Hans Lahlum - The Human Flies

His answers were becoming shorter, and his tone harder. My brain was frantically trying to come up with new questions to keep the conversation alive – and finally found one.

‘But how on earth did you manage to convince the world that you were crippled?’

He suddenly smiled, and a hint of pride glowed in his face.

‘The traffic accident was real and unpleasant enough. I was run over one day when I had suddenly been overwhelmed by memories from the war in the middle of a crossroads. For a while the doctor feared that I would be left in a wheelchair. I understood myself that things were improving and that I would recover again. But it struck me that keeping the wheelchair would be the perfect camouflage – certainly until my score with Harald Olesen had been settled. It was not so difficult. Who doubts the injuries of a man who has been in an accident and has received treatment, who is still a wheelchair user and does not ask for any money from the State? But you should have studied the signature more, because it is a fraud!’

He broke into a smile again – this time, a terrible, twisted, triumphant smile that sent a chill down my spine.

‘Never underestimate a man who appears to be a cripple. Harald Olesen once gave me that advice during the war. That was your only mistake in the investigation, but it was a fateful one.’

And then suddenly our conversation was over. For a couple of torturous seconds Deerfoot improved his aim at my chest. It was a terrifying feeling, watching the finger curl round the trigger right in front of you. I would not wish it on my worst enemy. The fear was paralysing. But suddenly a new sound filled the room. It was Patricia’s blessed strong and determined voice.

‘I am aiming at your head, Deerfoot. You can shoot him, but then I will shoot you. Your flight is over now. The best thing you can do, not only for yourself, is to hand him the gun.’

Deerfoot started and for an eternal moment seemed to be paralysed too. He glanced to one side, towards the door, to make sure that there really was a gun pointing at him. Then he focused his attention on me again.

We probably stood like this on the edge of eternity for no more than ten seconds, but it could as well have been an hour. I was only feet away from Deerfoot and was now ready to pounce myself. The instinct to try to knock the gun from his hand if he lowered it or looked to the side again grew stronger. Deerfoot’s eyes once again glazed over. He seemed to be lost in his own world. But the gun in his hand was still pointing at my chest, and his finger was still on the trigger. I felt that he really was back behind that snowdrift in 1944 and was dithering between giving himself up, turning the gun on himself or trying to shoot his way out.

Then he seemed to make his decision. Very slowly, he lowered the barrel of the gun to the floor. I took a step forward as soon as it was no longer pointing at me. I did not have time to think when Deerfoot, without warning, danced two steps to the side, hunkered down and in a flash aimed the gun towards the door. It was pure instinct, and the fear of seeing Patricia die, that made me throw myself towards him.

I hit him with full force just as the shot was fired. The bullet flew upwards and hit the ceiling above Patricia. Again, on pure instinct, I hit out at his firing arm. The gun flew out of his hand, bounced along the floor and fortunately slid under the sofa.

The next thing I heard was Patricia’s hardest and iciest voice: ‘Stay exactly where you are now and do not move, Deerfoot – and hold out your hands in front of you. Or I will shoot you in the leg!’

I expected even more high drama in the next few seconds, but as if by magic, Deerfoot changed instantly. He was once again the relaxed and friendly Andreas Gullestad. He calmly held both his hands out in front of him and appeared to be almost relieved when I eventually managed to pull out the handcuffs and put them on him. Suddenly, it seemed that he had accepted his fate.

‘Do not underestimate a woman who really is a cripple either!’ Patricia exclaimed, as we passed her wheelchair on the way out. I hugged her as soon as I could once I had thrust our captive out into the hall. And I experienced my last shock of the day. In stark contrast to Patricia’s level voice and calm face, I could feel the emotion in her body. I had never felt such a racing and pounding pulse in anyone. The heartbeat in her tiny thin body was thundering and furious.

Out in the hallway, Andreas Gullestad had apparently once again regained his composure. When I eventually thought to inform him that he was under arrest for the murders of Harald Olesen and Konrad Jensen, he added voluntarily: ‘Do not forget the murder of a refugee and being an accomplice to the murder of a second refugee, plus the attempted murder of a police officer and two other people today. This will cost me dear.’ Out in the entrance, he praised me for having positioned a lady sharpshooter, disguised as a cripple, out of sight by the door.

When I came out with the handcuffed Andreas Gullestad, it caused quite a stir among the people waiting by the front door. Especially when he calmly reassured them that the case had now definitely been solved and the murderer had been arrested, and then went on to congratulate me on a successful investigation.

The neighbours queued up to congratulate me once the murderer had been driven away by two constables and the circumstances had been explained to them. Darrell Williams was particularly heartfelt in his congratulations when he pumped my hand and thanked me for all my help. On seeing him and Cecilia Olesen standing together smiling, I felt for a moment something of what Deerfoot must have felt when he saved young Sara’s life in 1944 – it truly was an ill wind that blows no good.

This feeling did not diminish when, a few seconds later, I saw a smiling Sara Sundqvist coming down the stairs towards me. She embraced me warmly and whispered that Patricia wanted to leave the building and go home as soon and as discreetly as possible. We were able to do this fifteen minutes later, once I had with some authority cleared the hall of residents with vague references to ‘wrapping up the investigation’.

I was naturally relieved and on top form when I finally got into the car with Patricia, but still I noticed that things were remarkably quiet in the back seat. Even though Patricia was the one who had kept her head during the arrest in Andreas Gullestad’s flat, on reflection she now seemed to be the one most deeply affected by the day’s drama. She sat in complete silence for the first part of the journey. Then she interrupted my attempts to make contact with a cursory comment that she was tired and needed time to digest what had happened. She suggested that I pop in to see her at noon the following day, when I would be given a decent lunch and the answers to any remaining questions. In the meantime, she advised that I only talked about the case in broad brush-strokes and that I played down her role in the investigation as far as possible, particularly with regard to the media. I of course promised with a light heart to do just that.

We said goodbye in an unusually subdued mood. However, when Beate opened the door and took charge of the wheelchair, Patricia gave a fleeting smile and thanked me for ‘a particularly interesting and eventful trip into town’.

The rest of the evening was spent informing my police colleagues and journalists of the sensational development. I ignored any requests for details of the actual arrest and instead gave a quick presentation of the murderer’s confession and a rough outline of his story. I was showered with compliments and words of praise, in particular for the fact that I had continued the investigation in secret following the murder of Konrad Jensen. I gave my boss a fifteen-minute report, in which Patricia’s role had been minimized to the extent that I did not even mention that she was present during the arrest. He told me I was a credit to the force and shook my hand three times. It was the night before Easter, and I finally got to bed around twelve, full of optimism for my future in the force and what the papers would say on Tuesday.