Hans Lahlum - The Catalyst Killing

I was about to answer, but bit my tongue at the last moment. I remembered Patricia’s remarks that a major action might be in the planning, but that it was difficult to say by whom or against what. I had some new, important information: Marie Morgenstierne had definitely been an informant for the security police, but only after her fiancé had disappeared. And most important of all, she had later suspected one of the other four of being responsible for her fiancé’s death or abduction. The faces of Trond Ibsen, Anders Pettersen, Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen and Kristine Larsen flashed through my mind.

For a brief moment I regretted having been so open with Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen earlier in the afternoon; nevertheless, my suspicions were still focused largely on the other three. I wondered whether Trond Ibsen or Anders Pettersen might be the other mystery man down the side road at the scene of the crime, and changed my mind yet again about Kristine Larsen being a potential murderer. I thanked the head of the police security service for the information and left Victoria Terrace, deep in thought.

‘The cook has not outdone herself today, to be fair, but you are still eating suspiciously little,’ Patricia remarked halfway through the main course.

I dutifully took another couple of mouthfuls of the delicious venison, and thoughtlessly excused myself, saying that I had had to eat a little something earlier in the afternoon in connection with the investigation.

Patricia looked at me with raised eyebrows, but fortunately did not ask any questions.

I gave her a simplified account of the afternoon’s developments, without saying that I had asked Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen out for something to eat. It was not something I wanted to tell Patricia, nor did it feel like something she would want to know. We eagerly talked about the case over the rest of the meal.

‘The case is of course complicated, and enough to make you lose your appetite,’ I said.

She nodded vigorously.

‘I absolutely agree. The picture is now somewhat clearer regarding the police security service, but they are still holding so much back that one could be forgiven for wondering if they are hiding something serious. Let us hope that this can finally be cleared up when you talk to the man with the suitcase tomorrow.’

I stared at Patricia, astounded.

‘And how exactly do you think I am going to do that? The head of the security service seemed very unwilling to cooperate on that point.’

Patricia let out a great sigh.

‘Have you really not considered the reason why the head of the security service seems so unwilling to cooperate and would not let you meet the man with the suitcase? You tell the good Mr Bryne tomorrow that you know that this man has a large mole on his face and remind him of the potential scandal that might ensue should it ever get out that he was also at the cabin in Valdres on the night that Falko Reinhardt went missing. My guess is that you will be able to talk to him pretty quickly after that. I am less certain, however, about how much help it will be.’

I felt as though I had been punched in the stomach. It struck me that if Patricia’s intelligence had increased from the time she was eighteen until she was twenty, so had her arrogance. Fortunately, she continued in a softer tone.

‘The picture is becoming more detailed, but also more complex and confusing. The same is true of the picture at the scene of the crime on the evening that Marie Morgenstierne was shot.’

I nodded in agreement.

‘Just when we have now identified one of those present, we have discovered a new shadow in the wings. Do you have any ideas about who this other man in the side road might be?’

Patricia’s smile was secretive.

‘I nearly always have my theories, but these are at present so uncertain that I cannot share them with anyone else yet – particularly as there is a considerable chance that it was just a random passer-by who happened to be standing there. I am currently more interested in the man who it is becoming ever clearer was there, and who is perhaps out there somewhere with the solution: in other words, Falko Reinhardt himself. But based on the information given, I unfortunately have no way of knowing where he might be. Once again, the curse of public space.’

I commented that the information from the police security service also allowed for the possibility that Marie Morgenstierne might have suspected Kristine Larsen of being responsible for Falko’s disappearance.

Patricia replied that it was of course a possibility that Marie Morgenstierne’s suspicions were of considerable importance, even though it would seem that they were unfounded: Falko was alive, and had disappeared of his own free will. But it was first of all highly unlikely that the person Marie Morgenstierne suspected was also the person who killed her. And, furthermore, there were other people whom Marie Morgenstierne had reason to suspect just as much as Kristine Larsen.

I asked Patricia outright if she was now alluding to Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen. She looked at me, slightly surprised, and to my relief, shook her head.

‘No, it was not primarily her I was thinking of. On the contrary, she is perhaps the least likely of the four. If that was where Marie Morgenstierne’s suspicions lay, it seems unlikely that she would continue to act as an informer for the police security service for a year after Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen had left the group.’

I had not thought of that, but apparently was too enthusiastic in my nodding. Patricia sighed heavily again and continued.

‘Marie Morgenstierne may of course have started to act as an informant because she was suspicious of Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen, and then continued for other reasons. But no matter what this Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen may or may not have on her conscience, or what she believed, there is nothing at all to indicate that she had anything to do with Falko’s disappearance. It is, however, not impossible that she might have something to do with Marie Morgenstierne’s death. But I have to say it seems unlikely.’

We left it at that. For a moment, Patricia suddenly seemed to be deflated. She sat in silence with her dessert, before pushing it aside after only a few mouthfuls of ice cream.

‘I am allergic to something there is far too much of in this case, and that is coincidences. The strangest of all is that you yourself were there on the train when Marie Morgenstierne came running for her life. You have never actually told me what you were doing at Smestad that evening.’

I chortled briefly and told her in five sentences the story of the overwrought hotel manager and his suspicious guest.

Never before had I experienced such a rapid and dramatic change in Patricia’s mood. Within two seconds she went from sitting in her wheelchair, disheartened and almost resigned and passive, to leaning forward over the table, breathless and on the verge of angry.

‘And in the five days that you have come here, you have not thought once to tell me this remarkable story?’

‘But – the hotel manager is completely paranoid and rings about things like this every three months or so,’ I stammered.

Patricia was not pacified by this. She hit the table, making the dessert bowls jump.

‘As a great many people in both the United States and the Soviet Union can confirm, being paranoid does not prove in any way that one is not being persecuted! Did this bizarre guest give a name, by the way?’

‘Frank Rekkedal,’ I said, and at that moment realized my blunder.

Patricia became so agitated and spoke so fast that I almost feared she might leap out of her wheelchair and over the table to get at me.

‘If it had been illegal not to see the simplest of connections, you would have to arrest yourself right now! Frank Rekkedal, hardly – the guest’s name is Falko Reinhardt and he is even more confident and theatrical than I thought! Go to the hotel immediately and let’s hope he is still there. And if he is, it may be decisive in solving the murder, and in preventing something even more dramatic that is being planned by someone out there right now.’