The Catalyst Killing (K2 and Patricia series Book 3)

by Hans Olav Lahlum

  They came rushing in to find her alone in the bedroom. Falko Reinhardt’s side of the bed was empty. His jacket was still hanging in the wardrobe, but the rest of his clothes and shoes were gone. The window was closed, because of the rain outside.

  At this point, my reading was interrupted by an irritating, impatient knocking on my office door. It was five past eleven.

  III

  I sighed, put down the papers with considerable reluctance and opened the door. The person responsible for this interruption proved to be a very flustered pathologist.

  ‘The woman from the tracks was not only dead before the train hit her, but even before she fell on the rails . . .’ he stammered.

  With an impatient wave, I indicated that he should continue. ‘She was shot. I have already established that!’

  The pathologist nodded eagerly and bowed, obviously impressed with the pace of my investigation.

  ‘This is slightly less certain, but I also have reason to believe that she was not shot with an ordinary hunting rifle.’

  He nodded even more frantically and bowed even more deeply. ‘It is truly incredible what you have been able to work out by yourself without technical assistance. The bullet appears to come from an older, less common 22-calibre gun, possibly a small-bore rifle or some other relatively light weapon, but could also have been a pistol of some sort.’

  I asked the pathologist if he had anything else of importance to tell, then sent him out of the office when the answer was no. My thoughts were still in Valdres in the summer of ’68, on the stormy night when Falko Reinhardt vanished from a bedroom where the window was closed from the inside.

  IV

  How Falko Reinhardt had disappeared from the cabin was a mystery in itself. According to the police statements, one of the female students in the next room had been awake all night with a headache and the door was ajar. She was able to give an accurate account of who had passed the door after midnight. Marie Morgenstierne had gone out to the kitchen for a glass of water, and one of the male students had gone out onto the step for some fresh air. And the other young man had gone to the toilet. But none of them had seen or heard anything of Falko Reinhardt – and yet he was gone.

  According to the statements from Marie Morgenstierne and the others, she was beside herself and convinced that her fiancé had been abducted or murdered. They had discussed the situation for an hour in the hope that he would show up again, but the group grew increasingly uneasy when he failed to appear. It was Marie Morgenstierne who had pushed for them to go out into the storm together at around three in the morning. But there was no sign of Falko or anyone else near the cabin. One of the students said that she saw a person in the distance through the storm, but it was too far away and visibility was too poor for any of the others to verify this.

  The five students had then retreated back into the cabin. They had stayed awake for the rest of the night, huddled together in the living room, anxious and upset, without any means of contacting the outside world or doing anything at all.

  When the storm subsided the following morning, the students went out together again. There were still no footprints to be found. But they did make a very worrying discovery not far from the cabin.

  They found Falko Reinhardt’s left shoe behind a large stone not far from a sheer drop of around three hundred feet.

  This obviously made them fear that he might have fallen, been pushed or jumped off the cliff in the dark, though the latter idea made the students indignant and they dismissed it. The theory that Falko Reinhardt’s life had in some way ended on the stones at the base of the cliff was reinforced when his right shoe was found in the scree later in the day.

  The only problem was that no one could find Falko Reinhardt, or any trace of him, even when the area was searched twice by a large contingent from the Home Guard. Dead or alive, the missing man had simply vanished, first from the cabin, and then into thin air.

  Falko Reinhardt had taken several language courses at the University of Oslo, but at the time of his disappearance was a good way through writing his thesis for a master’s degree in history. He had written about a Nazi network during the war. A few weeks before he disappeared Reinhardt had told his supervisor, the renowned professor Johannes Heftye, that he had made a remarkable discovery that could indicate that parts of the network were still active.

  One of the main leads in the investigation after this was an elderly, wealthy farmer called Henry Alfred Lien, a former convicted Nazi, who had been a member of the fascist Nasjonal Samling in Valdres. According to the thesis, he had been active in the network during the war. However, Lien proved to be ‘extremely uncommunicative’ in his meeting with the police in 1968. He claimed to have been at home on his farm a good few miles away on the night in question, and denied any knowledge of Falko Reinhardt’s disappearance.

  He also threatened the police with legal action if anything was said to link his name to the case, so of course that never happened. There was no evidence that Falko Reinhardt had been the victim of a criminal act, and even less that Henry Alfred Lien was involved in his disappearance. To be on the safe side, and at his own cost, Lien had travelled to Oslo and taken a lie-detector test, during which he answered only two questions. The first was whether he had participated in the abduction of a student by the name of Falko Reinhardt. The second was whether he had been involved in the death of a student by the name of Falko Reinhardt. According to the attached certificate, the answer from the lie detector to both questions had been a clear no.

  No other suspicious activity had been registered in the area on the night of the storm. A slightly sozzled youth on his way home from a birthday party a few miles further down the valley had tried, without success, to hitch a lift from a car that had sailed past him at high speed around four in the morning. He thought there had only been one person in the car, and his description of ‘a somewhat overweight man or woman of around forty’ was firstly too vague, and secondly bore no resemblance to Falko Reinhardt. As the tipsy young lad could not give a reliable description of either the driver or the car in the dark, his handwritten statement remained a simple appendix in the file.

