Chameleon People

by Hans Olav Lahlum

  ‘I had been worried because Eva, even though she was in a good mood, had seemed distracted and had avoided looking at me earlier in the day. So I knocked on her door at a quarter past five and asked if everything was all right. She let me in, but was unusually serious and a bit evasive. Then she told me that she had found herself attracted to someone else, but that it was complicated, that she still loved me and that I had to give her some time to think about what she wanted to do. It felt as though the ground had opened beneath my feet. I could do nothing other than say that I loved her more than anything in the world, beg her to stay with me and that I would give her all the time she needed to think about the situation. I hugged her and could feel her trembling in my arms. Then I went. I left her standing in the middle of her hotel room, unharmed and alive. In fact, it was the last time I saw her alive. And it was exactly five-thirty when I got back to my room.’

  He was now speaking faster again, as though fevered.

  It was tempting to believe him. But then I thought that Hauk Rebne Westgaard’s own explanation still gave him a possible motive of jealousy – and the fact that his girlfriend had been confused and in a difficult situation could have resulted in suicide.

  Out loud, I asked whether he was sure that the bed was still made and that he had not seen any pills or other means of suicide in the room. He gave a sharp nod in answer to both.

  The only question that remained was a sensitive one. I paused for a beat and spoke slowly when I said that I had to ask everyone, as a matter of procedure, where they were when Per Johan Fredriksen died at half past eight on Saturday evening.

  Hauk Rebne Westgaard conceded that he understood why I had to ask. Then he said: ‘Well, in my case, I was unfortunately on my own in the car driving back to Holmestrand. I had been at the anti-EEC conference as part of a delegation of Labour Party members who are against membership. It’s no coincidence that Kjell Arne ended up in the Conservative Party, Per Johan in the Centre Party and I in the Labour Party. Per Johan and I agreed on the EEC question. Membership would be catastrophic for rural Norway and the beginning of the end for agriculture as we know it. In fact, Per Johan and I met very briefly that day. We exchanged looks and nods, but no words, when he gave a short talk earlier in the day. I am sure we were both thinking what a social hotchpotch it was, the two of us and other veterans from various parties together with long-haired urban radicals of both sexes. The conference closed around half past seven. I got into the car and was back here around nine. I heard that Per Johan had been stabbed on the ten o’clock news.’

  Neither of us said anything. Hauk Rebne Westgaard had been in Oslo on the day that Per Johan Fredriksen was murdered. Having left the conference an hour before, Hauk Rebne Westgaard did not have an alibi for the time of the murder, unless anyone could confirm that he was back here in Holmestrand before nine o’clock.

  I asked in as friendly a manner as I could, whether his sister or anyone else here could confirm that he had been back by nine.

  He shrugged with his palms up.

  ‘No, unfortunately not. The farm hands were finished for the weekend, so I did not see any of them. I did see my sister, but she would not be able to confirm the time.’

  I was once again taken aback by the way in which Hauk Rebne Westgaard spoke about his sister. So I enquired if I could ask her that myself.

  He looked at me with a mixture of reproach and bewilderment, as though I had understood nothing. All of a sudden he reminded me of Patricia. Then he said: ‘Of course. My sister is at home. Follow me, you can ask her all the questions you like.’

  III

  Silent and slightly puzzled, I followed Hauk Rebne Westgaard across the farmyard. We approached what from the outside looked like a very ordinary wooden cabin.

  I realized that something was amiss when I saw that the door was locked from the outside; my host produced a key and unlocked the padlock before opening the door.

  An even greater shock was waiting behind the door.

  The wooden cabin was like any other modern home with a bedroom and a bathroom. The four walls were painted in four different colours – one red, one green, one yellow and one blue. There were no bookshelves or anything else on the walls. And on the floor, in the midst of building blocks and toy animals, sat a plump woman in her fifties.

