Chameleon People

by Hans Olav Lahlum

  I was in bed by a quarter to twelve and barely managed to set the alarm before I fell asleep. But the sheet on my own bed reminded me, all the same, of what I had seen at the main police station earlier in the day. And I saw the boy on the red bicycle once again – dead in his cell.

  Monday, 20 March 1972 came to a close with me dreaming that Miriam was back in my bed with me, but Patricia was sitting in her wheelchair in the middle of the room, looking at us with a grim and reproachful expression.

  DAY FOUR

  Some New Faces – and a Slightly Surreal Situation

  I

  On Tuesday, 21 March 1972, it was reported in the morning news on the radio that it now looked as though the Barents Sea agreement would get the support of all parties, even though some individuals in the Conservative Party had raised critical questions about the Soviet Union’s intentions. These were possibly in response to the fact that surviving members of the Communist Party of Norway had appeared on the barricades to proclaim the agreement was an example of the Soviet Union’s good intentions and genuine desire for peace.

  Between the headlines and reports about the Barents Sea agreement and the EEC debate in the morning papers, I found some obituaries for Per Johan Fredriksen and several smaller reports about his murder. The two newspapers that I had delivered wrote that the suspect, who had been held in custody after having fled the scene of the crime, was a young man from the east end of Oslo, and he had since committed suicide in prison. From the evidence, it would seem that the murder was motivated by personal tragedy and the case was now considered closed.

  The newspapers did not mention the suspect’s name, but did name the head of the investigation. Phrases such as ‘the young and already well-known Detective Inspector Kolbjørn Kristiansen solved the case in record time’ made for pleasant enough reading. But I read them with mixed feelings, knowing as I did only too well that it could quickly backfire on the police in general and myself in particular. Especially if the press got wind of the fact that the arrestee, who had taken his own life in a cell, was innocent. I came to the conclusion that it might have been better if my name had not been mentioned. I quickly folded the papers and hurried to work.

  I was in my office by twenty past eight, in other words, ten minutes early. All the incoming messages to do with the case were requests for interviews. I dealt with them swiftly, replying that the investigation was still ongoing and the police were still open to all possibilities.

  At half past nine, I was in my car driving out of Oslo, on my way to meet a man who had apparently lived alone in Holmestrand since finding his girlfriend dead in a hotel room in Oslo forty years ago.

  II

  The farm was easy to find: not only was it the best signposted, but it was also the largest in the area. After seeing a sign for Westgaard on a side road, I drove for a good three minutes before coming to the farmhouse.

  The man was not hard to find either. Hauk Rebne Westgaard was standing talking to two other men in front of the house when I drove up. It was very obvious who he was, thanks to his height, profile and clothes. Without reading very much more into it, I could see that he was the only gentleman there.

  The description I had been given was very fitting. Hauk Rebne Westgaard was at least six feet tall, with unusually sharp features and a clean-shaven face, raven hair, a slim build and graceful movements; he could as easily have been forty-five as sixty-five. His handshake was strong and his voice was friendly when he said: ‘Welcome.’ But he did not smile, and walked into the house without saying another word.

  Hauk Rebne Westgaard’s living room was large and tidy, but in terms of the furnishing and decor, it was like taking a step back in time to the early interwar period. With the possible exception of a couple of guns on the wall and some of the trophies on the top shelves, it looked as though nothing here was from after 1945. I found myself wondering whether my host’s internal life had remained equally untouched since 1932.

  Out loud, I asked whether he lived alone or had any family. He replied: ‘I have three farmhands who live on the farm with their families, but I live on my own in the house. My parents died long ago, and my only sibling is a younger sister who also has her own house on the farm. I have never married and do not have the pleasure of my own children.’

  ‘But you were once in love and had a girlfriend, whom you lost – unexpectedly,’ I said.

  He gave a strangely determined and abrupt nod. It was as though his sharp chin cleaved the air in two.

  ‘I understand that you are well acquainted with the events of 1932. Yes, I once had a girlfriend whom I loved very much and lost very unexpectedly. I have carried on with my life, done what I should and could on the farm and in the community, and I’ve managed well. But I still wonder about what happened, and what my life might have been like had it not occurred. And that I will never know. But I would be very grateful if you could solve the mystery.’

  His voice was still friendly, but as he spoke his hawk-like eyes bore into me.

  I felt the pressure mounting. So I swiftly replied that I would do my best, but that I first needed to hear his version of the events and how he had experienced them.

  ‘Eva and I had not been together for very long, just four months. And we were very different. She was an irrepressible optimist with a lust for life and had grown up without a care in the world. Whereas the situation here at home had left its mark on me and I was far more serious. But we got on very well together all the same, and in the days before the trip to Oslo had even talked about getting engaged. I was never one for parties really and thought I was the luckiest man in the world to have found such a beautiful and charming girlfriend. I could see that other men looked at me with envy. And I thought to myself many a time that it was too good to last, but I had no idea that it would end as tragically as it did.’

  ‘And in addition, she was rich,’ I said, tentatively.

