The Human Flies (K2 and Patricia series) (40 page)

Patricia suddenly looked at me with scepticism.

‘When did you say you considered this utterly illogical possibility? The fact that his age fitted well with Deerfoot was something we only discovered after your trip to Sweden, which was three days after the murder of Konrad Jensen.’

I mumbled that I had of course never really considered it to be feasible, but that one had to check all possible options in a murder investigation. Then I hurriedly moved the conversation on by saying that I now suspected that a certain person had foreseen that the necklace was in fact a possible means of suicide. Patricia became very serious and cocked her head before she answered.

‘Well, I have to say that I am partially guilty. I did not know that the necklace concealed a suicide pill, but definitely had my suspicions. It was difficult to see why he would suddenly start to wear it again in the final stages of the investigation, unless he felt an imminent danger and needed an escape route.’

My face and body language may possibly have shown that I was not entirely happy that she had not told me this before. Patricia squirmed a bit and glanced down at the suicide letter.

‘I have to be honest and say more or less the same as he did. Egoism is probably the reason that I did not mention my suspicions to you. I was dreading being wheeled into the court as a witness if there was a case. But I also thought that it would actually be better for all parties if there were not a long trial. As for reporting to the public and honouring those who deserve it . . .’

I nodded and looked at her expectantly. And once again she did not disappoint.

‘Surely the best solution must be that you publish his letter. It is a gripping document that will be of great interest to both the press and the public. And it gives an excellent summary of the case that we both agree is correct.’

Her smile when she said the latter was somewhat bitter.

Following this clarification, I no longer had any pressing questions that I needed Patricia to answer. She, for her part, sat and mulled over the murderer’s letter for a few minutes, without wanting to say what it was she wanted to talk to me about.

‘Bloody hell,’ she said suddenly, very loudly, as she threw the letter down on the table.

My surprise at this outburst was promptly followed by another that was no less shocking. Patricia took out a packet of cigarettes and, with a shaking hand, lit one of them from the candle. A few minutes of tense silence followed while she blew smoke rings up towards the ceiling in deep contemplation.

‘I did not know that you smoked. When did you start?’ I asked quietly. This development was far less to my taste.

‘Yesterday evening. But I do not intend to take it up and will stop again soon,’ Patricia replied, with an even more twisted smile. She demonstratively stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette in her dessert bowl, but then only seconds later lit another one.

‘What I wanted to talk to you about was this. The story of Harald Olesen’s last year, when he himself had become a human fly, and was surrounded by other human flies, is tragic enough in itself. And it was not remedied in any way by the arrest. It struck me even before I had met Andreas Gullestad that he was one of the most intelligent men I had ever come across. What he later told us and what this letter confirms is that not only was he an unusually intelligent man, but also a person with many other great talents. Just look at the map he drew.’

I looked at it and realized what she meant. The map was both informative and elegant, even though it must have been drawn in a rush. It was clearly the work of a person with an excellent geometric memory and considerable artistic skills.

‘The very idea of leaving a map also shows that Andreas Gullestad was not a completely evil person without feelings. But despite all his talents and good intentions, as a sixteen-year-old he still killed the mother of a small child, partly because of the war and partly because of Harald Olesen’s betrayal. And for the next twenty years, after the war, he lived as a human fly. Despite his many talents, all he ever really did was hide his dark secret from the war, tussle with his memories of the event and fight against his urge to seek revenge on the man who had made him a murderer. In the end, in his loneliness, he could not take the pressure and ended up killing first two more people and then himself.’

Patricia paused and with resignation blew some more smoke out into the air between us.

‘Do not misunderstand me. Not only was it right but it was also absolutely necessary that he was caught and arrested. Murder must never be left unsolved and go unpunished in any civilized society. But the fact that it ended as it did for this extremely gifted youth who volunteered his services to the Resistance during the war after his father’s death is in reality a greater tragedy than the end of Harald Olesen’s life.’

I sat in silence and did not contradict her. I did not have much to say – and suddenly longed to get out into the fresh, smoke-free spring air.

Patricia, however, was far from finished.

‘But all this is probably said out of frustration and disappointment in my own inadequacy.’

This time I had to protest.

‘That is enough. It was actually your incredible efforts that helped us to establish who the murderer was and then arrest him.’

Patricia smiled quickly, but then held her hand up to stop me.

‘Thank you for that – and for letting me be part of a very exciting and interesting case. But this welcome confirmation of my own intellectual capacity does not make the bitter truth that I have become a human fly myself any easier.’

I was dumbfounded. She took two drags of the cigarette and then carried on.

‘It did not happen yesterday, so it is in no way your fault. I was already a human fly, but only really realized it fully yesterday. Sitting here, I like to think that my mind is just as sharp, and that everything is as it was before the accident. But it is not – and never will be. I felt like a tortoise yesterday: clear in my thoughts, but physically handicapped and ridiculously unable to save myself if something did not go according to plan. Despite all the interesting experiences and people that I met, it was a nightmare from the time that I left this room until I got back here. I relived the confrontation in Deerfoot’s flat three times last night, and each time the ending was not a happy one. The first two times, I was shot. In the third, I was roasted in my wheelchair when the building went up in flames and everyone else ran out.’

Patricia stubbed out the second cigarette in her dessert bowl, but twice reached out to take a new one, before she hesitantly continued without.

‘I asked my father to call you that morning eight days ago because I still thought and hoped that I could make an important difference to someone out there. And I now know that I can. But I also had my fears confirmed: that I no longer belong out there in the real world. So I will just have to sit here in my unreal world – and hope that every now and then an opportunity will crop up for me to take part in your life and influence what goes on out there.’

