Beyond the Truth

by Anne Holt

  “Sure?” Hanne asked: she sensed a certain enthusiasm in the others now. “Are you quite sure?”

  “C for cell,” Erik said. “It’s obvious.”

  “C,” several of them repeated.

  “Are you all absolutely sure?”

  Impatience spread as a slightly irked ripple through the room.

  “Okay then,” Hanne said and completed the word. “It becomes ‘CELL’. But if I tell you that you have chosen C because you are all in the police force, what would you say then?”

  “Where are you going with this, Hanne?”

  Puntvold frowned and looked at his watch.

  “I’m illustrating how mistaken we can be,” Hanne said tartly. “I’m trying, since you insisted we had time for this, to demonstrate how we interpret a set of given, but incomplete, information, according to who we are and where we believe we are heading with the information. The missing letter doesn’t have to be C. It could be B, H, or S, for instance.”

  “ ‘BELL’, ‘HELL’, ‘SELL ’,” she wrote, underlining each three times. “If we had a teacher in the room, then it’s more likely he would have gone for ‘B’. A clergyman would most likely choose ‘H’. And a shopkeeper would almost certainly come up with ‘S’,” Hanne said. “For the simple reason that they would not relate to the word ‘cell’, but make daily use of ‘bell’, ‘hell’, or ‘sell’, depending on their line of work.”

  Hanne tore the sheet off the flip chart. “The point I’m trying to make is …”

  “That’s what I’m honestly wondering!”

  Now it was the Superintendent’s turn to show irritation. “What on earth has this to do with the Stahlberg case? With all due respect to both you and the Chief, I’d like to remind you that we’re sitting here on double overtime on Christmas Day and surely have more important things to do than learn new guessing games!”

  “It’s all the same to me,” Hanne said. “By all means. I really wasn’t the one who insisted on this. Really, I’d prefer to be eating Christmas breakfast at home right now, so …”

  She put down the marker pens and tried to make her way past Silje, who had tipped her chair against the wall behind her.

  “No,” Annmari said so loudly that Hanne stopped in her tracks. “I’m the one, at the end of the day, who’s going into court to petition for imprisonment on remand. I find Hanne’s explanations interesting. I want to hear more. You can just leave, if you think this is a waste of time. Go on, Hanne. Please.”

  The Superintendent seemed caught completely off guard and distractedly lifted his coffee cup to his mouth without drinking, before returning it to the table.

  “She’s pulling rank,” Erik whispered in Silje’s ear. “My God!”

  The situation was practically unheard of. Even though Annmari was a police lawyer and therefore, from a prosecution point of view, senior to the Superintendent, it had been years since any of the lawyers at police headquarters had taken such a tone with experienced and highly placed officers. The silence in the room became unbearable. Even Puntvold, the self-confident Head of CID, seemed bewildered: he opened his mouth a couple of times without finding anything to say.

  “I’m merely attempting,” Hanne began at last, trying not to look in the direction of the Superintendent, “to show how our interpretations are guided by our expectations and experiences. The more comprehensive and complete a picture, situation, or case is, the easier it becomes to draw definite conclusions about what is missing. Here …”

  She retrieved the torn-off sheet of paper from the floor and held it up.

  “… the word fragment I gave you was as good as complete. No one here was in any doubt about what was missing. But you were nevertheless wrong. Or more correctly: you could have been wrong. No one can know for certain whether I was thinking of ‘CELL’, ‘BELL’, ‘HELL’, or ‘SELL’.”

  Even Håkon seemed alert now: he had put on his glasses at last and his eyes appeared clearer, more focused.

  “No matter how long the chain of circumstantial evidence in a case may be,” Hanne went on. “Not to mention the motives being ever so convincing, ever so solid, so …”

  The Superintendent sat like a pillar of salt. Hectic red blotches were obvious on his cheeks. He was at a loss as to what he should do with his hands. In the end he clasped them firmly. Hanne could see that his knuckles were white.

