Chameleon People

I

It was ten past nine on Sunday, 19 March 1972. Following an early breakfast, I was now sitting in an interview room at the main police station, opposite the young lad we all presumed was the murderer.

I asked for a third time if he wanted a lawyer or to talk to someone from social services.

Again, he dismissed my question with a flap of his thin hand, which otherwise remained flat on the table between us.

The first two times I asked what he was called, he just gave me a condescending look and did not answer. The third time he replied with a heavy lisp: ‘You’ll find out soon enough.’

We still had no idea who the mysterious boy was. He had nothing with him to give any indication of his identity. No parents, or anyone else, had called to enquire after him. His fingerprints had not been recognized in any records.

It was clear that the boy on the red bicycle heard my questions and could make himself understood, despite his speech impediment. His attitude to me seemed to be positive. And yet he just sat there and stared at me, his face completely blank. And he continued to do this when I asked, yet again, where he lived and what his parents’ names were.

I went a step further and asked: ‘You said yesterday that he was dead when you came back. Does that mean that you spoke to him, then went away, only to return and find him dying with a knife in his chest?’

The boy nodded. There was a faint glow in his eyes.

‘In which case, why did you take the knife with you? And why did you then come to me?’ I asked.

The glow in his eyes went out. He looked at me with a resigned, almost patronizing expression. There was something reprimanding in his look, but I could not understand why. I started to wonder whether I was dealing with an imbecile, or if this was an intelligent person who, for some unknown reason, did not want to say anything.

I told him that if he was innocent, being so uncooperative and unforthcoming was not making it any easier for us to help him.

‘You’ll work it out anyway,’ was his curt reply.

Then he demonstratively averted his gaze and looked out of the barred window. He nodded almost imperceptibly when I told him that he would be taken back to his cell now, but that he should reckon on more questioning in the course of the day. He did not even flinch when I said that his situation was very serious indeed, and that it would be in his own interest to be more cooperative next time we met.

II

As promised, I went to my boss’s office when I had finished questioning him. I was mildly irritated to discover that Detective Inspector Vegard Danielsen was also there. I greeted him curtly, then sat down and turned towards my boss and reported on the case.

My boss listened attentively.

‘A most remarkable tale indeed. We can take it as a positive thing that you are now so well known that he came to you to give himself up.’

My boss gave me a bright smile and shook my hand in congratulations. I glanced over at Danielsen, who was fidgeting restlessly. He spoke as soon as he had the chance.

‘The pressing question here, somewhat originally, seems to be the identity of the murderer, rather than who committed the crime. Though I am sure the mystery will be solved as soon as someone calls to report him missing. It would, however, be preferable if we could have it cleared up before tomorrow’s papers. If you like, I could try questioning him to see if I have any more luck than you.’

I certainly did not want Danielsen to get involved in any way, but I found it hard to think of an argument to counter his suggestion. However, I had little belief that it would lead to anything.

So I gave a brief nod and a forced smile, then looked at my boss with raised eyebrows.

He seemed to have read my mind.

‘Let’s not worry too much about the newspapers, especially as the culprit has to all intents and purposes already been arrested. But we still do not know his identity or his motive. If you, Danielsen, try questioning the suspect again, and you, Kristiansen, go to talk to the victim’s family and take a photograph of the young man with you, then, hopefully, we can start to unpick both matters.’

It was a compromise that both Danielsen and I could live with. Rather unusually, we nodded in agreement, then stood up and left the office without exchanging a word.

III

The address given for Per Johan Fredriksen in the National Registry was in Bygdøy. He was sixty-five years old when he died, and he had been married since 1933 to Oda Fredriksen, who was two years his junior. It said in the registry that they had three children: Johan, who was thirty-five, Ane Line, who was thirty, and Vera, who was twenty-six. Vera was recorded as still living in Bygdøy, whereas Ane Line had moved to Høvik, and Johan to Sognsvann.

I made a note that the youngest child resided at home and that the two eldest lived alone. Then I picked up the phone and dialled the number given for the address in Bygdøy.

The call was answered on the third ring by a woman who said: ‘Per Johan Fredriksen and family.’ Then there was silence. And then a quiet sob on the other end.

I introduced myself and gave my condolences. Then I explained that the suspected killer had been arrested, but that the police still needed to talk briefly to the deceased’s closest family.

The voice on the other end of the receiver was hushed and tearful, but clear all the same. The woman said that she was Per Johan Fredriksen’s wife, Oda. Unfortunately, she had not been able to contact her eldest daughter by telephone yet, but was currently at home with her two other children. They would, of course, help the police as much as they could with regard to the investigation, but nothing would bring her husband back. It might be best if I could come to see them straightaway, she said.

I promised to come immediately and make my visit as brief as possible. She thanked me rather vaguely and then we both put down the phone.

On the way out, I checked whether there was any news on the arrestee’s identity. But there were still no answers. I took a few photographs of him with me, as well as a growing concern about the lack of developments.

IV

I knew that Per Johan Fredriksen had been a successful businessman and was reputed to be one of the richest politicians in the Storting. But I still had not expected his home to be anything like the property in Bygdøy.

The given address turned out to be a big farm, though I neither saw nor heard any animals. With the exception of two very modern cars parked just inside the gates, the big lush garden and main house, with surrounding outhouses, were not dissimilar to a painting by Tidemand and Gude in the nineteenth century. The driveway from the gates to the main house was more than fifty yards and felt even longer. As I walked up to the door, I wondered what on earth the connection between the boy on the rickety red bicycle and the lord of this manor could be.

The door was opened by a blond man of around my age and height. His handshake was firm. He was to the point: ‘I am Johan Fredriksen. And my mother and youngest sister are waiting in the drawing room.’

I searched his face for signs of emotion at his father’s death, but found none. My first impression of Johan Fredriksen was that he was a sensible and controlled man. We walked in silence down the unusually long hall and up the unusually wide stairs to the first floor.

The room that we entered was very definitely a drawing room. I quickly counted seven tables dotted around it and reckoned that it could easily hold about a hundred guests. But today there were only four of us here, and none of us were in a party mood. The gravity of the situation was underlined by the fact that we sat under a large portrait of the now late Per Johan Fredriksen. The painting was signed by a well-known artist and was a very good, full-size portrait. Per Johan Fredriksen had been a broad-shouldered, slightly portly, tall man, who now towered majestically above us on the wall.

Oda Fredriksen was a straight-backed woman who carried her sixty-three years with dignity. She got up from the velvet sofa and briefly shook my hand. I could feel her shaking as she did so and she quickly sank back down into the sofa. My first impression was of a very composed and fairly robust person, who was visibly shaken all the same. I found nothing surprising about that, given that she had lost her husband of many years very suddenly and brutally the day before. I then held out my hand to the third person in the room. Instantly, I got the impression that she was even more affected by the death.

Vera Fredriksen was very different from her mother. She was about a head shorter and had an almost graceful lightness to her movement. If she had been wearing a nineteenth-century ball gown, I might have mistaken her for a fairy-tale princess, given the surroundings, and described her as very beautiful. As it was, she was wearing a rather plain green dress, her face was white as chalk, her hands were shaking and she was chewing mechanically on some gum. She appeared to be more of a neurotic than a princess. And she seemed to get even more nervous when I looked at her for more than a few seconds.

I swiftly turned my attention to her brother. In contrast to his family he was, apparently, unaffected by his father’s death.

‘So, here we all are, at your disposal. As I am sure you understand, we are still somewhat shaken by my father’s passing,’ Johan Fredriksen said.

The effect was almost comical, as he said this in a steady voice and neither his face nor his body language showed any sign of upset. But his mother’s expression helped me to remain serious, so I focused on the widow when I spoke.

