'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.
'I do everything I can,' he declared as though reading my thoughts. 'Please believe that, Mr Gansert. I have represented your company for fifteen years here in Norway. I work with the resistance. I build up contacts even while the Germans are here and Britain is losing the war. I do not often fail in anything. But this — this is something very strange. There is important business involved, I think.'