Beyond the Truth

by Anne Holt

  Silje wriggled out of reach, slightly too abruptly. Hanne shrugged.

  “Besides, no one should envy you your money. Your father, on the other hand …”

  She caught Silje’s eye, and held eye contact.

  “Your father sounds enviable. Lucky you.”

  Then she turned on her heel and disappeared. Annmari and Silje were left sitting there in silence, as the click-clack of Hanne’s heels faded along the corridor. In the distance they heard a Christmas carol, piercingly off-key. Someone shouted out and the response was raucous laughter.

  “You really are lucky,” Annmari said softly. “Hanne’s genuinely fond of you.”

  Outside, snow continued to fall. It looked as though there might well be an old-fashioned white Christmas, despite the fluctuating temperature.

  Billy T. had not visited Ronny Berntsen for several years. Now he stood outside Ronny’s apartment in Urtegata, wondering why. Ronny was not an informer. Admittedly he had helped Billy T. in a handful of cases, with valuable information and smart suggestions. All the same, never for his own personal advantage. Ronny kept his mouth shut about himself and his family, and never uttered a word about things he thought none of his business, either. Not even when he would obviously have gained by it.

  Ronny had his own moral code. It might not be totally in agreement with the Ten Commandments, since he had made his living from breaking the fifth and the seventh, had great fun contravening the sixth, and for the most part couldn’t care less about the rest. Nevertheless, Ronny had his rules for life. One of them was never to slander anyone who didn’t deserve it. He eventually took a pragmatic view of the people who were protected by this attitude.

  The apartment block was one that had avoided all attempts at improvement of the inner city. The façade was peeling. It was impossible to see what color the building had originally been: the daubs here and there on the outer walls gave a drab gray impression. The cornices had collapsed long ago. The windows, crooked and wind-battered, must be from the thirties. Billy T. smiled to himself as he walked through the entranceway that stank of garbage and cat piss. While eleven of the apartments in the two-story-high block were rundown storage boxes for drug addicts and other birds of passage, Ronny’s apartment was an oasis of pastel colors and expensive designer furniture.

  “Hello,” Ronny said, opening the door slightly.

  Almost as tall as Billy T., he had paradoxically enough taken far better care of himself. His complexion was suntanned: the contrast made his teeth look sparkling white, when he grinned at the policeman.

  “Work or pleasure?” he asked, opening the door slightly wider.

  “A little of each,” Billy T. said. “Both, in fact.”

  “No house search?”

  “Nope. Just want a bit of a chat.”

  The door opened wide. The light from inside flooded out into the pitch-dark stairwell, where the bulb on a single lamp was broken. Billy T. squinted as he followed Ronny into a spacious living room. A colossal fruit bowl on the coffee table was overflowing with tropical fruit. As he sank into a huge five-seater settee, Billy T. flipped off his shoes and hoisted his feet. The top of a pineapple tickled him through his socks.

  “Very nice in here,” he said.

  “You look fucking awful now, Billy T. Have you stopped taking exercise, or what?”

  Without waiting for a reply, Ronny headed for the kitchen. Billy T. heard the sound of something being poured into a glass and closed his eyes. The settee cushions were soft. Jenny, as usual, was unwell and had kept them awake half the night. He had still not bought any presents. His salary account was almost empty. His mother had phoned him twice in a row on his cellphone about the very same things. She was going to spend Christmas at her daughter’s, but it sounded as if she thought they would all be gathered there. The early signs of senility were too obvious to overlook now, but he didn’t have the energy to deal with it. His sister was cross because he avoided the subject. Tone-Marit, Jenny’s mother, was cross because they had no money. Everybody was as cross as two sticks. Hanne was cross and odd. Billy T. was indescribably sleepy. His arms felt so heavy that he couldn’t even bring himself to check his watch. He was short of time. Always short of time, and all these women stood around him, scolding. Hanne had blue angel wings and flew to the ceiling in an enormous cathedral. The light from the glass cupola was dazzling and Hanne was transformed into a bird with a human head, carrying his mother in a pink cloth. Suddenly she let go. Billy T. tried to run and catch her, break her fall, but he was rooted to the spot in a field of flesh-eating plants that curled around his legs. Sucking, they held him fast and threatened to drag him under a bog full of children’s corpses.

