‘That is a personal question that does not involve anyone else, so I will gladly answer it. As a young soldier, I volunteered to serve at one of the front lines as we advanced towards Paris in the summer of 1944, following the Normandy landings. I can clearly remember the faces of two people that I know I killed. One of them was a young, fair German soldier, the other a dark-haired young Frenchwoman. I will never forget their faces, but I don’t see them as often as I used to now and can live with it. They both had a swastika on their sleeve, and both had been given the chance to surrender. We were fighting in the service of our country, putting our own lives on the line in order to liberate France and the other occupied countries from the tyranny of Nazism. I have never regretted taking part.’
He sat quietly for a moment before continuing.
‘They are the two that I know of. We were involved in countless chaotic exchanges of fire that left many people dead, so I can’t promise that there were no others. But it was another time in another country, during the bloodiest war in history. I have not killed anyone since the war, and I have never killed a Norwegian.’
‘But if it was in the service of your country and for a good cause, might you also kill someone in Norway?’
Darrell Williams sat in silence again. A pensive expression stole over his face before he answered.
‘I realize that it would not be believable were I to say no, as I am still an officer in the service of my country, as I was back then. But I repeat that I have never received any such orders after the war, and have no idea as to who might have murdered Harald Olesen.’
He looked me straight in the eye when he said this and I was inclined to believe him. He too would have to be added to the list of people who I did not think had killed Harald Olesen, but who may have done it all the same. The list was starting to get quite long.
Darrell Williams followed me out and then made an unexpected conciliatory move out in the hall. He commented that this was not an easy situation for anyone. I was undoubtedly under tremendous pressure following the mysterious murder of a well-known hero from the Resistance, and he was in service on another country’s territory and had to adhere to strict protocol. Given that, he would of course do whatever he could to help solve the murder. If I gave him a couple of days, he would check with his superiors and hoped that he would then be able to answer more of my questions. I enquired, almost jokingly, whether his ‘superiors’ meant the ‘ambassador’. Darrell Williams answered in the same tone that his ‘superiors’ for the moment meant his ‘superiors’. We shook hands and were almost friends again. He was right, of course. This was not an easy situation, either for me or for anyone else in the building. By now it was four o’clock and I still had one more person to visit.
VI
Andreas Gullestad had obviously returned home on Sunday afternoon as planned. He beamed up at me when the door eventually opened. I found myself wondering whether he was simply like that or whether another less friendly face lurked behind this jovial mask. And I intended to test that now, as soon as we were sitting comfortably in the sitting room with cups of tea in our hands. We started with a chat about his trip. He had had a pleasant visit to his childhood stamping grounds and thanked me once again for allowing him to go.
Andreas Gullestad was also astonished by both my astuteness and the murderer’s cunning when I presented him with the secret of the stereo. He ‘unfortunately’ had to confess that he too had been alone in his flat from eight until a quarter past ten on the evening of the murder, and given the adjusted time of murder, he could no longer be struck from the list of potential murderers either. He had nothing new or exciting to tell about his neighbours’ movements out in the hallway.
As to the question of money, he replied without hesitation that he had nothing to hide. He pulled out two bank books and a tax return from his desk, which confirmed his total wealth to be 800,000 kroner. He informed me that he had inherited this from his parents. They had left him both money and woodland, which he had got a favourable price for later. Most of the money was now safely deposited in an account, and the rest had been invested in stocks. He had spent some time on his investments and the shares had so far given such a favourable return that he had not needed to use any of the interest on his bank accounts to cover his living costs. The flat was paid for, and his daily expenses were not high.
When I mentioned his name, he immediately threw up his hands. He had realized after my last visit that he should have mentioned it, but had not telephoned as he did not think that it was of such great relevance to the investigation. The change in name from Ivar Storskog to Andreas Gullestad was linked to the fact that he was now handicapped. He told me that four years ago he had been ‘regrettably careless’ when stepping out onto a pedestrian crossing and had been knocked down by a young driver. The injuries were not life-threatening, but as a result of a spinal injury, he was now dependent on a wheelchair. He had accepted his lot with grace, but wanted to make a clean break from his previous life. He fortunately did not have to rely on government handouts, as he had money enough. He had decided it was a suitable time to change his name and had settled on his mother’s maiden name, Gullestad. He was christened Ivar Andreas and had often been called Andreas by his mother and sister, so the change in his first name was not so dramatic.
When I asked about documentation regarding his injuries, he pointed without hesitation to a drawer that should contain some newspaper clippings about the accident. Which it did. Several national papers carried notices about the accident involving Ivar Storskog, and he was later interviewed by one of them about his handicap. ‘If you disregard the almost illegible doctor’s signature, there should be a doctor’s certificate at the bottom of that pile of papers,’ he said. Which also proved to be true. I apologized that I had to ask, and he assured me that he understood perfectly well, ‘given the grisly nature of the case’.
Probing questions about his finances and handicap seemed to make no dent in Andreas Gullestad’s unrelenting good humour and friendliness. However, all this drained from his face as soon as I asked about the cause of his father’s death.
‘I hope you understand that it is still a very painful subject for me and I would rather not go into great detail,’ he said, with some reservation.
We sipped our tea in silence; then he leaned forward towards the table and carried on.
‘My father was, as you perhaps know, a very rich man and a respected pillar of the community, well known beyond the boundaries of his parish. I was his only son and the apple of his eye. No one has had a better father, and he was my greatest idol throughout my childhood. The 1930s were hard, even in Oppland, but I never saw anyone leave my father’s farm empty-handed, whether they needed charity or not. In retrospect, I remember those childhood years as the happiest period of my life.’
He suddenly lowered his eyes to the table, and his lips tightened for a moment before he continued.
‘Then one day when I was twelve years old, the war broke out. My father fought for the king and government in April 1940 and immediately took a leading position in the Resistance movement in the district, following the occupation. On 12 January 1941, my thirteenth birthday, of all days, five German soldiers came to arrest him. It was a terrible shock for us all, but perhaps worst for me, the youngest, having admired my father more than anything in the world. This may sound strange, but what I remember most about it all was a young German soldier. He was no more than five or six years older than me and did not seem to like the situation any more than I did. He whispered to me that hopefully everything would get sorted and I would have my father back home again soon. But that is not what happened. I saw my beloved father for the last time that day, being escorted away by soldiers. He was shot a week later. I lost my childhood innocence and much of my belief in humanity the day the Germans shot my father.’