  Hauk Rebne Westgaard gave another of his sharp nods. ‘That was not important to me. I would have wanted Eva even if she was the daughter of a poor farmhand, but of course I knew full well that she was heir to land and property worth millions. I both saw and heard that it was important to other young men, from families that were often far richer than my own. The wealthy farmers down here used to joke that there were no engagements in Vestfold, only mergers.’

  He smiled fleetingly when he said this. But the smile disappeared as soon as I asked if he had known that Per Johan Fredriksen had shown some interest in his girlfriend.

  ‘Yes. He paid a lot of attention to my girlfriend, and Kjell Arne Ramdal showed a lot of interest in both my girlfriend and Per Johan’s fiancée. So the atmosphere on the way into the capital and at the hotel was rather tense. I could feel that a drama was brewing, but the form it then took came as a shock. On the surface, Eva was the most carefree and relaxed of us all. She lived to be adored. We had discussed it and I was happy for her to be the centre of attention.’

  I noted that jealousy could have been a possible motive for Hauk Rebne Westgaard. I then asked him what he believed happened.

  ‘It was not epilepsy that killed Eva, I am almost certain of that. I had been to the doctor with her a few days before. He had assured her that epilepsy was something she would die with, but not from. Otherwise she was as fit as a fiddle with no sign of any illness. It seems just as unlikely to me that she committed suicide. First of all, she had been in a remarkably good mood all spring, and still was only a few hours before. Second, I don’t understand how she committed suicide, if she did. I was with her when she packed and did not see medicine of any sort either then or later in the hotel room. I smelt her lips after she had died, and they did not smell of anything. Even though I cannot categorically dismiss the possibility that she committed suicide or died as a result of her illness, I have always believed that she was murdered. But how she was killed, why she was killed and by whom, remains as much of a mystery to me now, forty years on, as then. And I would be so grateful if you could
tell me.’

  There was a faint spark in the eyes of the man opposite me when he said this. Despite his control, he suddenly scared me a little, with the feeling only enhanced by all the guns and trophies on the wall.

  I said that I was not able to tell him now, but that I would do my utmost to find out.

  ‘I thank you for that. It’s more than can be said of the police in 1932. They danced to her father’s tune. He was a very conservative and powerful old man who was less interested in finding out the truth than in hiding the potential scandal a suicide would have entailed. As her young boyfriend, and with no contacts in Oslo, I had no rights whatsoever and was ignored when I tried to support her sister’s demands for an autopsy. And, likewise, when I informed them that it was clear that another person had been in her room in the hour or two before she died, and also in her bed.’

  Hauk Rebne Westgaard’s hard and defiant eyes pierced me to the core when he said this. He replied swiftly and without hesitation when I asked him how he could be so sure of that.

  ‘I was the first person into her room when we all went up. I immediately noticed that the bed, which had been made up earlier in the day, was now crumpled. Eva was full of energy and as good as never slept in the afternoons. She may, of course, have done so that day, but there were also three black hairs on her pillow. Eva had blonde hair, so they were clearly not hers. The police said they were unable to establish who the hair came from. They examined the bed as soon as they were told, but found no evidence of sexual activity and suggested that the hairs could have got there by all manner of ways that might not be directly linked to her death. But I can still only think of one plausible explanation, and that is that there was a dark-haired man in her room – and bed – only hours before she died.’

  He said this in a very quiet voice, almost a whisper – which I could well understand. If his story was true, Hauk Rebne Westgaard had lived for the past forty years not only with the uncertainty of how his girlfriend had died, but also with the question of who she had been unfaithful with beforehand.

  Hauk Rebne Westgaard’s still-black hair was right in front of my very eyes as we sat there looking at each other. So I cautiously asked if those black hairs might not be his own. He nodded very firmly to this and then spoke very fast.

  ‘Yes, I understand that you have to ask. I realized that that was what the police suspected. But Eva and I had not shared a bed that day and, in fact, I had been nowhere near the bed in her hotel room. So the hairs had to be from someone else. Per Johan and Kjell Arne both had dark hair at the time, so if it was either of them it would be difficult to say which one. There may of course have been a third man, unknown to me, but it seems much more likely that it was one of those two . . . and, of course, there is nothing to say that whoever was in the bed took Eva’s life afterwards, but again, it seems likely.’

  I had to agree with both points, and asked him which of the two he suspected.

  Hauk Rebne Westgaard gave it some thought, then answered in an even quieter voice. ‘I don’t know. I have thought about it a thousand times and changed my mind at least five hundred. I knew Per Johan best from childhood and have always liked him best. But from a very young age he was a man with many faces. On the other hand, I had never cared for Kjell Arne, but only ever saw one face. So it has always seemed more likely to me that it was my childhood friend, Per Johan, who took Eva’s life and left mine in ruins.’

  He said the latter in an almost inaudible voice and with a faint glow in his eyes. I was aware of all the guns and trophies behind him and thought to myself that Hauk Rebne Westgaard was not someone I would like to have as an enemy.

  He apparently realized that he had perhaps gone too far.