I once again expressed my condolences and told them, without mentioning the episode in my flat, that the suspected murderer had been arrested with a bloody knife in his pocket as he fled the scene of the crime. We believed that the suspect was a minor, but had so far been unable to establish his age or identity. Any motive for the killing was therefore also unclear. It was thus very important for us to find out if there was any kind of connection between the family and the arrestee.

I handed the police photographs to Oda Fredriksen. She studied the pictures, but then shook her head and handed them on to her son.

Johan Fredriksen looked at the picture with the same blank expression and said: ‘Completely unknown to me too,’ then handed them across the table to his sister.

The young Vera’s hands were shaking so much that she dropped two of the photographs on the floor. She picked them up, then shook her head firmly. ‘Never seen him before,’ she said, and handed them back to me across the table.

We sat in silence for a few seconds. It was Fredriksen’s widow who spoke first.

‘As you have gathered, the young man in the photograph is completely unknown to us. I can guarantee that he has never been here. However, you should know that my husband led a very busy life, and we only knew a fraction of the people he met. The fact that we don’t know the young man does not mean that he did not know my husband in some way or other. For us, Per Johan was always a good and kind family man. He wanted to spare us all his work-related worries. The boy could be a tenant in one of his properties for all we know, or an aspiring politician from one of the youth organizations. Though he does look rather young. Could he simply be disturbed, or perhaps it was a case of a robbery gone wrong?’

I told them the truth. It was unlikely to have been a robbery, as Per Johan Fredriksen’s wallet, complete with notes and coins, had been found in his pocket. However, the culprit had provided very little information, so the possibility that he was a disturbed individual could not be ruled out. And the option that the murder had been carried out in sheer desperation could not be ruled out either.

Once again, there was silence in the big room. It felt as though we were all thinking the same thing: that it was highly unlikely that Per Johan Fredriksen had been the victim of a random killing, no matter how disturbed the murderer might be.

I said that as a matter of procedure, I had to ask about the contents of the deceased’s will.

His widow replied that she had last seen it only a few months ago and that there was no possible explanation there. The will was simple and straightforward: she herself would receive two million kroner and the right to stay in the house for the rest of her life, and the rest of his wealth would be divided equally between the three children. There were no small allowances for anyone else that might give them a motive for murder.

In response to my question regarding the value of the will, the widow said in short that in the course of her nearly thirty-nine years of marriage she had never discussed the business with her husband and that she had no idea of the current or earlier value of anything.

She looked at her son as she spoke. So I then turned to him as well.

‘I’m afraid I don’t know the details of my father’s business operations either, but we did talk about it earlier this year. He estimated then that the total value of his assets, property and companies was somewhere between fifty and sixty million kroner,’ he said, in the same steady voice. He might have talked about a fifty- or sixty-kroner Christmas present in much the same way.

It seemed that this information came as a surprise to the other two.

‘I thought it was a lot, but I had no idea that it was that much,’ his mother said. Her daughter nodded quickly and chewed even more frantically on her gum.

I noted first of all that the deceased’s family seemed to keep secrets from each other, about things that other people might deem to be important. And, secondly, that the unexpected death would in no way benefit the presumed suspect, but the deceased’s children each stood to gain at least 15 million kroner. This was a large enough figure to give them all a motive – but, as yet, I could not see anything connecting them to the murder.

I said to Johan Fredriksen that I presumed it was he who now had the job of documenting all the assets and dividing them.

‘Yes, I will start on it first thing tomorrow morning, with the help of my father’s accountant and office manager.’

I asked him to inform me immediately if anything cropped up that might be relevant to his father’s death.

He replied: ‘Of course.’

His mother asked me to contact her as soon as there was any news regarding the young man’s identity and motive.

I replied: ‘Of course.’

Then we sat in silence again. This four-way conversation felt rather fruitless. I thought that I would far rather speak to them one by one, but did not want to suggest that right now and had not prepared any questions. So I went no further than asking the children what they did.

The son’s reply was succinct: ‘I am a qualified lawyer and work as an associate in a law firm.’

The daughter’s reply was even shorter: ‘I’ve studied a bit of chemistry and a bit of history of art.’

This was a most unusual combination, but I saw no reason to pursue it now. So I had one final question, which was why Per Johan Fredriksen, who had his home in Bygdøy and his office in the Storting, had been at Majorstuen the night before?

I did not expect the question to cause any tension or drama. After all, as a politician and businessman, Per Johan Fredriksen might have been in the area for any number of reasons.

However, my query was met with absolute silence. Vera Fredriksen looked even paler and chewed even more frenetically and her mother sank even deeper into the cushions and sofa. It was certainly not my intention to upset any of them. So I turned to the still unruffled Johan Fredriksen.

‘Strictly speaking, we are not sure why my father was at Majorstuen yesterday evening,’ he said, in the same voice, but with more deliberation.

‘But you have an idea?’ I guessed.

Johan Fredriksen did not answer. He looked questioningly at his mother. I turned to her too. As, I saw out of the corner of my eye, did Vera Fredriksen.

The widow gave in to the pressure of our combined attention. She let out a quiet sigh, and sank a little more into the sofa, then said: ‘No, we don’t know. But she lives there, so it’s reasonable to assume that he was either on his way to or from his mistress.’

These hushed words blasted into the otherwise still room like cannon fire. The picture that had been painted of Per Johan Fredriksen as a kind family man exploded in front of my eyes, though his smile in the portrait on the wall was just as friendly and reassuring. His wife’s mask fell at the same time.

‘You mustn’t think badly of my husband. We all have our weaknesses. And his only weakness that we knew of was this, his physical attraction to younger women and consequent breaches of the wedding vow. He had so many other good qualities that we forgave him this.’

The son and daughter both nodded. Suddenly the family appeared to be united.

I found the situation vaguely uncomfortable, but also increasingly interesting. And I heard myself ask whether that meant he had had several mistresses.

Oda Fredriksen sighed, but she sat up when she answered. ‘My greatest failure as a wife is that I did not keep my looks well enough to stop him from falling into the arms of younger women. But my greatest triumph is that he always came back to me, and remained my husband until death parted us. Yes, he did have more than one mistress. But for the past few years, there has only been the one in Majorstuen – as far as we know. Surely there is no reason to believe it has anything to do with my husband’s murder, and I hope that as I am grieving, I will not need to spend a lot of time and energy thinking over this. Most of all, I hope that the papers will not get wind of it.’

The latter was said in a choked voice.

I realized that the topic was very difficult for Mrs Fredriksen on a day like today and I did not want to bother her with any more questions. However, I was increasingly intrigued by the clearly complex man in the painting above me and was not as certain that his mistress had nothing to do with the case. There could well be a link, for example, if his mistress happened to have a teenage son with a speech impediment.

So I said I would leave them in peace to mourn and that there was no reason why this aspect of the deceased’s private life need reach the press. I was, however, obliged to ask for the mistress’s name so that I could rule her out of the case.

‘I have chosen not to know her name or anything else about her. But it is quite possible that my children can help you there,’ the widow replied with another sigh.

I looked questioningly at her son. He took a visiting card from his wallet and wrote down a name and address on the back of it.

‘I have never been there or seen the woman. My father wanted me to know who she was in case anything unexpected should happen,’ he explained curtly, and handed me the card.

I took it and read: Harriet Henriksen, 53B Jacob Aall’s Street. The name was completely unknown, but the street was familiar to me and was undeniably in Majorstuen.

I found it interesting that not only did Per Johan Fredriksen have a mistress, but he also had had reason to think that the unexpected might happen. So, having said goodbye to his family and walked back down the long drive, I drove directly to his last known mistress.

V

In sharp contrast to Per Johan Fredriksen’s green and pleasant home in Bygdøy, 53B Jacob Aall’s Street was a grey, tired building in Majorstuen. I quickly found H. Henriksen on the list of inhabitants and rang the bell three times without getting any response. But then, as I turned to leave, the intercom crackled to life. ‘Who’s there?’ asked a quiet, tense woman’s voice.

