The Human Flies - страница 17

In the meantime, I called the law firm Rønning, Rønning & Rønning. The Rønning I needed to speak to, Edvard Rønning Junior, was unfortunately not in the office. According to his secretary, he had flown to West Berlin a couple of days earlier. The secretary apologized and sheepishly explained that there were ‘several indications’ that Rønning Junior was going to meet one or more personal friends in Central Europe, but no one knew where he was going from the airport. When he had called the office about another case on the Friday morning, he had of course been informed of Harald Olesen’s death. Rønning Junior had immediately explained that Olesen’s will had recently been ‘reworded’ and, in accordance with the explicit wishes of the deceased, would be announced six days after his death.

Rønning Junior had promised that he would personally be present to read out the will in the law firm’s offices at midday on Wednesday, 10 April. He would send a telegram ‘as soon as possible’ with a short list of the people the deceased wished to be present at the reading of the will. If the police contacted the firm, he had asked that they be informed that the most recent version of the will was responsibly secured, that all the formalities were in place and that we were welcome to come to the reading of the will on Wednesday. He had then said that he had to ‘rush to an extremely important meeting’ and hung up. Unfortunately, the will was not to be found in his office, and the telegram had not arrived yet. Thus the firm could only apologize that they could not be of any further help in the investigation. Rønning Junior was ‘an exceptionally talented young lawyer, and rigorous with regard to formalities and discretion on behalf of his clients’, the secretary concluded apologetically. I had no problem in believing her, and saw little option other than to ask Rønning Junior to contact me immediately if anyone should speak to him before Wednesday morning.

Harald Olesen’s doctor was still on sick leave, but was willing to answer questions on his private phone. Having tussled briefly with his conscience, he felt that he could make a pragmatic exception to patient confidentiality, vis-à-vis the police, with regard to a patient who was in fact already dead, as was the case. He then confirmed that Olesen had been diagnosed with bowel cancer about a year ago. This had spread more rapidly than expected in recent months and Olesen had been told in December that the end might be only a matter of months away. Olesen had received this news with admirable dignity. He had remained seated, pensive, and then said that he had some important issues to consider and sort out before it was too late. The doctor thought this was quite a natural reaction and had not enquired as to what these might be.

The bank where Harald Olesen kept his account was closed. During a search of his flat, however, several documents had been found that answered most of the questions I would have asked of the bank. Olesen had apparently been a very organized person. Statements from the past five years were in a file in one of the desk drawers. These confirmed that Harald Olesen had died a rich man. The most recent statement was from March 1968 and showed a balance of just over a million kroner. What was more striking, however, was that the statements from 1966 and the first part of 1967 showed even greater wealth. Over the past six months, the sum in Harald Olesen’s account had fallen by at least 250,000 kroner, even though his civil service pension should have been more than enough to cover the outgoings of a widowed pensioner. And the strange thing was that there were no documents in the drawer that could shed any light on where this money had gone. The sum appeared to have been paid out in three large cash withdrawals. Harald Olesen had initially taken out 100,000 kroner in October 1967, then 100,000 in February 1968 and a further 50,000 one month later.

I immediately envisaged two possibilities. Either Olesen had started to bet or make risky investments in his old age or he had paid out a large amount to one or several people. The latter seemed to be more likely, and it then was natural to assume that the murder may in some way be linked to blackmail.