The Catalyst Killing (K2 and Patricia series Book 3) (39 page)

‘This is the head surgeon, Bernt Berg. I hope I did not wake you. I got to work a little early today.’

His voice was just as monotonous and grave as when he had told me the evening before that Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen might not survive the night. The complicity was no longer there. My heart sank and my pulse raced.

I realized that the surgeon had gone to work early so he could call me as soon as possible – yet he said nothing, waiting for me to ask, which was even more alarming. I asked with trepidation if there was any news of the patient.

He replied swiftly and briefly: ‘Yes, we managed to prevent blood poisoning and the crisis is over.’

Everything suddenly seemed surreal. For a moment I feared that I was dreaming. I banged my left arm on the edge of the table, and to my great relief, it hurt. And just then the alarm clock started to ring in the background. I was very definitely awake. And the doctor’s voice was very clear on the telephone.

‘I hear your alarm clock ringing,’ he said, with unflappable calm.

I apologized for the alarm clock and asked what he thought the patient’s chances of survival were now.

‘Almost one hundred per cent. A truly miraculous improvement,’ he replied.

The greatest sense of relief I had ever felt in my life swept me off my feet. I felt lighter and giddier than I had ever felt before. I put down the receiver and jumped up and punched the ceiling with joy.

Then I picked up the receiver again and said to Bernt Berg that he was an excellent doctor and one of the best people I had ever met.

Whether the surgeon found it pleasing or confusing to be told this by a policeman or not, he did not allow himself to be affected in any noticeable way.

‘There is a good chance that the patient will be able to talk to you for a few minutes if you come by sometime later on this afternoon. Have a good day in the meantime,’ he said, then put down the phone.

I stayed sitting by the telephone in only my underpants, giddy with relief, for about ten minutes before I managed to pull myself together. I let the alarm clock ring, suddenly loving the sound of it. When it finally stopped, I went into the bedroom and got dressed.

I felt it might be irresponsible to drive in my semi-ecstatic mood, so I walked to the nearest bookshop to buy a six-volume work on the history of Norwegian literature. Then I walked back the other way to buy flowers. As I then walked home, I realized that I had not yet eaten breakfast or looked at the newspapers.

It was a quarter to ten by the time I got back to the flat. I quickly ate three slices of bread while I skimmed the papers. My elation was in no way diminished to see that the Mardøla protest and SALT negotiations had now very definitely been squeezed to one side in the papers, and the attempted assassination of the Labour Party leader was all over the front pages. Longer articles inside explained that it was I who had personally managed to foil the attempt at the last minute, and that the arrested assassin had also admitted to both of the Valdres murders.

The fact that a female onlooker had helped to prevent the assassination, and been badly wounded as a result, was mentioned in both
Aftenposten
and
Arbeiderbladet
without any further details or the victim being named. But both promised to print more details about her, and the case in general, the next day. And both expressed heartfelt praise for the head of investigation’s efforts in connection with the Valdres murders and the attempted assassination in Oslo. They both concluded with the news that the arrested assassin was the father of the late Marie Morgenstierne, and that her murder had still not been solved.

I now felt I was in a fit state to drive a car again, but wanted if possible to have the murderer with me the next time I met Detective Inspector Danielsen. So I dialled Anders Pettersen’s number from my own phone. There was no answer at a quarter to ten, or at five to ten. But at five past ten, he suddenly picked up the phone.

Anders Pettersen sounded very sleepy indeed, or just plain hung-over. I was terse and said with some authority that there was every hope that the murder of Marie Morgenstierne would soon be solved, which I believed would be of interest. He gave a slow yes to this, and then another when I asked if he could be available for further questioning in half an hour.

II

I was interested to see whether Anders Pettersen would be at home when I rang his doorbell half an hour later. If he had done a runner, it would be as good as a confession.

