Beyond the Truth

by Anne Holt

  “I’ll sort it out myself,” he said tersely.

  “I know you will,” Hanne said. “You must remember to write that special report of yours before you go.”

  “The level of interest in my information was not exactly resounding,” he said abruptly, glancing casually at the list of arrests over the past twenty-four hours at the top of her pile of mail.

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Hanne said. “You just walked out. Annmari hadn’t finished speaking. There was a round of applause in there.”

  “She hasn’t been in touch.”

  “Is your cellphone switched on, though?”

  In confusion, he extracted his phone from his pocket.

  “Oi,” he said. “It’s off.”

  “Go and write your report. And prepare to disclose your source. My God, Billy T.! He’s the most central witness we have!”

  “She,” he muttered. “It’s a woman. And I’m not letting the cat out of the bag until I’m forced to do so.”

  Hanne hurried downhill from police headquarters. The paving stones were slippery and a couple of times she almost lost her balance. She had hardly progressed halfway when she heard the shouts: “Wilhelmsen! Hanne Wilhelmsen! Hi, Chief Inspector!”

  She stopped and turned around. The man running after her appeared too young for his uniform. The epaulettes on his shoulders revealed him to be a second-year police trainee. His head was wreathed in tight curls and his face was as round as a ball, with narrow, crooked eyes and a broad, flat nose. If the boy had not been blond and pale, he might have been mistaken for Afro-Asian. He was also short in stature, unusual for a police officer. Hanne caught herself wondering whether he was tall enough to pass the entry qualifications for the police force.

  “Hi,” he said breathlessly, holding out his hand. “I’m Audun Natholmen.”

  Nodding indifferently, Hanne glanced at her watch.

  “You see, I’m taking the tip-off phone calls. So … I receive the tip-offs – from members of the public – in the Stahlberg case, you know. And then …”

  He looked back and dropped his voice, as if keen to share a secret with her.

  “There’s a lot of crazy stuff, you know.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, of course you do!”

  He laughed shyly and ran his fingers over the sleeve of his uniform jacket.

  “But then there was this guy who phoned in. Anonymous. He refused to say who he was, you see. But I noted down the number on the display and checked it afterwards. It was from a public phone box in Maridalen, you know, just where the road—”

  “That’s not so important,” Hanne broke in.

  The boy gulped and took a deep breath, before starting over: “The man had seen something suspicious. Someone had bored a hole in the ice on a lake in Nordmarka. This caller explained that he was quite strange. This person who bored the hole, I mean. The day after the murders. The person had spent hardly any time there. Drilled a hole in the ice and then left again. The caller thought the hole was big enough to drop something into. That is … a gun, for example.”

  “You’ll have to take this up with someone else,” Hanne said, starting to walk on slowly. “I don’t exactly remember who has responsibility for sorting out the tip-offs. Guldbrandsen, I think. In any case, it’s certainly not me.”

  “Wait!”

  He would not desist and followed close behind her as she walked downhill, gesticulating all the while.

  “I’ve actually spoken to Prosecutor Skar!”

  “Annmari? Have you bothered her with this?”

  “She was a bit grumpy, I must admit. But you see … first of all I spoke to … then … Can’t you stop for a minute, eh?”

  Hanne stopped and looked the boy up and down in surprise, feeling almost impressed.

  “I just don’t understand what you want from me,” she said, sounding friendlier now. “As I’m sure you know, or at least understand, the Stahlberg case is quite a comprehensive affair. As far as personnel, tactics, and technical aspects are concerned. We have to hope that some people sit in the midst of it all with some sort of overview. Annmari Skar is probably one of them. If you have a hunch that a tip-off should be followed up, then you really ought to take it up with your immediate superior all the same. Who is that?”

  “Just listen to me, won’t you?”

  The young man was almost screaming now. An elderly woman on her way uphill came to a sudden halt and studied the two of them in alarm. On spotting the boy’s uniform, she shuffled off with a stiff gait, obviously afraid of falling.

