The Catalyst Killing (K2 and Patricia series Book 3) (5 page)

I understood that something was not right, but did not yet know what. So I followed him out to reception.

The first thing that took me by surprise was the faint sound of a dog whining. But I understood the problem as soon as I saw the dog, and its owner.

She was a rather attractive redhead and she was waiting patiently on a chair, with a white stick in her hands. Her eyes stared blankly at me when she took off her dark glasses.

XI

I immediately led the witness and her dog into my office. Her name was Aase Johansen, she was twenty-five years old and lived with her parents in her childhood home in Smestad. She had tried to find a course at the university that was suitable for blind students and that interested her, but without any luck. She now therefore spent the greater part of her day listening to the radio and reading. The evening before, she had been on her way to meet a friend with her dog and had been heading in the direction of the station. And even though she had not been able to see what happened, she had heard enough to think she should report to the police, when the request for witnesses to come forward was announced on the radio.

I immediately thanked her for coming and said that it was indeed the right thing to do. I asked her to recall as well as she could what she had heard, and to tell me in as much detail as possible anything she thought might be of interest.

Aase Johansen took this task very seriously. She started by pointing out that she could of course not be one hundred per cent certain, but that she was at least ninety per cent sure that it was Marie Morgenstierne who had been walking in front of her yesterday evening. She knew the road very well, and she was just past the lamppost that was a couple of hundred yards from the station. So the timing fitted, as she had arrived at her friend’s flat, which was only a hundred yards or so from there, at around a quarter past ten. Aase Johansen had reacted immediately when a woman who was walking at a steady, relaxed pace about ten yards in front suddenly broke into a run. And they were the fastest steps the blind woman could ever recall having heard on the streets of Oslo. In addition, she had heard someone on the road call out ‘Marie!’ But the woman who must have been Marie Morgenstierne did not slow down – if anything, she ran faster.

All in all, it had been strange enough for her to feel it was the right thing to come here, my blind witness said in a slightly anxious voice. I nodded reassuringly, then realized that that was not of much help, so put my hand gently on her arm. Then I asked if she had heard any other people on the road.

Aase Johansen nodded eagerly. She had not heard anyone ahead of Marie Morgenstierne on the road, but she had heard two different sets of footsteps between herself and Marie. The first belonged to a man with a walking stick. Our blind witness had automatically assumed that it was an older man, but added that his breathing did not appear to be laboured and he walked at a steady pace. It had sounded as though this man with a stick had carried on walking at the same steady pace even after Marie Morgenstierne had started to run. Behind him, and just in front of the blind woman, were the steps of another younger person, in all likelihood a woman. These steps had at first picked up speed and then stopped completely in the wake of Marie Morgenstierne’s sudden flight.

The blind witness said that she could not be certain what happened in this confusion, as the footsteps then became indistinct, but also because she was at this point almost pushed over by a person with a suitcase who tried to get past her from behind. She was fairly certain that the person with the suitcase was a man, given the short and violent outburst when he bumped into her. However, she would not dare to guess his age. It sounded as though the man with the suitcase also picked up speed along with Marie Morgenstierne, but then stopped. At this point, the soundscape was so confused that the witness was not at all sure about the situation. The person who shouted ‘Marie!’ did sound like a woman, but it was so quick, and there was so much other noise.

Aase Johansen had never regretted being blind as much as she did now, she said. Her whole adult life she had hoped that one day she might do something useful for society, even though she could not see. And now she had unexpectedly been given a chance, but could not be of any real help because she was blind. It was terribly disappointing that she had been present minutes before a serious crime and could perhaps have been able to explain what had happened if she had only been able to see. A couple of tears trickled down beneath her dark glasses when she said this.

I patted her reassuringly on the shoulder and said that she had done more than anyone could expect, and had given information that might prove to be decisive. She beamed and asked if that really was true, then added that I must not hesitate to call her should I have any more questions. However, here and now, she could not think of anything else that might be of importance.

I thought for a moment or two without coming up with any questions, so I asked if she and her dog could wait out in the hall for a few minutes. She nodded happily and replied that she would be willing to wait for a few hours if there was the slightest chance that she could be of any help to me and the investigation.

I guided her out of the room, and closed the door. Then, for the first time in this investigation, I dialled Patricia’s number from my office. I had a strong feeling that she would be able to think of some questions that I had failed to ask the witness.

XII

As I suspected, Patricia was sitting at the ready. She picked up the phone after the first ring and listened with almost devout concentration to my summary of the blind witness’s account. Not unexpectedly, her response was quick when I asked if there was anything she would like me to ask the witness.

‘I have two simple but very important questions for your ear-witness. First of all, did she hear the sound of the train when Marie Morgenstierne broke into a run? And second, did the person shout Marie’s name just before, just after or at exactly the same time as Marie Morgenstierne started to run?’

I jotted the questions down without understanding their significance. I then asked Patricia if we could postpone our planned supper until seven, as I still had to take down several important statements.

‘Why not say half past seven, to be on the safe side. You can tell me the answers to my questions then, and anything else that you might think is of interest. And ask for the appeal for witnesses to be broadcast again. It would be both interesting and alarming, to say the least, if none of the other three people who were on the road yesterday evening came forward.’

I agreed, and promised to be there at half past seven. Then I put down the phone and called in the witness again.

Aase Johansen listened intently to my questions and then answered them as quickly and concisely as she could.

She had not heard any noise from the train at the point when Marie Morgenstierne started to run. She had, however, heard it approaching about thirty seconds later, when most of the other confusing sounds had died down.

In answer to the second question, she said that the person had shouted ‘Marie’ at about the same time that Marie Morgenstierne had suddenly accelerated from a walk to a run. It was possible that she had heard one or two fast steps before the shout, but she registered them at the same time.