Anders Pettersen was both sleepy and hung-over, but he had definitely not done a runner. The door was opened as soon as I rang the bell, and the inhabitant had managed to have a shower and put on a nearly presentable black suit in the meantime. He shook my hand and congratulated me with something akin to respect on foiling a ‘Nazi plot’ the day before.

I suddenly doubted whether he could be the murderer, which spawned an equal curiosity as to who else Patricia might have in mind. First of all, I had to see what kind of statement Anders Pettersen would give in his defence, given the circumstantial evidence against him.

It would be wrong to say that Anders Pettersen’s flat was tidy. There was a half-finished painting on an easel in the middle of the living room, and a long row of empty beer bottles lined up higgledy-piggledy by the kitchen door. He had, however, tidied the coffee table and the chairs. Once seated, we got straight to the point.

I started by saying that I had reason to believe he had not told me the whole truth with regards to Marie Morgenstierne, but that I was now giving him another chance to do so. He nodded hastily to show he understood.

‘I apologize profusely for not having told you the truth before. This was partly due to my lack of trust in the police, but more than anything, due to the shock when Falko came back.’

‘You feared his reaction if he discovered that you had started a relationship with his fiancée in his absence?’

I held my breath in anticipation of a fierce denial. But instead he nodded, and shrugged with open palms to underline the point.

‘I am not easily frightened. It was more shock than fear. We had all been in Falko’s shadow: he was our guiding light when he was here. Everything changed when he disappeared. Time passed. Whenever we met, we of course always expressed our hope that he would come back. But after eighteen months with no sign of life, we all thought he was gone for good. The group needed someone new to lead our fight for a fairer society – and Marie needed a new man to support her in life.’

He fell silent, then hesitated, but did eventually carry on with determination.

‘If we had known that Falko was still alive and would come back, we would never have done it.’

He repeated this twice, as if to ensure that both he and I believed it. I wanted to move on, so allowed myself to be easily convinced.

‘I believe you, and it is perfectly understandable that you all thought he was dead. So you started a relationship with his fiancée in the belief that he was gone forever. And you initiated it, didn’t you?’

He nodded.

‘She was very attractive, and her personality shone all the more when she emerged from Falko’s long shadow. Slowly things developed between us. I played the role of sacrificial friend for a long time, but during the spring I began to hint that she needed to build a life without Falko. She dismissed this initially and seemed to think of me purely as a friend. She was cold towards me physically whenever I touched her. She said several times, almost as an apology, that the uncertainty about Falko’s fate made it impossible for her to think of anyone else. Towards the end of April, I thought to myself that never before had I spent so much time talking to a woman and getting so little in return. Then suddenly in the middle of May, things started to move, and then they moved fast. One Tuesday she phoned me to say that she thought I was right, that Falko would not come back alive. On the Thursday she told me that now, in retrospect, she recognized some of the less positive aspects of Falko’s character, and that as he had left us guessing for so long, it was perhaps no bad thing if he didn’t come back. And by the Saturday, when I greeted her with a hug, she was suddenly smouldering . . .’

A smug grin slipped over his face. For a moment, his eyes became dreamy and unfocused. But then he snapped back into the present again, his face grave once more.

‘So it was me who initiated things in the spring, but by the summer she was far keener than me. And I enjoyed it, believe me. She was my dream woman, in terms of her personality and politics. But the uncertainty about Falko was there all the time, and then it seemed to bother me more than her. She talked about making our relationship public and once even asked if I would move in with her. All of a sudden, it seemed she had no inhibitions. But he’d been like a big brother to me when we grew up, and still was. So I hesitated and asked if we could keep it secret until the second anniversary of his disappearance. She agreed reluctantly.’

I suddenly remembered Patricia’s question, and asked who else had known about the relationship. A sneering smile played on his lips.

‘We assumed that the police security service, and thus also the CIA, knew as a matter of course. You’ll have to ask them yourself when they found out. But I’m guessing it was before we did.’

I did not laugh. He was serious again.

