I said that I would be grateful to know her name all the same, before drawing any conclusions. He replied curtly that he did not want to give it to me – at least, not here and now.
The conversation then went from bad to worse. After the question about his girlfriend, Darrell Williams was on his guard, even before I asked about his bank account. He had no doubt that it was a routine question that we asked everyone and emphasized that he had nothing to hide personally. However, he did find it ‘very uncomfortable’ and, following a brief pause for thought, said that he would have to discuss it with the ambassador before he could possibly give me his bank books. It could otherwise create a precedent, the consequences of which were hard to foresee. I attempted a witty reply, saying that the practical consequences would hardly be significant if Americans in Oslo only had to give access to their bank accounts in the event that a Norwegian Resistance hero was murdered in the same building. But there was definitely no place for humour in our conversation now; he shook his head in agitation without so much as a twitch of the mouth.
I did not expect to get an answer to any more questions, but finished my list as planned all the same. First, I asked whether he was aware of the activities of an American intelligence organization called the OSS in Norway and other countries during the war, which later went on to become part of a new American intelligence organization called the CIA. Darrell Williams’s eyes immediately darkened. He straightened himself up in the armchair and replied that as a diplomat with full security clearance, he of course knew of the organizations and their contribution to the fight against communism. My follow-up question as to whether he himself had been involved with either of the organizations prompted a monotone one-sentence reply that embassy staff were obviously instructed to give in response to this kind of question regarding their work. ‘Neither confirm nor deny,’ he said.
I had no answers as to whether Darrell Williams was in any way connected to the murder or not, but I did now know that he had another less pleasant face than the one I had seen on my first visit. He sat in the armchair focused and on guard for the remainder of the conversation. It occurred me that, despite his size, he reminded me less and less of a bear and increasingly of a tiger preparing to pounce. When I asked whether it was usual for the embassy to accommodate staff in flats in Torshov, Darrell Williams replied that he had not heard of any other cases, but that he was no expert in the embassy’s accommodation policy and there were doubtless many factors to be taken into consideration. He had been offered this flat and had no objections as he found both the standard and location acceptable.