Beyond the Truth

by Anne Holt

“I stood my ground. Then he begged. And pleaded. In fact, it was wonderful. I got what I wanted. He got the photographs. I got a new will. A fair one.” For the first time, her face relaxed into something resembling a real smile. “So something came out of it, after all. I have it at home. I have copies of the photographs as well. Stupid Father, for not getting hold of the film.”

  Hanne remained silent. She did not reveal that the new will had been found. That it was invalid. Hermine’s sacrifice had been for nothing, and sooner or later she would have to find that out. It would have to be later.

  “Okay,” Hanne said.

  “I need some water,” Hermine said.

  “And I really, really need to go to the toilet!”

  “There’s a bathroom in there.”

  “I’ll just be a minute.”

  Hermine followed her with her eyes. She felt easier now. Slowly she raised her right hand to her face and removed the bandage from the wound she had sustained when she had cut herself on the broken whisky glass. It had started to heal. Underneath the plaster, her skin was chalk-white, pale, and wrinkled with moisture. But the wound had closed and it was no longer so painful to move her thumb. The beginnings of a scar were still outlined in red, though partially healed, and assumed the shape of a smile when she splayed her fingers.

  “It seems so long ago,” she said, when Hanne returned and the noise of the flushing cistern made her look up.

  “What is it?”

  “I cut myself. I was drunk. And doped up. A week ago. Before I landed in hospital. The last time, that is. It seems such a terribly long time ago. That I took the pistol with me … I don’t understand why I did that. I was completely zonked out. Brought it probably just to frighten them, I think. I’ve never felt so angry, ever. There was a gun and I just took it with me. If Father wouldn’t be moved by anything else I could use to threaten him, then at least he would be scared of me now. Don’t know—”

  “Did you really think your father would let himself be terrorized by a gun?”

  “I was in no fit state to think anything at all. Honestly! I wasn’t thinking at all, okay? An impulsive act, isn’t that what it’s called? I was in the apartment in Kampen when Mother phoned me on my cellphone – Mabelle has an apartment there, you see. I’ve been allowed to use it for … different things. CC doesn’t bother about it at all. But there’s a safe there, something Mabelle organized once, ages ago. Useful to have, I suppose. The pistol was in it.”

  Her eyes drifted shut again.

  “I’m so exhausted,” she murmured. “So dreadfully exhausted. And I don’t entirely understand – I’ve never thought about it … I arranged a gun because Mabelle wanted to have one. She thought she needed to be able to protect herself from the family. After all the things Father got up to, then … But why was it kept there in the apartment in Kampen? I’ve never thought about—”

  “Did Mabelle believe it might be necessary to defend herself with a gun? From Hermann Stahlberg?”

  For the first time during the conversation, Hanne felt provoked. This family was so crazy that Hermine’s account until now had seemed plausible. Logical even, in its own absurd fashion, because it was true. This last part, though, seemed blatantly false.

  And Hanne realized that it was.

  Admittedly, Hermine was telling the truth, about what she knew and had been told, but the story was not accurate. Not on this point. The gun had never been acquired to protect anyone. That was a lie – a falsehood that only a rundown drug addict with impaired critical faculties would be able to trust.

  Mabelle and Carl-Christian had planned to kill Hermann, and maybe also Turid. Now that Hanne was sure of that, for the first time since Billy T. had phoned her one evening nine interminable days ago, it was as if she barely had energy to think any further. She squeezed her hands together, digging her nails into the fleshy part at the base of her thumb, before getting to her feet and heading for the hand basin on the wall. She let the water run for a long time. Unpacking a mug wrapped in plastic that she found on a little glass shelf, she filled it to the brim.

  A few more hours, she thought, as she drank. You can face a few more hours.

  Mabelle and Carl-Christian had procured the gun. They had made plans. They had a motive, the best motive in the world. They were almost certainly in the process of creating the opportunity. But they weren’t ready. Not yet. The murders in Eckersbergs gate were so brutal, so barbaric, and pointed so convincingly to the young married couple that they couldn’t possibly have committed them themselves. To be honest, Mabelle and Carl-Christian would have made a better job of them. They wanted to kill Hermann Stahlberg and probably would have succeeded in doing so. In the fullness of time, and in a far more sophisticated fashion than turning the family home into a slaughterhouse.

