by Anne Holt
“Let’s go inside,” she murmured, noticing how dread had made her feel queasy.
The eldest of the three murder victims bore a resemblance to the famous portrait of Albert Einstein. The corpse lay in the hallway with one hand tucked under his head as if he had made himself comfortable on the floor, his hair forming a voluminous garland around his crown, with a bushy mop in the middle. His tongue also dangled from his mouth, extended to a bizarre length, and his eyes were wide open.
“That guy looks as if he’s had a shock. An electric shock!”
Billy T. leaned inquisitively over the old man.
“If it hadn’t been for this here, eh?”
He used a pen to point to an entry wound just below his left eye. Not particularly large, it appeared black rather than blood-red.
“And this. And this.”
The doctor, obviously responsible for the cadaver’s shirt front being carefully folded to one side, waved Billy T. aside. Between the sparse gray chest hairs, Hanne could see two further wounds.
“How many shots are we actually dealing with?” she asked.
“Too early to say,” the physician answered tersely. “Quite a number. You ought to have had a pathologist here, if you ask me. It’s about time you had a workable rota system sorted out with the Forensics Institute. All I can say is that these people are dead. Pretty grotesque, in my opinion. That man over there’s the worst, I believe.”
Hanne Wilhelmsen did not want to look at “that man over there”. She had to steel herself to step around the old man and take a closer look at the body in the overcoat. An ill-tempered grunt sounded from one of the technicians, who could not bear having police investigators tramping around the crime scene.
Hanne ignored him. When she leaned over the corpse nearest to the front door and noticed how the exit wound in the skull had been licked clean of blood, her nausea increased. Swiftly straightening her back, she swallowed and pointed at the body of the third man, whose age she estimated at about forty.
“Preben,” Billy T. introduced him. “The elder son of the father, Hermann, over there. That much we know, at least.”
His arms were by his sides, as if the son of the family had stiffened into a military pose as he hit the floor. His pale-blue shirt showed two small bullet holes on the breast pocket and his shoulder was ripped open with dark, fleshy lacerations.
The doctor nodded almost imperceptibly.
“I haven’t managed to look at him more closely. The dog has gorged itself on … if we are talking about a dog, that is.”
“Come here!”
Billy T. waved her toward the kitchen at the end of the spacious, dark hallway. Dressed all in white, he looked odd, with green socks outside his shoes and a paper hairnet stretched tight on his head.
A woman’s body stood by the kitchen sink. She had no hair, but a wig lay on the floor beside her. The woman’s pale scalp was disfigured by scars. She wore an elegant pink dress and her eyes were wide open, with a piercing, almost reproachful look. A perplexed young police officer was making a feeble attempt to set her hair to rights before Billy T. stopped him.
“Are you crazy or what? Don’t touch! Hell and damnation, what are you doing here anyway? This place is overcrowded as it is.”
Irritated, he began to sort out those who were necessary from those who were not. Hanne stood calmly by, struggling to make sense of what she could see.
The woman was actually upright.
Her face was singularly sexless. That must be because of the lack of hair. When Hanne approached more closely, she saw that the woman’s eyebrows were also fake, painted on, a bit too high, too distinctive. Above her left eye the painted brow formed an arch toward the bridge of her nose that served to reinforce her skeptical expression. Her eyes were open. Pale-blue, small, and without lashes. On the other hand, her mouth was well formed, with full lips, and appeared younger than the rest of her face, as if it had recently been worked on by a plastic surgeon.
“Turid Stahlberg,” Billy T. said, having now halved the number of people present in the apartment, and the atmosphere was conspicuously quieter. “Her name’s Turid. Tutta, to the family.”
“Stahlberg,” Hanne said, slightly confused, as she surveyed the enormous kitchen. “Not the Stahlberg family?”
“Yep. Hermann, the father, is the eldest of the three you saw in the hallway. I’ve also introduced you to Preben. He is forty-two. What is actually keeping this lady on her feet?”
