Hans Lahlum - The Human Flies

I nodded in recognition. It was a touching story, but I had heard it before. It was clearly the same refugee who had been hidden by the caretaker and his wife, in the basement of the building in Oslo where Harald Olesen was later shot. It now felt like we were getting very warm and Deerfoot would soon be in sight.

‘This is all very interesting, but I would like some more details about this Deerfoot. As far as I have understood, you never knew his real name. But what else can you tell me about him? His age, where he came from and suchlike. And did he have an American accent by any chance?’

Hans Andersson shook his head apologetically.

‘Deerfoot spoke Norwegian without an accent, and as far as I can remember, without any distinct dialect either. He could have come from anywhere in eastern Norway. He was cagey and said very little about himself. But I have actually found an old photograph of him!’

I watched dumbfounded as he got up and went over to the desk and pulled an old black-and-white photograph from a drawer with something akin to awe.

‘I don’t remember taking the photograph, but we must have done at the time. I was given it by the young refugee when he came back years later, and I dug it out again after your telegram came. So it must be from 23 December 1942. The young refugee is on the right and Deerfoot on the left.’

He slid the photograph that held the secret across the table, face down.

‘You will perhaps understand what Harald Olesen meant when he said that no one would suspect Deerfoot of anything – and why I said that he was a remarkable young man,’ he commented, with a mischievous smile.

I flipped the photograph over in a flash and immediately understood what he meant.

The theory that Darrell Williams was Deerfoot could be shelved.

The refugee was an extremely happy, smiling dark-haired youth of sixteen in the yellowing picture from 23 December 1942. He was clearly not yet fully grown, but was still the taller of the two youths in the picture.

There was a flash from a silver pendant round Deerfoot’s neck, but no trace of a smile on his face. The youth who stared at the camera from underneath a dark fringe was very focused and serious. In December 1942, Deerfoot had been a lean and dark young lad, with not even a hint of facial hair. I would estimate his age to be thirteen at the least and fifteen at the most.

Hans Andersson smiled momentarily at my surprise and carried on speaking before I could ask a question.

‘I don’t know what Deerfoot was called, or where he came from, or how old he was. The first time I asked about his age, he just laughed it off and joked that he was ten and big for his age. I never got a proper answer later either. He grew a little in the year that I knew him, but I cannot imagine that he was any older than sixteen the last time I saw him, in winter 1944.’

He came over to me and pointed at the photograph.

‘I never saw him without that pendant. It seemed to be a kind of talisman that he always wore. You can see how serious and grown-up his face is in the photograph. That was the one we saw most. He was very deeply affected by growing up in the war, but he also had a younger, jocular face that sometimes appeared. He was not an easy person to get hold of.’

I had no trouble in believing that. Deerfoot was certainly not an easy person get hold of, and even less to arrest. His facial features were very vague on the photograph and did not remind me of anyone I had met thus far in the investigation. Which was all the more irritating because I increasingly had the feeling that this serious boy in the photograph from 1942 in some way held the key to solving the murder of Harald Olesen now in 1968. This prompted me to think of an important question.

‘What was your impression of the relationship between the two of them – Harald Olesen and Deerfoot, that is?’

Hans Andersson nodded pensively.

‘Good question – I have often wondered about it. In 1942 and 1943, it seemed to be a good old-fashioned father-son type of relationship. In fact, I even heard Deerfoot talk about Harald Olesen as “father” several times, and Harald Olesen accepted this with a smile. But Deerfoot was clearly not Harald Olesen’s son. Harald Olesen once told me that he sadly had no children of his own, which was confirmed in the papers after his death. I thought that perhaps for that time during the war, Deerfoot was somehow the son he had always wished he had had. So I imagined that Deerfoot was an orphan, especially as he never spoke about his family. But that may of course also have been because he was being careful.’

Despite his young age, it seemed that Deerfoot had also been remarkably good at covering his tracks after the war. Which gave immediate associations to the mysterious murder in 1968.

‘So the last time you saw Deerfoot was here in winter 1944. Was that also when Sara Sundqvist came here?’

He nodded again, but was very sombre all of a sudden.

‘Yes, but to hear that story you need to come outside with me.’

Hans Andersson got up without waiting for an answer, picked up some binoculars that were waiting on the desk and walked ahead of me down the corridor towards the main door. I picked up my notebook and followed him.

Hans Andersson and I stood together looking up at the sides of the valley, which were still covered in snow.

‘The valley here is beautiful on good days like today, but the mountains can be hell when the winter storms are blowing,’ he reflected.

I nodded in agreement, in the hope that he would continue. I was becoming increasingly impatient to hear more about the young Deerfoot’s war experiences, and about Sara Sundqvist and the fate of her parents. He noticed this perhaps and picked up the thread.

‘You will hear the story shortly, but the valley and the weather are actually very important factors. As you can see, the pass is extremely steep over there.’

That was certainly no exaggeration. The main path down the side of the valley was as steep as a ski slope and ended in a small cliff that dropped about sixteen feet. Scree could be seen sticking up through the white snow below. Hans Andersson pointed at it with a warning.

‘That is the fastest way down from the mountain, but you take it at your own peril. When the snow is at its thickest, it is possible to jump off the cliff if you know how to land. But even then it is a very risky route. It is said that that is one of the reasons that a police station was built here in the first place, to make sure that no young hotheads decided to give it a try. The first time that Harald Olesen and Deerfoot were here, just before they left, I noticed Deerfoot staring up at the cliff as if enthralled. I was quick to say that he must never try jumping off it, unless he had the devil at his heels and it was a matter of life and death. He nodded soberly and promised me not to.’

Hans Andersson was quiet for a while and then pointed far up the mountainside.

‘People still come down from the mountains from up there. That is where I always spotted the small groups of refugees coming down during the war, with Harald Olesen and Deerfoot at the helm. It was as great a relief every time. When they appeared up there, they were already well into Sweden, so all danger was past. We used to say they walked as quickly as they could in Norway and as slowly as they wanted to in Sweden. The final stretch through the woods up there was simply a victory parade. Deerfoot always walked in front to show the way.’

The path came down where the side of the valley was least steep, down the slope through the woods. Even someone who was exhausted and not used to being on skis would be able to come down there without any danger of accidents. I waited with growing impatience to discover what the local topography had to do with the story. Fortunately, Hans Andersson soon started on his tale.