The Catalyst Killing (K2 and Patricia series Book 3) (23 page)

X

‘The cook has not outdone herself today, to be fair, but you are still eating suspiciously little,’ Patricia remarked halfway through the main course.

I dutifully took another couple of mouthfuls of the delicious venison, and thoughtlessly excused myself, saying that I had had to eat a little something earlier in the afternoon in connection with the investigation.

Patricia looked at me with raised eyebrows, but fortunately did not ask any questions.

I gave her a simplified account of the afternoon’s developments, without saying that I had asked Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen out for something to eat. It was not something I wanted to tell Patricia, nor did it feel like something she would want to know. We eagerly talked about the case over the rest of the meal.

‘The case is of course complicated, and enough to make you lose your appetite,’ I said.

She nodded vigorously.

‘I absolutely agree. The picture is now somewhat clearer regarding the police security service, but they are still holding so much back that one could be forgiven for wondering if they are hiding something serious. Let us hope that this can finally be cleared up when you talk to the man with the suitcase tomorrow.’

I stared at Patricia, astounded.

‘And how exactly do you think I am going to do that? The head of the security service seemed very unwilling to cooperate on that point.’

Patricia let out a great sigh.

‘Have you really not considered the reason why the head of the security service seems so unwilling to cooperate and would not let you meet the man with the suitcase? You tell the good Mr Bryne tomorrow that you know that this man has a large mole on his face and remind him of the potential scandal that might ensue should it ever get out that he was also at the cabin in Valdres on the night that Falko Reinhardt went missing. My guess is that you will be able to talk to him pretty quickly after that. I am less certain, however, about how much help it will be.’

I felt as though I had been punched in the stomach. It struck me that if Patricia’s intelligence had increased from the time she was eighteen until she was twenty, so had her arrogance. Fortunately, she continued in a softer tone.

‘The picture is becoming more detailed, but also more complex and confusing. The same is true of the picture at the scene of the crime on the evening that Marie Morgenstierne was shot.’

I nodded in agreement.

‘Just when we have now identified one of those present, we have discovered a new shadow in the wings. Do you have any ideas about who this other man in the side road might be?’

Patricia’s smile was secretive.

‘I nearly always have my theories, but these are at present so uncertain that I cannot share them with anyone else yet – particularly as there is a considerable chance that it was just a random passer-by who happened to be standing there. I am currently more interested in the man who it is becoming ever clearer was there, and who is perhaps out there somewhere with the solution: in other words, Falko Reinhardt himself. But based on the information given, I unfortunately have no way of knowing where he might be. Once again, the curse of public space.’

I commented that the information from the police security service also allowed for the possibility that Marie Morgenstierne might have suspected Kristine Larsen of being responsible for Falko’s disappearance.

Patricia replied that it was of course a possibility that Marie Morgenstierne’s suspicions were of considerable importance, even though it would seem that they were unfounded: Falko was alive, and had disappeared of his own free will. But it was first of all highly unlikely that the person Marie Morgenstierne suspected was also the person who killed her. And, furthermore, there were other people whom Marie Morgenstierne had reason to suspect just as much as Kristine Larsen.

I asked Patricia outright if she was now alluding to Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen. She looked at me, slightly surprised, and to my relief, shook her head.

‘No, it was not primarily her I was thinking of. On the contrary, she is perhaps the least likely of the four. If that was where Marie Morgenstierne’s suspicions lay, it seems unlikely that she would continue to act as an informer for the police security service for a year after Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen had left the group.’

I had not thought of that, but apparently was too enthusiastic in my nodding. Patricia sighed heavily again and continued.

‘Marie Morgenstierne may of course have started to act as an informant because she was suspicious of Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen, and then continued for other reasons. But no matter what this Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen may or may not have on her conscience, or what she believed, there is nothing at all to indicate that she had anything to do with Falko’s disappearance. It is, however, not impossible that she might have something to do with Marie Morgenstierne’s death. But I have to say it seems unlikely.’

We left it at that. For a moment, Patricia suddenly seemed to be deflated. She sat in silence with her dessert, before pushing it aside after only a few mouthfuls of ice cream.

‘I am allergic to something there is far too much of in this case, and that is coincidences. The strangest of all is that you yourself were there on the train when Marie Morgenstierne came running for her life. You have never actually told me what you were doing at Smestad that evening.’

I chortled briefly and told her in five sentences the story of the overwrought hotel manager and his suspicious guest.

Never before had I experienced such a rapid and dramatic change in Patricia’s mood. Within two seconds she went from sitting in her wheelchair, disheartened and almost resigned and passive, to leaning forward over the table, breathless and on the verge of angry.

‘And in the five days that you have come here, you have not thought once to tell me this remarkable story?’

‘But – the hotel manager is completely paranoid and rings about things like this every three months or so,’ I stammered.

Patricia was not pacified by this. She hit the table, making the dessert bowls jump.

‘As a great many people in both the United States and the Soviet Union can confirm, being paranoid does not prove in any way that one is not being persecuted! Did this bizarre guest give a name, by the way?’

‘Frank Rekkedal,’ I said, and at that moment realized my blunder.

Patricia became so agitated and spoke so fast that I almost feared she might leap out of her wheelchair and over the table to get at me.

‘If it had been illegal not to see the simplest of connections, you would have to arrest yourself right now! Frank Rekkedal, hardly – the guest’s name is Falko Reinhardt and he is even more confident and theatrical than I thought! Go to the hotel immediately and let’s hope he is still there. And if he is, it may be decisive in solving the murder, and in preventing something even more dramatic that is being planned by someone out there right now.’

I was shocked, both by my own oversight and by Patricia’s extreme reaction. But her conclusion, as she now presented it, was very convincing. The possibility of being able to close the case soon was suddenly within reach. So I jumped up, and more or less ran through the corridors and down the long stairs of the Borchmann home.