Billy T. leaned forward and tried to peer behind the upright woman. Her ample backside was resting on the kitchen worktop and her feet were planted on the floor, well spaced, as if she had found her sea legs when faced with the killer.
“She’s only just supported here,” Billy T. mumbled. “By her ass. But her torso … why doesn’t she topple over?”
A faint tearing sound should have warned him, as he stood halfway crouched over the corpse in an effort to seek an explanation. The woman, who must weigh at least seventy kilos, collapsed on to his back and knocked him off-balance. First of all he fell to his knees. The floor was slick with tea from a smashed thermos and something that looked like honey or syrup. Fast as lightning, Billy T.’s knee skidded out to one side.
“Hanne! Bloody hell! Help!”
Billy T. was spreadeagled and floundering under a pink-clad female cadaver with a shiny scalp.
“What in all …”
The curses of two crime-scene technicians reverberated around the room.
“Lie still! Completely still!”
Five minutes later, Billy T. was able to stand up, looking more abject than Hanne had seen him in a very long time.
“Sorry, boys,” he muttered, disconsolately struggling to assist them with moving the woman’s body on to a stretcher.
“Get away,” one of his colleagues snarled. “You’ve done enough in here!”
Only now did Hanne notice a cake dish, licked clean, on the worktop where the woman’s body had rested. The marks left by an animal’s tongue could be distinguished in the greasy traces of whipped cream: wiry gray hairs plastered to the porcelain.
“Well, at least Tutta escaped the attentions of the dog,” she said crisply. “Saved by cream cake.”
“I think they were planning a celebration,” Billy T. said. “There’s an opened, but full, bottle of champagne in the living room. Four glasses. Yes, okay! I’m leaving. I’m going, I said.”
The most senior of the crime-scene examiners was literally trying to push Billy T.’s huge bulk out of the kitchen, through the door into the living room.
“I’m going,” Billy T. barked. “I’m leaving right now. Don’t you listen?”
“Four glasses,” Hanne repeated, following him into the vast living room crammed with heavy furniture. “And sandwiches. Open sandwiches, that is.”
The plate of sandwiches was still on the dining table. Empty, apart from a salad leaf and three slices of cucumber, meticulously licked clean of mayonnaise.
“Did they have a dog?” Hanne asked distractedly.
“No,” Silje Sørensen replied, and Hanne noticed for the first time that she had sneaked in. “Pet dogs were forbidden here. Or … the owners had agreed that no one should keep pets.”
“How do you already know that?”
“The neighbor,” Silje said, waving vaguely in the direction of the street. “I spoke to a woman who lives across the street.”
“What else did you find out?”
“Not much.”
Licking her fingertip, Silje Sorensen leafed through a spiral notebook. A massive diamond ring glittered on her right hand.
“The neighbors directly above …”
She pointed at the ceiling.
“… are away. They have a holiday house in Spain, and traveled south as early as November.”
“No one looking after their apartment?”
“The woman outside, Aslaug Kvalheim, says their daughter pops in now and again. She hasn’t been there for a few days,
though, according to Mrs. Kvalheim. And to be honest …”
Silje flashed a smile.
“… I think Mrs. Kvalheim knows most of what goes on in this street. A real old busybody.”
“Just as well for us,” Hanne said. “What did she see tonight?”
“Nothing, unfortunately. She was at bingo from seven o’clock, and came back an hour ago. We were already here by then.”
Hanne pulled a grimace.
“The other apartments, then?”
“Across the landing …”
Silje used her thumb to point, before turning the page.
“… lives someone called Henrik Backe. A grumpy old man. I spoke to him myself, and he was three sheets to the wind. Bad-tempered about all the commotion. He didn’t let me in.”
“You didn’t go in? Did you just talk to him and leave him be?”
“Of course not, Hanne. Take it easy. Two men are in with him now. For the time being, all I know is that he claims he’s been at home all evening, and he hasn’t heard anything.”
“That’s impossible,” Billy T. blurted. “Look around! There must have been all sorts of bloody bangs and explosions in here.”
