Beyond the Truth

by Anne Holt

  Åshild Meier of the publishing house was a small woman. She reminded Hanne of a weasel, with her rapid movements and her eyes darting here and there as she tried to clear a space for them both.

  “Sorry about the mess,” she said, shifting a pile of manuscripts from one chair to an already over-filled work desk. “My grandchild. Say hello to the police, Oskar!”

  Oskar, about eighteen months old, sat underneath the desk, looking doubtful. Crouching down, Billy T. snapped his fingers and made noises. The toddler gurgled. Hanne warily said hello and smiled when the youngster peeked out. The child burst into tears. His grandmother took the boy by the arm and they left the small office.

  “Me and children,” Hanne said, shrugging.

  “Get yourself one,” Billy T. said. “That helps.”

  “It’s the day before Christmas Eve, after all,” Åshild Meier said, when she returned minus the child. “Most people are already on holiday. So it didn’t matter so much. About Oskar, I mean. He sometimes comes here because—”

  “That’s absolutely fine,” Billy T. said. “I’ve five children myself. Know what it’s like. Great having grandparents.”

  “Five? My goodness!”

  “And they have a total of no fewer than twelve grandparents,” Hanne said tartly.

  Billy T. blushed slightly and began to pick at a scab on the back of his left hand.

  He had grown more submissive in recent years, Hanne thought, wishing she could bite back her words.

  At the beginning of their friendship, the first few years – at police college and later at Oslo Police Station – he had been outstanding: a big athletic guy who filled every room he entered. Not only by virtue of being six foot seven in his stockinged feet: Billy T. was the perfect police officer. Born and brought up in the inner city, kept in check by a hardworking single mother with old-fashioned values and a heavy-handed approach to childcare. She had steered the young boy away from the worst pitfalls in an environment where only half of his friends survived long enough to reach the age of thirty. Billy T. knew Oslo better than anyone else in the entire police force: a streetwise hooligan with invaluable knowledge of Oslo’s crooks. He had been only a hairsbreadth away from becoming one himself.

  Now the station had been transformed into Oslo Police District, the police college into a university faculty, and the really major criminals no longer came from the east end of Oslo. In a sense, Billy T. had deflated. Even the many children he had acquired, all by different mothers, had turned into some kind of stigma. Earlier, he had paraded them proudly as proof of his enthusiastic libido and excessive virility. Now he was more subdued and Hanne had twice caught him withholding the fact that they were all half siblings.

  “But maybe we could make a start? What was it you actually wanted to know?”

  “Knut Sidensvans,” Hanne said casually.

  “Yes, you said that when you phoned. It was absolutely dreadful, all this about the murder, but I don’t really see what I can contribute.”

  “Did you know him well?”

  “Well? No. In fact, I don’t think anyone did. He was actually quite a strange person. A bit … odd.”

  “Odd?”

  “Yes. Different. Though we’re used to that, to some extent, in this line of business.”

  Åshild Meier gave a burst of shrill laughter.

  “In actual fact he was a friendly soul. It was just a bit difficult to see that. Besides, he was a priceless resource for us. As a writer, of course, but first and foremost as a consultant.”

  “What does that kind of work entail, in fact?”

  “Here in our department it can be so many things,” the editor explained. “Naturally, we have ordinary language consultants. They edit copy, and correct the language. Improve it, plain and simple. But since we publish books that often deal with real events, we also use consultants for the content. Both to assess whether the submitted manuscript or the suggested book is something we want to take a chance on, and later in the process as a sort of assistant, or external examiner, if you like. We also sometimes use legal expertise. To avoid committing libel, for example. So—”

  “Sidensvans was a kind of fact-checker, then,” Hanne broke in.

  “Yes.”

  “In what areas?”

  Now Åshild Meier was laughing heartily.

  “Yes, you may well ask! The man actually started over in the school textbook department.”

  She pointed vaguely in midair, as if the school textbook department was situated directly behind Billy T.’s back.

