He sat down on a chair opposite me without saying a word.
I asked whether there was any news in relation to the family fortune and his father’s estate.
He replied that it would take some time before they had a full overview, as his father had had quite an empire, including several tenement buildings that were valued at less than the market rate. The estimate of fifty to sixty million from the day before was possibly going to be too low rather than too high.
I then asked him, in as friendly a manner as I could, if he had any plans for his share of the inheritance. He told me that he would eventually like to start his own law firm and would therefore prefer the business to be sold and the profit to be divided up between them. It was something he still had to discuss with his mother and sisters, of course, but he thought his sisters would agree. Otherwise, the business could easily pay out a few million to each of the heirs.
Without further ado, I asked outright whether he knew what kind of business relationship there had been between Per Johan Fredriksen and Kjell Arne Ramdal.
Johan Fredriksen nodded pensively. ‘I also wondered about that. And according to the accountant, they made a number of investments and ran a couple of companies together about ten to twenty years ago. However, Ramdal sold his share in the early 1960s and they did not appear to have had any joint ventures after that. Ramdal has been far more successful on his own and has become a property magnate in Oslo. He had put in an offer to buy all Father’s real estate companies, in fact. Father had discussed it with his accountant and, rather unusually, with me as well. The offer was for forty-five million, which was, as far as we could see, above the market value. I said that I thought it would be a sensible move for the family. Father was getting older and still had political ambitions, and none of his children were interested in carrying on the property business. The feeling I had, and which I have had confirmed by the accountant, who felt the same, was that Father had focused more on politics in recent years and had been less successful in his business dealings. But Father was still hesitant, for reasons he kept to himself. He would have had to make a decision soon though, as Ramdal had set the deadline for his offer as 24 March.’
I noted down the date, and thought to myself that the timing of Per Johan Fredriksen’s death seemed to be becoming increasingly significant.
Out loud, I asked if Ramdal’s offer still stood, regardless of his father’s death, and if so, if it was now likely to be accepted.
‘The offer still stands, and I think it will probably be accepted. Though having said that, I would, of course, not want to jump the gun with regard to the reactions of my mother and sisters.’
Johan Fredriksen had become more communicative and I started to warm to him a little more. A feeling that was further strengthened when he continued of his own accord.
‘In all confidence, I must say that in what is already a very difficult situation, the fact that my father discussed his business so little with us is proving very challenging. After all, we only knew him as this kind and loving family man. In my conversations with the office manager and accountant I have come to realize that there were other sides to him that we did not see, but which were evident in his business dealings. It would perhaps be best if you asked them directly about this, if it’s of interest to you and the case.’
I said that I would and thanked him for his openness so far. Then I added that, as a matter of routine, I had to build a file on the people closest to the victim, and so had to ask about the civil status of his son.
Our conversation suddenly took a bit of a downturn. Johan Fredriksen furrowed his brow and paused before he started to speak again slowly.
‘To tell you the truth, I am not entirely sure what to say. I live alone, and I am unmarried and have no children. Nor am I engaged. But—’
He broke off and sat in thought.
‘But it would seem that you are now in a relationship or at the very start of one?’ I prompted.
Johan Fredriksen said nothing for a few more seconds, then he continued. ‘Yes, well, I certainly hope so. However, it was not entirely clear before all this happened, and does not feel any less complicated now. There are certain things about the lady in question’s private circumstances which make me reluctant to make her name known or to give it to the police. And for the moment I do not want the relationship to be made public. More importantly, I know that she doesn’t want it to be either. I could possibly ask her if I can give her name to the police, should that be necessary in connection with the ongoing investigation. But it doesn’t seem very likely, so in the meantime, you will just have to take my word for it that she has absolutely nothing to do with the case.’
In murder investigations, I tend to like the people who put their cards on the table best, and, as he spoke, I became rather curious about Johan Fredriksen’s secret girlfriend. However, I had to agree with his reasoning and felt a growing respect for him.
So I said that it was not optimal, but was acceptable for the present. We shook hands and walked out together.
VI
It was a quarter past twelve by the time I got back to the office. There were still no messages of any significance waiting for me. However, the phone did ring at twenty-five past twelve, when I was halfway through my packed lunch.
I heard the voice of the same annoyingly slow switchboard operator that I had heard the day before. She said there was another lady on the telephone who said she had some information that might be of importance to the Fredriksen investigation.
Naturally, I asked for her to be transferred immediately. A rather tense middle-aged woman came on the line, with a detectable east-end accent, accompanied by a clicking sound that told me she was calling from a telephone box.
‘Good afternoon, this is Mrs Lene Johansen. I was away visiting my sister at the weekend and just got back this morning. I was surprised not to find any sign of my son, Tor Johansen, who is just fifteen. And then I discovered that his school satchel was still here, and when I went to the school, they said that he hadn’t been there today. His bike is not here either. So I’m afraid that something serious might have happened to him over the weekend. I’ve told him so many times that he has to be careful when he’s cycling around on the wet streets. I shouldn’t have gone away.’