  And with that, the head of the investigation cautiously concluded that ‘there is currently no evidence to justify further investigation’, and the hunt for the truth regarding Falko Reinhardt’s fate came to a halt. The final documents in the file were two short letters from 1969 – a handwritten one from Falko Reinhardt’s parents, and a typed one from Marie Morgenstierne – which both complained about the perceived lack of police engagement in the case.

  The investigation into the disappearance of Falko Reinhardt had taken place while I was on holiday and had been led by Detective Inspector Vegard Danielsen. He was the youngest detective inspector after me, and was possibly even more ambitious – and he was one of those endlessly irritating people who embody guile, but are also extremely competent.

  In short, I did not particularly wish to discuss the Reinhardt case with Detective Inspector Vegard Danielsen, and was even less keen to involve him in any way in my investigation into the murder of Marie Morgenstierne. The idea of solving both cases right under his nose, with secret help from Patricia, was far more appealing. So I put the file to one side, but kept the exemplary list of the telephone numbers and addresses of the witnesses in the Falko Reinhardt case to hand, as it was currently the best starting point for establishing the truth about the murder of Marie Morgenstierne.

  V

  According to the file, Falko Reinhardt’s parents were Arno Reinhardt, a photographer, and his wife Astrid, who lived at the end of Seilduk Street in Grünerløkka. ‘NOTE: NORWEGIAN COMMUNIST PARTY!’ had been scribbled in the margin of the filing card in Detective Inspector Danielsen’s annoyingly neat handwriting.

  I put the card with the two elderly Communist Party members to one side in favour of a list of the names of the four remaining members of the Socialist Youth League who had been with Falko Reinhardt and Marie Morgensti
erne at the cabin in the mountains two years ago. It read:

  1. Trond Ibsen, psychology student, born 1944.

  2. Anders Pettersen, art student, born 1945.

  3. Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen, literature and language student, born 1947.

  4. Kristine Larsen, politics student, born 1945.

  There were addresses and telephone numbers for all of them except the young Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen, whose address was given as a room at Sogn Halls of Residence.

  I noticed immediately that Detective Inspector Danielsen, as the entrenched reactionary conservative he was, in addition to all his other unlikeable qualities, had written the students’ details down in alphabetical order but had put the men before the women. I was sitting pondering which order to contact them in when the phone on my desk solved my problem.

  On the other end I heard one of the switchboard ladies say that there was a man on the line who said that he had potentially crucial information regarding the murder of Marie Morgenstierne. Then I heard a man introduce himself as ‘psychologist Trond Ibsen’. His voice was deep, calm and remarkably unrevolutionary. He told me that he had not been at Smestad station with Marie Morgenstierne, but had heard on the radio that a beautiful woman had been shot there, and feared it was her. So he felt he should report that not only was he a close friend of the deceased, but that he had also been with her at a political meeting in Smestad less than an hour before her death.

  I thanked him for the information and said that I would like to meet him as soon as possible. He suggested that we should meet at Smestad. He had the keys to the place where the meeting had been held. I agreed and promised to meet him at the specified address at one o’clock.

  VI

  Marie Morgenstierne’s last political meeting had taken place in a dusty two-room office in Smestad. Five wooden chairs, now empty, were positioned around a small desk. I commented to Trond Ibsen that it obviously had not been a large meeting. He smiled, not without irony, and replied that it was true; there were not many who had realized that the future lay in combining the best elements of Soviet and Chinese communism. It had been Falko’s great vision. The small group that had gathered around him was still somewhat scornfully called the ‘Falkoists’ by other left-wing radicals, and had at various times been ostracized by the Moscow supporters in the Norwegian Communist Party and the pro-China communists in the SYL. The people who had attended yesterday’s meeting were the same small flock of visionaries and believers who had been his friends – Marie Morgenstierne, Anders Pettersen, Kristine Larsen and Trond Ibsen himself. The fifth chair had always been Falko Reinhardt’s and so was routinely left empty in case of his return.

  I looked at Trond Ibsen, bemused. He was a slightly overweight, apparently very easygoing and clean-shaven young man. Apart from a single badge that said ‘Victory for FNL!’ and some unusually sharp-edged academic spectacles, there was little in his appearance to indicate that he was in any way radical or fanatical. He smiled disarmingly and shrugged.

  ‘The business with the chair was initially for Marie, and for Anders to a certain extent, as he also had a very close relationship with Falko. Then it just became a tradition we all took for granted. It is quite usual after accidents and disappearances for those left behind to continue to wait and hope that their loved one will come back again one day.’

  ‘Even a psychologist?’ I remarked.

  His nod was slightly sheepish.

  ‘Even a psychologist. Psychologists are also human. We are simply a little better than others at understanding ourselves and other people. One would hope,’ he added swiftly, with another charming smile.