  “He is – or was, I suppose I should say now – an electrician. Originally. He taught at Sogn Technical College for years, and wrote a textbook himself twenty years ago. It was good, apparently. Then he began as a consultant on school books, until someone discovered that the guy was a veritable fount of all knowledge. Knut Sidensvans was, in truth, one of a kind. And not an easy man to socialize with. But then we didn’t socialize.”

  “What subjects did he deal with?” Hanne asked. “Here at the publishing house, I mean?”

  “Quite a number.”

  Åshild Meier began to search through the crowded wall shelves.

  “Cars.”

  She handed Hanne a coffee-table book about Ferrari.

  “Admittedly, it’s translated from Italian and therefore fairly safe to publish, but a lot of adjustments were necessary for Norwegian circumstances. Not least, the translator needed help with regard to technical expressions, and that sort of thing.”

  “Sidensvans didn’t even have a driving license,” Hanne muttered, shaking her head.

  Åshild Meier finally sat down.

  “He had no formal education,” she said. “Apart from his apprenticeship papers, of course. But he knew an incredible amount. Knowledgeable, and a bit stubborn. For instance, he would only work with me. I was granted leave a couple of years ago, and during that period no one here saw anything of him. He appeared again a few weeks after I came back.”

  “So there’s nobody here who can give us any more information,” Billy T. said, quite redundantly. “About his family relationships and that kind of thing. About his social circle.”

  “No, definitely not.”

  She laughed again, staccato and shrill.

  “He was extremely concerned about fairness.”

  “I see,” Hanne said.

  “He was thoroughly preoccupied with everything having to follow the correct procedure. By accident, one time we had deducted too little tax from him. He became totally devastated. It was a matter of a very small, insignificant sum and we corrected it a short time later. But I had the impression that he couldn’t sleep, for fear of being caught by the tax office.”

  “Slightly over the top, perhaps. I agree.” Hanne smiled easily and added, “What was he working on at present? A colleague of mine mentioned something about—”

  “At the moment he was doing some writing, in fact,” Åshild Meier interrupted. “A short foreword for a book about vintage cars. But much more important: he was to write one of the chapters in a major work about the history of the Norwegian police.”

  She beamed, as if it had only now dawned on her that she was speaking to two representatives of the force.

  “It’s really fascinating! We’re working with the National Police Directorate and are in the process of getting a number of wonderful writers to contribute. Lawyers and police officers. Several professional historians, of course, as well as journalists. We even have someone convicted of homicide, to write about his experience with the forces of law and order. The wartime chapter will be particularly fascinating, and for that we’ve actually got our hands on one of the foremost—”

  “But this Sidensvans doesn’t exactly sound fascinating,” Billy T. objected.

  A vaguely disgruntled expression crossed Åshild Meier’s face.

  “Then I must have expressed myself badly,” she said. “Sidensvans was extremely fascinating. A bit odd, as I said, but fascinating people are of
ten strange. Besides, this is a book we knew that he would approach with—”

  As she was interrupted by someone knocking at the door, she glanced swiftly at the clock.

  “Time flies! I actually have a meeting now … Come in! But of course I can—”

  Getting to her feet, Hanne shook her head. “No, not at all. We’ve taken up enough of your time.”

  A woman, obviously a colleague, popped her head in and said, “The meeting’s started, Åshild. Are you coming?”

  “Just a minute!”

  In some confusion, she gazed from Hanne to Billy T.

  “It’s fine,” Hanne reassured her once more. “I’ll phone if there’s anything further. Thanks for all your help.”

  In the end, Mabelle’s nagging became unbearable. What’s more, Carl-Christian realized she was probably right. If the police suspected them – and it would be a miracle if that were not the case – then they would find the apartment sooner or later. It would be better to take a chance now. Empty the place. Quickly remove what was risky. So he had gone, partway by tram, partway on foot, taking absurd detours as he went.

