The Human Flies (K2 and Patricia series) (6 page)

The bank where Harald Olesen kept his account was closed. During a search of his flat, however, several documents had been found that answered most of the questions I would have asked of the bank. Olesen had apparently been a very organized person. Statements from the past five years were in a file in one of the desk drawers. These confirmed that Harald Olesen had died a rich man. The most recent statement was from March 1968 and showed a balance of just over a million kroner. What was more striking, however, was that the statements from 1966 and the first part of 1967 showed even greater wealth. Over the past six months, the sum in Harald Olesen’s account had fallen by at least 250,000 kroner, even though his civil service pension should have been more than enough to cover the outgoings of a widowed pensioner. And the strange thing was that there were no documents in the drawer that could shed any light on where this money had gone. The sum appeared to have been paid out in three large cash withdrawals. Harald Olesen had initially taken out 100,000 kroner in October 1967, then 100,000 in February 1968 and a further 50,000 one month later.

I immediately envisaged two possibilities. Either Olesen had started to bet or make risky investments in his old age or he had paid out a large amount to one or several people. The latter seemed to be more likely, and it then was natural to assume that the murder may in some way be linked to blackmail.

It was frustrating to feel that the investigation was receiving ever more important information while I was no further forward. However, it was now the back of half past ten and time to solve the only mystery that I could guarantee would be cleared up today, which was what Professor Director Ragnar Borchmann had to offer that would help to solve the murder of Harald Olesen. I pondered this as I drove to 104–8 Erling Skjalgsson’s Street, without making much headway there either.

III

At well over six foot and close to twenty stone, Ragnar Borchmann was quite literally one of the most imposing characters I had met. But it was his personality and intellectual capacity that were most imposing. Ragnar Borchmann was the only son of a consul and director from one of Oslo’s most well-known families. He had inherited his father’s business empire, but ran it more or less as a hobby. His working hours were spent as a professor of economics, and he had a long list of books on his CV and an exemplary reputation. At the age of sixty-four, Professor Director Ragnar Borchmann was now, I dare say, one of the richest men in Oslo and one of the most admired intellectuals in Norway.

But Ragnar Borchmann had carried a great sorrow for many years. I first heard about this when I was ten. One Saturday evening, in sheer delight at the end of the war, he and his wife sat up late with myself and my parents. Both guests showed a touching interest in me, my schooling and future opportunities in life. Before I went to bed that night, my father said to me: ‘There are many things that I may envy about Ragnar Borchmann, but still I am the richer man. Because I have you.’ In his early twenties, Ragnar Borchmann had married a girl from a very good family who was also at the start of a promising academic career. The couple always appeared to be happy and harmonious, but they remained childless. A sorrow settled on them, which seemed to weigh more heavily on him. By 1948, Ragnar Borchmann was forty-four years old and had amassed an impressive legacy of books, property and money, but he did not have an heir, and it seemed had no prospect of getting one.

My childhood was spent in a decidedly upper-class home where strong emotions were seldom displayed in public. I can only remember seeing Mother and Father cry on one occasion – and then it was with tears of joy. One day in July 1949 I came home from school to the news that the forty-three-year-old Mrs Caroline Borchmann was expecting a baby. It was only then that I understood how heavily their childlessness had weighed on the Borchmanns and their immediate circle. I have never seen joy and anticipation emanate more than it did from the middle-aged couple that summer. I went to their daughter’s christening together with my parents in January 1950, as did around 250 other ‘close friends’ from the capital’s cultural, financial and intellectual elite. It was jokingly said that Oslo had never seen the like since the crown prince’s christening in 1937, but then that also seemed fitting, as we were, after all, talking about an emperor’s daughter. Choosing a name for their only child was obviously no easy task for two parents with such illustrious names on both sides. In the end, they settled on Patricia Louise Isabelle Elizabeth Borchmann.

