Hans Lahlum - Chameleon People

Patricia nodded quickly, almost appreciatively.

‘Precisely. If two of the three enamoured young men had been rejected earlier, it would be natural to suspect the third. But when all three had received a rap on their trouser flies that afternoon, it’s apparently not so easy to see who, then, suddenly got their hands on the treat that everyone wanted…’

She paused for one of her most unsympathetic girlish titters. Once again, I thought to myself that a contemptuous seventeen-year-old still hid behind her more adult face. However, she quickly returned to her astonishingly mature and highly developed intellectual self once more.

‘It may seem strange, but I think I have an answer to the mystery of who went to bed with the beautiful Eva. The problem is: A, it is not entirely certain, and B, it does not necessarily give us the answer as to who killed her.’

Patricia sat lost in thought in her wheelchair, looking out into thin air, not meeting my eye. She moved her lips a couple of times as if to talk, before a sound finally came out.

‘No, it is too uncertain to say anything, even though I think I am right. I have to sleep on it. There are a couple of pieces that still need to fall into place. If you have time, confront Hauk with the new information and ask him outright if he had been to bed with Eva. It may be important both for him and the others who were there. And at the same time, ask him if she was religious. And also, even if it is not possible to find out to whom a hair belongs, you can usually tell whereabouts on the body it’s from, can’t you? In which case, I would like to know where those three hairs in Eva’s bed came from.’

I did not understand what she was getting at, but was used to Patricia asking strange questions that later proved to provide decisive answers. So I promised to check both things.

It was now a quarter past eight. I remembered my meeting with Miriam and felt the pressure mounting. So I asked if we could perhaps fast-forward to the present.

Patricia nodded and her face took on a more strained expression.

‘Yes, but there is less that is new here, unfortunately. There are still too many possibilities and too many details to verify them in relation to Per Johan Fredriksen’s death and that of Vera Fredriksen. And possibly also too many people with hidden faces…’

Patricia fell silent again. I remarked that the identification of the man in the hat and the fact that Per Johan Fredriksen was suspected of being a spy were important developments.

‘Yes, of course. The identification of the man in the hat is very interesting and rather unsettling. It not only indicates that Per Johan Fredriksen had crossed the line with his Soviet contacts, but also that they knew that he could be exposed. I would certainly like to know what made the police security service start to suspect him, but it would be no easy task to get an answer out of Asle Bryne. The espionage aspect of the case is highly sensitive. So you will just have to keep your ears open and your eyes peeled. In other circumstances, I would have said that it was most likely that Per Johan Fredriksen had been liquidated by a Soviet agent. But the method and place give rise to some questions. If the agent did kill him to avert a very untimely exposure, why did he kill him with a knife, and what did he talk to Fredriksen about before he killed him? If the agent came to Norway to murder Fredriksen, but wanted to avoid a scandal, why is he still here two days later? If it was to kill Fredriksen’s daughter, why on earth is he still here today, and how on earth did he find out about the story from 1932?’

Again, Patricia stopped to ponder before she continued. I finished off one of the small cakes and started to get very agitated about the time. As she still had not said anything by twenty past eight, I prompted her.

‘The office manager now also has a motive, does he not?’

She nodded. ‘Certainly. The office manager cannot explain everything, but he may be able to explain an important part that can unravel the rest. Fredriksen was clearly blackmailing him in some way. But the question is, how much of a motive does that give the office manager? Ask him about it. And ask the accountant at the same time. And when you are talking to them about it, also ask how long the boy on the red bicycle’s mother worked in the office and compare that with when her son was born. Ask the mother herself, if their answer is not good enough.’

This was taking a direction I had not even thought about until now. So I tried to follow the thread, though I was still somewhat reluctant to do so.

‘But – surely we have established that the mysterious woman in Fredriksen’s life in the mid-fifties was Solveig Ramdal. She confirmed it herself!’

Patricia let out a slightly exasperated sigh. ‘Nonsense. A chameleon like Fredriksen could quite easily conduct two extra-marital affairs at the same time, particularly if he only wanted to talk about the mysteries from 1932 with one of the women. It may be a coincidence. However, I am not yet willing to conclude that the boy on the red bicycle was simply a red herring in the investigation. The link is too strong, especially given that his mother worked in Fredriksen’s office at a time when Fredriksen found himself a new mistress. And given that her marriage had been childless for many years, and she then gave birth to a son around this time. So please do check this in the morning.’

Patricia picked up her first cake and took a bite, but did not seem to be happy with the taste.

‘A slightly technical question, which could be very important: were the floors in the hotel carpeted? Both in the hall and in the room?’

I answered straightaway: ‘Yes, in both places. I asked the receptionist, and he said there had been no changes there either.’

‘Excellent,’ Patricia said. She looked a bit happier when she took her second piece of cake. Rather abruptly, she added: ‘Another thing – if you are able to, check what is to be found in the archives about the court case against Hauk Rebne Westgaard’s father and what happened, before you speak to him. His family history may be relevant here, and there is something about Hauk and the way that the others perceive him that I cannot work out.’

I promised, somewhat distractedly, to do this. Then I asked if there was anything more she would like to discuss today – and stood up a little too fast when she said: ‘Sadly, no.’

It was now one minute to half past eight. Patricia still did not know that I had arranged to meet Miriam, but I could see in her eyes when I stood up that she suspected as much and she clearly disliked it intensely. The situation I found myself in was so uncomfortable it almost hurt.

I was ten minutes late when I opened the door to my flat. I had seen from outside that the light was on. Miriam had, as usual, kept her promise and arrived on time. When I came into the living room, she was sitting on the sofa in her usual reading position – with the big blue book about nineteenth-century Nordic literature. The book looked as though it might be some eight hundred pages long, but she only had about fifty pages left.

I went over to her, said that she was an impressively fast reader, and apologized that I was late, but it had been an unexpectedly busy day. She snapped the book shut, jumped from the sofa and said: ‘That’s OK. But why was it so long?’

I was not sure if she was actually asking whether I had been to see Patricia or not. As her name was not mentioned, I more than gladly took it to be a question about what had happened in the investigation. So I told her about the day’s meetings with the remaining members of the group from 1932, and with Fredriksen’s mistress and son.