Chameleon People (19 page)

Miriam was obviously fired up by this unexpected chance of a solution. As was I, of course. So I thanked her and promised to be back as soon as I could.

She said that she would wait until six, but then had to go to her meetings, and would then be back around ten. I gave her a quick kiss on the mouth before running down the stairs and back out to
my car.

It was rush hour in Oslo, and I got stuck in traffic twice. So it was twenty to five by the time I got to Haraldsen’s Hotel in Ullern. It was a small but reputable old
hotel which looked as though nothing had changed since before the war, either inside or out.

And the amount of business now did not bode well for the future. I saw myself reflected in two elegant full-length mirrors on the wall in reception. The only other person I saw was a
well-dressed male receptionist, possibly in his sixties, who also looked as though he had been there since before the war. According to his name badge, he was the head of reception and his name was
Valdemar Haraldsen.

He looked at me with a friendly smile and asked: ‘And what can I do for you? Apologies if I seem a little distracted, but it has been an unexpectedly busy day here today.’

This seemed slightly comical, given that he did not seem to be in the least distracted and it did not look like he had had a busy day.

I introduced myself and said that I had agreed to meet a Miss Vera Fredriksen, who was staying at the hotel.

He squinted at me over his glasses with a smile, then looked down at a good old-fashioned guest book.

‘Yes, that is correct. The young lady turned up around midday, without prior warning, and asked if Room 111 was available. It is rather unusual to ask for a specific room, but she paid in
cash and made a very favourable impression. Miss Fredriksen asked about the hotel’s history and thanked me politely when I could confirm that there has been no major renovation since just
after the First World War. Room 111 is as it was then – it had an en suite bathroom even back then.’

The receptionist was obviously a friendly and patient man by nature. I felt a little less patient and a little less friendly right now. So I asked if he could please call Room 111 to let her
know that I had arrived.

Valdemar Haraldsen replied in a manner that was just as friendly and patient, that the hotel, true to style and tradition, had not yet installed telephones in the rooms. However, Room 111 was
the first room to the left down the corridor upstairs, and he would be happy to go and knock on the door if I so wished.

I assured him that I was perfectly able and happy to do so myself, thanked the head of reception for his help and started up the stairs.

I found the corridor and Room 111 without any difficulty. However, there was not a sound to be heard inside when I knocked on the door. I knocked twice and called out Vera’s name once
without getting any reaction. The door was locked when I tried it.

The feeling that something was wrong seemed to grow as I stood there in the otherwise empty, dim hotel corridor. And it did not improve when I pressed the light switch.

The light flashed on a small object that was lying on the floor outside Room 114. It was a key. And it said ‘Room 111’ on the tag.

In a strange way, it felt like I had travelled back to 1932, even when I carefully reached out for the keyring and picked up the key, then put it in the lock of Room 111.

I knocked on the door one last time, without hearing any reaction from within.

Then I turned the key and opened the door.

The situation felt slightly unreal. For a moment I expected to see Eva Bjølhaugen lying there dead on the sofa.

But the woman lying there was, of course, not her.

Vera Fredriksen looked more confident and calmer in death than I had ever seen her in life. All the nervousness had vanished from her face. She was lying with her eyes closed and her face
relaxed, and there were no signs of violence or illness. It looked as though she was taking a peaceful afternoon nap on the sofa.

For the second time in two days, I was standing alone in a small room with the body of a young person. The woman on the sofa had been dead slightly longer than the boy on the red bicycle. There
was still some warmth in her body, but the skin on her face was cold, and there was no pulse.

I stood there frozen for a few moments, staring at the young, dead Vera Fredriksen, before I managed to pull myself together and look around the room.

There was no sign that anyone else had been there, and there was no sign of a murder weapon or a suicide note of any kind. I sniffed at her mouth, but could not detect anything that smelt like
poison. There were no needle marks on her arms either.

I went out into the corridor, which was still empty. Then I went back into Room 111, to make sure that it was not some bizarre dream. But Vera Fredriksen was still lying dead on the sofa. I was
in total bewilderment as I walked back down the stairs to reception, in order to ring the station.

The head of reception was impressively calm and composed, even when he heard that there had been a suspicious death in the hotel in the past few hours. His statement was clear
and to the point, and was taken while I waited for technical assistance from the main police station.

The hotel had very few guests at present, and the head of reception had been the only person on duty since breakfast. Four overnight guests had checked out in the morning and the hotel
unfortunately had no further bookings for that night.

However, Vera Fredriksen had shown up without a prior booking around midday. And then at two o’clock or thereabouts, something even more unexpected had happened, when someone telephoned to
book a room for the night with a voice that had been distorted. The person who called claimed to be suffering from nerves and was in need of peace and quiet and they were willing to pay for two
nights in advance with a tip, if they could come and go without meeting anyone today.

The head of reception was willing to believe this story and agreed to withdraw from the reception area for a couple of minutes so that an envelope with the payment in cash could be left on the
counter. The cash was left as agreed, so the head of reception then put out a key and again withdrew for a few minutes. When he came back, the key was gone. He had written the name
‘Hansen’ down in the guest book for the sake of appearances, but because the voice had been distorted he could not say if it had been a man or a woman who had called.

The head of reception wrung his hands and admitted that it was a deeply unfortunate breach of normal practice, but that the hotel needed more guests, and they had had guests with nerve problems
before and there was, at that point, no reason to suspect something criminal.

I said rather impatiently that we would still need to check his story about the mysterious guest and take a statement from him or her.

He immediately agreed to this and took a universal key to Room 112 with him.

