Satellite People

by Hans Olav Lahlum

  ‘I would not have believed it was possible to get so much wrong in two sentences, and at such a late stage of a murder investigation. Magdalena Schelderup is neither the Dark Prince nor the person who killed Synnøve Jensen. Synnøve Jensen did not kill either the father or the son, she never planned to murder anyone, and nor did she write any of the letters. And just to be clear about it, the person who killed Synnøve Jensen is not the Dark Prince, either.’

  It was indeed quite a salvo, even for Patricia. Fortunately, I still had a trump card up my sleeve, and decided to play it straight away.

  ‘Are you certain that Synnøve Jensen’s murderer was not the Dark Prince? That it was not the same pistol that was used?’

  Patricia shook her head vigorously.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. It would be an incredible coincidence if it was the same kind of gun, or demonstrate a rather warped sense of humour on the part of the murderer.’

  Triumphantly, I pulled out a sheet of paper and threw it down on the table between us.

  ‘Well then you are very wrong yourself, my dear Patricia, and I can prove it. I took this written report from the ballistics expert with me, just in case. It is 100 per cent certain that the bullets that killed Hans Petter Nilsen and Bjørn Varden in 1941 came from the same Walther pistol that was found lying in Synnøve Jensen’s house yesterday. The registration number has been filed off, so we will not be able to trace it, but it is definitely the same weapon.’

  I later regretted that I did not have a camera with me. In a flash, Patricia’s face was transformed into the most surprised woman’s face I have ever seen. It was the face of a person who has suddenly seen their entire perception of the world, their whole view of life, crumble before their very eyes.

  Then, just as suddenly, a relieved grin spread over her face.

  To my astonishment, Patricia whooped loudly in triumph: ‘EUREKA!’

  Then she started to laugh, a loud, coarse laugh. It was almost a minute before she had composed herself enough to talk again.

  ‘Please excuse my somewhat eccentric behaviour. But thanks to you, the final, most important, piece of the jigsaw puzzle has now fallen into place. It is incredible just how ironic fate can sometimes be.’

  I looked at her, nonplussed. She chuckled a bit more, but was then suddenly serious again.

  ‘No more sympathy or other unnecessary luxuries. There really is only one detail left in connection with Leonard Schelderup’s death. Drive over to the hospital to see Ingrid Schelderup, and ask her as soon as she wakes up where the revolver was before she left it on the floor by the front door. When you have found out, come back here, then I will explain to you how this fits in with the other two murders.’

  I looked at her again with a mixture of surprise and scepticism.

  ‘I thought we both agreed that Ingrid Schelderup could not possibly have anything to do with her son’s death?’

  ‘No one is saying that she had anything to do with her son’s death. However, the revolver which was used to shoot her son was lying somewhere else when she got there that morning. And where it was lying when she came in is of vital importance to the question of who shot Leonard Schelderup. And when I have my theory confirmed as to who shot him, I can hopefully quickly fill you in on how everything fits together, including who sprinkled the powdered nuts on Magdalon Schelderup’s food and who shot Synnøve Jensen!’

  This was definitely too good an offer to say no to, particularly given my last conversation with my boss. So I got up and made ready to leave.

  Patricia stopped me with a final brief remark as I stood up.

  ‘To misquote Sherlock Holmes ever so slightly, from one of Conan Doyle’s best novels: the point to which I would wish to draw your attention is what the dogs did in the night-time.’

  I was totally lost.

  ‘But . . . if you mean the guard dogs at Schelderup Hall, they did absolutely nothing on the night that Leonard Schelderup was murdered.’

  Patricia nodded smugly.

  ‘Precisely.’

  I must have looked very bewildered, but Patricia was all secretive and jolly, and just waved me out of the door.

  Three minutes later, I was in the car driving to the hospital. On the way there, I pondered Patricia’s mysterious parting remark, and could find no connection to the fact that the guard dogs at the Gulleråsen mansion had been quiet on the night that Leonard Schelderup had been shot in his flat in Skøyen. But in a strange way, I felt secure in the knowledge that Patricia had seen something that I could not, and that her explanation and solution were just around the corner.

  VI

  Ingrid Schelderup had slept heavily, but had just woken up when I arrived at the hospital. I had to wait a little while until she was in a fit state to talk to me. So I sat waiting for a very long half hour indeed, before being shown into her room at around half past eight. By then I had worked out the connection between who shot her son and the importance of where the revolver was placed. And I had to admit that it seemed highly plausible, to the extent that anything in this case did.

  Ingrid Schelderup kept her dignity well in the face of the greatest tragedy of her life. She was sitting in an armchair, slightly slumped, but fully clothed. Her face was dead and her movements delayed. She looked at least six years older than she had done the first time we met only six days ago. I thought I could even see more grey hairs in amongst the black. Throughout our short conversation, her body seemed to be hanging off the chair. Her head sat atop her thin neck and moved very gently back and forth and her eyes were still alive. They stayed fixed on me from the moment I came through the door. She nodded faintly, but did not say anything or make any other movement.

