Her eyes met mine, but I could not see any affirmative or negative response. The same happened when I asked: ‘Was it Magdalena Schelderup?’ I could not work out whether Synnøve Jensen did not want to confirm or simply could not.
Synnøve Jensen waved her left hand towards the back of the room again, with even less force. Her eyes looked into mine with a deep desire to tell me something, but she was unable to express what. Her free hand crept slowly up and stopped on her belly. Then her eyes closed.
For some reason, as soon as her eyes closed, I started to count the pulse in her wrist. I felt four slow beats. Then Synnøve Jensen’s pulse stopped.
I sat for a few seconds with her hand in mine before slowly releasing my hand from her dead body, which sank down onto the sofa with no resistance. I was gripped by a violent rage, in part with myself, but mostly with the faceless person I was pursuing. Synnøve Jensen was dead, and her unborn child was now dying in her womb. I had come a few minutes too late to prevent the murder and perhaps only seconds too late to hear Synnøve Jensen say who it was who had shot her. I had no idea what to do now. I had seen no sign of another living soul out there in the dark. It was most likely that the murderer was over the hills and far away by now.
I went over to her telephone and called for an ambulance. Then I rang Romerike police station to let them know that there had been a murder, and that I was already at the scene of the crime.
Then I dialled Patricia’s number.
I was worried that she might already have gone to bed. It was a great relief when I heard her voice after only five rings. I explained very quickly where I was calling from and what I had seen.
There was silence on the other end for a few seconds. Complete silence. It felt as though neither of us dared to breathe.
After a few breathless seconds, Patricia let out a deep sigh before starting to speak.
‘You said that you had just come in through the door, which was unlocked, and found Synnøve Jensen who had been shot and was dying, but still visibly alive with her eyes open. A pistol lay on the floor beside her. She could not speak but waved her hand twice towards the back of the room before she died?’
‘Yes,’ I confirmed.
‘But…’ she started.
There was silence again for a moment, before she mustered the courage and continued.
‘But then the shot cannot have been fired more than minutes before and it is unlikely that the murderer would dare to leave while she was visibly still alive. So then the most feasible explanation is without a doubt that the murderer was standing there waiting for her to die and when you knocked on the door, dropped the gun onto the floor and ran upstairs to hide in one of the rooms. In which case, he or she will still be there.’
Neither of us said anything. I turned around quickly and looked up the stairs. There was no sign of movement up there. However, the logic in what Patricia had just said was undeniable. Synnøve Jensen had tried to say something when she waved her hand around and she had indicated the stairs, not the door. There was a considerable chance that the murderer was still upstairs.
‘As the murder weapon is still there and as it is unlikely that the murderer would want to be caught with the weapon after the murder, it is likely that he or she is unarmed now. But one cannot of course be certain of that. As you have not heard any noises, you may assume that there is only one person. But of course, one cannot be certain of that either,’ Patricia’s voice said, with a sudden worried undertone.
I thanked her and promised to call back as soon as I had a chance. Then I put down the phone.
I sat still for a brief moment, my eyes moving between the dead Synnøve Jensen and the empty stairs. I did think about calling the police station again to ask for reinforcements. But I was not sure that there was anyone upstairs and the risk that the intruder might escape through a window or over a balcony would only increase in the time that it would take to get any backup here. And what is more, I had no idea how long it would take to get more men here so late in the evening.
So I sat there, staring at the gun. With a pounding heart, I realized that it was an old Walther pistol, the same type that the Dark Prince had used to shoot his two victims during the war. The thought that the Dark Prince might be hiding upstairs made the possibility of an arrest even more tempting. So I made a hasty decision that there were not likely to be any fingerprints on the gun in any case, and picked it up with my handkerchief. Then, armed with the murderer’s own weapon, I mounted the stairs to the first floor. I vaguely registered that my watch showed that it was a quarter past eleven precisely when I started my ascent.
XIV
The stairs swayed and creaked alarmingly under my weight. But all was quiet on the first floor. There were three doors and I had no reason to choose one rather than the other.
So the most obvious thing was to start with the door closest to the stairs. It was unlocked and there was no light to be seen through the keyhole. I rapped on it twice. Then I opened the door with the gun raised.
There was no sign of life in the room. But I did see something that made my stomach lurch – I was in the deceased Synnøve Jensen’s bedroom. Her bed was made up for the night and by the head was a small cradle, standing ready for the baby.
I turned away from the cradle and could quickly ascertain that there were no hiding places in the room. Nor were there any possible escape routes. The room did not have a window, only a small air vent in the wall.
So I went back out onto the landing again and over to the middle door. When I looked through the keyhole, this also appeared to be dark and unlocked. Again I knocked on the door twice, without any response. With all my senses alert and the pistol at the ready, I opened the door.
This time I stepped into a tiny bathroom. There was evidence here too of how happy Synnøve Jensen was about her baby. She had made a small nappy-changing area ready by the very ordinary sink. There was not a trace of the person who had killed both the mother and her unborn child only minutes ago. And again, the bathroom did not have a window, just an air vent in the wall that you could scarcely get a hand through.
Only one door remained. If the murderer had run up the stairs, then he or she must have disappeared through that door. I could feel the tension bubbling in my body when I noted that the third door was locked, and that the key was on the inside.
I knocked hard on the door and shouted that I was armed and willing to kick the door down. There was not a sound from inside.
I squatted down in front of the keyhole and managed to push out the key that was in there with the help of my car key. There was no light on in this room, either, but I caught a movement in the dark all the same. My heart was hammering violently. All that separated me from solving the case and finding the murderer was the door and a few steps.
I knocked hard on the door again twice and called out that I was armed and could not be held responsible for the consequences unless the murderer now unlocked the door and came out with their hands above their head.
There was still not a sound from within.
I stood up and threw myself against the door. That was when I suddenly heard a very clear sound from inside the room. What it was, I could not discern. But the murderer was in the room and was doing something. This only served to strengthen my determination and agitation. The door looked rickety and one of the hinges was loose. When I threw my weight against it the first time, it shook noticeably. On the third attempt it burst open with a bang.
I managed to keep my balance, quickly stepped back and pushed the remains of the door to one side as I shouted: ‘DO NOT MOVE!’
The third room on the first floor of Synnøve Jensen’s house was a small storage space. There was not a person to be seen here either.