  He carefully removed a graphic print from the wall in the bedroom. The safe was locked, in accordance with regulations. He opened it and found the pictures lying where they should be.

  He had wanted to burn them at once. When Hermann Stahlberg had triumphantly flung a bundle of semi-pornographic pictures of Mabelle on the table and threatened to publicize them, if CC did not withdraw the legal action he had initiated against his father, what Carl-Christian wanted most of all was to destroy them. When he arrived home, without having said a word to the old man apart from a mumbled “You’ll be hearing from me”, he had lit the fire. It was Mabelle who had stopped him. When he had reluctantly, and with intense embarrassment, told her about Hermann’s last move, she had sobbed bitterly for an hour. Then she dried her tears and became surprisingly rational.

  “He has copies,” she concluded. “Of course he has. Besides …”

  At times like this he admired her more than ever. Mabelle was a born businesswoman, able to be sensible, almost cynical, even under the greatest pressure. If she had chosen to embark on something other than a fashion magazine, she would have made it big. Even within such an unstable and unprofitable line of business, she had built a reputation substantial enough to ensure that she was someone to reckon with. It would have been an exaggeration to call Mabelle a celebrity, but everyone in the trade knew who she was. She was in, and was only just beginning to make money on F&F.

  “Besides, the damaging effects of these pictures – if they should end up in the wrong hands – are limited, after all.”

  She had bravely tried to see the positive side of the situation.

  “I would hardly be invited to make any comment about the royal family again,” she had said, swallowing. “But I’ll survive. They’re not so crude. It would just be unpleasant. Fucking unpleasant.”

  And she burst into tears again.

  He had wanted to burn the pictures, but she had stopped him.

  “We need them,” she sobbed inconsolably.

  “Need them?” he had screamed angrily. “I never want to see them again!”

  “Listen …”

  Her voice was quivering.

  “It might come to … it might be that at some time we need to prove how your father has behaved. These pictures at least show …”

  She had been right then, and she was right now. He wanted to burn them, at home.

  The pictures lay inside an envelope. He pushed them inside his jacket, tucked well down into the waistband of his trousers. With an unsteady hand, he tried to open the metal container on the bottom shelf of the safe. His fingers would not obey, and his nails scraped against the green metal. Finally the lid opened.

  The shock made his stomach contract convulsively. He shut his mouth and tried to force back the sour stuff that wanted to rise and spew out.

  The receptacle contained only one gun.

  The gun Carl-Christian kept quite legally, a Korth Combat Magnum, was in its place. It had been hugely expensive, one of the most carefully made revolvers in the world. He had purchased it in a fit of childish enthusiasm, after enrolling in a gun club six years earlier. But Carl-Christian had lost interest. On closer acquaintance, he did not like the gun-club environment. Anyway, he got a pain in his shoulder from using high-caliber weapons. The revolver had barely been used.

  It was still lying in its place.

  The other gun had disappeared.

  When Carl-Christian eventually managed to close the safe, he had entirely forgotten to check the ammunition on the top shelf. There was no space left within him for any further problems. He touched his stomach, where he felt the envelope of photos like a shield against his abdomen.

  Mabelle was the only one who knew about his safe, and the code for the lock.

  As well as Hermine, of course.

  “So how long do you think this might take?”

  Hanne Wilhelmsen looked around without answering. CID Chief Jens Puntvold’s office was attractive without seeming cozy, and was actually quite stylish, despite Hanne being unable to point out anything to distinguish it from other offices in the building. Even though the room itself was far more spacious than others had to make do with, the walls were just as boringly gray, the floor just as marked with wear and tear, and the curtains looked in desperate need of laundering into the bargain. Maybe it was the flowers: fresh lilies in a multicolored vase on the desk and a colorful bouquet of early tulips in the center of the conference table. The pictures must be his own personal property. Two massive oil paintings hung, facing west, both abstracts in shades of blue.

  In addition, there was something about the air: a fresh scent of aftershave and a recently showered body.

