Beyond the Truth: Hanne Wilhelmsen Book Seven (A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel) (27 page)

He raised his voice to drown out her protests.

“There’s a completely simple solution to this. That you quite simply tell me what happened on November the tenth and sixteenth.”

He had her now. Her hard, provocative expression wavered, only just, and he knew she would let herself be bought off. Looking anxious, she clapped the enormous, bright-red mittens together.

“Do I get to keep these?” she asked obstinately. “As well, eh?”

“Okay,” Billy T. said. “The mitts are yours. But then we’ll go home to your place to have a chat in peace and quiet.”

“You swear to leave my kitchen door alone?” she asked menacingly.

“Promise,” Billy T. said, crossing his heart.

Once again Hermine had forgotten to lock the apartment. Carl-Christian was deeply worried at the thought that he had not heard from her since she had phoned and asked him to drop by nearly forty-eight hours ago. Nevertheless he felt the familiar irritation rise when he put his hand gingerly on the doorknob. They should of course have checked that the door was locked on the day before Christmas Eve. They had contented themselves with ringing the doorbell. He tried to cast his mind back: had they not also tried to get in? Concentrating hard, with his eyes squeezed tightly shut, he made an effort to reconstruct their last attempt to find his sister. He remembered clearly that Mabelle had stood one step below him, restless, as if totally unconvinced that there was anyone at home and she had already decided to head off again. But he could not recreate anything more of the situation.

Of course, Hermine might have been home since then.

It was so typical of her to leave the door unlocked. She was so afraid of everything: of the dark, of flying, of dogs – Hermine was scared to death of dogs, a coquettish fear with which she adorned herself to make herself seem childlike and helpless. It annoyed him on occasion that she was so appealing, and it had long stood in the way of a deeper sibling relationship between them. Sometimes he had simply had enough of her and pushed her away.

Most of all she was scared of burglars. The door was equipped with three locks. All the same, he had arrived several times to find an open door and an empty apartment. She could not manage to take responsibility for anything, not even for her own residence. Her thoughts took flight and never landed where she actually found herself.

He walked slowly into the apartment. The air was heavy and sweet: he wrinkled his nose at a bunch of dark-brown bananas in a bowl on the coffee table. He had an uncomfortable sense of doing something illegal. Slowly he crept from room to room. Hermine was nowhere to be seen, and Carl-Christian’s concern was gradually superseded by anxiety.

When Public Prosecutor Håkon Sand arrived at Oslo Police Headquarters at quarter to twelve in the morning, he was suffering from a dreadful hangover. Three Disprin tablets for breakfast had not helped his severe headache. He could not bear to think about food. His clothes were sticking to his body with sweat, even though he had showered for twenty minutes.

Fortunately Karen had stopped him when, out of habit, he had sat behind the wheel to turn up on time for the extraordinary meeting. It had been a slow business getting hold of a taxi, and he came panting into the conference room all of fifteen minutes late. Silje Sørensen, sitting right beside the door, had held her nose when he leaned over her to pick up the documents Annmari Skar had laid out.

“Hope you didn’t drive your car to get down here.”

He muttered something unintelligible and dropped yet another pastille into his mouth, before squeezing behind the backs of four of the ten people assembled in the room, holding his breath all the while. He smiled sheepishly at the Chief of Police and sat down at the far end of the table. Håkon was the only public prosecutor in the room. However, two police prosecutors had broken off their Christmas celebrations, in addition to Annmari. The Superintendent sat beside the Head of CID and two chief inspectors, while Hanne as usual had taken a seat right down at the far end. She patted Håkon’s thigh under the table.

“Thanks for yesterday,” he whispered. “Sorry that I—”

Hanne hushed him in a friendly tone.

“I can of course give a summary of what we’ve gone through up till this point,” Annmari said deliberately. “Since we couldn’t all be equally punctual.”

“I’m really sorry,” Håkon said, louder this time. “The children were totally impossible and wouldn’t let me leave.”

Someone sniggered and Håkon busied himself polishing his glasses.

“So, we believe there are reasonable grounds to suspect Carl-Christian of the murder of Hermann, Turid, and Preben Stahlberg,” Annmari said. “Throughout the night I’ve tried to—”

“The night,” Silje interrupted her. “Have you been here all night?”

“Somebody has to get the job done,” Annmari said brusquely, without a trace of self-pity. “Christmas or not. We’ve collected a colossal amount of material, as you all know. We have more than a hundred and twenty witness-interviews now. The vast majority of them are worthless. We have a number of items of technical evidence, though most of them have not yet been organized systematically. The DNA analyses are not ready yet. There are also a number of investigations still to be conducted in the actual apartment. It is enormous, full of objects – and after all we’re dealing with four victims here. That dog … it’s now been clarified that we
are
talking about a dog. Very likely a mongrel. It makes the work somewhat more complicated, to put it mildly. All the same, I think …”

She smiled fleetingly, almost shyly, and drank some water from a plastic beaker.

“… we’ve achieved a remarkable amount in less than a week. Credit to you all. I appreciate that it isn’t especially popular to call you in from family parties and Christmas fun on a day like this, but in consultation with the Chief of Police …”

She nodded in his direction.

“… I’ve come to the conclusion that we can’t wait very much longer. At least, if Public Prosecutor Sand agrees.”

Håkon was startled by the sound of his own name, as if he had only now realized this was something that concerned him. The coffee he had gulped down to alleviate his hangover symptoms now sat like a pillar of acid in his gullet. He swallowed noisily, but said nothing.

“I might be preempting you a little here,” Puntvold, Head of CID, ventured, running his hand over his damp hair, “but after the discussion I had with Annmari Skar last night, I would even now assert that we have come farther in this inquiry than we could have dreamed of last Thursday. I endorse her admiration of you all. We’re moving toward arrests as early as this afternoon, and that makes me—”

“I don’t mean to be impolite,” Annmari broke in. “But would it not be an idea to take this in some kind of order?”

