Satellite People | страница 76



I let myself be reassured by this, but already had an unexpected amount to think about. So I hastily thanked Patricia for the food and left, having made a preliminary arrangement to meet her again for supper the following day.

XI

When I got home I immediately phoned the main police station to say that I needed to speak to Jonas Lykke as soon as possible in connection with the ongoing murder investigation. My boss agreed that this sounded wise and, without hesitation, promised to call the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding my request.

At a quarter to nine I attempted to unwind by watching the Monday film, which was the German classic, The BlueAngel. And even with Marlene Dietrich on the television, my thoughts continued to whirl around unfolding events and the Gulleråsen murder mystery in Oslo. And then the phone rang for the first time that evening. It was by then five to ten. The voice on the other end was female and friendly, but with a tone of underlying anxiety. It was Sandra Schelderup. She was calling to tell me that a revolver had disappeared from her husband’s gun collection. The one he had kept with him in the bedroom and office in recent weeks was still where he had last left it, in the locked drawer of his desk. But another, older, revolver had now disappeared from the gun cabinet in the hallway. She did not know if it was loaded, or whether any ammunition had been stolen. It was impossible to say whether the revolver had disappeared in the course of the day, yesterday or some days before. But it was clearly not there. For many years the cabinet had contained two rifles, two pistols and two revolvers. And now the older revolver was missing. According to the contents list, it was a Swedish-produced 7.5mm calibre Nagant revolver.

I asked her who might know about the gun. She paused, said quite clearly that she and her daughter knew nothing about where it might be, and then added in a hushed voice that those who knew the house as well as they did were her stepsons and the secretary. She managed to curb herself in time and added that any one of their visitors might of course have known about the revolver and taken it with them. The cabinet had been locked as it should be, but the lock was not very advanced and a key from the neighbouring cupboard could be used to open it.

Sandra Schelderup sounded tired and frightened, which I could well understand. So I thanked her for calling and asked her to contact me immediately should she discover anything else of importance. She promised to do that and again stated how glad she was that I was the one leading the investigation.