Satellite People

by Hans Olav Lahlum

  I must have looked puzzled, as Patricia sighed with exasperation again.

  ‘Imagine the following situation: Ole Kristian Wiig and Magdalon Schelderup find something in the flat that constitutes a shocking revelation, and it would be a catastrophe for Magdalon Schelderup if it ever got out. The only way to avoid this, then, is to shoot Wiig immediately before he can tell anyone. Schelderup knows that Bratberg is mentally fragile and that an unexpected murder might paralyse him. But how then would he escape and prevent Bratberg bearing witness? If he shot Bratberg as well, he would clearly be guilty. What would you do?’

  I eventually realized where she was going and had to admit that, true or not, it showed creative thinking.

  ‘What I would have done, before it was my word against his, was perhaps to make up a simple and credible story about the other person in the room being the murderer. And then also behave madly myself in the hope that he would become even more confused and come across as the less credible of the two, even when he was telling the truth.’

  Patricia nodded slowly in agreement.

  ‘Exactly. All of a sudden, the most irrational behaviour was the most rational. If that is in fact what happened, it demonstrates how terrifyingly quick-witted and cynical Magdalon Schelderup could be. So I am working on the theory that Bratberg’s apparently incredible account is true and that it was Magdalon Schelderup who shot all three Resistance men during the war.’

  I had seen it coming now and was therefore not so surprised when Patricia dropped the bombshell that Magdalon Schelderup himself was the Dark Prince. The idea that the Resistance hero Magdalon Schelderup could also be a double agent and triple murderer now seemed plausible. But I was yet to be fully convinced.

  ‘The way you present it now, it all seems very plausible. But I would still like to keep the option open for the moment that it might have been one of the others, most probably either Hans Herlofsen or Magdalena Schelderup. Because that is equally possible, is it not?’

  Patricia nodded somewhat reluctantly.

  ‘I don’t think that it is very likely, but yes, it is absolutely possible.’

  ‘And if we move on from the war to the murder of Magdalon Schelderup . . .’

  Patricia nodded, this time in clear agreement. Then she carried on herself.

  ‘. . . then all options are still open, yes. However, if my theory is correct, it does not rule out that Hans Herlofsen or Magdalena Schelderup, for example, murdered Magdalon Schelderup. Thus far we do not know enough to rule out even one of his guests. They all have or could have strong motives, and the motives simply multiply and get stronger if he did commit one or more murders during the war. The real challenge . . .’

  I had an inkling of what was coming, but it was unexpectedly fast and concise when it came.

  ‘. . . is not to explain why anyone killed Magdalon Schelderup, because everyone around that table might have wanted to do it. The real challenge is still to explain why anyone would kill Leonard Schelderup. And also why in the world the gun was left by the front door.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Well, the mystery of the guest has been solved, at least. It would seem that you were right, that it has nothing to do with the murder.’

  Patricia sat deep in thought again. It was obvious that she was struggling and more preoccupied with the murder of Leonard Schelderup.

  ‘Leonard Schelderup’s male lover definitely had nothing to do with the murder. The fact that Leonard Schelderup had a male lover may, however, be of some interest. I would be keen to know how much his father and brother knew. Do ask the brother about it next time you see him. But there is one thing that puzzles me, in connection with the will.. .’

  She hesitated a moment, but then continued.

  ‘It may be of no significance, but it is worth noting. In the first will, Leonard Schelderup was left ten times as much as his brother. In the second, they were equal. It would seem that something had happened to improve Fredrik’s standing. So I would like to know whether Magdalon knew about Leonard’s secret and, if so, when he found out.’

  I promised to do my best to find out. My visits to Patricia had a tendency to result in both important new conclusions and new tasks.

  She stopped me unexpectedly for a moment as I was about to go out of the door. When I turned around, her face was sombre and pale.

  ‘I should perhaps say that I find this case more and more alarming. And if the theory that is forming in my mind is anything close to the truth, the case will be the epitome of human evil.’

  The sudden gravity with which she said this took me aback, but reinforced my own feelings of danger and unease. I knew her well enough to understand that as there was still so much uncertainty, she was not ready to say any more about her theory. So I put my best foot forward and went off to carry on with the investigation.

  XI

  It seemed to me on the evening of Wednesday, 14 May that the case was becoming more and more intense. It was almost to be expected that the telephone would ring in the evening now, once I had come home. This time it was no later than a quarter past ten and I had just turned on the box to watch the evening’s documentary about the slums of New York.

  Once again it was Sandra Schelderup’s voice I heard at the other end. At first I feared that there had been another death, this time involving Maria Irene. But there was no mention of catastrophe and no angry outburst. Her voice was controlled and in no way unfriendly.

  She apologized for calling me so late. But she was suddenly unsure about something that was potentially of great importance, so she simply wanted to check whether we had found her husband’s sizeable key ring, either in his pocket or his office.

  I replied, as was the truth, that we had not found a key ring of any size, and that she would of course have been told if we had removed anything from the house.

  There was silence on the line between us for a moment. Total silence.