  I looked around for a child, but there was no one else in the room. It finally dawned on me when the woman jumped up, clapped her hands and shouted: ‘Food! Yum yum!’

  I understood the full horror of my mistake when the woman turned towards us. Her face radiated a childlike joy, but her eyes were empty and uncomprehending. Her expression became fearful and her smile disappeared when she saw that her brother did not have food with him, but instead a man she didn’t know.

  Fortunately, Hauk Rebne Westgaard dealt with the situation very calmly.

  ‘It’s too early for your morning snack, but you will get some food soon. In the meantime, this nice man has come to see us and would like to ask you some questions. His name is Kolbjørn,’ he said, in a friendly voice.

  Her brother’s voice seemed to banish the child–woman’s fear straightaway. She clapped her hands again and said: ‘Visit! Hooray!’

  She beamed up at me and held out her hand. Then she stood there looking at me expectantly as she rocked back and forth on her heels.

  Having recognized my blunder, all I wanted to do was to turn around and run out. But that was not possible without frightening the fifty-year-old woman who it would seem had the mental capacity of a five-year-old. So I started by asking her what she was called.

  She replied, delighted: ‘I’m called Inger!’

  I thanked her and then asked dutifully if Hauk was a kind big brother.

  She answered immediately: ‘Yes, Hauk is kind. He brings me yummy food.’

  Her mouth smiled when she spoke, but in her eyes I could also see a deep, serious fear and uncertainty. And I thought to myself that this fear and uncertainty had lain hidden there for all these years. It had been there ever since the day in her lost childhood that she discovered that grown-ups she did not know asked questions she could not answer, more and more frequently. The day she understood that she would never be able to understand. As we stood there looking at each other now, she was back there again, the little girl who didn’t understand.

  I tried to pull myself together and asked her if Hauk had brought her supper to her on Saturday evening, and if so, at what time. But as far as I could see there was no clock in the room, and the woman who lived here was not likely to have any concept of time. And I knew that a court would never place any importance on her testimony even if she could answer. The whole exercise felt pointless.

  Suddenly she pointed down at the floor and said: ‘Look – I’ve built a tower of eight blocks!’

  Her brother said it was a great tower and looked at me expectantly.

  I said that it was very good and that I was grateful that she had been able to answer all my questions so well.

  She nodded and waved gratefully as we left. The fear and uncertainty in her eyes had vanished. Once again, it was clear that she lived a good life here, without a care, in her eternal playroom.

  Hauk’s hand was trembling slightly as he locked the door behind him. We walked together across the yard back to my car, without looking back.

  ‘I apologize for my blunder,’ I said, when we got to the car.

  ‘I perfectly understand. You had a duty to ask, and she was having one of her good, happy days,’ he said.

  After a brief pause, he carried on: ‘That was one of the hardest responsibilities in the years that I struggled to save the farm. As I see it, I managed to escape the madness in my father’s family and my sister inherited it all. Sweet Inger is as happy as can be here and she must be allowed to stay here until she dies. The thought that she might be forced to leave and hidden away in some asylum cubbyhole was too awful to bear.’

  I told him I fully understood. And it struck me that Hauk
Rebne Westgaard was the incarnation of a good family man, just without having his own family. Having met him and his sister, I wanted to believe that he was innocent, as regards to both the death of Eva Bjølhaugen in 1932 and the death of Per Johan Fredriksen in 1972. But I was still not certain. It seemed to me that he, too, was a complex man with many faces.

  IV

  It was already ten past one by the time I got back to Oslo. There was a visitor waiting in my office, who had been sent there by my boss when he had demanded to talk to the head of the investigation. I was at first curious about my guest, only to be disheartened when I met him.

