Chameleon People

by Hans Olav Lahlum

  He thanked me for the information and said that his father and all his various activities had not been on his mind of late. The agreement with Ramdal had been signed yesterday afternoon, and Johan Fredriksen wanted to use the weekend to think about what he was going to do with the inheritance and his life now.

  I got the impression that perhaps all was not well between him and his girlfriend, but I saw no reason to plague him further by asking.

  Ane Line Fredriksen, not unexpectedly, showed more interest in the spy claims against her father. At first she thought that it must be a mistake, but then ten seconds later said she no longer knew what to think about her father. She had never heard mention of this and it felt like yet another betrayal of the family. Otherwise, she could confirm that the contract with Ramdal had been signed without any fuss the day before. It had been a ‘good and rather boring meeting’ at Kjell Ramdal’s office. I did not find that hard to imagine.

  It occurred to me that I should perhaps also mention Miriam’s disappearance to Ane Line Fredriksen. I thought that she would be interested. But I doubted whether she could tell me anything that I did not know already: there was nothing to indicate that Miriam’s disappearance had anything to do with her work for the SPP. But I guessed that Ane Line Fredriksen would have a lot of questions and I did not feel like talking to her about the matter right now. So I finished the call, saying that I also had to inform her mother.

  Oda Fredriksen sounded a little stronger and a little sharper today, even though it was still early. She took the news of the Verdens Gang headlines unexpectedly well: ‘I have heard so many strange allegations about my husband that nothing shocks me any more.’ Then she added hastily: ‘But this is by far the worst. It is unthinkable that my husband would have betrayed his country in any way – and even more unthinkable that he would have done something that could have such negative consequences for the family, without first discussing it with me.’

  I was not entirely convinced of this. It seemed to me that Oda Fredriksen was almost more upset that her husband had been accused of spying than she had been at the news of her daughter’s death. But I took it as a good sign, regardless, that she had rallied.

  As I spoke to her, I was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of loss and concern for Miriam, mixed with a guilty conscience because I had not thought of her until now. So I hastily finished the conversation and promised to contact Oda Fredriksen as soon as there was any news. It was now eight o’clock. I was wide awake and keen to know if there was any news down at the station.

  II

  I was in the office by a quarter past eight. Danielsen had knocked off at around two o’clock in the morning, but had asked a constable to continue following up on Miriam’s disappearance as a matter of urgency. There was, however, not much information to follow up, nor many leads. No tips had come in and it was still a mystery what Miriam had done in those final few hours before she disappeared. Her student room had been searched, but no clues had been found.

  My boss was sitting in his office, hard at work, when I knocked on his door. Without waiting, I asked if he had seen today’s edition of Verdens Gang.

  ‘Seen, read, mulled over and called the prime minister’s office about it,’ he said, with a very serious face.

  ‘And what did the prime minister say?’ I asked.

  My boss looked even more serious when he replied.

  ‘That democracy should take its course, but that to ratify the agreement now would be bordering on what could and should be justified in a democratic country. The Government is ready to present the agreement to the Storting at three o’clock, but the parties have been called to group meetings and the prime minister is currently assessing the situation. He asked to be informed immediately if there is any news about Fredriksen’s murder or the kidnapping of your fiancée. As I understood it, the vote will be postponed if there is a link to either of them.’

  This made the situation no less serious. I looked at the clock and calculated that it was six and a half hours until the vote in the Storting. I said that if there was nothing else to report, I should press on with the investigation into Fredriksen’s murder.

  When I got back to my office and saw my empty desk, my concern for Miriam and uncertainty regarding Patricia overwhelmed me again. I had to admit that I had no new leads to follow in the Fredriksen case, so I pulled over the telephone and dialled Patricia’s number.

  She answered on the first ring and asked in her usual voice if there was any news. I told her that there was and that I would like to see her as soon as possible.

  ‘Good. Come as soon as you can,’ she said and put the phone down.

  I sat there for a few seconds and wondered if I could have made a mistake last night. I had never seen Patricia with an expression like that before. But I had been absolutely certain that it was her I saw driving past me last night. And I still was. I got up and walked with heavy steps out to the car on my way to confront Patricia and ask if she was in fact involved in the case.

  III

  The maid showed me into the library and then made a hasty retreat. It was perhaps just my imagination, but I thought she seemed a little more tense today and that she left in more of a hurry than usual.

  Patricia was sitting in her wheelchair with a packet of cigarettes beside her on the table. Fruit, biscuits, cake and coffee had also been put out.

  She asked, in an unusually gentle voice, if I had managed to sleep well and if I had had breakfast. Patricia seemed to be genuinely worried about me. It did not make my job any easier.

  ‘So, what have you got to tell me?’ Patricia asked.

  First of all, I told her what little we knew about Miriam’s movements the day before.

  ‘That is not a lot,’ she exclaimed.

  Was it just my imagination, or did she avoid looking at me when she said this? I gave myself two seconds, then launched into an attack with a hammering heart.

