Satellite People (6 page)

When asked if she knew what was in the deceased’s will, her reply was a firm no. It was only a few days since he found out about the unborn child so he would barely have had time to make
any changes, she added with a sob. He had never mentioned anything to her about how he had divided his wealth amongst his three older children.

Synnøve Jensen claimed that she did not have a bad relationship with the children of her boss and lover. She had known the young Maria Irene since she was fourteen, and had an intuitive
affection for her. It felt as though they understood one another’s difficulties. On the other hand, the secretary had thought at first that Mrs Sandra Schelderup was very demanding, then
power-crazed, then jealous and, finally, downright hateful. It was not hard to see why the two older boys had such a difficult relationship with their stepmother.

Magdalon Schelderup’s sister had always been very correct in relation to the secretary, if more than a little distant and patronizing. It was not easy to understand the relationship
between Magdalon and his sister. Magdalena was often in the house, but never talked much with her brother when she was here.

There were not many people on the company staff. Magdalon Schelderup did not waste unnecessary money on wages. The manager, Hans Herlofsen, ran the office in the centre of town and was the only
person who had an office at Schelderup Hall. He had the best overview of company business and was a very good businessman whom Magdalon Schelderup seemed to trust enormously, but still did not
treat particularly well. Schelderup appeared to take his manager for granted, and the manager simply accepted all his sarcasm without ever threatening to resign.

Magdalon Schelderup’s relationship with Petter Johannes Wendelboe seemed to be more equal, according to the secretary. Wendelboe had his own company and had long since sold any shares that
he once had in Schelderup’s company. But Schelderup remained in regular contact with Mr Wendelboe and his wife. And as with the sister, it did not appear to be a relationship where they
talked much. The secretary had been taken aback by the frequent presence of the Wendelboes, especially as Schelderup had very little contact with anyone outside the immediate family unless for very
good reason. She had simply accepted that it was because they had known each other since the war and had probably been close back then. Whatever the case, it was none of her business.

As far as Synnøve Jensen understood, Hans Herlofsen had also known the others since the war, even though he must be around fifteen years younger than Magdalon Schelderup and Petter
Johannes Wendelboe. The otherwise good-natured Herlofsen had always made it very clear, though in a friendly way, that he did not want to talk about the war and the years immediately after.
Magdalon Schelderup himself never talked about the war, but that was because he was so focused on the present and the future that he did not dwell on the past.

The secretary seemed relieved and stood up as soon as I said that we were finished for today. When she reached the door, she asked for permission to take the first possible bus home. She was
tired and it was not very tempting to stay here at the mercy of Sandra Schelderup. I agreed once I had obtained a telephone number where I could contact her. It was perfectly understandable that
Synnøve Jensen was tired, and that she had no particular desire to stay there with Magdalon Schelderup’s wife. I asked her to stay in the Oslo area. She looked at me with sad eyes and
asked in response where on earth she would go otherwise.

For one reason or another, I stood by the window and watched Synnøve Jensen until she was safely outside the gate. It did not take long. She left the house swiftly and walked away fast,
with her head down. It struck me that she was the only one of those questioned so far who would actually miss Magdalon Schelderup.

X

The manager, Hans Herlofsen, was a slightly overweight man of fifty-five, with greying hair, dressed in a simple grey suit. I could imagine him being a jovial and kind uncle at
any other time. But now he was visibly affected by the day’s events and seemed to be somewhat tense at the start of our conversation.

He calmed down when my first questions were about Magdalon Schelderup’s company. Herlofsen quickly proved to have an exceptional head for figures. He could reel off turnover and market
shares from the 1940s, the 1950s and the 1960s without any pause for thought. His conclusion was that the Schelderup business empire was going from strength to strength. According to
Herlofsen’s calculations, the recent estimate of Schelderup’s worth at 100 million was in fact too low rather than too high. He himself reckoned it to be somewhere between 125 and 130
million, taking into account various estimated fees and charges and the possibility that the value of the company might fall if the company and property portfolio were to be divided up.