  “If the three deceased Stahlbergs are A, B, and C, then Knut Sidensvans is an alien X,” she continued. “He doesn’t fit in. My worry is that we are pushing him aside like a stray letter of the alphabet, instead of asking ourselves: what was the man doing there? Is there an explanation for his presence? Might it be the other three who are accidentally on the scene, and the X that gives this case meaning? It seems illogical, of course. It’s so much easier to search for cause, connection, and meaning where it hits us between the eyes – namely in a family so dysfunctional that it resembles the one I … My point is that …”

  Hanne was speaking to Annmari now, and to her alone. The Police Prosecutor sat with her arms crossed, and nothing could be read from the blank expression beneath her graying fringe. But she was following Hanne’s argument. At the end of the day it was Annmari who would decide which direction this investigation would take. Not Hanne herself, not the Superintendent, not the Head of CID, or the Chief of Police. Not even the Public Prosecutor. Annmari Skar was the lawyer with responsibility for the case, and from the very first moment she had taken unusually forceful control. It seemed that she had hardly gone home for the past week, and no one was in any doubt that Annmari was the only person at headquarters with anything like a comprehensive overview of the entire, enormous set of case documents that the Stahlberg inquiry now comprised.

  “Where are you actually heading with this, Hanne?”

  Annmari’s voice was neither hostile nor skeptical. A furrow appeared on her brow, that was all, and she shook her head gently as she went on to ask: “Should we just let the Carl-Christian lead lie?”

  “No, of course not. It might even be that you are right that we ought to arrest him – and his wife. I just think it’s important that we have …”

  Hanne held back. She felt hot and reluctant to continue.

  “The motive doesn’t have to be what we see. And then … then it might just as well be Hermine who killed all four of them. Or someone else entirely.”

  This last sentence was said almost a whisper. Silje glanced up at her in surprise.

  The door crashed open and hit Hanne on the back of the head.

  “Sorry,” Billy T. said. “Are you okay?”

  Hanne mumbled and nodded as she rubbed a growing lump.

  “Hermine Stahlberg bought a gun in November,” he said in a loud triumphant voice.

  His jacket lapels were caught above his shoulders and the buttons were uneven, as if his clothes had been thrown on in a hurry. Red-cheeked and breathless, he continued: “I’ve been talking to one of my old stoolies. On November the tenth, Hermine met a gun dealer in a café in Trondheimsveien. She needed an unregistered handgun, preferably a pistol. She was—”

  “Sit yourself down,” Annmari said calmly. “Take it easy now.”

  “There’s not enough room here,” he said. “ The deal was that the weapon should be obtained and delivered on November the sixteenth and—”

  “You’re behaving like a trainee,” Hanne said. ‘Sit down and relax.”

  “Where, then?”

  There were no spare seats. Hanne held out her own chair and moved to sit on the sideboard. A bottle of cola toppled over, but she ignored the spreading brown stain.

  “Naturally I’ll write a special report,” Billy T. said. “But—”

  “A special report,” Annmari interrupted him. “Why not a witness-interview report? I take it you’ve interviewed this gun dealer of yours?”

  “Forget all that now!”

  He waved her away impatiently. Without removing his outdoor clothes, he sat down abruptly.

 
“Anyway, my source says that the arrangement was to obtain a handgun. ‘Suitable for shooting big game.’”

  His fingers curled into quote marks.

  “Hermine had actually said that. ‘Big game.’ My source was lucky, got hold of a Glock, and handed it over to Hermine in the loo at the same café on November the sixteenth.”

  “Your source got hold of a Glock,” Annmari reiterated slowly. “Does that mean that you’ve spoken to the actual supplier? That you have first-hand knowledge?”

  “Yep! As you know, I’d heard the story before, from Kluten, that junkie who died on Sunday. Since he tells more lies than a bishop, I had to … now I’ve—”

  “I hope, for your sake, that this gun dealer is now sitting in a remand cell waiting for an in-depth interview,” Puntvold said, noticeably, almost palpably, eager.

