Satellite People

by Hans Olav Lahlum

  The first person I met at the scene of the crime was the constable who had been standing guard. He immediately came forward when he saw me on the pavement outside. He was a down-to-earth, good police officer who gave a down-to-earth and good report, according to which he had driven here as soon as he had been asked last night and had been standing guard, with a clear view to both sides of the building, since ten to three in the morning. There had been no sign of life in either of the flats in the building at that point. No one had come or gone from either of them, until an older lady, who it turned out was the deceased’s mother, had rung the bell at around twenty past seven. The light in the neighbour’s flat had come on at ten past seven, but there was still no sign of life in Schelderup’s flat by that time.

  Thus there was only one clear conclusion, and that was that if Leonard Schelderup had been murdered during the night, the murderer must have done it and left the building before ten to three in the morning.

  Ingrid Schelderup stood patiently by the window in her son’s flat while I talked to the constable. She waited to unlock the door until I rang the bell, but then took only a matter of seconds.

  The first thing I saw when I stepped into the flat was Ingrid Schelderup’s taut face. The second was her pale, shaking right hand, which was pointing to the floor. And the third was a revolver on the floor where she was pointing. The gun was lying on the carpet just inside the door. With a quick look I could confirm that it was an old Swedish-produced 7.5mm calibre Nagant revolver.

  And so one of the small mysteries was solved. The revolver that had disappeared from Magdalon Schelderup’s cabinet had been found again. But that left another, deeper mystery. And that was who had taken it from Magdalon Schelderup’s gun collection in Gulleråsen a day or two earlier, presumably with the intention of aiming it at his younger son?

  Leonard Schelderup himself was nowhere to be seen in the hallway. He was lying on the floor in the living room beside an armchair that was facing the television. His body was intact, clean and whole, apart from a bullet wound in his forehead from which the blood had poured freely. One look was enough to confirm that any hope of life was long gone. The flow of blood from the wound had already started to congeal. I quickly estimated that Leonard Schelderup had died in the early hours of the morning, at the latest, and perhaps even late in the previous evening.

  With as much sensitivity as I could, I asked Ingrid Schelderup the one question that I needed an answer to here and now: had she found both the body and the gun exactly where they were lying now? She dried a tear before answering, but then gave a decisive nod. She had not touched the revolver and she had only gingerly touched her son on the neck and wrist to feel for any sign of life. The front door was unlocked when she arrived, she told me. When she discovered that, she was almost paralysed by fear. Then she had opened the door and seen the gun without hearing any sounds of life from the flat and had immediately realized that he had been murdered during the night.

  It was easy to draw some conclusions, having looked around the flat. Leonard Schelderup had obviously been shot, presumably with a revolver that someone had stolen from his father’s house and brazenly left on the floor after the murder. Given Leonard Schelderup’s intense fear the night before, it was unthinkable that he might have forgotten to lock the door before going to bed. He must therefore have been murdered by a guest who either had a key or whom he had let in. But there was little more to deduce from the scene of the crime. Even if the list of potential murderers was limited to the nine remaining guests who had been at supper in Schelderup Hall when his father had been murdered two days earlier, it was impossible to exclude any of them.

  I looked at Ingrid Schelderup without saying anything. She looked back at me, equally silent. Her eyes were not only sad, but frightened. I got the feeling that we were thinking the same thing. Namely, that it would seem Leonard Schelderup had been shot in much the same way that members of his late father’s Resistance group had been, but twenty-eight years later.

  II

  One detail in Leonard Schelderup’s flat quickly caught my attention. The two chairs on opposite sides of the kitchen table did not give away much in themselves, even if he did live on his own. But the kitchen table was set for two. The coffee cups served to reinforce the impression that young Schelderup had sat here the night before with a guest. When he called me at around ten o’clock, the guest had not yet arrived, or he had chosen not to tell me. There was not much more to be drawn from it. One of the cups had been used, but the cup and plate on the other side of the table were untouched. I was fairly convinced that Leonard Schelderup’s guest had been sitting on that side.

  However, the most remarkable discovery was in the bedroom. It seemed unlikely that Leonard Schelderup had gone to bed, only to get up again and get dressed before being shot in his living room in the middle of the night. And yet it would appear that there had been considerable activity in his bed the day before. The pillows and duvet were in a tangle and the sheet was half pulled off the mattress. It might of course be the case that Leonard Schelderup had simply not made his bed when he got up yesterday morning, but his mother insisted that he was a very tidy and good boy who always made his bed as soon as he got up. There were no visible physical traces of sexual intercourse on the covers. The crucial proof that someone else had not only been in the flat in the past twenty-four hours, but also in the bed, lay on the pillow. The forensic team found two curly blond hairs that clearly came from Leonard Schelderup’s head, but also three longer, darker hairs that were quite obviously not his.

  As I stood there looking at the three dark hairs, it seemed to me that the case had now leapt forwards towards a possible solution. I felt a stab of sympathy for the dark-haired Synnøve Jensen, but the evidence was certainly stacking up against her.

