Chameleon People (48 page)

It worked. Rønning dropped his lorgnette again and his client lost all self-control at the same time. In a matter of seconds, the colour drained from her face and she swayed as though
about to faint before I even had a chance to continue.

‘Fredriksen had treated you very badly, so there may well be mitigating circumstances. But your betrayal of your son afterwards, and the attempt to exploit his death for economic gain was
heartless,’ I said.

It was not a nice thing to say. But when I heard my own words I realized I felt very indignant. And it worked. She gasped loudly for air and leaned heavily against the wall.

‘Good gracious!’ Rønning exclaimed, having finally regained the power of speech and retrieved his lorgnette. But I was not to be put off my stride by him.

‘We have a new statement, from a man with a PhD, no less, who witnessed the murder and has given a description that fits your client perfectly. According to him, the murderer was a
dark-haired, middle-aged woman in a green winter coat,’ I said, and pointed at the coat stand.

Rønning looked as though he was about to protest. But Lene Johansen looked at me and beat him to it.

‘I didn’t mean it to end like this. I thought that either we would be allowed to stay here a bit longer, or Tor would be looked after and have the chance of a better life than me.
Yes, I ran away from the scene of the crime when I saw there was a chance that I might get away with it. My instincts kicked in. But I had never thought of laying the blame on Tor. I almost fainted
in the telephone box when I heard that he’d been arrested. I thought I would confess when you came to speak to me, but then the priest got here first and told me that Tor was dead. And then I
had no one to live for except me.’

Lena Johansen looked so tragic standing there, swaying. But she had first of all committed a murder, then not told the truth after her son’s death, and threatened to sue me and the police.
So I still felt no sympathy and saw no reason to be considerate.

‘But the sheer audacity – to claim that you are innocent and demand compensation for your son’s death, when you yourself were guilty . . .’

On the far left of my vision, I registered that Danielsen had paled. I looked straight at Lene Johansen, who pointed an almost accusing finger at the lawyer.

‘I just wanted to crawl silently into a hole under the ground in the hope that no one would see me for the rest of my life. But then he came to my door and said that I might have rights
and could perhaps get fifty or a hundred thousand in compensation. I have never got anything from society, so I felt that I owed no one anything. And fifty thousand is an incredible amount when you
only have two kroner to your name and are about to be thrown out onto the street any day.’

I kept looking at Lene Johansen. I vaguely registered that Rønning, to my right, was now even paler than Danielsen. And that he had started to speak.

‘I realize now in retrospect that my behaviour then may have seemed odd. However, I did all that I did in the good faith that my client and her dead son were innocent, and given certain
terms and conditions, I was obliged to inform her about her rights,’ he said.

I continued to ignore the lawyer, and looked straight at his client. She was leaning heavily against the wall, but still looked as though she might collapse at any minute. Her hair was grey, her
eyes were red and her expression black.

I saw her other face now. And even though it was a murderer’s face, it was still a face I felt sympathy for. So I said, in a slightly more conciliatory tone, ‘Fredriksen had
exploited you and let you down, that was why you hated him.’

She nodded; suddenly there was a spark in her eyes. ‘He was my last hope and then everything fell to pieces. It was the first time for years that anyone had asked me out and given me
things. He was so charming and kind then. The fact that I got pregnant was unexpected, but once he got over the surprise he was happy. He talked about getting divorced a couple of times and
promised at least to look after me and my son. Everything could have been different if only Tor had not been born with that birthmark. I cried when I saw it and knew that he was my husband’s
son. Per Johan realized as well as soon as he came to the hospital. He pointed at the birthmark and said: “That child is not mine, so good luck with him.” Then he laughed scornfully,
and threw a fifty-øre coin onto the bedside table and left. He showed a very different, cruel side of himself that day. And I saw that face again at Majorstuen on Saturday, when I asked for
a month’s reprieve on the rent, and he laughed that same scornful laugh. It was only when he laughed that I finally decided to kill him. And he deserved no better! I may regret everything
else I’ve done in my life, but not that!’

