The Human Flies (K2 and Patricia series) (38 page)

‘That was my initial plan: the perfect murder camouflaged as suicide. The problem was that I then began to wonder how easy it would be to trace the army pistol back to my father’s time in the army. If it could be traced back to him, I was finished. I thought about procuring an unregistered weapon, but Harald Olesen was at death’s door and was under considerable pressure from the young Miss Sara here. He wanted to ease his conscience and tell her the truth before he died. So in the end, I did not dare wait any longer. It had to be the perfect murder without a murder weapon at the scene of the crime, instead of the perfect murder with the weapon at the scene of the crime. As for Jensen, buying an unregistered weapon would not have been easy, as I could not go out. The solution was to buy a more recent model from a half-witted childhood friend, who both before and after the murder accepted my explanation that I needed it to feel safe in Oslo. I had to go to Gjøvik to arrange it, hence my trip home last weekend.

‘When you have already killed several people at a young age and then used the rest of your adult life trying to live with the memories and hide the truth, you become a bit of a lone wolf. It is all about survival and protecting yourself from possible dangers. Harald Olesen’s death does not upset me so much now. After all, he did not have long to live. And it was largely his betrayal that made me the monster I am. But in the end, it was my fear of being exposed that made me pull the trigger; I shot him when he told me that he had finally decided to tell Sara the whole story. So in a way, I shot him in self-defence, having tried every other means. But I admit that there was also a latent need to avenge my broken life.’

He stopped and let his finger play with the trigger. His story was finished. I immediately tried to extend it.

‘Then you committed another murder, to avoid the risk of being arrested for the first?’

He nodded brusquely, twice, and then blinked his eyes furiously.

‘That has plagued me far more than the murder of Harald Olesen. No matter how repulsive Konrad Jensen was, and no matter how dismal his future prospects, he should have been able to live out the last years of his life here in peace, with all his bitterness and complexities. But your investigation seemed to be making dangerous progress. A scapegoat was needed, and as a former Nazi, he was clearly the best candidate. I made the plan even before I murdered Harald Olesen, and wrote the suicide note for Konrad Jensen when I was in Gjøvik last weekend. He was terrified of everyone and everything after the murder, but also desperately lonely. And he could not imagine, like other greater men, that a friendly and sophisticated cripple could be a murderer. So while the caretaker’s wife was out doing the shopping, I knocked on his door. He was wary at first, but then opened up when he saw that it was me and all I wanted was a cup of coffee and a chat in these uncertain times. He signed the suicide note with the gun to his forehead, without having any idea of what he was signing, and died without pain only seconds later, without ever knowing. It was a sad end to a tragic life. But Konrad Jensen became the necessary sacrifice for a greater and more important cause – that is, my life, my freedom and my honour.’

He stopped talking; a deathly silence fell in the flat. I made a final attempt to stop him from shooting.

‘I have four armed policemen standing guard on the street outside. You will be caught without much trouble – and your punishment will be worse for every murder you commit.’

He nodded, but did not smile – nor did he show any sign of desperation or weakness.

‘I guessed that that would be the case. So I really am back in that snowdrift in 1944 that I have revisited in my dreams so many times since. I have to try to shoot my way out, against all odds, and I have nothing to lose in trying. There are too many corpses in my wake for me to turn back now. Four policemen in a town does not feel that hopeless when you have survived against three soldiers in the mountains at the age of sixteen.’

His answers were becoming shorter, and his tone harder. My brain was frantically trying to come up with new questions to keep the conversation alive – and finally found one.

‘But how on earth did you manage to convince the world that you were crippled?’

He suddenly smiled, and a hint of pride glowed in his face.

‘The traffic accident was real and unpleasant enough. I was run over one day when I had suddenly been overwhelmed by memories from the war in the middle of a crossroads. For a while the doctor feared that I would be left in a wheelchair. I understood myself that things were improving and that I would recover again. But it struck me that keeping the wheelchair would be the perfect camouflage – certainly until my score with Harald Olesen had been settled. It was not so difficult. Who doubts the injuries of a man who has been in an accident and has received treatment, who is still a wheelchair user and does not ask for any money from the State? But you should have studied the signature more, because it is a fraud!’