  Ingrid Schelderup held her poise and control throughout our conversation and the examination of the flat. But then the tragedy apparently struck her. Sitting alone on the sofa, she suddenly broke down and collapsed in a sobbing heap. I managed to coax her back up intoa sitting position. It was of course no easy thing to comfort a woman who has just found her only son shot and murdered. In the end, the constable offered to drive her home and to stay with her until she was given some tranquillizers.

  At half past eight, I was sitting on my own in Leonard Schelderup’s flat, with my dead host lying eternally silent and cold on the floor in the living room. My eyes rested on him while I used his telephone to call the main police station, who promised to send down some more forensic scientists to examine both him and the flat. His body was now finally released from the tension of the past few days. But his face was tense and frightened, even in death.

  I sat there looking at the dead man. There seemed to be no way around it; all circumstances now seemed to point to Synnøve Jensen. Though why she should kill her other lover and fellow conspirator, if that was what Leonard Schelderup had been, was very unclear. But the hairs on the pillow were a strong indication that that was the case.

  III

  I did not need to go far to question my first witness. Leonard Schelderup’s neighbour was the obvious starting point and as luck would have it, she was at home.

  Halldis Merete Abrahamsen was, in her own words, the seventy-nine-year-old widow of a successful pharmacist. She was well off and her mind and all her senses were still in perfectly good working order. And I could absolutely believe that. It was also obvious, however, that her social life and horizons had shrunk somewhat since her husband had died and the children had moved out. The pictures, books and furniture were all those of a woman who spent an increasing amount of time at home, with her thoughts drifting further and further back in time.

  This was a sad situation for Halldis Merete Abrahamsen, but very good for the investigation, as she seemed to have developed a keen interest in her neighbours instead. A small pair of binoculars placed to hand on the windowsill in the kitchen confirmed my suspicions in this regard. And the young Leonard Schelderup
held a special position amongst the neighbours. This was due no doubt to the fact that he lived in the flat next door, but perhaps even more to his name and family fortune. Mrs Abrahamsen proved she had an impressive memory when she rattled off her neighbour’s family tree and the most recent estimates of the family’s wealth.

  ‘One still reads the papers and takes an interest in those around one,’ as she put it.

  The widow first of all expressed her shock at the news about the ‘handsome young man’s tragic death’, and then proceeded to tell me everything about him. As a neighbour he had been very considerate and never disturbed her in any way. He left for work early in the morning and often came home late at night, because of his training sessions. Other than his mother, he seldom had visitors, and on the rare occasions that he did, the guests all left early without making any noise in terms of music or other boisterous behaviour.

  She then lowered her voice discreetly and confided in me that a mysterious man had come to see him in the evening several times this autumn. As she remembered him, he was a young, dark-haired man, but she was a little uncertain of his age as he had a beard, and was wearing a hat and a winter coat with the collar turned up. ‘As if he was doing his best not to be recognized by anyone. Isn’t that rather odd?’ she added in a whisper. The only thing she could say with any certainty about the guest was that it was a man, and that he was above average height.

  I dutifully noted down all the information about this apparent stranger. It was clear that her description did not fit any of the guests from Magdalon Schelderup’s last supper, unless it was Fredrik who had come wearing a false beard. On the other hand, it seemed unlikely that the murder of Leonard Schelderup had nothing to do with the murder of his father the day before. With the exception of his family and their fortune, Leonard Schelderup appeared to have lived a quiet life.

  I pressed on and asked if there were ever any lady visitors.

  Mrs Abrahamsen leant in towards me and lowered her voice even more. It turned out that Leonard Schelderup had lived there for ‘more than four years and seven months’, but she could not ever remember seeing a woman come here, other than his mother. ‘But then last night,’ she whispered with glittering eyes, ‘last night of all nights, I think he had a visit from a lady! Now isn’t that a coincidence?’

  I had to agree with her and made a quick note.

  Halldis Merete Abrahamsen had unfortunately been in the bathroom when the mysterious lady arrived. So she had only heard the clicking of her heels when she arrived at a quarter to eight and then the door closing behind her. She left again at twenty-five to ten, just as it was starting to get dark. But the widow had managed to catch a glimpse of a mink coat, small red hat and high-heeled shoes. The visitor had walked quickly down the path without looking back and then disappeared from sight. A woman of ‘good social standing’, that was obvious, but Mrs Abrahamsen was unfortunately unable to give any more details about her age, hair colour or appearance. But she categorically dismissed my suggestion that it might have been Ingrid Schelderup who had popped by to see her son. She knew the mother’s footsteps too well. This was a lighter tread that she had not heard before.

  The first part of the story only served to strengthen my suspicions regarding Synnøve Jensen, to the point that I nearly drove straight out to arrest her. But then I hesitated when I heard that the visitor had a mink coat. I could not imagine that Synnøve Jensen would possess such a garment and had certainly seen no sign of anything resembling that in her humble abode. This was followed by another cold shower when I realized that Leonard Schelderup had telephoned me after the woman had left. So it was difficult to imagine anything other than that he was still alive.