She almost shouted this and looked so desperately bitter now. After my experience earlier in the day, I discreetly took a couple of steps back. Rønning wiped the sweat from his brow, and
also retreated a few steps, and said in a very quiet voice that it was a case of a life that had been very difficult for many years, with several mitigating circumstances.

‘Believe me, I’m not a bad person, I’ve just done a bad thing. That is what poverty and all that comes with it can do to a person,’ Lene Johansen said suddenly, with only
desperation in her voice now.

I was about to say that, in the end, it was all about self-preservation, both for her and for Oda Fredriksen. But it felt wrong to compare the two, and when I looked around me, I had to
acknowledge that there was some truth in what she had said about poverty. I said that it was up to the court to consider the mitigating circumstances, and that we really should go now.

I did not want to put handcuffs on Lene Johansen. And after a brief exchange of glances, nor did Danielsen. He held her by the arm to support her out of the flat, and I took with me the green
winter coat. The coat stand with its three missing hooks was left naked and alone in the hall. I left the basement flat without looking back; the air felt stuffy now and a few yards behind us an
old school satchel was lying on the floor of a boy’s empty room. I could not face seeing it again.

It was ten past four when I was let in to see Miriam at Ullevål Hospital. To my great relief, she was in her room, and was lying flat out on the bed.

I hurried in and shut the door, and as it closed, I said: ‘I am so sorry that I was not here when you woke up. I had to wrap up the murder investigation and thought that it might be better
if you were able to wake up and spend some time with your family first.’

I went over to the bed, bent down and gave Miriam a gentle hug. It was not the welcome I had hoped for. Her cheek was unusually cold and stiff.

I had not noticed yesterday how small the room was. It was just big enough for a bed and a chair. I sat down on the seat, a few feet away from her head on the pillow. It suddenly felt
uncomfortably close, even though I had been much closer to Miriam many times before.

She finally spoke when I sat down. ‘That’s fine. The investigation has to come first, and I only woke up a couple of hours ago,’ she said. But she said it in a serious,
monotonous voice, without any trace of joy at seeing me again.

I said that I had spoken to her mother several times over the past couple of days, and asked if it was nice to see her parents and brother again.

‘Yes. They were very relieved, and Mum could not praise you enough. But you should have rung Katrine. She only heard that I was all right today and was very upset about it.’

I realized that in the midst of everything else I had completely forgotten Miriam’s friend – even though she had helped with the investigation. I apologized profusely, and said that
yesterday I had been overcome with fear about her safety and then with relief when she came back.

Miriam’s head looked so small and her face so pale against the white pillow. If she nodded, it was impossible to see. She still did not look happy. I still felt pretty miserable myself,
despite all the developments in the investigation.

I carried on hastily and said that it was fantastic to have her back, and I asked how the whole experience had been and how she felt now.

She paused, and then spoke for longer than I had expected.

‘I am fine now. I don’t have much movement in my arms yet, but the doctor says that should be better by tomorrow and with a bit of physiotherapy, they will be as good as new. I
can’t really tell you much about what happened, unfortunately. I was walking along the road when I was pushed into a car with two men in it and someone put a rag over my mouth and nose, then
I blacked out. I woke up with my hands tied behind my back in a basement somewhere and stayed there all day. A man in a mask came in twice. I thought he was going to kill me, but instead he fed me.
Then they put a rag over my mouth and nose again, and this time I was certain I was going to die. I have blurred memories of wandering around in a street and talking to some people, but it all
feels like a dream. Then I woke up here. I understood while I was sitting there in the basement, wherever it was, that it was the Soviets who had taken me and felt the hand of a dictator touch me
personally. But I can’t prove anything without the envelope that I got from Tatiana, and I guess that has disappeared?’

I confirmed that it had and asked her what had been in the envelope.

