So I thanked the foreign minister cordially for his time. He shook my hand and jokingly wished me luck with ‘both the spring murder investigation and the autumn election’.
The final seat in Oslo was evidently very uncertain and could be decisive, according to the sheet on the top of the left-hand pile that I glanced at as I left the room. Jonas Lykke had already turned his attention back to the papers by the time I closed the door behind me.
XI
The yellowing papers from the war were waiting on my desk when I got back to the office.
According to these papers, the NS member whose house Magdalon Schelderup and Ole Kristian Wiig had visited on Liberation Day 1945 was called Jens Rune Meier.
I quickly found the case in the archive for unsolved murders under 1942, and could thus confirm that Wendelboe had thus far proved to be reliable. Jens Rune Meier had indeed been shot when out skiing at the start of Easter 1942. The operation had obviously been well planned. The police found the tracks of the perpetrators, who had clearly been familiar with his route and lain in wait behind some undergrowth on a more deserted stretch. The ski tracks led back to the car park, and even though considerable resources were given to the case, not enough evidence was found to pursue it.
At the time of his death, Jens Rune Meier was unmarried. He was a thirty-two-year-old lawyer who lived in Kolsås; a Norwegian citizen from a good middle-class family, but his grandfather had been from Germany, so he had a German surname. It would appear that the occupying forces and the NS had had high hopes for him and, if rumour was to be believed, he was being touted as a possible cabinet minister in Quisling’s government.
Jens Rune Meier glared at me from a black-and-white passport photograph dated autumn 1941, and from a report about the attack in the NS newspaper, Fritt Folk. I sat there for a couple of minutes looking him in the eye without finding the answer as to whether he had been the Dark Prince or not. Following liberation in 1945, no guns were found that in any way resembled the missing 9×19mm calibre Walther pistol. I sat there a little longer musing on where it might be today, as I wrote the short daily report for my boss. The report was not the best I had written, in terms either of language or content. My thoughts were preoccupied with what Patricia might be able to deduce from the new information about the case. In the end, I put the report to one side and drove over to see her a quarter of an hour earlier than agreed.
XII
Patricia listened while we ate the starter and I told her in detail about how Leonard Schelderup was found and the circumstances surrounding his death. She uttered a disapproving ‘hmmh’ several times. And this was clearly not with reference to the delicious vegetable soup.
But she really only got into her stride shortly after the main course had been put on the table and I finally told her about my visit to Petter Johannes Wendelboe. She then became so intensely interested that it took several minutes before she even touched the tenderloin on her plate. I had both expected and hoped that she would show greater interest in Magdalena Schelderup and her wartime fiancé. What instead fascinated Patricia was the chronology of her fiancé’s death and other events that took place within the group.
‘Hans Petter Nilsen was killed on 12 May and Bjørn Varden on 5 September 1941. Magdalon Schelderup joined the Resistance group in the summer of 1941, and the NS member, Jens Rune Meier, was executed at Easter 1942, following Schelderup’s suggestion just before Christmas 1941… The pattern is so striking that I do not for a moment believe that it is coincidence.’
I nodded and racked my brains to discover what this striking pattern might be.
‘Did you ask Wendelboe if he could remember what date Magdalon Schelderup joined the group? Because that is one of the two key questions that I need to have answered before I can move on.’
I shook my head apologetically. Patricia’s reaction was as instantaneous as it was surprising. She lifted her telephone from the table and held the receiver out to me.
‘Then ring him and ask now!’
I looked at Patricia, astonished, and saw that she was deadly earnest and impatient.
‘Please call Petter Johannes Wendelboe at once! This is extremely important, and will possibly determine whether my theory is correct or not. And if my theory is right, we will have taken a great leap forward.’
I was not entirely sure about calling the Wendelboes at this time in the evening, so tried to bide my time.
‘And what date would Schelderup have to have joined for your theory to be confirmed?’
Patricia did not bat an eyelid and replied immediately.
‘If I was going to give a date for when he joined the Resistance movement, I would say 23, 24 or 25 June 1941. But any time within a fortnight after would also fit. If, on the other hand, Wendelboe says that Magdalon Schelderup joined earlier, then my otherwise alluring theory falls apart.’
I understood nothing. Not a jot. Either about what kind of theory one might build around the chronology of these events, or where the dates 23, 24 or 25 June had sprung from. I sent Patricia a pleading look, but she continued to stare at me without touching her food. As I then continued to prevaricate, Patricia did the most extraordinary thing. She dialled the number from memory and quickly handed me the receiver. I had barely had time to put it to my ear when I heard an authoritative male voice say: ‘You have called the Wendelboes, can I help you?’ Patricia leant forward across the table to hear what he was saying.
I stammered an apology for disturbing him again, but assured him that I only had one short, straightforward question about the Second World War, which was of some importance, and that was if he could remember around what date Magdalon Schelderup had contacted him in 1941 to offer his services.
‘The twenty-fourth of June.’
The date rang out in my ear. I had to put my other hand up to the receiver in order not to drop it in surprise. And above the telephone I saw Patricia sitting waving her hands triumphantly above her head in silence, like a footballer who has just scored a goal.
‘And you are absolutely certain of that?’
I could hear the sceptical edge in my own voice, but there was no doubt whatsoever in his.
‘Absolutely certain. I understand if you find that hard to believe. But 24 June was my brother-in-law Ole Kristian’s birthday, and I was on my way home from his place when I was stopped by Magdalon. And given what happened later, we have always felt that it was a bizarre coincidence.’
I had to agree with him there. I thanked him and put down the receiver. Patricia had now began to eat her meat with gusto, an unusually smug smile on her lips.
‘The cook really has found a perfect tenderloin this time. Sheer luck, of course,’ she commented, after a few mouthfuls.
I gave her a deeply exasperated and admiring look.
‘You would have been burnt as a witch in the Middle Ages for less, Patricia. How on earth did you manage that? And why on earth was 24 June 1941 significant, except for Ole Kristian Wiig’s birthday?’
Patricia took pleasure in slowly swallowing a mouthful of meat before answering. Then she took the book about battles of the First and Second World War from the pile and put it down on the table between us.
‘Fortunately we are not talking about the Middle Ages, but about the Second World War. Nothing special happened on the 23, 24 or 25 June 1941 but, as you know, that made what happened on 22 June all the more dramatic. Keyword: Operation Barbarossa.’