  The lawyer Edvard Rønning Junior was sitting comfortably on my visitor’s chair, dressed as usual in a black suit, with a lorgnette and his briefcase on the table in front of him. This could have been from the 1950s, but the rest of him looked as though he had stepped straight out of the 1920s. The impression was in no way diminished when he started to talk.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Detective Inspector Kristiansen. And not before time. It is far from satisfactory that I have wasted the past thirty minutes sitting here waiting for you. It is even more unsatisfactory, however, for a defence lawyer not to know the name of his client, who is furthermore a minor, before the said client is dead. And none of this is made any better by the fact that the client died in police custody. Indeed, police scandal might be an appropriate phrase, if it is later proved that he was entirely innocent of the crime for which he stood accused. This would be highly unfortunate for both you and the police in general, and I will be strongly recommending that the deceased’s mother seeks compensation.’

  I listened to him talk with a rising sense of panic. I had to admit that he had a point – it could be a very difficult case indeed.

  Out loud, I simply said that it was hard to protect clients from themselves if they wanted to commit suicide and that we had spent a day and a half trying to identify his client as he refused to give us his name and no one had reported him missing. The question of guilt remained unresolved, but we were currently investigating other possible suspects and hoped that the lawyer would appreciate this.

  This helped a little, but not enough. The lawyer looked at me pointedly over the top of his spectacles and answered: ‘The latter is, of course, positive, but in the current situation also a given. The investigation and your good self shall be granted sufficient time to establish the facts regarding the matter of his guilt. I do, however, expect to be informed immediately if there is any new evidence relating to the question of guilt that is of significance to my late client’s case. Furthermore, I also expect to be contacted in advance should you wish to talk to the deceased’s mother again. Her situation is, as I am sure you are aware, extremely difficult.’

  I caught a whiff of idealism behind the lawyer’s formal language when he mentioned the mother. So I replied that I knew about the mother’s difficult situation, and that he would of course be informed as soon as the question of guilt with regard to his late client had been resolved.

  The lawyer could not say that he was anything other than happy with that and so, after a brief, formal handshake, he left.

  Edvard Rønning Junior’s visit lasted no more than five minutes. But it was still an uncomfortable reminder of the seriousness of my situation in terms of the investigation into the murder of Per Johan Fredriksen, and the tragedy of the boy on the red bicycle.

  I no longer thought that the boy had committed the murder and did not think that he held the answer. But I was still curious about his role in the story and so decided that I would have a chat with the teacher he had apparently been so fond of. However, that would have to wait until the end of the school day. For now, having tried without success to find answers in Per Johan Fredriksen’s close family and his friends involved in the 1932 tragedy who were still alive, I wanted to get to know the businessman and politician.

  V

  The company, Per Johan Fredriksen A/S, had centrally located premises in an office block on Roald Amundsen’s Street, close to the National Theatre, but they were far smaller than I had expected. Three office clerks sat side by side, squeezed between the bookshelves in a room that was smaller than my office. The offices of the office manager and accountant were also surprisingly small and filled to bursting with lever arch files.

  The office manager, Odd Jørgensen, was a slightly overweight, thin-haired besuited man with horn-rimmed spectacles, who looked around fifty or so. He was sitting half buried in a pile of rental contracts, but cleared his desk as soon as I arrived. He suggested that we might like to call in the accountant, Erling Svendsen, straightaway.

  I agreed that this was a practical idea, even though there would not be much room round the table in Jørgensen’s office. Svendsen was a few years younger, had a bit more hair, a bit less girth and smaller glasses, but was otherwise remarkably like Jørgensen.

  I started by asking about the company’s financial situation. Jørgensen left this to Svendsen, who gave a very sombre account, similar to the one I had heard from Kjell Arne Ramdal. The company was operating with a healthy profit and had a sound property portfolio, but in recent years had lost ground and momentum in a rapidly expanding market. The investments that had been made in the older flats, for which there was falling demand, were not sufficient and the administration was too overworked to keep a full overview of existing properties and possible new acquisitions.

  Jørgensen nodded in agreement to this and then took over, having exchanged a glance with Ssvendsen.

