The Catalyst Killing (K2 and Patricia series Book 3) (8 page)

I asked whether he had ever met Falko Reinhardt in person. He nodded, almost reluctantly.

‘We met a couple of times when they first fell in love, and then I met him again at my daughter’s request just after they got engaged. He made an admirable attempt to embrace me and even tried to call me father-in-law, instead of his usual sarcastic ‘Super Pater’, the last time we met. He was intelligent enough not to mention any of the anti-establishment theories he spouted so readily in other social contexts. But we were of course diametrically opposed in terms of politics and status, so any real contact was impossible. I prayed to God on several occasions that my daughter might break off the engagement and had debated vigorously with myself as to whether I would go to the wedding or not. And in the end, I did not have to make that choice.’

He sighed, took a sip from his glass, and then carried on.

‘For me, it was a huge relief when my daughter’s fiancé disappeared, and I had no desire whatsoever for him to come back. It is understandable that the detective inspector leading the investigation into Reinhardt’s disappearance had to ask me where I was on the night that he disappeared. Fortunately, it could be confirmed that I was at an anniversary dinner in Oslo until well past midnight, so it would have been impossible for me to get to my cabin in Vestre Slidre.’

I could not gauge the extent to which this positive reference to Detective Inspector Danielsen was a dig at me or not. I could imagine that the two of them had quickly become chums, but something else that the bank manager said immediately caught my attention.

‘So the cabin in Valdres is yours?’

He nodded.

‘Paradoxically, yes. I inherited it from my father. I had spent family holidays there since I was a boy, a tradition that Marie had also grown up with and enjoyed. But the cabin had not been used since Margrete died. I could not face going there alone, and Marie knew this. Which is why she took the chance of inviting her friends there without even asking me. I was completely unaware that the group were in my property and at first thought it was a misunderstanding when the police called to say that a person had been reported missing from my cabin.’

‘So your daughter had her own key to the cabin, and you still have your own key?’

‘Yes, I do still have it, but don’t use it any more. I have not been to the cabin since all this happened and definitely have no intention of going there alone now. The police are welcome to borrow the key, if that would be of any help to the investigation.’

I accepted this offer and thanked him, popping the key he gave me into my pocket. It could well be useful to have the key to the cabin where Falko Reinhardt had disappeared.

But right now, I was more interested in the deceased’s flat. According to her father, she had lived in a rented two-bedroom flat in Kjelsås for the past three years. He had only been there once and was never offered a key. He could therefore only advise that I contact the owner or caretaker of the building if I wanted to get in. As far as inheritance was concerned, he had no idea whether his daughter had a will or not, or if so, where it might be. If she had not left a will, he would, as her closest living relative, get back all the money she had received following her mother’s death. Which was certainly not what he had hoped for, he added hastily.

I viewed Martin Morgenstierne in a more positive light following this conversation. It now seemed that he had said all that he wanted to for today. He looked at me questioningly over his glass of cognac, with a hint of anticipation.

I still had one unanswered question – which I really did not want to ask, but knew I had to.

‘As a matter of procedure, I have to ask where you were at ten o’clock yesterday evening?’

I was prepared for a violent reaction. There was none. Martin Morgenstierne was obviously an impressively controlled man. He emptied what was left of his cognac before answering, but when he did, his voice was measured but not unfriendly.

‘I have been a law-abiding man all my life. And I had not given up hope that my daughter would at some point change her views, and that we would be reconciled. In fact, it was my fervent wish for the future. The thought that I might hurt my daughter in any way is absurd. But I fully understand that you have to ask. Fortunately, I can tell you that I was at a colleague’s fiftieth birthday celebrations yesterday evening at ten o’clock, and that can be confirmed by about ten reliable witnesses.’

When he said the word ‘absurd’ it struck me that Martin Morgenstierne the bank manager and Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen the SPP activist, despite all other apparent differences, shared a remarkable sense of rationality. But even though Morgenstierne had risen in my esteem during our conversation, I was in no doubt which of the two I liked best.

