Chameleon People (33 page)

I interpreted her concluding words as showing some degree of self-awareness, without feeling any more certain that the rest of what she had told me was therefore true; she had lied to me too
much already.

My final words to Solveig Ramdal before I left were that she should stay locally until the investigation was closed, and that I had no need at the moment to tell her husband about her secret.
She gave a little nod. She stayed sitting on the chair like a timorous kitten, staring out into thin air.

I found my own way out. It was only when I was in the car that I realized it was now ten to four, and that I had an important meeting back at the station at four. And it was only when I was
heading back into the centre of town that I realized that I had not seen even a glimpse of the man in the hat today. Not that I missed the Soviet agent, but it did make me wonder what his sudden
disinterest might mean.

I met them on my way into the police station at five past four. They made a very odd couple: he was still a young man, with a lorgnette, suit and hat, and she was an older
middle-aged woman with nothing on her head, wearing a worn green winter coat. There was an almost comical performance when both Edvard Rønning Junior and I apologized at the same time for
being a few minutes late.

Once we were settled in my office, however, the seriousness of the situation was obvious. To my relief, Lene Johansen was not visibly broken by the events of the past few days. But she was still
a tired and sombre woman. Her hair looked a bit greyer than when I had first met her, and I could easily have taken her to be over sixty. There was something heavy and slow about her movements when
she sat down.

She looked at me questioningly without saying anything. Her lawyer said: ‘Thank you for the invitation to come here. We await with great interest to hear your update and
questions.’

I quickly filled them in on developments. I told them that we now had an eyewitness, an old lady who lived in Majorstuen who claimed to have seen the murder, and she was adamant that the
perpetrator did not limp. But there was still considerable uncertainty: the eyewitness was over a hundred and had not been able to give a description of the murderer. We had chosen to keep all
possibilities open and to continue the investigation. Information had been gathered that could give several people possible motives for killing Fredriksen, but so far we did not have sufficient
evidence to arrest anyone. Due to the ongoing investigation I was not able to give them any more details.

Lene Johansen listened attentively. She nodded gratefully when I said that I had been in contact with the company and that she need not worry about being evicted until the case had been
solved.

‘Well, we will have to accept that as a provisional account and hope to hear better news in the coming days. What are your questions for my client?’

I looked at Lene Johansen and said that as a matter of procedure we now had to follow all leads and all possible links. I therefore had to ask her to explain why she had not previously mentioned
that she had any connection with Fredriksen and his company.

The lawyer looked a little taken aback, but his client quickly rose to the challenge.

‘Yes, I realized afterwards that I should have mentioned that I cleaned there a couple of evenings a week for two years. But that was ages ago now, and I never really saw much of
Fredriksen. It was the office manager I spoke to when I was employed and when I resigned.’

The lawyer looked pointedly at me and asked if the matter was now clarified.

I trusted Patricia and was bolstered by my success with Solveig Ramdal. So I carried on unperturbed.

‘I am afraid we can’t give up that quickly. It is true that Fredriksen himself was not often in the office. But you were a beautiful young woman, and according to the staff, he
showed great interest in you. Indeed, the staff speculated on whether or not you might be meeting elsewhere as well. Not least when you resigned because you were going to have a child, after having
been married for many years without children.’

Rønning dropped his lorgnette and stared aghast at his client, making no attempt to pick it up. And she sat there, frantically shaking her head.

‘Are you sitting there saying that Fredriksen and I – that’s crazy. We were from completely different worlds. Do you really think that I would let my son live in poverty, as he
did, if his father was a multi-millionaire?’

She looked at me indignantly. It was a simple counter-question that I had not considered and I almost found myself blaming Patricia because she had not thought it through.

I was on the defensive now. Lene Johansen looked more and more indignant and then carried on without my asking.

‘A poor widow from the east end certainly has to put up with a lot in this town. First I lose my only son, and now you’re sitting there saying that he might have killed the rich
father he never had. It’s all lies, and I can prove it, if you just give me a moment.’

Both Rønning and I sat as if paralysed and stared at her as she quickly pulled from her coat pocket an old purse. I could not see any notes in it, only a few coins. But her trembling
fingers fished out an old black-and-white photograph which she held up for me.

‘This is my husband,’ she said.

I recognized him from the photograph in the flat. And I understood straightaway what she meant to say with it.

The birthmark on her husband’s neck was far smaller than the one on the neck of the boy on the red bicycle. But it was on the same side and was the same shape. It could not be a
coincidence.

The situation was uncomfortable enough already, before Rønning Junior’s voice filled the room.

‘We understand that you have to investigate all possible leads in the investigation. However, we hope that you now recognize that this is a wild goose chase and that you will apologize
immediately to my client. If you do not have any further questions, we will take our leave and hope that you will be able to give us some better news over the next few days. If not, this could turn
into a rather unfortunate matter for both you and the force in general. I had not expected you to stoop so low, Kristiansen.’

Lene Johansen nodded in agreement, put the photograph back in her purse, and stood up abruptly. ‘This has been a rather nasty experience. I want to go home,’ she said, her voice
shaking.

I felt humiliated and in a very vulnerable position. So I did what I could to save the situation, I apologized and told them that I sincerely hoped that I would have better news next time.

I heard Rønning say the words ‘. . . recommend filing a . . .’ to his client as the door slammed behind them.

Another shock followed when my boss knocked on my door and did not wait for an answer before coming in. I was worried that he had come to reprimand me for my unwarranted allegations against one
of the parties involved in the case – or for the continued lack of results in the investigation.

But my boss had not come to reprimand me at all. He had come to say that the Soviet Embassy had rather unexpectedly requested a meeting with the head of the investigation. But before that we
would need to go to the prime minister’s office to give him a report.

