I later heard from my mother that Patricia was paralysed from the waist down and had been taken out of school. Her father in his despair sought advice from a number of leading doctors, and in pure desperation also took her to see an old healer in Lillehammer and a younger healer in Snåsa. There was no chance of a recovery, so Patricia would have to live with the prospect of deterioration looming over her for the rest of her life. After that I had heard nothing more of either her or her father. Until he called early on the morning of 6 April 1968 to offer some unexpected help in solving the murder.
The facade of 104-8 Erling Skjalgsson’s Street, where Ragnar Borchmann had both his home and business empire, was just as impressive as I recalled from my visits as a boy. The enormous building went by the name of ‘the White House’ among friends and acquaintances, because of its colour. The three separate houses had been joined by Ragnar Borchmann’s paternal grandfather, who now stood on a plinth in the cavernous hallway outside his grandson’s office. It struck me that entering the Borchmann household was like going back in time to the 1930s.
Professor Borchmann’s secretary showed me the quickest way to the director’s office. The staircase, with its twenty-three steps, was almost as long as I remembered from childhood. And when I reached the top, Ragnar Borchmann was by and large almost the same as well. There was a sombreness to him that I did not recognize from before, but his back was as straight, his hair and beard as black, his handshake as firm and his voice as powerful as I remembered.
‘Welcome, and once again congratulations on your recent promotion. I am absolutely certain that you will rise to this challenge. Now, shall I call you Kolbjørn or Detective Inspector Kristiansen?’
I assured him that I would take it as a compliment if he chose to call me Kolbjørn, but to be on the safe side, I would continue to call him ‘Professor Borchmann’. He smiled, but did not object.
‘First of all, I must apologize if I have lured you here under false pretences, but it was with the best of intentions. Sadly, I have nothing to contribute myself. I of course met Harald Olesen on and off over the past few decades, but saw less of him more recently. If you have not done so already, you should talk to Supreme Court Justice Jesper Christopher Haraldsen regarding the war years and Party Secretary Haavard Linde about politics and the party. But other than that, I am afraid I am of very little use to the case.’