I looked at her bewildered. She lit yet another cigarette and made some more smoke rings before explaining.

‘I will never come out with you again, but if you should get involved in a new case in which you think that my advice might be of help, you are always welcome to phone me or knock on the door. The only condition is that I do not want any kind of official recognition, and you must say as little as possible about me and my advice to anyone out there.’

I shook her hand on this. It was worse than I had hoped, and far better than I had feared. It had for a moment dawned on me that I might have considerable problems defending my newly won reputation as an ingenious investigator if I could not seek Patricia’s advice at a later point. Having seen the miracles that Patricia had performed in this case, I found it difficult to imagine a case that she could not solve. But the fact that her role should not be discussed in public, I have to say, suited me rather well.

We sat in silence again for a few minutes following this little explosion. Then Patricia rang for Benedikte – or was it perhaps Beate who was working that Sunday? I had lost count of which of them was working when. On the other hand, I had come to understand that having two taciturn twins as maids was a means of ensuring that Patricia’s environment was controlled and stable.

I got up as soon as the maid came in, but Patricia immediately put up a hand to stop me. Once again, her face went through a rapid change of mood. She stubbed out her cigarette in disgust, thrust the rest of the packet deep into a pocket and suddenly flashed me one of her more mischievous smiles. She whispered something to Benedikte, who gave a quick nod and immediately left the room.

‘Please be seated for a moment or two more. I still have an amusing little theory that I want to test out with some help from Benedikte, before I can say that I am finished with the case.’

We waited in anticipation for a couple of minutes. Though I wracked my brains, I could find no explanation as to what this might be. Benedikte returned, as solitary as when she left, and whispered a short message in Patricia’s ear. The reaction was both explosive and unexpected. Patricia’s fit of laughter lasted for almost a minute.

‘What is it that is so funny?’ I eventually asked – no doubt with some irritation in my voice.

Patricia had to dry her eyes on a napkin before she could answer.

‘Just that I have had my theory confirmed that people, when you get to know them a little, are in fact a very predictable race,’ she replied, with a cheerful smile.

I suddenly got that uncomfortable feeling you always get when you realize that someone is laughing at you without yourself knowing why. I stood up again to leave. This time Patricia did not try to stop me. She just gave an apologetic shrug – and carried on laughing. As Benedikte opened the door to show me out, there was a final piece of advice from the wheelchair.

‘By the way, my last piece of advice to you for now as you go back out into the real world . . . Remember, if you want to play in the kitchen, you have to put up with the heat!’

It sounded like a pubescent or childish twist on the well-known saying, the sort of thing that one has to be either five or fifteen to come up with. I was slightly worried that the drama of yesterday really had knocked Patricia’s mental balance off-kilter. Unless she was even more complex than I had understood so far. Whatever the case, I thought it better simply to grin and bear it, and gave her a friendly wave and smile as I disappeared out through the door. Patricia’s laughter was fortunately cut short when the door closed behind me.

IV

I managed to follow Benedikte quietly and obediently down one and a half flights of stairs on my way out. But then I could not stop myself from asking what her mysterious message had been that had made Patricia laugh so much. It was the first time that I saw the otherwise serious Benedikte smile – and the first time I heard her voice. And it was just as I had imagined it: simple and easy to understand.

‘Miss said that you would ask me on the way out and I was to tell you the truth, that I had looked out of the window to check and that you would understand soon enough. Miss has a sharp tongue now and then, but it is her mind that is sharpest, you see. She can even predict the future sometimes.’

I nodded pensively, but still had no idea what this was all about and so asked cheerfully how soon I would know what it was that I would know. The loyal Benedikte replied, with a very gentle smile, that it would be no bother.

I did not understand until I was standing outside the White House and looked down Erling Skjalgsson’s Street. But then I understood very quickly – and could agree that it did not bother me in the slightest. I could very happily live with the situation out in the real world.

The sun was shining, and the sky was blue, and it was an unusually delightful spring day. And by my car, an unusually beautiful young woman was waiting impatiently for me to come. Two long, slim legs, dressed in tight jeans that emphasized her lovely curves, stamping impatiently on the pavement to keep warm.

She nodded and gave me the most irresistible smile when I came up to the car. I smiled back, got in behind the wheel and indicated that she should get in beside me. Then we drove off together – as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Fortunately, it was only several decades later, when the great Miss Patricia Louise I. E. Borchmann was no longer with us, that I heard about a comment she made later that day, on Sunday, 14 April 1968. She chuckled and commented to the twin sisters, Benedikte and Beate: ‘Detective Inspector Kristiansen undoubtedly has many good qualities, but I am still not certain that intelligence is one of them.’

Afterword

When working on this historical crime novel, I have used my background and experience as a historian, and have tried as far as possible to be true to context in terms of events both in 1968 and the Second World War. But it is nonetheless the literary author Hans Olav Lahlum, and not the better-known historian of the same name, who wrote this novel. And I too have taken the artistic liberty that authors so often use. The place names and streets names used in the novel are authentic, but most of the actual buildings are a product of my imagination. Thus the particularly keen reader will be able to find both Krebs’ Street and Erling Skjalgsson’s Street, but not the house numbers or buildings that are described in this novel. Similarly, it is not possible to find a police station in Sälen with the same topographical surroundings or architecture as that described in Chapter Nine.

A couple of the minor characters were directly inspired by historical figures. All the main characters, on the other hand, including the murder victim Harald Olesen, are entirely the product of the author’s imagination and are not based on any historical figure from either 1968 or the Second World War. And for those few minor characters inspired by historical figures, it must be emphasized that the literary depiction is not based on any historical involvement with a criminal investigation.