Satellite People

by Hans Olav Lahlum

  I replied that unless there were any unexpected surprises in the course of the day that would be very tempting indeed. She thanked me politely, then added somewhat more discourteously that I should call Rønning, Rønning & Rønning immediately, in order to solve the hopefully more manageable mystery of Magdalon Schelderup’s will.

  I took the hint and put down the receiver. I needed a few minutes to gather my wits before I looked up the number for Edvard Rønning Junior in the telephone directory. With alarmed delight I recognized the fact that I still lagged behind as soon as Patricia’s reasoning accelerated, but that my investigation was already picking up pace before I had even had my first meeting with her.

  XV

  Following a couple of abortive attempts, I managed to get hold of Edvard Rønning Junior at home at around ten o’clock. He informed me that the deceased had requested that the will be read at Schelderup Hall, and had provided a list of those he wished to be present. However, there were no specific instructions as to when the will should be read, as had been the case with Harald Olesen. I therefore suggested that it should be the following afternoon, on the condition that as head of the murder investigation I should be informed of the most salient points in the will. Rønning Junior pointed out that officially a court ruling was required, but added that he ‘had no objections per se, provided that the solution ensured that the will was read in accordance with the wishes of the deceased’. There was, however, a temporary practical problem in that the will was in his office, which was now closed for the weekend.

  The practical-versus-principle compromise was that Mr Rønning Junior would be in the office by half past eight on Monday morning and would phone me immediately to let me know the contents of the will. He would then instruct his office to telephone or telegraph those people named on the list to request their presence at the reading of the will in the deceased’s home at three o’clock that afternoon. I assured him that this would be easy enough to organize, as the deceased’s nearest and dearest had all been instructed to stay in town and were unlikely to have made plans for the following day. I felt that we were both more relaxed towards the end of the conversation and I saw no reason to make more problems than I already had with the investigation. We thanked each other courteously for being so accommodating and even put the receiver down at the same time.

  It was only then that it crossed my mind that I had yet to make a very important phone call – to the commanding officer. It struck me instantly that the case might be taken from me before it had even started. I could under no circumstances wait until the following day for fear that one of my colleagues might hear about the case in the meantime and snatch it from me. So I looked up the commanding officer’s home number on my telephone list and dialled straight away.

  Fortunately I caught my boss before he went to bed, and as luck would have it, he was in the better of his two known moods. He listened patiently for ten minutes to my account of the start of this peculiar case, then for another two minutes while I reminded him of my success as head of investigation for last year’s most spectacular murder case. Then to my delight he interrupted me to say that it was his wish that I should also head this murder investigation, certainly until further notice. He added that there might be changes if too many days passed without a breakthrough, and that he would like a short report of the day’s events every evening. He merrily quoted the former foreign minister, Halvdan Koht: ‘That is my opinion, and I must respect it!’ I had heard him say this several times before, but laughed heartily all the same and did not object in any way to his conclusions.

  I was in bed by eleven o’clock, as I knew that Monday could well be a long and demanding day. But I lay there unable to sleep until about midnight, but still had not managed to find an answer to the Magdalon Schelderup mystery. I was barely able to pick out one of the guests as a more likely murderer than the others.

  DAY THREE

  The Box That Contained Something Strange

  I

  Edvard Rønning Junior was an exceptionally correct young man. He telephoned me at the office, as agreed, at precisely half past eight on Monday, 12 May 1969, and read Magdalon Schelderup’s will to me from heading to signature. It did not take more than a couple of minutes, even though he read at an irritatingly slow speed. The will was dated 6 May the same year and comprised four short paragraphs. After the previous day’s interviews, the content struck me as particularly interesting, although I had to admit that the significance of it remained unclear.

  The first paragraph of the will was a sentence to say that the manager Hans Herlofsen, as thanks for his long and loyal service, was to have waived the ‘small amount’ still outstanding on his ‘private loan drawn up in 1949’. There then followed a short sentence to say that ‘the promissory note and associated written material’ had been destroyed.

  The second paragraph of the testament was one sentence only where Magdalon Schelderup left his wife Sandra Schelderup two million kroner.

  The third paragraph consisted of two sentences where Magdalon Schelderup acknowledged that he was the father of his secretary Synnøve Jensen’s unborn child and left her the sum of 200,000 kroner for ‘subsistence costs and necessary expenses during the remainder of the pregnancy’.

  The fourth paragraph was the longest and most complicated. It stated that the remainder of Magdalon Schelderup’s wealth and assets should be divided equally between his children on 6 May 1970. The three grown children would each receive for immediate payment no more than their legal minimum share of 200,000 kroner.

  I thanked the lawyer for his help and assured him that I would be there for the reading of the will, and requested that the contents should remain confidential until it was read out to the deceased’s family and friends.