  Jens Puntvold seemed just as exhausted as the rest of Oslo’s police force, but was nevertheless strikingly good-looking. Hanne caught herself speculating whether he bleached his hair. The blond streaks fell soft and thick over his forehead, with no trace of gray flecks. Although his face showed signs of lack of sleep and long workdays, his eyes were alert. Clasping his hands behind his neck, he waited for a response.

  “You’re impatient,” Hanne said with a smile. “It’s only four days since the murders took place, in fact.”

  “Yes,” he said, returning her smile. “But you know why I’m asking. You’re the one who knows all this, Wilhelmsen. I’m only looking for a qualified guess.”

  “Months,” she said ambiguously. “Years, perhaps. It’s even possible that we don’t succeed. In solving the case, I mean. It’s happened before.”

  “We’ve never had a case like this before.”

  “No …”

  She studied the lilies in the multicolored vase.

  “But even though the clear-up rate for homicide is high in this country, both you and I know that these first few days are enormously important. If it really is one of the surviving Stahlbergs behind it all, then this could take ages. But then we’d catch the guilty party, or parties, in the end. I’m convinced of that. A slow churn, you know. Justice, I mean.”

  She flashed another smile, before adding: “But if it was someone else, a stranger, a failed robbery, or … well. Then it may already be too late.”

  “That just can’t happen.”

  Suddenly he leaned forward and planted his elbows on the desk. His gaze fixed on hers as he continued: “This case has to be solved, Wilhelmsen. We can’t stand for an unsolved quadruple homicide.”

  “Who are we?” Hanne asked, without breaking eye contact.

  “The police. Society. All of us. Our work is an uphill struggle, as it is. Increasing criminality, and funding doesn’t keep pace in the slightest. The police force has to show its muscle, Hanne. We have to demonstrate our indispensability. Our effectiveness. For far too long this force has appeared inept and dragging its feet. I would like …”

  Hanne was taken aback when he used her first name. Surprising
ly enough, she felt flattered.

  “Of course, first and foremost, my task is to lead the criminal investigation department to attain the best possible efficiency, and the greatest possible wellbeing of staff.”

  It seemed as if he were utilizing a well-rehearsed platitude. Then his mask cracked as he opened out his arms and cocked his head provocatively.

  “But if my modicum of … media charm can contribute to increased understanding out there, about the need for greater resources and better working conditions for the police, then I find it highly opportune to make use of that. And what we don’t need right now is for us to lose our way in this inquiry. I hope you understand what I’m saying.”

  Hanne did not reply, but felt a vague distaste for his gaze, which seemed colder now.

  “Do you read the daily newspapers?” he asked.

  “No. I don’t in fact. I leaf through Aftenposten every morning, but I simply can’t face the tabloids right now.”

  She stole a glance at the time, believing herself to be discreet.

  “Continue with it,” he said, taking a look at his own watch. “I won’t detain you any longer. You expect this to take some time then. Some considerable time. But if you … if you were to give an off-the-cuff hint – who do you think did it?”

  “I never drop hints,” Hanne said. “Not in my own cases, anyway.”

  “Come on,” he insisted, almost teasing now. “Just between the two of us.”

  “Out of the question.”

  She stood up.

  “But we have to hope, in our heart of hearts, that it’s one of those three. Because if it’s not, I don’t quite understand how this case will ever be solved. May I go now?”

  He nodded.

  “Just one more question,” he said when she had almost reached the door. “At the meeting on Friday it seemed as if you were the only one at all concerned about this guy Sidensvans. I didn’t entirely understand why. Can you explain that to me?”

  Hanne stopped in her tracks, half turning to face him again, and tugged distractedly at her earlobe.

  “Like everyone else in the police here,” she said slowly, “I consider it most likely that a member of the family is behind this slaughter. But not necessarily all three. And, as in all other homicide cases, it’s important to find the actual motive for the incident. If we find that, then we’ll find the man who committed the murders.”