Beyond the Truth: Hanne Wilhelmsen Book Seven (A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel) (12 page)

Plaited red and green baskets festooned the walls, together with spray-painted spruce branches, brass stars, and golden vine tendrils. Like a monument to bad taste, the tree loomed overhead, culminating in the biggest star-topper Hanne had ever seen. Excited, Mary pressed a button on the wall. “
Merry Christmas
,” the star tinkled in two-part harmony, rotating slowly all the while.

Hanne burst out laughing.

“Don’t you like it?” Mary yelled. “I’ve been busy since midnight!”

Nefis was up now. She looked all around her, entranced.

“Brilliant,” she whispered in the midst of the melee. “So wonderfully Norwegian!”

“No,” Hanne hiccupped. “It’s … It’s—”

Suddenly everything went silent. Mary had pressed some sort of master switch and stood staring in accusation at Hanne.

“What did you say it was?”

“It’s—”

Hanne threw out her arms and beamed with pleasure.

“Damn it, they’re the most fantastic Christmas decorations I’ve ever seen! Mary, you’re a marvel! I’ve really never seen anything like it.”

“Do you mean that? Nefis gave me permission to order whatever I wanted. Got everything delivered to the door, you know. I’ve worked my bloody socks off!”

“I can see that,” Hanne said, more serious now. “Thanks a million.”

“Thank you, too,” Mary sniffled. “I’m so happy now, you know.”

Pulling a voluminous handkerchief from her sweater sleeve, she dried her eyes, before handing Hanne a yellow note.

“A guy phoned here this morning – at some ungodly hour – though I refused to wake you. I was actually thinking of not telling you, but now I’m so happy, Hanne. Now you’ve made an old soul happy.”

She limped out into the kitchen. Fortunately she had forgotten to flick the switch on the noisy decorations.

“I promise …” Hanne said, stealing a march on Nefis while quickly reading the note. “It’s my turn to make dinner today, in fact. I’ll be back in plenty of time. Promise.”

She plucked a halo from the floor and used it to crown the head of a baby angel.

“That’s quite sweet, too,” she said, still smiling.

The festive season must have put a damper on even the journalists’ spirit of self-sacrifice. In any case, there was no sign of any of them in the bitter wind scudding along the walls of the apartment buildings in Eckersbergs gate. Only a cat could be seen ambling along the desolate sidewalk, shaking its paw with every step it took and meowing pathetically.

“I’ve often wondered,” Erik Henriksen said, as they opened the sealed front door, “what these hacks say to their children when they come home and get asked what they’ve done at work today. Well, maybe they can say: Today I’ve hounded a guy who’s just lost his whole family. Or: Today I’ve shadowed a crown princess who only wanted to be left in peace while she bought a gift for a friend. Today I’ve definitely made life really unpleasant for quite a number of people. What a damn job!”

“I don’t think they say anything much,” Hanne replied. “When they get home, I mean. Good of you to turn out, by the way.”

“No problem,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “But I don’t really understand what good this visit will do.”

The Stahlberg family’s apartment was far too warm. Hanne still felt she could detect a hint of sweet iron and chemicals: blood and the crime-scene investigators’ paraphernalia. Maybe it was only a figment of her imagination. She crossed the room and opened a window anyway. The heavy plush curtains stirred slightly in the draft.

“They still think that Sidensvans’s body was moved, don’t they?”

She hunkered down and studied the taped outline of the publishing representative’s cadaver.

“Yes. They think he fell at the threshold.”

“Then he must have been standing outside the door, on the stairway. When he was shot, I mean. Is it true he was shot in the back?”

Erik dipped into the slim folder he had tucked under his arm, to produce a drawing of a man’s body, stylized and flat, viewed from both front and back, with wounds plotted as red dots on the white paper.

“Yep. Two shots in the back. One on the side of his head.”

“Then in point of fact he needn’t have spoken a single word to his hosts before he died, isn’t that so?”

