Satellite People

by Hans Olav Lahlum

  ‘And the operation itself?’

  Wendelboe hesitated for a moment again, but then carried on.

  ‘It took place later on in the spring, towards Easter 1942. He was shot when he was out skiing. I have promised never to say who was involved in those operations.’

  ‘But it may be vital, in terms of Schelderup’s role and his murder. I have to ask whether Schelderup was directly involved in the hope that you will either nod or shake your head?’

  Wendelboe gave it a couple of moment’s thought, then gave a curt nod.

  ‘Ole Kristian Wiig?’

  He nodded again.

  ‘Hans Herlofsen?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘And yourself?’

  He nodded. In that moment I believed his story and did not feel the need to press him any further. Certainly not at the moment. Instead I quickly changed the subject and threw down one of the trump cards that Patricia had given me.

  ‘One might go to these Sunday suppers because one is forced to, or because one is in love with someone who is there, or because one wants to eat, because one wants to drink, or because one likes to hear oneself talk. No one could force you to go if you did not want to; you are a loyal husband, you did not need to go there for food and drink, and you never said anything when you were there. So you went there for another reason . . .’

  Wendelboe looked at me, his eyes even more alert. I also thought I caught a glimpse of respect there.

  ‘You went there to listen. And whatever it was that you hoped to hear was about the war, was it not?’

  To my surprise, my strategy still worked. He nodded again.

  ‘The mystery of our friends who were killed in 1941 was still unexplained and unsolved. But even more, it was the other incident that spurred me to go, the one from Liberation Day.’

  I asked him to tell me some more about the alleged murder. A fleeting shadow crossed his face before he answered.

  ‘Arild Bratberg was a well-meaning, if weak, man. We should never have taken him on. I can never forgive myself for letting us make that mistake. It would not have been easy to predict such a tragedy, but the link seemed to be clear enough. After all, he was caught with a smoking gun in his hand and a totally insane explanation of what had happened. So, in the end, I could live with it.’

  ‘But your wife . . .’

  He nodded and gave a quiet sigh. His gaze suddenly left me and moved over to the wall.

  ‘I hoped that time would help to heal the wounds. But instead it seemed to get worse when the children left home and she had more time to dwell on the difficult memories. I could well have done without Magdalon Schelderup’s parties. But my wife continued to hope, so I sat there with her and listened for anything that might provide an answer. For him to say something about Ole Kristian’s death, or for her to say something about the others.’

  I had to think for a moment before I understood what he meant.

  ‘And by her, you mean Magdalena?’

  He nodded again.

  ‘She might know something about them?’

  He coughed. ‘This may sound strange. At first we all thought that the Dark Prince had to be a man. But if the Dark Prince was in fact a woman, then it was not unthinkable that . . .’

  I gave Petter Johannes Wendelboe a sharp look. He looked directly at me and his eyes did not waver. And in that moment I felt a peculiar fearful admiration for him.

  ‘We have for all these years hoped and believed that the member of the NS whom we shot in the spring of 1942 was the Dark Prince. There were no further murders later. Magdalena Schelderup was one of the few people who might have known enough about us to be the Dark Prince. Or she may have known who it was. Whatever the case, we listened well to what she said. But there was nothing new to be learnt there, certainly not as long as we or Hans Herlofsen were close by. Magdalon, on the other hand, said something very interesting during the previous meal . . .’

  He stopped abruptly, but then continued when I sent him a quizzical look.

  ‘He suddenly announced that he had been thinking about some questions from the past in recent months, and hoped that he would finally find some answers. It was, certainly for my wife and me, reasonable to interpret this to mean the war and the Dark Prince.’

  He stopped there, with one of his ambiguous smiles. Then he added: ‘We of course hoped that he would say more this Sunday.’

  ‘Did you notice if any of the others reacted at the time?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘It was completely out of the blue and said in passing. We did not notice any reaction from Herlofsen or the former Mrs Schelderup, either then or during the meal. Both my wife and I looked at Magdalon first, then quickly over at his sister. She looked, as no doubt the rest of us old-timers did, first surprised and then tense. And then there was not much more to be gleaned.’

  ‘And you did not ask Magdalon about it later?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘No. I realize that may seem strange. But it was impossible to raise the question there and then with eleven people around the table. And I knew Magdalon well enough not to ask later. I knew that he would not answer and he of course knew that I would not ask, for that very reason. If Magdalon knew more about the Dark Prince and other things from the war, he would let me and the others know as and when it suited him.’

  ‘Let’s go back to Liberation Day 1945. If I have understood correctly, the drama took place in the home of a former NS man who had been exterminated?’

  Wendelboe nodded, and again I thought I caught a glimpse of admiration in his eyes. But it still took a few moments before I summoned the nerve to follow this up, and when I did it was again in anticipation.

  ‘Do you remember when he was killed?’

  Wendelboe nodded, but said nothing.

  ‘On a skiing trip in spring 1942?’

  He nodded again, and gave an appreciative shrug.

