annual income of thirty riksdaler. Trondheim’s police chief was living in poverty, and he could only dream of ever starting a family of his own.
The police station consisted of one room with two desks, four chairs, a bookcase that held the police logs, and two windows that faced the street. The walls were bare timbers. The room also had one door, which had just opened. Torp’s round face and worn clothing came into view. Torp was a pious man with a large family. Bayer liked the man simply because, in spite of much digging, he’d never been able to find anything negative on Torp.
“The coachmen refuse to cooperate,” said Torp.
“Our good Lord and Savior! Do you mean to tell me that they’re still brooding about that incident?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“And here I thought that the city’s coachmen had memories shorter than a fly’s. By God, I’ll change their minds. Where’s my cane?”
Bayer got up from his desk and took a quick swig from the flask that he’d filled with poor quality aquavit at the pub in Brattøra.
“Bunch of damned riffraff!” he grumbled. “Where are they now?”
“A lot of the coachmen are over on Munkegata, where a dinner has apparently been arranged for the city’s gentlemen. Not that I have any particular grasp of what’s right or wrong in such cases, and no one can say that I don’t have full confidence in the police chief’s judgment in every matter, but wasn’t it your cane that got us into this rather unfortunate situation to start with?” Torp ventured timidly.
“That may be, but let me tell you, I was not nearly generous enough with the blows I delivered. Those damned coachmen have no respect! This case won’t be solved until they’ve got the seal of the city pounded into their skin, one and all. Ah, here it is.”
Bayer strode across the room and grabbed his police cane, which was leaning against the wall next to the door. Then he threw on his coat, stuck the flask in his pocket, and left before Torp managed to voice any other objections.
On the doorstep, Bayer tripped and fell. He landed on the cobblestones on his stomach, knocking the air out of him. Furious, he tried to get up, but then he realized how exhausted he was. He fumbled in his coat until he found the flask. Then he slowly rolled onto his back and shook out the last drop. As he drank, something broke loose inside him. He felt tears welling up and was unable to hold them back. Those fucking coachmen, he thought. Fucking troubadours, fucking womenfolk, fucking life. Weeping, he got to his feet. There was now a hole in the right knee of his trousers. Then he picked up his cane and began slamming it against the ground. He kept on until it was completely shattered. The police emblem, the handle with the city’s coat of arms, flew across the street and landed in the gutter. Then he opened his mouth and the contents of his stomach gushed out of him.
He went back inside, not to the office, but up to his room. There he washed the vomit from his mouth with water that had been left in a pitcher from the day before. He filled the chamber pot to the brim, then went over to the window to empty it before he sank his heavy body onto the bed. Only sleep could bring him peace.
“Chief!”
No more than an hour could have passed, and no dreams had managed to enter Bayer’s hazy slumber before he was awakened by Torsten Reutz.
Bayer mumbled words that even he didn’t understand and sat up. Instinctively he reached for his flask, but then remembered it was empty.
“I hope you have a very good reason for disturbing my deep ruminations,” he said.
“Some would say that peace and order are more important than contemplation, for a police chief,” said Reutz, that shameless lout. Bayer always wondered if he ought to fire this swine who drank more than he did and was insolent and coarse in every way. And he would have if Reutz hadn’t proven so useful when it came to collecting fines and dealing with dishonest shop owners, or loose women who sold their wares from illegal stalls.
“What do you want?” Bayer growled, noticing that the gravy in his throat had once again congealed. He stretched and then took out his pipe and tobacco pouch from his waistcoat pocket.
“A brief report and an additional piece of information that I think will interest you,” said Reutz, spitting on the floor.
“For God’s sake, can’t you see the spittoon over there?” Bayer pointed to the corner near the window.
Reutz ignored the remark.
“It was quiet in the city last night. Not a single brawl to speak of. But in a pub on Bakklandet, I made an interesting discovery.”
“And what was that?” Bayer noticed that his curiosity was stronger than his annoyance.
“A Swedish gentleman took lodgings at the inn. He was apparently exceedingly well-dressed, in the latest fashion, as if he’d come straight from Paris. This gentleman inquired of the innkeeper whether he knew of a red-haired troubadour.”
“Heavens! That is interesting. And where might he be now?”
“He wasn’t in.”
“Good. I suspect that a distinguished gentleman such as himself probably would not speak to anyone other than the city’s police chief.” Nils Bayer got up from the bed. He was just one small dram away from being in a very good mood.