  It was as if the air suddenly went out of Billy T. He sagged somehow, sliding forward in his seat, letting his shoulders slump, and bowing his head. Then he took two deep, demonstrative breaths before looking up again and saying: “This is what I have to offer – a special report making reference to a conversation I’ve had today with a source, a gun dealer on a petty scale, who informed me that on November the tenth this year Hermine Stahlberg was in contact with h— with the person in question. Hermine was looking for a handgun of a specific caliber, ‘suitable for shooting big game’. The transaction was conducted six days later. The report can be written, signed by me, and placed on Annmari’s desk in three-quarters of an hour. Full stop. I don’t intend to reveal my source. Not yet, anyway. I don’t intend to take any stick from anyone, either. And I don’t intend to stay here any longer. If you accept my offer …”

  A big, dirty index finger, its nail bitten down to the quick, quivered at Annmari.

  “… then you can always send me a text. Bye.”

  He got to his feet and left. The door slammed behind him with just as much noise as when he had entered ten minutes earlier.

  “Tired,” Hanne said, smiling faintly at the Chief of Police. “Just terribly tired.”

  After a moment’s silence, an infernal uproar erupted. They were all speaking over one another, their voices ricocheting off the walls as they grew increasingly loud in an effort to be heard. Only Hanne sat pensively quiet, using her finger to lead the spilled cola to the edge of the table in tiny rivers that dripped on to the floor.

  “All I understand is that we must go for an arrest,” Annmari screeched, waving her hands to induce silence. “And maybe we’d be as well to operate on a fairly broad front. We’ll haul in all three, what do you think? Hermine, Carl-Christian, and Mabelle?”

  Some of them began to clap and the applause eventually became deafening. Annmari smiled happily. Hanne could have sworn that the Police Prosecutor was on the verge of tears.

  “That’s fine,” Puntvold said in her ear; she had not noticed that he was standing beside her now. “This might move faster than you anticipated. Excellent outcome.”

  Hanne smiled politely without meeting his eye.

  “It wasn’t so important to solve the mystery of Sidensvans after all,” he continued. “It must be acknowledged that Billy T. has quite a network of contacts. But you too, of course! You’ve been looking at Hermine the whole time, haven’t you?”

  Hanne turned around to answer, but by then Puntvold was already engaged in conversation with the Superintendent. Hanne scanned the room, looking from one face to another.

  They all seemed so happy.

  As for herself, she felt only disquiet, and left to track down Billy T.

  Hanne had searched everywhere. No one had seen anything of him, apart from Erik Henriksen, who claimed to have caught a whiff of Billy T. in the men’s toilets fifteen minutes earlier. Liquor and sweat, he maintained, wondering aloud what kind of Christmas Eves they were in the habit of celebrating.

  Finally she gave up and headed back to her own office.

  She hovered on the threshold for a few seconds. The office was in semi-darkness, but nevertheless something gave her a feeling that all was not as it should be. Once again she felt that glimmer of anxiety, of an obscure reluctance to be there in police headquarters and at work. Slowly she raised her hand and flicked the light switch.

  “Hi,” she heard someone behind her speak and almost jumped out of her skin.

  “Heavens above! Billy T.! You scared me.”

  He crossed over to the window. “It’s as if we never get any proper sunlight these days,” he said softly.

  “It’s winter, Billy T. But it’s turning now. Every day will be lighter from now on.”

  “I notice I’m not able to put up with it so well these days.”

  “Winter?”

  “The darkness. The fact that it’s never completely bright. Just a gray, halfhearted sort-of daylight. Then evening comes, far too early. I get so fucking tired of it.”

  He took a seat. Hanne approached him and slowly stroked his bald head. The stubble tickled the palm of her hand. At the nape, a roll of fat divided into two thin sausages. He relaxed, she noticed, leaning back and closing his eyes. She pressed his head warily against her own body and massaged his forehead.

  “We’re getting on in years, Billy T. It’s nothing serious, really.”

  Outside the windows, all the colors had disappeared. The temperature had climbed above zero degrees Celsius and the trees stood black and bare of snow, only just visible in the fog that drifted slowly in from the fjord. The wind had died down. In half an hour or so it would be pitch dark.

