She put her hand in her pocket and carefully took out the medal wrapped in cloth, as Åke turned on a high-intensity lamp that stood on the table. He watched with reverence as she removed the cloth and took out the medal.

‘Ah,’ he said, holding it in the palm of his hand. He studied it intently, twisting and turning it under the strong light of the lamp, squinting his eyes so as not to miss any of the small details.

‘Where did you get this?’ he asked at last, again peering at her over the rim of his glasses.

Erica told him about the chest that belonged to her mother and how she’d found the medal inside.

‘And your mother had no connection to Germany, as far as you know?’

Erica shook her head. ‘None that I’ve ever heard of, at least. But Fjällbacka, where my mother lived and grew up, is close to the Norwegian border. According to some research I’ve been doing, many local people got involved in helping the Norwegian resistance movement during the war. My maternal grandfather allowed people to smuggle goods to Norway on his boat. Towards the end of the war he even brought back a Norwegian resistance fighter and gave him lodging.’

‘Yes, there was undeniably a great deal of contact between the coastal towns of our two countries during the German occupation of Norway…’ He sounded as if he were thinking aloud as he continued to study the medal. ‘Well, I have no idea how this came into your mother’s possession,’ he said, ‘but I can tell you this much – what you have here is an Iron Cross, a medal awarded for particularly valorous efforts on Germany’s behalf.’

‘Is there any sort of list of people who received this medal?’ asked Erica hopefully. ‘Whatever else one might say about the Germans, they were good administrators during the war, and surely there must be some archive…’

Åke shook his head. ‘No, there’s no list that I know of. There were various grades of Iron Cross; this is what’s known as an Iron Cross First Class and it’s not particularly rare. Something in the region of four hundred and fifty thousand were handed out during the war, so it would be impossible to trace the recipient.’

After all the recent setbacks Erica had been pinning her hopes on the medal. It was bitterly disappointing to come up against yet another dead end. She got up and thanked Åke, reaching to shake his hand. Instead he planted another kiss on her hand and said, ‘I’m sorry, I wish I could have been more helpful.’

‘That’s all right,’ she said, opening the door. ‘I’ll just have to keep searching. I’m desperate to find out why my mother had this medal in her possession.’

But when the door closed behind her, Erica felt utterly discouraged. She didn’t believe she would ever solve the mystery of the medal.

Chapter 32

He was in a haze for much of the transport. What he remembered most was how his ear had festered and ached. He had sat in the train to Germany, crammed together with lots of other prisoners from Grini, unable to focus on anything other than his head, which felt like it would explode. Even when he learned that they were going to be moved to Germany, he had reacted with a dull lassitude. In a sense, the news came as a relief. He knew that Germany meant death. No one knew exactly what to expect, but there had been whispers and hints and rumours about the fate that awaited them. They had been designated NN-prisoners, from the German words Nacht und Nebel – night and fog. As such they would receive no court trial, no sentence would be passed, their relatives would never learn their fate: they would simply vanish into the night and the fog.

Axel had thought he was prepared for whatever might await him when he got off the train in Germany. But nothing could have prepared him for the reality. The train had delivered them to hell. A hell without fire burning under their feet, but hell just the same.

He had been here for several weeks now, and what he’d seen during that time haunted his dreams as he slept uneasily each night, and filled him with anxiety each morning when they were forced to get up at three a.m. and work without interruption until nine at night.

The NN-prisoners had it worse than the others. They were regarded as already dead, and hence were at the bottom of the pecking order. So that there would be no mistake, they all had a red ‘N’ on their backs. The red indicated that they were political prisoners. Criminals wore green symbols, and there was a constant battle between the red and green inmates over who was in charge. The only consolation was that the Nordic prisoners had joined forces. They were spread throughout the camp, but every evening after work they would gather to talk about what was happening. Those who could spare it would slice off a small piece of their daily ration of bread. The pieces were then collected and given to the Nordic prisoners who were ill in the infirmary. They were all determined that as many Scandinavians as possible would return home. But there were many who were beyond help. Axel soon lost track of all the prisoners who perished.

He looked at his hand holding the shovel. It was nothing but bone; no real flesh, just skin stretched over his knuckles. Feeling weak, he leaned on the shovel for a moment when the closest guard happened to look away, but then hurried to resume digging as soon as the guard turned back in his direction. Every shovelful made him pant with the effort. Axel forced himself not to glance at the reason for all the digging that he and the other prisoners were doing. He’d made that mistake only once, on the first day. And he could still see the scene every time he closed his eyes. The vast heap of corpses. Emaciated skeletons that had been piled up like rubbish and were now to be tossed into a mass grave, all jumbled together. It was best not to look. He caught only a glimpse out of the corner of his eye as he strained to shovel away enough dirt so as not to incur the guards’ displeasure.

Suddenly the prisoner next to him sank to the ground. Just as gaunt and malnourished as Axel, he simply collapsed, unable to haul himself to his feet again. Axel considered going over to help the man, but as always the thought was dismissed. Right now all his dwindling reserve of energy was dedicated to his own survival. That was the way it was in the camps: each person had to fend for himself and try to survive as best he could. The German political prisoners were old hands, and he’d heeded their advice. ‘Nie auffallen,’ they said: don’t draw attention to yourself, don’t attempt to escape. The key was to position yourself discreetly in the middle and keep your head down whenever there was any threat of trouble. And so Axel watched with indifference as the guard went over the prisoner on the ground, took him by the arm, and dragged him to the centre of the pit, the deepest section, where they’d already finished digging. The guard then calmly climbed out, leaving the prisoner behind. He wasn’t going to waste any bullets on the man. Times were hard, why waste a bullet on someone who was basically dead anyway? One by one the corpses from the great heap would be tossed on top of him. If he wasn’t dead yet, he would soon die from suffocation.

Axel looked away from the prisoner in the pit and carried on digging in his corner. He no longer thought about everybody back home. There was no room for such thoughts if he was going to survive.

Chapter 33

Two days later Erica was still feeling discouraged. She knew that Patrik was equally disheartened after his attempt to find out what the monthly payments from Erik Frankel had been for. But neither of them was ready to give up yet. Patrik was hoping that something would turn up in the documents left by Wilhelm Fridén, while Erica was determined to continue her research, trying every possible angle until she turned up something.