  ‘You asked, and I am giving you an honest answer. Obviously, I would not have said that if I had killed Per Johan. Which I didn’t. I still don’t know if I had a reason to hate Per Johan and I don’t know who killed him.’

  I quickly followed this up by asking what his thoughts were when Per Johan made his unexpected announcement at the memorial dinner a few days earlier.

  ‘Initially I thought that he had found something out that linked Kjell Arne to the murder. Then I looked at Kjell Arne, and his only reaction was to knit his eyebrows and look puzzled. So then I thought perhaps Per Johan was saying it to deflect any suspicion, but it was hard to understand why he would do that now. And then he said nothing more. He raised his glass of water demonstratively and remained silent for the rest of the meal. It was an interesting meal in that respect, but left me none the wiser.’

  I thought to myself that Patricia would be able to discern something from this, but I could not see what it might be.

  Before I had time to ask another question, Hauk Rebne Westgaard suddenly moved – with unexpected speed and force. As though pulling a gun, he pulled out his wallet and put it down on the table between us. It was made of brown leather and, as far as I could see, was full of notes and coins. He put his fingers into a small side pocket and carefully took out a small white stamp bag.

  And hey presto, there we were with three dark hairs from 1932 between us.

  I stared intensely at them for a few seconds, but was unable to guess to whom they belonged.

  Hauk Rebne Westgaard asked me in a quiet voice if technology was now so advanced that it was possible to establish someone’s identity from three forty-year-old strands of hair. I replied in an even softer voice that it was worth a try, but that normally it was not possible.

  He said: ‘A small chance is still better than no chance at all,’ and pushed the bag containing the three hairs over towards me.

  I put it carefully in my own wallet and said that I would look after it well. He said that he would like them back afterwards, and I promised him that he would get them.

  ‘And you have never had a girlfriend since?’ I asked, with some caution.

  It was a somewhat bold question, but Hauk Rebne Westgaard took it well. He sat in silence for a few moments, but then spoke for a long time once he had started.

  ‘No, I never did. The fact that things were the way they were at home also played a part. Father flew into a rage if anyone forgot the double A in Westgaard. It’s a very old name and his family have been wealthy farmers here since the Dano-Norwegian Union. But my father drank himself into the ground, and almost did the same with the farm. After Eva’s tragic death I came home to another crisis and possible enforced sale of the farm. My mother and I went to court and managed to have Father declared incompetent in the nick of time, so that I could take over the running of the farm before it all collapsed. I was twenty-five years old when I took over a farm on the verge of bankruptcy, and the responsibility for my ten-year-old sister. In the first few years, we could barely pay anyone to help us with the sowing in spring or harvesting in autumn. In the years before and during the war, I was constantly battling against the frost and down payments for me and my mother. While others fought for their country, I had no time to do anything other than fight for my family’s farm. Hunting and shooting were my only form of relaxation and apart from that, I used every ounce of energy I had on the farm. So all I had to offer any potential wife was insecurity, and even so I did not have time to find one. But the shock was the hardest thing to bear. If you lose the love of your life at a young age, without being able to say goodbye, it does something to you. And when you don’t know what happened, it’s even worse.’

  He stopped for a moment to draw breath, and then carried on at a slower pace, in a quieter voice.

  ‘It has always been said that there is a curse on the Westgaard men. My father’s father had two wives who both died when they were young. My mother told me more than once that marrying my father had been the greatest mistake of her life. As a modern man, I do not believe that the sins of the fathers are visited on their sons. But until the mystery of Eva’s death is solved, I will not be able to put my arms around another woman. And so here I am, a wealthy farmer, with no one to take over the family farm w
hen my time comes.’

  I now saw Hauk Rebne Westgaard as both a modern man and an old-fashioned farmer. And I could understand his sorrow.

  I asked tactfully whether his sister had any children who might inherit the farm.

  ‘No,’ he replied, almost too swiftly. Then he continued in a steady voice. ‘There is a young widow on the neighbouring farm who has come to visit several times recently. She is very nice. But I cannot decide whether it is a good or a bad sign that she was born in 1932. It would be the last chance for a new generation to grow up here at Westgaard. But every time I see her, it’s as though Eva appears and stands between us. I think about the family curse, about the shock I got when I found Eva dead, and I am still unable to touch another woman. So I would be deeply thankful if you and the police could solve the case.’

  I promised him that I would do my very best and that I would let him know immediately if there was any news. He spontaneously held out his hand and I took it. His hand was slim, strong and surprisingly warm; it burned in mine.

  I dropped his hand and said that he must be completely honest with me. Then I asked if he had anything more of importance to tell me from that fateful day in 1932 when Eva died.

  Hauk Rene Westgaard hesitated for a moment – and then a moment more. Then he continued: ‘Yes. You seem to be a fine, open-minded man. So I am going to tell you something that I did not tell the police in 1932. I said nothing because I didn’t trust them and I didn’t see how it could be significant, but also because I feared that others might take the opportunity to direct their suspicion at me. I was in Eva’s hotel room that afternoon. But I left at half past five, and she was still very much alive.’

  My nod was almost a reflex and I asked him to tell me in as much detail as possible what had happened. He did so immediately.