Beyond the Truth: Hanne Wilhelmsen Book Seven (A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel) (9 page)

“Hanna, honestly.”

Nefis tried to grab her, but Hanne was too quick as she set off for the bathroom.

She let the water cascade down her back while she leaned her forehead on the tiled wall. She gradually reduced the temperature of the water. Colder. She felt her skin contract and raised her head.

Nefis was right. Nefis was always right. The odd family in Kruses gate would have lived like hermits, if Hanne had had her way.

The thought induced a smile.

“Hanna, you’re smiling!”

Nefis sat down on the mahogany toilet seat cover with its inlaid Inca-style pattern: the elaborate wood and metal felt cold and ticklish on her naked thighs.

Hanne struggled to force the smile away.

“Aha, you’re laughing,” Nefis called out, clapping her hands. “You’re happy about this party!”

“No, I’m not,” Hanne said, hiding her face in the shower spray.

She was looking forward to it. She was not even annoyed that the decision had been taken over her head, the way all decisions of any import were taken by Nefis, and Nefis alone. Nefis who had bought the tickets to the Seychelles and informed her two days in advance; time off work had already been arranged. Nefis who had returned home to the apartment in Lille Tøyen with the prospectus for a sumptuous newly built apartment in Frogner; the purchase had already been made. Nefis organized everything: the removal company and the Population Register, the moving-in party and partnership agreement, the interior decor and shopping. Nefis treated Hanne the way a loving wife treats a bull-headed old husband. And Hanne liked it, grudgingly. She protested loudly and often, but never for long.

Nefis found solutions Hanne was able to live with. She took Hanne into consideration, but never to such a degree that she had to compromise on her own wishes and needs. The apartment in Kruses gate appeared more like a strange system of communal living rather than a real family; people who seemed to have nothing in common, scraped together hastily and at random. That was how it must look to others, those who didn’t know better, who did not know them and therefore had no idea that Nefis and Hanne were married and that Nefis wanted to have children. Hanne knew none of the neighbors, and there were three names on their door. Not two – that dangerous two that made people draw conclusions about who lived there and what they got up to.

Sometimes Hanne felt happy. Not often, but now and again, when reality touched her in brief flashes: Mary padding in her slippers through the dark apartment at night, a glance from Nefis when she thought Hanne would not notice, a hand on her back if she woke in the night – at such moments Hanne felt completely secure. Security was her happiness, and she had never truly known happiness before Nefis arrived on the scene.

Hanne stepped out of the shower.

“Who’s actually coming?”

“Everyone! Karen and Håkon, the children, Billy T., Tone-Marit and—”

“Not
all
his children,” Hanne said. “
Please
! It will be pure hell.”

“No. They’re with their mothers this Christmas. Only Jenny will come with them.”

“Who else?”

Hanne dried her hair, fearing the worst.

“Well …”

Nefis caressed the small of Hanne’s naked back.

“Two of Mary’s old friends. Just—”

“No!”

Snatching the towel from her head, Hanne flung it on the floor.

“Do you remember how that went last year? Eh?”

“But it’ll be better this year! They’ve promised not to bring anything with them and—”

Hanne angrily interrupted her again, slapping the palm of her hand against the wall of the shower.

“Nefis, listen. You can never rely on a drug addict. They can swear as long and as loudly as they like, but they will sneak something past you. Besides, it would probably be equal to murder to deny them. They quite simply can’t bear twenty-four hours without a fix. It’s out of the question, Nefis.”

She trotted resolutely through to the bedroom and quickly threw on the clothes she had worn the previous day.

“Anyway, they probably have AIDS. It’s far from certain that Håkon and Karen will be particularly keen on their children eating Christmas dinner in the company of sore-infested, ravenous whores with AIDS.”

Nefis’s hand was only centimeters from Hanne’s cheek when it came to a sudden halt. Hanne stroked her untouched cheek. They stood there like that, Nefis with her hand raised and Hanne drawing back ever so slightly.

“That’s a terrible thing to say, Hanna. Terrible. We don’t say that sort of thing in our family.”

‘We don’t slap one another in our family, either!”

“I didn’t slap you,” Nefis said, turning on her heel. “But God knows I wanted to.”

Hanne Wilhelmsen was in a foul mood when, eleven minutes late, she entered the large conference room where the Superintendent had assembled sixteen investigators, two police prosecutors and a couple of clerical staff around the table. Hanne gave a brief nod to the Deputy Chief of Police, who sent a wide smile in her direction. She glibly disregarded Silje Sørensen, Erik Henriksen and Billy T., before taking a seat at the far end of the table, with a trainee officer on either side. Throughout the Superintendent’s report she stared at the table, hiding her eyes behind her heavy fringe. She seemed not to be following what was said at all. Unease spread around her: the others withdrew, as if feeling a physical aversion to her presence.

“There can be no doubt that the ongoing conflict among the family members was brutal enough,” Billy T. said, when the meeting was opened for discussion. “There’s a great deal of fairly complex case material, but the main quarrel concerned to what degree Hermann Stahlberg had committed himself to leaving the shipping company to Carl-Christian. After Preben’s return home, it was increasingly clear that the elder son had a greater capacity for business activities than his brother. The company was functioning better and expanding, including signing contracts for two new small cruise ships that will be completed in eighteen months’ time. A year ago, all the paperwork was drawn up. The shipping company, an unlisted limited company, wholly owned by Hermann and Turid Stahlberg, was to be signed over to Preben. Admittedly, both Carl-Christian and Hermine were to be provided for with a smaller block of shares each, but big brother would retain all the power. When I say that all the paperwork was ready, it’s important to emphasize that it was never signed. Carl-Christian took out an action against his father, and has produced what he claims to be documentation showing that Hermann had promised, with binding effect, to pass the shipping company to him.”