With regard to himself, Hans Herlofsen told me in a succinct and practised manner that he was a widower and lived on his own on the first floor of his childhood home in Lysaker. His only son was
now a grown man, who lived with his wife and two children on the ground floor. Hans Herlofsen had always devoted himself to his work, and other than his son and his family the greater part of his
social life was linked to work. Magdalon Schelderup had been a friend of his father’s, so they had known each other since Herlofsen was a youth. Herlofsen had been employed by the company
since the autumn of 1944 and been the manager since 1946.

When asked who he thought might have killed Magdalon Schelderup, Hans Herlofsen replied that the only thing he could say with 100 per cent certainty was that it was not he who had done it. As
for the others, he would rather not hazard a guess. With a slightly self-deprecating smile, he added that with eleven others round the table, minus himself and the deceased, there was only an 11.1
per cent chance of getting it right.

I saw no reason, for the moment, to add to his burden by saying that I personally was operating on the assumption of a 10 per cent chance. I had not got any further and did not dare strike Hans
Herlofsen from the list of suspects until I knew what was in the will.

As Hans Herlofsen stood up to leave, I realized that I should ask whether he had worked together with Magdalon Schelderup when they were in the Resistance. His answer was another surprise.

‘Yes, of course. But I was more of an assistant to the senior members of the Resistance and was not there when it happened. If you think it might have anything to do with that strange
episode from 8 May 1945, you will have to ask the Wendelboes or even Magdalena Schelderup.’

I nodded to show that I understood. Then made a note that I had to ask the Wendelboes about the strange episode that took place on Liberation Day in 1945.

XI

My conversation with the deceased’s ex-wife was brief and without any great surprises. She had a slim body and her neck was almost perilously thin. Her hair, on the other
hand, was raven black and her voice was spirited. She seemed far younger in body and mind than her actual sixty years of age.

Ingrid Schelderup was also visibly shaken by the death of her former husband, but her predominant focus was the situation of her son Leonard. She assured me repeatedly that she could guarantee
he had nothing to do with his father’s death, and expressed her concern that he would take this very badly, given his sense of duty and responsibility. His relationship with his father was
not the best, but it was far better than it had been. And Leonard was the world’s sweetest boy, who would never wish to hurt anyone. It was completely incomprehensible that his father had
asked him, of all people, to try his food and then later pointed at him. The only explanation she could think of was that Magdalon Schelderup was no longer the man he had once been, even though
that might seem strange to all who knew him.

The conversation dwelled on this theme for a few minutes without going anywhere. She then sat up abruptly in her chair and raised her voice: ‘You must forgive me if I am repeating myself
and talking too much about my son. It is all too easy when you are a divorced woman who has only one child. And even though it is now many years since our divorce, Magdalon’s death today was
a great shock.’

I immediately felt that she was opening up and assured her that I had the utmost sympathy for her situation. Then I expressed my surprise at the fact that she still regularly visited her
ex-husband’s home, so many years after the divorce. She gave a sad shrug.

‘That’s what happened and how I am, unfortunately. I am still Magdalon Schelderup’s wife – even though he threw me out over twenty years ago, and is now dead. I have
never got over the divorce. Latterly my life has solely been about the son of the man who threw me out.’

I started to understand the lie of the land and took a small chance: ‘So you never got over the divorce – and never stopped hoping that he would ask you to come back again one
day?’

She gave a brief and serious nod.

‘Yes, terrible, but true. Winters passed and summers passed, year after year, and nothing happened. And yet I could never give up hope. I continued to live in Gulleråsen, only
minutes away. That was partly so that I could see my son as often as possible, but mostly so that I could be here quickly if ever asked. For ten years, I hoped that it was Magdalon whenever the
phone rang. Every time I was invited here I dyed my hair, put on my make-up and arrived dressed up and on time. And every time Magdalon asked me to do something, I said yes and smiled as
beautifully as I could. In some strange way, I thought that if I could only do as he wished and come whenever he invited me, the day would then come when he would ask me to stay. And so I hoped,
year in and year out, that one day he would throw her out in order to take me back – just as he had thrown me out on 12 April 1949, so that she could move in. But neither God nor life is
fair.’

