Satellite People - [47]

Wendelboe looked at me, his eyes even more alert. I also thought I caught a glimpse of respect there.

‘You went there to listen. And whatever it was that you hoped to hear was about the war, was it not?’

To my surprise, my strategy still worked. He nodded again.

‘The mystery of our friends who were killed in 1941 was still unexplained and unsolved. But even more, it was the other incident that spurred me to go, the one from Liberation Day.’

I asked him to tell me some more about the alleged murder. A fleeting shadow crossed his face before he answered.

‘Arild Bratberg was a well-meaning, if weak, man. We should never have taken him on. I can never forgive myself for letting us make that mistake. It would not have been easy to predict such a tragedy, but the link seemed to be clear enough. After all, he was caught with a smoking gun in his hand and a totally insane explanation of what had happened. So, in the end, I could live with it.’

‘But your wife…’

He nodded and gave a quiet sigh. His gaze suddenly left me and moved over to the wall.

‘I hoped that time would help to heal the wounds. But instead it seemed to get worse when the children left home and she had more time to dwell on the difficult memories. I could well have done without Magdalon Schelderup’s parties. But my wife continued to hope, so I sat there with her and listened for anything that might provide an answer. For him to say something about Ole Kristian’s death, or for her to say something about the others.’

I had to think for a moment before I understood what he meant.

‘And by her, you mean Magdalena?’

He nodded again.

‘She might know something about them?’

He coughed. ‘This may sound strange. At first we all thought that the Dark Prince had to be a man. But if the Dark Prince was in fact a woman, then it was not unthinkable that…’

I gave Petter Johannes Wendelboe a sharp look. He looked directly at me and his eyes did not waver. And in that moment I felt a peculiar fearful admiration for him.

‘We have for all these years hoped and believed that the member of the NS whom we shot in the spring of 1942 was the Dark Prince. There were no further murders later. Magdalena Schelderup was one of the few people who might have known enough about us to be the Dark Prince. Or she may have known who it was. Whatever the case, we listened well to what she said. But there was nothing new to be learnt there, certainly not as long as we or Hans Herlofsen were close by. Magdalon, on the other hand, said something very interesting during the previous meal…’

He stopped abruptly, but then continued when I sent him a quizzical look.

‘He suddenly announced that he had been thinking about some questions from the past in recent months, and hoped that he would finally find some answers. It was, certainly for my wife and me, reasonable to interpret this to mean the war and the Dark Prince.’

He stopped there, with one of his ambiguous smiles. Then he added: ‘We of course hoped that he would say more this Sunday.’

‘Did you notice if any of the others reacted at the time?’

He shook his head.

‘It was completely out of the blue and said in passing. We did not notice any reaction from Herlofsen or the former Mrs Schelderup, either then or during the meal. Both my wife and I looked at Magdalon first, then quickly over at his sister. She looked, as no doubt the rest of us old-timers did, first surprised and then tense. And then there was not much more to be gleaned.’

‘And you did not ask Magdalon about it later?’

He shook his head.

‘No. I realize that may seem strange. But it was impossible to raise the question there and then with eleven people around the table. And I knew Magdalon well enough not to ask later. I knew that he would not answer and he of course knew that I would not ask, for that very reason. If Magdalon knew more about the Dark Prince and other things from the war, he would let me and the others know as and when it suited him.’

‘Let’s go back to Liberation Day 1945. If I have understood correctly, the drama took place in the home of a former NS man who had been exterminated?’

Wendelboe nodded, and again I thought I caught a glimpse of admiration in his eyes. But it still took a few moments before I summoned the nerve to follow this up, and when I did it was again in anticipation.

‘Do you remember when he was killed?’

Wendelboe nodded, but said nothing.

‘On a skiing trip in spring 1942?’

He nodded again, and gave an appreciative shrug.

‘That was why we went to his house on Liberation Day in 1945. We hoped that we would find some papers, weapons or anything else that might confirm that he was the Dark Prince and had been responsible for the death of our two friends. Then we could finally lay the case to rest. Instead the expedition ended in tragedy with us losing one of our men, and this time one we could ill afford to lose.’

‘It is easy to understand that these things have deeply affected you and your wife. Imagine if we were now, many years later, to discover something that in some way linked Magdalena Schelderup, or even Magdalon Schelderup, to any of these murders, how would you react?’