Billy T. wriggled his way up between the wall and the row of chair backs to an overhead projector and fumbled with the light switch. Then he placed a transparency upside-down on the glass plate. Silje Sørensen gave him some assistance and finally they could all see a chart of the Stahlberg dynasty.

“I think,” Billy T. began, “that it may be important for us all to have some understanding of how this family is composed. So, we have the mother and father here.”

He circled the older generation with a marker pen.

“Tax-assessment figures for last year, in themselves, are modest. Over four million in income and something over twenty-five in capital. But of course we all know …”

Grinning, he cast a glance at Silje, who twisted her enormous diamond ring round to her palm, a habit she had adopted every time money became a topic of conversation.

“… that sums such as these lie. They are forced down as far as possible.”

“But anyway, we’re not talking about a huge fortune,” the Superintendent commented.

“Well, I think twenty-five million is a hell of a lot of money,” Billy T. said. “But fair enough. We’re not talking about Rockefeller here.”

Again, he circled a name on the transparency.

“Preben Stahlberg, then, is the eldest of three children. His wife – Jennifer Calvin Stahlberg – is Australian. She’s a stay-at-home housewife, educated as a dietician, and doesn’t speak Norwegian. They have three young children. I don’t think these surviving relatives have any major significance for our inquiry. But things get more exciting here …”

He smacked the pen against the younger son’s name.

“Carl-Christian Stahlberg. He was only in his early teens when his brother ran off to sea. He claims he had definite plans to become a vet, but that he chose business college in order to comply with his father’s wishes. One of the letters from father to son at that time, by the way, has been offered to the court as proof to underpin Carl-Christian’s assertion that the shipping company was promised to him long ago.”

“But …”

Erik Henriksen squinted skeptically at the light from the overhead projector.

“Can you really claim rights to something simply because your dad has promised it? Is an ordinary promise actually legally binding?”

“It can be,” Annmari Skar, the Police Prosecutor, said. “In certain circumstances, a promise can be just as binding as a mutual agreement.”

“In any case,” Billy T. continued, “the boy got married five years ago to a strange woman. At that time she was called May Anita Olsen. When she married CC, she wasn’t content only to change her surname, but replaced the whole lot, in point of fact. Now her name is Mabelle Stahlberg.”

A couple of the youngest men grinned boldly as Billy T. took a moment to change the transparency, revealing a shapely blond with long hair, and lips obviously not bestowed at birth. They bulged unnaturally above a sensual chin. Her nose had probably not escaped the surgeon’s knife, either: it was ultra-narrow and straight as a ruler. Hanne Wilhelmsen gave a loud snort, the first sound she had made during the meeting. Billy T. waved his hand apologetically and changed the transparency.

“Doesn’t she run a fashion magazine?” Silje asked before he resumed.

“That’s right.
F&F.
Fashion and Feelings
. A lot of the former, hardly any of the latter. A glossy rag. It isn’t doing particularly well, of course – few of that sort of magazine do – but she actually manages okay. No longer losing money, at least. And, of course, Carl-Christian has money. Or put it this way, that was what they
believed
, CC and Mabelle. That they were going to come into money …”

He left the last sentence hanging in the air.

“Anyway,” he continued after a few seconds’ silence, “this Mabelle has something of a checkered past. Nothing criminal, apart from something I’ll come back to. What’s important in this connection, however, is that she has been despised and opposed by her in-laws from day one. They couldn’t stand the woman. She was not good enough for Carl-Christian, and far from good enough for the stodgy drawing rooms of Eckersbergs gate. They got married in Las Vegas, in total secrecy, far from Daddy’s fierce protests. Hermann actually made some attempts to have the marriage annulled. That foundered fairly quickly, of course, for he certainly wasn’t in a position to do anything of the kind. But it does tell us something. About the atmosphere, I mean. Within the family.”

“You said there was something criminal as well,” Erik reminded him.

“Yes …”

Billy T. scratched his crotch in distraction.

“Six months ago Hermann reported Mabelle for taking a car without consent. She was stopped by the police, and all that stuff. Driving around in an Audi A8 that was actually some sort of company car belonging to the shipping firm, but was normally used by Carl-Christian and Mabelle. Hermann had begun to implement cutbacks, and demanded that the vehicle should be handed back. When nothing happened, he reported the car stolen, totally without any further explanation to the police. It led to a fucking Wild West show. The police patrol that spotted the car was infuriated when Mabelle refused to stop, and the trip ended in a ditch in Grefsen. The woman said she had been scared and thought she was going to be robbed. She was clapped in irons and left in the back cells here for six hours, until at last CC managed to get things sorted out. The old man stood his ground and wanted to have his daughter-in-law charged, but the case was dropped for lack of evidence. It was quite simply too weird. After all, it
was
her car. To all intents and purposes, I mean.”

“Strange family.”

The Superintendent yawned and made an effort to shake himself awake.

“Anything more on that, Billy T.?”

“Nothing apart from there being quite an extended family. Aunts and uncles and lots of cousins all over the place. And then there’s Hermine, of course. The little sister.”

A question mark appeared against Hermine’s name on the overhead transparency, tucked away in an insignificant corner of the chart.

“We know a lot less about her. At least for the present. She seems almost … stupid. No education. No real job, despite being in apparent good health. She’s done a number of odd jobs for her sister-in-law at
F&F
, and from her appearance she would fit in well there. Also, she has done some odds and ends for her father, and for an uncle that she has a lot to do with. He’s an art dealer, I think. The strange thing is that she …”