I found the situation awkward, but had a murder investigation to follow up. So I looked around quickly, then whispered that I was from the police and that I had some routine questions to ask her in connection with a death.

There was a few moments’ silence. Then the voice said: ‘Please come up.’ She did not sound entirely convincing, but I could understand that she might not be in the best frame of mind today and that the last thing she wanted was a visit from the police.

There was another little surprise waiting for me when the door to the flat on the second floor opened. I had obviously underestimated Per Johan Fredriksen and had assumed that his current mistress would be at least forty-five. But I was wrong. It was not easy to guess Harriet Henriksen’s age, but I would not have protested if someone said that she was thirty. Her movements were soft as a cat and there was not a wrinkle on her smooth face, which gave her an almost doll-like appearance.

We shook hands briefly in the doorway. Her hand was small, but it was supple and firm. And from what I could see, given her plain black dress, the rest of her body was much the same. When I looked more closely, I could see red blotchy patches under her eyes. I caught myself thinking that Per Johan Fredriksen had either been very charming or very lucky to find himself such an attractive young lover at his age.

Harriet Henriksen put the security chain back on the door behind us and showed me into the living room. I could see that she lived in a simple and tidy flat that was modern and equipped with a TV and washing machine. There was no sign of anyone else living there.

On the other hand, there was plenty of evidence that Per Johan Fredriksen was there rather a lot. A large photograph of him hung alone on the hallway wall, and another photograph of the two of them was up in the living room. Seeing him again was unsettling, especially as these were the only photographs adorning the walls. One wall was hidden by an upright piano and the others were covered by bookshelves, landscape paintings and a couple of tapestries. The door to the bedroom was open and through it I could see a double bed made up for two. The most striking thing that caught my attention in the living room, however, was a large, framed photograph of the two of them, which was standing on the table beside an almost burnt-down candle. Per Johan Fredriksen had his arm lovingly around her shoulder. They were both smiling at the camera.

‘That was in Paris,’ she said suddenly. As if that explained everything. ‘We could never show our love publicly here in Oslo. He was too well known. But we had two days together in Paris last summer and there we could walk around and be lovers without any worries. They were two of the happiest days of my life. And now they are all I have to live off for the rest of my days.’

She had not asked me to sit down, but I had done so all the same. We were sitting on either side of the coffee table, with the photograph and candle between us. And we looked straight at each other. She had the darkest brown eyes I had ever seen.

‘I first heard about it on the news last night,’ she said, without prompting.

Just as I had. I could suddenly picture it. He had been here, kissed her goodbye and left. She had, perhaps, like me, stood by the window and watched her beloved go. Then she had sat down alone and switched on the radio to listen to the news, only to collapse suddenly when she heard the announcement that he had been stabbed. I was oddly convinced that that was how it had been.

‘So, he was here with you yesterday?’ I asked, to the point.

She nodded. She looked away for a moment, out of the window. Her eyes almost accusing the world.

‘Per was a very complex man and often appeared different in different settings. Politically, he was more conservative than me. I still thought that he was credible on TV and in debates, if somewhat boring and reserved, but he was completely different when he was here with me: open, humorous and even passionate. We could talk about anything, even that. And he always said that I was the only one who could see him for what he really was, the only person he could really be himself with. He said I brought out the best in him in a way that no one else could. He often came here on Saturday afternoons, between work and the family. And yesterday, he once again left the world behind and sought refuge with me for a few happy hours. We had both been looking forward to it all week. And as usual we experienced complete happiness and joy. I asked if he could stay a bit longer. And he said that he had to go back to his office at the Storting to check some important news about something he was working on before going home to his family. I accepted it, as I always did. I watched him walk away down the street and I was alone when the news that he had been stabbed was announced on the radio. It felt like the ground opened beneath my feet. In a split second, I fell into a cold, dark cellar I didn’t even know existed. I, who have never believed in a God before, was prostrate and prayed that Per Johan would survive, until it was then announced on the late-night news that he had died. I have been here alone at my table weeping ever since, not even so much as a phone call, until you rang at the door.’

As soon as she started to speak, the words just came tumbling out. There was a strange, almost compelling intimacy and intensity about this woman and her voice, which made me inclined to believe every word she said. I felt no physical attraction to her, but, all the same, I could well understand why Per Johan Fredriksen had.

I was still not entirely convinced that she had no connection to the murder. So I asked Harriet Henriksen if she had any children.

She shook her head vaguely and I noticed the light catch a tear in her left eye.

‘No, no. I don’t have any children and I guess I never will now. In fact, I don’t have any family at all. I never had brothers or sisters, and my parents are no longer alive. I only had Per Johan, and we never had the children I hoped we might. That was my fault. Last night I went over it a thousand times. If I had just done as he suggested, I would still have a part of him. But now I’m thirty-seven and completely on my own with nothing to live for.’

She stood up abruptly, wringing her hands. Then she took two turns around the table before sitting down opposite me again.

‘So, what you are saying is that he was willing to have children with you, but you said no?’

‘Yes and no. The biggest question of all was the only thing we disagreed on. I wanted to have children and to marry him. He was willing to give me a child and to look after both of us, but he was not willing to get divorced. It was less out of consideration for his wife than for his children, especially his youngest daughter, who suffers from nerves. He feared that a divorce might drive her completely mad or even to suicide. But she’s grown-up and, what’s more, intelligent and well educated. Personally, I thought she would cope. I truly wanted us to have our own children, but I did not want them to grow up without a father. It was the only snake in our paradise.’

‘Yesterday as well?’ I asked.

She nodded. There were tears in her eyes.

‘Yesterday as well. It was the last thing we talked about before he left. And we couldn’t agree yesterday either, and it will haunt me now for the rest of my life. But I thought when he left yesterday…’

Her voice broke. She turned towards the table. A tear spilled over from her left eye to leave a small dark patch on the light-wood table.

‘When Per Johan left yesterday, it seemed he was closer than ever to taking that final plunge. I had renewed hope that everything would work out and we would actually have our own love child. I felt light as a balloon – but then it all popped when I heard the news on the radio that he had been stabbed. I hoped for the best for as long as I could, but really I knew that Per Johan was dead before I heard it on the last bulletin. I suppose you just feel it when you love someone as much as I did.’

She spoke in a quiet, intense voice. As if by magic, the candle between us went out when she stopped talking. We sat spellbound in the silent gloom.

Then I hurried to ask some routine questions. Her answers were clear and prompt. She was born in 1934 to a Norwegian father and French mother and had grown up in Oslo and Paris. She came from a family of musicians and had studied music and art in Norway and France, without having ever made a breakthrough as an artist or a pianist. She had met Per Johan Fredriksen at an exhibition he had opened in the autumn of 1966, and despite the difference in age had quickly realized that he was the love of her life.

He had called the next day to ask if they could meet again, and she had said yes immediately. They had started a relationship ‘only a few days later’ and had been meeting once or twice a week ever since – nearly always at her flat and often on a Saturday. She had lived on money inherited from her parents, but largely on presents from him. She had never asked him for money. But he had paid the rent for her, and she always found a few hundred-kroner notes when he had gone.

I knew that she would not receive so much as a krone in her dead lover’s will. So I asked, with as much tact as I could, how his death would affect her life financially.

She turned up her palms and shrugged indifferently, then replied: ‘It won’t be easy, but it doesn’t feel that important. I am going to give myself a week to grieve and then start to think about what I can, and have to, do for the rest of my life. I certainly can’t continue to live here now – alone in what was our universe… alone in what was our universe.’ She repeated the short sentence thoughtfully.

