possible the times in the afternoon for which she had an alibi.
‘Well, let me see… there were several flower deliveries that I had to sign for, the first came around midday and the last was delivered just after three. I rang my eldest daughter at around half past three and then again at five.’
I quickly noted that, based on this, the mother seemed to be an unlikely murderer and that she could not have been the mysterious hotel guest, but that she did still lack an alibi for the time frame in which her youngest daughter was murdered.
I asked if she had also tried to ring her son. She nodded thoughtfully.
‘Yes. I rang my son three times – the first time after I had called my eldest daughter at half past three, then around four, and then again at half past four. But there was no answer until around half past five. I can guarantee that he is also innocent. Johan could never do such a thing. But I understand that you are obliged to check his movements too as a matter of procedure.’
I felt a tension rising in my body. There might be many good reasons why Johan Fredriksen had not answered the telephone. But it was certainly worth finding out, especially in a situation where his little sister’s death had earned him roughly ten million kroner.
I said to his mother that no doubt there was a natural explanation, but that I was duty-bound to enquire.
I then added quickly that I was also obliged to check out whether any of Per Johan Fredriksen’s former mistresses might have anything to do with the case, and so I had to ask if she knew who some of them were.
She let out a heavy sigh. ‘Not really. I wanted to know as little as possible about them. My greatest fear has always been that he has an illegitimate child somewhere, but so far there has been no evidence of that. His mistresses were not exactly something we discussed at the dinner table. But I could always see it in my husband. He was more distant and less interested in me for periods. There was a period in the mid-fifties, just after Vera had been born, when he acted this way for a long, long time, and I was worried that I might actually be losing him to another woman. But it passed and faded towards the end of 1956 and the start of 1957. I never found out who it was. But I do have a dreadful suspicion…’
She suddenly pursed her lips and sat in silence for a while. I asked her to please finish what she was saying, and to let me decide whether it was of importance to the case or not.
‘Well, I would rather not spread rumours about others. My husband was not loose-tongued and wasn’t usually a sleep-talker. But one night in the autumn of 1955, when he had a fever, he suddenly started uttering words in his sleep. I couldn’t make out much of it, but several times he clearly said my name and the name of a woman I know. It may of course be a coincidence, but it was strange all the same.’
She fell silent again, then took a deep breath. It was clear that it was difficult for her to talk about this. It was while I sat there watching her struggle to find the words that I understood the connection.
‘Can I hazard a guess that the name he said was Solveig?’
Oda Fredriksen sighed heavily – grimly, in fact. Suddenly she looked old and bitter.
‘Yes, it was. It was as though a ghost from the distant past had appeared in our bedroom. I remember that it felt like the bed under me froze to ice when he said her name, and it was still hard to sit beside her at the dinner nearly two years later. If it really was her he was dreaming about, I never heard anything more. And then things returned to normal a year or so later, and everything was better. Until the one in Majorstuen appeared a couple of years ago, like a snake in paradise, just when I thought my husband was finally done with other women.’
I saw the outline of another face when Oda Fredriksen talked about her late husband’s mistresses, even though she remained remarkably controlled.
‘You have met my husband’s last mistress, haven’t you?’
I replied in short that I had gone to see her to get her statement. I gave no more details and Oda Fredriksen did not ask. Instead, she stood up again, walked over to the bookcase and came back with an envelope, on which was written ‘strictly confidential’. It had been sealed, but the seal was now broken.
‘I went through my husband’s office here at home yesterday, and found this in the bottom drawer of his desk. I could not resist opening it, and found three separate documents that might all be of interest to you. One of them is about his mistress.’
I had a quick look and had to agree with her. All three were of interest to me and one was clearly to his mistress.
The first was an undated, typed document, which stated: ‘I, Odd Jørgensen, admit that I am guilty of embezzling 30,000 kroner from my employer’s company, Per Johan Fredriksen A/S, in the autumn of 1965.’
It was signed by the office manager; I had seen his signature on the notice of termination sent to the mother of the boy on the red bicycle. To see it again here was unexpected, to say the least. I added the office manager’s name to the list of people I needed to talk to again, and moved on to the next document.
The second document was in an envelope and I did not recognize the handwriting on the front.
‘That is my husband’s handwriting,’ Oda Fredriksen said, over my shoulder. Judging by the text, that was the case. The letter was dated 18 March 1972 and read as follows:
To my heart’s greatest love and my mind’s best inspiration,
No one has given me more or greater pleasure than you. It should have been you and me for the rest of our lives. But sadly, that cannot be. There is too much left of your life and too little of mine. And my duties to my children mean that I can never give you the children you so want. You should therefore have children with another man before it is too late. And I must try to live without you. In my heart, I will always be in your arms and in my mind, always in your bed.
Your ever grieving, Per Johan.
I read the letter twice, thinking how hard it must be for his widow to read this. When Per Johan Fredriksen broke up with his mistress, he mentioned the children, but did not say a word about his wife of nearly forty years.
I looked at Oda Fredriksen. She looked at me, but not the letter. At that moment, it was as if she could read my thoughts.
‘It was not easy to read that three days after my husband’s death. But regardless of whether the letter was delivered or not, it was a relief all the same to find out that in his final days he had planned to end the relationship with his mistress and come back to me.’
She swallowed deeply a few times as she said this. I had to admire her courage in facing one challenge after another, even after her husband’s and daughter’s deaths. I felt that I could read her thoughts, too, and that in that moment that she was thinking the same as me; that this gave the mistress the possible motives of jealousy and revenge.
I carried on reading. The third document was written in the same hand as the previous one. It was more keywords than notes, but no less interesting for that. The date was also sensationally recent: 5 March 1972. And I found the rest of the text of even more interest.
Eva’s death.
A new thought after all these years: could she have been drowned at some point between six and half past seven?
Met Kjell Arne in the corridor at a quarter past six – with a water glass!
But what about the bang at half past seven? Was that something else? In which case, what? Or did Kjell Arne go back afterwards?
Change of theory: think Eva was drowned by Kjell Arne! But not sure. Will try it out this evening – nothing to lose.
Oda Fredriksen was still standing beside me, and this time she was reading over my shoulder.
I half turned around and asked what she thought about it. Her voice was distant again when she answered.
‘Nothing. That is to say, when I read it, I had lots of thoughts, but I know nothing more than I did before. It was just so long ago, and after losing my husband and then my daughter, my sister’s death feels even more distant.’