Read Beyond the Truth: Hanne Wilhelmsen Book Seven (A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel) Online
Authors: Anne Holt
Beyond the Truth: Hanne Wilhelmsen Book Seven (A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel) (47 page)
“If only she had,” Jens Puntvold began to speak, tossing his gun away, “if only she had …”
But Hanne Wilhelmsen could not hear him.
And many miles away, along a low wall outside a newly constructed building in Frogner, a mangy dog scurried around. It was old and resembled a hyena. Its neck was broad and high, its tail slung low. The creature had lived all its life in an area no larger than fifteen or sixteen blocks. Lots of people had tried to do away with him over the years, but he was an experienced dog, shrewd and strong, and he knew his territory far better than the people who lived there.
The animal was limping badly. Along his left flank, a wound glistened in the light from the street lamp; pus and bacteria had eaten their way deep into the flesh. The dog was shivering from cold and fever. He had not had anything to eat in three days. His strength was ebbing. The aroma of greasy food hovered above all the garbage sheds and back yards, but he lacked the energy to open the lids, to topple the bins. He was only able to drink, rainwater and half-melted snow from puddles on the sidewalk.
Slightly farther along the street there was a cellar with a damaged trapdoor. The dog could no longer bear to set his back paw on the ground. He hobbled across the road in the shelter of the shadows of the massive oak trees. A whimper became a rasping growl as he negotiated a tear in the mesh fence. The metal wires dug deep into the cut and it began to bleed again. He did not pause to clean the wound: he had already licked his haunch so much that he had no fur left. Instead he dragged himself on, around the building, behind a pile of wood, underneath a tarpaulin, and finally: the trapdoor was askew.
Far inside the cellar on a rug someone had thrown out, in the depths of a corner where water was dripping down the ice-cold wall, he lay down.
And so he fell asleep, never to wake again.
PRAISE
FOR
‘Step aside, Stieg Larsson, Holt is the queen of Scandinavian crime thrillers’
Red
‘Holt writes with the command we have come to expect from the top Scandinavian writers’
The Times
‘If you haven’t heard of Anne Holt, you soon will’
Daily Mail
‘It’s easy to see why Anne Holt, the former Minister of Justice in Norway and currently its bestselling female crime writer, is rapturously received in the rest of Europe’
Guardian
‘Holt deftly marshals her perplexing narrative … clichés are resolutely seen off by the sheer energy and vitality of her writing’
Independent
‘Her peculiar blend of off-beat police procedural and social commentary makes her stories particularly Norwegian, yet also entertaining and enlightening … reads a bit like a mash-up of Stieg Larsson, Jeffery Deaver and Agatha Christie’
Daily Mirror
ANNE HOLT is Norway’s bestselling female crime writer. She spent two years working for the Oslo Police Department before founding her own law firm and serving as Norway’s Minister for Justice between 1996 and 1997. She is published in 30 languages with over 7 million copies of her books sold.
Also by Anne Holt
THE
HANNE
WILHELMSEN
SERIES
:
Blind Goddess
Blessed Are Those Who Thirst
Death of the Demon
The Lion’s Mouth
Dead Joker
No Echo
Beyond the Truth
1222
THE
VIK
/STUBO
SERIES
:
Punishment
The Final Murder
Death in Oslo
Fear Not
What Dark Clouds Hide
First published in trade paperback in Great Britain in 2016 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.
Copyright © Anne Holt, 2003
English translation copyright © Anne Bruce, 2016
Originally published in Norwegian as
Sannheten bortenfor
. Published by agreement with the Salomonsson Agency.
The moral right of Anne Holt to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
The moral right of Anne Bruce to be identified as the translator has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.
This translation has been published with the financial support of NORLA.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Trade paperback ISBN: 978 0 85789 816 6
Paperback: 978 0 85789 231 7
E-book ISBN: 978 0 85789 238 6
Printed in Great Britain.
Corvus
An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd
Ormond House
26–27 Boswell Street
London
WC1N 3JZ
www.corvus-books.co.uk
Table of Contents