I had met the leader of the Labour Party, Trond Bratten, a couple of years earlier in connection with another murder investigation, and I had been to the prime minister’s
office. But I had never met Trond Bratten in the prime minister’s office. He had only moved in there the year before, when disagreement about the EEC had ripped apart the blue coalition
government, which had been led by the Centre Party’s Peder Borgen. In terms of my political preferences, this was an improvement, even though my personal meeting with Peder Borgen here had
been very nice.

I was curious to see if Mrs Ragna Bratten had also been included in the move from Young’s Square to the prime minister’s office. I soon had my answer. She was sitting on a chair in
the reception area and jumped up as soon as she saw me. She embraced me and thanked me warmly for all I had done a couple of years earlier. The prime minister’s wife assured me that both she
and her husband were deeply grateful and that her husband was looking forward to meeting me again. She added hastily that she was here so that she could drive him home after the meeting, but did
not know what the meeting was about. So she asked me to look after her husband in the meantime, and then pointed to the door to his office.

My boss and I had been told that it would be a highly confidential briefing. Just how confidential it was became apparent when we entered the prime minister’s office and saw that Trond
Bratten was there alone, sitting behind a large desk.

If Trond Bratten really had been looking forward to meeting me, it was not clear to see. He said a brisk ‘Good afternoon’ and shook our hands.

My boss took care to close the door behind us, and then we settled into two chairs that were on the other side of the desk. I noticed that the desk was larger than when I had been here before,
and the chairs pulled slightly further back.

Trond Bratten stayed sitting behind the desk and looked at us expectantly.

My boss cleared his throat and said that the prime minster had requested a strictly confidential briefing on the part of the investigation into the murder of Per Johan Fredriksen that might
affect the oil agreement and the Soviet Union, as we had now been asked to a meeting at the embassy.

Bratten replied: ‘Yes, a short and confidential account.’ Then he looked me and said no more.

A short and confidential accounted suited me well. So I reported, without going into any details, that the murder of Per Johan Fredriksen was still unsolved, but that Fredriksen had been
suspected of being a spy and was killed, apparently, only a matter of hours before he was due to be arrested. It was not clear whether he was guilty or not, and we had no grounds for claiming that
he had been assassinated. The timing was, however, striking, and in the course of the investigation, I had been followed by a man, whom we had now identified as a Soviet agent, who probably had
many deaths on his conscience, in a number of countries. He was officially linked to the Soviet Embassy in Oslo and had diplomatic immunity.

‘A challenging situation,’ was Trond Bratten’s succinct comment when I had finished. Then he sat and pondered, without saying any more.

My boss asked carefully if the prime minister had any advice for us with regard to our visit to the Soviet Embassy, in this challenging situation.

‘Say as little as possible, without offending them,’ Bratten said, in a monotone voice. Then once again, he sat there staring into space, deep in thought.

I noted down the advice and thought to myself that it might be easier said than done.

A few more minutes passed in breathless silence. Finally, I broke it by asking the prime minister what he thought about the situation and how we should go forward.

‘Democracy must as far as possible be allowed to take its course, and the agreement that the Storting is due to ratify tomorrow could be of the utmost importance to the nation’s
future. But it would be both politically and morally impossible for a democratic country to enter into an agreement with a non-democratic country that had just violated the democratic
country’s sovereignty by carrying out terrorist activities there.’

He spoke without hesitation and the formulation was so precise that I almost broke out into spontaneous applause. Fortunately, I managed to stop myself in time, and instead asked how he would
deal with the matter from this point on.

‘The ratification procedure must be allowed to run its course, unless there are any dramatic developments in the case. The Government must be informed immediately if there are any such
developments, in order to assess the ratification procedure.’

I took the hint and said that the prime minister’s office would be told immediately if there was any important news.

My boss and I had barely opened the door before Ragna Bratten slipped in past us. I wondered how much she would be told about this strictly confidential case – and how such different
people could function together in a marriage. But then I had more than enough problems of my own to think about.

My boss and I left the prime minister’s office in silent thought at five to five. Fifteen minutes later we presented ourselves, still grave and thoughtful, at the reception of the Soviet
Embassy in Drammen Road.

The receptionist at the Soviet Embassy was a raven-haired man somewhere between thirty and fifty, who, with his stony face and grey suit, looked just as I had expected a
receptionist at the Soviet Embassy to look. His expression did not change in the slightest when we introduced ourselves. He then picked up the internal telephone and relayed a short message in
Russian.

We stood waiting for three minutes, until another member of staff, who looked like the first’s big brother, appeared. After a brief handshake, he said: ‘Please, follow me.’

The atmosphere was not conducive to small talk. We followed him along a dark hallway into a large meeting room with four chairs positioned around a big table set with cake, water and vodka. The
member of staff pointed at the two chairs closest to the door, said ‘Wait here’, and then left the room. So there we sat under a five-foot portrait of the Soviet Union’s leader,
Leonid Brezhnev. He looked condescendingly down at us, his chest covered in orders and medals.

‘Not a promising start,’ I said to my boss in a hushed voice, once we were alone in the room. He instantly raised a warning finger to his mouth. I realized my mistake and showed my
palms in acknowledgement. There was no reason to believe that the room was not bugged.

Just then, there was a light knock on the door. This pre-empted a pleasant surprise. In walked a dark-haired, slim and attractive woman in her twenties.

She gave us a timid little smile, shook our hands with an unexpected firmness, and said in perfect Norwegian: ‘Welcome. My name is Tatiana Rodionova and I will be the interpreter for your
meeting with the vice-ambassador, Igor Sokolov. The vice-ambassador is unfortunately currently caught up in another important meeting, but should be here shortly.’