  “I’ve spoken to three people higher up in the system,” Audun Natholmen continued eagerly. “Nobody is interested.”

  Hanne gave a broad smile as she answered: “You know very well that the vast majority of tip-offs we receive are totally worthless. You really can’t expect the system to leap into action, just because an anonymous guy has phoned in to say that he’s seen a strange ice-fisherman!”

  He nodded grudgingly. The irises were ice blue in the narrow slits of his eyes and his mouth resembled that of a child. Hanne could swear that it quivered, a minute movement of his lower lip, as if he was moved by the situation of being able to stand there in the drizzle with Hanne Wilhelmsen and discuss Oslo Police Force’s most important case.

  “You understand that, don’t you?”

  She slapped him on the shoulder, before pushing her hands into her pockets.

  “Now, I’m freezing to death out here and I’m going to get bucket-loads of abuse when I get home so late. So if it’s okay with you, I’m off now. I simply can’t help you. Other than that, I’ll look more closely at this tip-off of yours tomorrow, if you put it in my pigeonhole. Then I’ll see what I can do.”

  “But there was something else I meant to …”

  Hanne had started walking again, with more determination now.

  “But I just wanted to ask whether …”

  Irritated, Hanne wheeled around for the third time. This guy was absolutely wearisome.

  “You see – I’m a diver. It’s my hobby, in fact. Would it be really crazy of me if I took a couple of pals and conducted a little search up there? In my own free time, so to speak? Since nobody is the least bit interested in this tip-off anyway?”

  Hanne considered it. A couple of colleagues passed them by quickly, nodding briefly in Hanne’s direction.

  “Yes,” she said at last. “It would be absolutely crazy.”

  Then she smiled ever so slightly.

  “But that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t have done it, if I were you. Only I would have kept my mouth shut about it. If I hadn’t found anything, I mean. But you’d best give it a miss.”

  The boy stood gaping, and looked as if he wanted to say something. Then he snapped his jaws together instead, and rushed off up the slope. Partway uphill, he half turned in his mad dash and raised his hand.

  “Thanks!” he called out, overjoyed, and sprinted on.

  Annmari Skar had problems with her sight. Her vision was flickering and she had no idea how she was going to survive the press conference that Puntvold had insisted on holding.

  The arrests of Carl-Christian and Mabelle had gone smoothly. The intention was to bring them in for questioning and then make them aware of the charges. However, when they flatly refused to come, making reference to the holiday and the imminent funeral, they were arrested at home. According to Erik and Silje, they both showed signs of shocked apathy rather than anger. They had not even asked for a lawyer, until someone reminded them that it might be an idea to arrange something of that nature before they allowed themselves to be interviewed.

  Annmari was ill through lack of sleep and felt downright nauseous at the thought of what faced her. She leafed through the arrest reports over and over again and simply waited for the final one. Hermine Stahlberg was obviously more difficult to find than her brother or sister-in-law. It was now almost six o’clock in the evening. The press conference was to begin at half past six, which mea
nt a live broadcast at the top of the TV2 news and, in the worst-case scenario, ten confused, undigested minutes half an hour later on the NRK channel.

  “She’s vanished into thin air,” Erik Henriksen said, slamming his fist on the door frame.

  “Vanished?”

  Annmari stacked the documents tidily one on top of the other, edge to edge, and ran her hand over her hair in an attempt to appear composed and prepared, before looking up at the new arrival once again and repeating: “Vanished, did you say? Who?”

  “Hermine. Gone. Not at home. She doesn’t have a job, actually …”

  He shrugged and plumped down on the spare seat.

  “… and what would she be doing there anyway on Christmas Day? We were—”

  “We were quite simply too ill-prepared,” Annmari interrupted him, sounding desperate. “That’s what I call a real beginner’s error. My God, Erik, can’t any of you find her?”

  Erik shook his head reluctantly. “Sorry.”

  “Sorry? It’s too late for that. I can’t fathom … It’s impossible for me to have control of everything, Erik. I have to rely on the rest of you to get your jobs done as well!”

