Beyond the Truth: Hanne Wilhelmsen Book Seven (A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel) (10 page)

All the focus in the room was directed at Billy T.

“She got a fucking enormous amount of money from her father for her twentieth birthday,” he said at length, running his hand over his head, where the millimeter-long tufts of hair had clearly turned gray. “Ten million plus-
plus
. An apartment, car, and suchlike. This demonstrates, of course, that the family fortune is considerably greater than the taxman gets to know about, but in itself that isn’t of any consequence now. What is striking is that the stingy Hermann Stahlberg was so generous. Neither of the boys has received anything like it, from what we know. Even odder is that Hermine seems to be on good terms with everyone in the family. The only one.”

“Could the money have been remuneration for precisely that?” Erik speculated. “Nothing less than a reward for being kind and pleasant?”

“Don’t know.”

“It might just as easily have been a gift to make amends for a guilty conscience,” Hanne said slowly. “Even though it would have to be an
extremely
guilty conscience.”

It seemed as if the whole room turned to face her, as if the building noticeably flipped over and the center of gravity shifted from the authoritarian end of the table, where Billy T. stood beside the Superintendent and Deputy Chief of Police. They all stared down at the newcomers and at Hanne Wilhelmsen.

“I suppose so,” Billy T. said curtly.

“I don’t really have any idea, of course,” Hanne said, rubbing her neck. “I’m just trying to agree with you here! It’s really peculiar that she should receive so much money, taking into consideration the circumstances. Everything about this Hermine character is odd.”

“And that’s why we’ll bring her in for interview as soon as the funeral is out of the way,” the Superintendent said, glancing at the clock.

“I wouldn’t have postponed it so long,” Hanne murmured.

“Anything further?”

The Superintendent’s voice grated as he scanned the room with an expression indicating that any information would have to be of major significance if anyone was going to keep him confined in this stuffy, overheated room for very much longer.

“The guns,” Erik said, raising his right hand slightly. “Entirely provisional analysis results.”

“So we’re dealing with more than one?” Billy T. said.

“Two. Two types of ammunition. A 9mm Luger and a .357 Magnum: one pistol and one revolver. A total of eleven shots were fired with the pistol, and five with the revolver. We don’t yet have the full type-descriptions of the weapons.”

“Eleven shots with pistol ammo,” Billy T. repeated. “There are quite a few pistols that hold as much as that in one magazine. The murderer wouldn’t actually have had to reload.”

“Or murderers,” Deputy Police Chief Jens Puntvold said, scratching his chin; a rasping sound came from his unshaved skin. “Two weapons may well indicate two killers.”

“Not necessarily,” Hanne said.

She felt a rising irritation that Puntvold was even present. The Stahlberg case was complex and difficult enough to grasp, as it was. In such cases it was important to find the optimum equilibrium for efficiency: they needed sufficient numbers to ensure that all the work was done, but not so many that it prevented them all from having the opportunity to retain a certain overview. Admittedly Puntvold had made himself increasingly popular, both at police headquarters and with the general public, through his charm, visibility, and tremendous commitment on behalf of the police force, but he should have stayed away from this meeting. The same applied to several others, such as the police trainees and a couple of junior officers. Strictly speaking, they were double the necessary number in this confined room, and Hanne groaned in despair at the thought.

“It might also mean that the murderer is smart,” she said, trying not to seem magisterial. “Or careful. That’s a good point, about the reloading. With two weapons, it’s not necessary.”

“I anticipate the technical investigations will be completed as quickly as possible,” the Superintendent said, getting to his feet. “I want all the results sent to me as they become available. As far as the tactical operation is concerned, it’s obvious that Carl-Christian, his wife, and Hermine are the central focus.”

“Especially with those lame alibis of theirs,” Billy T. added. “They’re so pathetic they could almost be true. Mabelle and Carl-Christian were at home together, with no one to confirm or deny their story. Hermine says she was asleep all evening. At home. With no confirmation, either.”

“Fine,” the Superintendent said, obviously impatient now. “I expect more work to be done on the family members’ movements, or lack of such, on the evening of the murder. I’d like to see you, Wilhelmsen, and Billy T. in my office in an hour. And you …”

He nodded at Police Prosecutor Annmari Skar.

“We’ll have to discuss how to proceed with the interviews and possible arrests. So we’ll say that’s enough for the moment, we have to—”

“But what about Sidensvans?” Hanne said loudly. “Is he of no interest whatsoever?”

The Superintendent slowly resumed his seat.

“Of course not,” he said in a feigned cajoling tone. “Not at all, Hanne Wilhelmsen. I’m simply trying to make slight improvements in efficiency here. Wasting time on meetings is not really my style.”

“I’m absolutely in agreement,” Hanne began, “that the family certainly seem to be of most interest. After all, it’s Hermine and Carl-Christian who have something to gain by the rest of the gang being eliminated. All the same, I think there’s something amiss when we just don’t know why Knut Sidensvans was there. The Stahlbergs must have been waiting for him. At least it looks that way, since there were cakes and champagne laid out. There were four glasses and four plates set out. They had been expecting a fourth person. But what business did they have with Sidensvans? Shouldn’t we discover precisely that, in any case?”

“My dear Chief Inspector,” the Superintendent said morosely, “as far as I recall,
you
’re the one who always claims the solution to a murder mystery lies in the simple and straightforward. You’re the one who always reminds us that where the motive for the incident is found, that is also where we’ll find the perpetrator. And without jumping to any conclusions whatsoever, I would even now point out that the motives in this case are screaming out to us. It seems to me that this Sidensvans was no more than a chance visitor.”

