The Catalyst Killing (K2 and Patricia series Book 3) (31 page)

And neither did I. The new note was more and more mysterious.

‘What happened in Valdres, then?’ I asked.

For a moment, Patricia looked confused, but then she straightened up and leaned across the table.

‘Sorry, I thought that was fairly obvious. All the pieces fit here. We have discussed at length who was the security service’s mole in Falko Reinhardt’s group – but not who was Falko Reinhardt’s mole in the Nazi network. But it was obviously Henry Alfred Lien, who saw this as his chance to be forgiven by his anti-Nazi son. It is possible that this was the main reason for him taking up again with his friends from the war years. He and Falko Reinhardt were both useful to each other. Falko Reinhardt was tipped off by Henry Alfred Lien in 1968 that the Nazi network was considering some form of action. Relations within the group may also have contributed to Falko Reinhardt’s decision to disappear. After discussing this with Henry Alfred Lien – and possibly with some practical assistance – he escaped from the cabin in the most ingenious way, and disappeared down the mountain and out of the country. The incident in the local history yearbook certainly corroborates the theory of cooperation. Henry Alfred Lien knew the old story and Falko, with his sense of drama, got an idea that he could not resist. Falko dreamed about coming back as a national hero; Henry Alfred Lien hoped he would be forgiven by his son. They kept in touch, and Falko returned when he heard earlier this summer that an attack by the former Nazis was imminent. Are you following so far?’

I nodded, and waited with bated breath for the continuation.

‘Today, Falko was due to have a final meeting with Henry Alfred Lien before his meeting with you, when he would tell you what he knew about the planned attack. The plot is so big that he expected to be some kind of national hero if he single-handedly uncovered it. But Henry Alfred Lien’s role as double agent had been discovered, possibly because Christian Magnus Eggen and Frans Heidenberg found out about the photograph. Henry Alfred Lien had set the table for his meeting with Falko when he suddenly stood face to face with someone completely different altogether: someone who had come to kill him, and did so. Falko arrived just after this, and was unarmed and suddenly facing an armed murderer. They both immediately understood the context and gravity of the situation. Falko must have run out of the house in a blind panic, and was pursued and shot, first in the foot and then in the chest. In the meantime, he managed to lose the note that you found. The murderer then, in cold blood, dragged the wounded Falko the last few yards to the cliff, stuffed the gun into his pocket and pushed him over the edge. It was an impressively quick-witted attempt to make it look as though Falko Reinhardt had shot Henry Alfred Lien and then taken his own life, or at least to cover his own tracks. Both bodies could have lain there for days, until it was all over, if you had not been there.’

She had convinced me. I could, having been there myself, imagine the scene, but I still could not see the murderer’s face.

‘And no one else would have been able to see the connection, if you had not been here!’

Patricia nodded, but her smile was reluctant.

‘Thank you, but it remains to be seen how far it will get us. We still do not have the most important information, and I cannot squeeze much more out of what we already know.’

‘What about the missing page from the diary?’

Patricia’s nod was keener this time.

‘Presumably it says all that we need to know and is one of the things we can hope to find now. If the murderer took it, we are likely never to see it again. But if the diary contained something important about the plans, it is far more likely that Falko knew about the diary rather than the murderer. Imagine for a moment that Falko found Henry Alfred Lien dead, but thought that the murderer had gone and that he was alone in the house. He would then find the diary to safeguard it. He met the murderer on the way out. There is every reason to hope that this might have happened.’

‘But then what happened to the diary page? Falko did not have it when he died, in which case it is possible that the murderer took it from him.’

Patricia nodded, with a grim expression on her face.

‘It is not only possible, it is highly likely. But is it really the case that Falko only had the pistol in his pocket when you found him?’

It was my turn to nod.

‘He was not wearing a jacket and the pistol was the only thing I found in his trouser pockets.’

Patricia gave a crooked smile.

‘Then we have another mystery, which could either be irrelevant or our saving grace. Where on earth is Falko’s jacket?’

I looked at her astonished. She continued quickly.

‘Falko had a car, but no car keys. And he had pockets, but no wallet. He must have had a jacket with him, and both the wallet and the keys must still be in the jacket. And probably also the page from the diary – if, as we hope, he had it. Where is the jacket? Did the murderer take it? Or did he leave it in the house, or did he lose it somewhere on the way to the cliff? It is perhaps clutching at straws, but it might work. Could you check with the sheriff in Vestre Slidre?’

I nodded. Patricia pushed the telephone across the table towards me.

I got hold of the sheriff just as he was going to bed. The deceased’s jacket had not been found, but he agreed that its absence was strange, and said that he would personally organize a search for it as soon as he went back to the scene of the crime in the morning. They had found nothing of note, but he promised to phone immediately if they did.

I thanked him, and put the receiver down. Patricia and I then sat in oppressive silence for a while. It was close to midnight and the situation was electric, but neither of us had anything more to say about it.

I thought that the possibility of the jacket was brilliant, but it was a very thin straw indeed. And otherwise, we had no clues about the murderer, and were not likely to find any here tonight.

I realized, without either of us saying anything, that Patricia was thinking the same. We were getting to know each other rather well by now.

So I thanked her for her help and said that I had to call my boss and get a few hours’ sleep, but that I would telephone her as soon as anything of importance cropped up. She said that she would be sitting waiting by the phone from half past seven, and that we could only hope that we would get some new information in time to identify the murderer and prevent a catastrophe. Otherwise we were facing a hopeless fight against time and evil, she remarked with a sigh.

‘One could cancel all public engagements for the king, the prime minister and the opposition leader for the next two days. But one cannot lock them and all other potential targets up for the whole summer and autumn. Norway is an open country, full of important people who are constantly expected to make public appearances. If the attacker wants to take innocent lives, he could attack any holiday village or scout camp. And there are windows everywhere, so Falko’s final words are not of much use to us either.’