“No … I don’t know … How’s that?”

“He’s been moved. That might mean he was lying farther outside the door, on the landing, and that the perpetrator wanted to move the corpse into the apartment in order to shut the door behind him when he left. But the door was left open. Wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was. The dog must have come in somehow. Besides … the guy who reported something amiss was on his way to visit Lars Gregusson, the computer guy on the first floor. When he didn’t get an answer, he took hold of the entrance door and tugged at it. He was annoyed, he said, because apparently they had made arrangements to have a glass or two here, before heading off into the city center. Then it turned out that the front door was open. It had quite simply not been closed properly. So he peeked inside. And saw a pair of shoe soles and an open door on the ground floor. Thank goodness he had the wit not to go inside. He phoned us instead.”

“Of course that means that Sidensvans may not even have rung the doorbell at all,” Hanne said, glancing out into the stairwell again. “He might actually have walked straight in.”

“Yes … How’s that?”

“Nothing. By the way, is there an ordinary door telephone here?”

“Yes. You ring the bell outside and introduce yourself, and the resident presses a button to open the door. Standard-issue.”

“Standard-issue,” she repeated absent-mindedly. “And Hermann lay here.”

There could not have been more than ten or fifteen centimeters separating the outline of Hermann Stahlberg’s feet from Knut Sidensvans’s head.

She squatted again with her hand on her chin.

“Can we surmise that Hermann was about to welcome his guest?”

“We might well surmise that. But we can’t know for sure. If … if you’re right that Sidensvans didn’t need to ring the doorbell, then they wouldn’t have known he’d arrived.”

“I didn’t say that was how it was. I said it might be. That’s entirely different.”

Erik scrutinized his older colleague. He had never understood Hanne. Even now, when he was no longer infected with that idiotic crush and could therefore see her more clearly, he didn’t have any understanding of her. No one did. Over a long period of time Hanne Wilhelmsen had built up a reputation as one of the foremost investigators in the Oslo Police Force, perhaps in the entire country. But no one had any real understanding of her. Not even after all these years. Most of them had also given up. Hanne was moody, impervious, bordering on eccentric. That was how they regarded her, the vast majority of them, even though her renown as an instructor to the younger and more inexperienced investigators had eventually grown quite formidable. There was hardly a single newly qualified constable who did not make an effort to maneuver his or her career in the direction of Hanne Wilhelmsen. Where the older colleagues saw a stubborn and headstrong detective who could barely be bothered to communicate anything at all, the youngest members of the force found an original, intuitive, and thorough mentor. Her patience, which was millimeter-thick toward everyone further up the system, could be touchingly generous with regard to colleagues from whom she did not expect much.

Erik Henriksen had worked closely with her for ten years.

“It’s a wonder I’m not bloody sick of you and your secrets,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. “Could you, for example, tell me what you’re thinking about, while you’re sitting there? Or do I have to haul in some trainee or other to ask on my behalf?”

Hanne got up, pulling a grimace at cramp in her leg after crouching for so long.

“Are you really interested?” she asked distractedly.

With her foot planted in the middle of the white outline of Sidensvans’s body, she used the flat of her hand as some kind of sight directed at the living room. She closed one eye, then ran her gaze over the outline of Preben’s corpse, nearest the living-room door. The three bodies had been stretched out in a row, foot to head: a chain of dead people.

“Hmm,” she said, with a slight shake of the head.

“Yes,” Erik said. “I am interested. Hanne, we’re always interested. You’re the one who doesn’t want to share.”

“Yes, I do,” she said, her concentration still focused on how much of the living room you could see from the front door. “I’m happy to share.”

“Then do it!”

His voice sounded irritated now: he glanced pointedly at the clock.

“Yes.”

Beaming, she put her hand on his shoulder.

“Have you eaten?”

“No—”

“Come home with me then, and I can tell you what I’m thinking. I live just down the street from here. But I have to warn you about … about the help. She’s a bit peculiar. Just pretend not to notice. And above all, don’t criticize our Christmas decorations.”