‘The Borchmann girl’ had been reading books from the age of four, if my parents were to be believed. She was eight when she read her first Ibsen play. At the age of ten, she appeared on the front page of one of the national newspapers, without wishing to do so, under the headline ‘Super-Intelligent Director’s Daughter Challenges Single-Stream Comprehensive Schools’. The problem was that the school principal, with backing from the Ministry of Education, would only agree to move her up one year, whereas her parents and the teachers believed that jumping three would be more valuable. The following year, Patricia Louise I. E. Borchmann appeared in the newspapers again, but this time on the sports pages, under headlines that ventured ‘The New Sonja Henie?’ The reports also mentioned that she was one of the nation’s rising stars in shooting, having achieved several high scores in the national youth championships.

One winter day in 1963, my mother and I met Patricia Louise and her parents on our way home from the skating rink. Professor Borchmann dominated the conversation, as always. However, in the course of his analysis of the day’s news – the future of the new Gerhardsen government following the Kings Bay Affair – the impossible occurred. Not only was he corrected in his review of the facts, he was also challenged in his analysis. And what was even more astonishing was that he took it with good humour, admitted his mistakes and even patted his critic happily on the head several times. This made a deep impression on my mother and me. ‘We’ll be hearing more about that girl,’ my mother said, as we watched them continue on their way.

Unfortunately, I only remember the episode and my mother’s words in light of the tragedy that would colour it forever. That was the last time that we saw Mrs Borchmann alive, and Patricia was never to skate again. A few days later, one of the Borchmann cars skidded on the black winter ice at a crossroads, resulting in a full-frontal collision with a spinning articulated lorry. The driver and Mrs Borchmann, who was in the front, were killed instantly, and the passenger in the back seat, Patricia Louise, was still in a coma five days later, fighting for her life. I have been told that two nights in a row the doctors declared that she was not likely to live to see the morning. Ten days after the accident, the newspapers carried a small notice that her condition was no longer critical, but the damage would probably be permanent. That was the last thing that anyone wrote about Patricia Louise I. E. Borchmann.

I later heard from my mother that Patricia was paralysed from the waist down and had been taken out of school. Her father in his despair sought advice from a number of leading doctors, and in pure desperation also took her to see an old healer in Lillehammer and a younger healer in Snåsa. There was no chance of a recovery, so Patricia would have to live with the prospect of deterioration looming over her for the rest of her life. After that I had heard nothing more of either her or her father. Until he called early on the morning of 6 April 1968 to offer some unexpected help in solving the murder.

The facade of 104–8 Erling Skjalgsson’s Street, where Ragnar Borchmann had both his home and business empire, was just as impressive as I recalled from my visits as a boy. The enormous building went by the name of ‘the White House’ among friends and acquaintances, because of its colour. The three separate houses had been joined by Ragnar Borchmann’s paternal grandfather, who now stood on a plinth in the cavernous hallway outside his grandson’s office. It struck me that entering the Borchmann household was like going back in time to the 1930s.

Professor Borchmann’s secretary showed me the quickest way to the director’s office. The staircase, with its twenty-three steps, was almost as long as I remembered from childhood. And when I reached the top, Ragnar Borchmann was by and large almost the same as well. There was a sombreness to him that I did not recognize from before, but his back was as straight, his hair and beard as black, his handshake as firm and his voice as powerful as I remembered.

‘Welcome, and once again congratulations on your recent promotion. I am absolutely certain that you will rise to this challenge. Now, shall I call you Kolbjørn or Detective Inspector Kristiansen?’

I assured him that I would take it as a compliment if he chose to call me Kolbjørn, but to be on the safe side, I would continue to call him ‘Professor Borchmann’. He smiled, but did not object.

‘First of all, I must apologize if I have lured you here under false pretences, but it was with the best of intentions. Sadly, I have nothing to contribute myself. I of course met Harald Olesen on and off over the past few decades, but saw less of him more recently. If you have not done so already, you should talk to Supreme Court Justice Jesper Christopher Haraldsen regarding the war years and Party Secretary Haavard Linde about politics and the party. But other than that, I am afraid I am of very little use to the case.’

I had not yet got as far as talking to either of the grand gentlemen mentioned, but he was absolutely right that I should contact them. So it was still a mystery as to why I was sitting here. Borchmann saw the confusion on my face and carried on hastily.