  “Hey!”

  Startled, Billy T. sat up abruptly and took the pineapple with him as his feet suddenly thumped on the floor.

  “Bloody hell, you were fast asleep! Are you ill, Billy T.?”

  “Just tired—”

  “Here, drink this.”

  Ronny put a tall glass of reddish liquid before him on the glass table. Billy T. studied it, partly confused, partly skeptical, without making any sign of willingness to drink it.

  “I’ve cut it out. No alcohol. No other kind of shit, either. Just fruit. Things that’ll do you good, my friend. Drink up.”

  Slowly, Billy T. raised the glass to his mouth. He drank all of it in one go and forced a smile of gratitude.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’m just so fucking tired these days. A lot to do at work and with the kids and—”

  “And then it’s Christmas Eve tomorrow, and no money,” Ronny grinned. “I get it. Is it that big murder in Frogner you’re working on?”

  “Among other things.”

  “It must be pretty straightforward, though.”

  “It’s anything but straightforward.”

  Ronny interlaced his fingers at the back of his neck.

  “There’s loads of fucking rumors going around the place.”

  “I know that.”

  “Is that why you came?”

  “I suppose so. One reason.”

  “Can’t offer you much help. It’s all just rumor. Except … But I expect you already know about that.”

  “What’s that?”

  Billy T. actually felt far more wide-awake now. His skin tingled slightly, and he raised his right hand to examine it. The veins on the back of his hand were pronounced, and he could actually see the blood running faster. He felt light-headed.

  “Was there something in that drink?” he asked, without lifting his eyes.

  “Juice, Billy T. The juice from fruits and one vegetable. It’s just your blood sugar that’s elevated.”

  “What is it you think we know?” Billy T. repeated.

  “About that woman Hermine.”

  “Yes, Ronny. We know there’s someone called Hermine Stahlberg.”

  “Not all good. But you probably know about it.”

  “Mmm.”

  The Stahlberg inquiry had developed into a monster. There were twenty-three investigators allocated now, working just on the tactical aspects. In addition there were the technical experts, from those with weapons know-how to the forensics team and crime-scene examiners. The case documents already filled several meters of shelving. In excess of eighty people had been interviewed, the apartment in Eckersbergs gate had been combed, an effort had been made to build the victims’ life histories into comprehensive pictures that were still hopelessly incomplete, with gaping holes. The Stahlberg case was a conglomeration of information and profiles, theories and facts. Billy T. could not manage to keep abreast of everything that flowed in, documents and interviews, anonymous tip-offs and more or less realistic hypotheses. At the numerous meetings held in an attempt to ensure that as many people as possible were kept up to speed, he had to admit grudgingly that he grew less and less loquacious. He continually lagged behind, but at the very least he knew who Hermine was.

  Ronny raised an eyebrow and broke into a crooked smile.
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  “She’s been around the block a bit, you know. So now everyone’s going about, boasting that they know her and that they … Nobody’s talking about anything apart from this case of yours.”

  “We’ve noticed that, yes. Do you think there’s anything in all this talk?”

  “Well, hardly. You know the territory, Billy T. Almost as well as I do.”

  That was no longer true, but Billy T. nodded in agreement.

  “People like to make out they’re damned important,” Ronny said. “Lots of muttering about selling guns, and that sort of shit. And there might well be something in that. Guns are easier to get hold of than drugs at the moment. These Yugo-boys for example, they’ve bloody easier access to hardware than your lot have.”

  “That wouldn’t take much, you know—”

  “That’s where your lot are on the back foot. You do whatever the hell you can to stop the flood of narcotics, with dogs and customs officers and surveillance and intelligence and international cooperation. Not that it fucking helps such a lot, but there’s obviously no shortage of resources. The boys who cruise north from the Balkans with vehicles full of weapons, and women and children on the back seat as camouflage, you never catch sight of them, though. It would have taken me half an hour, Billy T. Half an hour! Tell me what kind of gun you want, and I’ll get it for you in thirty minutes flat. This city will soon be overflowing with shooters. Look here!”