  But someone had beaten them to it.

  That must be how it had been. Only that allowed everything to assume some meaning, a compelling coherence. All the lies those two had served up – obvious untruths, Carl-Christian’s paralysis, his conspicuous anxiety about becoming entangled in a web of fabrications and detours that trapped him in a corner – all of it only made sense if there was an unattractive, dangerous truth to hide. The truth was that they had not killed anyone. The lie beyond the truth was that they had never considered doing it.

  Hanne struggled to keep her voice steady: “Did you agree with Mabelle? That Hermann might be … dangerous, sort of thing?”

  “Agree? I don’t know. I was on a real bender. My head hasn’t been very clear, to put it mildly. It seemed sensible enough to me. After all, Father had ensured that Mabelle was arrested just for using her own car. He had got his hands on some damn photos of Mabelle that he used to threaten CC. My father is …”

  It looked as if she might have fallen asleep. Her head slid silently to one side. Her mouth was half open, her breathing slow and even.

  “Hermine …” Hanne warily clutched Hermine’s hand. “What happened when you arrived at Eckersbergs gate? Why didn’t you go inside? I must know why you never went in.”

  “What? Oi. I nearly dozed off. Water, please.”

  Once again Hanne raised the glass to Hermine’s mouth. Her lips fumbled with the straw.

  “I got so scared,” she said, running her hand over her mouth.

  “Of what?” Hanne asked quietly, even though she knew the answer.

  “An animal. A dog. It was the most ugly, hellish … Do you know, for a few seconds afterwards, when I was running along the sidewalk to make my escape, I thought it might have been a nightmare. That I was on a really bad trip. It’s true I’m frightened of all dogs, but that beast was … I dropped the gun. Dropped it right there, just beside the gatepost at Mother and Father’s place.”

  Hanne had begun to take notes. “Did you go back?” she asked, without looking up from her notepad.

  “Yes, after a while. I’ve no idea how long afterwards. At first I ran and then I couldn’t do it any more. I felt bad, sick to my stomach. My head began to clear a little, in a manner of speaking. Out of pure fear, I expect. I felt like an idiot. I was terrified out of my wits. Just think if anyone were to find the pistol! With a silencer and everything. Pretty dramatic, eh? And covered in my fingerprints. Even if it hadn’t been used for anything, it wouldn’t exactly look very good if something like that were found outside my parents’ house, when everyone knew we were in the midst of a terrible family dispute. I pulled myself together and went back. I hoped the animal would be gone, and it was. But—”

  “Someone came,” Hanne said. “A man came.”

  “Yes. How do you know that?”

  “Tell me.”

  “In fact, two men came. I’d just rounded the corner when I saw a guy who had stopped in front of the garden path. It looked as if he wasn’t entirely sure where he was going. I was so terrified that I nearly … My God, I think I’ve never been so afraid. Just as I turned to run off, just as the man began to walk up to the entrance to Mother and Father’s apartment, I
saw another guy, farther along the street. The first man had obviously not spotted my pistol, because he didn’t bend down or … He didn’t stop when he reached the place where I’d dropped it. All of a sudden that hideous dog appeared. So I hesitated for a moment, then thought I should try all the same – to pick up the gun, I mean – but then I noticed that the other man … You believe me, don’t you?”

  “I believe you.”

  Hermine squinted nervously at the notepad. “Why are you suddenly taking notes, then? Isn’t that the sort of thing you do to expose lies? You draw attention to inconsistencies?”

  Hanne folded the notepad and put her pen into her bag. “You haven’t come out with any inconsistencies, Hermine. On the contrary. What did the other man do? The man who came from behind?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t you remember?”

