The two final and most critical questions remained. Darrell Williams was now so tense that I was mentally prepared for him to leap up at any moment. As a precaution, I inched my chair away from him before I dropped the bomb.
‘Have you ever killed anyone?’
Darrell Williams remained seated, but his eyes bored into me for several seconds. I was certain that he would refuse to answer, in accordance with some diplomatic law or another, but having given it some thought, he answered with impressive composure.
‘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.