by Anne Holt
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!”
“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.
There was something fishy about Alfred Stahlberg. Even Hermine, the favorite niece who was almost more Alfred’s daughter than Hermann’s, could sometimes withdraw into conspicuous rejection of everything connected with her uncle. When she was little and Carl-Christian a teenager, he was sometimes taken aback by how she alternated between warm affection and defiant dislike of the charming, garrulous good-for-nothing her uncle was in reality. Later, Carl-Christian stopped bothering. He quite simply couldn’t make Alfred out. Neither did he understand his father’s indulgence of his younger brother, when it was obvious at the same time that they were far from emotionally close. People laughed at Alfred, but they also laughed with him. They talked about him, but mostly with him, and they all reveled in the stories he could invent: untruthful, almost poetic in their obvious exaggeration of his own excellence, resourcefulness, and flair for business. Alfred was too corpulent and too intense about everything, but until a few months ago he had nevertheless been quite an elegant man.
Now there was a rank smell about him and, more than anything, Carl-Christian wanted to leave.
“I have to go home,” he murmured almost inaudibly.
As he turned to the door, he saw that Alfred was sitting on Hermine’s bed, holding her hand in his. When she managed, only just, to open her eyes, she greeted him with a smile.
Erik Henriksen stood open-mouthed at the kitchen in Kruses gate.
“Good God,” he said finally. “It’s fabulous here, really!”
“So this is your boyfriend, then!”
Mary revealed her new teeth as she poured a generous measure of mulled wine into his glass, adding some nuts and raisins until it looked more like porridge than a beverage.
“Something to heat you up,” she said by way of explanation, when she topped it all off with a shot of spirits from a bottle of 60 percent proof.
“Hey,” Erik protested, trying to place his hand over the glass. “It’s only twelve o’clock!”
“No harm’s ever come to anyone from a wee nip of the hard stuff on the last Sunday in Advent,” Mary concluded, presenting him with a plaited basket crammed with home baking. “Here. Eat. Baked them myself.”
“Thanks,” Erik muttered, biting dutifully into a gingerbread man while Mary left the kitchen and closed the door behind her.
Putting her index finger to her mouth, Hanne sneaked over to the fridge. Two minutes later she had buttered a heap of four huge sandwiches.
“I’m starving,” she whispered. “But Mary would have launched into a huge meal if I’d told her so. I said we’d just eaten. So …”
She pointed at the basket of cakes.
“You’re both so kind. For looking after her.”
“We’re not actually particularly kind,” Hanne answered. “She works like a Trojan. Keeps this whole house clean and prepares almost all the food. She refuses to accept any payment other than board and lodging.”
“You are both kind,” Erik insisted. “I would never have taken in an old prostitute and given her a chance like this. Even though she helped you with the case about the chef that time. Wasn’t she the one who’d swiped the most vital piece of evidence from the crime scene? Was that how you met her?”
“Yes. She stuck to me like glue afterwards. I had to look after her for a while, you see, since we were relying on her testimony. And then she just stayed on.”
“I’d never have been allowed to do that, for heaven’s sake.”
“But then you don’t live like this, either. Mary is here for my sake.”
“What?”
“I … I’m a bit allergic to families, Erik. Mary reminds me that this is a … chosen arrangement. Not a real family.”
“A family is also chosen, you know,” Erik said, obviously confused. “You fall in love, have children—”
“We don’t need to talk about it any more,” Hanne broke in. “It’s not really so very interesting.”
They continued eating in silence. Erik devoured three of the sandwiches and washed them down with tiny sips of the fortified mulled wine. Mary was right: it gave you a warm glow. Feeling slightly light-headed, he quickly keyed in a text message and sent it off.
“My girlfriend,” he explained. “Message that I’ve been delayed.”
Erik wanted to stay there, in Hanne’s kitchen, for as long as he could. The liquor hit him all of a sudden. Everything turned warm and he stripped off his sweater. Only now did he notice that Hanne had not touched her glass, and pushed his own away.
“Have you anything lighter?” he asked weakly.
“Mary no longer drinks alcohol,” Hanne explained. “It’s as if she makes up for it by pressing alcohol on everyone else. Maybe it’s to prove she can manage without it.”
“Or that she remembers how good it is. By the way … where did all the money come from?”
Hanne brought apple juice from the brushed-steel double fridge. She took her time pouring it into two glasses.
“That’s none of your business,” she said eventually.
“Fair enough. I’m asking all the same. Where did the money come from?”
Hanne’s face was blank. She sat for a while looking at him, as if she expected him to answer his own question.
“Nefis,” she said in the end.
“Yes, I realize that. I expect we’d have heard about it, if you’d won the lottery. But why is she so rich?”
“Her father. Her father is loaded.”
“That doesn’t explain very much,” Erik said, disheartened. “Why is her father so wealthy? And why has he given so much to his daughter? Is he dead, or what?”
“Mary,” Hanne yelled. “We can’t have that on. Turn off that awful song! NOW!”
“I’ll turn the volume down,” Mary said, looking miffed, and disappeared out the door.
Silence did not descend until Nefis had located the plug and brutally pulled it out of the socket.
“I think I’ve broken it,” she whispered hopefully, saying hello to Erik before adding, “Look who’s come, Hanna!”
Billy T. was standing behind her.
“Here’s the Christmas party, then! And conspiracies, I see! Why wasn’t I invited? Here I am, just popping in with something for the Christmas celebrations, and I find two of my closest colleagues sitting talking shop without me.”
“We’re not talking …”
Erik looked in consternation from Hanne to Billy.
“We only—”
“Don’t make excuses!”
Billy T. crashed down on a chair and drew it up to the kitchen table.
“You’d better wipe up that mess,” he said, pointing at the puddle of apple juice, before fixing his eyes on Hanne. “Nefis tells me you’ve decided to share your thoughts on the Stahlberg case with our red-haired friend here.”
Nefis stroked his shoulders lightly and asked in a friendly voice, “Can I offer you something, Billy T.? Wine, perhaps?”
Billy T. hesitated, before a faint smile crossed his face and he accepted a glass with thanks.
Erik was relieved. For a moment everything had seemed spoiled. If Nefis had not intervened, he might just have gone home. So often in recent years he had witnessed how Hanne and Billy T. could reach deadlock in each other’s company: turn sour, become withdrawn. Now they both sat smiling reluctantly, with eyes downcast, like reprimanded children.
“Listen up, then!”
“Okay.”
Hanne took a deep breath and followed Nefis with her eyes as she left the kitchen.
“I think,” she began, “I think the homicide in Eckersbergs gate might have something to do with those fierce family conflicts.”