Chameleon People

by Hans Olav Lahlum

  The last exclamation was said in a very sharp voice. I spotted a tear in Patricia’s eye that she hastily wiped away. She shook her head angrily and then sat there with a cigarette in her mouth.

  ‘The boy’s confusing behaviour and the question of the knife are what roused my suspicion. There were soon so many who could have had a motive for killing Per Johan Fredriksen. But it remained a mystery why anyone would kill him with a knife. Unless of course it was the only murder weapon the murderer had or could get hold of,’ Patricia said, slowly.

  I had not thought about this before, but started now to get an inkling of where she was going. And if that was the case, I could only agree that it was a terrible story.

  Patricia then asked an unexpected question. ‘Did you ever find out more about Hauptmann, whom the boy on the red bicycle referred to the last time you spoke with him?’

  Reluctantly, I had to admit that I had not thought about checking it in any more detail.

  ‘Well, I did, and there is more to it than you might think. The parallels are a good clue, as he clearly wanted to talk in riddles. Bruno Hauptmann had a box of money in his garage that was proved to be the ransom money from the Lindbergh kidnapping, but right up until his death, he claimed that he had never been given it. The boy on the red bicycle stood there with a knife that had been used to commit a murder, but he maintained until his death that he had not used it.’

  ‘But he was not Fredriksen’s son,’ I said.

  Patricia nodded and let out the heaviest sigh I had ever heard from her.

  ‘No, I know that theory was wrong. But that does not rule out that his mother had a relationship with Fredriksen before he was born – or that Fredriksen later ruthlessly let her down. Perhaps that was the problem: that Fredriksen could have been the child’s father, but was not. You will have to ask his mother for the details. Whatever the case, the picture is not entirely clear: she bore him a grudge, and this turned into pure hate and a desire for revenge when Fredriksen again let her down when she was in such desperate need fifteen years later. It becomes more and more reminiscent of a Greek tragedy. The rich mother kills her own daughter from sheer egotism – to conceal the murder of her own sister. The poor mother kills her former lover out of desperation, and without knowing it, takes the life of her only son at the same time.’

  ‘So, behind his limp, speech defect and class complexes, the boy on the red bicycle was in fact completely rational?’

  Patricia nodded. ‘Completely. From his perspective, it was completely rational to wait for Fredriksen there, to ask him for mercy for himself and his poor mother. He had his back to the wall and had no other hope, so why should he not try? But Fredriksen waved him off and simply referred him to the office manager, as he always did in those situations. The boy cycled off, but stopped – either because he heard the shout, or because he decided to try talking to Fredriksen one more time. Fredriksen did not come. Instead the boy suddenly saw his mother, who was supposed to be visiting his aunt, come round the corner at high speed and run off down the road. He wondered what had happened, limped around the corner and found the dying Fredriksen. The kitchen knife in Fredriksen’s chest was one that the boy on the red bicycle recognized from home. Bruno Hauptmann was, if he was telling the truth, sentenced for a serious crime committed by his best friend. Tor Johansen told the truth and was arrested for a serious crime committed by his best friend.’

  Patricia paused and shook her head again furiously. She lit another cigarette, then carried on swiftly.

  ‘I have coincidentally read the biography of the foreign secretary Bevin that the boy’s teacher spoke about. In a short retrospective, Bevin commented that his mother was the only person he can remember showing any interest or doing anything good for him in his childhood. With a nod to the teacher, the boy on the red bicycle could probably have said much the same. No one had done anything for him, except his mother. Society had definitely done nothing to help him. He could not hand over his mother to upholders of that society, even though he knew that she had done something dreadfully wrong. So he took the murder weapon with him and fled to the home of a hero he had never spoken to before. He hoped and believed that either his mother would give herself up rather than let him take the blame, or that you would solve the mystery without him having to betray his mother. But he fell into despair on the Sunday when his mother did not give herself up and you had not solved the case. He had tried his very best, but still ended up carrying the blame for something he had not done. On Monday morning he was pushed over the edge and took his own life, tragically only a few hours before he might have been saved.’

  Patricia stubbed out her cigarette, then sat there staring out into thin air.

  I did not feel particularly buoyant either, despite the fact that the last murder case was now solved. My memory of finding the boy dead in his cell returned – along with my bad conscience. If only I had been able to see the connections earlier, I could truly have lived up to his belief in me and saved his life.

  To begin with, I was angry with myself, and then angry with Miriam, who had not let me ring Patricia earlier. It struck me then that this was the first time in hours that I had thought about Miriam, and that she should be awake by now. But the thought was interrupted by Patricia’s voice.

  ‘You must not blame yourself. It was not easy to see the links at the time and we will never know what might otherwise have happened. However, there is one thing that struck me as rather odd, as you are otherwise usually quite observant. Danielsen supposedly gave the pad and pencil to the boy the day before. It is rather strange, then, that you did not notice them when you spoke to him for the last time.’

  I had to think back to my last meeting with the boy on the red bicycle. It was painful – and also unsettling. I ran through the meeting in my mind, twice, and then I shook my head.