  ‘That was why we went to his house on Liberation Day in 1945. We hoped that we would find some papers, weapons or anything else that might confirm that he was the Dark Prince and had been responsible for the death of our two friends. Then we could finally lay the case to rest. Instead the expedition ended in tragedy with us losing one of our men, and this time one we could ill afford to lose.’

  ‘It is easy to understand that these things have deeply affected you and your wife. Imagine if we were now, many years later, to discover something that in some way linked Magdalena Schelderup, or even Magdalon Schelderup, to any of these murders, how would you react?’

  When I looked up, it was all I could do to stop myself from pulling back. Petter Johannes Wendelboe controlled himself well and remained sitting in his chair, his face directly in front of mine, and spoke in a hard, low whisper.

  ‘We now live in a free country and a constitutional state, my young man, which was not the case during the war. I would immediately telephone you or someone else in the police.’ His eyes were suddenly piercing and hard.

  ‘But the first two murders are already time-barred, and the third will be so shortly. So let us imagine that for this reason or other formal reasons, a case could not be raised . . .’

  ‘Then I do not know what I would do. But that has not happened.’

  I nodded in agreement. To contradict Petter Johannes Wendelboe in his current frame of mind was not a tempting idea at all.

  ‘No one is claiming that it has. But it is a possibility that you and your wife have discussed, is it not? That Magdalon Schelderup might himself in some way have something to do with the deaths?’

  He nodded and hurried to reply.

  ‘We did not believe it, but did not dare to rule anything out. The cases were so extraordinary and you never knew what Magdalon might do.’

  ‘Magdalon was a hard man to fathom.’

  ‘We know of nothing that might link him to the deaths and we have no idea who killed him.’

  ‘And the disturbed Resistance man, Arild Bratberg, have
you ever encountered him since?’

  He shook his head firmly.

  ‘Never. I went to the trial after the war for a day, and he cut a pathetic figure. It only served to strengthen my belief that it must have been him who killed my brother-in-law. And I have never seen him since, nor wished to.’

  This was said with intensity and absolute conviction. I believed him and he felt it. When I thanked him for his help and stood up a couple of minutes later, we were suddenly on an almost friendly footing again.

  Wendelboe was once more his normal relaxed and controlled self when he showed me out. I liked him better than I had when I arrived. But I had also seen a glimpse of the other Petter Johannes Wendelboe. The one who had, once upon a time, taken decisions regarding life and death, and then ensured that those decisions were carried through. And in that moment I had understood what people meant when they said that Petter Johannes Wendelboe was perhaps the only person Magdalon Schelderup was afraid of. At the end of the day, I did not think that Wendelboe had killed Magdalon Schelderup or had anything whatsoever to do with Leonard Schelderup’s death. But if I had ever been in any doubt that he might under certain circumstances be capable of killing someone, I no longer was.

  We shook hands by the front door. His handshake was warm, but I was also surprised by its strength. He said once again how grateful he was that it had not been necessary to disturb his wife and added that he hoped that what he had told me would be of some help.

  Just as Wendelboe was about to unlock the door, I asked one final question that might be of significance.

  ‘Do you happen to know the name of the man Magdalena Schelderup was engaged to, the one who broke off the engagement in autumn 1940?’

  He stopped mid-movement and stood stock-still looking at me fora moment.

  ‘Yes. There was a time when I knew Magdalena Schelderup’s fiancé well. He died many years ago now.’

  I nodded, but still did not understand the connection.

  ‘I would still like to know his name before I go.’

  He nodded, and it struck me that he seemed almost relieved.

  ‘Magdalena Schelderup’s fiancé was called Hans Petter Nilsen. He was an unusually good man, who deserved someone better,’ was Petter Johannes Wendelboe’s curt reply.

  Then he opened the door for me. Outside, on the front step, I commented that it might perhaps be worth my while to speak to Mona Varden. He answered swiftly that it might be a good idea, but that I should also perhaps consider talking more to Magdalena Schelderup first.

  I had to concede this point, but did not mention that there was in fact a third woman I definitely had to talk to first. I was very interested to find out what Patricia would make of all of this.

  IX

  Back at the office, I looked through the preliminary findings from Leonard Schelderup’s flat. The pathologist was confident that the cause of death was a bullet to the head, fired at close range. The time of death was less certain, but he could say with 90 per cent certainty that the shot was not fired before half past twelve and with 100 per cent certainty that it was not fired before midnight. The ballistics expert could add that the bullet in Leonard Schelderup’s head definitely came from the revolver that had been found lying on the floor in the hallway.

  The report from the flat was hardly sensational and not particularly uplifting. There were no fingerprints on the gun. This fact, and the position of the gun in a different room from the body, precluded all theories of suicide.

  An examination of the living room and bedroom had thus far produced traces of only two sets of fingerprints. One naturally belonged to the deceased, Leonard Schelderup. The other, which was found on both the bed and the sofa, did not belong to any of the nine living suspects.

  And so I had to admit to myself, if no one else, that my theory that it was Synnøve Jensen who had paid a visit to Leonard Schelderup’s bed had come crashing down like a house of cards. Without any great hope of a breakthrough, I asked if they could examine the other rooms and also start to compare the new fingerprints with those registered in our archives. The former would take another day, the latter possibly more.