  “I just don’t know. Now, as I’m telling you this, I’m not even sure whether he was actually heading into the building. I just … I got the impression he was. There was something about … the way he was moving. He glanced up at the building somehow, it was … I don’t know. Anyway, I was completely paralyzed for a few seconds. Then I took off. Again. Didn’t dare to search for the pistol. Didn’t stop until I got home. After that, I doped myself up. When the pigs – sorry, the police – came that night, I was in the middle of …”

  The hand she drew over her eyes seemed even skinnier than before.

  “I can’t face any more. I need to sleep. Sleep now.”

  Her eyes slid shut and she gasped softly, almost inaudibly, like an infant before succumbing to sleep. Hanne sat there for a few minutes until she was certain that Hermine was sleeping soundly. Then she grabbed her jacket and left the hospital ward as quietly as she could.

  Annmari Skar and Håkon Sand sat in the corridor. Each stared at her from the uncomfortable chairs, without making any sign of speaking or any move to stand up.

  “Bloody hell,” Hanne hissed. “Have you been telling tales now? Couldn’t you stand me taking time off after all? You, the one who almost forced me to take a break!”

  “I haven’t told any tales,” Annmari said, unruffled. “I’ve spoken to Håkon, who is senior to both of us, in case you’ve forgotten. Your behavior made it imperative to take action.”

  “Thanks for not interrupting my interview anyway,” Hanne said tartly as she began to stride along the corridor. “I’ve actually solved this case.”

  “Hanne!”

  Though she did not look back, she did slow down. Håkon’s voice had something different about it, an unfamiliar strength and an edge of fury that she had never heard before.

  “Hanne,” he said again, and this time she wheeled round. “You can’t go on like this,” he said.

  He was standing directly in front of her and grasped her hand. Annmari still sat in silence, six or seven meters farther along the corridor.

  “At one time it was the three of us,” he said softly, almost whispering. “You and me and Billy T. You could get away with causing a bit of havoc then. We all could. It was fun. It was a different time. A completely different time, with different methods. We two are friends, Hanne, and you put up with a lot from your friends. Annmari is not a friend. She is your colleague and your senior officer, at least as far as decisions about the prosecution are concerned.”

  “At present I haven’t asked for anyone to be remanded in custody,” Hanne said caustically. “And, to put it mildly, I take exception to you turning up here and … Was it that bitch of a doctor who phoned?”

  “Hanne! Have you lost your mind altogether?”

  Their faces were only centimeters apart. She felt the warmth of his breath on her lips.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled as she cast her eyes down. “Sorry, Håkon. I don’t know what’s up with me.”

  “You’re worn out,” he said sadly. “But we must stop always blaming that. We’re always worn out, Hanne. Being a police officer is a fucking Sisyphean task. That’s just the way it is. You have to accept that. People get sick of us always arguing, Hanne. If you can’t stand the heat, then for fuck’s sake get out of the kitchen!”

  Swaying her hips, Hanne wrinkled her brow and looked him up and down as if she had suddenly, unexpectedly, encountered a stranger.

  “Cut it out, Hanne.” He was whispering now and dragged her with him a few meters farther away from Annmari.

  “Everything seemed to be going so smoothly, you know,” he said. “With you, I mean. You and Billy T. had even made friends again and—”

  “Keep him out of this.”

  “Is it your father … I mean, is it the death and—”

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “What?”

  “Didn’t you hear me just tell you that this case is solved?”

  Now he was laughing. Long-suffering, Håkon scratched his head and laughed even louder.

  “Are you in deadly earnest?” he said eventually. “Do you really mean that CC and Mabelle are innocent? And Hermine too, for that matter? Carl-Christian has confessed, do you realize—”

  “Silje knows that’s a bare-faced lie. In her opinion, CC is protecting his sister. But Silje is mistaken. Hermine is also innocent. Of the murders, at least. The three Stahlbergs have done a lot that’s fucking off-the-wall, but they haven’t actually killed anyone. Only a couple of minor issues remain, and then you’ll get to know all of it. Just let me get them out of the way and then we can talk later.”

  “Hanne—”

  “You said it yourself, Håkon. We’re friends. Let me have this one chance.”