  ‘But . . .’ Sandra Schelderup eventually said, when the silence became unbearable. Then she went on in a hesitant voice.

  ‘But it is not here. So someone must have taken Magdalon’s key ring. And it has keys to all the rooms, cupboards and cars here at Schelderup Hall on it, as well as keys to several other people’s homes. Magdalon liked to have keys to the homes of as many of those close to him as possible; it was part of his need to control.’

  I felt a chill spread through my body and straight away asked which other keys were on the ring. Sandra Schelderup said that she believed he had the keys to both his sons’ homes, his sister’s and his ex-wife’s, possibly also Herlofsen’s, but probably not to his mistress’s and almost certainly not to the Wendelboes’.

  I promised to follow this up immediately, and the first step in doing this was to ask Sandra Schelderup if she would like police protection at the house. She wavered, but then said that it was not urgent. It was perhaps more important to warn the others as soon as possible. I agreed with her and therefore finished the conversation. I did, however, add that she should give my regards to Maria Irene, which she promised to do.

  I still did not trust Sandra Schelderup. Though she did seem to be getting better as the investigation went on. But I was by now already dialling the first number.

  It did not take long to phone around. Mr Wendelboe confirmed that Schelderup did not have a key to his house – ‘not even during the war did he have one’. He denied any knowledge of the missing key ring on the part of himself and his wife.

  Synnøve Jensen stated simply that her dead lover had not had a key to her house. Magdalon had at one point asked to have a key, but had unexpectedly backed down when she explained that she only had one and reassured him that her door would always be open for him: all he had to do was knock.

  Ingrid Schelderup was at home and sounded relatively calm when I spoke to her. She confirmed that her former husband had a key to her flat. He had asked for it shortly after their divorce and she had not wanted to say no. For many years, she had hoped that he
would one day use it but, alas, that had never happened, she added with a mournful sigh. Ingrid Schelderup promised to put on the safety chain, and, if possible, to change the lock in the morning. In the meantime, she would be very grateful for police protection. She was still shaken by the events of the past few days, so I arranged fora policeman to go to her house before I phoned anyone else.

  Magdalena Schelderup was, understandably enough, not so pleased to hear my voice, but thawed as soon as she realized that I had phoned to warn her that the keys had been lost. About which she seemed to be remarkably calm. Her door was already reinforced by a security lock and an extra latch and padlock. It would appear that Magdalena Schelderup was the only one who was cheered by the disappearance of the keys.

  Hans Herlofsen was curt and bitter in his reply that Magdalon Schelderup had always had a key to his house. It was the symbolic subjugation that pained and frustrated him most, but he was sadly in no position to oppose it. He did not trust what Magdalon Schelderup might do in a crisis, and had also secured his door with an extra padlock. Now that his son’s family were living on the ground floor, he reckoned the risk of any danger to be ‘well under 10 per cent’. Even if you disregarded Leonard Schelderup and the murderer, he was still one of eight possible victims should there be any more attacks. And in any case, he could not fathom who would be interested in killing him, now that Magdalon Schelderup himself was dead. In short, Hans Herlofsen also seemed to take the news with relatively good humour, given the circumstances.

  Fredrik Schelderup, however, was in a foul mood, even given the circumstances. He sounded as though he had had a glass or three to steady his nerves already, even before I phoned. Whether it was the number of glasses, a late reaction to his brother’s death, or whether it was because there was a threat to his own safety was hard to say – though I strongly suspected it was the latter. He certainly lost his self-control when I told him that the keys were missing. It was a violent and in part incomprehensible outburst, the gist of which was that the police should have discovered this before and that surely, in 1969, a man should be able to feel safe in his own home, especially in Bygdøy. There was a loud bang when he threw the receiver onto the table.

  He was, however, more subdued when he picked it up again a few seconds later. Despite the alcohol in his blood, Fredrik Schelderup was almost his usual self-centred and relaxed self. When he heard my offer of police protection until he got a new lock, he immediately accepted, but then added that the policeman standing guard must not stop two beautiful young ladies who might drop by, as they had nothing whatsoever to do with the case. I mentioned that there were a couple of other things that I would like to ask him about, but that it would perhaps be better to talk tomorrow when he was more sober. He laughed and signed off with a cheerful, ‘Here’s to that.’

  After I had arranged for a policeman to go to his house, I sat there deep in thought. It was not hard to understand that Fredrik Schelderup was under enormous stress following the murders of his father and brother. But it felt as though I had seen a glimpse of another even more egotistical and slightly less jolly Fredrik Schelderup on the phone. All of the nine remaining guests from Magdalon Schelderup’s last supper had now been informed about the missing key ring. They had all denied any knowledge of its whereabouts. It seemed highly improbable that none of them knew. But when I eventually went to sleep around midnight on Wednesday, 14 May 1969, I was no closer to knowing who of the nine had the keys and what they planned to do with them.