  “You were the one who wanted to make the arrest,” he retorted angrily. “I’ve done exactly what you asked me to do. We. We have done as you said. But we can’t find Hermine.”

  Annmari closed her eyes. Her saliva production increased to a dangerous degree. She swallowed vigorously and drank some water. Finally she was able to look him in the eye again.

  “When I give instructions about an arrest, then—”

  “Three,” Erik corrected her. “Three arrests.”

  “When I give instructions about three arrests,” Annmari began over again, “then naturally I expect you police officers to make the necessary preparations, in order to be able to carry out these arrests as painlessly as possible and at least …”

  Her voice rose, almost shrill.

  “… at a level acceptable for professional police officers!”

  “You police officers,” Erik mimicked. “Is that how it is now? That you’re not one of us?”

  He measured her with critical eyes. His gaze ran over the uniform she was wearing, because she was already dressed for the press conference, glancing off the insignia on her shoulders, and resting on her left breast pocket: POLICE, in golden letters on a dark background.

  “Bloody lawyers,” he spluttered, and Annmari began to laugh.

  He bit his lip. Stonily, he struggled to concentrate his attention on the rain that had at last begun to fall.

  “Not us,” Annmari said, smiling. “The two of us don’t quarrel, Erik. Not you and I.”

  “No. But I still think you’re the one who has responsibility for us not keeping a good enough eye on these folk. In my opinion, it’s risky to arrest anyone right now anyway. In the middle of Christmas, and all that stuff. They’ll get every sympathy, you mark my words. From them outside. From good people who are gorging themselves on Christmas and family and presents and churchgoing. And who can’t imagine anyone killing off half their family. Not now, Annmari. Not now at this damned, holy, Norwegian Christmas season.”

  “But when it turns out to be right, Erik. When everything we’ve done and everything we know and every possible sign indicates that we must pull in the suspects … what are we to do then? Sit on the fence and wait for Christmas to be over? Wait for the suspicion to fade, to disappear? For everything to be more palatable? For us, or for them?”

  “Well …”

  Erik rumpled his hair, which was growing too long. He clumsily rose to his feet. On his way out of the office he turned around, hesitating for a moment, before continuing in a soft voice, with an intensity at odds with his unkempt appearance: “I feel for you, Annmari. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that you succeed with this case. Go full throttle, to hell with the press. They’re after you, regardless of what you come up with. And we’ll find Hermine for you. Give us twenty-four hours, and you’ll have her head on a silver platter.”

  “Do you promise?”

  “I guarantee it. Alive or dead.”

  Then, with a protracted yawn, he left her.

  Hanne chose to walk, even though it took almost an hour to cross Oslo from the Old Town to Frogner. What’s more, she took a detour. Billy T. was right. When she looked at herself in the mirror these mornings, she noticed that the fat was no longer sitting where it had been in earlier slack times. Also, it was far more difficult to get rid of it.

  She headed from the area surrounding police headquarters that had become so popular with immigrants, down through the Medieval Park. What had previously been a disagreeable, enclosed no-man’s-land was being transformed into a beautiful reminder of how the city had once sprung up. The surface of the water was frozen and gray now, and the excavated ruins almost merged into the fog and dirty slush. Her feet were sodden and she broke into a run to keep warm. The traffic in Bjørvika, where the Opera House that had been planned for so long looked as if it would never be built, was quiet. She approached the square outside the railway station. Bars and pubs were closed and locked, with shutters pulled down in front of their windows. Only at Plata, a litter-strewn spot southwest of Central Station, was trade proceeding as normal. The dismal traffic island was the main business center for Oslo’s street trade in narcotics. Junkies and skinny young girls wearing too much make-up exchanged goods, money, and agreed services, while the occasional train passenger shrugged at the sight and gave them a body swerve. Recognizing a couple of the miserable wretches in Plata, Hanne swiftly cut a diagonal detour toward Karl Johans gate. From the open space at Egertorget she could only just make out the outline of the Palace. The lights on the linden trees lining the city’s main thoroughfare took on halos of dampness; an avenue of indistinct, dwindling light. Hanne stopped at the Tanum bookstore to view the window display. She had never experienced such a silent Oslo. She crossed the Palace Park without encountering a single soul.