The words echoed in my head for a while afterwards. I found myself wondering if I would still be able to live in my flat if I had heard on the radio that the love of my life had been killed. It was not a pleasant thought. But, fortunately, it was interrupted when Harriet Henriksen started to speak again.

‘Something that feels more important here and now… What actually happened when he was killed? Do you know who did it and why?’

I told her the truth: that we had arrested a young man whom we were fairly certain had committed the crime, but, as yet, we did not know what he was called or what his motive might be.

I took out the photographs of the boy on the red bicycle and put them down on the table between us. I feared they might produce an emotional response, but there was no visible reaction.

Harriet Henriksen sat quietly and looked at the pictures. She narrowed her eyes, but said nothing. Then she shook her head. ‘I’ve never seen him before. But it’s strange, I feel no hatred when I look at those photographs. And I would, if he killed my darling.’

We sat and looked at each other. She suddenly seemed more relaxed, but her gaze did not waver.

‘I can’t be sure. I am not a religious person, but I am a people person. I think I would feel hatred if he had killed Per Johan, and I feel nothing. You can see that he is not happy, but he doesn’t look evil enough or strong enough to commit murder. No, I really don’t think it was him who killed Per Johan. Did anyone see him do it?’

I said nothing and thought for a moment or two. Then I replied slowly that no one had witnessed the actual murder, but the young man had first been seen in conversation with Per Johan Fredriksen, and then been caught running away from the scene of the crime with the murder weapon in his pocket. It would most certainly be a strange tale if he was not guilty.

‘You are absolutely right. But there is still a considerable difference between being strange and being guilty, even though they are often confused. So no one actually saw him killing Per Johan. I don’t think he did it. And I would be grateful if you could tell me who did, if you manage to find out one day.’

I had a growing appreciation of why Per Johan Fredriksen had been fascinated by this remarkable woman. But I also realized that, for the moment, she was not able to help me any further with the mysterious circumstances surrounding her lover’s death.

So I offered my condolences once again, assured her that the investigation would keep all possibilities open, promised to contact her as soon as there was any news, and asked her to stay in town for the next few days in case we needed to question her further.

Harriet Henriksen’s reply was short: that until her beloved had been buried, she had nowhere to go, nor any reason to do so. And as if to illustrate this, she remained seated by the coffee table and the burnt-out candle as I got up and left.

VI

I was back at the main police station by half past twelve. Danielsen was nowhere to be seen, but my boss was sitting in his office with the door open. He waved me in as soon as he saw me.

‘Danielsen has questioned the suspect again. And despite applying considerable pressure, he got nowhere. The boy adamantly refused to answer any questions. Danielsen found this extremely provoking and is even more convinced of his guilt. He believes that the only question of any real interest is whether the murderer should be sent to prison or a mental hospital. And I am inclined to agree. So we decided that Danielsen could go home at the end of his shift. The lack of identity and motive remains a problem and I would like you to focus on that for the rest of the day.’

I immediately agreed to this. My impressions from the meeting with Harriet Henriksen were being diluted by the light of day and her conclusion now felt like no more than unqualified speculation, so I did not bother to mention it to my boss. However, I was less convinced than Danielsen about the boy’s guilt. But I was quite happy to be allowed to carry on working on the case without Danielsen interfering – and without being asked to divulge my thoughts on the case.

The switchboard was remarkably still, but there was a growing number of journalists calling in from different papers. No one had as yet called to report anyone missing or to leave any other message that might help to identify the boy on the red bicycle. It was more and more mysterious. The boy was, as far as anyone could tell, Norwegian and he was a minor. Despite a speech impediment, it was clear that he spoke with an Oslo accent. If he had parents, it seemed very odd indeed that they had not reported him missing. If he lived with other relatives or in a children’s home of some sort, it was equally odd that no one had contacted the police.

I guessed it was only a matter of time before someone would enquire about him. If nothing else, someone might recognize him if we published the photographs in the papers. But like the boss, I wanted the question of his identity to be solved before they went to print. I was finding it increasingly difficult to believe that the young man did not have some kind of connection with Per Johan Fredriksen. It seemed too incredible to be true that such a well-known politician should be randomly stabbed on the street.

I was sitting in my office pondering on the identity and motive of the killer when my phone rang. I heard the familiar and annoyingly slow voice of one of the switchboard operators. She said that I was about to be transferred to a lady who had asked to speak to the person in charge of the Per Johan Fredriksen investigation immediately. I was, of course, curious as to who it might be and why she had called. It was not long before I knew.

‘Good afternoon. My name is Ane Line Fredriksen and I am the eldest daughter of the late Per Johan Fredriksen. My mother has only now been able to tell me that you wanted to talk to me as soon as possible. So, here I am,’ she said.

I was slightly taken aback by her briskness. I expressed my condolences and said that it would certainly be good to talk, if it was not too much of an inconvenience for her.

‘Not at all. My daughter is with my ex-husband in Hamar and I have to pick her up around seven o’clock this evening. So it would be best if we could meet as soon as possible. Would you like to come here or should I come there?’

Her tempo left me breathless, but it was also refreshing to meet such a dynamic and outspoken member of the family. So I said that I was currently in my office at the main police station and perhaps it would be most practical if we could meet here.

‘Of course. I’ll be there in a quarter of an hour,’ Ane Line Fredriksen said, and put down the phone.

I sat with the receiver in my hand, wondering what she looked like. And how many more people this investigation would involve.

VII

Exactly sixteen minutes later, Ane Line Fredriksen was shown into my office, as she looked around with obvious curiosity. I could not see much resemblance to her mother or siblings, but I knew it was the woman from the telephone call even before I heard her voice.

Ane Line Fredriksen was just over five foot six, and one of those modern women who was solid without being fat. The most striking thing about her was her mane of red hair, and the second most striking thing was the alertness of her distinctive blue-green eyes. She also differed from the rest of her family in clothes and style, in that she was wearing jeans and a denim jacket, and her blouse was unbuttoned at the top. My initial impression was that I would like her best of all.

This theory was not weakened in any way by her unusually firm handshake. She barely took the time to sit down before she leaned towards my desk and said impatiently: ‘So, what is it you would like to know?’

I briefly told her about events the evening before and the arrest of the boy on the red bicycle, and that that was all we knew about her father’s murder so far.

Ane Line Fredriksen continued to lean forwards and listened intently as I spoke. She had a bad habit of taking in the room, which annoyed me slightly, but otherwise my impression was very positive.

She gave a quick nod a couple of times, but still said nothing when I had finished my account. I therefore took out the photographs of the arrestee and put them down on the desk. She immediately studied them with interest, but then shook her head in visible disappointment.

‘I have never seen him before. I would have remembered, because it does not look like he has had an easy life. Are you sure it was he who killed Father? Why on earth would he do that?’

So I told her straight: we could not be certain that it was the boy who killed her father, and if it was, we did not know why he had done it. There was much to indicate that it was him, but he had not confessed and we had no eyewitnesses to the murder itself.

‘How intriguing,’ she said.

I did not detect any great sorrow at the loss of her father in the otherwise very nice Ane Line Fredriksen. And apparently she saw my surprise.

‘I understand that it might seem a bit strange that I am not more upset. I am actually easily moved at funerals and the like. But we come from very practical farming stock, my father was an elderly man, and we were not particularly close any more. Though I have to say he was a very good father when we were little. We got whatever we pointed at and had more time with him than many other children had with their fathers. But once we grew up he became busy with his politics and business. I never really knew him as anything other than a family man. When I saw him on the television I always thought he was too conservative in his politics and didn’t show enough sympathy for people less well off. He was also conservative in his values. First, he didn’t like the man I married, and then he didn’t like the fact that I got divorced.’

‘He had just left his mistress when he was killed yesterday,’ I said.