  DAY SIX

  Long Day’s Journey Into Night

  I

  My start to Thursday, 15 May 1969 was certainly far from the best. I had scarcely got into the office before the phone began to ring. It was my boss, who asked me to come to his office immediately. I knew straight away that something was wrong. As 17 May was Norway’s constitution day, the day’s newspapers were, in preparation for the national holiday, dominated by advance reports about the launch of Apollo 10 in the USA and the launch of Thor Heyerdahl’s Ra expedition in Morocco. The short, concerned notices that stated there were still no developments in the ‘difficult and important’ investigation into the murders of ‘multi-millionaire Magdalon Schelderup and athletics star Leonard Schelderup’ did, however, warn that a possible media storm might be brewing.

  Even though my boss was in the better of his two possible moods, this was, as anticipated, not a pleasant conversation. I understood that he and the rest of the station were, following the murder of Leonard Schelderup, under mounting pressure to get some concrete results. This in turn meant that there were others internally who were also increasingly impatient to have the case solved. The question as to whether there was anything new to report was therefore becoming urgent. If there was still nothing concrete, then there might be a need to increase the number of people involved in the investigation.

  I told him the truth, that nothing decisive was imminent in the form of an arrest or the like, but that the investigation had made a number of important breakthroughs and that there was every reason to hope that both the cases would be solved soon. Yesterday’s written report was hastily supplemented with some of Patricia’s conclusions, without mentioning her name or the fact that I had been to see her, of course.

  I finished by asking whether my boss, with his formidable experience and skills, could glean anything more than I had thus far from the available information. He smiled and shook his head pensively. The outcome was that I would work overtime on 15 and 16 May, and if no arrests were imminent then we would discuss the case again at some point on the 17 May holiday.

  Once out of my boss’s office, I heaved a sigh of relief. Now, if not before, it struck me that there were obviously plenty of colleagues who would only be too happy to challenge my position. And I stopped at none of the other offices on the way back to mine.

  II

  If the start of the day had been a bit troubled, the rest of the day was all the better for it. The first telephone call was from Schelderup Hall. It was Sandra Schelderup who rang. Her voice was still friendly and respectful. She wanted to thank me once again for leading the investigation so well, and added that both she and her daughter would be very grateful for an update on the situation if I was able to drop by in the course of the day.

  I had no real plans for the day, other than talking to Herlofsen and Wendelboe again. So I replied that I also had a couple of questions that I would like to ask them, and hoped that I could be there around lunch. She said that they looked forward to seeing me.

  I had just put the phone down when there was a knock on the door. An out-of-breath fingerprint technician was standing outside, as he wanted to tell me in person about the sensational find from Leonard Schelderup’s flat. On a bureau by the door in the living room, they had unexpectedly found a single but clear and relatively new fingerprint that corresponded to that of one of the women who had been fingerprinted at Schelderup Hall following the murder of Magdalon Schelderup.

  The faces of the women who could have been there flashed past me before he said the name. And it was the name that I hoped it would be. Two minutes later I was in the car on my way to Gulleråsen. I turned off before Schelderup Hall. This time I was very interested to hear what Magdalena Schelderup might have to say in her defence.

  III

  I arrived at Magdalena Schelderup’s flat with every expectation of solving the case. The result was nothing more than yet another depressing conversation. Either Magdalena Schelderup was a better actress than I thought, or she was genuinely distraught. Again and again she repeated that she had never learnt to tell the whole truth in time and that she should of course have told me this before. With tears in her eyes and desperation in her voice, she also repeated over and over again that Leonard Schelderup had been alive when she left his flat. And that she had no idea who might have killed him or her brother.

  Her story was simple enough and, I had to admit, not entirely incredible. Following Magdalon Schelderup’s death and her intervie
w with me, she had guessed that the finger of suspicion was pointing at her and Leonard, in the first instance. For want of children of her own, she had always got on well with her nephew. So the day after, she had called him and asked if they could meet to discuss matters. He had said she was welcome to come over. She had gone there early in the evening and they had had a pleasant enough conversation, given the situation. She had urged him to confess if he had murdered his father, and said that both she and the others in the family would understand if that was the case. Leonard had been categorical: he had nothing to confess. His aunt had, at the time, not been sure whether she believed him or not. Which she did of course now, she added, with a pained expression on her face.

  Leonard Schelderup had, if one was to believe Magdalena, been relaxed for much of the conversation, but had suddenly become very agitated after a telephone call from an unknown caller around nine o’clock. She had been standing beside him and had been able to hear the voice on the other end well enough to make out the words. The person was accusing Leonard of murdering his father, and threatened that he might soon be murdered himself if he did not lay his cards on the table. The caller then hung up as Leonard replied in desperation that he had nothing to confess. He had been extremely agitated and wanted to call me straight away after the phone call. So she had beaten a hasty retreat. He had locked the door behind her. And that was the last time she had seen her nephew alive, she said, with tears in her eyes.

  ‘He liked you and hoped that you could solve the murder of his father,’ she added swiftly.

  It was without a doubt well intended. However, we were both struck by it. I had, three days later, still not solved the murders of either Magdalon or Leonard Schelderup. And in the light of today’s conversation, she was now the prime suspect for both.