Hans Lahlum - The Catalyst Killing

I noted with some surprise that Patricia was happy to talk about possible links between Falko Reinhardt’s disappearance and the murder of his fiancée. Then I retired in order to continue the investigation.

I made a pit stop at the police station and sent the tape off for a forensic check. I reminded the laboratory of the strict confidentiality clause and that they should report directly to me. There was fortunately no kind of marking on the tape that might link it to the police security service.

It was half past eight by the time I got back into the car. But I was increasingly keen to get on with the case, so having started in the direction of Hegdehaugen, I then turned off and headed towards Smestad.

The theory that the relationship between Marie Morgenstierne and Kristine Larsen was tainted by jealousy was of increasing interest, especially now that there was more to indicate that Falko was still alive. It was not hard to imagine that Kristine Larsen might have been behind both the written threat and the murder, particularly if she had been the woman following behind Marie Morgenstierne. Whatever the case, I wanted to hear what possible explanation Kristine Larsen would give of her relationship with Falko Reinhardt as soon as possible.

I arrived at Smestad at just the right moment, at five to nine. There was no response when I rang on Kristine Larsen’s doorbell. But when I turned my head I saw her on the other side of the road, apparently ambling along.

‘Kristine!’ I called over to her.

I immediately thought that I should perhaps not have shouted. But her reaction made me forget everything else.

Kristine Larsen froze.

For a brief moment she stood like a statue on the pavement.

Then she turned on her heel and ran off in the opposite direction, at ridiculous speed. It crossed my mind that she was running in the same direction that Marie Morgenstierne had run. She was running towards the station.

I also stood paralysed for a few seconds before I pulled myself together and started to run after her. To my surprise I did not seem to be able to catch up at first. Kristine Larsen had a good start on me, and her long legs carried her remarkably fast.

Kristine Larsen did not look back once. She just ran and ran and ran. She hurtled down the road at terrific speed, without even slowing down when she reached the crossroads. Fortunately the drivers were able to stop in time and stayed there, astounded, until I was well clear myself.

It was only when I was halfway over the crossing that I realized that Kristine Larsen was now running in blind panic.

For the rest of the chase, I did not doubt for a moment that I was pursuing a murderer. The prospect of solving the case and my hunting instinct helped me to pick up pace. And even though I was now close to my limit, I still had not closed the distance before reaching the crossroads. But then a couple of hundred yards later, Kristine Larsen seemed suddenly to collapse. At the next crossroad, she was barely across before I charged out onto the road. A few seconds later I was close enough to get my arms round her.

At which point she screamed.

A terrible, piercing female scream, so full of anguish and pain that it hurt my ears. She was shaking uncontrollably, and still struggling. I locked my arms hard around her and eventually managed to stop her, thanks to my greater body weight.

I spun her round to face me and got another shock. The face of the running woman was just as I remembered the face of the woman on the Lijord Line: distorted and rigid with fear. Only this woman’s face was even closer to mine, and there was no window between us.

‘Oh… is it you?’ Kristine Larsen whispered, her voice cracking.

Then she fainted in my arms.

It was a strange Saturday night. The clock on the wall behind me struck half past ten. I was sitting alone with Kristine Larsen in an interview room at the police station. When she had come to after fainting, she agreed to give a statement without a lawyer present.

She had asked for permission to smoke, and this had been granted.

Then she had admitted that she had been Falko Reinhardt’s lover in the weeks before he disappeared, and still hoped that he would choose her should he return. As she could not talk to anyone, it had been hard for her to live with the pain of Falko’s disappearance and the nagging of her conscience with regard to his fiancée. Kristine Larsen’s guilt had, however, gradually given way to a growing jealousy, and a suspicion that Marie Morgenstierne might have had something to do with Falko’s disappearance.

So, driven by loneliness and despair, she had in the end sent Marie Morgenstierne the threatening letter, in the hope that it would in some way resolve the situation. Which it had not. On the evening in question, she had started to walk towards her flat after the meeting, but had then turned around and tried to catch up with Marie Morgenstierne so she could talk to her face to face. And she had shouted ‘Marie!’ spontaneously in surprise when Marie Morgenstierne bolted.

The chain-smoking Kristine Larsen had, in short, managed to confess an impressive amount in the course of the fifteen-minute interview.

The problem was not only that she denied, in horror, any knowledge of Falko Reinhardt’s whereabouts, but also denied, even more horrified, any knowledge of how Marie Morgenstierne had died.

According to her statement, Kristine Larsen had stopped running and watched Marie Morgenstierne disappear in wild flight. Furthermore, Kristine Larsen did not have any weapons on her at the time, and had never owned a gun. She had no idea who the murderer was, but had lived in fear of him or her since she heard that Marie Morgenstierne had been killed.

So when she heard someone shout her name, she thought that the murderer had come to shoot her and had therefore run for her life without looking back. If she had known it was me, she would have stopped straight away. She repeated this three times within a minute.

Kristine Larsen smoked and cried until ten to eleven. She looked as though she was on the verge of a nervous and physical breakdown. But she stuck to her statement with forceful despair and declared her innocence with open arms.

After five unsuccessful attempts, I realized that I was not going to get any further and so instead asked her to describe in detail what had happened when Marie Morgenstierne started to run.

Kristine Larsen told me that there was an old man with a stick walking in front of her and that he stepped to one side to let her pass. There had been a blind woman with a guide dog behind her, and a man farther back behind the blind woman, but she only caught a glimpse of him.

She had spontaneously shouted ‘Marie’ when she saw her take off. Marie had first glanced back and then looked all around. Kristine Larsen had assumed that it was the sight of her that made Marie Morgenstierne bolt.

‘But then, as I shouted, I also looked around. And that was when I saw something that made me stop in my tracks.’

I gave her a sharp look. She lit another cigarette with shaking hands and took a deep drag.

‘That was when I saw him. He was standing there by the corner of a house on one of the side roads, looking at us.’

She said nothing more, and looked at me with an odd mixture of confusion and joy in her eyes.

‘And the man who was standing there was…?’

She nodded gravely. Then she whispered the name I had guessed before she said it, and which made the room spin.

‘Falko.’

I stared hard at Kristine Larsen. Her eyes were wet with tears, but she did not look away for a moment.

‘He was just as tall, just as dark and just as irresistibly handsome as when I last saw him. I would have recognized him anywhere in the world. He stood by the corner of the house for a few moments without moving, then disappeared from sight again between the houses. I don’t know whether he was waiting for Marie or me. And I don’t know if she saw him. But I did. It was my Falko standing there in the road – I am as sure about that as I am that I’m sitting here on this chair.’