  ‘I had not thought about that, what with everything else. But the pad and pencil were not on the table and there were not many places he could have hidden them.’

  Patricia gave a thoughtful nod, and lit another cigarette.

  ‘In that case, you were not the last person to speak to the boy before he took his life after all. You might want to have a word with Danielsen about that,’ she said, with another little sigh.

  I said that I should probably speak to both him and the boy on the red bicycle’s mother as soon as possible.

  Patricia nodded and said: ‘I do not envy you either of those conversations, so good luck with both of them.’

  Then she sat still and stared straight ahead again.

  I stopped by the door, turned around and said: ‘Thank you so much for all your help. You are incredible.’

  Patricia smiled and waved two fingers, but said no more. On the way out, I realized that she had not asked me to come back, or not to come back, later.

  VI

  By two o’clock I had rung Edvard Rønning Junior, the lawyer, and agreed that he would meet me at his client’s home as soon after three as possible. I told him that we had important news in relation to the investigation of Per Johan Fredriksen’s murder, and he assured me that he would be more than happy to take a couple of hours out of his Saturday to hear what it was.

  I had also informed Fredriksen’s remaining children. I had called Ane Line Fredriksen first. She said that she was shaken by the news of her mother’s arrest, but then quickly added: ‘But nothing in this family can shock me any more’ – and then asked to know the details. I told her, tentatively, that the investigation into the murder of her father would probably be closed in the course of the weekend, and that the guilty party quite clearly had no links to the family. I added that I would have to stop there as I still had to ring her brother. She offered spontaneously to call him herself. ‘We have become a bit closer as a result of all this, but have yet to have a proper talk about the situation. He was in a foul mood yesterday, by the way. As I understand it, things are not going well with his love life. Which is not entirely unexpected, but it�
��s sad, especially if I never get the chance to know who this secret girlfriend is.’

  I noticed that what Ane Line said about her brother and his secret girlfriend buoyed my mood, even if it wasn’t for certain. I definitely had no wish to hear Johan Fredriksen’s voice at the moment, even though I did not have to see him. So I thanked her for the offer and said that I would appreciate it if she could inform her brother, and promised to telephone later to give her a full update when her father’s murder had been solved.

  Miriam should have woken up by now, if all was as it should be at Ullevål Hospital. But there was barely time before what presumably would be the final act of the Fredriksen murder investigation, and I thought it might be better for both of us if I could tell her everything at once and that would give her more time with her parents and brother before I got there.

  So I steeled myself for another difficult conversation instead, and went to Danielsen’s office.

  He looked up, smiled briefly and said: ‘Good work this morning. Have you got any more exciting news?’

  I closed the door and sat down. Then I told him the truth: that I believed we were nearing the end of the investigation into Per Johan Fredriksen’s murder as well, but there was a detail in the story of the boy on the red bicycle that we needed to talk about first, just the two of us, right now.

  Danielsen looked at me, on guard. ‘Just the two of us right now, I see,’ he repeated.

  I think he knew that I knew. And it felt awkward.

  Only a few days ago, a conversation such as this would not have caused me to lose sleep. But now it did. Danielsen had shown me unexpected understanding and support when Miriam was kidnapped. And he had perhaps saved my life during the drama out at Bygdøy earlier today. But there was no way around it, now that we were here.

  ‘It is true that you were the one who gave him the paper and pencil, which he then used to write a suicide note. But it was not quite as you said, was it? I suddenly realized that I hadn’t seen the paper and pencil when I was in his cell on Monday morning. So he must have got it later. You must have gone in to see him just before he died.’

  I looked at Danielsen. His face was very grave indeed and frightened in a way I had never seen it before. His face confessed before he said anything. But his voice did come eventually.

  ‘I thought – I thought that you had known that all along but had overlooked it for my sake. I was deeply grateful that you did not add to my burden, as it was heavy enough as it was. No matter where I looked in those first few days afterwards, I saw the boy sitting there as he had been the last time I saw him. I should not have come to work on Monday morning. I had had a sad encounter with the woman I had hoped would become my fiancée on the Sunday, who instead said she no longer wished to be my girlfriend. It would be too hard to live with a policeman, she said. So I was in a terrible mood and convinced that the boy was guilty. I became increasingly annoyed that he refused to answer either you or me. So I went back and banged the table a bit more. He still did not answer. He just sat there, silent, and stared straight ahead, as though I was not there.’

  ‘But you didn’t touch him, did you?’

  He shook his head vigorously. ‘No, no, not at all. He hung himself. But I may have said—’ Danielsen stopped abruptly, mid-sentence. I could not remember ever having experienced this before. He would not look at me when eventually he continued.

  ‘When I left the paper and pencil, I may have said – well, that he could now either write a confession about what had happened, or a suicide note. I think I must have said that. Of course, I did not mean it like that. His behaviour was just so strange. I really had no idea that he was innocent.’