  ‘What is of particular interest is that you know something about the case that you are hiding from me. And in a critical situation where my fiancée has been kidnapped.’

  It felt like diving into icy water. My body and head felt cold and stiff within seconds. But it was another bull’s eye. For a fraction of a second, Patricia’s face froze into a harder and more egotistical expression. I saw that she too had a predator concealed inside.

  For a fleeting moment she reminded me of Solveig Ramdal the day before – a cat caught in a corner. Patricia had no means of escape. She sat there in her wheelchair, with her back to the wall. It only took a moment for her face to return to normal, but her eyes slipped away from mine to look at the bookshelf. And as she looked away, she lit a cigarette with a trembling hand.

  ‘I do not know who has taken your fiancée or where she is, if that is what you mean,’ she said, finally.

  ‘That is not necessarily what I said. But you are keeping something from me,’ I countered, with an edge to my voice.

  Patricia sighed. She took a couple of drags on the cigarette, but her breathing was no calmer for it. And she was still looking at the bookshelf.

  ‘I did try to tell you that I should not get involved in the Fredriksen case, in any way. But you insisted,’ she said, in an uncharacteristically slow and thin voice. ‘How did you find out?’ she added, in an even fainter voice.

  To tell the truth, I did not know what I had found out, only that I had found something out. And I was becoming increasingly annoyed because on this day of all days, Patricia did not want to tell me what she was hiding.

  ‘I asked you to help me with the Fredriksen case, yes. But I did not ask you to drive past the spot where Miriam disappeared at around half past eleven last night. And now I demand to know why you were there!’

  I said Miriam’s name on purpose – I had realized that Patricia disliked hearing it intensely. And it worked. She started when I said the name, and her eyes swung back to look at me.

  ‘I see. I sincerely hope that at no point have you suspected
me of having anything to do with your girlfriend’s disappearance. That is a preposterous idea. I had a very personal reason for driving past there late last night, and hope you will believe that it had nothing whatsoever to do with the kidnapping.’

  This was becoming more and more mysterious – and more and more annoying.

  I said that my fiancée had been kidnapped, that I wanted to believe that Patricia knew nothing about it, but asked that she now please give me a credible answer as to why she had driven past the scene of the crime last night.

  We sat and stared at each other intensely for a few seconds. A bitter expression, similar to the one I had seen through the car window yesterday, passed over Patricia’s face. She took a last drag on the cigarette and stubbed it out. Then she put both her elbows on the table and buried her head in her hands for a moment or two.

  When she lowered her hands from her face, her expression was one of defiance. ‘If you absolutely must know, I was being driven home after having been thoroughly fucked by my, until now, secret boyfriend.’

  That was not what I had expected. I sat there like a rabbit in the headlights while she lit another cigarette.

  For some reason I had clearly never contemplated the idea that Patricia could have intimate relations with another man. And even now that she had said it, I could not imagine her stretched naked under a man in bed.

  And what was worse: I did not like the thought at all. Without having any idea of who her boyfriend was, I immediately felt jealousy, even animosity, towards him. If it was the man who was driving the car yesterday, I had only caught a blurred glimpse of him.

  ‘That is a remarkable coincidence. Where does your secret lover live?’

  Patricia sighed and looked at me in exasperation. ‘Do you still not understand? It was not a coincidence at all. My until-now-secret boyfriend lives in a terraced house by Sognsvann.’

  As soon as she said Sognsvann, I understood. It did not make matters any better. The picture of Patricia in bed with him was even worse than the one of Patricia in bed with some faceless man. And on top of all this confusion was now the fear that someone else might know about my contact with Patricia.

  ‘So the secret boyfriend you have not told me about is Johan Fredriksen?’

  She took a long, greedy drag on the cigarette and then stubbed it out, half-smoked.

  ‘Bingo. But Johan of course knows nothing about my contact with you and I have not said a word about what I know about the investigation. I thought, with those parameters, my relationship with him was irrelevant to the case and it would be better for both you and me if you did not know about it.’

  I felt paralysed and for a few seconds did not know how to talk or what to say. My mind’s eye kept switching between the fully-dressed Patricia sitting in a wheelchair in front of me and the image of a naked Patricia in bed with a naked Johan Fredriksen. And I found this so distasteful that I unsuccessfully tried to shut both images out. But then I only saw the picture I had seen the night before. I was suddenly very curious about Patricia’s angry face and what they had been talking about.

  Just then, she started to speak again, without waiting for any questions.

  ‘He is not exactly a dream prince, I know. A little too clumsy, a little too dull, and far too interested in figures and material things. But when you can’t stand upright, you can’t expect to choose from the top shelf. He is clean and good-looking, quite easy to get on with and reasonably educated. He came to Father’s funeral and was very considerate, then sent a Christmas card with a long handwritten message last year and the year before that. I answered the one from last Christmas in January. If you can’t have the one you love, then try to love the one you have. Other than your extremely sporadic visits, I have been sitting on my own here since I was fourteen. So I thought it was high time to try something new this year.’