He broke into a smile again – this time, a terrible, twisted, triumphant smile that sent a chill down my spine.

‘Never underestimate a man who appears to be a cripple. Harald Olesen once gave me that advice during the war. That was your only mistake in the investigation, but it was a fateful one.’

And then suddenly our conversation was over. For a couple of torturous seconds Deerfoot improved his aim at my chest. It was a terrifying feeling, watching the finger curl round the trigger right in front of you. I would not wish it on my worst enemy. The fear was paralysing. But suddenly a new sound filled the room. It was Patricia’s blessed strong and determined voice.

‘I am aiming at your head, Deerfoot. You can shoot him, but then I will shoot you. Your flight is over now. The best thing you can do, not only for yourself, is to hand him the gun.’

Deerfoot started and for an eternal moment seemed to be paralysed too. He glanced to one side, towards the door, to make sure that there really was a gun pointing at him. Then he focused his attention on me again.

We probably stood like this on the edge of eternity for no more than ten seconds, but it could as well have been an hour. I was only feet away from Deerfoot and was now ready to pounce myself. The instinct to try to knock the gun from his hand if he lowered it or looked to the side again grew stronger. Deerfoot’s eyes once again glazed over. He seemed to be lost in his own world. But the gun in his hand was still pointing at my chest, and his finger was still on the trigger. I felt that he really was back behind that snowdrift in 1944 and was dithering between giving himself up, turning the gun on himself or trying to shoot his way out.

Then he seemed to make his decision. Very slowly, he lowered the barrel of the gun to the floor. I took a step forward as soon as it was no longer pointing at me. I did not have time to think when Deerfoot, without warning, danced two steps to the side, hunkered down and in a flash aimed the gun towards the door. It was pure instinct, and the fear of seeing Patricia die, that made me throw myself towards him.

I hit him with full force just as the shot was fired. The bullet flew upwards and hit the ceiling above Patricia. Again, on pure instinct, I hit out at his firing arm. The gun flew out of his hand, bounced along the floor and fortunately slid under the sofa.

The next thing I heard was Patricia’s hardest and iciest voice: ‘Stay exactly where you are
now
and do not move, Deerfoot – and hold out your hands in front of you. Or I will shoot you in the leg!’

I expected even more high drama in the next few seconds, but as if by magic, Deerfoot changed instantly. He was once again the relaxed and friendly Andreas Gullestad. He calmly held both his hands out in front of him and appeared to be almost relieved when I eventually managed to pull out the handcuffs and put them on him. Suddenly, it seemed that he had accepted his fate.

‘Do not underestimate a woman who really is a cripple either!’ Patricia exclaimed, as we passed her wheelchair on the way out. I hugged her as soon as I could once I had thrust our captive out into the hall. And I experienced my last shock of the day. In stark contrast to Patricia’s level voice and calm face, I could feel the emotion in her body. I had never felt such a racing and pounding pulse in anyone. The heartbeat in her tiny thin body was thundering and furious.

XII

Out in the hallway, Andreas Gullestad had apparently once again regained his composure. When I eventually thought to inform him that he was under arrest for the murders of Harald Olesen and Konrad Jensen, he added voluntarily: ‘Do not forget the murder of a refugee and being an accomplice to the murder of a second refugee, plus the attempted murder of a police officer and two other people today. This will cost me dear.’ Out in the entrance, he praised me for having positioned a lady sharpshooter, disguised as a cripple, out of sight by the door.

When I came out with the handcuffed Andreas Gullestad, it caused quite a stir among the people waiting by the front door. Especially when he calmly reassured them that the case had now definitely been solved and the murderer had been arrested, and then went on to congratulate me on a successful investigation.