  “I’ve allowed myself to be corrupted,” he said.

  “You have …”

  A squad car raced down toward Grønlandsleiret. Blue lights sliced fleetingly through the fog, before the sirens dwindled as the vehicle vanished toward the city center.

  “Look at this.”

  He sat erect and withdrew a note from his breast pocket. Hanne accepted it hesitantly and unfolded it.

  “A betting slip,” she said quizzically.

  “Yes. Horses. Seven winners. Worth over a hundred and fifty thousand kroner.”

  “That’s … that’s lovely, then! Congratulations!”

  He stood up and headed over to the window. “Tear it to pieces. I can’t bring myself to do it.”

  “Billy T.—”

  “Tear it to pieces!” His breath formed damp, pulsating patches on the glass.

  “You’ll have to explain this to me,” she said.

  “For fuck’s sake, Hanne! Tear it to pieces, I’m telling you!”

  “Turn around.”

  He stood with shoulders hunched and his head slumped between them. Now he leaned against the window with the top of his head on the pane. Hanne closed the door carefully.

  “Billy T., I want to know what this is.”

  “A betting slip.”

  “I understand that. But where did you get it? Why do I have to tear it to pieces?”

  “Because …”

  At last he turned around. His complexion was pale and deep furrows were etched from the sides of his nose past the corners of his mouth, all the way down to his chin. He was unshaven. His eyes were sunk deep into his skull and it was almost impossible to tell what color they were.

  “Because I got it from a prize slob. Ronny Berntsen, Hanne. He gave it to me. And I desperately need the money.”

  He hid his face in his hands and turned away again, facing the wall now. He banged his head against the wall panel over and over again.

  “Bloody hell, Hanne. I need that money. Tear the damn ticket to pieces!”

  “Billy T. …”

  She threw her arms around his waist, resting her head on his broad back. The heat from his body radiated through his jacket.

  “You have to do it yourself,” she said. “Up till now, you haven’t done anything wrong. You haven’t drawn the money.”

  He did not react.

  “Billy T.? You haven’t drawn the money?”

  “If I had, then I wouldn’t still have the t
icket,” he said dully.

  “Then everything’s okay. But you have to destroy it yourself. It will be really important to you. Afterwards. Later. That you were able to draw the line. To resist.”

  “Resist the devil’s temptation, you mean? Have you gone all religious, or what?”

  Hanne smiled and hugged him even more tightly. “Me? Are you mad? Turn around, come on.”

  He was breathing more easily now and wheeled around. She pulled down the zip on his jacket and tried to take off his scarf. He stopped her.

  “I have to go,” he muttered. “There was a hell of a row when I had to skip Christmas lunch at my sister’s. If I leave now, I might at least be in time for dessert.”

  “You can have some money from me.”

  They were standing so close to each other. Hanne patted his chest, tugged his jacket lapels into place, and adjusted his scarf.

  “I can’t accept money from you, Hanne.”

  “Of course you can. It’s my money. I spend hardly anything these days; my salary account just sits there, growing fatter and fatter. Nefis pays for everything, or so it seems. Admittedly I don’t have a hundred and fifty thousand yet, but I can help you part of the way.”

  “You know fine well that’s just not on. I can’t accept money from you. Not from anyone.”

  “You’re my family, Billy T.”

  “No.”

  “Yes, in a way you’re the only family I have. You knew Cecilie. You knew me, for a long time, before the others, before … You can have a hundred thousand. As a loan.”

  Suddenly she pulled back.

  “But of course you’ll have to decide for yourself.”

  “Do you have a headache?”

  “What?”

  “I walloped the door on the back of your head.”

  “Oh, that. It’s fine. A tiny lump, that’s all.”

  Billy T. fished out a cap from his pocket and pulled it on.

  “You ought to sort through your mail soon,” he said, pointing at her in-tray, a towering stack of unopened letters and internal mail.

  “Sure. What are you going to do with the ticket?”

  She held it out to him and, after a moment’s hesitation, he grabbed it and pushed it back into his breast pocket.