Satellite People (39 page)

I had to say that Patricia was right in her reasoning, but I was still not happy with the situation. She was not put off by this and carried on after a pause for thought.

‘In the midst of all this tragedy, it is actually quite amusing that Maria Irene fell victim to her own absurd ambition to such an extent. She tried to lay a trap for you, and ended up
being trapped herself!’

Patricia burst out laughing, then attacked her ice cream dessert with a healthy appetite. It struck me that she was a very complex young person. And behind the mask, she had invested some
powerful emotions in this case.

I personally was too relieved by the outcome of the case to want to pursue the topic any further. Instead I asked Patricia if she had found the answer to her question as to why I was still
alive. She suddenly became very serious, but it did not last long, and soon a mischievous smile crept over her lips again.

‘That was in fact one of the things that convinced me that it was Maria Irene who had killed Synnøve Jensen. I saw no reason why Sandra Schelderup would not have shot you in that
situation. On the other hand, there were two possible reasons why Maria Irene Schelderup instead put down the gun and ran. One was that she found you so handsome and attractive that she could not
shoot you, and perhaps still even hoped that she would get all of the inheritance and all of you.’

I nodded. The explanation was neither reasonable nor unreasonable.

‘And what was the second possible reason?’

Patricia swallowed the last spoonful of ice cream and leant back.

‘I am tempted to say, don’t pretend to be more stupid than you are . . . The second reason is of course that she considered you to be so naive and gullible that she thought you would
not understand what had happened and that she would manage to escape without being seen.’

This was a far less attractive option, but sadly it was equally neither reasonable nor unreasonable; I had to admit that.

‘Which of those theories do you believe to be true?’

Patricia shot me a delighted and teasing smile.

‘My friend, when will you understand that more than anything I hate to make mistakes, and therefore would rather not give my conclusions before I am as good as 100 per cent certain that
they are correct. It might even be a combination. I believe more in one explanation than the other, but only Maria Irene could tell us which one is right. And my guess is that you would not want to
ask her.’

I most certainly would not. It struck me as I sat there that Patricia, despite her obvious mood swings, was both physically and mentally more mature than she had been the previous year. If I had
not realized this before, I certainly did at a quarter to twelve when Beate suddenly appeared with a bottle of superb vintage French wine. I took only a small glass, whereas Patricia drank two
generous glasses and became increasingly gregarious. After the first glass, she laughed and remarked that she would dearly have loved to have been in the interview room and seen Maria Irene with
‘her mask and trousers finally down’. I could not remember having heard this expression before and strongly suspected that Patricia had made it up.

It was around half past midnight by the time I got up and went over to Patricia to embrace her goodbye, and discovered something that was indeed different this year. Patricia had not unbuttoned
her blouse as far as Maria Irene had two days ago. But she had undone the top two buttons. And I saw that, despite her handicap, she had become a beautiful young woman. My cheek touched hers
briefly, and as I pulled back our eyes met for a moment. And I got the same feeling that I had at Schelderup Hall only days before when I was dancing with Maria Irene Schelderup. I somehow
instantly knew that if I had tried to kiss Patricia she would not have protested, but rather would have kissed me passionately back. The tension and opportunity lasted for a few breathless moments.
This time no one knocked on the door. I turned to the side at the last moment, and so it was a light kiss that I planted on her cheek rather than a passionate kiss on the mouth.

When I think back to this episode now, it is still unclear to me whether it was the strange similarity with the situation with Maria Irene, Patricia’s handicap, the age difference between
us, or something else I do not understand that made me hold back. What is clear is that I did. Then I left the room, somewhat more hastily than planned. I felt an urgent need to get out into the
night and to think things through by myself.

Patricia, of course, stayed sitting where she was, on her own in the wheelchair by the table. When I looked back briefly on my way out, her smile was more inscrutable than ever. Then, with a
discreet little yawn, she wished me a good journey home, and in closing said that I should not hesitate to contact her again if I worked on any more interesting murder cases where she might be of
help. But by then I was already rushing through the door and out into the safety of the dark night.

No new interesting murder cases landed on my desk in 1969. For the rest of the year I could rest on the laurels of the Schelderup case. The story continued to cause a stir in
the media, especially during the major court case in the autumn. To my deep frustration, but in line with what the defence had claimed, both Maria Irene and Sandra Schelderup were sentenced to
seven years’ imprisonment.

My frustration had peaked before the trial even started, however. On 7 October 1969, I awoke to the headline: ‘Eighteen-year-old accused of murder now Oslo’s richest woman’.
Underneath was a photograph of Maria Irene. The report stated that her brother, Fredrik Schelderup, had been killed in a crash, in an excessively large car with excessive amounts of alcohol in his
blood, on the way from a bar to the beach in Rio de Janeiro. And with that, several months after the main event, another of the satellite people from Magdalon Schelderup’s last supper bit the
dust.

Ingrid Schelderup was admitted to hospital again when the court case caused the circumstances surrounding the deaths of her former husband and her son to be splashed across the front pages of
all the newspapers once more. When I called her sometime later, I was informed by the hospital that it was not the best day to disturb her. But when I offered to call another day, I was told that
it was not the best week or month either. So I took the hint and never rang back.

