The Human Flies (K2 and Patricia series) (33 page)

I found it hard to disagree, but that did not prevent me from feeling a surge of anger and disquiet. Sara Sundqvist had lied to me again – and this time the discovery did not put her in a good light at all.

I said that he had done the right thing, to help put his mind at rest. Then I asked without further ado if I could borrow his office to make an important phone call to Oslo.

III

As I dialled the number, I imagined Patricia sitting alone waiting by the phone in the White House. As expected, she answered on the second ring, and listened with bated breath to my short version of Hans Andersson’s story. To my slight annoyance, she guessed that the child was inside Deerfoot’s anorak long before he had made it down from the mountain, even though he took considerably less time in my version than in Hans Andersson’s. Nor did the news that Sara Sundqvist had beaten us to it and already been here seem to come as a great surprise.

The line was quiet for a moment when I finished the story. Then Patricia was off again.

‘Congratulations on making such good progress in the investigation. So Deerfoot was a child soldier with severe mood swings during the war, who was probably left scarred by memories and had a deep hatred for Harald Olesen. An undeniably strong starting point. But we still must not take it as given that he is the murderer. I really only have one question for Hans Andersson. Did he ever see what kind of gun Deerfoot and Harald Olesen had with them?’

I should of course have remembered to ask that myself. I put the receiver down on the desk and stuck my head round the door into the side room to ask Hans Andersson the question. Barely a minute later, I was back on the line.

‘No. He always assumed that at least Harald Olesen was armed, and possibly also Deerfoot, but he never saw any guns and never asked about them either. So we do not know whether they were armed or not, and if they were, with what.’

Patricia’s sigh could be heard all the way from Oslo.

‘Of course they were armed. It is extremely unusual to win in a shootout with three German soldiers without having a gun yourself. As Hans Andersson never saw any guns, it would be fair to say that they had handguns of some sort or another. But the million-dollar question is what kind of revolver or pistol they had. If Hans Andersson had known, you might have been able to arrest the murderer this evening. But now there are several real possibilities, even though one seems to be the most likely. There will be overtime for us tonight, but I hope I can encourage you with the prospect of an arrest tomorrow. Come here as soon as you get back to Oslo and I will ask Benedikte to prepare a simple supper. Eight o’clock should be doable?’

I said that I thought so and we put the phone down at the same time. I thanked Hans Andersson for all his help and promised to keep him updated on any developments, then hurried out to the car.

Crossing the border back into Norway was just as unproblematic as it had been going out, but I was still very perplexed. It was clear that Sara Sundqvist would have difficulties explaining herself. She now had a much clearer revenge motive, given that she knew that Harald Olesen had been present when her parents died, though it remained unclear whether he was responsible for this or not. I was buoyed by the fact that Patricia was clearly still working with several alternatives, which included the persistently mysterious Deerfoot as a possible murderer.

That Deerfoot could be the man in the blue raincoat was an obvious possibility. However, it seemed to me that we were still a long way from arresting anyone. Deerfoot’s identity and abode today were still unknown, as it was now absolutely clear that it could not be Darrell Williams. The positive side of this was that I could relax, as the danger of a public scandal and new confrontation with the American Embassy had as good as evaporated.

It was only when I was halfway between Trysil and Elverum that it dawned on me that the discovery of Deerfoot’s age allowed for a possible new protagonist who thus far had remained on the periphery. But the impact of this was so powerful that I and the car almost ended up in a ditch. Despite my eagerness to get back to Oslo, I made an unplanned stop by the side of the road and looked through my papers. I was suddenly unsure of how old Harald Olesen’s nephew, Joachim, was. Was he older or younger than his sister? The tension grew when I saw in the census records that he was eighteen months younger than his sister, and was born in July 1928.