‘A copy of the KGB file on Fredriksen, which Tatiana had risked her life to get. And a written statement where she confirmed that the agent who had arrived recently had gone out early last
Saturday evening, and seemed inexplicably tense when he came back around ten. It was to be her ticket to a new life and my biggest gift to you. But that is not how it turned out.’

For a few seconds, I thought about the white envelope and what a difference it could have made. An image of Asle Bryne popped up in my mind and I wondered if he would have smiled, if I had been
able to give him that evidence. But all I said was that the most important thing for me was that Miriam had survived without being harmed.

She was about to smile, but then paused and asked me to tell her what had happened after she was abducted.

So I sat on the chair by her bed and told her everything that had happened since we last spoke, leaving out Danielsen’s last conversation with the boy on the red bicycle and my contact
with Patricia. I thought that Miriam would have to know about it at some point, but this was perhaps not the right time.

It helped to tell her. Miriam listened intently and smiled a couple of times. But towards the end she became very serious, almost melancholic.

‘The story of the boy on the red bicycle really is tragic. But it is all over and solved now,’ I said, gently, at the end.

Miriam sighed. ‘So Klinkalski was not the murderer after all, and the spying intrigue in fact had nothing to do with your investigation. But you would not have been able to work all this
out in such a short time without the genius of Frogner. When did you contact her?’ Miriam asked.

I was tempted to say that it was only in a panic when Miriam had been kidnapped. But I thought the situation was bad enough without me lying. So I told her the truth: that I had contacted her
after Vera Fredriksen was murdered on Monday night, and that I had regretted bitterly not telling her then.

‘It would have been better if you had told me. Hearing it now is a lot more difficult, but I guess it is something I can live with,’ she said.

Everything went quiet. The room felt even smaller now.

‘Hopefully there is nothing here that you could not live with?’ I said, carefully.

Miriam sighed into the pillow, then took two deep breaths before she spoke.

‘There is. My friend Tatiana was killed yesterday and now you tell me that no one is going to do anything about it because she was not Norwegian. I could live with all the rest, but not
that.’

I immediately told her that I had questioned that as well. I told her what my boss had said when I raised the issue. I had also been very unhappy about it, but had had to accept that that was
the way of the world and the situation we were in.

Miriam sighed again. Then she spoke from the pillow in a very quiet and firm voice.

‘Yes, it is the way of the world and the situation we find ourselves in. So I now have to live with the fact that she was killed because of her contact with me and because she tried to
help me help you with the investigation. And you have to live without me.’

She said it so calmly and so decisively. I felt as though I had been paralysed. For a moment I thought about how deeply ironic it was that our love story should end in exactly the same place
that it had started only two years before: with only the two of us present in a room at Ullevål Hospital, where she was lying injured in a bed because of me.

I sat in silence for a while. Time had stopped once again. I would later find it hard to say whether it was ten seconds, a minute or five minutes. However, I remember only too well the great
sorrow that I felt – but also, the relief that grew stronger and stronger.

Eventually, I said that I was incredibly sad to hear that, and that it was, of course, entirely my fault and not hers. And that she had been caught up in something only because she was trying to
help me for a second time.

Then I asked, without knowing how she would respond, if the problem was in fact Patricia more than Tatiana.

I realized my mistake as soon as I had said it. I should not have mentioned Patricia’s name. Miriam gave a little jolt, as though she had been given an electric shock. But her voice was
still just as controlled when she answered.

‘I think that it is more to do with Tatiana, as I said. I will think of her with sorrow and guilt for the rest of my life. But naturally, your contact with the genius of Frogner is hard
for me to swallow as well. I have tried so hard to do right, as a former president of the United States once said. I did everything I could to help you. And in the end the only result was that one
of my friends was killed and you had to get help from the genius of Frogner to save me. I had hoped that I could be of the same help to you as she was. But I realize now that I could never take her
place.’