I vaguely registered that Patricia shouted something to me as I ran out of the room. The two sentences continued to rattle around my brain as I bounded down the stairs, and it was only when I was out in the driveway that they fell into place.

‘If you find Falko, please ask him if he recognized anyone other than Marie at the scene of the crime. But first, ask him if he knows what they are planning and when it is going to happen!’

XI

The hotel manager had gone away for the weekend, and would not be back until Monday morning. It was a shame, the young, dark-haired receptionist commented with a jaunty little smile, because he was her uncle and would no doubt have set great store in being here right now. She soon became serious again and added that the mysterious guest in Room 27 was still here, as far as she knew. He had paid until tomorrow and had put his empty breakfast tray back out again this morning. I asked if she had a spare key to the room. She nodded gravely.

I said that there was not likely to be any drama, and that the guest was at present not suspected of anything criminal. It might, however, be advantageous if a representative from the hotel was there as a witness when I knocked on the door of Room 27. She nodded and put her hand to her mouth in a moment of anticipated adventure. ‘Almost like a James Bond film,’ was her quiet remark. Then she was once again the same rational receptionist who was responsible for her uncle’s hotel. She found a key that was marked ‘Spare 27’, put out a sign that said ‘back shortly’, and pointed me in the direction of the room.

We mounted the stairs in concentrated silence and walked down the corridor past rooms 1–10. She pointed out Room 27 for me with a slightly trembling finger as soon as we passed Room 23. It was clearly a quiet summer weekend in the hotel: there was no one to be seen, and not a sound to be heard in the corridor.

The atmosphere was somewhat uncanny as we stood there outside Room 27. My companion made her way discreetly to the end of the corridor and pressed a light switch. This certainly helped. The whole corridor was lit up by three large ceiling chandeliers. But nothing more of any interest was to be seen in the corridor as a result. And it still felt slightly unreal to be standing outside Room 27. The door was a very ordinary brown hotel door. It could be hiding either an empty hotel room, or the solution to both the murder and missing-person mysteries.

As we stood there for a few moments more, I considered whether I should do something I had thought about on the way over: that is, to call out a stronger police presence before knocking on the hotel door. But the situation did not feel dramatic or in any way threatening. There was much to indicate that the bird might have flown the nest already – if, indeed, it had ever been here. If the hotel room was empty, or we found a poor, nervous tourist in there, a stronger police presence would be an overreaction that Danielsen and other envious colleagues might use to poke fun at me. And if Falko Reinhardt really was behind the locked door, he was contained. It seemed rather unlikely that he would attack a policeman in such a situation, even if he was armed.

There was still not a sound to be heard from inside the room. The receptionist’s hand was shaking a little, her eyes darting between me and the door. A strange understanding had developed between two people who had never met before. It struck me I did not even know the young receptionist’s name – and that she might in fact be in danger if she followed me into the room. I did think, however, that the risk was microscopic. And I was extremely curious as to who or what was hiding in the hotel room. She was now visibly trembling, but pulled herself together and gave me an encouraging smile. I took a deep breath and hesitated one more time. Then I changed my focus and knocked on the door.

The knocking produced no reaction. All remained quiet in Room 27.

My voice sounded like a peal of thunder in the tense silence.

‘We know that you are there, Falko Reinhardt. Open the door immediately. This is Detective Inspector Kolbjørn Kristiansen, and I need to speak to you about the planned attack!’

The receptionist let out a small gasp and looked up at me with large blue eyes, as if I really were James Bond in a film. But the situation was real enough. And all was still quiet in Room 27.

The idea that I had arrived a few hours too late and that the room was now empty was increasingly convincing. However, the tension ratcheted up a further notch when I tried the door handle. The door was locked. And it was not possible to see anything through the keyhole, because the key had been inserted from the inside.

I waved my hand for the spare key. It was with some relief that she put it between my fingers. I pushed it into the lock and heard the key on the inside fall out. At the same time, I also heard more noises from inside the room.

The receptionist instinctively gripped my arm, but nothing dramatic happened. The sounds from inside the room were not easy to identify. It could have been drawers and wardrobes being opened and closed again. I was suddenly seized by a fear that the receptionist might get injured when the door opened. So I as good as lifted her to one side and out of sight of the door. Then I turned the key.

The light in Room 27 had been switched off. But it was easy enough to look around the room, which was a good hundred square feet, in the light from the corridor. And the room was empty. There were no personal belongings to be seen on the bed, chairs or desk by the window, and there was no trace of Falko Reinhardt or any other person.

My eyes turned instinctively to the bathroom door. I pulled it open. But there was no trace of anyone either on the floor or in the bathtub. The only sign that a guest had been there was a red toothbrush and a half-used tube of toothpaste. A forgotten electric shaver indicated that it was a man who had left the room in such a hurry. But the man himself was nowhere to be seen.

When I went back out into the room I almost collided with another person, but quickly regained my composure when it proved to be the receptionist. She pointed at the balcony door with a trembling hand.

I was so annoyed with myself at having overlooked this possible escape route that I almost swore out loud. The balcony door was ajar. I rushed over and looked out. The drop down to the lawn below was barely nine feet. I leaped over the railing and ran across the lawn down to the street.

I caught a glimpse of the fleeing hotel guest from Room 27 on the road outside the hotel. He was just turning into a side street about fifty yards away, and he was running fast. But he turned to look back for a moment, and I recognized him straight away. He was a tall, dark and muscular man, with long, curly hair that made him easy to recognize.

I ran after him down to the side road, but quickly had to face up to the fact that pursuing him any further was hopeless. Falko Reinhardt had a head start of at least fifty yards, and was not to be seen anywhere. He could have run in any direction.