  I sat down with care on the chair that had been put out in front of her table, so that we were only a few feet apart.

  ‘I do apologize that I have to disturb you. We all sympathize with your grief over the enormous loss of your son, and we have no reason to believe that you have anything to do with any of the murders . . .’

  She nodded almost imperceptibly again, but still did not say anything. Her tense, fearful eyes were fixed on me.

  ‘However, we do now have reason to believe that you have given us some false information regarding an important point which may be vital to the investigation.’

  Everything in the room stood still for a few breathless moments. I still feared an outburst of anger. But all I got was another small nod. This time, barely that.

  ‘The revolver that was used to shoot your son was on the floor by the front door when you left. But it was not there when you arrived. Where was it then?’

  I saw a ripple down Ingrid Schelderup’s neck, while her face remained blank. I realized soon after that she was in fact trying to speak, but could not find her voice. In the end, I saw no other solution than to assist her.

  ‘It was on the floor beside your son, wasn’t it?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And the reason that we did not find his fingerprints on the revolver was that you had wiped them off.’

  She nodded in silence one last time. Then she finally found her voice. It was still not much more than a whisper, but it was a pleasure to hear it break the tense silence between us.

  ‘I didn’t know what I was doing, and then later could hardly remember what I had done. The boundary between life and dreams was so hazy. And now everything is just a blur. But yes, I must have.’

  And suddenly there was no more to be said. The truth about Leonard Schelderup’s death was painfully clear, both to me and his mother. She was the one who spoke first.

  ‘But you really must not believe that . . . Leonard did not kill his father. Quite the contrary, it was the death of his father that killed him. Leonard’s life was never easy, but he was the kindest boy in the world. He would never have hurt anyone other than himself.’

  I nodded to reassure her.

  ‘I believe you. But no matter how confused and grief-stricken you were, you obviously understood wha
t would happen – that if it got out that he had shot himself, everyone would believe that he shot his father and then regretted it. And you understood the importance of removing his fingerprints.’

  She nodded.

  ‘I apologize,’ she said suddenly, her voice thick with tears.

  I got up to leave, when she rather unexpectedly asked me a question.

  ‘The poor secretary who was shot last night . . . I didn’t really know her that well; she came from a different background, after all. But I hope for her sake and for mine . . . that things would not have been any different for her if I had told you the truth before?’

  I desperately wanted to answer no. But I had to be honest, so I said that at the moment no one could answer that, and it was possible that no one ever would. At last there was some movement in the sagging body in the chair. With surprising speed, she lifted her hands and hid her face.

  I quickly thanked her for her help and left the room as quietly as I could. I had thought of asking Ingrid Schelderup formally whether she still denied having sprinkled nuts in her ex-husband’s food, but I was now certain that she had not. And I had feared that I might have to ask her what she knew about her son’s secret love life, but that was obviously no longer of any importance.

  ‘We have nothing left to say to each other that matters any more,’ a seventeen-year-old summer love once told me at Åndalsnes train station many years ago. And rather oddly, this remark echoed in my ears as I closed the door to the sixty-year-old Ingrid Schelderup’s hospital room on Friday, 16 May 1969. I had the same feeling that we would not see each other again and that we would never have anything more of any significance to say to each other anyway.

  It was only when I was on my way back that I realized how much I dreaded telling Petter Johannes Wendelboe. He would now have to take those seemingly endless steps into his wife’s room to tell her that Leonard Schelderup did in fact take his own life only hours after she called and threatened him.

  I still could not fathom who had killed Magdalon Schelderup. But I thought to myself that whoever it was had started a chain of events that was claiming ever more victims, including some of the living. Then I thought about Patricia’s comment that all of the ten guests at Magdalon Schelderup’s last supper were satellite people. Two of them had now definitely crashed and two others were so out of orbit that it was uncertain whether they would ever find their paths again. And hidden in their ranks was still one, if not two murderers. And as I drove back to 104–8 Erling Skjalgsson’s Street, I was more unsure than ever about who this might be.

  VII

  ‘So there you have it. You have solved the mystery of who shot Leonard Schelderup. The answer is Leonard Schelderup himself.’

  Patricia nodded glumly and took a deep breath in preparation for one of her longer speeches.

  ‘I should have dared to draw that conclusion earlier, but was uncertain because of the gun. The problem was not so much where it was lying, but where it was not lying. I did not want to risk accusing poor Ingrid Schelderup unnecessarily. The answer was really very logical to anyone with a minimal understanding of psychology. It would hardly be surprising if Leonard Schelderup had had suicidal thoughts earlier, given his great secret and his troubled relationship with his father and family. Poor Leonard was, as his sister said, strong on the tracks where he felt at home, but weak where he did not. And then he was forced out of orbit, into a highly vulnerable and unpredictable position in space. He clearly considered suicide as an option when he took the revolver from Schelderup Hall. What finally pushed him totally off course was the series of events later on in the day. First of all, his aunt urged him to confess, then he was threatened by a stranger on the telephone. We will never know for certain what was the final straw. I think it is quite possible that his conversation with you helped him through the first crisis after the telephone call, and that it was in fact his lover who quite unintentionally gave him the final, fatal push later on in the evening. Despite all his talents, Leonard Schelderup had been a very lonely person all his life. After all those years, he had finally found his love. Imagine the disappointment, then, when the only person he truly trusted and loved also urged him to confess. Who on earth would believe him then?’

