However, Wendelboe did not have much more of any help to say. Neither he nor his wife had ever visited Leonard Schelderup in his flat. They had been at home together the evening before. Wendelboe had suggested inviting a couple to dinner, but his wife had not been up to it, he added, pointedly. I certainly found this to be believable, but noted down all the same that, in reality, the Wendelboes did not have an alibi.
It seemed to me that Wendelboe’s eyes flashed as soon as I said that we now needed to talk about the war. His replies were concise and relatively unemotional as long as we talked about the Resistance group. What he remembered about the dead Resistance men was more or less what was written in the archives. Hans Petter Nilsen had been found dead in his home on 12 May and Bjørn Varden on 5 September 1941. He explained his excellent memory by saying that the death of friends during the war was not something one forgot. Furthermore, he and his wife had talked a lot about it later. Nilsen had lived alone and had neither siblings nor parents who were still alive. Varden had a young wife by the name of Mona, who, as far as they knew, still lived at the same address in 32B Grønne Street.
I made a note of this and swiftly moved on to talk about when Magdalon Schelderup had joined the group. According to Wendelboe, it had happened rather unexpectedly in the summer of 1941: in other words, between the two murders. Wendelboe had at first been rather sceptical and pretended not to know him when Schelderup contacted him. They had studied together for their university entrance exam and their families knew each other, but they were not close friends. The fact that his brother and sister were both members of the NS certainly did not play in Schelderup’s favour. However, he was a man of action, the type of man they needed, and Wendelboe had somewhat reluctantly allowed himself to be persuaded by Ole Kristian Wiig to contact Schelderup again, who had been positively surprised and quickly proved himself to be trustworthy.
We sat looking at each other for a moment or two. He hesitated when I asked him in what way Schelderup had proved himself to be trustworthy.
I hastily added that the case would of course be time-barred and that I did not need any names, but had to know what happened. It could be of vital importance to the murder investigation and might even shed new light on the old war cases.
Wendelboe gave a brief nod to the former and a slower one to the latter. He leant forwards in his chair and continued in a hushed voice.
‘It was a liquidation. An NS member with a lot of power and too many contacts on the German side, who we thought might be a threat to us and other people on the right side. He already had numerous arrests on his conscience, and several of those arrested later lost their lives or health in German war camps. He left behind no wife or children. I have not regretted that action one single day, only that we did not take him out before. We had spoken about it even before Magdalon joined us. I was interested to see whether he would oppose it; after all, it was someone he had studied with and who was a business contact. However, it was in fact Magdalon who initiated the operation. He first suggested it sometime in December 1941. I remember the case was discussed here under the guise of a Christmas dinner.’
‘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.’