  Without waiting for a reply, she broke into a run. The last thing she heard before reaching the double glass doors leading into the next corridor was Håkon’s puzzled voice suggesting to Annmari: “We’ll give her a few more hours, then? A few more hours?”

  The cold, damp wind gusted up through the gently sloping valley. The mild weather of the past few days had licked the snow from the trees: their dark, bare outlines stood starkly against the evening sky. The ski trails were hard. The snow had long ago turned to ice on the tracks, with a watery surface that made it difficult to walk. They had driven as far as possible. In the end they reached a barrier where none of the keys they had collected from the forest ranger would fit. Billy T. and Hanne had to start walking for the final stretch. Hanne regretted not having taken the time to put on more appropriate clothes.

  “Skates would have been better than boots,” Billy T. commented as he narrowly avoided falling over.

  “Don’t complain. We’ll soon be there.” She unfolded the piece of paper and checked the sketch map.

  “How did you come to think of checking the tapes at the central switchboard?” he asked. “It must have been difficult to get that done, without kicking up too much fuss.”

  “Sidensvans’s telephone printout,” she replied. “He had phoned Oslo Police District several times in the course of the last month, something that was pretty natural, if you think of what he was working on. But I found it a touch conspicuous that the very last phone conversation in his life was with us, no less. When I discovered that he had also called the police the previous day, then I wanted to know who it was he had asked to speak to. Both times.”

  Walking became more difficult. The track curved around a hillside and grew increasingly steep. The forest seemed totally dead and the monotonous whistling of the wind through the naked treetops was the only sound to be heard.

  “Do you think he’s up there?” Billy T. panted, struggling on the upward slope. “He may have gone away. Abroad, or something like that.”

  “Jens Puntvold hasn’t gone away,” Hanne said. “He’s waiting for us.”

  “I don’t understand how you can be so sure.”

  “The motive,” Hanne said, stopping.

  Perspiration made her sweater cling to her back, but her hands were ice-cold. Slowly she brought them together and raised them to her mouth.

  “Think what kind of man he is,” she
said, blowing. “He’s already fallen. His honor has been lost. When he learned that the revolver from the tarn in here …”

  She peered over to the west.

  “When he understood this afternoon that the maneuver of switching his own lawful revolver for a confiscated one had been uncovered, then he knew it was only a matter of time. Before we found out the rest of it, I mean. That the gun he had left behind, to make sure that the count would tally after the photo session, was his own.”

  “The boys said that photographing the confiscated items happened in a rush,” Billy T. said. “But then we’re used to that, aren’t we? Puntvold and all those campaigns of his. But why—”

  “He must have been absolutely desperate,” Hanne broke in. “The Head of CID’s own legally registered gun! Which he flashes every time he swaggers about in the Løvenskiold firing range. He almost certainly planned to take it out again. Later. He would probably have found an excuse.”

  Kicking the ice, she clapped her hands, before thrusting them into her pockets.

  “This whole saga actually resulted from such a crazy mix-up,” Billy T. said.

  “Yes. The Stahlbergs were expecting this lawyer. Wetterland – wasn’t that his name? Knut Sidensvans was going to see Henrik Backe. Something must have happened to cause Hermann to open the door. Maybe the same thing that happened to me – Backe refused to answer. Or maybe … maybe the Stahlberg family thought it was Wetterland who had arrived. Silje phoned me about the documents an hour ago. Hermann had apparently decided that enough was enough. CC was going to be forced out. Wetterland had prepared papers in which almost everything was transferred to Preben. Merely as an advance on his inheritance. They were intending to have a real celebration. And when Sidensvans turned up … they could see the little garden path in front of the building from the living-room window. That would explain the open champagne bottle, by the way.”

  She gave a chuckle before adding: “Even though it’s more polite to wait until everyone is present, in actual fact. A bit too eager in my opinion, opening the bottle because you see your guest arriving! When Jens Puntvold opened the entrance door on his way in, he must have thought that Sidensvans and Backe had already started talking. Of course he couldn’t see Hermann Stahlberg from the stairway. He just heard the booming voice of an old man and must have been in total panic.”