I had no more questions to ask then and there. I thanked him for his time and once more gave my condolences, then stood up. Martin Morgenstierne was a very proper host, and he followed me out to the front door.

In the hallway, he said that he would be grateful if he could be informed of any conclusions the investigation might reach concerning his daughter’s murder before they appeared in the newspapers. Then he added that he was more than happy to answer any more questions, should that be necessary, but did not think that he had much more to add. He had no idea what his daughter had been up to in the past year. He would guess that the possible motive was to be found in the radical circles she frequented, some of whose members were not averse to the idea of terrorism and illegal activity. But he did not know any of the others involved, and so could not point anyone out as a suspect.

As I was leaving, he suddenly remarked that it would no doubt be some time before his daughter could be buried due to the ongoing investigation, but that when the time came he supposed it would be he who had to do it. I confirmed this assumption: Marie Morgenstierne had at the time of her death been unmarried, and her father was her closest relative. He said he would have to consider the situation, but thought that perhaps she should be buried beside her mother in the family grave.

I pointed out that that had nothing to do with me or the police, but that personally I thought it was a good idea. And in some way in that moment, it felt as though Marie Morgenstierne was one step closer to reconciliation with her parents, albeit after her own and her mother’s death. Her father and I shook hands and parted on almost friendly terms.

When I left the house in Frogner at ten past seven, I had still only seen Martin Morgenstierne’s smile on old photographs. But little else was to be expected, given what I now knew about the family history. And given the father’s alibis it seemed very unlikely that he had anything to do with his daughter’s death, or with her fiancé’s disappearance.

XVI

I had plenty of new information to worry about on my short drive to the grand Borchmann residence at 104 –8 Erling Skjalgsson’s Street. The case was becoming increasingly complex, and a solution was no closer than it had been this morning. However, as I parked the car, it was the thought of how it would be to see Patricia again that bothered me most. My last visit there had been some fifteen months earlier, on the Norwegian national day, and that 17 May had ended dramatically when I more or less fled the house just before midnight.

To my relief, the impressive white building was just as I remembered. To step through the door was still like taking a step back in time to the 1930s. It was Patricia’s father, the professor and company director Ragnar Sverre Borchmann, who had contacted me in connection with my first murder investigation two years ago. This time, he was nowhere to be seen. But I was still graciously received. I was, just as before, unable to tell whether the maid was Beate or Benedikte, as they were identical twins. But I assumed that Benedikte would not be back at work yet as she had had a baby the year before, so I guessed it was Beate, and did not ask. She was standing at the ready as soon as I rang the doorbell, and whispered: ‘Don’t say that I told you, but she’s been looking forward to this and waiting impatiently for you all day.’

I gave her a friendly smile and took this as a sign that our complicity from the two previous investigations had been re-established.

The library – where the now twenty-year-old Patricia Louise I. E. Borchmann had spent most of her waking hours since a car accident had killed her mother and left her paralysed from the waist down – was still the same, too. And there she was, surrounded by all her books, sitting back in her wheelchair, apparently relaxed, with a thick notebook and three ballpoint pens at the ready on the large table.

The new decade had heralded few changes in here. The twenty-year-old Patricia I met in summer 1970 looked more or less the same as the nineteen-year-old Patricia I had fled from in spring 1969. I was convinced that she remembered my hasty retreat, but she did nothing to show it if that was the case. The starter to a delicious three-course meal was already on the table.

It did not feel natural for me to shake her hand, or to initiate any form of physical contact, and fortunately she did not appear to feel inclined either. But it did feel absolutely natural that I should come back here to seek her advice, now that I was once again in the middle of a demanding investigation. It had become part of the world order that we both took for granted; I needed her help to solve my murders, and she needed my help to give her life meaning. So we sat down without shaking hands and this time without any small talk either.

‘Tell me everything,’ she said, the very second that the door closed behind the maid.

