Satellite People - [25]

Gulleråsen, 12 May 1969

For your information, a copy of my certified will is enclosed. My decision regarding the contents is final.

Yours sincerely

Magdalon Schelderup

The few lines must have flickered in front of my eyes for several minutes. Apparently Patricia had been right. Magdalon Schelderup had planned to send an important letter on Monday, either before or after his meeting with me. He had after all written the letter and prepared ten identical copies to be sent. But I could not quite grasp what the intention and purpose was.

Knowing as I did what the contents of the will were, it seemed to me that this cast in an even more serious light the three who stood to gain most from it – in other words, Magdalon Schelderup’s two sons and his mistress. Judging from what I knew, he had been afraid that one of them might try to kill him as soon they received the letter. It was therefore highly possible that someone had pre-empted him. Especially if the person had known the contents of the will, which had, after all, been lying here for three days – in the metal box to which his mistress had the key. I only had her word for it that she had not used it.

Synnøve Jensen was obviously a lady of strong will. She was still sitting with her face turned away, eyes downcast, when I closed the box and looked at her about five minutes later. Two frightened eyes finally met mine across the table and the untouched cups of coffee. I felt sorry for her if she was in fact not a cold-blooded murderer, but I suspected her of being precisely that. So I was ruthless, in the hope of being able to resolve the case then and there.

‘There are several letters in the box – and the top one is addressed to you.’

There was a flicker in her eye, but she did not look away.

‘I really had no idea that they were there. He had asked me never to open the box unless he was here, and I did as he told me,’ she said. Her voice was choked and unclear, but loud enough to hear. She repeated her short defence twice more, as if it were an oath.

I could not be sure whether it was the truth or not. But I did realize that I was not going to get her to change her explanation. So instead I asked her to tell me about Magdalon’s visit here on the previous Friday.

She stuttered and sniffled to begin with, but then gradually started to talk more coherently. He had offered to drive her home after work. He had done this before, and practically always came in when he did. They had stopped by a cafe in Sørum for dinner. When they got back to the house, she put on some coffee for him, but they went up to the bedroom without waiting for it to be ready. He had gone down again later and came up smiling with a cup of coffee for her. She had not seen him put anything in the metal box, but then he had his own key and could have put the letters there either before or after he came up with the coffee for her. She had been tired and had not got up until he had left.

This did not sound entirely convincing. But neither did it sound unfeasible, I had to admit to myself. So in the end I made the snap decision to take the metal box, but not Synnøve Jensen, with me. I ordered her to stay at home until she came to the planned reading of the will at Schelderup Hall later that afternoon.

Synnøve Jensen looked up at me, obviously alarmed, but immediately cheered up when I said that I would be there in person so she would be safe.

On the way back into town, I felt pretty sure that Synnøve Jensen would keep her word and come to the reading of the will. Any attempt to flee would be as good as a confession, and it was not easy to imagine how she would escape. I felt far less certain, however, of the possibility that she might be the murderer.

IV

Back at the police station I first checked that the other envelopes contained the same two documents. I then sent both the metal box and the envelopes for fingerprinting, with instructions that it was a matter of urgency that this should be done before three o’clock.

There was nothing much of any importance in either the census rolls or the police records about the key players involved, with the exception of Magdalena Shelderup who, in 1945, had been sentenced to pay a fine of 1,000 kroner and spend two months in jail. There was a short record of the reason: ‘membership of Nasjonal Samling and financial dealings with the occupying forces’. Magdalon Schelderup had had a clean record. Of the remaining guests at Magdalon Schelderup’s last supper, there was only a slim file for the elder son, Fredrik. He had been fined twice in the 1960s for driving under the influence and had had his licence confiscated. The second time, he had been charged another hefty fine due to his ‘highly disrespectful’ treatment of the police. He had accepted a fixed penalty and, as far as I could see from the file, had since kept to the straight and narrow. I made a routine note that Fredrik Schelderup perhaps had more temperament than I had seen thus far.

Out of curiosity, I also checked the files of Magdalon Schelderup’s brother and dead parents. His brother had two minor convictions for attempted fraud in the interwar period, and at the time of his death in 1946 was being investigated for extensive cooperation with the enemy. His father and mother had reported the theft of some jewellery in 1915, but were themselves reported by the insurance company for attempted insurance fraud the year after. The case concerned the most precious piece of jewellery belonging to Magdalon Schelderup’s mother, a ‘magnificent red diamond on a gold chain’, according to the documents, which had been stolen in a burglary – something the thief, who had been arrested, had denied. The necklace was not to be found in the Schelderup home or anywhere else, however, and the case was eventually dropped.