It was only when I popped my head round the door into the kitchen as a matter of routine that I understood I had totally misinterpreted and underestimated the situation.
Henry Alfred Lien had not left his home in a hurry. He was still there.
There was no mistaking his broad body, even though he was lying face down. I put my fingers to his neck and could quickly confirm that there was no pulse, and that all life had left his body. It was already getting cold. I did not need to look long for the cause. When I turned him over, the bullet hole in his forehead resembled an accusing third eye.
I let go of the second victim of the evening and hid my face in my hands for a moment. The whole situation felt like a surreal nightmare, and I sincerely hoped it was. But I did not wake up. So once I had established that there were no weapons or other people on the ground floor, I went over to the late Henry Alfred Lien’s living-room table to use his phone.
XIV
As expected, the sheriff was out on a call, but his wife answered the phone and promised to give him the message about a second suspicious death as soon as possible. She almost burst into tears when I told her where he should come and who it involved. Even though Henry Alfred Lien’s story during the war was well known, and even though he had kept a low profile as a widower in recent years, he had been a highly respected man and no one in the local community had a bad word to say about him. He had been a good man who had done some unfortunate things during the war, but it was hard to imagine who would want to kill him now.
I replied that it was in truth a very odd and tragic case, and that I had to get on with the investigation. She thanked me. When I put down the telephone, I felt even more uncertain about who Henry Alfred Lien actually was and what had happened to him.
My conversation with the hospital was less friendly. The operator recognized my voice, and suspected that I was a morbid prankster when I called to tell them about a second murder in the space of an hour. Fortunately, I managed to convince him, and he finally agreed to send the ambulance over as soon as it returned from the last callout.
And then, once again, I called Patricia. This time she answered after one ring, with an impatient: ‘Well, what is going on?’
I told her that I had found Henry Alfred Lien and that I was now sitting alone in his house. Patricia let out a deep sigh.
‘That’s just as I thought – and feared. The number of murders is rising, and the danger that it might continue to rise over the next few days is high. Come here as soon as you get back to Oslo, and I will have dinner waiting for you, no matter how late it is. In the meantime, check to see if Henry Alfred Lien has the local history yearbook for Valdres, 1955 in his bookshelf. But more importantly, search for a diary, a note or any other document that might tell us a bit more about what happened – and about what might happen!’
There was a moment’s silence as I contemplated what this meant. Patricia took a deep breath and continued.
‘The identity of the fourth person in that photograph is now perhaps the most pressing question in Norway. Christian Magnus Eggen and Frans Heidenberg know, but I doubt that anyone could get it out of them in time. Judging by what has happened, Falko Reinhardt and Henry Alfred Lien also knew, but were killed before they had a chance to tell you. I have no idea who this is or where he or she is; it could be almost anyone out there. But I am increasingly fearful of the consequences if we do not soon find out. And these two murders can leave no one in any doubt that this is something major!’
On hearing Patricia’s words, I felt fear tugging at me, not least because it was more audible in her voice towards the end than I had ever heard it before. So I thanked her, put down the receiver and set about investigating the scene of the crime.
XV
Patricia had of course been right. In the largest bookshelf, Henry Alfred Lien had a series of local history yearbooks for Valdres. The 1955 edition was also there. And even though a rubber had been used in the margins of the article in question about Karl and his dramatic death in the mountains, it was impossible to hide the fact there had once been notes there and parts of the text had been underlined.
Finding any diaries or other notes proved to be a bit harder. Henry Alfred Lien was not a writer by nature. He did not appear to own a typewriter. Other than a shopping list on the kitchen counter, I found no handwritten notes in the living room or kitchen.
He had, however, made himself a simple office on the first floor, and in the desk drawer I found several books filled with his elegant, old-fashioned handwriting. They mostly involved bookkeeping and taxes, but also production figures for the farm, and they showed that he had been doing well even in the last year. According to his post office savings book, Henry Alfred Lien had over three hundred thousand kroner in his bank account when he died. But I found no photographs or notes that might shed light on his dramatic death.
In the bottom drawer was a notebook with handwritten diary entries from 1967 to the present day. Henry Alfred Lien’s entries were short, often just keywords, and he seldom wrote more than four or five pages a year. I quickly read through what he had written in previous years, but found nothing of interest. In connection with the disappearance of Falko Reinhardt in summer 1968, Henry Alfred Lien had noted that he had been questioned and taken a lie detector test in Oslo, but there was no new information.
By far the most interesting thing in Henry Alfred Lien’s diary was a page that was not there.
The diary ended suddenly in April 1970, and the next page had been torn out.
I stood pondering for a long time when it might have been torn out and by whom. It could of course have been torn out and destroyed by Henry Alfred Lien himself. But it was also possible that it had been removed earlier in the day by the person who had shot him. In which case, I sorely wanted to know where the missing page was now, and what secrets it might reveal.
XVI
The sheriff arrived with the ambulance at ten past eight. He was a sombre older man who gave an impression of solidity, and seemed more than willing to cooperate with a detective inspector from Oslo. We called for a forensics team from Lillehammer, but were told that we should not expect them until tomorrow morning.
I left the sheriff in charge of the farm and then walked the few hundred yards to the top of the cliff to see if I could find anything there. Rain was forecast overnight, and I had no illusions as to what the technicians would then be able to find in the morning.
The Morgenstiernes’ cabin was locked. I opened it with my key, but found nothing to indicate that Falko or anyone else had been inside.
It was a very strange feeling to stand alone afterwards at the top of the cliff in the evening breeze. There had obviously been a violent struggle up here earlier in the day that had ended with Falko Reinhardt’s fall and death. It would appear that Falko Reinhardt had first parked his car at Henry Alfred Lien’s farm and then, for some unknown reason, either run or walked here to the edge of the cliff.
I found a couple of footprints on the path that went past the cabin and on to the edge of the cliff, which were very similar to Falko Reinhardt’s in size and shape. And I found some other footprints which were also of men’s shoes, but slightly smaller than Falko’s. I found more of these footprints in the moss a couple of yards away from the cliff. But there were no clear prints from Falko’s large feet there.
It seemed reasonable to assume that the other prints belonged to the person I had seen standing at the edge of the cliff after Falko Reinhardt’s fall. But there was no way of being certain, and even if it was the case, it gave no pointer as to that person’s identity.