  That was another slap in the face. As she spoke, I suddenly saw a third Patricia – a sad, lonely young woman, full of longing. I should have realized before that she existed. And I should definitely have remembered to send her a Christmas card.

  Then I thought about Patricia’s description of him as good-looking, and how I had been taken aback by how similar Johan Fredriksen looked to me. I wondered for a moment if what Patricia was actually saying now was that I was her dream man – and how I should then deal with that.

  ‘He is attentive and gives me presents and the like, he is always on time when we meet, and he has done his best to get me pregnant. I will give him that.’

  Another blow. The thought of Patricia with a husband and children was alien and frightening. I had to admit to myself that I was very jealous now. I spontaneously asked, ‘But he has not succeeded, has he?’

  To my relief, she shook her head straightaway. Her hand trembled as she lit another cigarette and she appeared to have regained her composure when she carried on speaking, but she did meet my eye.

  ‘No danger there. I have no idea if I can even have children after the accident, but I do know that I can’t as long as I take the pill. I want interesting company and sex. He wants sex and all my millions, I think. So we each get half of what we want, which seems pretty fair to me.’

  I felt reassured and suddenly did not want to know any more details about her contact with Johan Fredriksen. I said that it sounded perfectly fair and then added: ‘I would have had a few less worries if I had known this earlier, but I am grateful for your honesty now and believe what you have told me. I think we can see that little mystery as solved now and get on with the investigation.’

  Patricia nodded – with unusual swiftness and enthusiasm.

  ‘Yes, let’s do that. You fiancée is still missing and two recent murders are still unsolved. But I am afraid that I cannot help you with much more right now. There are still too many possibilities. But you can rule out Johan Fredriksen as far as the murders of his father and sister go. He was at home, and I was with him. And by the way, I have also tried to be the comforting girlfriend in the hope of getting a bit more information about the case, but he does not seem to know any more than what he has told you already. Which is a good thing. Johan may not be very exciting, but he is pretty honest and honourable. I think he just has one face; not a chameleon person in the slightest. I am in more doubt about how many of the others in his family and the group from 1932 you could say that about. I see the outline of several scenarios more and more clearly, but still lack some important details in order to know which ones are right.’

  I realized that we would not get any further here and now, so I stood up and said that I would ring or come back as soon as I had more information.

  She said that she would wait, and that I was welcome, no matter what time of day it was.

  Given the circumstances, my difficult visit ended on rather a nice note. She had clearly not thought of visiting her lover today, or of him coming to see her.

  On my way out, I found my thoughts were not focused on the investigation, only on what Patricia had just told me. I remembered that Johan Fredriksen had seemed a little grumpy this morning and wondered if I had been right when I thought that perhaps things were not going so well with his secret girlfriend. And then I was filled with a sense of almost childish triumph that Patricia had told me about him, but not him about me.

  It was only once I was out on the street in the cold air that I realized that I had not thought about my missing fiancée at all during the second half of my visit to Patricia. This prompted another stab of guilt. It felt as though I had let Miriam down by sitting there talking to Patricia, when she had been kidnapped.

  The drive back to the station was unexpectedly slow. I felt myself being pulled in all directions, and was certainly no longer giving the road my full attention.

  IV

  It was ten to ten when I got back to the office. There was one message waiting for me there. And it was both interesting and ominous. Miriam’s mother had called and asked me to ring her as soon as I got back.

  The fact w
as that Miriam’s mother had not been able to get hold of me because I was sitting with Patricia. This did nothing to salve my conscience.

  I dialled the Lillehammer number straightaway and said: ‘I am so sorry, I was out in connection with the investigation and rang as soon as I saw your message. Do you have some news?’

  Miriam’s mother replied in an even thicker dialect than normal: ‘Can I trust that we are speaking in confidence and that it will stay between us?’

  I quickly said yes. I was calling on a direct line from my office and assured her that I would not pass on anything she told me if she did not want me to.

  ‘I am sorry that I had to ask, but my only daughter’s life is at risk. I got a telephone call this morning just after nine from a woman who said that she knew what had happened and that Miriam was still alive. She also thought she knew who had killed Per Johan Fredriksen. She had called you yesterday evening but did not get an answer, and did not want to ring the police station. I promised her I would ring and ask you to go to meet her alone outside the National Theatre at half past eleven. I did not recognize her voice and I am afraid that I couldn’t guess her age or anything like that.’

  I thanked her for having called and said that I would of course go. Then I started to think about what she had said. In the meantime, she carried on speaking.

  ‘I feel slightly guilty about asking you to do this. It could possibly just be someone playing with us, or worse, there’s a danger that someone is planning to harm you. So you must think hard about what you do. But if you think there is any chance that it can help us get Miriam back alive, we obviously hope that you will take the chance.’

  I had not thought of my own safety in all of this. I answered that I thought it was far more likely that this would help us get Miriam back alive than that I would be killed, and that I would go no matter what. If anyone wanted to harm me, there were less risky ways of doing that than asking me to meet them at one of the most public places in town.