To begin with, I managed only too well without his company, but soon time started to drag as I sat at my post behind the door in the living room. By one o’clock, I was very sceptical of Patricia’s prediction, and by two I was thoroughly bored of the whole thing. The cigarette smoke that impregnated the walls made me more and more drowsy. At half past two, I caught myself dozing off for a couple of seconds.
But then at a quarter to three, I found myself wide awake on hearing a muffled sound by the front door. All my senses were on full alert by the time the door was opened with great caution a couple of minutes later.
A person about half a head shorter than me, dressed in trousers and a shirt, with a nylon stocking pulled down over the head, tiptoed in. I caught a glimpse of a key ring in the person’s left hand. The figure then glided silently across the floor towards the door to Fredrik Schelderup’s bedroom. The intruder was holding a small pistol in their right hand, but he or she appeared to be otherwise unarmed.
I was unable to identify the person in the pitch-dark. It was only when I slipped up behind the intruder and put my hand round their right upper arm that I knew that it was without doubt a woman.
I did not have time to think any more. The pistol fell onto the floor with a thud and then slid under a chair when I grabbed her arm. I had obviously instinctively thought that the drama would then be over, as the intruder was a woman who was not only smaller, but also slighter than me. However, the next shock was greater for me than for her. In her fright, she let out a piercing scream and with a furious movement managed to twist out of my grasp.
For a few seconds we stood facing each other, unarmed, in the middle of the dark room. Then there was a flash as she pulled a sharp kitchen knife from a pocket.
The woman with a nylon stocking over her head stood dancing on her toes in front of me, holding out the knife threateningly. We stayed like this, the one measuring up the other in tense animosity and fear, for a few moments. I did not dare to take my eyes off her for a second.
Suddenly she made a lightning thrust towards my chest. I quickly sidestepped and managed to move back at the same time. She did not follow up on this attack, but instead took a couple of steps back. With her left hand, she fumbled behind her for the door. Despite a dangerously high pulse, I took a couple of steps towards her. I got so close that I could see that her hands were shaking, but not close enough to recognize her, and not close enough to apprehend her.
Then she made another unexpected lunge, this time towards my throat and face. One moment I saw with horror the knife coming through the air towards my eye, and in the next I felt it slice cold and hard past my cheek.
A second later she lost her balance. This was precisely what I needed to kick her right leg from under her. She fell, but was cool-headed enough to keep a firm hold of the knife. There was another struggle, with her on her hands and knees on the floor, and me above her with my hands round her upper arms. Again she twisted and turned, with the strength of a desperate animal.
We continued to struggle on the floor. I had managed to get a firm hold of her right arm, but her fingers were tight around the handle of the knife. The small woman on the floor was stronger and had more stamina than one might expect on first seeing her. In the dark and heat of the struggle, it felt as though I held her right wrist forever before she eventually let go of the knife with a quiet groan.
Even without a weapon, my opponent’s furious fight to escape was not over. She lashed out, bit, clawed and kicked blindly and wildly with a panicked intensity. Her sharp nails scratched my bare underarms several times. A small eternity seemed to pass before I eventually managed to get out the handcuffs and snap them shut round her right wrist. She was such a wild, feral beast that she continued to kick and hit out, and I felt another searing scratch down my arm, until I finally managed to cuff her left wrist as well.
Following her first scream, she had been impressively silent throughout the whole struggle. It was only when the cuffs were on both her wrists that she spat out ‘NO, NO!’ a couple of times, then seemed to hiss. I sat with all my weight on her legs, initially in shock and with a racing heart, as she slowly stopped flailing.
My first attempt to pull the nylon stocking off her head provoked a new furious outburst. And my self-discipline broke. I manhandled her onto her back and straddled her stomach, leaving her legs to kick as much as she liked. Then I ripped the nylon stocking from her head in anger.
Just as I was unmasking my prisoner, the door to Fredrik Schelderup’s bedroom opened and the light was switched on. He stood swaying and squinting in the doorway in his dressing gown, with a wine glass in his hand. Fredrik Schelderup took one look at my prisoner on the floor, rolled his eyes and exclaimed: ‘It’s a good thing you were here on guard to stop her, Detective Inspector. She is not only a little too old, but also too difficult for me to want her in my bedroom.’
No more was needed to provoke another burst of rage from Sandra Schelderup. She screamed barely comprehensible swear words at her stepson, and kicked and flailed so furiously that I was almost frightened that the handcuffs might give way. Fredrik Schelderup looked down at her with scorn and fetched a length of nylon rope from a cupboard.
He remarked: ‘I wish you a continued goodnight, despite the unfortunate female company. It has happened to me more than once.’
With a slightly exaggerated yawn and no further comment, he retired back to bed.
I still did not like Fredrik Schelderup, but had to admit that he had a point. This hissing, hateful version of Sandra Schelderup that I was now alone with was certainly not one I would want to take home.
Once the nylon rope had been tied around her legs, she calmed down. I found the pistol, the knife and the large key ring on the floor. I felt another mysterious small metal object in her pocket. This turned out to be Magdalena Schelderup’s missing ring. It was such a cynical detail that I certainly did not look at Sandra Schelderup with kinder eyes.
At a quarter past three in the morning of 17 May 1969, I stood in the living room of Fredrik Schelderup’s flat with an almost trussed Sandra Schelderup. I felt enormous relief that an apparently inexplicable murder case had suddenly been solved.
At the same time, I suffered for the first time in my life what can only be called a panic attack. It came over me in the form of a bizarre fear that if I left the house, I myself would be shot or attacked in the few steps that it took to get to my car. The fear was so paralysing that to begin with I could not even go to the window to look out.
I had to convince myself that the fear was completely irrational and due to being overtaxed. I had no reason to believe that Sandra Schelderup might have an accomplice out there in the dark. In the end, however, I called the police station and asked them to send two constables over in a Black Maria as quickly as possible. The official explanation was that someone needed to continue to stand guard over the place while I took the suspect in.
When I finally had Sandra Schelderup in the back of the car and was driving to the station, I had to admit to myself that all the drama had taken its toll.
We drove for the first five minutes in grim silence. Now and then, I glanced over at my passenger to make sure that she was not planning to try anything, and could see that she was calming down.
‘If I confess, is there a possibility of mitigating circumstances, even if I have been arrested and am accused of murder?’ she asked in a controlled voice, just before the police station loomed into view.