“Whether it’s possible or not is something we don’t know very much about, as yet,” Silje said, sounding slightly peeved. “The guy could have used a silencer. In any case, the boys will bring Henrik Backe in for interview tonight, no matter how much he protests. Then we’ll see.”
“And who reported it?”
“A chance caller. We’re checking him out, of course, but it seems he’s a young man who was just—”
“Fine. I see.”
Hanne caught herself speculating about the size of the apartment. The living room must be more than seventy square meters – at least if you counted the conservatory overlooking the back yard. The furniture was crowded, but each item was beautiful, when regarded individually. Pride of place, against the exterior wall, was given to a dark oak sideboard, with carved door panels and glass doors on the top cupboards. The dining table was surrounded by twelve chairs with armrests. In addition to the manila-hemp seating in the conservatory, there was sufficient room for three other suites. Only one seemed to be in regular use: the upholstery was obviously worn on the furniture in front of the TV set. The paintings on the walls were probably genuine, all with national romantic or maritime motifs. In particular, Hanne noticed an imminent shipwreck on the wall facing the kitchen. She stepped closer.
“Peder Balke,” she said in hushed tones. “My goodness!”
The ice cubes in the champagne cooler had melted long ago. Hanne studied the label without touching the bottle.
“That’s the sort of stuff you drink,” Billy T. said. “Damned expensive.”
“Do we know anything at all of interest?” Hanne asked, without taking her eyes off the bottle. “For instance, what they were celebrating?”
“Maybe they were just enjoying themselves,” Silje Sørensen ventured. “After all, it will soon be—”
“Christmas,” Hanne broke in. “There are five days left till Christmas. This is a fairly normal Thursday. That bottle there costs eight hundred and fifty kroner at the liquor store. There are limits to enjoying yourself, Silje. They were going to celebrate something. Something pretty major.”
“We don’t know—”
“Look here, Silje.”
Hanne pointed at the TV set, the screen partly hidden by Venetian blinds; the set was in itself a massive piece of furniture in mahogany or teak.
“The TV set is at least thirty years old. The settee is so worn that you can see the warp in the weave. The pictures – at least that one there …”
She pointed at the Peder Balke.
“It’s fairly valuable. The crystal in the cupboard over there is worth a fortune. There are only three kinds of sandwich topping in the fridge: yellow cheese, liver pâté, and jam. The apartment here must be worth seven or eight million, at least. His sweater …”
Wheeling around, she nodded to the hallway where Hermann Stahlberg’s body was being transferred to a stretcher.
“… is from some time in the seventies. Nice and clean, but nevertheless so worn that the elbows are darned. What does all this tell you?”
“Tight-fisted folk,” Billy T. answered, before Silje had a chance to consider the question. “Miserly. But rich. Come on, let’s go.”
Hanne made no sign of following him.
“Is there really nobody who knows who that stranger in the hallway is?”
“He’s been removed now,” Silje murmured.
“Thank God for that,” Billy T. exclaimed. “But do we know anything about him?”
“Not a thing.”
Silje Sørensen leafed aimlessly through her notes.
“No wallet. No ID. But elegant clothes. Suit. Good overcoat.”
“Nothing very elegant about that guy,” Billy T. said, shuddering. “The dog has—”
“Overcoat,” Hanne Wilhelmsen interrupted. “He was wearing a coat. Had he just arrived or was he about to leave?”
“Arrived,” Silje suggested. “The champagne was untouched. Besides, with all those men out in the hallway—”
“Lobby,” Billy T. corrected her. “It’s big enough for three dead bodies, for heaven’s sake.”
“Lobby, then. It looks like a real welcoming committee out there, don’t you think? I’ll bet the stranger had just arrived.”