  Patricia gave a sorry shake of the head and concluded sadly: ‘His lover of course knew no better. Even though Leonard Schelderup pulled the trigger himself, it still feels as though he was murdered. In part by a conservative society that would not allow him to live the way he wanted, simply because he was different. And in part by the evil person who intentionally and in cold blood put him under impossible pressure by means of the well-staged poisoning of Magdalon Schelderup.’

  I vaguely noted that Patricia had an unexpectedly liberal view on homosexuality, despite her conservative family background. However, I was so focused on developments in the investigation that I did not stop to discuss the topic.

  ‘There is, alas, not much that we can do about the former, but there is definitely something we can do now about the latter. Who was it who sprinkled the nuts on Magdalon Schelderup’s food?’

  Patricia finished her coffee and then sat in contemplation.

  ‘That is, if possible, the most depressing part of the whole thing. Over the past few days, I have come to realize that the two who have lost their lives were perhaps the kindest of the guests round the table when the man they all orbited died. The murder of Synnøve Jensen was, as I have already said, cold-blooded in the extreme. The powdered nuts in Magdalon Schelderup’s food and the plan behind it are, even so, the peak of human evil and the work of an extremely devious and egotistical person.’

  I waited in suspense for the name of Magdalon Schelderup’s murderer. But instead, Patricia started to reflect on his nature.

  ‘I understood very early on that the guests sitting around the table were all satellite people who orbited Magdalon Schelderup. But I did not fully understand to begin with how inseparable his dominant and extremely distinct personality was from the solution. You should always be wary of making psychological diagnoses of dead people. However, there can be no doubt that Magdalon Schelderup, behind his mask, suffered from severe narcissism. It is a condition suffered by many famous geniuses throughout history, including the philosopher Nietzsche. The symptoms are an exaggerated ego that often results in an equally exaggerated lack of consideration for others, and a pathological need for control. Life for Magdalon Schelderup was simply a matter of asserting himself, the line between the play and the player becoming ever more diffuse. And this is where the key lay to the mystery of his death.’

  Patricia was silent for a long time following this introduction. I realized that she wanted to wait a little longer before revealing the name of the person who had killed Magdalon Schelderup, so asked instead what clues she had followed.

  ‘There were various factors that all pointed in the same direction. But the most important thing was the letters. One thing was the question as to why the murderer had taken the trouble to send them to the police. And the other was just how different they were. The first letter was very detailed; the second one that came in the post and the others that were found in Synnøve Jensen’s house were remarkably general and vague. They contained nothing to indicate any knowledge of the later deaths. In fact, we would probably have dismissed them as the work of a mad person, had it not been for the first letter and the few similarities. There was also the strange fact that the first letter was posted before Magdalon Schelderup’s death, whereas the second was not posted until after his son’s death.’

  I looked at her with some scepticism.

  ‘So are you saying that the first letter was written by someone different from the others?’

  Patricia shook her head.

  ‘I did consider that possibility. But gradually I came to favour the alternative possibility, based on the obvious technical similarities between the letters, and the fact that no one had seen the first one. This was that the letters were written by the same p
erson, but that he or she for some reason knew more about the first death than the subsequent ones. Now that we know that Leonard Schelderup committed suicide, it seems reasonable enough that no one else could know the details before or after.’

  ‘But if the letters were written by the same person then, judging by the circumstances, they must have been written by Synnøve Jensen? How else would you explain the fact that the last letters were found at her house with only her fingerprints on them? Were the letters planted there by the person who murdered her?’

  Patricia shook her head again, but only briefly.

  ‘The murderer could in theory have planted the letter in her pocket, but not the others in her books. She is the one who posted the letter after Leonard Schelderup’s death.’

  I felt increasingly baffled.

  ‘I am sure that when we discussed my theory earlier on today, you were quite clear that Synnøve Jensen had nothing to do with the letters?’

  ‘I did not say that Synnøve Jensen had not posted one of the letters, or that she would not post any more. However, she did not write them. In fact, circumstances would indicate that she had not even read them.’

  ‘So it was not she who posted the first letter?’

  Another shake of the head, but this time more definite.

  ‘No. If she had known anything about the first letter, she would no doubt have informed you straight away. Magdalon Schelderup’s death was a shock for his lover, and she probably knew nothing about how much she stood to gain from the will. The first letter, and that one alone, was posted by another person. By the very same person who, the day after, according to his fiendish and cunning plan, sprinkled nuts onto Magdalon Schelderup’s food.’

  Patricia paused for effect and drank another full cup of coffee. The expression on her face was the grimmest I had seen. I had to prod her to continue.

  ‘So you are saying that the murderer is a man and that he wrote all the letters, but posted only the first one. The second one was posted by Synnøve Jensen, who had no idea what it said.’