Beyond the Truth

by Anne Holt

  “I just can’t go to jail right now. Not right now, Billy T. Give me some help, please!”

  Billy T. stopped, but did not turn around.

  “Let me hear,” he said, facing the door. “If what you have is of any worth whatsoever, then I can see to it that this bag shrinks a bit.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Is that okay?”

  “Okay then—”

  Billy T. looked pointedly at the wall clock as he sat down again.

  “But it will have to be something substantial, Kluten. No shit. Okay?”

  “Okay, I’m telling you. Listen up now.”

  Eleven minutes later, Billy T. began to feel hot. Sometimes he interrupted the prisoner with a question. He had produced a notepad and was using it frequently. When Kluten finally slumped in his chair and declared that he was finished, Billy T. fell silent. Kluten bared his toothless gums in some sort of smile. The corners of his mouth were red with dried blood that cracked with his grimace.

  “Was that substantial enough, then?”

  Billy T. still did not answer. He simply sat there, also with his arms crossed, looking as if he did not believe a word of what Kluten had told him. His mouth was pulled down into a skeptical expression and his eyes were half closed. Kluten rocked impatiently to and fro in his seat, scratching frantically at a cut on his forehead.

  “Come on, be nice! Can I go now?”

  “Oddvar, isn’t it? That’s your real name?”

  “Yes … don’t mess me around, now. Can I go?”

  “Oddvar.”

  Billy T. used an intercom to call a police trainee.

  “Oddvar,” he repeated. “I would have liked to help you. But that’s not on. In the first place, it’s four grams too much for me to look through my fingers at. Secondly, you’re so exhausted now that I don’t really think you’ll survive another night in this cold. And thirdly—”

  “I can stay at my sister’s,” Kluten said in desperation. “For fuck’s sake, you got the whole lot! Everything I know, Billy T.! I can’t face a cell now.”

  A scrawny young man entered and put his hand on Kluten’s shoulder.

  “Come on now,” the trainee said, struggling to appear mature.

  “Fuck you, Billy T.! Fuck you!”

  He sobbed and whined all the way along the corridor. Billy T. leafed distractedly through his notes.

  “That statement of yours,” he muttered. “Hanne will have to hear that with her own ears.”

  Then he stuffed the notepad into his back pocket and went to check if one of the police prosecutors was working overtime. If not, he would have to phone for one of them. Even though it was past seven o’clock in the evening.

  The old man in the forest stood in the woodshed brushing dust and dirt from his ancient ice drill. It had not been used in years. In fact he was not especially fond of fishing, at least not in winter. A still summer’s night beside the water could be very pleasant, with bait and floats and a coffee pot on the campfire; the occasional walker would sometimes stop for a chat. However, he had never seen the point of freezing like a dog over a hole in the ice.

  But he had made up his mind. He would try to discover what the stranger had been doing. Probably it would be futile. Probably he was wrong. Probably he was making a complete fool of himself. In all likelihood, it would be impossible to find anything anyway. All the same, something had stirred within him: a curiosity that made his blood flow a bit faster through his body. It reminded him vaguely of the old days, of wandering around foreign ports, on shore leave or because he had been left behind, as happened to him increasingly often, drunk and broke, but always on the lookout for new possibilities. Life in the forest was static, the way he liked it; the way he had chosen to live. The disturbance of his existence caused by the stranger’s behavior – that sudden element of something incomprehensible and stimulating – was nevertheless welcome: a Christmas gift.

  Not a soul would see him. He would wait until after nine on the day before Christmas Eve, when good people were at home decorating their Christmas trees. He was going to spend some time doing something that was almost certainly simply ludicrous, and it would be best that no one knew about it.

  The old man drilled a trial hole in the air before running his hand thoughtfully over the stubble on his chin.

  The ice drill was in good working order.

  Two hours prior to midnight, Kluten was found dead in the remand cell. In the agonies of abstinence, he had hit his head off the wall. The doctor thought he must have taken a run at it: his skull was split in two. When Billy T. got to hear of the incident, he shut himself into his office, on his own.

