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 what 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.’