‘That never really bothered me. Father’s women are something we have had to live with since nursery and this one was very discreet. So we knew about her, but never saw her. Have you met her? What is she like?’

Her boldness took me by surprise. I managed to blurt out that she was a thirty-seven-year-old pianist who made quite an impression, before I saved the situation and said that at present there was nothing to indicate any connection between her and his murder. His mistress stood to gain nothing from his death. On the contrary, she would, in fact, be worse off.

‘I thought about that on the way here. His mistress has no rights and won’t be left a penny, whereas my brother and sister and I will inherit all the money. It’s unfair, really.’

That was the first time I could ever remember hearing an heir say that they were getting too much. And it was also the first time that I had heard anyone express any sympathy for a woman their father had betrayed their mother with.

I was struck by an unfamiliar thought, that I was now sitting talking to a multi-millionairess. So I remarked that the purely financial aspect of the case did not play much of a role here.

Ane Line Fredriksen stretched in the chair with slow, deliberate movements, like a gigantic ginger cat. For a moment I was worried that she might start moulting. Instead she leaned forward again.

‘Well, that is not strictly the case. My siblings and I have never been poor. But as you may have heard, it suits us all rather well to get our inheritance now.’

I had not heard any such thing and immediately asked her to elaborate. She did not need to be asked twice.

‘Well, Johan has always been aware that he is the eldest and also the only son. So he has always been the one with the greatest ambition with regards to money and the like. Since he graduated, he has wanted to start his own law firm and invest in property himself. Father never entirely trusted him and did not want to pay out the inheritance early. The atmosphere at Sunday lunch two weeks ago was tense, to say the least.’

I noted this down and asked why her younger sister needed the money now.

‘Vera is another story altogether. My father’s constant concern and care for her is perhaps the best illustration of what a good father he was. Vera has undoubtedly the best head of us all, but is also the one with the weakest nerves. She gets frightened if the wind blows, faints whenever she’s startled. She has excellent qualifications, but no one really believes she’ll ever be able to work. I’ve said to her so many times that she just needs to believe in herself and get out there. But she doesn’t dare to. So she has a master’s degree in chemistry, but just mopes around at home and doesn’t even try to find work. And as far as I know, she’d never kissed a man before she was twenty-three. You can imagine the rest.’

I had to admit that I actually could not imagine the rest. She sighed with forced exasperation.

‘Well, when Vera turned twenty-three, she met a man with whom she fell in love and is now in a rather disagreeable relationship. He’s a very liberal Dutchman who was studying in Norway, although he did not do as well as her. He has an almost obsessive ambition to start an art gallery in Amsterdam where he can sell his own paintings and those of his bohemian friends. He wants a million or four in start capital, and my father was not, of course, willing to lend it him. The Dutchman is a bit suspect and Vera is terribly inexperienced and naive when it comes to love. It could end very badly. So, it would suit her very well to get some money right now.’

‘And you? What about yourself?’

‘I struggled more with books than Vera, so I stopped studying. I started to work in politics and in a shop when I was twenty-one. But at the moment I can’t work because our society doesn’t offer childcare to single mothers who want to work, and I had to pay my former husband a small fortune to get him out of the house. Father simply refused to pay for his only grandchild to lose one of her parents. He also felt he could not give me any of my inheritance without doing the same for Vera, and he certainly did not want to do that. So my only option was a bank loan which I’m paying interest on. I can get by, but a few million wouldn’t go amiss right now.’

‘And what about Johan’s family situation?’

‘Johan is more of a businessman than a charmer. He has always been well off, but never any good at going out and spending his money. Since he turned thirty, he has made it very obvious that he wants a family, but any attempts to get one have not ended particularly well. Although, we have not heard mention of it for a couple of years now. He is still unmarried and childless, but I think he might have something on the go at the moment. I have always had a good relationship with him – even though we are very different and he is rather boring – and last time we met at our parents’, he told me that he might have a good deal in the offing, as he put it. I realized there was something he did not particularly want to talk about, so now I am waiting with bated breath to hear what the problem is this time. It’s just as interesting every time.’

She stretched unabashed in the chair again – and managed to surprise me once more.

‘So, how little have the unsociable people in my family actually told you? Don’t tell me they said nothing about the murder mystery from Father’s youth?’

At first I thought she might be joking. Then we exchanged looks and immediately became serious again.

I said that no one had mentioned any earlier murder mystery in Per Johan Fredriksen’s life. I hastily added that I should, of course, be told about it now that he himself had been killed.

Ane Line Fredriksen sighed and rolled her eyes, then lay her arms heavily on the desk as she leaned forwards.

She leaned so far over that I could see the top of her unusually large breasts. However, the story that she told was so sensational that it quickly took all of my attention.

VIII

‘When I was eleven and then again when I was sixteen, I noticed a certain tension at home both before and after my parents went out for a mysterious meal. It was just a few weeks after the second meal that I first heard the story about the murder in 1932. It was Father who started to tell me about it, one Saturday when he had had a few too many drinks. The case had always plagued him and he had been thinking about it even more in recent years. He said he would happily give ten million kroner to know what had happened. It was obviously a story that he and Mother both knew very well, but that they had never told us children. My brother and sister had never heard about it either until I told them.’

There was a short, dramatic pause. I waved for her to continue. She flashed me a coquettish smile and then carried on eagerly.

‘Father was the MP for Vestfold. He was born there and was heir to a large estate with half a forest. There were big class differences in Vestfold back then. Our Labour prime minister was born around the same time only a couple of miles away, but grew up in poverty. Anyway, in March 1932, Father and five other friends from Vestfold went to Oslo for the spring break. They all came from very wealthy families at a time when there was widespread poverty and need. They had each booked a room at a hotel out by Ullern, which was one of the most desirable parts of town, and presumed to be a safe area. And yet, something very dramatic happened there. On their second evening at the hotel, the youngest, a twenty-one-year-old woman, called Eva Bjølhaugen, was found dead in her room. She was found lying on the sofa and there was no visible sign of violence. She suffered from epilepsy and it was assumed that she died as a result of a seizure. But there was no autopsy. Father was not convinced that that was what had happened at all. There were several things he felt did not fit.’

She stopped and looked at me with teasing eyes, but hurried on obediently when I asked if she could remember what it was her father had doubted. It crossed my mind that we had hit it off remarkably well, despite being so different.

‘Yes, but unfortunately, he was more secretive about that. The strangest thing was the key, he said. The door to the hotel room was locked, but the key was lying on the floor out in the corridor. And apparently the woman only suffered from petit mal. But there were a few other things that were odd about the whole affair. Father, who was otherwise not prone to being abstract, became remarkably vague when he talked about it. It could as easily be suicide or murder, as epilepsy, he said.’

The story had piqued my interest now. I hastened to ask if she knew who else had been there.

‘Apart from my father and the young Eva Bjølhaugen, her boyfriend and sister were there. There was also the young woman whom Father was engaged to at the time, and another friend. So there were three young men and three young women, two couples and one set of siblings. Plenty of opportunity for romance and jealousy there, I reckon. From what I understood, Father and his fiancée broke up soon afterwards.’

‘How strange that there was no autopsy,’ I said.

She nodded eagerly. ‘That is what I thought. Father simply said that there was no autopsy.’

‘And the restaurant visits – where do they fit in?’

Just then, the phone on my desk started to ring. I hoped that it might be information about the suspect’s identity, and answered immediately. I was becoming so focused on the case that it was almost a disappointment to hear Miriam’s voice at the other end.

‘Hi. I just wondered if half past four was still a realistic time to meet, or if we should make it later? I’m sure you’re having a busy day, and I should probably study a little more to prepare for the exam,’ she said.