  MONDAY DECEMBER 23

  Only Hanne Wilhelmsen could have arranged such an interview. Billy T. tried to hide a smile as they were escorted into the private ward. Half an hour earlier it had seemed totally impossible. The doctor in charge of the unit was so condescending that Hanne flared up. When the man in the white coat eventually agreed to admit them, it was following a combination of coercion and police arrogance, mixed with veiled threats about extreme unpleasantness of a “seriously legal nature”. The doctor, advanced in years, fiddled with the stethoscope around his neck. A decoration, Billy T. thought, the symbol of a craft guild to indicate distance and dignity.

  Hermine was awake.

  They were greeted with complete indifference. Hanne introduced both herself and Billy T. The patient scarcely blinked, and Billy T. was unsure whether she understood who they were.

  “Police,” he repeated, smiling encouragingly. “We’re from the police.”

  She sat almost bolt upright in a mechanical bed. Her hair was tousled and uncombed, her complexion as pale as the bed sheets. Some kind of rash surrounded her mouth, small pimples in a butterfly pattern. Billy T. thought of his own daughter, who was allergic to her pacifier. That was how she looked, Hermine, as if she had taken some childish comfort that she could not withstand.

  All the same, she was pretty, in a kind of defenseless way. Her hair was tangled, but fell soft and blond around her narrow face. Her eyes were impassive, but big and blue. Even two days after a major overdose, Hermine Stahlberg knew how to use her talents, and now she smiled almost coquettishly at Billy T.

  “I heard that,” she said. “I expect it’s about Mother and Father. And Preben, too. I’ve been expecting you. I’m not having an easy time of it, as you see …”

  A look of self-pity surveyed the IV-stand.

  “… but I appreciate, of course, that you have to talk to me.”

  Billy T. felt uncomfortable. Like a sticky length of string, Hermine’s gaze attached itself to him, even when he moved from the bedside to the windowsill. He reacted by saying nothing and averting his eyes. Hanne was in the process of going through the meaningless introductory remarks. Formalities first, followed by condolences and innocuous questions with worthless responses. Through it all, Hermine watched him, and only him. A pictogram on a door on the gable wall indicated that the room boasted an en-suite bathroom. He excused himself to take a piss. Washed his hands thoroughly. Splashed water on his face. Not until he heard raised voices in the next room did he return.

  “Nothing other than that,” Hanne said. “I just want to know what you were doing on November the tenth. Sunday November the tenth.”

  She had caught Hermine’s attention now.

  “I don’t know!”

  It did not seem as if she had noticed his return. She sat up even straighter in the bed. Now she was sitting half turned toward Hanne, gesturing angrily.

  “I can’t be expected to remember what I was doing on one particular day more than a month ago!”

  “What about the sixteenth?” Hanne said. “What were you doing on the evening of November the sixteenth?”

  “I’ve no idea where you’re going with this!”

  “That’s not necessary, either. I just want answers to my questions. But it’s obvious … we can just as easily drag you along to the courthouse for a judicial examination. If that�
�s what you want. We’re only trying to be pleasant here. To make it a bit simpler for you.”

  “Pleasant … huh!”

  Hermine sank back melodramatically in the bed, holding her face in her hands. Muffled sobs could be heard. Hanne sighed as she leaned forward.

  “Listen to me, Hermine Stahlberg. The quicker you answer our questions, the quicker we’ll disappear. Okay? So I’ll ask again: is there something we can get hold of, to make it easier for you to remember what you were doing on November the tenth and sixteenth? A calendar? A diary, perhaps?”

  Hermine smacked the quilt with her hands.

  “I want a lawyer,” she said.

  Her voice had changed. It seemed sharper, more alert, as if the overdose and bed rest were simply an act, a staged defense against undesirable questions and uncomfortable inquiries.

  “A lawyer …”

  Hanne lingered on the word, tasting it, before shrugging and giving a slight smile.

