I remembered one of the loose threads that I was struggling to tie up and immediately drew her attention to it.
‘Kristian Lund is perhaps one of them. What do you make of the discrepancy as to when he came home on the evening of the murder? It’s three against two, and I am really not sure who to believe.’
Suddenly, Patricia burst into loud, mischievous laughter.
‘Perhaps I should not laugh. That is another story, but it may of course still prove to be important. If you think about it, it is not necessarily three against two in favour of Kristian Lund. The fact that his wife confirms that he came through the door at nine o’clock does not necessarily contradict the claims from the other two that he came in the front door an hour earlier. The only person to support his claim that he came in at nine is the caretaker’s wife, who you said seemed to be bothered by the situation. I think you should have a serious talk with her about it, then I think that it will be cleared up soon enough.’
I promised to do so, without entirely seeing the point.
‘But where was Kristian Lund in the meantime, then? He could hardly have used all that time to get from the front door to the first floor.’
Patricia laughed again – just as loudly and mischievously as before.
‘If that were the case, he would be even less able than Andreas Gullestad and myself combined. If Kristian Lund did come back at eight o’clock, he could in theory have been in any of the other flats in the building. In practice, however, there are really only two possibilities. One is extremely serious, and the other extremely embarrassing – and both are of great potential importance to the investigation.’
I stared at Patricia, more fascinated than ever. She gave me her most coquettish smile and on purpose munched the rest of her carrot at a very leisurely pace before continuing.
‘The first and more serious possibility is of course obvious… Kristian Lund was on the second floor in Harald Olesen’s flat. For reasons he cannot or does not dare to share with us. It is quite possible this is the case, but the second theory is more probable.’
My patience was in danger of running out. And it certainly did when she found this to be a suitable moment to conjure up another raw carrot and take another couple of pensive bites. My suppressed irritation at being teased by those more intelligent than me at middle school suddenly flared up again.
‘So where was Mr Lund between eight o’clock and nine o’clock according to your second and more embarrassing theory? Could the young Miss Borchmann be as kind as to let the head of investigation know?’