‘I am aware that this is both unorthodox and somewhat irregular, but it is Patricia and not me you should be talking to.’

My confusion was in no way diminished by his next comment – in the form of a totally unexpected question.

‘Have you ever met a person whose thoughts are constantly one step ahead, faster and more profound than your own? It is a fascinating and yet frightening experience to look in the eye of someone who, quite frankly, is more intelligent than you will ever be. You feel you are in good hands and helpless at the same time.’

I nodded vaguely. I did not like to say in so many words, but I knew that feeling only too well. For example, I felt it every time I spoke to Professor Director Borchmann.

‘Of course you have. I have perhaps felt it less often than others, but I too have experienced it. Unless the discussion involves my specialist areas, I experience it practically every time I talk to my eighteen-year-old daughter now. She not only reads twice as quickly as me, be it in Norwegian, English, German or French, she beats me hands down in the speed and quality of her comments on what we are reading. It frightens me a little, but also makes me tremendously proud.’

I felt extremely uncertain and was not sure of what to say, or how, so I kept my mouth shut. The professor continued without pause.

‘Nothing has interested Patricia more in recent years than unsolved crimes. She has read dozens of books on the history of crime, and at least a hundred detective novels. She has on more than one occasion predicted the outcome of big criminal cases on the basis of what she has read in the papers. She is particularly interested in the murder in Krebs’ Street. Partly because Harald Olesen was a friend of the family and partly because of the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the case. She has questions and comments that I cannot answer – including an entirely plausible solution as to how the murderer managed to leave the flat. But for all I know, it is perfectly possible that you and your colleagues have solved the mystery already and will shortly be making an arrest . . .’

He looked at me in anticipation. I tried to shake my head without appearing to be desperate.

‘In that case, I would be immensely grateful if you could discuss the case with Patricia for a short while, in all confidentiality of course. It need not take more than fifteen minutes of your time, and could be of considerable assistance.’

I thought quietly to myself that perhaps mandatory limits should be introduced for how highly a father could praise his child, but by now my curiosity about young Patricia and her world had been piqued. And I was no less curious as to how she had solved the mystery of the murderer’s disappearance, while I had found no solution. So I gave a friendly smile and replied that I would be more than happy to set aside fifteen minutes or so in all confidentiality to test the theory.

Professor Borchmann smiled, pressed my hand and, without further ado, rang a bell. A young, blonde maid in her twenties appeared a few seconds later. ‘Please show my guest into Miss Patricia Louise in the library straightaway,’ the professor said. Then he turned back to the paperwork on his desk with characteristic efficiency.

IV

Patricia Louise Isabelle Elizabeth Borchmann now lived in a tidy and serene little kingdom one storey above and a garden away from a grey and busy street in Oslo. She was sitting waiting at a table set for two, in the middle of a room that was larger than many of the gymnasiums that I have been in, surrounded by more books than in all the private libraries I have ever seen.

Young Patricia was in no way physically impressive. I guessed she would be a good head shorter than me if she could stand up, and her body was so slight that she could barely weigh more than seven stone. The family likeness with her father was undeniable. It was there in the black hair, but more than anything in her stern face and unwavering gaze. I couldn’t recall having seen a young girl with such a strong face – or any woman, for that matter.

As if by some unspoken agreement, we did not shake hands. I just nodded, and she pointed brusquely to a large armchair directly opposite her. She herself was sitting in her wheelchair, with a television set, as well as a wireless and stereo player, within reach. The table between us was large and obviously necessary. To her left was a telephone of the very latest model. In front of her, there were three ballpoint pens and a notebook, as well as a pile of at least six of that day’s newspapers. Judging by the selection of papers, Patricia Louise I. E. Borchmann was open-minded and non-party political: she read everything from the reactionary
Morgenbladet
to the communist rag
Friheten
. On the right-hand side of the table lay three books, with bookmarks. The one on top was a French book, the title of which I could not understand, the one in the middle appeared to be a university textbook on sociology, and the one on the bottom was a collection of short stories in English by Stanley Ellin, of whom I had never heard. There was a large jug of water in the middle of the table, as well as a pot of coffee and a pot of tea.