Satellite People

by Hans Olav Lahlum

  I established the actual circumstances of Magdalon Schelderup’s death within minutes of my arrival. The ten statements were as good as unanimous.

  Magdalon Schelderup had informed all those present, in writing, that he wanted to gather those closest to him for an early supper on the second Sunday of every month this spring. According to his manager, who was present, this had been done in a formal letter dated 2 January 1969. The food and drink would be served punctually at 4.30 p.m., and it would be considered ‘extremely unfortunate’ if not everyone was there, whatever the excuse. Those invited were Magdalon Schelderup’s wife, Sandra, and his young daughter Maria Irene, who both lived with him at Schelderup Hall. Others who were in the family and shared his surname were his sister Magdalena, his former wife Ingrid, and his grown-up sons Fredrik and Leonard. Magdalon Schelderup’s secretary, Synnøve Jensen, was also invited, as was Hans Herlofsen, his manager of many years. The last two people on the invitation list were an elderly couple, Else and Petter Johannes Wendelboe, whom Magdalon Schelderup had known since the war.

  All those invited had taken the hint and arrived on time to every Sunday supper so far. The first four had passed without any drama. Today’s, however, had started rather differently. All the guests were sitting in their usual places when Mrs Sandra Schelderup put the food on the table at half past four. Once they had helped themselves, but before anyone had started to eat, they were interrupted by the fire alarm, so they had all left the table and the room for a few minutes and gathered by the front door on the ground floor.

  It was quickly established, however, that it was in fact not the fire alarm that had gone off, but rather a recording of a fire alarm playing on the stereo system.

  Magdalon Schelderup had cast an evil eye around the table, but all the guests had categorically denied any knowledge of this humorous little prank. Their host had been unusually agitated and annoyed by what had happened, and sat for a minute at least, deep in thought, without wishing everyone bon appétit. Then he had barked an unexpected command at one of his guests, his youngest son Leonard, to test the food on his plate.

  ‘I have a suspicion that the food on my plate has been poisoned. I am sure that no one would disagree it would be of less consequence if you were to lose your life than if I were!’ had been how he put it. No one had protested.

  Leonard had been visibly nervous and had tried to say that surely there was no reason to suspect that the food was poisoned. His father had curtly replied that in that case, there was no reason to be scared of tasting it. After a couple more minutes of increasingly oppressive silence, the clearly terrified Leonard had eaten a slice of meat, half a potato and a piece of carrot from his father’s plate. When the young Leonard looked just as healthy five minutes later and said that he didn’t feel any symptoms of any sort, his father had declared dinner served at six minutes to five.

  None of the other guests had reacted to the food. Magdalon Schelderup, on the other hand, had had an acute reaction, whereby his throat and mouth swelled up dramatically. Unable to talk, he had waved his hands around and pointed down the table – seemingly at his two sons. His pulse had been dangerously high and racing, according to his wife, who had helped him over to the sofa after the attack. He then experienced violent cramps and died only minutes later. Magdalon Schelderup had clutched his heart in the final minutes of his life. The guests all agreed that heart failure was the most likely cause of death, though acute breathing problems were also a possibility.

  The link became clear when the deceased’s wife detected evidence of powdered nuts in the meat still left on his plate. Young Leonard had covered his face in horror. He was so upset that he was unable to say for certain whether he had noticed a faint taste of nuts or not, or if there had been no trace in the piece of meat that he had eaten. The fact that Magdalon Schelderup suffered from a life-threatening nut allergy was well known to those in his closest circle. And for that very reason, nuts of all kinds were strictly forbidden on the property. Magdalon Schelderup had always been a strict enforcer of this rule.

  It was swiftly established that all the guests had known about his nut allergy and that nuts were forbidden. They would all have had the opportunity to sprinkle some powdered nuts on his plate in the confusion that ensued after the fire alarm. They were the only ones who could have done it. Magdalon Schelderup had given his staff time off during these Sunday soirées. The host and his ten guests were alone in the house.

  The food had been prepared by the host’s current wife, together with his former wife, who was also one of the guests. They sent each other scathing looks, but were in absolute agreement that there had been no nuts, in any shape or form, anywhere near the kitchen when they were making the food. And there was indeed no trace of nut powder on any of the plates other than that of Magdalon Schelderup. It therefore seemed most likely that the deadly powder had been added to the food after it had been put on the table. Which meant that it had been added by one of the guests, who had come not only with powdered nuts, but also a strong desire to kill the host.

  I spent the next three hours taking down personal statements from all the ten witnesses in a guest room on the ground floor that became an improvised interview room. At nine o’clock, the deceased was collected by a police doctor, and I did not think there was much hope of getting any more from the ten survivors.

  While it was quite clear to me that Magdalon Schelderup’s murderer had been sitting at the table, I still had no idea of where he or she had been sitting. And fortunately, neither did I know that it would take me seven long and demanding days to solve the crime, even with Patricia’s help. Nor could I have predicted that evening that any of the ten guests from Magdalon Schelderup’s final supper would follow him into death in the week that followed.

