Satellite People (22 page)

‘That is quite usual, and really rather nice,’ he explained in a whisper. ‘Both Leo and I were quite comfortable with our fame. But of course our already peculiar double life
was all the more peculiar because of it. It was very odd at times, in the midst of our joy, to know the fear of rejection and what the reaction might be if our secret got out.’

‘And how long had this been going on?’

‘We have known each other for five years, but have only had secret trysts at his flat for the past seven months. We had met relatively frequently in various connections before we dared to
admit it, even though we both felt more and more certain. In the end it was I who had to take the initiative, by dropping in at his place uninvited. He was extremely careful in public, more
cautious than most. But he was all the more affectionate when I then came to him.’

It was easy to imagine the situation and I saw no reason to ask for more details.

‘Since then, things have developed as quickly as secrecy permits. Our happiness within the confines of his flat was in stark contrast to our increasing fear and paranoia outside. I think
it was even worse for Leo than for me. He was terrified of how his family would react if the truth came out, especially his conservative and more than slightly tyrannical old man.’

Again I nodded to show my understanding. It all sounded believable enough.

‘So no one in his family knew about this?’

He shook his head, tentatively.

‘Not as far as I know. Some of them may have had their suspicions, but Leo thought that they still knew nothing. He was afraid that someone might discover us, and that his siblings and
stepmother might even use their suspicions to turn his father against him. And he was worried that his mother would find it hard to accept. I am absolutely certain that he told no one, not even his
mother. It was largely because he could not bear the thought of the pressure from his family – he feared that more than losing the money.’

He gave a deep sigh, and looked longingly out of the window as he carried on. Suddenly, despite his size and muscle, he reminded me of a small caged bird.

‘Leo commented only a few weeks ago that if he only inherited a third of the money when his father died, then we could let the world think what it liked and escape to a more tolerant city
in a more tolerant country for a few months. Somewhere where we could walk hand in hand in the streets, like other couples who are in love, and not worry what other people thought of us.’

He still had a dreamy look in his eye when he turned back from the window. Then he recognized the danger and had to backtrack.

‘Please don’t misunderstand. I think it was never more than a romantic dream for him to comfort himself with when life got too demanding. If he had inherited the money, we could both
have left our jobs easily enough, but it would still have been very hard to leave our families and sports, certainly if we ever wanted to return. I am absolutely sure that Leo did not kill his
father. Off the tracks, Leo was the kindest man on earth. I remember the qualms he had after killing a wasp in the window last autumn. That is what I liked most about him. He was a good, kind man
through and through, whose only wish was to be allowed to live his life in peace without creating problems for others.’

I slipped in a quick question as to whether, only hours before his own death, Leonard Schelderup had said anything about his father’s murder. His guest shook his head in apology.

‘I told him last night that I would always love him, even if it turned out that he had killed his father. But all he said was that it was not him and that he had no idea who put the nuts
in his father’s food. He stood there in the middle of his living room and repeated it again and again, for the last time just as I left. They were the last words I heard him say.’

He looked out of the window again as he said this. I was about to put my hand on his shoulder, but then changed my mind. The situation felt fraught enough as it was, without any physical
contact.

‘It’s so sad that Leo is dead. I miss him terribly already and it hasn’t really sunk in that he’s gone. But in a way, it might have been worse if he had to live his whole
life constantly having to hide who he was. On several occasions we talked about the possibility that maybe, towards the end of our lives, society might have changed so much that people like us
could show our love without fear or shame. I am an optimist and believe that it will happen. Leo was not so certain. He could be quite the pessimist, no doubt thanks to his family and upbringing.
There had not been much joy in his life. And now it’s over. And I, the great love of his life, have nothing to remember him by. I don’t even know if I dare go to the funeral.’

The tears were running down his cheeks now. He tried to disguise it with a shallow cough, and then dried his face with a light-blue handkerchief.

‘So I sincerely hope that you will find whoever killed him. I think it must have been someone in his family, but have no idea who. His father would have been my prime suspect, had he not
already been murdered himself. You only have to ask if you have any more questions, but to be honest, I am not sure that I have anything more to tell.’

He answered the remaining routine questions clearly and concisely. Leonard Schelderup had been frightened by the threatening telephone call, but had not said who he thought it might be. It
looked as though he had had another visitor earlier in the evening, but he had not wanted to say who it was or what they had discussed. There had been cups and plates on the table when he arrived,
and they were still there when he left.

In answer to my final question regarding his own alibi, the man opposite me said that his wife and perhaps his two older children would be able to verify that he came home at ten to
midnight.

It was only then that I fully understood the absurdity of the situation. But I could also safely say that the man I was talking to had left the scene of the crime before the fateful shot was
fired. I sympathized with his grief and pain. But the idea that he would be welcomed home that evening by his blissfully unknowing wife and children, who had not the faintest idea of his double
life and betrayal, was hard to swallow. So I left what remained of my cake, thanked him for the information without shaking his hand, and hurried back out onto Karl Johan. It was nearly one
o’clock and almost time for my next appointment.

IV

Widow Maja Karstensen was older and greyer than I had imagined. She must have been closer to eighty than seventy and used two sticks to walk the few steps across the floor of
her tiny flat. But her smile was youthful and the coffee was ready on the table. When I asked her if she had known Arild Bratberg for a long time, she replied in a voice that was both friendly and
helpful.

‘Yes, I would say so. Arild was born in the flat next door, and I visited him and his mother the very same evening. She was my best friend, Mrs Bratberg. You see, I couldn’t have any
more children of my own, the doctors had told me so three years earlier when I barely survived the birth of my second son. So it was a real joy to have a little one on the stairs again.’