Miriam still had two and a half months left until the exam. However, her ambitious perfectionism meant that she pretended to have only two weeks left when, in fact, there were two months, and that she only had two days left when it was actually two weeks. I saw no reason to discuss this here and now, and was without a doubt having a busy day. So I gave it five seconds’ thought and suggested that we meet at the Theatre Cafe for supper at half past six.

‘Deal,’ she said, and put the phone down.

‘Apologies, I had to arrange supper with my fiancée,’ I said.

To my disappointment, I saw no disappointment in Ane Line’s eyes, only greater curiosity. She opened her mouth to say something, almost certainly to ask about my fiancée, but I just managed to pip her to the post.

‘Now, where were we? Yes, the meals that the group from 1932 had are more relevant to the case than my own dinner plans.’

‘Yes, they really are quite something, which only underlines how serious the situation was. The other five from the group who were in Oslo in 1932 continued to meet every five years to mark the day that Eva Bjølhaugen died, at the restaurant of the same hotel. They all hoped that someone might say something that would throw light on the tragedy, Father said, but that never happened.’

‘But, if they met every five years and that was in March 1932…’

Ane Line nodded eagerly again. ‘The date was the fifth of March 1932. So the five last met just a couple of weeks ago. It is rather odd, isn’t it?’

She looked up at me from under her red fringe with bright enthusiastic eyes. I nodded with equal enthusiasm. I still could not see any connection between the forty-year-old mystery and the stabbing of Per Johan Fredriksen on a street in Oslo yesterday. My gut feeling told me that there was some kind of link, but my head could not work out what.

‘Very interesting. I will see what I can find about the case in our archives. Do you know if your father had any contact with the four others from 1932 in between these restaurant visits?’

Ane Line smiled again. ‘Well, I know that he certainly had regular contact with one of them. I don’t even know the names of the other three, so I couldn’t say whether he had contact with them or not. But if you find their names in the archives, I’d be more than happy to answer that.’

Ane Line Fredriksen was clearly more curious than most. And her eagerness and openness were contagious. I picked up my pen to write down the name of the one person that her father had had regular contact with. And then promptly dropped it in shock when the redhead exclaimed: ‘Oda Fredriksen! Eva Bjølhaugen was my mother’s little sister.’

We sat and stared at each other for a few seconds. It seemed to me that she was almost teasing me, and enjoying it, despite her father’s death and the gravity of the situation.

‘So let me get this straight: three young men and three young women went to Oslo together in 1932. The young Eva Bjølhaugen, who was the girlfriend of one of the men, was found dead in her locked hotel room in circumstances that have never been clarified. Your father was engaged to one of the other women, but later married Eva Bjølhaugen’s sister?’

She nodded energetically. ‘Exactly. And it didn’t take long either – Mother and Father got married just eighteen months later. And the five from the group who are still alive have met every five years since, most recently a couple of weeks before my father was killed. Surely that can’t be a coincidence?’

I was open about what I thought: that it could, of course, be a coincidence, but that I very much doubted that it was.

‘Exactly,’ she said, her eyes shining.

As things seemed to be going so well, I took the chance to ask what else her father and mother had told them about this strange old story.

‘Not very much, unfortunately. My father was a kind man, but was quick to put things off. Even when we’ve argued about money in recent years, he has never been mean or harsh with us, just evasive. This old story bothered him a great deal and he did not want to talk about it. I pushed him a couple of times, but he just said that we could perhaps talk about it later. That never happened, of course. Mother was more cagey than Father and completely clammed up when I tried to talk to her about it. She just said that both she and my father had been there, and that they both still wondered what had actually happened, and that it had been extremely painful to lose her only sister like that. I could never get any more out of her. You should ask her about it, she has to tell you now, even if she didn’t want to tell me before.’

I nodded thoughtfully. Then I thanked her for the interesting conversation and asked if I could contact her again once I had looked up the case in the archives. She immediately offered to wait in my office while I looked through the file. We compromised, and she waited outside while I read through the case.

IX

The file from 1932 was disappointingly thin. Initially, it had been marked ‘suspicious death’ and then changed to ‘no case to answer’. My attention was immediately drawn to a couple of photographs of the young woman on a dark velvet sofa. As far as I could see, the woman showed no physical signs of violence or illness of any sort, and was just lying there peacefully, as though asleep. She was slightly shorter than the sofa and had long blonde hair and pale skin. Her body was well shaped, almost like a statue. The photographs made me think of Sleeping Beauty. But Eva Bjølhaugen, born in Sande on 7 January 1911, had never woken up from her deep sleep.

I sat there with the forty-year-old photographs and mused on what secrets she had taken with her to the grave, and what significance they might have for yesterday’s murder.

The reports and statements told me in short that Eva Bjølhaugen had been last seen alive by her boyfriend and four other friends at around five o’clock in the afternoon of 5 March 1932, when she had let herself into her room following a trip into town. And she was found dead in Room 111 at Haraldsen’s Hotel in Ullern at a quarter past eight that very evening. She had arranged to meet the others for dinner at eight o’clock. They had all met in the lobby at the agreed time, and realized that something was wrong when she failed to show up by ten past eight.

Her boyfriend, Hauk Rebne Westgaard, had gone to look for her. Then at twelve minutes past eight he had come back to the others in the lobby. He had told them that the door to her room was locked and he had heard no sign of life when he knocked. Her boyfriend’s concern only increased when he found the key to her door lying on the floor in the corridor, outside his own room.

In his statement, Hauk Rebne Westgaard said that he had been extremely worried about his girlfriend and did not want to enter her room alone. So he ran down to the others and they all entered the room at precisely a quarter past eight to find Eva Bjølhaugen dead on the sofa.

Eva Bjølhaugen’s bed had obviously been used after it had been made up in the morning. But her five companions agreed that there was no sign that anyone else had been there. And the police found no evidence of this either, though they did find fingerprints of all five young people in the room. This was not seen to be suspicious, of course, as they had all been there after she had died, and had also been in there together the evening before. None of them had noticed anything different about Eva Bjølhaugen. She had been in a good mood earlier in the day and generally had an optimistic outlook on life. She had finished school with good grades and had talked about studying languages at the University of Oslo. It was clearly stated in the report that there was ‘no history of depression’.

The rest of the group had stayed in rooms on the same corridor. A certified transcript of the reception book documented the following:

Room 112: Solveig Thaulow, 22, Sande.

Room 113: Oda Bjølhaugen, 23, Sande.

Room 114: Hauk Rebne Westgaard, 25, Holmestrand.

Room 115: Per Johan Fredriksen, 25, Holmestrand.

Room 116: Kjell Arne Ramdal, 25, Tønsberg.

The bed in Room 111 had been used after it had been made up in the morning, but according to the police there was no technical evidence of sexual activity.

The deceased’s suitcase was in a corner of the room, but only contained two extra sets of clothes, a pair of shoes and three women’s magazines. There was a glass, a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste in the bathroom, as well as a dressing gown, two used towels from the hotel, and some make-up. It appeared that nothing had been stolen from the room, and Eva’s purse with almost one hundred kroner in cash was still in her coat pocket. The only thing one might expect to find in the room that was not there was the key. The police report confirmed, without any further speculation, that it had been found on the floor outside Room 114.

None of the deceased’s friends said they had heard anything from her room or any of the other rooms in the few hours before she was found dead. The only exception was that Solveig Thaulow said she heard a muffled bang or thump at around half past seven. However, she was not able to say where it came from or what kind of noise it could have been. The deceased’s boyfriend suspected that she might have been strangled or suffocated, possibly with the help of a pillow. However, there were no marks on her neck and there was no saliva or other bodily fluid on any pillow.

