I asked Herlofsen if he had any reason to suspect Mr Wendelboe. He waited a beat and then replied that he had once, twenty-eight years ago, heard Petter Johannes Wendelboe threaten to kill Schelderup, in connection with him joining the Resistance group. Wendelboe had been most sceptical about letting him join, and at Schelderup’s first meeting had said to him directly: ‘Welcome to the fight for the liberation of Norway. But if it ever transpires that you have betrayed any of us, I will kill you. And if you betray me, I will have made sure that someone else will kill you.’
Herlofsen then commented that it was not entirely unthinkable that he might have carried out this threat many years later. He added that it was the only time in all these years that he had seen anything resembling fear in Magdalon Schelderup’s eyes.
I noted this down with interest and promised both Herlofsen and myself that I would ask Wendelboe about it. Then I carried on with my offensive and said pointedly to Herlofsen that he still had things to explain, and that my conversation with Wendelboe might indicate that he himself had confronted Schelderup with his discovery.
‘Impossible, because…’ he exploded spontaneously.
His face suddenly flushed red. We sat in silence for a short while. Then I finished his sentence for him.
‘Impossible – because you had not told them. But you did, didn’t you? And that is why he changed his will.’
He nodded sheepishly. He put his hands down on the table in an attempt to calm himself.
‘It rode me like an obsession and I was starting to get desperate. I was more and more sure of my case, but Bratberg was dead and Wendelboe did not want to take it any further. They were all right financially, so I was the only one who could do it. So, having stopped at the last moment eight times, on the ninth day I went in to talk to him in his office. It was on 4 April, before I went home.’
There were sparks in Herlofsen’s eyes. I waited with bated breath for him to continue.
‘It was both the greatest and the worst moment of my life. No one could know how Magdalon would react to blackmail. But I felt more and more confident. My hate for him grew ever stronger and my frustration with my financial situation intensified. So one day I just marched in and said it straight out. That I had talked to Bratberg before he died and that I now believed that Magdalon was the one who shot Ole Kristian Wiig. Then I said that unless we could finally resolve the issues that continued to hang over me, I would be forced to share my suspicions with Wendelboe.’
