Anders Pettersen sounded very sleepy indeed, or just plain hung-over. I was terse and said with some authority that there was every hope that the murder of Marie Morgenstierne would soon be solved, which I believed would be of interest. He gave a slow yes to this, and then another when I asked if he could be available for further questioning in half an hour.
II
I was interested to see whether Anders Pettersen would be at home when I rang his doorbell half an hour later. If he had done a runner, it would be as good as a confession.
Anders Pettersen was both sleepy and hung-over, but he had definitely not done a runner. The door was opened as soon as I rang the bell, and the inhabitant had managed to have a shower and put on a nearly presentable black suit in the meantime. He shook my hand and congratulated me with something akin to respect on foiling a ‘Nazi plot’ the day before.
I suddenly doubted whether he could be the murderer, which spawned an equal curiosity as to who else Patricia might have in mind. First of all, I had to see what kind of statement Anders Pettersen would give in his defence, given the circumstantial evidence against him.
It would be wrong to say that Anders Pettersen’s flat was tidy. There was a half-finished painting on an easel in the middle of the living room, and a long row of empty beer bottles lined up higgledy-piggledy by the kitchen door. He had, however, tidied the coffee table and the chairs. Once seated, we got straight to the point.
I started by saying that I had reason to believe he had not told me the whole truth with regards to Marie Morgenstierne, but that I was now giving him another chance to do so. He nodded hastily to show he understood.
‘I apologize profusely for not having told you the truth before. This was partly due to my lack of trust in the police, but more than anything, due to the shock when Falko came back.’
‘You feared his reaction if he discovered that you had started a relationship with his fiancée in his absence?’
I held my breath in anticipation of a fierce denial. But instead he nodded, and shrugged with open palms to underline the point.
‘I am not easily frightened. It was more shock than fear. We had all been in Falko’s shadow: he was our guiding light when he was here. Everything changed when he disappeared. Time passed. Whenever we met, we of course always expressed our hope that he would come back. But after eighteen months with no sign of life, we all thought he was gone for good. The group needed someone new to lead our fight for a fairer society – and Marie needed a new man to support her in life.’
He fell silent, then hesitated, but did eventually carry on with determination.
‘If we had known that Falko was still alive and would come back, we would never have done it.’
He repeated this twice, as if to ensure that both he and I believed it. I wanted to move on, so allowed myself to be easily convinced.
‘I believe you, and it is perfectly understandable that you all thought he was dead. So you started a relationship with his fiancée in the belief that he was gone forever. And you initiated it, didn’t you?’
He nodded.
‘She was very attractive, and her personality shone all the more when she emerged from Falko’s long shadow. Slowly things developed between us. I played the role of sacrificial friend for a long time, but during the spring I began to hint that she needed to build a life without Falko. She dismissed this initially and seemed to think of me purely as a friend. She was cold towards me physically whenever I touched her. She said several times, almost as an apology, that the uncertainty about Falko’s fate made it impossible for her to think of anyone else. Towards the end of April, I thought to myself that never before had I spent so much time talking to a woman and getting so little in return. Then suddenly in the middle of May, things started to move, and then they moved fast. One Tuesday she phoned me to say that she thought I was right, that Falko would not come back alive. On the Thursday she told me that now, in retrospect, she recognized some of the less positive aspects of Falko’s character, and that as he had left us guessing for so long, it was perhaps no bad thing if he didn’t come back. And by the Saturday, when I greeted her with a hug, she was suddenly smouldering…’
A smug grin slipped over his face. For a moment, his eyes became dreamy and unfocused. But then he snapped back into the present again, his face grave once more.
‘So it was me who initiated things in the spring, but by the summer she was far keener than me. And I enjoyed it, believe me. She was my dream woman, in terms of her personality and politics. But the uncertainty about Falko was there all the time, and then it seemed to bother me more than her. She talked about making our relationship public and once even asked if I would move in with her. All of a sudden, it seemed she had no inhibitions. But he’d been like a big brother to me when we grew up, and still was. So I hesitated and asked if we could keep it secret until the second anniversary of his disappearance. She agreed reluctantly.’
I suddenly remembered Patricia’s question, and asked who else had known about the relationship. A sneering smile played on his lips.
‘We assumed that the police security service, and thus also the CIA, knew as a matter of course. You’ll have to ask them yourself when they found out. But I’m guessing it was before we did.’
I did not laugh. He was serious again.
‘I reckoned that Kristine had guessed, but I never mentioned it to her and I don’t think Marie did either. They had been close friends, but seemed to be drifting a bit. I did, however, mention it to Trond. He had shown obvious interest in Marie himself so I thought he had a right to know, in a way. But as I said, our psychologist has a bit of a complex when it comes to women and did not like to be reminded of his numerous failures in that area. So I was sure that he wouldn’t pass it on to anyone.’
I nodded, both to him and myself. The painter’s version was more idealized, but it still fitted with what Trond Ibsen had told me.
I waved him on, but he just looked at me and waited. I could not help asking, even though my pulse still raced whenever I mentioned her name.
‘Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen?’
He shook his head.
‘We had no contact with that class traitor and revisionist. I haven’t spoken to her for over a year, and I don’t think that any of the others have either. Certainly not about that. Of course, we hope that she’ll survive being shot by a Nazi, but otherwise – well, no thank you.’
I pushed on.
‘What about Marie’s father?’
He gave a scornful laugh.
‘On the subject of Nazis… No thank you, absolutely no way. Neither of us wanted to talk to him, and certainly not about this. She commented that we could tell him with a wedding invitation when the time came – and that we could invite him without worrying about whether he would turn up.’
‘Your parents?’
He shook his head with a faint smile.
‘I’ve taken a few too many girlfriends home in my time. My parents told me that they didn’t want to meet any more until I was engaged. Marie wanted to meet them, but I held back. But…’
I looked at him expectantly.
‘But I do think that Falko’s parents might have known about us. We were standing hand in hand on a street corner one warm summer’s day in July, when suddenly we realized that the woman who had passed us was Falko’s mother. We weren’t sure if she had seen us and it didn’t seem natural for any of us to keep in touch any more. We didn’t hear anything from them. Marie took the episode as an argument for us soon to go public, but I was still reluctant.’
‘Then she discovered she was pregnant. When did you find out?’