Hans Lahlum - Chameleon People

I gave them a puzzled look and said that according to his family, Fredriksen had always been a kind-hearted and generous man.

They exchanged glances again. Jørgensen nodded and Svendsen spoke.

‘His son said the same thing when he came here, and we have to admit that it came as a surprise to us. Fredriksen never invited us to his home and until his son came to the office, we had never met any of his children. We only knew the businessman. And the word heartless would be closer to the truth in describing him, I’m afraid. In fact, Odd and I have remarked more than once that the only time we have seen Fredriksen smile is when he was being a politician on television, but never when he was here as a businessman.’

Svendsen suddenly fell silent, as though he felt guilty and ashamed of what he had said. Jørgensen swiftly picked up the thread and continued in the same vein.

‘Fredriksen has not been here much in recent years. He concentrated more and more on his role as a politician and only spoke about the office when someone asked him about business. Fredriksen’s instructions to us were clear and ruthless: anyone who falls behind with the rent is to be evicted as soon as it is legally possible, and new tenants are to be offered the highest rent permitted by the law and the market. But the rental market is a hard place to be heartless: plenty of poor and desperate people come to our door, not knowing that we can’t help them.’

‘And one of the poorest and most desperate came here last Thursday, didn’t she?’ I said.

They both nodded at the same time. Jørgensen took off his horn-rimmed spectacles and covered his eyes with his hand for a moment or two. Svendsen came to his rescue and carried on talking in a tremulous voice.

‘It was the most terrible experience. The woman had obviously done her utmost in a very difficult situation. But the only thing that mattered in terms of our instructions was that she had no money and no means of earning any money. One former tenant shot himself the day after being evicted, but there were no changes to our instructions as a result. And we had to follow the instructions. We feared that it might end in suicide, but obviously had no idea that it would ultimately affect Fredriksen himself – if it was her son who killed Fredriksen.’

I deftly avoided answering that and emphasized that I was in no doubt that they had simply been following instructions. However, Jørgensen hastily came to their defence.

‘It was heartbreaking all the same. And what made it worse was that the woman was a former employee. She had worked here as a cleaner in the mid-fifties. It was before Erling’s time, but soon after I had started. She only worked for a few hours in the evening. However, I met her in the doorway several times and remember thinking that she was a beautiful and always cheerful woman, despite her simple clothes and poor pay. It was not easy to see her on her knees, so desperate here the other day.’

I immediately latched on to this new loose connection between the two deceased men, but it was hardly conclusive. To begin with, we already had a clear motive for the boy on the red bicycle to kill Per Johan Fredriksen, and what was more, he had in all likelihood not done it. However, there were clearly a puzzling and striking number of knotted threads that criss-crossed this case.

Jørgensen lowered his hand when he stopped talking. I saw two tears before he hastily wiped them away and put on his glasses again. Even though his crying was silent and discreet, it made quite an impression on me to see an office manager in his fifties, dressed in a suit, sit in his office and cry.

I asked them in conclusion if it was only because of the money that they both had continued to work for Fredriksen for so many years, despite the very difficult working conditions and extremely unpleasant brief.

The office manager and accountant were still remarkably synchronized; as was now to be expected, Svendsen answered my question about their finances and Jørgensen nodded in agreement.

‘The wages are not particularly high, in fact, they are probably a band or two below what is normal for similar positions in the sector, but we have permanent jobs with a relatively good salary, and we know what needs to be done, and there is a good atmosphere in the office, despite the lack of space. Better the devil you know, as they say, especially in times like these. So we gritted our teeth when tensions ran high and sat tight waiting for better times. Which we hope will finally come now.’

On my way down the stairs, I thought how Per Johan Fredriksen really had been a very complex person with many faces, as his childhood friend Hauk Rebne Westgaard had said. And then I got something else to think about.

It was as I opened the main door and stepped out onto Roald Amundsen’s Street that I saw him for the second time.

Just a brief glimpse, and he was doing nothing alarming. But, all the same, I felt a stab of fear when I saw him.

The man in the hat was dressed in a lighter suit and had no tie today. But he was wearing that same hat and he looked straight at me from where he was on the other side of the street.

He was standing still when I opened the door, but started to walk away as soon as he registered that I had seen him. I took three strides out into the road, but then stopped again without making any attempt to catch up with him.

The man in the hat was already about to disappear into the early afternoon crowds on the main street, Karl Johan. Even if I did catch up with him, I had no reason to demand an explanation. He had not done anything wrong, other than be in the same place as me twice within as many days – in two very different parts of town.

It could still be a coincidence, but I no longer thought it was. So I stayed standing where I was for a couple of minutes and racked my brains as to who the man in the hat might be and why he was interested in me. There was something alarmingly cold and calculating about him.

I wondered whether I should mention the man in the hat to Miriam or whether to spare her this for the moment. And then thought to myself that I would give my eye teeth to know what Patricia would make of this part of the story.

At ten past two, the school bell rang to mark the end of the day at Tøyen School. As I walked through the gates I had to push against a stream of boys aged around fifteen. I wondered if they were the classmates of the dead boy on the red bicycle. If they were, they did not appear to be affected by the news of his death. Most of them had eager bodies and happy faces. Some of them were smiling, others kept their heads down. Some were in groups, others in twos and only a few alone.

The boy on the red bicycle would almost certainly have been one of those walking alone. I imagined that when the bell rang last Friday, he had walked by himself at the back of the crowd, with his worn satchel and limp. And now, on Tuesday, he was gone forever. There would be an empty desk in a classroom somewhere in this four-storey brick building.

According to a plaque by the entrance, Tøyen School had celebrated its ninetieth anniversary this year. And I thought about all the young people who had burst out through the gates over the years – many to a better life, and many to various forms of human tragedy

I met her leaving the staffroom on the first floor. She was a blonde woman of around thirty, about five foot two, and was hurrying towards the exit.

‘How can I help you?’ she said with a curious smile when I stopped her. I asked if Eveline Kolberg was around.

‘Yes, I’m Eveline Kolberg. But I have to collect my one-year-old from the babysitter before three,’ she added quickly, before I had a chance to say anything.