We let ourselves in, having knocked twice on the door with no response. The door was unlocked.

The key was lying on the table. It was the only sign that the very mysterious guest had even been in the room.

The head of reception had only seen Vera Fredriksen and myself pass through reception that afternoon. This did not necessarily mean that we two and the mysterious guest were the only people who
had been in the hotel. One or more could have passed through in those few minutes when the reception was not manned. There was also a back door at the opposite end of the corridor, by Room 118. The
lock meant that it should only be possible to open the door from the inside. However, anyone who was already inside could easily have let others in, and it was not unthinkable that a burglar who
came prepared could pick the lock from outside.

Vera Fredriksen had rung my flat from a telephone booth by the hotel reception at around half past three. She had paid for the call in cash at reception, and for two other phone calls she had
made earlier in the day – the first around one o’clock and the second around three. Both of the earlier phone calls could not have been longer than a few minutes, but the numbers she
had called were not registered anywhere.

I was able to give my boss an update from the telephone in my office at half past six. And it did little to lift spirits.

We had another dead person, and, until the results of an autopsy were clear, no idea of the cause of death.

We knew that there had been another guest in the neighbouring room, but had no idea of the person’s identity.

We knew that Vera Fredriksen had made two telephone calls a few hours before her death, but had no idea who she had called or what had been said.

My boss took it much better than I did. He remarked that we did not yet even know if something criminal had occurred. According to what I had said myself, Vera Fredriksen suffered from nerves
and her father’s death may have triggered suicidal thoughts. Young ladies with a nervous disposition had been known to commit suicide in the most spectacular ways at times, so it was not
unthinkable that she had chosen a dramatic replay of the tragedy that her parents had experienced in 1932.

He did, however, concede that the situation was highly suspicious, especially as the mysterious guest from Room 112 had disappeared. If there was any connection to Per Johan Fredriksen’s
death, this only strengthened the assumption that the explanation was to be found in Fredriksen’s private life.

I said that I agreed, and in return he accepted that a priest should be allowed to talk to the three remaining members of the family first, before the police contacted them again.

We also agreed that a forensic investigation should be launched, and that we would talk again as soon as the preliminary autopsy report was ready. I immediately said yes when he suggested ten
o’clock the following morning.

I put the telephone down at a quarter to seven, and sat there pondering, looking at it for a few minutes more.

I thought that Miriam would by now have gone to her meetings, and would not be back until late this evening. Then I thought that she would surely be happy for me to ring Patricia now, as yet
another young person had lost her life. I concluded that the situation was now so critical that I could not
not
phone Patricia, regardless of what Miriam might think.

At ten to seven, I took the plunge. I lifted the receiver and dialled Patricia’s number from memory.

The telephone was answered after two rings.

The woman’s voice at the other end simply said: ‘Yes?’ But I recognized it straightaway all the same and felt a surge of relief and hope that the deaths from 1932 and 1972
could all be solved before a scandal ensued. It all depended on whether or not I was now able to persuade Patricia to help me.

‘Hello, it’s me,’ I said.

There was a few seconds’ silence on the other end. For the first time, it felt as though Patricia was surprised that I had rung her, and she needed a few seconds to consider the
significance of it. But this did not take long.

‘I suppose this is about the Fredriksen case, then. I think there are several very good reasons why I should steer clear.’

I was afraid she was going to put the telephone down, but the line was not broken. There was still hope.

She said nothing about what these reasons might be, and I certainly did not feel like asking. Instead, I tried to tempt her with titbits from the investigation.

‘The case is far more interesting than it might at first seem. We now have a statement from an eyewitness that indicates that the young suspect who took his own life did not kill
Fredriksen. Though who then might have done still remains a mystery. And then this afternoon, Fredriksen’s youngest daughter was found dead in the very hotel room where her mother’s
sister was found dead in 1932. Fredriksen himself was also there at the time, as one of a group of her friends. So I think I can say that I have never been involved in a more puzzling or tragic
case.’

Again, there was a few moments’ silence at the other end.

‘It certainly sounds that way so far. I am sure that the case is both interesting and important. But for strictly personal reasons I do not think I should get involved in your
investigation.’

That was, of course, where the problem lay. But now that it was staring me in the face I could solve it. The telephone line remained open.

I breathed in and out with the utmost control a few times. Then I said: ‘I can understand that. Miriam did not want me to contact you about the case either. But I felt that I now owed it
to those young people to call you all the same. I believe that only you can help me. So that is why I called, without her knowing.’

I spoke in a hushed voice, even though I knew perfectly well that Miriam was sitting in a meeting a couple of miles away and that no one could hear the conversation.

There was a pause on the other end of the phone. I looked at the clock to keep my mind focused in the pregnant silence and counted to nine before Patricia answered.

‘Well, if it is so important to you and for those young people, we will have to see if there is anything I can do to help. If you come here in half an hour, I will see if I can get the
servants to whip something up for your dinner by half past seven.’

Patricia said this quickly and with determination. Then she put the receiver down without waiting for an answer.

I sat there with the mute receiver in my hand, and a feeling of enormous relief – tinged with a slight guilt.

The White House at 104–108 Erling Skjalgsson’s Street was just as impressive from the outside as I remembered it from previous visits. In the midst of my most
complicated and bewildering murder case, there was something enormously calming and reassuring about the very sight of the Borchmanns’ monumental family home.

But this time it was tempered by a level of unease. I looked around before I parked the car, before I walked up to the house and before I rang the bell. But no one was following me on the almost
empty evening street.