  I felt relieved as soon as he said that. So it was Danielsen, and not me, who had pushed the boy on the red bicycle over the edge. For my part, I felt easier. But with that came a new dilemma. Because as we sat there, I saw something I definitely had never expected to see: Danielsen crying. I felt a surge of sympathy I would never have believed I could ever feel for him. But in the back of my mind I also saw the boy on the red bicycle, pedalling furiously to get to me in time to be saved.

  But Danielsen was there, living and breathing in the room with me right now. The boy on the red bicycle was not. Nothing could bring him back. Danielsen had perhaps saved my life earlier in the day. He had risked his own to do so. I thought about the sorrow it would cause the parents he had talked about if this became a cause for dismissal. And that, no matter what, we would never know what exactly had gone on in the head of the boy on the red bicycle in those final minutes of his life. That part of this murder mystery would never be solved.

  So I said that in refusing to answer, the boy had behaved very oddly, no matter what his motives were or whether he was guilty or not, and that I believed that Danielsen had meant well, even though what he had done was wrong. And consequently, I thought it best if this stayed strictly between us.

  The end of our meeting was very touching; Danielsen took my hand and assured me that he had meant no wrong. And I absolutely believed him.

  All the same, in the minute it took to get back to my office, the thin, dark-haired boy flashed up in my mind several times. He was still cycling after me, even though he was nowhere to be seen. I feared that I would continue to see him for some time to come. At that moment I felt a bit like my boss: sensible, successful and cynical. It did not feel good. And suddenly I wondered what Miriam would have said about it all.

  VII

  At twenty past two, I was sitting alone in my office – not enjoying the silence there.

  And it was then, in a flash, that I realized that there was one person whom Patricia had not included in her calculation who could have killed Per Johan Fredriksen.

  The possibility felt more and more real as I thought it over. And it would be slightly less of a tragedy after all, if it were the case. It felt less and less tempting to make new allegations about Lene Johansen without having examined and checked all other alternatives. So at twenty-five past two, I asked Danielsen to meet me just before three at 36 Tøyenbekken in Grønland, and apologized in advance if I happened to be a few minutes late.

  Then I got into the car and drove to Majorstuen.

  Much to my relief, Harriet Henriksen answered her door straightaway. She was wearing a green dress today, not black. But the photograph of her dead lover was still on the table in the living room and a new candle burned beside it.

  I started by saying that the old murder from 1932 and the murder of Vera Fredriksen had now been solved. At first she seemed uninterested, but livened up when I said that Oda Fredriksen had committed both murders. ‘I always thought that she couldn’t be as wonderful as everyone said. It is just a shame that Per Johan never discovered her true nature while he was alive. Everything would have been different then and he might still be here with me now,’ she said in a quiet, intense voice.

  ‘And what is more, we now believe that we are close to solving the murder of Per Johan himself. But that requires that you answer me more truthfully than you have done so far,’ I said.

  This made her start. She stiffened and sat without moving for a few seconds.

  ‘You betrayed him,’ I said, and waited.

  She stood there, breathing heavily for a while, but when she spoke, it all came tumbling out.

  ‘Yes, I did betray him. And it will always haunt me as it was the end of our love story. But I did not kill him. And as far as I know, informing the police security service about illegal contact with other countries is not a criminal offence,’ she said.

  That was when I finally got the picture. I had hit the bull’s eye, only the target was not the one I had anticipated.

  I told her the truth: that it was not illegal if that was all she had done, and as this was a murder investigation I was now duty-bound to ask her for a full explanation. And it should be credible, I added.

  ‘The truth is hopefully always credible, certainly when it concerns a lonely, middle-aged woman’s egotism an
d dreams. I am an anti-communist through and through, but will not try to make myself sound any better than I am. I had lost all hope that Per Johan would leave his marriage for my sake, as long as he was a leading politician. But I thought that if he got caught up in a scandal and had to resign as a politician, the marriage might fall apart anyway. And then I would be the one who was left and who would give him all the support, and a new family with me would be a new start for him. So I told the police security service about his contacts at the Soviet Embassy – on the promise that they would never reveal their source. And it is very disappointing that they have now broken that promise.’

  I assured her that I had not heard it from the police security service, but had worked it out myself. Then I added that, strictly speaking, it was not the main line of inquiry in the murder investigation.

  She nodded quickly and smiled in appreciation.

  ‘Very good. Given how things stand now, it would be best for everyone if it never got out. Per Johan was unbelievably naive in his dealings with the Soviets. He thought that as an individual he could play an important role in building a bridge between the East and West. And he thought that he would gain widespread recognition if he succeeded. I tried to tell him it was unrealistic, but he didn’t want to listen. I am still glad that he discussed it with me, though.’

  I saw no reason to start an unnecessary conflict with Harriet Henriksen, so I said that as far as I knew, she was the only one he had spoken to about this. I did not point out the irony that he was then betrayed by the one person he confided in. She did not appear to have thought along those lines herself.

  ‘Oh, how wonderful. I really was the one whom he trusted and loved,’ she exclaimed. She stood there with her hand in front of her mouth for a few seconds, before she added, ‘But one thing does bother me, as I start my new life alone: I hope that my contact with the police security service had nothing to do with Per Johan’s death?’