  He bent over and pulled out a newspaper from the shelf below the table. It was open at an article about the impounding of weapons in Oslo. The picture showed a perplexed Head of CID, Jens Puntvold himself, his hand open and inviting, above an enormous collection of guns.

  “That’s your haul in the course of just twenty-four months,” Ronny said. “If you want a gun in this city, it’s simply a matter of helping yourself from whatever your lot have impounded.”

  “You should have been a policeman, Ronny. Then we’d have got things moving, you know.”

  Ronny did not pick up on the irony. Instead he smiled, in a new and different way.

  “People like us actually should be, Billy T. You and I. Do you remember that?”

  Billy T. rested his eyes on the coverage in Friday’s Aftenposten, presented opportunely as a framed article in the middle of the four-page spread about the murders in Eckersbergs gate.

  Of course he remembered.

  The open area called Kuba in springtime. The Aker River with water discharging far across all its banks. Two boys with cropped summer haircuts and tin revolvers in their cowboy belts, slanted over skinny hips. The sheriff stars with peeling gold paint. Ronny wore a cowboy hat with short fringes around the brim; his father was a sailor and had come home at last. Billy T. had eczema on his back; it itched and was exacerbated by the effluent from the soap factory. He was not allowed to swim – his mother boxed his ears if he ventured into the river – but they went in for a dip all the same. They swam in the strong currents and slid down the waterfall at Nedre Foss, getting beaten black and blue on the stones, laughing like drains all the while. Billy T. hit a duck with his bow and arrow. They cooked it, still covered in feathers, on an illegal bonfire and fed it to the cats: semi-wild scrawny animals that gobbled down the burnt duck meat and followed after them.

  “We were going to be cops,” Ronny said. “Both of us. But that’s not how things turned out.”

  “No …”

  Billy T. let his gaze slide around the apartment. There was barely an object in the room that he could afford to buy. Even the exotic fruit in the sumptuous bowl was far beyond the reach of a police salary with deductions for four love-children. Ronny had spent nine years in jail, in total, since he was nineteen. Now they were both middle-aged. Billy T. held his face in his hands and struggled to breathe evenly.

  “You didn’t really come here to ask about these things,” Ronny said.

  Yes, I did, Billy T. wanted to say. I came to hear what you know about a case that, for us, has come to a standstill.

  It was not true, though, he thought silently. I came to remind myself that you’re an outsider with no true values, Ronny. I came to assure myself that I don’t want what you have, because you’ve never done anything important, anything useful, or anything true and honest. You could have been like me, he thought. You could be struggling from one pay day to the next; you could bounce like a rubber ball between work and children and mother-in-law and hopeless colleagues and a system on the brink of collapse, due to people like Ronny – people like you, Ronny, who have checked out of everything and just pay with the occasional trip into a prison system that offers education and entertainment, hot food and medical assistance whenever you need it.

  “I need to go,” Billy T. said, without moving a muscle.

  “Here,” Ronny said; Billy T. noticed something being placed on the table in front of him.

  “What is it?”

  “Look. A present.”

  Slowly, Billy T. removed his hands. A little scrap of paper. A betting slip.

  “It’s unregistered,” Ronny said. “I always bet on unregistered betting slips. This is completely legit, Billy T. Seven winners, paying out big money: one hundred and fifty-three thousand four hundred and thirty-two kroner. Legal money.”

  “A present,” Billy T. murmured. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

  “Take it. It’s yours.”

  It was an absolutely ordinary betting slip from the racetrack. Worth over 150,000 kroner. Presents for the children. Maybe a holiday that would not have to be spent at his parents-in-law’s cottage in Kragerø, with a big family and beds that were too short. A breathing space. His head above water. Entirely legal.

  “Money laundering,” Billy T. said, refusing to touch the slip of paper. “The easiest way to launder dirty money. You buy a ticket for more than the winnings.”