I nodded and let her take the time she needed to continue. Her progress was steady, if not fast.

‘Arild was a bit of surprise. His brother and sister were about fifteen years older and his father was over fifty. He died just a few years after Arild was born, so things were often not
easy for Arild and his mother. Arild was small and puny as a boy, never the strongest or the smartest. But he was as kind and helpful as the day was long. And he seemed to be doing all right for
himself just before and during the war. He had got himself a job as a messenger boy down at the Schelderup office in town and seemed quite optimistic about the future. He had a bicycle and dreamt
of buying his own car one day. But then . . .’

She suddenly floundered and fell silent, but found her voice again after drinking some coffee.

‘But then there was that terrible murder on Liberation Day. There were so many awful things going on at the time, and so many good men found their lives turned upside down by some terrible
thing that happened one day during the war. Arild was one of those whose lives changed most, and in the most inexplicable way. But it was the word of a rich man from the best part of town against
that of a poor lad from the east end. So Mrs Bratberg and I quickly realized how the court case would end.’

I took the liberty of commenting that the version of events that Arild Bratberg wanted the court to believe was rather wild. She let out a sad sigh.

‘Yes, indeed, it was a bizarre story. Even I doubted it until more recently, and there were times over the years when he really did seem slightly mad. But then, as time passed, I too
became more certain that it did not happen in the way it was told in court. Arild had his clear moments when he was sober. And he always repeated that the court judgement from 1945 was wrong. He
used to say, “I might well be mad now, but I wasn’t back then.”’

Maja Karstensen was not the quickest of people and perhaps never had been. But I suspected that for most of her life she had been one of the kindest. Her voice was still gentle when she
continued.

‘It was quite obvious that Arild did lose his mind. When he was released from prison he came back home and his mother looked after him as best she could. She had little time for anything
else. He was never really himself again. At any time of the day or night he would suddenly start to rant and rave about the murder; he said so many strange things, even when he had not touched a
drop. His mother left the flat to him before she died in 1955. She thought that his brother and sister could manage fine on their own without it. But they didn’t like that at all, did they?
So he was left completely on his own after the death of his mother.’

Maja Karstensen took another short pause. Suddenly her gaze fled out of the window, over the back fence. In a strange way, this grey-haired woman reminded me in that moment of the national
football player I had met earlier in the day.

‘I gave my own sons to Norway and the sea, and neither Norway nor the sea gave them back. The elder one was on a boat that was torpedoed, and drowned somewhere near Shetland on 5 April
1944. I was informed of it in a letter that I received one day after the war, when I still hoped that he would come back. My younger son was on a ship that sank in the Pacific, and after seven days
at sea in a lifeboat he finally managed to swim ashore to Australia. He wrote to me that he would never dare venture out onto the water again. So he stayed there, on the other side of the world,
and is still there today, as far as I know. I still send letters to his old address at Christmas and Easter, but the last reply I got was for Christmas in 1953. So after my friend died, I ended up
looking after her son. It was not always easy, believe me. For many years he was unbearable when he was drunk, and very depressed when he wasn’t.’

I nodded in sympathy. It was easy enough to imagine. Maja Karstensen had escaped her own loneliness by continuing in her best friend’s orbit around her sick son.

Arild Bratberg’s life was clearly a terrible tragedy. But I did not feel that I was any closer to solving the murder mysteries from 1969 – until Maja Karstensen suddenly uttered a
couple of short, but very intriguing sentences.

‘Despite being ill, Arild seemed to be calmer in the final few months of his life. I suppose it was in part because he realized that he was going to die and accepted it. And perhaps, more
importantly, he had finally met a couple of people who seemed to believe him.’

I gave her my full attention and encouraged her to carry on. She gave another of her gentle smiles, but then shrugged and opened her hands.

‘As far as I could understand, a man and a woman came to ask him about the old case, and it seemed that they both believed what he told them. But I am afraid that I don’t know who
they were. Whether they meant it or not, I am very grateful to them because they helped to ease his burden in those last few months.’

I of course immediately asked when these visits had been, and whether she could remember any more of what Arild had said about them. She hesitated for a while.

‘It must have been in the winter or early spring. As I understand, the man came first and the woman shortly after. He mentioned them separately, but I can’t be sure. Arild was not
the most orderly person and sometimes months could pass before he told me things. It is also possible that they never came at all and that in his despair he imagined they did. But I don’t
think that is the case.’

And neither did I. And I would have given my eye teeth to have seen the faces of the two people who had been there. I had a strong feeling that I would recognize them both.

I asked what had happened to Bratberg’s flat. Maja Karstensen sighed heavily.

‘I washed and cleaned it and removed all the empty bottles, but otherwise it is as it was when he died. It turned out that a few weeks before he died, he left everything to me in his will.
So his brother and sister, who have not been here for nearly twenty years, have now sent a letter through their lawyer stating that the will is not valid because he was mad. Where the case will
end, heaven only knows.’

I expressed my sympathy and said that I hoped that she would get the inheritance she deserved. Then I asked if it would be possible in the meantime to have a look at the flat. She nodded and
then slowly, almost ceremoniously, unhooked one of the two keys on her key ring.

V

Arild Bratberg had spent his final years and died alone in a one-bedroom flat on the second floor of a building in Rodeløkka. The flat was not a particularly inviting
place in which to do either. The walls were impregnated with smoke and the paint was flaking in several places. It only took a quick look to see that Maja Karstensen had done a very thorough job of
clearing the place after his death. Any hope of finding fingerprints left by guests who had been there a few weeks or months ago was as good as zero.