In February 1944, Joachim Olesen would have been fifteen years old. That fitted well, as did the close relationship he appeared to have had with Harald Olesen at the time. The relationship had clearly become more estranged latterly, which seemed reasonable if Harald Olesen had let his nephew down badly in winter 1944. Joachim Olesen could possibly have wanted revenge in relation to both his own and his sister’s experiences. What is more, he also stood to gain from the expected inheritance. And he had demonstrated that he had a quick temper and mood swings at the reading of the will.

I realized that an obvious possibility was that though the ‘D’ in Harald Olesen’s diary stood for ‘Deerfoot’, in reality it was his own nephew who stood behind the code name. The fact that Joachim Olesen had been present as himself in several other situations did not mean that he was not the man in the blue raincoat whom Andreas Gullestad had seen. And it fitted well that the raincoat had been found at 25 Krebs’ Street on the evening of the murder. It would be hard to place any more importance on the fact that his sister had more or less the same type of blue raincoat. But it did strike me as relevant and possible that the siblings might have bought the same type of raincoat, without her being aware of the significance.

However, the not-quite-so-minor practical problem remained as to how Joachim Olesen had managed to get in and out of the building on the evening of the murder without being seen. But as everything else seemed to fit so well, I felt that it was a problem that could be solved, for example if he was in cahoots with the caretaker’s wife or another of the neighbours. As for the murder of Konrad Jensen, I thought it was quite possible that Joachim Olesen had managed to sneak both in and out of the building unnoticed, either first thing in the morning or when the caretaker’s wife was out shopping.

By the time I passed Hamar, I was almost convinced, and as I approached Oslo, I had to stop myself from driving straight to Joachim Olesen to take a statement. But the practical problems remained, which meant that I kept my dinner appointment at the White House.

I made a brief stop at the office, where there were still no important messages waiting. The public seemed to have accepted that the case was closed following Konrad Jensen’s death. I made a quick telephone call to the caretaker’s wife in 25 Krebs’ Street, to make sure that everything was all right. Darrell Williams had come back at five to four in a taxi that sped up to the entrance, and had made a very odd comment to her about just having made it, despite the plane being delayed. Fortunately, I managed to thank the caretaker’s wife and put down the receiver before I released a smug laugh.

IV

I made my dinner appointment with a ten-minute margin and arrived in an optimistic mood. Patricia, on the other hand, seemed to be more pessimistic. She played with the asparagus soup and, in between the first mouthfuls, looked sceptically at the photograph of Deerfoot from 1942. She was not able to get much from it either. The boy in the picture was young, and the image was also blurred. His hair was obviously dark, but the colour of his eyes and skin was not clear. Then she asked me to tell her the story from Sweden again, but more slowly this time and in some more detail. This took us through the rest of the soup and halfway through the roast pork.

It occurred to me that at times it might seem that Patricia had drunk too much cold water in her life. This impression was further bolstered by the fact that she drank six glasses during the course of the meal. At one point, I jokingly commented that Deerfoot, with his cross-country skiing, off-piste, combined and jumping, had covered half the Olympic programme. But this only raised a half-smile from Patricia, who added that the big question now was whether he was also a biathlete or not – and if he was, what, then, had he shot with?

In the middle of the main course, she asked a simple question, which was if I had at any point in the investigation seen a silver pendant similar to the one Deerfoot had round his neck in the photograph. With the proviso that I so far had had no reason to look for such a pendant, I told her that I could not recall having seen anything of the kind. Then I swiftly added that finding such a pendant so many years later might also be a shaky means of identification. She agreed with me, but then made the short and mysterious comment that the pendant may still be extremely important.

I asked Patricia what she thought might have happened on the fateful trip in 1944. She replied that it was difficult to know the details at this point, but that the bigger picture was relatively clear. From what they had been told, three soldiers and Sara Sundqvist’s parents had been killed during an exchange of fire. As was shown by his will, Harald Olesen had been dogged by guilt about this incident, both during and after the war. Following his death, Deerfoot was presumably the only person in the world who knew what had happened. The precise details were not so important at this point.

