Hans Lahlum - Satellite People

‘Maybe this is silly… But Magdalon said something to me not long before he died, something that I don’t understand. And I also have something I think I should show you. I should probably have done so before. It is all very peculiar and I may have done something wrong without knowing it. Would you be able to come here first thing tomorrow morning?’

I hesitated a moment and then asked if she had received some kind of threat. She immediately replied no, and then added that it was probably not so urgent I needed to go there now, straight away. But I felt more and more uncertain. There was something about the intensity of the case and the memory of Leonard Schelderup phoning me in the evening and then being found shot before I could meet him the next day. So I pushed my tiredness to one side and said in a determined voice that I would come immediately.

It took no more than two minutes from the time that I put down the receiver until I had my coat on and was out through the door. But all the same, I felt reasonably calm as I left my house.

It was while I drove through the night alone in my car, heading towards Sørum, with no means of communication with Synnøve Jensen, Patricia or anyone else, that I was overwhelmed by a sudden unease.

This was probably due to a combination of the anxiety I thought I detected in Synnøve Jensen’s voice, the fact that Leonard Schlelderup had been shot only hours after he called me and yesterday’s letter warning of another death. Whatever the case, I felt a rising anxiety and put my foot to the floor. Visibility was good and there was very little in the way of traffic. In a strange way, the great silence and loneliness of the road only served to heighten my fears. My thoughts were preoccupied with what it was that Synnøve Jensen thought was so important to show me, but I could find no sensible answer.

I had been driving well over the speed limit, and at five past eleven I parked the car and made my way up to Synnøve Jensen’s little house in Sørum. The rain was pelting down so I dashed through the dark towards the front door.

There was no doorbell. I knocked hard on the door three times, without any response from inside. And yet I could see through the small windows that the light was on in the living room.

I called out to Synnøve Jensen, but still heard not a sound from inside. I hammered on the door for a fourth time. Then it occurred to me that it might not be locked. In the same moment, an icy-cold feeling told me that something was wrong, very wrong, and what is more, dangerous.

I knocked on the door for a fifth time. Then I opened it and went into the living room.

The sight that met my eyes was at first an enormous relief. Synnøve Jensen was sitting on the sofa facing me, wearing a simple blue dress, and there was no sign of anyone else in the small room. Her eyes were wide and they met mine.

Another even stronger feeling of danger flashed through me in those few seconds. Synnøve Jensen sat looking straight at me, but did not move. It was a relief when she opened her mouth. But this immediately turned to horror when the blood spilled out. I then noticed that blood was pouring from a bullet wound in her chest. The bullet had clearly been fired too high and missed the heart. There was a pistol lying on the floor by her hand. I vaguely registered that it looked rather old-fashioned, but I was more concerned about the woman on the sofa.

Her staring eyes were wide and frightened. The will to live still burnt bright in them. They told me one thing loud and clear, and it was important: Synnøve Jensen had not shot herself.

I grasped her hand. It was burning. The pulse in her wrist was still there, but barely.

Thoughts tumbled through my mind – that the murderer must have left by the door only shortly before I arrived. But I could not leave the fatally wounded Synnøve Jensen. Her hand held desperately onto mine, as though she was trying to cling to her life through me. Again she tried to say something, but was prevented from doing so by the blood. Her right hand clung to mine. She waved her left hand towards the back of the room, without much force. I instinctively looked up but could see no sign of anyone there.

‘Was it Hans Herlofsen who shot you?’ I asked.

Her eyes met mine, but I could not see any affirmative or negative response. The same happened when I asked: ‘Was it Magdalena Schelderup?’ I could not work out whether Synnøve Jensen did not want to confirm or simply could not.

Synnøve Jensen waved her left hand towards the back of the room again, with even less force. Her eyes looked into mine with a deep desire to tell me something, but she was unable to express what. Her free hand crept slowly up and stopped on her belly. Then her eyes closed.

For some reason, as soon as her eyes closed, I started to count the pulse in her wrist. I felt four slow beats. Then Synnøve Jensen’s pulse stopped.

I sat for a few seconds with her hand in mine before slowly releasing my hand from her dead body, which sank down onto the sofa with no resistance. I was gripped by a violent rage, in part with myself, but mostly with the faceless person I was pursuing. Synnøve Jensen was dead, and her unborn child was now dying in her womb. I had come a few minutes too late to prevent the murder and perhaps only seconds too late to hear Synnøve Jensen say who it was who had shot her. I had no idea what to do now. I had seen no sign of another living soul out there in the dark. It was most likely that the murderer was over the hills and far away by now.

I went over to her telephone and called for an ambulance. Then I rang Romerike police station to let them know that there had been a murder, and that I was already at the scene of the crime.

Then I dialled Patricia’s number.

I was worried that she might already have gone to bed. It was a great relief when I heard her voice after only five rings. I explained very quickly where I was calling from and what I had seen.

There was silence on the other end for a few seconds. Complete silence. It felt as though neither of us dared to breathe.

After a few breathless seconds, Patricia let out a deep sigh before starting to speak.

‘You said that you had just come in through the door, which was unlocked, and found Synnøve Jensen who had been shot and was dying, but still visibly alive with her eyes open. A pistol lay on the floor beside her. She could not speak but waved her hand twice towards the back of the room before she died?’

‘Yes,’ I confirmed.

‘But…’ she started.

There was silence again for a moment, before she mustered the courage and continued.

‘But then the shot cannot have been fired more than minutes before and it is unlikely that the murderer would dare to leave while she was visibly still alive. So then the most feasible explanation is without a doubt that the murderer was standing there waiting for her to die and when you knocked on the door, dropped the gun onto the floor and ran upstairs to hide in one of the rooms. In which case, he or she will still be there.’

Neither of us said anything. I turned around quickly and looked up the stairs. There was no sign of movement up there. However, the logic in what Patricia had just said was undeniable. Synnøve Jensen had tried to say something when she waved her hand around and she had indicated the stairs, not the door. There was a considerable chance that the murderer was still upstairs.

‘As the murder weapon is still there and as it is unlikely that the murderer would want to be caught with the weapon after the murder, it is likely that he or she is unarmed now. But one cannot of course be certain of that. As you have not heard any noises, you may assume that there is only one person. But of course, one cannot be certain of that either,’ Patricia’s voice said, with a sudden worried undertone.