“No, of course not,” he said, delighted, jogging after her along the narrow path outside Eckersbergs gate 5.

Hermine Stahlberg’s overdose was interpreted as attempted suicide, something Carl-Christian – after spending a couple of hours swallowing the shame attached to such a diagnosis – regarded as an unqualified advantage. The police would not be able to interview his sister. Not for some time. The sense of relief he felt was almost physical and could not be displaced by the growing unease at the discovery that his sister was obviously ingesting stronger substances than were on sale at the liquor store. The splitting headache that had plagued him for more than twenty-four hours was subsiding. Just another dash of good fortune now, and he would be in control.

He felt terribly dizzy when he stood up from the chair by the bed where Hermine had just fallen asleep, and had to take hold of the bedside table and close his eyes as he took deep breaths.

“Alfred,” he said in surprise, when he opened them again.

“Carl-Christian. My dear boy!”

His uncle wanted to embrace him. Carl-Christian stood listlessly, lacking willpower, and accepted the prolonged hug. The odor of cigars and of a man no longer scrupulous about personal hygiene stung his nostrils.

“It’s good you’re here,” his uncle sniveled. “I’ve tried to phone you, lots of times. We met up on Friday evening – the men in the family and all the aunts. Some of the cousins, too, and as a matter of fact Benedicte popped in and—”

“I haven’t been absolutely on top of things, Uncle. I haven’t been answering the phone of late.”

“I can well understand that,” Alfred whispered, glancing over at his sleeping niece. We’ve so much to talk about. After all this dreadful business and—”

“I thought you’d come to visit Hermine.”

“But she’s sleeping – look! I can’t wake the poor girl!”

Uncle Alfred seemed aggrieved and had already taken a firm grip of his nephew’s arm. He drew him doggedly over to the door.

“Come on now. Let Hermine sleep.”

“No!”

Carl-Christian was startled by the sharpness in his own tone as he broke free.

“I don’t want to come home with you. I have things to organize. I’m busy, and in any case I don’t want anything to drink.”

Alfred sized him up. His eyes, small, pale-blue, and deep set, flashed with sudden anger and his mouth puckered, showing he had taken offence. Carl-Christian felt disgust at the full lips, always blood-red, moist, almost feminine. He turned away.

“I just want to be left in peace,” he mumbled.

“I can appreciate that.”

His uncle’s voice was cooler now, his tone more businesslike.

“Nonetheless, I should remind you there are a number of things that have to be seen to, in connection with the funeral – and, not least, with the administration of the estate. There’s a certain disarray prevailing, as far as that’s concerned, to put it mildly. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Carl-Christian struggled to find something to say. The surprising self-confidence he had felt just a moment ago was gone. He found himself scraping the tips of his toes on the floor, and could not bring himself to look his uncle in the eye.

He had actually never understood Alfred’s position in the family. He was his father’s rather incompetent younger brother. Admittedly, he always had some kind of business project on the go – at least it seemed that way, from the perpetual talk of big money always just around the corner. All the same, they never came to anything. Previously, in Carl-Christian’s younger days, it sometimes happened that he followed up on his uncle’s long-winded talk. He even came up with some more detailed questions, but the answers were seldom specific and mostly went on to depict new enterprises, with broad, colorful brushstrokes. And Alfred had always called himself an art dealer, though Carl-Christian had never heard of him selling a single picture.

It was obvious that Alfred’s standard of living was not commensurate with his income. Carl-Christian had some vague idea that his grandparents, long dead when he himself had been born, had left their two sons a pretty sum as a legacy. Their daughters probably had to content themselves with far less. The old couple had been in the clothing trade, and after two or three years of collaboration during the Nazi wartime occupation, they were probably in a position to afford their children a good start in their own careers when they died in 1952. Nevertheless, the money must have been used up long ago.