Satellite People | страница 78

The day’s events had also taken their toll on me. I lay there until well past midnight, my mind churning over what had been said, half expecting the telephone to ring again. Then I finally fell asleep, only to be woken by a very odd nightmare. I imagined that Leonard Schelderup had rung me again and begged for a constable to be put on guard as soon as possible.

At a quarter past two I stumbled over to the telephone, annoyed with myself, and dialled the number of the police station to ask if it would be possible to station a police officer outside Leonard Schelderup’s flat in Skøyen. I knew that resources were tight and that posting an officer overnight was limited only to exceptional cases of imminent danger. But I suddenly had the feeling that this was precisely one such extraordinary and dangerous situation. There were a couple of men on duty in case of emergency and they promised that one of them would be outside the address given in Skøyen by three o’clock. I lay tossing and turning for another ten minutes, castigating myself first for having been overcautious and calling out a policeman in the middle of the night, and then for not having done it sooner. The alarm clock glowed a quarter past three by the time sleep overpowered my tired brain. I then slept heavily until the morning, unaware of the drama that had taken place under cover of darkness.

Tuesday, 13 May 1969 was another day with an early start. My telephone rang at twenty-three minutes to eight, just as I put a cup of coffee down on the breakfast table. When I answered ‘Kristiansen, how can I help you?’ there was a couple of seconds of heavy breathing on the other end before a woman’s voice pierced my ear.

‘Is that Detective Inspector Kristiansen? If it is, please can you come immediately? There has been another murder.’

The voice was trembling, and yet impressively controlled and clear. I recognized it immediately as one of the voices I had heard at Schelderup Hall. It took a couple of seconds more before I realized it belonged to Magdalon Schelderup’s former wife, Ingrid. She spoke quickly and was remarkably informative.

‘I am in Skøyen, in my son’s flat. I came to see him this morning, but someone has been here before me. Leonard is lying on the floor with a bullet wound to his head and has obviously been killed. If you come, you can see for yourself!’