  When I asked about any later visits, Mrs Abrahamsen was evasive and apologetic. As she was not expecting any further drama that evening, she had gone to bed around ten o’clock; she had slept soundly, as she was suffering from a cold. She had woken up around midnight and thought that she heard some hasty steps outside on the stairs, but had then fallen asleep again without hearing any more. The doorbell had not rung, because then she would have heard it. When I asked whether the footsteps she heard later on that night could have been the same, only this time perhaps without heels, she was ashamed to say she did not know. She had only been half awake, and did not dare say anything other than that the footsteps she had heard around midnight were hasty.

  This could undoubtedly still be combined with my theory so far, that it was Synnøve Jensen if not both times, then certainly the second time, and it was she who had shot Leonard Schelderup in the early hours. It could well have been out of desperation because he had got cold feet and wanted to confess that he was the father of her child and that it was they who had killed his father.

  The theory was in no way idiot-proof, I had to admit. It grated even on my ear. But still it grated less than all the other theories I could think of, so in the end I got into my car and drove out to Sørum.

  IV

  Synnøve Jensen sat at the kitchen table and cried.

  For a long time. Her tears dripped onto my hand when I eventually reached out to put it on her shoulder. Either she was a particularly good actress with a talent for crying when the situation so required, or she was telling the truth when she maintained that she was very sad to hear about the death of Leonard Schelderup. She had never really had the chance to get to know him properly, but he was, after all, the brother of her unborn child and he had always seemed like such a quiet and good person, so she had not a word to say against him. And he had most certainly not had an easy life, caught between his divorced parents and in relation to his new stepmother. And another murder only two days after the first was an even greater shock. So Synnøve Jensen continued to weep.

  It seemed pretty pointless after all this to ask if Leonard Schelderup had been her lover and if she had shot him. So I settled for saying that I had to ask them all to account for their movements yesterday evening. Synnøve Jensen dried her tears and mumbled that she had been at home alone all evening and gone to bed early. She had never been invited to Leonard Schelderup’s home and had definitely never gone there. She had once heard his father phone him from the office, but she could not recall ever having spoken to Leonard Schelderup on the telephone. She had no idea where he lived in Skøyen or which bus to get there. None of this sounded improbable but, on the other hand, there was no one who could confirm it.

  Synnøve Jensen’s wardrobe was by the door and it did not take much time to look through it, limited as it was. It did in fact contain a pair of shoes that might with some goodwill be called high-heeled, but nothing that resembled a mink coat, even seen through an old lady’s eyes. It struck me that the generosity that Magdalon Schelderup had shown to his mistress in his will did not seem to bear any relation to the generosity he had shown her when he was alive. I did not quite trust the idea that everything he had ever given her was now hanging here.

  I drove away from Sørum with the feeling that Synnøve Jensen would definitely end up in hell if her fingerprints were found anywhere in Leonard Schelderup’s flat. And if not, I almost believed her already when she said that she had never been there. And in that case I had no idea who the dark-haired woman from the evening before might be.

  V

  Back at the police station, I was told that the results from the fingerprint analysis were not ready yet. So in the meantime I telephoned Hans Herlofsen and Magdalena Schelderup. Both were composed and seemed to be surprised by the news of Leonard Schelderup’s death. Both denied categorically that they had either called him or been to see him the day before. Both denied, even more vehemently, any knowledge as to who might have killed him. Magdalena Schelderup said that she had been at home alone, but had nothing to back this up. Hans Herlofsen had an alibi until ten o’clock: he had been in the office in the centre of town, in a meeting with three other members of staff about the future of the companies. But after that he was, in his own words, also home alone.

  I spoke
to both Sandra and Maria Irene Schelderup as soon as I could and the answer was much the same. Unlike the others, however, the two ladies at Schelderup Hall had a reliable alibi. Sandra Schelderup had been on the telephone to me about the time that the mysterious woman in the mink coat had visited Leonard Schelderup, and the police outside Schelderup Hall could confirm that both the mother and daughter had stayed at home. They had appeared in the windows at various times during the course of the evening and no one had left the house. The dogs had been quiet all night.

  I breathed a sigh of relief at this news and patted myself on the back for having maintained a police presence at Schelderup Hall overnight. The terrifying thought that young Maria Irene might be involved in the murders in any way receded, even though last night’s alibi did not mean that either she or her mother could be excluded from having taken part in the murder of Magdalon Schelderup.

  Sandra Schelderup also seemed pleased to have an alibi. In light of this, I then let her decide whether she felt it was necessary to keep a police guard at Schelderup Hall or not. She thought for moment or two and then replied that as they had the dogs and since there was really nowhere to hide in the garden, the officers could perhaps leave the following day, unless of course there were any signs of danger in the meantime.

  I had just lifted the receiver to call the Wendelboes when I suddenly remembered the questions that Patricia said I should ask about the war. I also needed to get hold of Fredrik Schelderup to tell him about his brother’s death, and to pay him a visit. So in the end I made a brief telephone call to both of them only to arrange a visit within the next couple of hours.