‘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.