Maja Karstensen took another short pause. Suddenly her gaze fled out of the window, over the back fence. In a strange way, this grey-haired woman reminded me in that moment of the national football player I had met earlier in the day.
‘I gave my own sons to Norway and the sea, and neither Norway nor the sea gave them back. The elder one was on a boat that was torpedoed, and drowned somewhere near Shetland on 5 April 1944. I was informed of it in a letter that I received one day after the war, when I still hoped that he would come back. My younger son was on a ship that sank in the Pacific, and after seven days at sea in a lifeboat he finally managed to swim ashore to Australia. He wrote to me that he would never dare venture out onto the water again. So he stayed there, on the other side of the world, and is still there today, as far as I know. I still send letters to his old address at Christmas and Easter, but the last reply I got was for Christmas in 1953. So after my friend died, I ended up looking after her son. It was not always easy, believe me. For many years he was unbearable when he was drunk, and very depressed when he wasn’t.’
I nodded in sympathy. It was easy enough to imagine. Maja Karstensen had escaped her own loneliness by continuing in her best friend’s orbit around her sick son.
Arild Bratberg’s life was clearly a terrible tragedy. But I did not feel that I was any closer to solving the murder mysteries from 1969 – until Maja Karstensen suddenly uttered a couple of short, but very intriguing sentences.
‘Despite being ill, Arild seemed to be calmer in the final few months of his life. I suppose it was in part because he realized that he was going to die and accepted it. And perhaps, more importantly, he had finally met a couple of people who seemed to believe him.’
I gave her my full attention and encouraged her to carry on. She gave another of her gentle smiles, but then shrugged and opened her hands.
‘As far as I could understand, a man and a woman came to ask him about the old case, and it seemed that they both believed what he told them. But I am afraid that I don’t know who they were. Whether they meant it or not, I am very grateful to them because they helped to ease his burden in those last few months.’
I of course immediately asked when these visits had been, and whether she could remember any more of what Arild had said about them. She hesitated for a while.
‘It must have been in the winter or early spring. As I understand, the man came first and the woman shortly after. He mentioned them separately, but I can’t be sure. Arild was not the most orderly person and sometimes months could pass before he told me things. It is also possible that they never came at all and that in his despair he imagined they did. But I don’t think that is the case.’
And neither did I. And I would have given my eye teeth to have seen the faces of the two people who had been there. I had a strong feeling that I would recognize them both.
I asked what had happened to Bratberg’s flat. Maja Karstensen sighed heavily.
‘I washed and cleaned it and removed all the empty bottles, but otherwise it is as it was when he died. It turned out that a few weeks before he died, he left everything to me in his will. So his brother and sister, who have not been here for nearly twenty years, have now sent a letter through their lawyer stating that the will is not valid because he was mad. Where the case will end, heaven only knows.’
I expressed my sympathy and said that I hoped that she would get the inheritance she deserved. Then I asked if it would be possible in the meantime to have a look at the flat. She nodded and then slowly, almost ceremoniously, unhooked one of the two keys on her key ring.
V
Arild Bratberg had spent his final years and died alone in a one-bedroom flat on the second floor of a building in Rodeløkka. The flat was not a particularly inviting place in which to do either. The walls were impregnated with smoke and the paint was flaking in several places. It only took a quick look to see that Maja Karstensen had done a very thorough job of clearing the place after his death. Any hope of finding fingerprints left by guests who had been there a few weeks or months ago was as good as zero.
Arild Bratberg had obviously not been a systematic man or writer. He had left behind a substantial collection of books, but only a small pile of handwritten papers. The writing was simple, with a mixture of small and capital letters. I found seven postcards with Christmas greetings on them, all addressed to Gaustad, all written by either his mother or Maja Karstensen. There were also four pages, torn out from magazines, of crosswords that had been abandoned halfway. The pile also contained three reminders for electricity bills, the last of which was very pointed. Then I found two rough drafts of a will that did indeed leave ‘my flat and contents, 325 kroner in my post office savings account and the two ten-kroner notes under the coffee tin, and anything else of value that I might own, to my precious neighbour, Maja Karstensen’.
At the bottom of the pile lay a small, plain sheet of paper with nothing on it but a name and a date. It left me transfixed, however, for a couple of minutes.
Then I put down the rest of the papers in the pile and took the single sheet of paper with me. I went back to Mrs Maja Karstensen and asked if she recognized the name on the piece of paper.
She thought about it long and hard and, in the end, said that she could not recall ever having met the man, but that Arild had mentioned his name. Could it perhaps be someone who worked at the Schelderup office during the war? I nodded, thanked her for her help and rushed away.
I was very impatient to get an explanation as to why there was a piece of paper with only ‘Hans Herlofsen, 12 February 1969’ written on it in the late Arild Bratberg’s flat. But I would have to wait for a few more hours to find out. It was already half past two, and I had agreed to meet a woman at three o’clock who had been waiting twenty-eight years for my visit.
VI
At first glance, Mona Varden looked younger than I had expected. She was fifty-two, but in a photograph could easily have been mistaken for a woman in her forties, with her black hair and pale skin. There was, however, something about her face and movements that was heavy and serious, which aged her when you met her in the flesh. She gave a small smile when she saw me. I got the impression that she had not laughed for years – perhaps not since the end of the war. Her hand was heavy and firm, and rested in mine for a few moments.
‘Thank you so much for coming. I am so grateful that a young policeman such as yourself wants to make amends for the neglect of your seniors, even though I do realize that it is the more recent murders that have sparked this interest in my husband’s death.’
I could not deny this. So I gave a friendly nod and assured her that I would very much like to clear up the mystery surrounding her husband’s death at the same time.
Mona Varden had a spacious and tastefully decorated two-bedroom flat from the early 1900s. The most striking feature was a door that was barricaded by a large bed.
The coffee and cakes were already on the table when I came into the living room. As was Bjørn Varden. The photograph was old, but his eyes were still clear. The picture showed a tall, fair-haired and handsome man in a dark suit on his wedding day. His wife’s dress was a dazzling white, as was her smile.
She pointed to the picture and gave another fleeting smile.
‘That was on Sunday, 13 October 1939, in Gamle Aker church. The war had already started in Europe, but here in Norway everything still felt very safe. We had to marry in a bit of a rush, but were thrilled to do so. We had been together for a little over two years and I had wanted to get married for as long. But Bjørn had had a hernia when he was younger and was afraid that he might not be able to have children. And in that case, he wanted me to be free to choose another man, or so he said. Even though I assured him time and again that he was the only one for me. Then on 1 October 1939, I told him that I was pregnant. He wept with joy and asked me to marry him on the spot. We ran hand in hand to the priest, who granted us dispensation and agreed to marry us two Sundays later. We were the happiest people in the world that autumn, even though we only had a room in my mother’s flat and had to borrow money for the wedding meal.’