I heard an undertone of desperation in his mother’s voice. And I heard the suspense in my own when I asked her if she could perhaps describe her son in more detail.
‘Dark hair, thin, about five foot three. He should be easy to recognize as he has a limp in his right foot and a large birthmark on his neck.’
All the pieces fell into place as she spoke. I felt enormous relief, for my part, and great sympathy for the mother.
I told her, as calmly and reassuringly as I could, that her son was alive and unharmed, but that he had been remanded on suspicion of a very serious crime.
His mother gasped. It sounded as though she might faint right there in the telephone box. ‘Goodness! What on earth has Tor done now?’ she almost whispered.
I asked if she had heard that the politician Per Johan Fredriksen had been stabbed and killed. Her first answer was simply another gasp, then there was a sob and the clatter of the receiver falling.
I feared that the line would be broken, but her voice came back a few seconds later, even weaker than before.
‘Yes, I saw on the front page that he’d been killed and that a young suspect had been arrested. And I hoped that it wasn’t my Tor, but feared the worst. What a terribly, terribly sad story.’
Just then the pips started indicating that her time was up. So she spoke very quickly. ‘The line will be cut any minute, and I don’t have any more money. We live in a basement flat in thirty-six Tøyenbekken down in Grønland. Come here and I can tell you everything.’
The line was cut before I had the chance to ask her to come here instead.
I sat at my desk for a few seconds and mused on what possible connection there could be between a family from th
e east end and Per Johan Fredriksen. Judging by the mother’s reaction, there clearly was a connection, and just as we thought, it would be a tragic story.
It took me a couple of minutes to decide whether I should go to see the mother directly or have another talk with her son first. I came to the conclusion that as he was a minor, it was my duty to tell him that his mother would be coming soon and to inform him that we now knew his identity.
VII
The prison guard and I both instinctively took a couple of steps back as the door to the cell swung open.
My first thought was that there had been an earthquake. My second was that the prisoner had somehow managed to escape.
But there had been no earthquake – only a stool that had been pushed over and a bed that had been pulled apart, with the pillow and mattress left lying on the floor.
Tor Johansen was still in the room. He was hanging perfectly still and lifeless against the wall. The bedsheet had been torn into strips and plaited together to make a rope. One end of which was now firmly knotted to the bars on the window, and the other around his neck.
I felt a brief glimmer of hope when I took hold of him, as his body was still warm. But I had come too late. There was no sign of a pulse or breath.
I shouted to the prison guard that he should call a doctor, and heard his running steps disappear down the corridor as I stood there with the lifeless boy in my arms. I had seen death close at hand several times before in the course of my work, but standing here with a dead child in my arms was a horrible experience, all the same. To begin with I thought that I could not let him go until the doctor came. However, no matter how thin he was, he soon became heavy and I realized all hope was gone. So I slowly laid him down on the mattress on the floor.
I stood there and looked at the dead boy’s body for a small eternity before I eventually started to cast my eyes around the room. There was not much to see. His shoes stood neatly just inside the door and he was wearing all his clothes. The only things on the table were a pencil and notebook. And on it, he had written in large, simple capital letters:
BECAUSE EITHER IT IS THE WORLD THAT IS TURNED TO SLAVERY, OR ME . . . AND IT IS MORE LIKELY TO BE THE LATTER.
I read the note containing Tor Johansen’s last words to the world over and over again, until an out-of-breath doctor arrived and immediately declared the patient dead.
I had no idea where the words on the note came from – or whether indeed it was something he had read or come up with himself. Whatever the case, his note only increased my puzzlement as to who Tor Johansen had been and what he had been thinking.
VIII
Number 36 Tøyenbekken was at the very end of the street. The Grønland neighbourhood was far from one of the best in town, the street was far from one of the best in the neighbourhood and the building was far from one of the best in the street. The paint was flaking from the walls, the steps were worn down and what had once been a medium-sized basement flat was now divided into two much smaller homes.
The woman who was waiting for me in the basement also seemed a little worn down. Her dark hair had started to grey, and her cheeks were wet with tears. I guessed that she was closer to fifty than sixty, but it did strike me that not so many decades ago she could well have been an attractive young woman. She was around five foot six and her body appeared slim yet shapely even under her old threadbare dress. The skin on her hands was creased and she was trembling with emotion.
‘Come in,’ she said quickly, and then closed the door behind us.
We went in and sat down in a room that was barely 150 square feet and appeared to be a combined kitchen, living room and bedroom. There was a table and a couple of chairs in the middle of the room, a made-up bed along one wall and a kitchen counter and cooker along the other.
It was half past two. The priest had been there before me. Lene Johansen knew why I was there. I, on the other hand, could still not see a connection.
The room gave me no clues whatsoever. The flat was clean and tidy, if incredibly small. The things I could see were somehow less striking than the things I could not see. I had not expected there to be a television in a basement flat in Grønland, but nor was there a radio or even any newspapers. There was no telephone or wall clock of any kind.
