Hans Lahlum - The Catalyst Killing

Then he put down the phone without waiting for confirmation.

I heaved a sigh of relief and looked at the time. It was still only half past two. I still had time for a couple of meetings with the group around Falko Reinhardt before the end of the working day. The one I wanted to speak to most was without a doubt Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen, but I had more crucial questions to ask Anders Pettersen. So in the end I dialled his number, and when I had established that he was at home, I headed over there.

Anders Pettersen sat leaning forward in a chair beside his untidy coffee table and stared at me in disbelief. It was not a pleasant situation, and became even less so when he started to speak.

‘That is completely absurd. No one could honestly believe that Kristine would kill anyone, let alone a member of our group. If you believe that, you have either been duped by a conspiracy or are part of one yourself. Kristine is the most consistent, helpless pacifist I have ever met, and I have met quite a few. We all knew that she would not be up to much in the great struggle when world revolution reached Norway. She had been in touch with another revolutionary group before, but was told that they had no use for pacifists.’

The man was politically provoking and personally unbearable, but I chose to ignore both aspects for the moment. There was a considerable risk that he was right about Kristine Larsen and my chances of getting anything out of him about the rest of the group would not increase with confrontation. I therefore replied that the question as to whether Kristine Larsen would be charged or not was still open, but that there was much to indicate that jealousy and rivalry within the group had played a part. He looked at me with a little more interest when I said this.

So I then asked Anders Pettersen the same question that I had asked Trond Ibsen earlier in the day: if he had ever noticed any signs of romantic relationships within the group other than that between Marie Morgenstierne and Falko Reinhardt.

His reaction was more or less the same. He rolled his eyes and looked as though he was about to dismiss the whole question, but then paused for thought and frowned for a moment.

‘I never thought I would mention this to anyone outside the group, and certainly not to a policeman. But this is an extremely serious situation as one of us has been murdered, and I should do everything I can to disprove the clearly mistaken view that Kristine is the prime suspect.’

I nodded in agreement, said that he should absolutely do that, and assured him that for the time being it would be an unofficial statement and would not be written down or shared with the other members of the group. This prompted a sudden sense of confidentiality between us. Anders Pettersen leaned even further forward over the table and lowered his voice when he spoke.

‘I have never heard or seen anything to indicate that Kristine had any kind of romantic ties, if that is what you mean. Not with anyone, either in or out of the group. But there is a romantic secret in the group that you should perhaps know about, as it might be of some importance here…’

He looked at me, his eyes almost twinkling, and continued to talk even faster and more intensely, but in a whisper.

‘Our psychologist has a complex, and it is called women. Trond comes from a very good family, has plenty of money and a good education and all that. And, as far as others are concerned, he is without a doubt an extremely good psychologist. And as you have perhaps noticed, he appears to get on relatively well with other men. But his relationships with women have been less happy in all the years I’ve known him. As far as we know, he has never had a lover of any kind, through no lack of interest on his part. Trond is either too laid-back and distant, or too eager and intense in his dealings with women. In recent years, he seems to have focused more on his psychology and has been outvoted by the group more and more often. Since Falko’s disappearance, I’ve had a growing sense that he is part of the group not so much out of political interest, but rather romantic interest.’

‘So what you are saying is that… he may have been romantically attached to the late Marie Morgenstierne?’

Anders Pettersen nodded and gave a derisive smile.

‘He definitely had a romantic interest in Marie Morgenstierne; or perhaps a crush on her is a better way of putting it. And on Kristine Larsen. And his later contemptuous talk of Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen was perhaps also an attempt to hide the fact that he had tried it on with her too, without any success. I know him and his complex so well that I could see it, without even having a basic degree in psychology.’

This was said with an undertone of triumph. Once again I felt the tension and rivalry between the two remaining male members of the group, even when only one of them was present.

It seemed that we were getting close to something now in a case that really needed a boost and to pick up pace. So I threw down the trump card that I had had up my sleeve for several days now, and asked whether, if Marie Morgenstierne had been pregnant when she was killed, Trond Ibsen might be the father.

The reaction was unexpectedly instant and marked. His head sank down towards the table.

He asked if it was really true, and if so, how far gone she was.

I told him the truth, that she was pregnant, but probably only in the fifth or sixth week.

Anders Pettersen looked even more confused at this. He replied that he thought that Trond Ibsen was in love with Marie Morgenstierne, but that he had not thought he had a chance. Then he suddenly took this back and said that one could never rule out anything in such situations, and that this was becoming ever more mysterious. If Marie Morgenstierne had been pregnant when she died, he could not rule out the possibility that Trond Ibsen was not only the father but also potentially the murderer, though both things seemed highly unlikely to begin with. The first explanation that came to mind with regard to her pregnancy was that Falko had come back. He shook his head firmly when I asked if he had seen any indication of this, and added that it would be very odd if that were the case and Falko had not been in touch.

Anders Pettersen seemed to change completely in the course of the thirty minutes or so that I spoke to him. When I left, he stayed sitting by the table, totally confused, and it was easy to feel sorry for him. I understood him only too well: the case was equally confusing for me. But I still did not trust him.

I thought I could see people in the windows of both the neighbouring buildings when I parked my police car and knocked on the door of the SPP party office. I did not feel entirely comfortable with the situation.

There was no problem this time either, fortunately. The door was open. It was almost impossible to get into the office, as there were large piles of envelopes all over the floor. But the people who were stuffing the envelopes had obviously taken the weekend off. Three of the four desks were empty. At the fourth sat Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen, eagerly working her way through a pile of papers in just a T-shirt, with her strange multicoloured sweatshirt thrown over the back of the chair. She was engrossed in the papers, with an impish look on her face, and had obviously not noticed me.

The sight of her gave me a rush of joy on an otherwise serious day. I realized I had come more because I wanted to see her than because I needed answers from her. But it never occurred to me to turn around.

She suddenly became aware of me, but was not startled at all. Her equanimity was impressive. I was hugely encouraged by the fact that her face lit up with an even bigger smile, and that she pushed the pile of papers to one side at the same time.