Puntvold beamed, reclining in his chair.

“Of course,” he said. “As I said, I’m jumping the gun. On you go.”

“Then I’d suggest the following course of action,” Annmari said. “I’ll give a report on the main points we ought to emphasize in a possible request for imprisonment. After that, we can throw it open for discussion. Our aim must be to come to a decision before …”

She drew back the sleeve on her left arm, but had left her watch in her office.

“… four,” she said, letting her gaze travel around the assembled company. “Okay?”

A murmur of approval encouraged her to continue.

“First and foremost, we have an unusually good motive,” Annmari said, writing “MOTIVE” in slanting, childish handwriting on the flip chart behind her. “I have prepared a special report that you’ve all hopefully received by now …”

Another murmur of approval, and all except Hanne and Håkon began to leaf through pages.

“… in which I attempt to summarize all the conflicts between Hermann and Turid Stahlberg on one side and Carl-Christian on the other. I might as well immediately …”

Hesitating, she spun the marker pen with her right hand.

“I might as well anticipate the course of events a little, and give you advance warning that I’d like a discussion about whether we should also attempt to have Mabelle imprisoned, too. The evidence against her is weaker, but on the other hand, the two of them are very closely attuned. I’ll come back to this. As far as the legal conflicts are concerned, then there’s one thing that indicates a sort of …”

Again she stood in silence, as if she could not quite find the words.

“… escalating war between the parties,” she suddenly concluded in a firm tone of voice. “It all began with minor issues, such as discussion of Carl-Christian’s salary, conditions of service, and that kind of thing. That took place directly after Preben’s return to Norway. Thereafter the pendulum has swung to and fro, with increasingly serious results, I would contend. The first citation, in which Carl-Christian consequently wanted to bring his parents to court, had to do with a relatively banal dispute about a summer cottage in Arendal. The family has owned it for three generations. Everyone has had an informal right to use it. Until Hermann decided to refuse access to Carl-Christian and Mabelle. A trivial matter, to some extent, since the young couple have their own cottage by the sea and didn’t use the family place very often. It seems to me that one thing led to another and …”

Once again she paused to have a drink. Hanne noticed that Annmari was swaying slightly and had to take a little step to one side with her left foot.

“Have you really been awake all night?” she asked.

Hanne had never seen Annmari so tenaciously involved in a case. It seemed like an obsession, a mania with a pre-determined goal. Even Hanne would never have spent Christmas Eve at work. It was as though Annmari had staked her personal prestige on imprisoning the surviving members of the Stahlberg family as soon as possible. Hanne again felt that inexplicable unease, bordering on anxiety; she realized that a close alliance had developed between CID Chief Puntvold and Annmari Skar. For them, the case was already solved. The remaining investigation could be regarded as little more than a formality. A necessary but irritating process. Hanne let her eye flit from Puntvold to Annmari. In one short, cold second she understood that they had all the others with them.

“Have you been awake,” she asked again, “all night long?”

“Yes,” Annmari said. “But it’s fine.”

“Sit down, at least.”

As if she had not heard, or perhaps did not dare to sit for fear of collapsing, Annmari remained on her feet and continued: “In total, three lawsuits have moved back and forth between the parties, but two of them were merged, since they both had to do with access to and use of the property. The quarrel about the car that sent Mabelle into the back cells down here for a few hours is included in that group. Which clearly is the least interesting. The main lawsuit is concerned, quite simply, with settling the ownership arrangements in the shipping company.”

“But …”

Erik Henriksen looked like a set of traffic lights when he stood up to fetch a soft drink: red hair, yellow college sweater, and bright-green tracksuit trousers. He poured cola into a glass as he continued: “I thought there was no doubt that Norne Norway was Hermann’s property?”

“That’s correct. But when, a year ago, Daddy Stahlberg prepared a transfer of shares that would give all the power to Preben, Carl-Christian took action. He quite simply disputes that this is possible, bearing in mind the agreements he claims were previously decided between him and his father.”

“Doesn’t exactly sound like a strong case,” Silje said doubtfully.

“No. And maybe that’s why Carl-Christian tried to help things along with documents that aren’t genuine.”

“We don’t know that he was the one who forged it,” Hanne said.

Annmari puffed out her cheeks, discouraged.

“No, Hanne, that’s true. Of course we don’t
know
that for sure. But it’s exceedingly improbable that anyone else would have had the remotest interest in such a document. Agreed?”

Her voice was loud, almost falsetto, and Hanne lifted her palms as a sign that she conceded.

“We’ve requested handwriting analysis of some of the other documents as well, but it will take some time to obtain the results. To sum up, and as emerges from the missives before you, there are strong motives for Carl-Christian to want to take his parents’ lives, and for that matter his brother’s too, in this ongoing dispute. The young married couple were actually in danger of losing everything they owned. Their apartment and cottages, car, and other possessions are heavily mortgaged. Obviously in anticipation of wealth and affluence in the future, too. But then we have this will, you see.”

Some of them began to browse through the papers.

“It’s not in there. But we all know the contents. It was drawn up three months ago and leaves Carl-Christian as good as disinherited.”

“Not especially smart to do away with the instigators, then,” Erik said, making a rustling noise as he opened his lunch pack.

“No. It’s a weakness in our reasoning that can only be countered by asserting that this was something Carl-Christian was not aware of. Which is actually likely. Father and son have not spoken to each other, except through their lawyers, for more than nine months. There are no copies of the will, at least as far as we know. Jennifer, Preben’s widow, only knew there was a will deposited at Oslo Probate and Bankruptcy Court – nothing about what it contained or when it was written.”