Hans Lahlum: Satellite People

I have to confess that the last thing Patricia said did manage to raise my spirits a little.

‘Yes, thank you, I have to say it is overwhelming. Congratulatory messages are flooding in already, despite the fact that it is a public holiday, and the weekend newspapers will no doubt make pleasant reading. But remember that for the past week I have been out there meeting these people, including Maria Irene. It frustrates me immensely that the person responsible for such a grotesque crime should get away so lightly. Synnøve Jensen and her unborn child are gone for ever, whereas Maria Irene will be released before she is twenty-five, and has earned tens of millions from the murder.’

Patricia nodded in agreement, but smiled all the same.

‘Of course, it is a paradox. She will naturally be punished far too lightly in the end and will have far more money than she deserves. But you will have to comfort yourself with the knowledge that you did all that you could and she did not get away with it. I can assure you that every day in prison is hell for human predators like her, and she is not likely to enjoy the company in Breitvedt Women’s Prison. It will be a long and hard road should she ever want to find a good husband after the court case has been reported in the press. But, most importantly, her plans to inherit all the money and run the business single-handedly are in ruins because we prevented the murder of her half-brother.’

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.