‘But I can more or less promise that Deerfoot will tell you all the details when we find him,’ Patricia added, with a glum and very serious expression on her face.

I noted straightaway that she had said ‘when’ and asked if that meant that she was sure that Deerfoot had survived the war and was still alive. She nodded firmly.

‘Despite his young age, Deerfoot appears to have been an unusually vigorous young man, even in 1944. To my knowledge, there is only one reason why a guide would choose to follow up at the rear, and that is when he fears being shot in the back. When Deerfoot agreed to go back with Harald Olesen, he took precautions. It would seem that any trust between them had been destroyed. I am now convinced first of all that the “D” in Harald Olesen’s diary really does stand for “Deerfoot”, and second, it is he who has been running around in the infamous blue raincoat these past couple of years. I also have little doubt as to his identity and address.’

I nodded in agreement. It was true – this fitted well with my theory about Joachim Olesen.

An oppressive silence followed, with close to ten minutes of expectant chewing. Ironically, it was only when ice cream was served for dessert that Patricia eventually thawed.

‘Please excuse me if I appear to be pensive. You have made great progress today. The murderer is just ahead of us now and we are catching up. By this time tomorrow, I hope that it will all be over, and I have a clear favourite as to whom it is who will be arrested. But we still lack answers to a few very important questions. It is such a frustrating situation to be so close yet not quite there. As you may have noticed, I hate drawing conclusions that may be wrong. I will therefore continue to mull on this theory in anticipation of the answers we will get tomorrow.’

Patricia paused for thought yet again and had an almost melancholy expression on her face when she continued.

‘The whole situation is so sad. Harald Olesen had done so much for his country and its people, both as a Resistance hero and a cabinet minister, and yet in the last year of his life, after his wife’s death and his retirement from public life, shadows from his past dominated. And in those final months he almost became a human fly himself. A group of human flies swarmed around him, with very intense feelings towards him linked to the past, all of whom could have had the motive and opportunity to murder him. In fact, at the time of Harald Olesen’s death, all of the residents of 25 Krebs’ Street could be described as human flies for different reasons. It is very depressing indeed.’

I interrupted this unhappy train of thought to ask if she had any suggestions as to how we might finally solve the murder. To my relief, she carried on in a far more optimistic voice.

‘The problem that remains is that some of the neighbours in 25 Krebs’ Street saw something on the evening of the murder, or to be more precise someone, and for various reasons still do not want to tell us about it. We need to force the answers from them in order to eliminate potential murderers until we are left with only one possibility. And this is how we will do it: you will go there tomorrow, armed with your service gun and two sets of handcuffs. You will call me once you are there and I will tell you who to talk to first and what questions to ask. Either the answers will make it perfectly clear to you who the murderer is and you can then make an immediate arrest, or we will have to move on to the next flat with more questions. In which case, telephone me if you are in any doubt as to what you should do or what you should ask.’

I looked at her with scepticism.

‘How many flats will I have to visit before I find the murderer?’

Patricia shrugged apologetically.

‘In the worst case, five. They could all be housing a murderer, or at the very least someone who is hiding vital information.’

I was very glad that we were so close to catching the murderer in 25 Krebs’ Street, but the plan that Patricia proposed was less attractive. I suddenly thought of something that would be a vast improvement, and laughed in a jocular manner before I spoke.

‘That all sounds very complicated. It would be pretty hopeless if the head of investigation had to borrow a telephone to put a call through to an anonymous friend before making the next move. I accept the need to confront the various parties at the scene of the crime tomorrow, but we need to make one practical adjustment . . .’

Patricia looked at me warily. It was the first time I was ahead of her in the game and she seemed genuinely uncomfortable with the situation.

‘You have to come with me!’

The moment I said those words, a powerful shudder went through Patricia’s thin body. She sat staring at me from her wheelchair, not saying a word. I hurried on.