Hans Lahlum - The Catalyst Killing

He glanced at his watch. It was twenty-five past four.

Only five minutes to go until the man in the window would shoot the Labour Party leader on the stage down there in Frogner Square. He felt remarkably calm, all the same.

B had never met Trond Bratten, but had still hated and scorned the man ever since the war. It rankled with him endlessly that a country bumpkin and small farmer’s son who did not have even basic school exams could become minister of finance, and then promptly fail to take the advice of the entire banking sector. And what was even more pathetic was that the small, thin man had to hide behind his wife in any given situation because he lacked any great oratory skills, but still insisted that he should be prime minister, rather than any of the better-qualified men in the country. To the murderer, Bratten was the symbol of a new era where ambitious upstarts and speculators were succeeding in taking power over the country, without either the education or the cultural heritage and wisdom that coming from a good family gave.

Ever since he was a child, the man at the window had felt immense contempt for people who did not recognize and accept their place in society. And he had hated Trond Bratten as good as all his adult life – both for his disproportionate ambition, and for every word he uttered as a politician. It all sounded like polished Marxism.

But this was not just a matter of personal contempt and political hate. Trond Bratten’s death was now necessary in order to secure the future of the country. The murderer had thought a lot about it over the years, and then more recently discussed it at length with his late father’s friends, Christian Magnus Eggen and Frans Heidenberg. All three had hated and scorned Trond Bratten for many years, but they were now starting to fear him. They all agreed that the government’s days were numbered. If Trond Bratten was allowed to live, he would become Norway’s prime minister within the next couple of years.

This was in itself a terrible thought, but also a tragedy because of the consequences it would have for the nation. A split between the right-wing parties and the Labour Party’s ascent to power could herald a new and long period in government for the party: at the very least, as long as the last one. The financial cost of the party’s taxes and charges would be catastrophic for business. But what was worse was that Trond Bratten, with his ridiculous hero status from the war, could now become the prime minister who would abandon the country’s independence and guide it into a new union. In a matter of decades, this would leave the country open to mass immigration from other countries all over the world. And it would be a national catastrophe. The murderer had himself been in the USA and seen the results of the increasing numbers of black and yellow faces on the streets. Criminality had mushroomed, and no white man could feel safe on the streets of any American city. The murderer did not want Oslo to look like that when he was an old man.

Fortunately there was only one man who stood in the way. Trond Bratten reigned supreme within his own ranks. His deputy was young and inexperienced. If Bratten fell, the Labour Party would no longer have a leader to unite them and would perhaps even be thrown into a bitter leadership struggle. The best that one could hope for was that this, combined with the debate on the union, would spell the beginning of the end for the party.

The man in the window had in his youth been fully prepared to kill people. He had been a sniper and an extremely diligent soldier. Already in his late teens, he had pushed his mental boundary and abandoned any blocks to taking human life. During the Second World War he had never been in combat, and the next great war that he had anticipated, with a mixture of fear and glee, had never happened. So he ended his military career. But he had continued to carry with him an immense curiosity as to how it would feel to kill a man. For many years, it had seemed unlikely that this would ever happen. But he had always carried it within himself. If he was not born to be a murderer, then he certainly had been trained and prepared to become one from his youth.

B had not killed anyone until the evening before. And then he had killed two people within minutes. He had been curious to know how it felt. But when he did kill his first victim, it was entirely according to plan and without drama. He had felt no sympathy for either of the men he had killed. After the murders, he had thought, just as he had before, that a fat country farmer and a long-haired student were not very important people, no more than a couple of small pawns that had to be sacrificed for the great cause.

The uninvited guest had left a murderer, and it had involved very little drama. He had seen Henry Alfred Lien as a traitor to the cause and decided in cold blood that the farmer had to die. He had not had anything against killing Lien, but he had not felt any great hatred for him either.

A measure of hatred had come later – when he suddenly stood face to face with Falko Reinhardt in the living room. Reinhardt had recognized him, seen the gun and run. The murderer had felt his hatred and contempt for the long-haired young man flare up. And he had known that the man now must die so he could not blow the whistle. The situation had instilled a different tension.

The murderer had pursued his victim, relishing the fact that he could keep pace with a younger man, and had first shot him in the foot. He had meant to kill him with the bullet to his chest, but had hit him a little too low. Reinhardt lay there, paralysed and helpless, only yards from the cliff. That was when the murderer had had the idea to cover all his tracks by pushing the victim over the edge. He was very pleased with himself and his quick thinking. He had got rid of the gun along with the victim when he heaved Reinhardt over the cliff. There was every reason to hope that Reinhardt would not be found until after Trond Bratten had been assassinated. And if he was found before this, the pistol in his pocket would support theories of murder and suicide.

It had been quite a shock for him to look over the edge and see someone else down there on the scree, close to where Reinhardt had landed. The murderer had immediately run to his car and taken off with a pulse well over 150. The fear of being caught and stopped before the planned attack had nearly driven him to despair in the first few minutes. But then he reasoned that Reinhardt had to be dead, and that the person down there could not possibly have recognized him from that distance. B had after all exceptional vision himself, and had only been able to see that there was a person down there, without being able to recognize him or her. His pulse had gradually slowed as he drove away from Valdres without any more drama, and without seeing any police cars.

He did not go home in the event that the police might have in some way tracked him down, and instead stayed overnight in a hotel near Hønefoss, under a false name. The atmosphere among the few guests at dinner was relaxed. None of the guests or staff appeared to recognize B in any way, and there were no policemen to be seen. B had fallen asleep without difficulty when he went to bed, and had slept long and well after the day’s excitement. After checking out, he had eaten an excellent lunch at the hotel without being disturbed. Then he had driven back into town two hours before the planned attack.

Everything had gone as hoped and planned. It was an office building that was under renovation, and the workmen were still on holiday.

The murderer had an escape route that would take no more than a minute, out the door and down the back stairs. All being well, he would be able to use it and then slip out and vanish into the mass of people below. A middle-aged man in a suit would hardly be the first to be suspected.