Hans Lahlum - Chameleon People

I continued to ignore the lawyer, and looked straight at his client. She was leaning heavily against the wall, but still looked as though she might collapse at any minute. Her hair was grey, her eyes were red and her expression black.

I saw her other face now. And even though it was a murderer’s face, it was still a face I felt sympathy for. So I said, in a slightly more conciliatory tone, ‘Fredriksen had exploited you and let you down, that was why you hated him.’

She nodded; suddenly there was a spark in her eyes. ‘He was my last hope and then everything fell to pieces. It was the first time for years that anyone had asked me out and given me things. He was so charming and kind then. The fact that I got pregnant was unexpected, but once he got over the surprise he was happy. He talked about getting divorced a couple of times and promised at least to look after me and my son. Everything could have been different if only Tor had not been born with that birthmark. I cried when I saw it and knew that he was my husband’s son. Per Johan realized as well as soon as he came to the hospital. He pointed at the birthmark and said: “That child is not mine, so good luck with him.” Then he laughed scornfully, and threw a fifty-øre coin onto the bedside table and left. He showed a very different, cruel side of himself that day. And I saw that face again at Majorstuen on Saturday, when I asked for a month’s reprieve on the rent, and he laughed that same scornful laugh. It was only when he laughed that I finally decided to kill him. And he deserved no better! I may regret everything else I’ve done in my life, but not that!’

She almost shouted this and looked so desperately bitter now. After my experience earlier in the day, I discreetly took a couple of steps back. Rønning wiped the sweat from his brow, and also retreated a few steps, and said in a very quiet voice that it was a case of a life that had been very difficult for many years, with several mitigating circumstances.

‘Believe me, I’m not a bad person, I’ve just done a bad thing. That is what poverty and all that comes with it can do to a person,’ Lene Johansen said suddenly, with only desperation in her voice now.

I was about to say that, in the end, it was all about self-preservation, both for her and for Oda Fredriksen. But it felt wrong to compare the two, and when I looked around me, I had to acknowledge that there was some truth in what she had said about poverty. I said that it was up to the court to consider the mitigating circumstances, and that we really should go now.

I did not want to put handcuffs on Lene Johansen. And after a brief exchange of glances, nor did Danielsen. He held her by the arm to support her out of the flat, and I took with me the green winter coat. The coat stand with its three missing hooks was left naked and alone in the hall. I left the basement flat without looking back; the air felt stuffy now and a few yards behind us an old school satchel was lying on the floor of a boy’s empty room. I could not face seeing it again.

It was ten past four when I was let in to see Miriam at Ullevål Hospital. To my great relief, she was in her room, and was lying flat out on the bed.

I hurried in and shut the door, and as it closed, I said: ‘I am so sorry that I was not here when you woke up. I had to wrap up the murder investigation and thought that it might be better if you were able to wake up and spend some time with your family first.’

I went over to the bed, bent down and gave Miriam a gentle hug. It was not the welcome I had hoped for. Her cheek was unusually cold and stiff.

I had not noticed yesterday how small the room was. It was just big enough for a bed and a chair. I sat down on the seat, a few feet away from her head on the pillow. It suddenly felt uncomfortably close, even though I had been much closer to Miriam many times before.

She finally spoke when I sat down. ‘That’s fine. The investigation has to come first, and I only woke up a couple of hours ago,’ she said. But she said it in a serious, monotonous voice, without any trace of joy at seeing me again.

I said that I had spoken to her mother several times over the past couple of days, and asked if it was nice to see her parents and brother again.

‘Yes. They were very relieved, and Mum could not praise you enough. But you should have rung Katrine. She only heard that I was all right today and was very upset about it.’

I realized that in the midst of everything else I had completely forgotten Miriam’s friend – even though she had helped with the investigation. I apologized profusely, and said that yesterday I had been overcome with fear about her safety and then with relief when she came back.

Miriam’s head looked so small and her face so pale against the white pillow. If she nodded, it was impossible to see. She still did not look happy. I still felt pretty miserable myself, despite all the developments in the investigation.

I carried on hastily and said that it was fantastic to have her back, and I asked how the whole experience had been and how she felt now.

She paused, and then spoke for longer than I had expected.

‘I am fine now. I don’t have much movement in my arms yet, but the doctor says that should be better by tomorrow and with a bit of physiotherapy, they will be as good as new. I can’t really tell you much about what happened, unfortunately. I was walking along the road when I was pushed into a car with two men in it and someone put a rag over my mouth and nose, then I blacked out. I woke up with my hands tied behind my back in a basement somewhere and stayed there all day. A man in a mask came in twice. I thought he was going to kill me, but instead he fed me. Then they put a rag over my mouth and nose again, and this time I was certain I was going to die. I have blurred memories of wandering around in a street and talking to some people, but it all feels like a dream. Then I woke up here. I understood while I was sitting there in the basement, wherever it was, that it was the Soviets who had taken me and felt the hand of a dictator touch me personally. But I can’t prove anything without the envelope that I got from Tatiana, and I guess that has disappeared?’

I confirmed that it had and asked her what had been in the envelope.

‘A copy of the KGB file on Fredriksen, which Tatiana had risked her life to get. And a written statement where she confirmed that the agent who had arrived recently had gone out early last Saturday evening, and seemed inexplicably tense when he came back around ten. It was to be her ticket to a new life and my biggest gift to you. But that is not how it turned out.’

For a few seconds, I thought about the white envelope and what a difference it could have made. An image of Asle Bryne popped up in my mind and I wondered if he would have smiled, if I had been able to give him that evidence. But all I said was that the most important thing for me was that Miriam had survived without being harmed.

She was about to smile, but then paused and asked me to tell her what had happened after she was abducted.

So I sat on the chair by her bed and told her everything that had happened since we last spoke, leaving out Danielsen’s last conversation with the boy on the red bicycle and my contact with Patricia. I thought that Miriam would have to know about it at some point, but this was perhaps not the right time.

It helped to tell her. Miriam listened intently and smiled a couple of times. But towards the end she became very serious, almost melancholic.

‘The story of the boy on the red bicycle really is tragic. But it is all over and solved now,’ I said, gently, at the end.

Miriam sighed. ‘So Klinkalski was not the murderer after all, and the spying intrigue in fact had nothing to do with your investigation. But you would not have been able to work all this out in such a short time without the genius of Frogner. When did you contact her?’ Miriam asked.