At which point she screamed.
A terrible, piercing female scream, so full of anguish and pain that it hurt my ears. She was shaking uncontrollably, and still struggling. I locked my arms hard around her and eventually managed to stop her, thanks to my greater body weight.
I spun her round to face me and got another shock. The face of the running woman was just as I remembered the face of the woman on the Lijord Line: distorted and rigid with fear. Only this woman’s face was even closer to mine, and there was no window between us.
‘Oh… is it you?’ Kristine Larsen whispered, her voice cracking.
Then she fainted in my arms.
XI
It was a strange Saturday night. The clock on the wall behind me struck half past ten. I was sitting alone with Kristine Larsen in an interview room at the police station. When she had come to after fainting, she agreed to give a statement without a lawyer present.
She had asked for permission to smoke, and this had been granted.
Then she had admitted that she had been Falko Reinhardt’s lover in the weeks before he disappeared, and still hoped that he would choose her should he return. As she could not talk to anyone, it had been hard for her to live with the pain of Falko’s disappearance and the nagging of her conscience with regard to his fiancée. Kristine Larsen’s guilt had, however, gradually given way to a growing jealousy, and a suspicion that Marie Morgenstierne might have had something to do with Falko’s disappearance.
So, driven by loneliness and despair, she had in the end sent Marie Morgenstierne the threatening letter, in the hope that it would in some way resolve the situation. Which it had not. On the evening in question, she had started to walk towards her flat after the meeting, but had then turned around and tried to catch up with Marie Morgenstierne so she could talk to her face to face. And she had shouted ‘Marie!’ spontaneously in surprise when Marie Morgenstierne bolted.
The chain-smoking Kristine Larsen had, in short, managed to confess an impressive amount in the course of the fifteen-minute interview.
The problem was not only that she denied, in horror, any knowledge of Falko Reinhardt’s whereabouts, but also denied, even more horrified, any knowledge of how Marie Morgenstierne had died.
According to her statement, Kristine Larsen had stopped running and watched Marie Morgenstierne disappear in wild flight. Furthermore, Kristine Larsen did not have any weapons on her at the time, and had never owned a gun. She had no idea who the murderer was, but had lived in fear of him or her since she heard that Marie Morgenstierne had been killed.
So when she heard someone shout her name, she thought that the murderer had come to shoot her and had therefore run for her life without looking back. If she had known it was me, she would have stopped straight away. She repeated this three times within a minute.
Kristine Larsen smoked and cried until ten to eleven. She looked as though she was on the verge of a nervous and physical breakdown. But she stuck to her statement with forceful despair and declared her innocence with open arms.
After five unsuccessful attempts, I realized that I was not going to get any further and so instead asked her to describe in detail what had happened when Marie Morgenstierne started to run.
Kristine Larsen told me that there was an old man with a stick walking in front of her and that he stepped to one side to let her pass. There had been a blind woman with a guide dog behind her, and a man farther back behind the blind woman, but she only caught a glimpse of him.
She had spontaneously shouted ‘Marie’ when she saw her take off. Marie had first glanced back and then looked all around. Kristine Larsen had assumed that it was the sight of her that made Marie Morgenstierne bolt.
‘But then, as I shouted, I also looked around. And that was when I saw something that made me stop in my tracks.’
I gave her a sharp look. She lit another cigarette with shaking hands and took a deep drag.
‘That was when I saw him. He was standing there by the corner of a house on one of the side roads, looking at us.’
She said nothing more, and looked at me with an odd mixture of confusion and joy in her eyes.
‘And the man who was standing there was…?’
She nodded gravely. Then she whispered the name I had guessed before she said it, and which made the room spin.
‘Falko.’
I stared hard at Kristine Larsen. Her eyes were wet with tears, but she did not look away for a moment.
‘He was just as tall, just as dark and just as irresistibly handsome as when I last saw him. I would have recognized him anywhere in the world. He stood by the corner of the house for a few moments without moving, then disappeared from sight again between the houses. I don’t know whether he was waiting for Marie or me. And I don’t know if she saw him. But I did. It was my Falko standing there in the road – I am as sure about that as I am that I’m sitting here on this chair.’
At first I did not really know what to say to this highly unexpected turn of events. So I kept quiet for a few seconds. Behind me, I heard the clock on the wall strike eleven. And then I heard myself say to Kristine Larsen that she was under arrest and would be held on remand, on suspicion of murdering Marie Morgenstierne.
XII
It was by now half past eleven. I sat on my own in my office and thought about the situation.
Kristine Larsen had accepted being taken into custody with unexpected dignity, saying that at least in prison she no longer need fear the faceless murderer as she had every second since the news of Marie Morgenstierne’s death. But she continued to maintain that she was innocent, and that the murderer was still out there somewhere.
She begged me in earnest to continue with the investigation. And with even more urgency, she asked that Falko Reinhardt be informed of where she was, if he was found. She had to see him as soon as he turned up. He would no doubt then be able to corroborate her version of what had happened the evening that Marie Morgenstierne died.
At twenty-five past eleven, I rang Patricia. She picked up the telephone on the second ring. It sounded as though she was stifling a yawn, but she soon perked up when I started by saying: ‘Following some dramatic developments this evening I have now arrested the person I believe to be Marie Morgenstierne’s murderer!’
I waited for some sign of delight, but it never came.
‘Gracious, do tell!’ Patricia said, instead.
Then she listened silently to my brief account of my meeting with Kristine Larsen and her ensuing statement.
‘Very interesting indeed. But who have you arrested as a result?’ she asked, when I had finished.
‘Kristine Larsen, of course,’ I replied.
There was not a sound to be heard on the line for a moment or two. Not a sound.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, what have you done now?’ Patricia exclaimed in disbelief.
Something, I realized, was terribly wrong. But the indications that Kristine Larsen was guilty were so clear to me that I was not going to give up without a fight.
‘The case is of course not solved yet, in terms of all the details. But even so, you cannot deny that Kristine Larsen had both the motive and the opportunity to shoot Marie Morgenstierne.’
This gave about two seconds’ respite. Then Patricia’s voice slammed back into my ear like the recoil from a gun.
‘Absolutely. Kristine Larsen could have shot Marie Morgenstierne. But why on earth would the sight of Kristine Larsen have caused Marie Morgenstierne suddenly to panic and run for her life? Have you thought about that?’