The Human Flies - [11]

‘I believe so, as the person seemed to be rather tall, but I would not like to swear to it. I only saw him in passing, and it is not always easy to know what a raincoat like that might be hiding.’

Andreas Gullestad told me that he himself was originally from a small place near Gjøvik in Oppland. And despite the early death of his father, he had had a very privileged childhood. Following his mother’s death when he was twenty-five, he had inherited his father’s fortune, which was so substantial that, if his consumption was moderate, he could live well on it for the rest of his life. He had deposited most of it in the bank and invested the rest in stocks, which thus far had provided a ‘very tidy’ profit. The accident that had left him disabled had of course been a shock and marked a dramatic change in his life, but it had, nonetheless, been less catastrophic for him than it might have been for many others. As there was no pressure to earn a living, he had previously studied a bit here and there in his twenties, and had otherwise lived a very pleasant life. With another small, self-deprecating smile, Andreas Gullestad commented: ‘And now I largely just sit here all day with the television, the wireless, my books and the newspapers. But sadly, that is also what I did in my previous flat, before the accident. The main difference is that these days I pay for someone else to do my shopping without feeling guilty.’

Before letting me go, Andreas Gullestad asked if it would be ‘acceptable’ for him to go to visit his sister in Gjøvik at the weekend, as planned. There were some ‘family matters’ that needed to be discussed, and his sister and niece were now no doubt concerned about him and keen to hear more about the situation. He assured me that he would return on Sunday afternoon and gave me a telephone number where he could be reached in the meantime. I saw no reason not to let him travel.

My visit to Andreas Gullestad’s flat left me with the impression that he was the least likely of the residents to have anything to do with the murder, but that he may still be hiding important information all the same, whether consciously or unconsciously. Of most interest was what he had told me about seeing the man in the blue raincoat, especially as he had also mentioned a red scarf without any prompting. I noted that other pertinent questions were the identity of Sara Sundqvist’s secret guest and how he managed to get in and out of the building unnoticed.

I immediately went down to the caretaker’s wife and asked her again about the blue raincoat, only this time I asked if she could recall having seen a person wearing such a garment in the building. The caretaker’s wife dutifully thought about it for a minute or so, then emphasized that she could not be certain, but that she may possibly have seen a man in a similar coat here last summer. In which case she had only seen him in passing in the hallway or on the stairs. She thought perhaps she was mistaken, as she had not seen anyone like that come in or go out. But she may of course have been out shopping or doing something else at the time.

Once again, I went and knocked on Sara Sundqvist’s door and explained that I had unfortunately forgotten to ask how often she had visitors. She replied that she had occasionally had friends round, but not for several weeks prior to the murder. She had seen less of her fellow students in recent weeks, as they all had exams approaching. She replied negatively to a direct question as to whether she had a fiancé or boyfriend, adding in a quiet voice: ‘In the eight months I have lived here, no one has ever stayed overnight.’ With the information from Andreas Gullestad fresh in my mind, I nodded my acceptance of the latter without actually believing the former. Sara Sundqvist’s elusive afternoon guest remained a minor mystery.

VII

The technical reports lay waiting on my desk back at the main police station, but as yet provided no answers. The pathologist could definitively lay to rest any theory that the gunshot came from another building. Harald Olesen had been killed by a single shot fired from a.45-calibre Colt revolver at close range. The bullet had passed through his heart, causing instant death. There was no indication that Olesen had been injured in any way before being shot. And according to the pathologist’s report, this could have happened at any time between eight o’clock and eleven o’clock, but that was of less interest, as the statements from all the neighbours gave us the exact time of a quarter past ten.

The information about Harald Olesen in the census rolls really only confirmed what was already known. He was born in 1895 and was the son of a well-known pharmacist from Hamar. Harald Olesen married in 1923, and remained married until the death of his wife forty years later. She was the educated daughter of a shipowner, but had been a housewife all her life. Olesen had an older brother and a younger sister, who had both died before him. As his parents were long since deceased and he had no children himself, his closest relations and presumed inheritors were a niece and a nephew who lived in the west end of Oslo. Olesen had moved several times in the interwar years, but had stayed at the same address in 25 Krebs’ Street since 1939.