  The time was no more than three in the afternoon. For want of more clues to follow up in relation to Leonard Schelderup, I turned to the questions Patricia had given me regarding his father.

  Finding Magdalon Schelderup’s doctor proved to be as simple as finding his telephone number. I was given both in a two-minute telephone conversation with Sandra Schelderup. Getting through to the doctor was, however, not so easy. To begin with, the telephone was engaged for ten minutes, but the problems began in earnest when someone finally answered. It took me five minutes at least to convince the super-pedant of a nurse that I really was a detective inspector. Then it took a further ten minutes to persuade her that a murder investigation had to take precedence over a consultation with a patient, even when the patient was over forty-five and had a blood pressure that was several per cent more than average.

  The doctor himself was a pleasant surprise when he finally came on the line. He was so unbureaucratic and informative with his answers that I almost made up for the time lost on the engaged signal and the pedant nurse. Yes, he had been Magdalon Schelderup’s personal doctor for many years, twenty-one to be precise. Yes, Schelderup had been in generally good shape both physically and mentally. Yes, something dramatic had happened to his health a year ago. Again, to be precise, on 8 July 1968.

  The doctor had noted the date partly because it was his best-known patient, and partly because it was the first time he had experienced a patient having a heart attack in his waiting room. The nurse had called the doctor when she discovered Schelderup sitting almost lifeless with his eyes closed on a chair in the waiting room, mumbling incomprehensible words. He had been treated quickly and the situation had not been life-threatening. At his own wish, Schelderup had gone home after only a few hours in hospital. The heart attack had, however, revealed serious heart disease which meant that Schelderup was not likely to live much more than two or three years longer, with the risk of a new and more serious heart attack within the next twelve to sixteen months.

  Nor had the doctor ever known a patient to receive such grave news with such calm as Magdalon Schelderup showed. He had later come to several routine check-ups, but had never asked any questions or made any comments as to how he felt about the situation. He had not revealed who he had told about his heart, but the doctor had the impression that he had kept it to himself.

  My final question to the helpful doctor was whether he had heard anything of what Magdalon Schelderup had said when he was semi-conscious after the heart attack. The doctor remarked with a merry little laugh that that was something that Magdalon Schelderup had also asked, a few hours after the attack. He could only tell me what he had told him – and that was that the name ‘Synnøve’ was the only thing that had been clear to anyone in the midst of all the incomprehensible burble. Schelderup had commented with an almost joking smile that it was, in principle, perhaps not such a good thing to mention your secretary rather than your wife, but at least no great secrets had been revealed.

  In short, Patricia had once again been right. Something dramatic had happened in Magdalon Schelderup’s life in the summer of 1968, which provided a credible explanation as to the origins of his first will. However, any deeper significance in relation to his dramatic death in May 1969 was still unclear to me, to say the least.

  My ponderings on the cases from the war were suddenly interrupted by a heavy pounding on the door. A breathless constable came into the room and, obviously impressed, informed me that they had just received a phone call from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The foreign minister, Jonas Lykke, was leaving on a trip to Eastern Europe the following morning, but would take the time to see me this afternoon if I could go there immediately.

  X

  The foreign minister, Jonas Lykke, was smaller than he looked on the television, but otherwise more or less as I expected.
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br />   The former Resistance fighter and prime minister was what could be described as corpulent with greying hair. But his gaze was still intense, his voice was dynamic and his handshake was firm. Sitting behind a large desk in his office, Jonas Lykke radiated precisely the calm and dignity that one would expect of a foreign minister.

  There were two tall piles of paper in front of him. To my surprise, they both appeared to be about the mandate possibilities in the up-and-coming general election, rather than the day’s foreign policy issues.

  ‘I must say that I am not entirely sure how I can be of use with regards to your ongoing murder investigation. But I will of course do everything I can to help you,’ he said after a couple of moments, in his characteristic dialect.

  I took the hint that the foreign minister’s time was limited and promptly launched into a hastily improvised list of questions.

  In answer to my first question about the treason trials after the war, the foreign minister apologized that he unfortunately knew nothing about them. He had spent the final years of the war in Sweden. He denied any knowledge of operations carried out by Resistance groups in Oslo during that time, and he had only heard about the ‘tragedy on Liberation Day’ after the event. From what he had read, there was something very odd about the circumstances surrounding Ole Kristian Wiig’s death. But legally the case appeared to be cut and dried and had quickly been overshadowed by the trials against leading Nazis.

  Lykke sat lost in thought fora few moments after he had mentioned this, but then quickly returned to the present. He concluded in a grave voice that he unfortunately could not be of much help to me with regard to the war either. He had met both Magdalon Schelderup and Petter Johannes Wendelboe several times later, but did not know either of them particularly well and had never discussed with them what went on in the war. At the time, Schelderup had been more interested in the Cold War and contingency plans for a possible Soviet invasion. Even after fifty, he seemed to be a man who preferred to guard against possible future scenarios rather than dwell on the past.