Hanne scanned the living room one final time, making up her mind to inspect the rest of the apartment later. There were enough people here at present. Photographers balancing on short stepladders. Crime-scene technicians moving around quietly with their steel cases, wearing plastic gloves and looking purposeful. The doctor, gray, drawn, and obviously in a foul temper, was on his way out. The silence with which the technicians enveloped themselves was broken only by rapid commands of one syllable, demonstrating both their efficiency and their coordination, but also an ill-concealed displeasure at the continued presence of the police investigators. Later, Hanne thought, I’ll look at the rest later. The thought was accompanied by a grudging sense of relief that the Christmas holiday would come to naught yet again this year.
The idea brought a smile to her face.
“What is it?” Billy T. asked.
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
In the lobby, Hanne was confronted by her own reflection in the mirror and stopped short for a moment. Billy T. was right. She had put on weight. Her chin was rounded, her face seemed slightly broader, and there was an unfamiliar aspect to the bridge of her nose that made her look away. It must be the mirror, black-speckled with age.
The cadaver of the horribly lacerated and hitherto unidentified male in his sixties had been removed. Marker tape glistened on the parquet.
“Not a single damn trace of blood left,” Billy T. said, crouching down. “That dog’s had a feast.”
“Stop it,” Hanne said. “I feel sick.”
“I’m hungry,” Billy T. said, shadowing her on the way out.
They both noticed the nameplate as they closed the front door behind them: magnificent, almost awe-inspiring, in worn brass with black lettering: “Hermann Stahlberg.”
No Tutta. Or Turid. None of the children, even though the nameplate obviously originated from a time long before any of the children had left home.
“Here lived Hermann Stahlberg,” Billy T. said. “Cock of the walk.”
They settled on the steps outside Hanne’s apartment in Kruses gate. She had brought newspapers from the recycling container to sit on.
“Picnic in the depths of winter,” Billy T. said, munching, his mouth full of food. “Can’t we go up? Bloody hell, I’m freezing to death!”
Hanne tried to follow the snowflakes, one by one, with her eyes. The temperature had plummeted. As the crystals whirled through the air, she caught them in the palm of her hand. One glimpse of hexagonal symmetry and then they were gone.
“Don’t want to wake the others.”
“What do you think?” he asked, tucking into another slice of bread.
“That they’ll wake if we go up.”
“Idiot! About the case, I mean. Nothing was stolen.”
“We don’t know that.”
“That’s how it looks,” he said impatiently. “The silverware was still there. The paintings … you said yourself that they were valuable. To me, it looked as if nothing had been taken. It wasn’t a robbery-related homicide.”
“We don’t know that, Billy T. Don’t jump—”
“… to conclusions,” he completed for her, sounding discouraged, as he got to his feet. “Thanks for the food,” he said, brushing snow off his jacket. “Is Mary okay?”
“As you can see,” Hanne said, nodding at the leftovers. “Methadone, isolation, and housework are doing wonders. She and Nefis are like this.”
She crossed her fingers in the air, and Billy T. hooted with laughter.
“Not so easy sometimes,” Hanne said, “for me. There’s a lot of two against one, in our everyday lives, if I can put it that way.”
“Huh. You love it. Haven’t seen you looking so happy in years. Not since … the old days, you know. It’s almost as if everything’s the same as before.”
They cleared up in silence. It was past two o’clock and the weather had turned blustery, with sudden biting gusts. Their footsteps on the courtyard were swept away. There was no longer light from any of the apartments. Only the street lamps beyond the stone wall cast a glimmer of visibility over the snow that now blanketed everything. Hanne squinted into the wind.
“Nothing’s like it was before,” she said softly. “Never say that. This is now. Everything’s different. Cecilie is dead. Nefis has come. You and I are … we’re older – nothing is like it was before. Never.”
He had already started to walk, lurching unsteadily in the drifts, with his hands thrust deep inside his pockets. Her gaze followed his retreating back.
“Don’t go!” she shouted. “I only meant …”
Billy T. did not want to hear her. As he negotiated his way around the gate and quickly threw a backward glance, his expression scared her. At first she did not understand. Then she did not want to understand. She did not want to catch what he muttered under his breath; she must have been mistaken. The distance was too great. The weather made contours indistinct and sounds unclear.