I noted down her address and telephone number in the event of any further questions, and then accompanied her and her dog out of the building and paid for a taxi to take them home. She beamed and thanked me for this, and wished me luck with the rest of the investigation. It felt good finally to meet a helpful and obviously truthful person on what had otherwise been a very demanding day so far.

XIII

It was half past three by the time I stood alone on the pavement and watched the blind witness and her guide dog disappear in a taxi. I still had three important meetings, the first with Falko Reinhardt’s parents, the second with Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen, and finally with Marie Morgenstierne’s father. If her reputation was anything to go by, the former would still be in the university library, whereas Falko Reinhardt’s parents had said they were always at home. So I drove to see them first.

I had found the right address in Seilduk Street by a quarter to four. It was earlier than agreed, but the door was opened promptly all the same when I rang the bell.

Astrid Reinhardt had silver-grey hair, but was still a vigorous woman in her mid-sixties. She said she had seen me from the window. Her husband was not far behind her in the hallway. He greeted me with a noticeable accent, but otherwise in almost perfect Norwegian. One of the advantages of being a Dutchman was that it was easy to learn Norwegian, he commented with a shadow of a smile.

Meeting Falko Reinhardt’s parents in the hallway was less of a shock than entering their living room a few seconds later. I had heard that Falko Reinhardt was an only child and that his father was a photographer, but still obviously lacked the imagination to anticipate what was waiting there.

There were a couple of bookshelves, but otherwise, three of the four walls were so full of photographs that it was hard to tell whether the wall behind was painted or papered. Falko Reinhardt was in every single picture that I could see. If you followed the walls from the door, you followed his journey from babe in arms to bearded adult in hundreds of photographs.

The first picture, dated 1 June 1945 in felt tip, was a simple photo of his parents smiling broadly amongst all the Norwegian flags down at Oslo harbour, holding their oblivious baby in their arms. Arno Reinhardt was younger, darker and happier, but easily recognizable. His left hand was entwined with his wife’s, and in his right arm he held their son triumphantly up to the camera.

The Reinhardts looked on with something akin to devotion as I studied the photograph, fascinated. Mrs Reinhardt was the first to speak.

‘It was a beautiful, sunny day. We happened to be on the same ship as the prime minister and president of the Storting when they returned from London to the newly liberated Norway. Only three years earlier, Arno and I had thought we would never return to Oslo, let alone come home with a child.’

I noticed that there were no photographs from the time before Falko, and asked when they had met. This time, it was he who answered.

‘Rather typically, it was in the trenches, in the fight against fascism. In Madrid on a spring day in 1937. I had travelled from Amsterdam to volunteer as a soldier, and Astrid had come from Oslo to volunteer as a nurse. We met in a trench and stayed together. Then in spring 1938, we and many other volunteers had to leave Spain in order to save our lives. I anticipated that the Netherlands would be occupied by the Nazis within a few years. So I followed my Astrid to Norway. We never for a moment dreamed that Nazism would follow us here.’

The Reinhardts were remarkably well synchronized. His wife nodded as he spoke, and then continued the story.

‘But then one day the war came to Norway. Before the war, we had been active in the Norwegian Communist Party and had met Peder Furubotn. So it was perfectly natural for us to support the communists in the resistance movement. We were active even before the Germans attacked the Soviet Union, in case you were wondering. Then everything exploded and we had to escape in all haste. We were with Furubotn when the Germans attacked his camp in Valdres in the autumn of 1942 and miraculously managed to get away and across the border into Sweden. But the authorities there persecuted us for our political beliefs too. So then we went to Great Britain, where we worked in the lower echelons of the government administration for the last two years of the war. And it was there, in autumn 1944, in the midst of all the horrors of war, that we experienced a miracle that we had not dared to hope for.’

I looked over at her husband, who continued: ‘We had tried for seven years, and in three countries, to have a baby. In spring 1944, with only a few days between us, we both turned forty. We had definitely given up all hope of there ever being more than two of us in the family. I had lost one of my best friends in an air raid the night before. But I still cried with joy for the first time in my adult life when Astrid came running into my office to tell me. And I cried for the second time in my adult life on 12 November 1944, when I saw my son for the first time. In the midst of all the wounded and dying people, a small miracle was born to us in a half-bombed hospital in London. We feared for his life every day in London. And when the war was over, we took it in turns to watch over him on the journey home, in case the ship should sink. We were both awake for those last twenty-four hours. It was an enormous relief when we could finally go ashore in Oslo, with our little Falko intact.’

The Reinhardts seemed to be so in tune and shared their story equally. Mrs Reinhardt nodded as her husband told his part, then took over when he stopped.

‘We wanted so desperately to have a child that we would have gladly welcomed any child. A handicapped child, a blind child – we would still have carried it to the end of the world with us and protected it for the rest of our lives. But it was soon clear that not only had we got a healthy child, but also an unusually intelligent child. Our Falko read out loud for us for the first time when he was three, and could already speak and write Norwegian, Dutch and English before he started school. He got top marks in every subject and was of course the heart and soul of his group of friends. Throughout his childhood he was the sun that lit up our lives. We hope you can understand that, even though you may not understand our politics.’

I looked around the walls, and nodded to show my understanding. Even if one was to take the parental crowing with a pinch of salt, it was impossible not to be fascinated by the collection of photographs that covered three of the living-room walls. There was the three-year-old Falko reading a book, eight-year-old Falko scoring a goal, twelve-year-old Falko speaking from a lectern. Even at that age he stood out from his peers, thanks to his height, his strong face and dark mop of curly hair.