‘I reckoned that Kristine had guessed, but I never mentioned it to her and I don’t think Marie did either. They had been close friends, but seemed to be drifting a bit. I did, however, mention it to Trond. He had shown obvious interest in Marie himself so I thought he had a right to know, in a way. But as I said, our psychologist has a bit of a complex when it comes to women and did not like to be reminded of his numerous failures in that area. So I was sure that he wouldn’t pass it on to anyone.’

I nodded, both to him and myself. The painter’s version was more idealized, but it still fitted with what Trond Ibsen had told me.

I waved him on, but he just looked at me and waited. I could not help asking, even though my pulse still raced whenever I mentioned her name.

‘Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen?’

He shook his head.

‘We had no contact with that class traitor and revisionist. I haven’t spoken to her for over a year, and I don’t think that any of the others have either. Certainly not about that. Of course, we hope that she’ll survive being shot by a Nazi, but otherwise – well, no thank you.’

I pushed on.

‘What about Marie’s father?’

He gave a scornful laugh.

‘On the subject of Nazis . . . No thank you, absolutely no way. Neither of us wanted to talk to him, and certainly not about this. She commented that we could tell him with a wedding invitation when the time came – and that we could invite him without worrying about whether he would turn up.’

‘Your parents?’

He shook his head with a faint smile.

‘I’ve taken a few too many girlfriends home in my time. My parents told me that they didn’t want to meet any more until I was engaged. Marie wanted to meet them, but I held back. But . . .’

I looked at him expectantly.

‘But I do think that Falko’s parents might have known about us. We were standing hand in hand on a street corner one warm summer’s day in July, when suddenly we realized that the woman who had passed us was Falko’s mother. We weren’t sure if she had seen us and it didn’t seem natural for any of us to keep in touch any more. We didn’t hear anything from them. Marie took the episode as an argument for us soon to go public, but I was still reluctant.’

‘Then she discovered she was pregnant. When did you find out?’

He started, then shrugged – and now, at last, he became emotional.

‘Believe it or not, only when you told me yesterday. It was more of a shock than it perhaps should have been, given that she wanted us to be open about our relationship. And having played it so cool only weeks earlier, by the early summer she was dynamite – like a wild animal in bed sometimes. The neighbour below me here said with obvious envy that he hoped I would soon find myself a quieter lover.’

The smug charmer’s smile slipped onto his face again. There was something ambiguous about him: sometimes I felt sympathy for him, at other times contempt.

‘But she said she was taking the pill and I was more than happy with the situation, so I chose to believe her. It was a great shock to hear she was pregnant and I was just about to tell you the truth. But then I realized it would leave me in a very vulnerable position if I was suddenly to change my story at such an important juncture.’

It felt like we were getting somewhere now. I noted down that if Anders Pettersen had not known about the pregnancy, he did not really have a motive. But we still only had his word for this.

We sat in silence, both watching and waiting. It felt as if there was a sheet of ice stretching across the table between us. I was the one who finally ventured out onto it.

‘Well, let us move on to the evening that your girlfriend was shot. I do not think it was you who shot her, but there is much to indicate that you have not told me the whole truth about what happened either.’

He looked at me coldly for a second. Then he stepped out onto the ice to meet me.

‘Right on both counts. I was there, and I was there because she had asked me to come. She had called me a couple of hours earlier to say that there was something important she had to discuss with me, but we couldn’t talk about it on the telephone. I was worried that she either wanted to split up or give me an ultimatum to make our relationship official. She suggested that we should meet at the train station after the meeting, but for some reason did not want us to go there together. So she said that she would walk slowly in the direction of the station, and that I should cycle round to meet her there.’

‘Which you did. And you were standing waiting in a side road when she walked by. What did you see?’

He shrugged.

‘Yes, I was standing in the side street. But I didn’t see much, because it was dark. I recognized Marie from the way she walked, but the others who were further back down the road were too far away for me to see much. But then suddenly, to my great shock, I saw Falko in the road opposite.’