  “So you mean you need a lawyer, then.”

  Hermine lay with her eyes closed, and Billy T. had to admire her for the way she managed to keep her eyelids still. Only a discreet trembling of her left hand disclosed how tense the young woman actually felt.

  “Interesting,” Billy T. said. “Hanne Wilhelmsen here and I have more than forty years’ experience behind us. In the police, that is. In total. And we know very well that when someone asks for a lawyer, then we’ve stepped on a tender toe. We like that a lot.”

  Still Hermine did not react.

  “You must realize we know what you were doing on the—”

  “I don’t think we need to tell the young lady anything of what we know,” Hanne interrupted him, sending Billy T. a warning look.

  “Hermine doesn’t want to talk. Hermine has the right to that. If Hermine would prefer to be hauled in for interview, then Hermine will be allowed to do that. We’ll even get her a lawyer. Isn’t that right, Billy T.? She’ll have a really good lawyer.”

  Hermine suddenly grabbed the alarm button at the end of a cord suspended above the headboard. It took only seconds for a nurse to appear inside the room.

  “I can’t handle it,” Hermine murmured, before her tone changed to a falsetto. “I can’t cope with these people! Get them out! Get them out of here!”

  The attack of hysterics almost seemed genuine. The last Billy T. could discern as he was pushed out of the room by a brusque orderly was the nurse preparing an injection.

  “My goodness,” Billy T. said once they were well outside. “She could have been an actress, that one. Impressive.”

  “It’s not certain that she’s play-acting,” Hanne said. “In my opinion, she’s terrified. She also has good reason to be.”

  “But now,” Billy T. said, slapping her on the back as they sauntered over to an unmarked police car, extremely badly parked halfway across a footpath, “now you have to agree that your theory is in tatters.”

  “What theory?”

  “The theory that … that it might not be the family who are behind it.”

  “I’ve never said that,” Hanne retorted. “On the contrary, I’ve said that theory sounds more likely than anything else I can come up with. But it’s far from certain, you know. Not yet.”

  Billy T. pulled a face at the bad weather: “Not yet! My God, Hanne! Hermine has bought a gun, for fuck’s sake. She has ordered, inspected, made a test firing, and paid for a handgun in a market very few would dare go anywhere near. Why the hell would she do that, if the purchase had nothing to do with the murders?”

  “You’re forgetting so much,” Hanne said, narrowly avoiding a slip on a patch of ice.

  Billy T. caught her and did not release her arm. Hanne turned to face him.

  “For example, you’re forgetting that we don’t have a shred of anything resembling a motive for Hermine,” she said. “She’s the beloved child, the one who’s pampered. She’s everyone’s friend. The bridge-builder, don’t you remember? Of course she can’t be excluded. Certainly not, in fact, I …”

  She tilted her head and ran her tongue over her winter-dry lips.

  “I have a stronger feeling there’s something about her than I do with her brother and sister-in-law. You and I both know what drugs do to people. From that point of view, her profile fits better with a violent and more or less impulsive killing. Besides, I’m incredibly curious as to why she received that fortune on her twentieth birthday. But for that very reason, Billy T. – for the reason that Hermine is the obscure, the mysterious, and the one of our suspects we have least information about – we ought to find out more before we draw conclusions. Much more. And in addition …”

  She squinted into empty space.

  “We don’t know that Hermine has bought a gun. We only have your friend Kluten’s word for that. There’s a whole heap of loose ends here. You might as well admit it right now: you don’t have the best witness in the world as the source for that information. It could be fabrication from start to finish. From what you said yourself, Kluten was pretty desperate at the thought of being locked up. People like that also read newspapers, Billy T. Kluten knew fine well what you wanted most of all to hear.”

  Billy T. had still not relinquished her arm. They stood like that – he with the wind at his back, she sheltered behind his well-built body.

  “He was telling the truth, Hanne. I know Kluten. At the very least there’s some truth in what he told me.”

  Billy T. used the back of his hand to dry tears – caused by the cold – from his eyes; the wind was starting to blow in fierce gusts.