Patricia noted down the odd key word as a reminder, but otherwise listened in silence while we consumed the oxtail soup and most of the duck breast. I myself had my work cut out trying to finish both the starter and the first course and still deliver my report of the day’s hearings fast enough to prevent any impatient furrows appearing on Patricia’s brow. It was half past eight by the time I had gone through all the day’s events and reached the end of my visit to the victim’s father.

‘So, what does the genius have to say about Falko Reinhardt’s disappearance and Marie Morgenstierne’s murder so far?’ I asked, before throwing myself with gusto into what remained of my first course.

Patricia smiled.

‘The genius is certainly intelligent enough to see that we still lack too much information to be able to conclude anything about these two rather complicated cases. And at the same time warns that it may take time and energy to solve them. The universes we have dealt with in both our previous cases have been clearly defined, and we have had to separate the truth from lies, and the murderer from the innocent within a limited group of known players. Here we face the curse of public space. Practically the whole of Oslo could in theory have shot Marie Morgenstierne at Smestad yesterday, with the exception of her father and anyone else with a clear alibi. And practically the whole world could, in one way or another, have played a part in Falko Reinhardt’s disappearance in Valdres two years ago. However, bearing in mind the dates, it seems likely that there is some kind of connection between these two events. And I think that we can safely say that the person who shot Marie Morgenstierne is someone she already knew.’

I looked at Patricia, impressed, as she slowly and thoughtfully chewed her last mouthful of duck.

‘That sounds reasonable enough. But how can you be so sure? And, what’s more, how did you know before the pathologist that she had been shot, and with an unusual weapon?’

Patricia was looking at me patronizingly already.

‘I thought it was fairly obvious that she had been shot, but the argument does entail further implications that we should bear in mind. As you yourself saw, Marie Morgenstierne was running in fear for her life, even though there was no one behind her. However, she was still cool-headed enough to skip from side to side, clearly to make herself a less easy target for the person with the gun. It had to be a gun, really, as the murderer was obviously quite far behind her. But he or she would obviously be taking quite a chance by walking around Smestad with an ordinary hunting rifle. So it is therefore reasonable to assume that it was a more unusual weapon, one that could in some way remain concealed from other passers-by. In theory it could of course be a powerful revolver or pistol, even though that would require an unusually good shot. So what sort of murder weapon it was, and what it looked like, is a mystery in itself.’

Patricia smiled smugly, finished the water in her glass, and quickly continued before I made any attempt to interrupt her.

‘The blind witness can of course not help us with that, but her statement is still very revealing. Something happened to make Marie Morgenstierne break from a steady walk into a mad dash for her life. As the blind lady, with her excellent hearing, could not hear the train, Marie Morgenstierne could presumably not see it either. So she was not running to catch the train – it just suddenly appeared in front of her, and she realized it was her only chance to save her life. We know she panicked, obviously for some justifiable reason, while she was walking happily down the road – but that does not necessarily need to be linked to any of the people walking behind her. She could have seen someone else waiting down a side road, or behind a hedge. But something happened that alerted Marie Morgenstierne to danger, and made her run. And I would dearly love to know what it was. It would seem that it was something that the others there did not understand, but she immediately knew what it meant.’

‘Someone she knew, in other words?’ I ventured.

Patricia shrugged disarmingly and shook her head at the same time.

‘It would certainly seem that it was someone she knew, but not just that. Most of us know one or two people we would rather not meet, but very few of us would suddenly flee in panic at sight of them in a public place. Marie Morgenstierne apparently saw someone she knew, and for one reason or another she immediately knew that he or she was carrying a gun that could be aimed at her at any moment. Who and what was it that Marie Morgenstierne saw yesterday evening? That is now the most pressing question. And it undeniably makes the fact that three of the four people we know were on the street have not come forward in response to the repeated call for witnesses on the radio and television even harder to fathom. Goodness knows what their reasons are. One would think . . .’