He started, then shrugged – and now, at last, he became emotional.
‘Believe it or not, only when you told me yesterday. It was more of a shock than it perhaps should have been, given that she wanted us to be open about our relationship. And having played it so cool only weeks earlier, by the early summer she was dynamite – like a wild animal in bed sometimes. The neighbour below me here said with obvious envy that he hoped I would soon find myself a quieter lover.’
The smug charmer’s smile slipped onto his face again. There was something ambiguous about him: sometimes I felt sympathy for him, at other times contempt.
‘But she said she was taking the pill and I was more than happy with the situation, so I chose to believe her. It was a great shock to hear she was pregnant and I was just about to tell you the truth. But then I realized it would leave me in a very vulnerable position if I was suddenly to change my story at such an important juncture.’
It felt like we were getting somewhere now. I noted down that if Anders Pettersen had not known about the pregnancy, he did not really have a motive. But we still only had his word for this.
We sat in silence, both watching and waiting. It felt as if there was a sheet of ice stretching across the table between us. I was the one who finally ventured out onto it.
‘Well, let us move on to the evening that your girlfriend was shot. I do not think it was you who shot her, but there is much to indicate that you have not told me the whole truth about what happened either.’
He looked at me coldly for a second. Then he stepped out onto the ice to meet me.
‘Right on both counts. I was there, and I was there because she had asked me to come. She had called me a couple of hours earlier to say that there was something important she had to discuss with me, but we couldn’t talk about it on the telephone. I was worried that she either wanted to split up or give me an ultimatum to make our relationship official. She suggested that we should meet at the train station after the meeting, but for some reason did not want us to go there together. So she said that she would walk slowly in the direction of the station, and that I should cycle round to meet her there.’
‘Which you did. And you were standing waiting in a side road when she walked by. What did you see?’
He shrugged.
‘Yes, I was standing in the side street. But I didn’t see much, because it was dark. I recognized Marie from the way she walked, but the others who were further back down the road were too far away for me to see much. But then suddenly, to my great shock, I saw Falko in the road opposite.’
The memory of his reaction was clear in Anders Pettersen’s face as he spoke. His eyes opened wide and his voice changed to a whisper.
‘I didn’t even think he was alive – let alone that he would show up. We spotted each other at the same time, and both of us were startled. We stood there staring at each other, and only looked away when Marie hurtled past at full speed. We were both totally bewildered, I guess. Neither of us followed her. Falko disappeared in the opposite direction, and I jumped onto my bike and pedalled home. Then I called her again and again throughout the evening, but there was no reply. I fell asleep fearing for my darling’s life, and woke up to my greatest nightmare.’
I found Anders Pettersen more and more complex. His otherwise zealous political language every now and then slipped into almost pathetic romantic clichés. It happened again when he said that was all he had to tell me, and that he hoped that it would help me to find ‘my beloved’s murderer’.
Then he simply sat there, with his eyes suddenly swimming in tears.
I asked him to stay within the city boundaries and to keep himself available for further questioning, but was not sure whether he even heard me. In any case, I had no more questions for him at that moment. I left him sitting there by the coffee table like a statue, and found my own way out.
I strongly suspected that Anders Pettersen had escaped into a happy fantasy world where people were queuing up to buy his paintings, where the group was able to mobilize the masses under his leadership to revolution in Norway, and where Marie Morgenstierne was once again naked and wild in his bed. But I no longer suspected him of killing her. And I was even keener to know who had done it.
III
It was now midday, and the table was set for lunch at Patricia’s. She had not asked, and I had not told her, any more about Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen. Instead she listened in grave silence to my account of my meeting with Anders Pettersen.
‘So, did I get the answers you needed to finally uncover the murderer’s identity?’ I eventually asked.
Patricia’s face was grim as she finished her cup of coffee, but her answer was short and simple: ‘Yes.’
I looked at her, taken aback, as she poured another cup of coffee.
‘Eureka – I have the answer to what is almost a Greek tragedy. This case just gets worse and worse the clearer the answer becomes,’ she concluded.
I had to admit that this left me none the wiser. So I asked her straight out who was responsible for Marie Morgenstierne’s death.
‘The person I have always most feared it to be. There were so many possible alternatives along the way, but now only one realistic one remains. And of course it had to be the most depressing one.’
Patricia sighed again, and drained another cup of coffee in one go. Then she leaned over the table towards me.
‘The crucial question has always been not who killed her, but who or what did she see that so terrified her, as you yourself saw?’
Patricia’s voice was starting to break. As was my patience.
‘But who and what did she see? I have to know if we are going to close this case today.’
For a moment, Patricia pressed her serviette to her face. Then she found her voice again and pressed on.
‘A few yards behind her down the street, she saw what would be a harmless sight to anyone else: an elderly man with a stick. Marie Morgenstierne had feared that this man or his wife would kill her because they wrongly suspected her of killing their only son. Despite her newfound happiness, she was constantly on edge because she had not told them that she had a new lover, but they had discovered it all the same. So that was the situation when she suddenly saw a man behind her whom she had never seen at Smestad before, but whom she knew had killed before. He had himself told her about his experiences in the fight against the enemy during the Spanish Civil War. She saw a man who was old, but she knew perfectly well that he did not need a stick. And she saw a cunning murder weapon that he had perhaps shown her himself at some point: a walking stick that housed a salon rifle. Marie did not see anyone or anything else now: just that. And it is not surprising that she then started to run for her life.’
Patricia breathed out slowly, and then continued. I sat there staring at her in fascination.
‘Unfortunately, she started running a second too late to save herself. If she had started a second earlier, she and her unborn child – and the others who have been killed – might still be alive. And you would not have had to drive over to Grünerløkka now to arrest an old married couple who are no doubt devastated at having lost their only son so recently. The story might have been different and far happier if other coincidences had not happened, for example, if Mrs Reinhardt had not walked by when Anders and Marie were holding hands that summer day. Or if Mr Reinhardt had seen his missing son standing there only a few yards away on the evening he killed Marie.’
We sat and looked at each other in sombre silence. I realized that she was of course right. But I could not understand how I had failed to think of this possibility at an earlier stage myself.
I relived my painful encounter with the terrified woman on the Lijord Line seven days earlier. It struck me that the story might have been very different if I had had the sense to pull the emergency brake. It seemed highly unlikely that Patricia had not thought of this. And I was very grateful to her for not having mentioned it at all.