  “But because he told the truth, it doesn’t necessarily mean that what he said was correct,” Hanne answered, more conciliatory now. “After all, he said himself that it was something he’d heard.”

  “He had dates, Hanne. Kluten had two dates and the location where it was handed over.”

  “But no name. No supplier.”

  “No. No name. But …”

  He continued slowly toward the car.

  “I checked with our undercover officers this morning. It’s buzzing down there, in those circles. Every single damn drug addict they’ve towed in over the weekend has come up with hints of one kind or another about the murders in Eckersbergs gate.”

  He stopped again, his face to the wind now, his cheeks stinging.

  “Kluten was completely convinced, Hanne. I just wish I’d pressed him harder about where he got this story. He avoided answering every time I broached it, and in the end he was so exhausted I thought it best to let him go.”

  “And now it’s too late,” Hanne said, opening the door on the driver’s side.

  “But it is at least a lead,” Billy T. said, sounding disheartened.

  “A lead,” Hanne reiterated, with a burst of laughter. “You can say that again. That’s the fattest and ugliest lead we could have dreamed of. What’s more, it’s about the only one we have. I’ll drive.”

  “Where are we going?” Billy T. asked.

  “We’re going to the publisher’s.”

  “The publisher’s? What are we going to do there?”

  “Find out a bit more about Sidensvans.”

  “Sidensvans?”

  Billy T. hit his right arm off the dashboard; he was cramped and uncomfortable in the small police car.

  “You don’t give up,” he muttered, struggling to push the seat back. “Do you still think the key to this case lies with Sidensvans? Good Lord …”

  Something broke underneath the seat as it jolted back. Billy T. bit his tongue hard in the sudden jerk.

  “Ouch! Fuck! I’m bleeding.”

  “Poor wee soul,” Hanne said, smiling, finding first gear at last.

  Alfred Stahlberg had a terrible hangover, even though it was approaching half past ten in the morning. His alcohol intake the previous night had at least made him sleep. Or go out like a light, he thought woozily. He remembered little apart from desperately searching for more vodka.

  His brain pulsed rhythmically against the
inside of his skull. The pain caused by each beat crept down his neck and made it difficult for him to move his head. He had not showered in four days and his shirt front was stained. Not until today had he been aware of his own smell: pungent and repulsive. He pulled a face at his reflection. The slight movement caused the pain to radiate toward his eyes. He spilled a few drops as he poured vodka into a kitchen tumbler. It all vanished in a single gulp.

  That helped.

  A little.

  He poured himself another, and his headache slowly retreated. He tried to take deep, calm breaths. He was in sore need of a shower. He had to have clean clothes. He was dead tired, even though it had been ten hours since he last looked at the clock. He must have slept for at least eight of them.

  In the shower, he stared down at his body. The water ran over his pale flabby frame slowly, almost like syrup, as if his skin were tacky. Alfred was the ugly one. The useless little brother. The weak one, the one who squandered his father’s legacy and never experienced any success.

  He was a fool and had expended too much energy on refusing to acknowledge that.

  Such a lot had to be organized.

  Someone had to take the lead now. Someone must guide the family, steer them through the maze of legalities and gossip they were faced with, without anyone seemingly able to get a grip on it all. It ought to be him. He was the last man of the older generation of Stahlbergs. The thought weighed heavily on him; he sank to his knees, but struck his forehead on the tiles and staggered back into an upright position. The water did not make him clean. He could not even see his own sexual organs under his potbelly. Using both hands, he scratched himself, scratching and scraping until his nails were full of dead skin and thin lines of blood trickled over his paunch.

  Alfred was a failure and was tired of suppressing that.

  The hot water petered out. He shuffled away from the shower, attempting to hide his body in an enormous bath sheet. Alfred Stahlberg was a fool; he was unsuccessful and ugly. He could see it for himself and he sniffed through tears of self-loathing.

  On the other hand, it was impossible for him to digest that he was also a criminal.