The assumed cause of death was given in the end as ‘epileptic fit’. There was a short statement to say that, according to the deceased’s sister and parents, she suffered from epilepsy, and from the doctor’s initial findings, it seemed that she had had an epileptic fit that afternoon. Her sister Oda Bjølhaugen was very shaken and immediately demanded an autopsy. But when their parents arrived later that night, they asked if it would be possible not to have an autopsy, as it would only cause more distress for the family in a situation where everything indicated natural causes. Their daughter had ‘very reluctantly’ agreed to this in the end, and the police had done as the family requested. Thus there was no confirmation of the time and cause of death.

The group had visited the capital out of season. There were a total of eighteen rooms in the hotel, over two floors, and all the other rooms had been empty that night. The receptionist had been alone on duty that evening, and had seen no one other than the six guests. The window in the room was closed from the inside and the door was locked. I could understand perfectly well why this had been deemed to be a natural death, the strange detail of the key aside.

I called Ane Line Fredriksen in again. It did not take her long as she was standing waiting impatiently no more than a few feet from my door.

‘Is there anything new about the lack of an autopsy?’ she asked, before I managed to get a word out.

I replied that there had been no autopsy at the request of Eva’s parents, even though her mother had very clearly wanted one. Ane Line Fredriksen said that she thought it was odd, and I said I agreed. Then I quickly moved on to the names of the other members of the party.

She shook her red mane when I said Solveig Thaulow, and then again when I said Hauk Rebne Westgaard. However, she gave a firm nod when I said Kjell Arne Ramdal.

‘I’ve never heard the first two names, but I have heard Kjell Arne Ramdal mentioned a few times. Father almost never spoke about business at home, but judging by some of the telephone messages I overheard, I think Kjell Arne Ramdal was some kind of business associate. When I was a teenager and later, I always wondered what he looked like, as it was not often that I heard the names of any of Father’s business contacts. In fact, I would be very grateful if you could tell me a bit about my father’s life outside the family home at some point after the investigation. I never really knew him other than as a father.’

I nodded, half to myself, half to her. There was clearly a thread running from 1932 to 1972, which was becoming more and more interesting. But I was as yet unable to see any connection whatsoever to the still-nameless boy on the red bicycle.

I therefore decided to make another attempt to find out more about him. I managed to leave the office on the second try, having twice assured Ane Line Fredriksen that I would let her know as soon as there was any news about her father’s murder and that I would not hesitate to call her if I had any further questions. I resisted the temptation, for the moment, to ask her how the three siblings could be so very different in both colouring and personality.

X

After my surprisingly interesting meetings with the victim’s mistress and daughter, my meeting with the suspected murderer was yet again a disappointment. The press were ringing for details, but no new information about the mysterious young man had come in. I could not remember it ever having taken so long to confirm the identity of someone being held in custody. But not only that, I could not think of another arrestee who would be so easily recognizable.

To begin with, I tried to be pedagogical, and asked if he had any questions. His response was succinct: ‘The bicycle?’ He nodded when I told him it was being kept in a safe place and said no more.

I started by asking about his name. To which he did not respond.

I went on to explain that we would appoint a lawyer for him tomorrow morning, even though he had not asked for one, to ensure that he was treated fairly. His nod was almost imperceptible, and there was no other reaction.

I could see that there might be a connection, if the boy on the red bicycle was the son or grandson of one of the parties from 1932. I therefore decided to confront him with the names and give no further explanation. He looked at me with a glimmer of interest in his eyes when I said what I was going to do. But as far as I could judge, he did not react to any of the names I read out.

Again I tried to ask why he had killed Per Johan Fredriksen. Again, he replied almost mechanically: ‘I didn’t kill him. He was dead when I went back.’

I asked why he was not willing to help me, or himself, by telling me what he had seen.

He said nothing, and looked at me as if he had not understood.

‘Well, then I am going to go home to my fiancée. And what are you going to do?’ I asked, eventually giving up.

‘Wait,’ he replied.

His answer was solemn and concise, but he said no more when I asked him what on earth he was waiting for.

I stood up. I still felt some sympathy for the young boy, and did have my doubts that he was the murderer. But I could not work him out and his demonstrative silence was starting to irritate me.

Then just as I turned to leave, to my great surprise, he spoke.

‘You can call me Marinus.’

It did not make the case any less complex. I had never heard the name Marinus before. I turned back, looked down at him and asked: ‘Marinus what?’

His response was to raise his hands in a gesture that was at once defensive and condescending.

I left, closing the door behind me a little harder than planned. The boy seemed to be playing with me for reasons I could not understand. Rather reluctantly, I had to admit that perhaps Danielsen was right, and the only question of any interest in this case was whether the murderer should be sent to prison or a mental hospital.

XI

I got to the Theatre Cafe at twenty-eight minutes past six. The air was cold, but I felt the warmth spread through my body as I approached.

She was right where I hoped she would be standing, where she always stood: leaning discreetly against the wall with a book in her hand. From what I could see it was a thick blue book about the history of Nordic literature in the nineteenth century. She had only read the introduction when she left yesterday, but was now almost a third of the way in. I was impressed – and happy when she snapped the book shut as soon as I put my hand on her arm. We gave each other a quick hug and then moved towards the door.

We had been there before, but not many times. Miriam thought that the Theatre Cafe was too expensive for normal Sunday suppers, and I did not want to protest. So we came here about once every two months or so. And then, whenever possible, we sat at a table for two in the middle by the window. Our favourite table was available, and there was no one else within earshot. It was perfect.

I started romantically by asking her if she had had a good day, and if there was anything more we needed to discuss about the wedding.

This, of course, did not work at all. She swiftly replied: ‘My day was good. I studied all day. And of course there’s more to talk about regarding the wedding, but there’s no rush. So, how is the investigation going?’ she asked in a hushed voice, as soon as the waiter left us. Then we sat there more or less whispering to each other for the rest of the meal. The staff clearly thought it was terribly romantic and gave us friendly smiles as they passed. Whereas what we were actually talking about was the stabbing of a politician and an underage murder suspect.

I knew that this was in part down to Miriam’s inherent curiosity, but was still touched by the interest she showed in my work. Just how interested she was dawned on me when she said no to dessert. That had never happened before, certainly not at the Theatre Cafe.

Once we were back in the car, we returned to our normal voices.

‘The story from 1932 is a strange and incredible coincidence,’ I remarked.

‘I agree. It’s almost too incredible not to be connected in some way. But there is not much to be gleaned from details of the crime scene, and we know too little about the others to conclude anything more,’ she said.

I had to concede to this and promised to talk as soon as possible to the four friends from the 1932 drama who were still alive.

‘And the current case is no less mysterious. With a mysterious suspect, to boot,’ I said.

Miriam nodded quickly. ‘Yes, both things are very odd indeed. It’s so strange that he won’t say anything even to you, when you are so good at talking to people.’

She said it in a way that was so characteristic of her, just as a passing comment. But it still made me so happy that I leaned over and kissed her quickly on the cheek once we were over the junction.

We were soon at Hegdehaugen. We walked in silence to the front door, as though we were suddenly scared that someone might hear us even if we whispered.

Once we were installed on the sofa with a cup of coffee in one hand and holding each other’s hand in the other, we carried on discussing the case.

‘Per Johan Fredriksen was also a bit of a mystery in terms of his politics,’ she said.

I squeezed her hand and asked her to elaborate.

‘He is part of the richest and most conservative group in the Centre Party, and is sometimes said to be right of even the Conservatives. Which is not a compliment in my circles. But he would take completely different stances on different issues, so he has also been called left of Labour. He was deemed to be a very important man for the no campaign, tactically, because he could potentially influence a number of the rich Conservatives.’

‘But all that has nothing to do with the murder case, surely,’ I joked.

Miriam was suddenly very still. She looked out of the window and her hand trembled faintly in mine.

‘Surely it can’t? People in Norway do not kill each other for their political persuasions,’ I said, trying to reassure her.