Above the bed, there was a simple old photograph of a couple in their thirties with a small child. The child was too young to be recognizable as Tor Johansen, but the woman was definitely his mother and she had indeed once been beautiful. The man beside her did not make much of an impression. He was just a clean-shaven, thin, dark-haired man. There was no striking resemblance to Tor Johansen, but nor were there any great differences. His smile was unusually broad, and he had his hand on the baby’s head.
The woman followed my eyes to the picture. ‘That was in 1957,’ she said quietly. ‘I was thirty-five, but felt younger and more optimistic than I had done for a long time. We had been married for twelve years without any children, and then all of a sudden, I was going to have one. It was a difficult pregnancy and a complicated birth. We never had any more children. So everything was focused on Tor. In the early days, when he was first born, we thought that everything was fine. But when he started to crawl, we noticed that he dragged one foot behind, and he struggled with words when finally he started to talk. So I had to give all my time to a child who would never learn to walk or talk properly. They were happy days all the same, while my husband was still healthy and alive. He had a good job at the steel works and spent practically everything he earned on the family. But then he fell ill and that same day lost any control over the bottle. Things went downhill with frightening speed. When my husband died three years ago, he left us seventy kroner in cash and twenty-three thousand, two hundred in debt. Since then, Tor and I have moved every year to smaller and smaller flats. And we can’t even manage to stay here now the rent has gone up.’
She pulled from her pocket a folded sheet of paper and placed it on the table in front of me.
The letter was short, formal and brutal. The tenancy agreement had been terminated as the rent had not been paid. If they did not move out voluntarily within ten days from the date on the letter, they would be evicted. It was signed by Odd Jørgensen, office manager at Per Johan Fredriksen Ltd.
I immediately thought that here was the link I should have seen. And then I thought that Patricia would have seen it.
Lene Johansen seemed to have aged even more during this conversation, and she buried her head in her hands before carrying on.
‘Tor was sitting here with the letter when I came home on Thursday, and was beside himself. He couldn’t bear the thought of moving yet again and asked where we were going to go now. I told him the truth, which was that I had no idea. Tor wanted to go and talk to Per Johan Fredriksen personally. I said that he must never do anything of the kind. Then I went down to the office myself the next morning. I begged on behalf of my sick child, I cried and even got down on my knees in front of them. But there was no sympathy and no hope. I left when they threatened to call the police if I stayed on their floor any longer. So I went to visit my sister in Ski to see if she could perhaps find a corner for us in the meantime. The evening before I went, Tor said again that he would go and see Fredriksen himself. I told him it would only make things worse. And that seemed to make him change his mind. So it’s not such a surprise that he might have tried to find Fredriksen. But I would never have thought that he would kill him. No matter how much Tor has suffered, he has never broken the law before. He was always kind and good like that.’
I took out a sealed bag with the murder weapon inside and put it down on the table. She quickly understood what it was, but looked at it with little interest.
‘That’s not from this kitchen, but there are plenty of other ways he could have got hold of it.’
I nodded thoughtfully. It was a piece that did not quite fit the puzzle, but it was in no way decisive.
‘There is still one thing I don’t quite understand . . . I
t is perhaps not so strange that he wanted to talk to Fredriksen. But it seems rather odd that he knew how to find Fredriksen in Majorstuen, and also knew the way from there to my flat.’
She let out a heavy sigh. ‘Sadly, it is perhaps not as strange as it might seem. Tor never had any money, still couldn’t walk properly or talk clearly. So there wasn’t much he could do with the others after school. I had to work a lot in the evenings and he didn’t like it here on his own. So he’d normally go to the library after school and sit there until it closed. Then he would cycle around in town for a few hours. He liked cycling more than walking, as then people couldn’t see his limp. He called his bike Andreas, and used to say that it was his best friend. When I asked him where he’d been he’d say “I’ve been out with Andreas”. They went all over Oslo, the two of them. Tor had a map of practically the whole town in his head. He never dared to talk to famous people, but could always remember where he’d seen them. He sometimes called himself a little spy. So Tor might have followed Fredriksen, if he’d come from the Storting, or waited for him at Majorstuen, if he’d seen him there several Saturdays before.’
That made sense. According to his mistress, Fredriksen had often been there on Saturdays.
I no longer doubted that Tor Johansen had killed Per Johan Fredriksen, but asked his mother all the same if she thought her son was capable of committing such a serious crime.
‘To be honest, I don’t know what to believe any more. Tor was my only child. I loved him, but I never really understood him. He was clever with books and things like that. He often understood much more than I did, and sometimes I just had no idea what was going on in his head. He’s never done anything wrong before, but I just don’t know what he might be capable of any more.’
We sat in silence briefly, before she gave a sombre nod and continued. ‘If he has, it’s because we’re so poor. If my son really has killed someone, it’s another tragic example of what poverty can do to a good person.’
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