  “No. We do that at Bjerke. Not with official ones from Hamar. That gets too complicated. How would we get in touch with the winners? This is just a hobby of mine, Billy T. I’m the one who handed it in. I guarantee you it’s a legal prize. Take it as a thank you.”

  “Thank you?”

  Ronny responded with a smile.

  Billy T. knew what he meant. On two occasions, he had looked the other way. It was a long time ago now. Neither time had been particularly serious. He had closed his eyes and let Ronny get away, the last time eight years ago. He had helped Ronny because he remembered that Ronny had once been scared of the dark, and what’s more, had wet his bed until he was quite a big boy. Ronny was a wimp as a young lad, and he had been Billy T.’s best pal, until he had robbed a kiosk for a hundred kroner when they were both fifteen. Ronny was sent to approved school and Billy T. sharpened up. His mother grounded him for two months just for speaking to Ronny before he was bundled into a local authority vehicle and driven off. Billy T. had to keep away from scum like that, and his mother tightened her grip on her son until he completed high school. It was Ronny with the bad acne and the pitiful cock that Billy T. had thought of, when he let him escape. Not the suntanned Ronny with a remarkable bunker of a luxury apartment and an Audi TT.

  “You know I can’t accept that,” Billy T. said. The blood was ringing in his ears and he could not take his eyes off the magical note. “That’s sheer corruption.”

  “Not at all,” Ronny said firmly. “I don’t expect anything in return. This is just a childhood friend stretching out a hand, Billy T. You redeem it, and nobody is going to be any the wiser. Tax-free and legal. And fucking brilliant, eh?”

  Billy T. felt dizzy. He was light-headed, and his eyes tingled as he stood up and staggered toward the hallway.

  “If you were going to buy a gun,” he said, aware he was slurring his words a little, “if you were a totally ordinary person and you wanted to get hold of an illegal gun, what would you do?”

  “A totally ordinary person?”

  Ronny leaned against the door frame and handed him his shoes.

  “You forgot these,” he said. “I’ve no id
ea what totally ordinary people do. But that Hermine Stahlberg character isn’t totally ordinary, either.”

  Billy T. fumbled with his shoes and kept losing his balance.

  “As I said,” Ronny went on, “this city is overflowing with guns. But if you don’t have the right contacts to get connected to the big boys, it might be you’d have to make do with …”

  He considered it.

  “Per in the Shack. Do you remember him? He ran an absolutely legit gun store over at Vålerenga, until your lot put an end to the business. Now he sticks mainly to small stuff. Or Bjørnar Tofte. I think he’s still in the game. He’s quite a major player, of course. Or Sølvi. Sølvi Jotun. She’s probably the easiest one to get hold of. But she’s so unstable that long periods can go by between times when she can actually get her hands on anything.”

  Billy T. stood up stiffly and ran his hand over the top of his head. He still felt oddly light-headed.

  “Sølvi … but she’s an out-and-out junkie!”

  “Off and on. She’s a smart cookie. Doesn’t look like it, but she hangs in there. Earns money wherever she can.”

  Billy T. felt cold. Then warmth flooded along his arms and he had to study his hands again, to check the blood was still contained within his skin.

  Sølvi Jotun was Kluten’s girlfriend. At least she had been, for years.

  “Okay.”

  He had to get out. He had to get air. He could not bear to be here any longer, Ronny smelled of fruit and cologne, and Billy T. had to get out.

  “Was there anything in that drink you gave me?” he groaned as he fumbled with the door handle. “Fuck, Ronny, have you slipped me something?”

  “Nothing dangerous – only a pick-me-up. But keep away from your colleagues for a few hours. That’d be best.”

  His voice was steady: soft and with an undercurrent of laughter. Finally the door opened.

  Billy T. crashed down the stairs. When the rank odor in the back yard hit him, it seemed fresh and homely and, gasping, he opened his face to the world.

  The betting slip was tucked inside his breast pocket, neatly folded. Ronny had placed it there as Billy T. pulled on his leather jacket.