Any discussion of how fair God may or may not be was beyond my competence, so I said that it must have felt very odd for her to prepare the food together with Sandra Schelderup.

‘She is a good cook, I will give her that. But yes, it was a rather bizarre and uncomfortable situation. It was Magdalon’s idea and neither of us dared to ask why. So we just made
the food together as best we could and talked as little as possible while we did it. And I can guarantee that there were no powdered nuts or any other form of poison in the food when it left the
kitchen. We both kept a close eye on each other the whole time.’

I did not doubt that. But I did comment that she herself had usurped the place of an older woman here at Schelderup Hall. Her sigh was heavy.

‘That was different. Magdalon and I were happy until the day she turned up here like a snake in paradise. His first wife was unhappy here, though she may not have recognized that herself,
and they should never have got married. But of course it was not very nice then and it still is not nice now. Her fate was even more tragic than my own. No woman has a child with Magdalon
Schelderup without the rest of her life being marred by it. And apparently no one is thrown out of Schelderup Hall without wanting to come back. It is strange, the power he holds over us. In that
way he was a true sorcerer.’

Irene Schelderup cheered up unexpectedly when I asked if she knew that Magdalon Schelderup had a new lover.

‘The illiterate secretary?’ she said, with an almost joking expression on her face.

I looked at her questioningly. She blushed a touch and cleared her throat before carrying on.

‘It was Magdalena who asked me if the illiterate secretary had moved in now, and I knew immediately what she meant. The secretary is no doubt well above the average literacy in her own
family, but still well below the average in ours. So I thought perhaps he wanted something else from her and am only too happy to admit that I hoped that was the case. It certainly would have been
a twist of fate and only fair if Sandra was also thrown out on the rubbish pile in favour of a younger, more attractive secretary. He once joked to me that he believed that any marriage was doomed
when the average age of the partners was over fifty. And his new marriage had certainly crossed that line by a good margin.’

The corners of her mouth twitched for a moment as she said this, but it was a bitter smile that did not reach her eyes.

Ingrid Schelderup also denied any knowledge of the contents of the deceased’s will. She had received less financially after the divorce than she had hoped, but had sufficient to live
without any worries when she added the inheritance from her parents.

Magdalena, the sister, had come to visit regularly in all the years that Ingrid Schelderup had lived here. And yet she had the impression that the relationship between the two siblings was
formal rather than heartfelt. Others who appeared to be close to him in the time that she lived here were the three guests seated at the table today: Herlofsen, the manager, and the Wendelboes.
Apparently after she left the neighbours had started to say: ‘The only thing that changes at Schelderup Hall is the name of the wife and the number of children.’ She thought that the
relationship with Herlofsen had been close, almost friendly, in the years immediately after the war, but Magdalon had later treated him with sarcasm and scorn.

Ingrid Schelderup stopped suddenly and sat deep in thought after having spoken about her former husband and his manager. I eventually realized that she was sitting like this with her brow
furrowed so that I would ask her a question. Which I then did: I asked her to tell me what she was wondering whether she should tell me.

She smiled with relief, but it felt slightly forced.

‘I must say you really are very observant and quick, Detective Inspector. Yes, in the years just after the war, I once had a very odd experience with the manager, Hans Herlofsen, which I
still can scarcely believe happened . . . I was passing my husband’s office when the door opened, but no one came out. Then I tripped over something on the floor. Which turned out to be Hans
Herlofsen. He stood up immediately and apologized profusely, but offered me no explanation. He was so pale and so frightened, I would almost say terrified, that I only recognized him because of his
suit. I could feel his entire body trembling when I put my hand on his shoulder. I carried on without saying anything, and never mentioned the episode to either my husband or Herlofsen. It all
seemed so very unreal, and yet I am still certain that it did actually happen.’