‘We lived in constant fear. Especially after Hans Petter Nilsen was killed by an unknown murderer in his own home. We hoped that we would be safer because there were two of us.’
With a slowness in her body, she stood up and pointed towards the bed that was barricading the door.
‘My daughter and I slept in that bed, which was pushed up against the door to the bedroom behind. The idea was that if a murderer broke in, he would stop either out of compassion or because he could not get past us without causing a commotion that would wake Bjørn. I have since realized that Bjørn thought differently. He knew that the window was the risk, and we would be safe on the other side of the door.’
She carefully pushed the bed to one side and waved for me to follow her into the bedroom. I got quite a shock when I crossed the threshold, and only reluctantly went into the room.
Bjørn Varden’s bedroom had been kept as a museum of his murder, and of the man who had died in the bed here twenty-eight years ago. Some photographs of him had been hung on the wall. But the rest of the room was exactly as it had been on the morning she came in and found him dead, his widow assured me. I believed her.
‘My daughter and I had all the space we needed in the rest of the flat. For many years I could not face walking through this door and, as I said, I have waited until today for the police to come and ask questions.’
She took a couple of deep breaths before she continued.
‘We did realize that the window might be a risk. It was easy to open from the inside in case he needed to escape, but it was equally easy to open from the outside if the person trying to get in knew what kind of window it was. We thought it would be safe, as we were on the first floor, but an intruder would need no more than a short ladder to get in. We truly believed that no one would do it, and that no one knew which window and bedroom it was. But we were wrong.’
I asked quickly who might have known about it. She let out a great sigh and then answered.
‘Everyone in the group: the Wendelboes, Magdalon Schelderup and Hans Herlofsen, as well as the late Ole Kristian Wiig. They had been here for a meeting only three days earlier. And then there was, well, the one who I always thought…’
‘In other words…’
‘In other words my former friend, Magdalena Schelderup, who very conveniently happened to come by for a coffee only a few days before. We had just moved in, you see, so I played the good hostess and showed her around the flat when she asked. Of course, I did not mention the issue with the window, but goodness knows whether her eagle eyes picked it up.’