  IV

  I decided to start by questioning the person at the table who was closest in age to the deceased Magdalon Schelderup, namely his sixty-seven-year-old sister.

  Magdalena Schelderup asked for permission to smoke during the interview. Given the dramatic situation, she seemed otherwise to be remarkably calm. Her body was thin and bony, and the firmness of her handshake was a surprise. I noticed that she was wearing a thin pewter ring, which seemed oddly out of character for an older woman who by all accounts was very well off. However, I deemed what I could not see on her hand to be more significant – a wedding ring, in other words.

  In explanation as to why she still had the same surname, Magdalena Schelderup told me without hesitation that she had never been married. To which she added quickly that she had never had any children either. The family had always been small, but now she was the only surviving member of her childhood home. She had grown up with an older and a younger brother. The younger brother, however, had been weak both physically and mentally, and had died as the result of an illness in spring 1946. Magdalon had dominated his siblings ever since they were little. In his first two years, he had enchanted his parents so much that they decided to give their daughter a name that was as close to their son’s name as possible.

  Their father had also been a successful businessman, and the children had grown up in very privileged material circumstances. Following the death of the younger brother after the war, Magdalon had taken over the running of the family business and quickly expanded. Magdalena had passed her university entrance exam and taken a two-year course at the business school. However, when her parents died, she was left such a tidy sum of money that she could dedicate herself to her interests without having to worry about making a living. She still received an annual share of the profit from her parents’ companies, which far exceeded her outgoings.

  Magdalena Schelderup took a pensive draw on her cigarette when I asked if she had had a close relationship with her brother. Then she shook her head, slowly. They were in contact often enough and shared a circle of mutual friends, but they had not discussed anything of a more serious nature together for the past twenty-five years. She had the impression that her brother sel
dom sought the advice of others regarding important matters, and to a great extent followed his own beliefs and whims. He had certainly never asked his sister for advice in connection with business or more personal matters. But she did claim to know him better than anyone else, all the same, having watched him her entire life.

  ‘If you want to understand my brother, be it as a businessman or a person, you have to understand that he has always been a player, since he was a little boy,’ Magdalena Schelderup added, out of the blue.

  She continued without hesitation when I asked her to expand on this.

  ‘Ever since he was a youth, Magdalon has played with money and people, the business, his private life; in fact, his entire existence became nothing but a great game. My brother often played with high stakes. If you were to say that he sometimes played crooked, I would not contradict you. Magdalon played to the gallery out there to gain recognition. But most of all, he simply played to win and to get whatever he wanted. Be it money, houses or women,’ she concluded, with a bitter smile.

  Magdalena Schelderup sat in silence for a while, lost in thought, smoking yet another cigarette. Then she continued, at a slower pace.

  ‘You may perhaps hear from others, both inside and outside the firm, that my brother was a man with a head for money, but not for people. That is what people who do not know him or understand him often say. Magdalon’s greatest gift was in fact that he had a finely honed ability to understand all kinds of people. He was exceptionally good at seeing other people’s strengths and weaknesses, and could often predict exactly how they would react in various situations. But he only used this to his own advantage. I can understand that others might at times think of him as cold and heartless in his dealings with other people, including his own family. But there is actually a difference between being inconsiderate and not understanding when one should be considerate, if one bothered at all about other people.’

  I gave a thoughtful nod, and followed this up with a question about his familial relations in general. His sister hesitated, and then said that perhaps his wife and children would know more about that than she did. From her place at the table, she judged her brother’s third marriage, which had also been the longest, to be the ‘least unhappy’. The transition from the first to the second, and the second to the third had both been difficult periods. Her brother had without a doubt expected more of his two sons, but his expectations were not easily matched. It seemed that his daughter was the child he appreciated most, but that might also be because she was the youngest and still lived at home.

  As far as Magdalon Schelderup’s inheritance was concerned, his sister claimed to know very little. Her annual share of the profits from her parents’ companies was secured for the rest of her life, no matter who now inherited the companies. It did not really matter much to her. She already had more money in the bank than she could use in a lifetime, and she had no one to leave it to.

  She did not say it in so many words, but I understood what she meant. She, for her part, had no possible financial motive for her brother’s murder.

  This sounded logical enough. And she seemed to be so relaxed when she said it that I almost struck her from the list of suspects. However, I did note with interest that she lived only a short distance away, and that she had been at home alone in her flat on both Friday and Saturday. The deceased Magdalon Schelderup’s sister had known him longer than anyone else round the table, and in practice had had the opportunity both to puncture the tyres on his car and to put powdered nuts in his food.

  V

  From the deceased’s sister, I moved on to his widow, having first made sure that she was in a fit state to be questioned. There was still not a tear to be seen on her cheeks.

  Sandra Schelderup was a relatively slight, dark-haired woman, with a straight back and a determined face which gave the impression of a strong personality and will. She stated her age as forty-five. With regard to her background, she informed me briefly that she had grown up on a smallholding in one of the rural communities outside Trondheim, that she had trained as a stenographer, and had met her husband when she came to work as his secretary nearly twenty years ago. The marriage had been a happy one, despite the age difference, and his death had been very unexpected.