We had to accept that there were an alarming number of possibilities for a person who was well prepared and wanted to carry out an attack, and that we would not get any further that evening. I promised to ring her as soon as there was any news in the morning, and said that I still hoped and believed that we could solve the case without any further deaths. My voice sounded more confident than I was. The car felt unusually lonely and the dark unusually threatening as I drove home that night.

XVIII

It was well past midnight by the time I got home, but I still had one more telephone call to make – to my boss.

My boss was also obviously affected by the frustration of this potentially dangerous situation in which we knew that something was being planned, but had no idea about who was going to attack, or where and when. He answered the telephone as soon as it rang, and asked me to update him on the latest developments. He had only heard a brief announcement on the radio, in the last news of the day, that there had been a couple of deaths in Valdres.

I told him what had happened, and expanded on Patricia’s theory about possible connections – without mentioning her name, or being as cocksure.

My boss was impressed, much to my relief, in particular that I had thought about the missing jacket and the possible significance of this.

‘You have obviously thought of most things and done a good job. No one could have done better. But all the same . . .’

I felt my throat tightening. I knew what was coming and hated it intensely.

‘. . . All the same, we now have three unsolved murders and the danger of further action. There will be a tidal wave of questions tomorrow from our own people and the press. And I cannot justify letting you continue with the investigation without reinforcements.’

I was about to protest, but realized it was pointless. My boss had given me his trust for many days now, with no results. And it would seem odd if the investigation was not stepped up and prioritized following two more murders. So I said that I perfectly understood, but hoped that I would still be allowed to lead the investigation. He replied straight away.

‘Of course. I have absolute confidence in you and ask that you continue to report to me. You will be our contact with the local police in Vestre Slidre, and you can decide how many people you need here in Oslo. But from tomorrow, Detective Inspector Danielsen will be your deputy in the investigation. You can decide yourself how best to use him, but he will be part of the team.’

This made my blood boil, but I managed to control myself enough to thank my boss for allowing me to continue leading the investigation, and to say that I was sure I could find useful things for Danielsen to do. In a flash of inspiration, I said that the two Nazis should be called in for questioning again the next day, and that perhaps Danielsen could do that. My boss agreed and then wished me good night.

I could not help but chortle when I thought of Danielsen’s new task, but my good humour did not last long. I fell asleep around two o’clock in the morning of Tuesday, 11 August 1970. It was six and a half hours until I would greet what had the potential to be a very demanding day at work, with a still entirely unpredictable outcome.

DAY SEVEN

The countdown and the explosion

I

At a quarter to eight on Tuesday, 11 August 1970, I was once again on my way to the office, having wolfed down my breakfast. I had woken half an hour before the alarm clock, and immediately decided that I wanted to be in control of the agenda by being in the office before Danielsen.

There were no messages of any interest waiting for me on my desk. The morning papers only carried short notices about ‘two highly suspicious deaths in Valdres’, without mentioning any connection to me or to Marie Morgenstierne’s murder. Professor Arne Næss was on his way to show his support for the demonstrators in Mardøla, and the Institute for Nuclear Energy had suggested that building a nuclear power station in Porsgrunn could solve the country’s energy problems. And in Sweden, the debate regarding a ban on motorsport events had flared up again following a dramatic fatal accident during a rallycross race in Karlskoga. The fact that one of the five dead was a Norwegian guaranteed a front-page report in
Dagbladet
.

In short, there was no spectacle in the morning papers. The operator, however, reported a rise in the number of calls from journalists, even before eight o’clock.

I formulated a brief press release to confirm that two as yet unnamed people had been shot in Valdres, and that the police had linked these two deaths with that of Marie Morgenstierne in Oslo five days earlier. It was not possible to release any further details in light of the ongoing investigation. The investigation team had, however, been reinforced following the two latest murders, and the police believed there was a good chance that the case would be solved before the end of the week.

My hand trembled slightly as I wrote the final sentence. I was aware that this might buy me a couple of days, but that the pressure would quickly mount if there was still no good news by the time the weekend came round. Part of me trusted Patricia’s reassurances that the murder of Marie Morgenstierne would be solved in a matter of days now. And part of me would be happy if we managed to get through the next couple of days without a major catastrophe, given the situation.

I had secretly hoped that Detective Inspector Vegard Danielsen might be ill or have taken an unexpected holiday, but was of course disappointed. That only happened once every leap year, if that. Danielsen was already sitting in our boss’s office when I knocked on the door at a quarter past eight to get the press release approved. Luckily, my boss had no comments to make, and Danielsen limited himself to pointing out two possible comma errors.

My boss then confirmed that the investigation had been expanded to include Danielsen. To Danielsen, he pointed out that I was still leading the investigation. We both nodded quickly, and shook hands with forced friendliness.

For the next fifteen minutes I told Danielsen what I thought he needed to know about the case so far. I then repeated that it would be natural to call Frans Heidenberg and Christian Magnus Eggen in for questioning again, and asked if he could take on this important part of the investigation at such short notice. He nodded eagerly, and then left the office once he had the addresses and a copy of the photograph from Falko Reinhardt’s hotel room. I myself ran more than walked back to my office to carry on with the investigation, having first agreed with my boss that he would get an update during the lunch break at midday.

II

I had thought of giving the sad news to Kristine Larsen first, and then hearing if she had anything more to add. She had not heard about her lover’s dramatic death the evening before, and was still sleeping with a smile on her lips, according to the female prison warden. I thought it was going to be difficult enough to tell Kristine Larsen the news without having to wake her from a pleasant dream as well. So I left the quiet unit without having been in her cell, but instructed the warden that no one should talk to her until I returned.