  Trond Ibsen gave the impression of being a socially gifted man. He was at once suitably serious when I asked if he thought that Falko Reinhardt was alive. Trond Ibsen replied that he had at first, but now doubted it more and more. It was perhaps not so easy for the layman to see, he said, adjusting his glasses, but it had been obvious to him that Falko had been troubled by something in the weeks before he disappeared. Something he knew was weighing on him. It was therefore easy to assume that assassination or abduction were the most likely possibilities. Bearing in mind the topic of Falko’s thesis, it was not hard to imagine some kind of Nazi conspiracy – not that he wanted to point a finger at anyone.

  I asked immediately if his dark mood in the weeks before his disappearance might not also support the theory of suicide. Trond Ibsen straightened his glasses again and said that that would generally be a fair assumption. Everyone who had had the pleasure of knowing Falko Reinhardt would, however, dismiss this theory out of hand. He had never met a more charismatic and vibrant person, and what was more, Falko Reinhardt himself believed that he still had so much to do in this life.

  Moreover, Trond Ibsen was of the opinion that ‘dark mood’ was perhaps an imprecise description. It was absolutely clear to him, however, as he had studied psychology, that Falko had had something on his mind. Falko had been very aware of his responsibility as leader in such situations – he preferred to grapple with things alone until he had come to some conclusion, and not to bother others unnecessarily. But given the force of his personality and sharp intellect, he normally found the answer within a few hours, or certainly within a couple of days. This time, it had been hanging over him for several weeks, so it must have been something extremely difficult and important. Trond Ibsen finished with a serious note in his voice.

  As far as Marie Morgenstierne was concerned, Trond Ibsen did not like to use the word ‘incomprehensible’ about anything to do with humanity, but he almost had to here. It was hard to imagine why anyone would want to take the life of such a friendly and kind person. By a process of elimination, one might think that it was the group itself that was the target. But why she would have been killed first was a mystery. As far as he was aware, Marie Morgenstierne had had no personal enemies either within their political movement or otherwise – if she did, it would have to be her capitalist father, with whom she had had strained relations for years now. But it seemed highly unlikely that he would have killed his own daughter. Parents rarely killed their own children, and if they did they were usually alcoholics or people who were seriously mentally ill, the psychologist explained. Marie Morgenstierne’s mother had died a few years ago, and she had no siblings. When she had had a glass or two, Marie sometimes complained that it was hard enough to be the child of two reactionary capitalists, let alone the only child. Marie Morgenstierne could be very open with the other members of the group in such situations, but was otherwise quiet and reserved, he added swiftly.

  Yesterday’s meeting had lasted no more than an hour and nothing of note had happened. The members had first talked about the fact that it was the second anniversary of Falko’s disappearance, and had then gone on to discuss the autumn’s events and demonstrations and other work. There had been no disagreement worth mentioning. The meeting had finished at ten o’clock and the four participants had left and gone their separate ways. Trond Ibsen was the only one with a car and had, as usual, asked if he could give anyone a lift, but they had all declined. Kristine lived only a few hundred yards away, Anders was on his bike and Marie wanted to take the train. She had set off alone in the direction of the station, and he had seen neither of the others or anyone else go in the same direction. He quickly added that it was some way to walk, so anything could have happened later.

  Before we finished, I took the opportunity to ask Trond Ibsen if the addresses of the other members were still correct. He looked quickly at the list and gave a short nod. ‘As far as I know,’ was his comment when he pointed at Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen’s name.

  That prompted me to ask why she had not been at the meeting. This triggered a slightly uneasy and irritated expression on Trond Ibsen’s face.

  ‘Because she is no longer one of us!’ he replied, in a hard voice.

  This naturally aroused my curiosity and I asked what had happened.

  ‘When the great schism between the Socialist People’s Party
and the Socialist Youth League happened last year, all five of us met to decide on our allegiance. We had formally started as a group with the SYL. I had not imagined that any of us would want to follow Finn Gustavsen and the other reactionary, useless SPP members. Anders gave a longish speech about why we should follow the young, true revolutionaries, and added that Falko would without a doubt have wanted us all to follow this path together as a group of independent socialists. We thought that that was that. But then Miriam put up her hand and gave one of her short, incisive arguments, and concluded that we should join the SPP and run their election campaign. There was complete silence after this. I then spoke for some time in support of Anders, and urged everyone to march together on the road that would lead to a better society. Then I asked all who were in agreement to remain seated, and those who were not to stand up and leave.’

  It occurred to me that I had never heard Finn Gustavsen described as either a reactionary or useless; and also that the otherwise so relaxed Trond Ibsen now looked both exercised and upset.

  ‘And then?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, then the girl got up, said goodbye and left! And that is the last time I spoke to her. I believe the same is true for the others as well, but you will of course have to ask them.’

  I assured him that I would, but asked all the same if he happened to know where I might be able to find this Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen.

  His smile was both roguish and sarcastic. ‘As I said, I have not been in contact with her for the past year, but I would guess that it should be easy enough. If I know Miriam, she will be sitting in the university library between half past eight and five, and will be at the SPP office from a quarter past five until ten. And I believe that between half past ten at night and half past seven in the morning, she will be alone in her bed at Sogn Halls of Residence, but I most certainly have never checked the latter. You won’t miss her. She is the one reading a book not only as she walks out of the library, but also when she crosses the road!’