The niece and nephew had nothing more of any relevance to tell. I said goodbye to them around ten and promised to inform them as soon as there was anything new to report in connection with the murder investigation. The history student Bjørn Erik Svendsen was added to the top of my list of people to contact as soon as possible. It struck me as odd that I still had not heard from him two days after the murder. Fortunately, this little mystery was quickly cleared. It transpired that a message from a woman who had called as she absolutely had to talk to me was from a certain Hanne Line Svendsen, and she was Bjørn Erik Svendsen’s mother. She said that her son had gone to an international socialist youth conference in Rome, but had been informed of the murder by telephone and telegram. He was expected home late on Sunday evening and would come to the police station first thing on Monday morning. Bjørn Erik Svendsen had said, on a very bad line from Rome, that it was possible that he had some important information about Harald Olesen’s early life and would of course make this available to the investigation. I reluctantly accepted the news that Mr Bjørn Erik Svendsen could not be contacted before Monday morning. I tried to see it as positive that new information regarding Harald Olesen was on its way to Norway.
In the meantime, I called the law firm Rønning, Rønning & Rønning. The Rønning I needed to speak to, Edvard Rønning Junior, was unfortunately not in the office. According to his secretary, he had flown to West Berlin a couple of days earlier. The secretary apologized and sheepishly explained that there were ‘several indications’ that Rønning Junior was going to meet one or more personal friends in Central Europe, but no one knew where he was going from the airport. When he had called the office about another case on the Friday morning, he had of course been informed of Harald Olesen’s death. Rønning Junior had immediately explained that Olesen’s will had recently been ‘reworded’ and, in accordance with the explicit wishes of the deceased, would be announced six days after his death.
Rønning Junior had promised that he would personally be present to read out the will in the law firm’s offices at midday on Wednesday, 10 April. He would send a telegram ‘as soon as possible’ with a short list of the people the deceased wished to be present at the reading of the will. If the police contacted the firm, he had asked that they be informed that the most recent version of the will was responsibly secured, that all the formalities were in place and that we were welcome to come to the reading of the will on Wednesday. He had then said that he had to ‘rush to an extremely important meeting’ and hung up. Unfortunately, the will was not to be found in his office, and the telegram had not arrived yet. Thus the firm could only apologize that they could not be of any further help in the investigation. Rønning Junior was ‘an exceptionally talented young lawyer, and rigorous with regard to formalities and discretion on behalf of his clients’, the secretary concluded apologetically. I had no problem in believing her, and saw little option other than to ask Rønning Junior to contact me immediately if anyone should speak to him before Wednesday morning.