  She claimed to know nothing about her husband’s telephone call to the police the day before, or the fact that the tyres on his car had been slashed. She had, however, noticed that her husband had been obviously worried of late. He had been more alert, and had carefully checked that all the doors were locked in the evening. Some weeks ago, he had taken an old revolver from his collection and stowed it in his jacket pocket whenever he went out. At home, it often lay on his desk during the day, and she had seen it on the bedside table in the evening and morning.

  But he had said nothing as to why he was worried. He was old-school, a man who would rather not discuss his troubles with his wife and children. She had taken the gun as a sign that her husband was getting old and anxious, but following his murder it was of course natural to see this in another light. And in autumn the year before, he had decided to buy three dogs to guard the house, he who had never shown any interest whatsoever in animals before.

  As for the inheritance, Sandra Schelderup knew little more than what was written about it in the newspapers: that it was possibly worth several hundred million kroner in money, shares and property. She could find the name of the lawyers’ firm that helped her husband in legal matters, but she claimed to know nothing about the content of his will. Her husband had routinely kept his estate separate in all his three marriages. When the matter had been raised on a couple of occasions, he had simply promised his last wife that she would be well looked after for the rest of her life, and would inherit at least two million from him.

  The business had dominated Magdalon Schelderup’s life more than anything else, and early on in the marriage he had made it clear that she should not worry herself about it. And so she had done as he advised. She added that it was possible that her daughter might know a little more about it than she did, but otherwise, one would have to ask the business manager.

  When at home, Magdalon Schelderup had generally stayed in his combined office and library on the first floor, or in his bedroom, which was next door. His wife added that her husband slept at irregular times, and she had therefore preferred to have her own room, on the floor above. He could come and go as he pleased, as he had for all the years she had known him, she said, with a fleeting smile.

  It all seemed to be rather undramatic so far. His wife’s description reinforced the picture of Magdalon Schelderup as a wilful man, but also the idea that he had been worried about a possible threat to his life in recent months. Her tone became sharper, however, when in conclusion I asked if she thought that it might have been one of those present who had killed her husband.

  ‘Well, that is obvious!’ was her terse reply.

  Then she added swiftly, in a more passionate voice: ‘And I can promise you that it was neither me nor my daughter. But as far as the others are concerned, I would not exclude any of them right now.’

  When I asked whether that meant that she would not exclude even her two stepsons from the list of possible murderers, she replied promptly: ‘Especially not them!’

  A shadow passed over her face when she said this, fuelling my suspicions that the relationship between those closest to the deceased was not the best. I concluded my conversation with the deceased’s widow there for the moment. I was now extremely curious to know what his children thought, both about her and about his death.

  VI

  Fredrik Schelderup proved from the outset to bear very little resemblance to his dead father, either physically or mentally. He was thirty-eight years old, above average height, with dark hair and a pleasant appearance, as well as a friendly demeanour. The spare tyres around his middle and the redness of his cheeks sparked a suspicion that Schelderup Junior generally enjoyed far livelier gatherings than this one.

  T
he conversation that followed did nothing to detract from this theory, and Fredrik spoke in a light, breezy tone. He opened by saying, without any encouragement, that he was more like his dead mother and had always felt very different from his father. His contact with his father had in recent years been ‘correct and formal’, if ‘rather sporadic and not particularly heartfelt’ on either part. Fredrik Schelderup explained that he had tried to put as much distance as possible between himself and his father and the business, and that was why he perhaps might seem to be unaffected by his father’s death. Which, indeed, was the case.

  His death had been totally unexpected for Fredrik Schelderup as well, who had no suspicions as to who might have put the powdered nuts in his father’s food. He had been raised with a complete ban on anything that might resemble a nut, and had once, as a twelve-year-old, had his pocket money suspended for month because he had eaten a peanut on his way up the drive. He had since then respected the ban – to this very day. Fredrik Schelderup had come to the Sunday supper in his newest Mercedes, and had spent the last week either at or near to his home in the exclusive suburb of Bygdøy. He lived alone, but had a new girlfriend who had been with him every day last week. ‘And some nights too,’ he added, with a saucy wink.

  Fredrik Schelderup struck me as being very unlike his father. When I asked what else he had done in his life so far, he quipped: ‘As little as possible, while I wait to inherit from my father.’ He went on to say that he had taken his university entrance exam and then studied a bit at the business school and university, but that he infinitely preferred the life of a student at the weekend to that during the week. He had stopped studying without any qualifications and had subsequently never been able to decide what he wanted to do. And fortunately, there was no real need to, either. While waiting for the anticipated substantial inheritance from his father, he had lived well on a more modest inheritance from his mother, and some income from various short-term jobs. Fredrik Schelderup jokingly remarked that he had loved driving ever since he was a boy – fast cars and beautiful women. In an even jollier aside, he added that when a beautiful woman asked him what his star sign was, he normally replied ‘the dollar sign’ – and then set about proving it. Otherwise his daily consumption was generally modest, ‘certainly on weekdays’. He was waiting to fulfil his wish of seeing more of ‘the world and its bars’ until he got his inheritance.