“That might well be. But shouldn’t we know that for sure? Of course, I totally agree there’s every reason to suspect one of those three …”

She pointed vaguely at the chart Billy T. had drawn of the family tree.

“… of the murders. But surely there are not yet grounds for believing that all three of them were behind it? Of course we should find out which of them has the strongest motive. But wouldn’t it also be extremely expedient to clarify whether any of the three has any connection to the fourth murder victim?”

The Superintendent bowed his head demonstratively before suddenly straightening up.

“Of course you’re quite right.”

Rubbing his eyes, he forced a smile.

“We’ll keep all possibilities open, as usual. Since you’re the one with responsibility for the tactical investigation here, after all, then you can spend Monday and Tuesday on Sidensvans.”

“That’s the two days prior to Christmas!” Hanne protested. “Pretty hopeless days to get hold of people to talk to them.”

“Two days,” her superior officer said dismissively. “That’s what you can have. Meantime, if you find anything relevant, then of course we’ll follow it up.”

A cacophony of scraping chair legs followed. Erik and Billy T. stood in the corridor outside waiting for Hanne, who was last to emerge from the windowless room, breathing heavily.

“Bloody hell, it gets so stuffy in there,” she said casually.

“What do you think about Sidensvans?” Erik asked, frankly curious.

“Don’t entirely know,” Hanne said, laying her hand on Billy T.’s arm. “You know, I’m incredibly impressed with how much you’ve uncovered in forty-eight hours. Excellent police work. Honestly, Billy T.”

A fleeting smile passed over her face, before she marched determinedly in the direction of her own office.

“That’s a rare event,” Erik said. “Praise from Her Majesty!”

“She was just being ironic,” Billy T. said crossly.

“I think you’re mistaken. Besides, I thought you were friends again. Aren’t you?”

“Ask Hanne. With that woman, it’s impossible to know.”

When he disappeared in the same direction as the Chief Inspector, Erik was left standing there, watching him leave. It was as if Billy T. had crumpled. The six-foot-seven man had acquired a stoop and his backside had grown broader, heavier. His feet shuffled as he walked, and his sweater stretched unbecomingly over the small of his back.

I need to get out of here, Billy T. thought. At the very least I must start exercising. I really must start to exercise systematically.

Most of all Hanne felt like crying.

For the past six months, everything had been so much better. The snazzy apartment in Kruses gate no longer seemed quite so foreign. The weekly appointment with the psychologist was not as degrading and frightening as before. As long as it was only Nefis who knew that Hanne had needed to bow her head and seek professional help, she actually found some kind of relief in the procedure. Hanne had grown dependent on these conversations and had not missed a single appointment in nine months. Even now, she felt terrified at the thought of anyone finding out. She still pulled her jacket across more snugly and wrapped her scarf around half her face as her eyes darted in every direction, before she rang the psychologist’s doorbell, as if she were stepping inside a porno store. But she went. She turned up. And it helped.

Billy T. and Hanne had found their way back to something of what they had once shared. The feeling of kinship between them – the nameless trust that had vanished one night in sorrow and sex, while Hanne’s former live-in partner was on her deathbed in hospital and Hanne had sought comfort where that sort of thing could not be found – would never return. She knew that. Billy T. missed it. She saw that on him, in his glances and movements, in the awkward closeness when he, quite mistakenly, thought she would be receptive. She had to reject him then, freeze him out, close herself off. But it didn’t happen often. They worked well together and Hanne had finally begun to understand that she couldn’t get along without him. At times, on rare occasions, when he managed to restrain himself from challenging the situation, in his eagerness to turn back the clock, she could feel the closeness between them, the intuitive understanding that she didn’t find with anyone else, not even Nefis.

Everything was becoming so much better. Then her father had died.

She did not feel sorrow that he had passed away, even though Nefis insisted that she did. Hanne could not work out why she had reacted so strongly. A sense of loss, the psychologist called it, about what might have been. Anger at something that should have been different. Hanne did not agree. She struggled with an emotion she could not identify, but it did not resemble either anger or sorrow. All the same, it was crushing enough.

“Hi …”

Silje Sørensen stuck her head around the door. Hanne forced a smile and busied herself with some documents.

“I just thought—” Silje said, before she broke off. “Would this be an inconvenient time?”

“Not at all. Come in.”

Hanne’s smile was still stiff, and Silje hesitated.

“I can come back another time, you know.”

“Sit down, won’t you?”

“You see …”

Silje did not take a seat. Instead she placed a well-used, stained, burgundy-red leather wallet on the desk before Hanne.

“What’s this?” the Chief Inspector asked.

“A wallet,” Silje said, almost apologetically.

“I see that. But who’s the owner?”

“Knut Sidensvans.”

“I see. Where did it turn up?”

“At Lost Property. Someone had found it. In Thomas Heftyes gate. Not far from the crime scene, in other words. Half buried in the snow. With money in it, Hanne.”

Again her voice took on that trace of apology. Even though it wasn’t entirely clear to her what Hanne had in mind, with that talk about the missing keys and wallet, Silje more than suspected that any theory would now be almost totally torpedoed.

“With money in it,” Hanne repeated. “Presumably he had dropped it, then.”

“Probably.”

“But you still haven’t seen anything of his keys?”

“No.”

Neither of them spoke. Snow was falling steadily outside the window. The whirling flakes took on a glimmer of blue as an emergency vehicle screeched its way up Åkebergveien. In the corridor no footsteps could be heard, no din of shouting voices. No one was laughing out there. No detainees were proving difficult. It seemed as if the entire police headquarters had closed for the night.

“Okay,” Hanne said at last. “So he had dropped his wallet. But we don’t know if his keys were in the same pocket. Actually …”

She got to her feet and checked her own duffel bag, which hung on a peg behind the door.