She let out a heavy sigh. ‘Sadly, it is perhaps not as strange as it might seem. Tor never had any money, still couldn’t walk properly or talk clearly. So there wasn’t much he could do with the others after school. I had to work a lot in the evenings and he didn’t like it here on his own. So he’d normally go to the library after school and sit there until it closed. Then he would cycle around in town for a few hours. He liked cycling more than walking, as then people couldn’t see his limp. He called his bike Andreas, and used to say that it was his best friend. When I asked him where he’d been he’d say “I’ve been out with Andreas”. They went all over Oslo, the two of them. Tor had a map of practically the whole town in his head. He never dared to talk to famous people, but could always remember where he’d seen them. He sometimes called himself a little spy. So Tor might have followed Fredriksen, if he’d come from the Storting, or waited for him at Majorstuen, if he’d seen him there several Saturdays before.’
That made sense. According to his mistress, Fredriksen had often been there on Saturdays.
I no longer doubted that Tor Johansen had killed Per Johan Fredriksen, but asked his mother all the same if she thought her son was capable of committing such a serious crime.
‘To be honest, I don’t know what to believe any more. Tor was my only child. I loved him, but I never really understood him. He was clever with books and things like that. He often understood much more than I did, and sometimes I just had no idea what was going on in his head. He’s never done anything wrong before, but I just don’t know what he might be capable of any more.’
We sat in silence briefly, before she gave a sombre nod and continued. ‘If he has, it’s because we’re so poor. If my son really has killed someone, it’s another tragic example of what poverty can do to a good person.’
Her voice had an edge of bitterness and accusation against society. It soon disappeared, though, when she carried on speaking.
‘It’s my fault as well, of course. I grew up in a poor family myself, but was quite smart when I was young. Got the best grades in middle school. A rich uncle of my father was impressed and wanted to lend me the money to carry on with school. And I have bitterly regretted every day for the past ten years not taking it. Instead, I got married young, to the wrong man. And stayed with him for as long as he was alive. Despite knowing that he drank a lot and even though for many years we didn’t have children. So it was partly poverty and partly the fact that I made the wrong choices that ruined the life of the only child I eventually managed to have.’
There was another silence. I racked my brains for something to say. Fortunately, she got there first.
‘If you want to talk to someone other than me about Tor… None of the other boys at school knew him well, which is a shame. But he really liked his teacher; Eveline Kolberg, I think she was called. It’s possible she might be able to help you, if you need someone smarter than me who might understand how my son thought.’
I wrote down the name. She asked me to take a note of her sister’s address in Ski as well. ‘In case you come back here and I’ve been thrown out, that’s where you’ll find me. Either there or at one of the schools where I’m a cleaner,’ she said, her voice breaking.
The atmosphere was heavy and I suddenly longed to get out of the flat, away from this street. I felt a great deal of sympathy for the poor cleaning lady, who had now, along with everything else, lost her only son, but I was unable to see what on earth I could do to help her. It seemed inevitable that her son’s story would sooner or later find its way into the press. And he would only ever be remembered as the person who murdered Fredriksen, the politician.
I took great care to assure her that it was never easy to see what the consequences of our choices might be in years to come, and that her son’s tragedy was mostly due to poverty rather than her choices.
She brightened a little when I said this and gave a fleeting smile as she stood up and insisted that I see her son’s room before I leave.
All I really wanted to do was get away as quickly as I could, but I realized that I should look at his room, now that I was here.
The late Tor Johansen’s room was like the rest of the flat: tidy, small and sparse. For a boy who had enjoyed reading so much, he had no bookshelves. There was a shelf’s worth of books lined up on the floor against the wall. None of them looked like they had been published after the war, and they all seemed well-thumbed.
There was not a single picture of the boy who had lived here on any of the walls. There were, however, some other pictures of a person I had not expected to see here. Namely, myself. Three newspaper clippings and photographs about my previous investigations were hanging on the wall. It was an unexpected and almost moving sight.
His mother’s voice sounded brighter when she spoke. ‘It’s so strange to have you standing here now, and such a shame that Tor is not here to see it. He read a lot about criminal cases in newspapers and books. He read everything he could about your cases. When you were investigating, he was outside the library first thing Saturday morning to read about the latest developments. It’s not so strange really that he’d found out where you lived.’
She was right about this and no doubt meant well in saying it. But it felt rather uncomfortable all the same. The boy on the red bicycle had almost instinctively sought me out in his hour of need and trusted that I would solve the case. Now he was dead and if he was innocent, I had not been able to help him in time.
I tried to push the thought to one side. I now had the answers I had needed from his mother. The boy had a connection to Per Johan Fredriksen and a motive, and the reason why he had known where I lived was obvious. It all added up with a double line under the name of the murderer.
Tor Johansen had slept on a mattress on the floor. The only furniture in his room was a small, old desk and a wooden chair. The desk was empty. A worn brown satchel stood by the chair.
I quickly looked through the satchel, but found no more than the usual schoolbooks. The only surprise was when I leafed through the one titled ‘Introduction to Science’. His writing was clear and succinct, and his knowledge was evidently not far behind my own. Tor Johansen had obviously had a good head on him, despite his problems with his tongue and foot.
I shared my thoughts with his mother. That her son had been extremely unlucky and had had a difficult life, but that he had been very intelligent in many ways. However, as the case stood now and based on what she had told me, there was little reason to doubt that he had in fact killed Fredriksen.
She wrung her hands, looked down and said that she saw no grounds to contradict me. To the extent that it could make any difference, she asked me to convey her condolences and apologies to the family. I had been extremely understanding, but unless there was anything else I wanted to know, she would now like to be left in peace to grieve.
When she said this, I feared that she might be harbouring thoughts of suicide. However, I had no more questions to ask and nothing more to say. So once again I expressed my condolences and wished her all the best.
Our eyes met briefly as I turned to go, and I was impressed by the steadiness of her gaze and her firm handshake.
I left without looking back. But all the while I saw the boy’s bare room in my mind’s eye, the satchel on the floor and the pictures of me on the wall.
IX
Outside the building in Tøyenbekken, only a few yards from my car, my thoughts were interrupted by an unexpected little incident.
As I glanced over my shoulder, I saw a man around my age, who I at first mistook for someone I had gone to school with. He was around five foot nine and of slim build, with the same oval-shaped face and brown hair as one of my old classmates. He was also wearing the same kind of wide-brimmed hat that my friend often did.