  Soon she was home. The streets broadened out. The towering buildings were statelier and set back from the sidewalks. Christmas was more subdued in this part of the city. The lights were not garish and multicolored as they were in Grønland, and the spruce sprigs in the door garlands were the genuine article.

  She fumbled to look at her watch between her gloves and the slightly-too-tight edge of her sleeve.

  Ten past five. It was probably all over. Hermine, Mabelle, and Carl-Christian Stahlberg would all have been arrested and each installed in an interview room at police headquarters. It was unnecessary for Hanne to be present. If it all progressed as everyone seemed to believe, then they would spend a long time in custody. Weeks, probably, maybe the entire time until the main proceedings commenced, and the first interview was therefore nothing but window dressing anyway. They would be subjected to the anxiety of being exposed, hauled in, and locked up.

  Then it would be her turn. It had been decided that she would interview Carl-Christian at nine o’clock the following morning. She crossed her fingers that there would not be a single lawyer in the city willing to spend ten hours at police headquarters in the middle of the Christmas holidays. Although, as things had developed among Oslo’s criminal law advocates, they might even be waiting in line. They seemed prepared to do almost anything for their fifteen seconds on TV. In this case, there might well be considerably more. The Stahlberg case could easily be their ticket to fame, if not exactly glory. Hanne found herself making a mental wish list: an overview of lawyers with integrity and willingness to cooperate in their client’s best interests. It was uncomfortably short.

  Kruses gate was deserted.

  Not one of the curtains stirred. No faces suddenly retreated. Hanne ought to enjoy this, she ought to feel at home among people who took care of their own business and were almost inaccessible to one another. To Hanne, Frogner was a district where people were reduced to names on door plates and where a tentative nod on the stairs was all you could expect of your neighbor. She ought to
be predisposed to living in such a place.

  Instead she was disturbed by the lack of curiosity. It robbed her of the possibility of assuming what others might think. They were to be found, of course, behind closed doors and drawn curtains, there were people here too – many in fact – but it would be impossible for her to serve them up half truths about themselves. It made her uneasy and tense when she travelled home, escalating as she neared her apartment and not diminishing until she could shut herself in behind the anonymous door with three meaningless surnames engraved on a brass plate below the doorbell.

  She rounded the corner of her own apartment block. She was on the point of passing through the gate when she started so violently that she dropped the ring binder she had carried all the way home.

  A dog brushed against her leg. It emerged from behind the low wall where a garbage-shed of stained timber had been built only a few weeks earlier.

  The dog was gray and ugly, its neck too large in comparison with its narrow, squat hindquarters. One ear had been practically torn off. The street lamp highlighted a gash along its left flank. The animal was limping badly, but maintained a remarkable pace as it traversed the street and disappeared into a back yard a hundred meters farther along the street.

  Hanne’s breathing was labored. Her body had received such a powerful rush of adrenalin that she felt warmth creep back into her frozen toes. She crouched down to retrieve her ring binder, taken aback by how afraid she had actually been. It was the silence of course; and besides, she had been completely lost in her own thoughts when the horrible beast had suddenly appeared. Her pulse was still pounding when a thought struck her: she straightened up slowly and neglected to pick up the ring binder.

  She had heard about this dog. Nefis had attended the residents’ meeting some time in the autumn when a decision had been taken to build a special hut for the garbage bins, to keep rats and other animals out. Hanne remembered it now, clearly; she had laughed out loud at the belief of people in the west end that a simple shed could keep rats at bay. But Nefis had also mentioned a dog.

  In truth it was a frightening creature, and Hanne lingered for a long time, deep in contemplation, without noticing how cold she had become.