To my surprise, Petter Johannes Wendelboe was in the courtroom on 3 November, the first day of the trial. He looked exactly as he had before, and shook my hand with the same firmness. When I
asked after Mrs Wendelboe, he replied shortly that she had unfortunately gone from ‘bad to worse’. She had, as had Ingrid Schelderup, been exempted from appearing as a witness for
health reasons. I could not help but ask if he had been in touch with Magdalena Schelderup. He told me curtly that he had apologized on behalf of his wife and himself, and that this apology had
been accepted. So Petter Johannes Wendelboe was himself to the last, and a remarkable man in my eyes.

Hans Herlofsen told me, when I called one day to ask some routine questions, that he had never been better. He had resigned from Schelderup’s company and had found himself a far
better-paid job with a company car, thanks to all the coverage the case had been given in the press. The balance of his personal account was already 17,782 kroner. So some of the satellite people
from Magdalon Schelderup’s last supper had managed to find themselves a better orbit in the new universe that opened up when the circumstances surrounding his death had been established.

I received a letter from Mona Varden thanking me wholeheartedly for the ‘somewhat late, but remarkable’ unmasking of her husband’s murderer. There was also a sentence to say
that she had now, finally, been able to clear his room. She enclosed a photograph of the grandson who was apparently the spitting image of his grandfather. A few days later, I received a postcard
from Maja Karstensen in Rodeløkka, to thank me for redeeming Arild Bratberg’s ‘honour and memory’. There was a PS to say that Bratberg’s siblings had dropped their
claim on his flat, following all the coverage of the case.

On 10 November 1969, I myself stood up in court to bear witness against the Schelderups. And I rather reluctantly had to admit that Maria Irene played her part very well from her place in the
dock. She was surprisingly convincing as the remorseful and bewildered offender who had been led astray by her mother. The press even managed to photograph her with tears in her eyes as she spoke
about the murder. But when I passed Maria Irene on my way to the witness stand, at barely an arm’s length, I saw the shadow of a lioness’s smile on her lips. Our eyes met a moment
later. And I am certain that I detected something that she herself would never admit – that despite the discomfort of the court case and prison, it had been worth it, now that she had the
whole inheritance and would have more than enough time to use it when she got out.

It somehow felt unnatural for me to contact Patricia without an ongoing murder case to discuss. Through the autumn I increasingly pondered over how early on Patricia had realized the truth about
how the father and son had died, and how different the story might have been if she had confided in me before the murder of Synnøve Jensen. As far as Maria Irene was concerned, I was
eternally grateful to Patricia for revealing her egoism and ruthlessness to me in time. There were occasions later on in November when I even suspected that Patricia might have held back the
explanation of the earlier deaths on purpose, in the hope that Maria Irene would commit a murder.

I never considered asking Patricia about this. I was too grateful to her for all the help she had given me with my first two murder investigations, and too conscious of my own dependency in the
event of future investigations. For reasons I have often speculated on without drawing any conclusion, Patricia never contacted me on her own initiative. Our somewhat hasty and confusing goodbye
shortly after midnight on Sunday, 18 May 1969 was therefore the last time that we saw each other in the 1960s. It was not until seven months into 1970 that a sensational new murder investigation,
which had a very dramatic start for me, brought us together again.

This novel, written thirty-five years after her death, is my homage to Agatha Christie, the world’s greatest crime writer, who gave us the most original plots. Without any
illusions of having achieved the level of Agatha Christie’s best mysteries, I have tried in 2011 to capture her style and spirit in terms of the plot, time structure and characters. In doing
this, I have based the book on Christie’s views of the good and evil nature of human beings, even though this only in very specific cases tallies with my own personal views.

I have also, as I did in my first novel
The Human Flies
, tried to find my own literary crime niche by taking inspiration from three classical crime writers of bygone years. This time,
once again, I have written a plot inspired by Christie, with a detective duo who are more akin to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s tales about Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. And again, I go beyond
the realms of the British crime tradition of Christie and Doyle, and follow in the footsteps of the great Belgian writer, Georges Simenon, in trying to combine an exciting crime mystery with an
engaging story about people’s different fates and histories.

If my crime novel,
The Satellite People
, is successful in these endeavours, then it is to a large extent thanks to my good advisors who have worked with me on the manuscript. My editor,
Anne Fløtaker at Cappelen Damm, has once again been my most important advisor, but I have also benefited greatly from the input given by Anders Heger and Nils Nordberg. I would also like to
give two thousand thanks to my invaluable group of personal advisors, which this time includes my good friends Mina Finstad Berg, Ingrid Baukhol, Ellen Øen Carlsen, Synne Corell, Lene Li
Dragland, Anne Lise Fredlund, Kathrien Næss Hald, Hanne Isaksen, Bjarte Leer-Salvesen, Torsten Lerhol, Espen Lie, Ellisiv Reppen, Kristine Kopperud Timberlid, Arne Tjølsen, Katrine
Tjølsen and Magnhild K. B. Uglem, as well as my sister, Ida Lahlum. This time, Mina deserves to be mentioned before all others for her enthusiasm from the drawing board to the finished
manuscript and for her many important comments on the language and content.

And finally, I would like to offer a more symbolic thank you to someone I have never met, namely the highly successful singer Lena Meyer-Landrut, who came to Norway last year. Her song
‘Satellite’ has kept me company for many an hour while writing this novel and was in part the inspiration for the title.

My articles on this book and other literary topics are freely available (in Norwegian) to those who might be interested on Cappelen Damm’s blog page:
www.forlagsliv.no/hansolavlahlum.

Any readers who have questions or comments about the book are welcome to contact me via Facebook, or directly by email: [email protected]

Also by Hans Olav Lahlum

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