Miriam carried on looking out of the window when she finally answered. ‘Three months ago, I would have said no and laughed. But now I am not so sure. There are a lot of powerful and frightening emotions out there in the dark at the moment. I have been called the most incredible things by men in suits, and the day before yesterday an old woman spat at me when I was manning the stand. Parents and children have stopped speaking to each other and a lot of people are worried about their partners and their jobs. I don’t think anyone would kill in connection with an election in Norway, but I’m not so sure any more that some fanatic or other might not kill in connection with the referendum.’

We sat in silence and pondered this over our cups of coffee. I had assumed that the young murderer might be disturbed, but I hadn’t even considered that the killing could have been politically motivated.

I said that it was food for thought. Then I went out into the hall and got the photographs of the suspect which I put down on the table in front of us.

Miriam leaned forwards and stared at them intensely, but then shook her head. ‘He must be a very lonely boy, if no one has reported him missing. It all seems like a terrible tragedy. He’s not active in any of the political parties’ youth wings in Oslo, otherwise I would have known him. If his limp and speech impediment are so striking, I’m sure I would have known about him if he was active in any of the neighbouring constituencies.’ She fell silent, sat there and stared at the photographs. ‘I have never seen his face before. And yet, when I look at his pictures, I get the strange feeling that I’ve seen him in passing somewhere.’

I put my arm round her, kissed her on the cheek and asked her to think hard. She sat in deep concentration for about a minute before she said anything else.

‘I might be wrong, but do you remember the cyclist we saw a couple of times outside here at a distance last autumn?’

I had to think for a while myself before answering. It was not something I had given much thought to. But now that she mentioned it, it gradually came back to me that we had noticed a cyclist outside here a couple of times. He had just been standing with his bike further down the road. Close enough for us to see him and his bike, but too far away for us to see any details.

The first time we saw him, he cycled off after about thirty seconds. The second time, he stood there for longer, and Miriam had wondered as we went in whether we should ask if he needed help. Maybe he was lost or was having problems with his bike, she said. I turned back somewhat reluctantly, and walked towards the cyclist with her, but when we were only a matter of yards away, he hopped on his bike and disappeared down the hill.

‘It could certainly have been him. But that only makes things more bizarre, slightly crazy, in fact, if he was watching the flat already last autumn, only then to cycle all the way up here after he had murdered someone in Majorstuen.’

Miriam nodded. ‘It’s all very odd, no matter what. The strangest thing really is that he so purposefully sought you out after the murder.’

I took a couple of deep breaths, then I said: ‘Do you think I should ring the Genius of Frogner?’

‘The Genius of Frogner’ was Miriam’s nickname for Patricia. Not only had Miriam been the first to suggest that I should call Patricia in connection with my last murder investigation, she had actually phoned Patricia and persuaded her to help me. But now, when I suggested it myself, she seemed far less keen on the idea.

‘You can, of course, do as you wish and whatever you think will be best for the investigation. But I don’t think you should call her, not yet anyway. At the moment it seems most likely that there won’t be a major murder investigation, as the solution lies in the sad life of a disturbed young man. And in any case-’ She stopped mid-sentence and did not continue until I asked her to.

‘And in any case, she is a genius, of course, but you are much smarter than you appear to be when all you do is follow her instructions. You would have solved your last murder cases without her, it would just have taken a bit more time and you might have needed a bit more help from me. So I don’t think you should call her just yet, I think you should talk to me a bit more first.’

Miriam smiled her lopsided, mischievous smile as she said this. I smiled back, kissed her and said that I would definitely rather talk to her than Patricia in her luxury palace in Frogner.

‘Have you by any chance ever heard the name Marinus here in Norway? I don’t think he is actually called that, but there must be a reason for him telling me that he was.’

Miriam straightened up and shook her head. ‘No. It’s an ancient Roman name that I’ve never heard used here. In fact, the only Marinus I have heard of since the Middle Ages, is the man who was beheaded after the Reichstag fire in Germany. I can’t remember his surname – Lubbe, or something like that? That was also a very strange story and a sad fate, if I remember rightly. It must have been sometime in 1933, or 1934 at the latest.’

Miriam and bookshelves are a story unto themselves. The first time she came to my flat, she went straight to my bookshelves and stood there for about ten minutes. Now, she was sitting beside me one minute, behaving like a perfectly normal fiancée, the next she was over by the bookshelves at the other end of the room, holding one of her favourite books: a five hundred-page history of the twentieth century in Europe. She flicked through it as fast as she could, then suddenly her face lit up with an almost childishly smug smile.

‘He was called Marinus van der Lubbe – and it was December 1933! A rather disturbed, and almost blind, young man who was made into a scapegoat, even though it would seem that there were far stronger and more wilful parties behind it.’

I jumped up and went over to the bookshelves. Miriam held the book out and looked at me with a triumphant smile. I congratulated her on her excellent memory and immediately took the book.

There was a photograph of Marinus van der Lubbe standing between two prison guards with the Nazi emblem sewn on their uniforms. In purely physical terms, he bore no resemblance to our arrestee in Oslo in 1972. The 1933 Marinus van der Lubbe was a tall, broad-shouldered man in his early twenties, with short curly hair and surprisingly intense eyes. According to the text under the photograph, he had fallen asleep during the trial and had shown many signs of mental distress. However, the similarities in his case and the current situation were striking and thought-provoking.

‘Not everyone who read about Marinus van der Lubbe would be able to see the parallels, to be fair,’ I said slowly. I handed the book back to her, without thinking that it was, in fact, mine.

Miriam smiled, closed the book and put it back in its place, once again with a slightly triumphant air. ‘You can certainly say that. And based on that we can ascertain that the suspect is an unusually well-read boy. But that, of course, does not mean that he is not in some way mentally disturbed. My books on the history of literature are full of examples of people who are well read and totally mad!’ She let out one of her slightly morbid little laughs as she said this, but was soon serious again. ‘Well, we have certainly made a step forwards and you now have a couple of new questions to ask of your mysterious arrestee. Perhaps you should drive down to the station now and see if you can get some answers.’

She looked at me questioningly. I glanced at my watch. As always, the hours had slipped by in Miriam’s inspiring company. It was already a quarter past ten. I had certainly not planned to go out again this evening and did not want to now, either. So I shared my thoughts on the matter. In other words, that I could just as well ask him the questions first thing tomorrow morning rather than late on Sunday night, and that I had some slightly different plans for the rest of the evening.

‘Good,’ Miriam replied. She smiled when she said this. And I smiled back.

XII

Miriam was better than me when it came to falling asleep. Particularly when she had lectures the following morning. She said goodnight at half past eleven and was fast asleep three minutes later.

I lay there and looked at her peaceful face. I would never say it to Miriam, as I wanted her image of me as a hero to remain, as far as possible, intact, but on evenings like this I felt I was not only an incredibly lucky man, but also an undeservingly lucky one. With Patricia’s help, I had gained a reputation and position in the police force that I could never have imagined was possible only five years ago. And thanks to having met Miriam, my private life was better than ever before.

Despite the unsolved case, my life as I knew it still felt good and secure. I found myself hoping that the remaining questions would be answered tomorrow and that we could confirm that the arrestee was indeed guilty, whether he was mentally disturbed or not. However, I still had a sneaking feeling that things would not be that simple. The story from 1932 was so striking that it seemed highly unlikely that it was sheer coincidence that one of the others in the group had now been killed forty years later.

I lay there thinking about it for nearly a quarter of an hour. And then I pondered for a further ten minutes about the boy on the red bicycle and why on earth he had come to my flat. Almost against my will, I found myself wondering what Patricia would have to say about the whole thing.

And so eventually I fell asleep just before midnight on Sunday, 19 March 1972, with my eyes on Miriam and my mind on Patricia.