  It was only once I had put down the receiver that I realized that I had not asked whether any previous versions of the will existed, and if that were the case, what was said there. When I tried to call the lawyer back it was engaged both times, so I decided to leave it until after the reading. There was more than enough work to be done in the meantime.

  II

  The pathologist’s preliminary report was as expected. Magdalon Schelderup had died of heart failure, caused by an extreme allergic reaction to nuts. He had been in good shape for his age, but had no chance of surviving such an attack. His heart and body were otherwise those of a sixty-nine-year-old man who had worked hard all his life, and the nut allergy had obviously been extremely severe.

  The reports in the newspaper did not pose any problems, but neither did they help to solve the mystery. The Labour Party conference dominated the headlines. The communist paper, Friheten, had a report on the front page under the headline ‘Key capitalist murdered’ and hinted at a conspiracy amongst ‘Norway’s corrupt capitalist elite’. Other newspapers were more cautious and waited to see the consequences of the death, but instead wrote reams about the deceased’s wealth and earlier profiles. Aftenposten was the only paper to publish a list of the supper guests and concluded its report by saying that ‘we are delighted to confirm that the already famous Detective Inspector Kolbjørn “K2” Kristiansen has been assigned to the case, and wait with bated breath to see whether he can scale the heights of his previous success in this apparently very mysterious case’. I read this with great satisfaction, but also with increasing anxiety, knowing how far I could fall.

  I then swiftly put the papers to one side in order to pursue Patricia’s priorities, moving from the matter of Magdalon Schelderup’s will to the question of what sort of letter he had thought of sending on Monday to one or several of his Sunday supper guests.

  There were no unsent letters to be found in the deceased’s office or bedroom. Both rooms were so orderly that it was hard to imagine that anything important or current could be hidden there. Magdalon Schelderup’s office housed a bookshelf with an array of books about business, but no archives of any note.

  Sandra Schelderup told me curtly on the telephone that she di
d not know of any unsent letters from recent days, but also that she did not often ask about any major or minor details of the business. Her husband had on one occasion joked that she need not worry her pretty head about his business drive, only his sex drive. In other words, I would have to ask the manager about any important documents related to the business, and his secretary about more trivial matters.

  Mrs Schelderup sounded somewhat bitter and tense today, but I could understand that. She perked up when I mentioned the will and said that she looked forward to a swift conclusion. She hesitated for a moment, but then agreed to the will being read at Schelderup Hall at three o’clock that afternoon.

  The manager, Herlofsen, was in the company’s office in the centre of town and answered the telephone on the second ring. He had nothing of any interest to add in the way of unsent letters. He could confirm that any business documents were promptly sent to his office. However, there had not been anything of any significance in recent weeks, and outgoing post that was not related to business was not his department. In short, there was unfortunately a zero per cent chance that he could help me on this occasion other than recommending that I contact Magdalon Schelderup’s secretary.

  I promised to do this, but added that I needed to ask him some personal questions. There was a few moments’ silence on the other end of the receiver. Then I offered to come and see him in his office in town. He swiftly replied that he would rather come to see me at the police station in order to avoid upsetting the staff in the office. He asked if it would be possible for him to come during his lunch break, so that there would be no unnecessary disruption to the day’s work. I immediately said yes to this, and he promised to be there at midday. Then he put down the receiver with remarkable haste.

  The telephone rang for a long time in Sørum. However, Synnøve Jensen managed to pick it up on the seventh ring and sounded so out of breath that I immediately imagined she had rushed down the stairs from the bathroom to get it. Even when she managed to catch her breath, she knew nothing about any letters that Magdalon Schelderup had planned to send on Monday. She had only written two letters for him last week and both were standard letters of congratulations that she had sent the same day. If he had any letters pending that he had written himself, they would normally be left on or in his desk.

  I immediately picked up on the formulation ‘would normally be left’ and in a slightly sharper tone asked where else such letters might be left if he did not want to leave them on or in his desk. Her voice seemed to fade as she answered. The feeling that I was on to something got stronger.

  ‘Well, then they would be locked in the metal box that he kept here.’

  She almost whispered the last words, before she mustered her courage and continued in a louder, faster voice.

  ‘But I have not opened it and have no idea if there is anything in it right now, or what on earth it might be. He made a point that the box should always be locked and that it should never be opened unless he was here. So I have done as he said,’ she added, timorously.

  She was undoubtedly thinking the same as me. In other words, that the ground was about to collapse beneath her. Following a few seconds of intense silence she spoke again, with rising desperation in her voice.

  ‘Goodness, how silly I am. I should of course have mentioned the box to you yesterday. The death was such a shock. I really did not think I might have anything important in my house, and nor did you ask . . .’

  I did immediately ask, however, when Magdalon Schelderup had last been there and who had keys to the box. She replied, tearfully, that he had last been there on Friday. And, as far as she knew, there were only two keys to the box. One had been on his key ring, and she had the other one in her hand.