  ‘To be frank, even though it is only days since he died, part of the problem was that Fredriksen was too shortsighted and averse to risk as a businessman. He liked to say that his strategy was to go for the best possible gains next month without the risk of losses this month. He was what is called a quarterly capitalist.’

  I looked at Svendsen, who nodded vigorously. It was clear that the two men had worked together for a long time and were reading from the same page when it came to their assessment of the situation. Svendsen quickly took over where Jørgensen left off.

  ‘The offer he was given by Ramdal was extremely good and possibly a few million too high, if one was to add up the estimated value of the properties right now. We both recommended that Fredriksen should accept the offer. But he was hesitant, and we almost wondered if he was considering turning it down. Despite all his years in the capital, he was still a farmer at heart and was inherently sceptical about giving away land and property. In many ways, the business was his life’s work.’

  I asked if they, for their part, were in favour of the possibility of a takeover. They exchanged a quick look and then nodded simultaneously. The office manager was the one who spoke.

  ‘We and the rest of the office staff were all in favour of it. Ramdal is known to be a demanding but fair boss and open to suggestions from his staff. We hoped that we might get a bit more space, less overtime and, more than anything, slightly more humane working conditions.’

  I gave them a puzzled look and said that according to his family, Fredriksen had always been a kind-hearted and generous man.

  They exchanged glances again. Jørgensen nodded and Svendsen spoke.

  ‘His son said the same thing when he came here, and we have to admit that it came as a surprise to us. Fredriksen never invited us to his home and until his son came to the office, we had never met any of his children. We only knew the businessman. And the word heartless would be closer to the truth in describing him, I’m afraid. In fact, Odd and I have remarked more than once that the only time we have seen Fredriksen smile is when he was being a politician on television, but never when he was here as a businessman.’

  Svendsen suddenly fell silent, as though he felt guilty and ashamed of what he had said. Jørgensen swiftly picked up the thread and continued in the same vein.

  ‘Fredriksen has not been here much in recent years. He concentrated more and more on his role as a politician and only spoke about the office when someone asked him about business. Fredrikse
n’s instructions to us were clear and ruthless: anyone who falls behind with the rent is to be evicted as soon as it is legally possible, and new tenants are to be offered the highest rent permitted by the law and the market. But the rental market is a hard place to be heartless: plenty of poor and desperate people come to our door, not knowing that we can’t help them.’

  ‘And one of the poorest and most desperate came here last Thursday, didn’t she?’ I said.

  They both nodded at the same time. Jørgensen took off his horn-rimmed spectacles and covered his eyes with his hand for a moment or two. Svendsen came to his rescue and carried on talking in a tremulous voice.

  ‘It was the most terrible experience. The woman had obviously done her utmost in a very difficult situation. But the only thing that mattered in terms of our instructions was that she had no money and no means of earning any money. One former tenant shot himself the day after being evicted, but there were no changes to our instructions as a result. And we had to follow the instructions. We feared that it might end in suicide, but obviously had no idea that it would ultimately affect Fredriksen himself – if it was her son who killed Fredriksen.’

  I deftly avoided answering that and emphasized that I was in no doubt that they had simply been following instructions. However, Jørgensen hastily came to their defence.

  ‘It was heartbreaking all the same. And what made it worse was that the woman was a former employee. She had worked here as a cleaner in the mid-fifties. It was before Erling’s time, but soon after I had started. She only worked for a few hours in the evening. However, I met her in the doorway several times and remember thinking that she was a beautiful and always cheerful woman, despite her simple clothes and poor pay. It was not easy to see her on her knees, so desperate here the other day.’

  I immediately latched on to this new loose connection between the two deceased men, but it was hardly conclusive. To begin with, we already had a clear motive for the boy on the red bicycle to kill Per Johan Fredriksen, and what was more, he had in all likelihood not done it. However, there were clearly a puzzling and striking number of knotted threads that criss-crossed this case.