The neighbours queued up to congratulate me once the murderer had been driven away by two constables and the circumstances had been explained to them. Darrell Williams was particularly heartfelt in his congratulations when he pumped my hand and thanked me for all my help. On seeing him and Cecilia Olesen standing together smiling, I felt for a moment something of what Deerfoot must have felt when he saved young Sara’s life in 1944 – it truly was an ill wind that blows no good.

This feeling did not diminish when, a few seconds later, I saw a smiling Sara Sundqvist coming down the stairs towards me. She embraced me warmly and whispered that Patricia wanted to leave the building and go home as soon and as discreetly as possible. We were able to do this fifteen minutes later, once I had with some authority cleared the hall of residents with vague references to ‘wrapping up the investigation’.

I was naturally relieved and on top form when I finally got into the car with Patricia, but still I noticed that things were remarkably quiet in the back seat. Even though Patricia was the one who had kept her head during the arrest in Andreas Gullestad’s flat, on reflection she now seemed to be the one most deeply affected by the day’s drama. She sat in complete silence for the first part of the journey. Then she interrupted my attempts to make contact with a cursory comment that she was tired and needed time to digest what had happened. She suggested that I pop in to see her at noon the following day, when I would be given a decent lunch and the answers to any remaining questions. In the meantime, she advised that I only talked about the case in broad brush-strokes and that I played down her role in the investigation as far as possible, particularly with regard to the media. I of course promised with a light heart to do just that.

We said goodbye in an unusually subdued mood. However, when Beate opened the door and took charge of the wheelchair, Patricia gave a fleeting smile and thanked me for ‘a particularly interesting and eventful trip into town’.

The rest of the evening was spent informing my police colleagues and journalists of the sensational development. I ignored any requests for details of the actual arrest and instead gave a quick presentation of the murderer’s confession and a rough outline of his story. I was showered with compliments and words of praise, in particular for the fact that I had continued the investigation in secret following the murder of Konrad Jensen. I gave my boss a fifteen-minute report, in which Patricia’s role had been minimized to the extent that I did not even mention that she was present during the arrest. He told me I was a credit to the force and shook my hand three times. It was the night before Easter, and I finally got to bed around twelve, full of optimism for my future in the force and what the papers would say on Tuesday.

DAY ELEVEN

Tidying Up and Conclusions

I

As the more observant, older reader will perhaps recall, there was never a big court case following the murders in 25 Krebs’ Street. I was woken early on 14 April 1968 by the telephone – despite the fact that it was a Sunday, and Easter Sunday at that. It was barely eight o’clock. The call was from Oslo Remand Prison, where Andreas Gullestad had just been found dead in his cell.

I drove straight to the prison, where the governor informed me with deep regret of what had happened. The prisoner had been extremely cooperative on arrival and not given reason for any special measures to be put in place. He had asked for some paper and a pen in order to write a more detailed confession, which he hoped might help the investigation. He had obviously sat up late writing, as three tightly spaced pages and a two-page map had been left on the table. But he himself was lying dead on his bed with a smile on his lips when his breakfast was brought in to him in the morning.

On the table lay a letter that said the following:

Oslo, 13 April 1968

To Detective Inspector Kolbjerrn Kristiansen – and anyone else he may wish to share this with,

In order to save the legal system unnecessary costs, I hereby confirm that it was the undersigned who shot and killed Harald Olesen in 25 Krebs’ Street on Thursday, 4 April this year. My motive was revenge and a strong desire to prevent him from revealing details of a criminal incident in 1944 that is detailed below. In order to disguise the murder of Olesen, I then killed Konrad Jensen at the same address on Tuesday, 9 April this year.

I also confess to the killing of the refugee Anna Maria Rozenthal by the Swedish border near Trysil on 21 February 1944. I am, however, not responsible for the murder of her husband, Felix Rozenthal, who had been shot and killed by Harald Olesen in my presence only a few seconds earlier. For further details of these four murders, I refer to the oral statement I gave to you in the presence of witnesses earlier today.