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.
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.