  She offered to open the box straight away, if that was what I wished. Instead, I asked her to stay at home and not to touch the box until I got there.

  III

  It took almost three-quarters of an hour before I found myself outside the right smallholding in Sørum. The contrast with Schelderup Hall in Gulleråsen could scarcely have been greater. The land amounted to not much more than a potato patch in front of the house. And the house itself was small and subsiding. It looked as if it had been built by amateurs and a carpenter with an unsteady hand.

  Synnøve Jensen was just as ordinary and friendly as she had been before. Having first looked out of the window to check that it was me, she then opened the door immediately and gave me a brave smile. She had put some coffee and cakes out on the small living-room table. The ground floor consisted of a small kitchen and almost equally small living room. A stepladder-like stair with ten treads led up to the first floor, where I could see three doors, all closed.

  My hostess waved her hand around, as if to apologize.

  ‘My home is not much to boast about. But it is all I have to offer my child, and all that my poor father had to offer me. He was a skilled carpenter once, or so said all those who had known him a long time. But then the bottle took him. Apparently he got the material for his own house from a building that had burnt down.’

  I nodded with understanding. It was hard not to feel sympathy for this crooked little house and its pregnant owner. But all my attention was now focused on the metal box that was standing with its locked secrets on the kitchen table.

  ‘I swear that I have not even touched it since you rang. But I did open it last week, so my fingerprints will be on it, all the same,’ she added, hastily.

  I lifted the metal box onto the living-room table and asked her not to look while I opened it. Synnøve Jensen nodded gravely and handed me the key straight away. Her hand was trembling when I touched it. She demonstratively turned her head away, eyes fixed on the floor, while I unlocked the box.

  I don’t know whether I actually expected to find a letter in the box or not, even less what kind of letter I then expected to find. But I certainly had not anticipated finding what I did.

  There was a stack of letters that nearly filled the box.

  There were ten letters there. All had been sealed and addressed by hand. The letter on top, which I saw as soon as I opened the box, was, to my surprise, addressed to ‘Miss Synnøve Jensen’. The second was addressed to ‘Fredrik Schelderup Esq.’, the third to ‘Leonard Schelderup Esq.’ and the fourth to ‘Miss Maria Irene Schelderup’. Then all the others followed in succession. The letters in the box were addressed to the ten guests present at Magdalon Schelderup’s last lunch.

  The temptation to open one of the letters immediately was irresistible. They all looked the same, so I started with the one on top. It contained photostat copies of two documents. One was the will that had been read to me by the lawyer, Edvard Rønning. The other was a very short letter, which said the following:

  Gulleråsen, 12 May 1969

  For your information, a copy of my certified will is enclosed. My decision regarding the contents is final.

  Yours sincerely

  Magdalon Schelderup

  The few lines must have flickered in front of my eyes for several minutes. Apparently Patricia had been right. Magdalon Schelderup had planned to send an important letter on Monday, either before or after his meeting with me. He had after all written the letter and prepared ten identical copies to be sent. But I could not quite grasp what the intention and purpose was.

  Knowing as I did what the contents of the will were, it seemed to me that this cast in an even more serious light the three who stood to gain most from it – in other words, Magdalon Schelderup’s two sons and his mistress. Judging from what I knew, he had been afraid that one of them might try to kill him as soon they received the letter. It was therefore highly possible that someone had pre-empted him. Especially if the person had known the contents of the will, which had, after all, been lying here for three days – in the metal box to which his mistress had the key. I only had her word for it that she had not used it.

  Synnøve Jensen was obviously a lady of strong will. She was still sitting with her face turned away,
eyes downcast, when I closed the box and looked at her about five minutes later. Two frightened eyes finally met mine across the table and the untouched cups of coffee. I felt sorry for her if she was in fact not a cold-blooded murderer, but I suspected her of being precisely that. So I was ruthless, in the hope of being able to resolve the case then and there.

  ‘There are several letters in the box – and the top one is addressed to you.’

  There was a flicker in her eye, but she did not look away.

  ‘I really had no idea that they were there. He had asked me never to open the box unless he was here, and I did as he told me,’ she said. Her voice was choked and unclear, but loud enough to hear. She repeated her short defence twice more, as if it were an oath.

  I could not be sure whether it was the truth or not. But I did realize that I was not going to get her to change her explanation. So instead I asked her to tell me about Magdalon’s visit here on the previous Friday.

  She stuttered and sniffled to begin with, but then gradually started to talk more coherently. He had offered to drive her home after work. He had done this before, and practically always came in when he did. They had stopped by a cafe in Sørum for dinner. When they got back to the house, she put on some coffee for him, but they went up to the bedroom without waiting for it to be ready. He had gone down again later and came up smiling with a cup of coffee for her. She had not seen him put anything in the metal box, but then he had his own key and could have put the letters there either before or after he came up with the coffee for her. She had been tired and had not got up until he had left.