Beyond the Truth: Hanne Wilhelmsen Book Seven (A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel) (39 page)

“No idea. Something or other.
Obstruction of justice
. But try the straightforward way first. I’d really prefer you to go in person, Erik. But what on earth’s happened to Hanne?”

“I was wondering that too,” Billy T. said, having crashed into the room without knocking on the door. “Someone had seen her around three o’clock, but she just left after that.”

“Hello,” Annmari said. “I see you’re the same polite boy as usual.”

“Cut it out. We’re all shattered, Annmari. No need to be sharp for that reason. Look at this little gizmo here. I’m sure that’ll put you in a better humor.”

He placed a transparent bag in front of her.

“A … a cartridge clip?”

Annmari poked at the bag with her pen.

“It’s not dangerous, you know! Not for us. But I’ll bet CC won’t find it very easy to explain. It’s a Glock cartridge, Annmari. Which was lying in a badly mounted safe in Mabelle’s apartment in Kampen. I’ve just had it confirmed that it does in fact belong to a Glock. The problem for Carl-Christian is, of course, that he doesn’t have such a gun registered in his name, and there was nothing resembling a pistol in the apartment, either. A revolver, yes, a legal one, I’ve checked that out, too. But no pistol; just this, plus a whole box of 9mm parabellum. Subsonic ammunition. For use with a silencer.”

It seemed as though Annmari could not quite absorb the information she was given. When four bodies had been found in Eckersbergs gate eight days earlier, they had all prepared themselves for an investigation that would take months and, in the worst-case scenario, even years. Homicide cases normally took time. A quadruple murder was something she had never faced before, but she had reckoned that the investigation would have to be comprehensive: a slow and painstaking inquiry, building toward something that might only result in an indictment in the distant future. She had lain in bed last Thursday night, tossing and turning with dread: she had anticipated a procedural nightmare, with lengthy periods of stagnation and actual setbacks of various kinds. Instead they were heading for a solution in record-quick time.

She sat vacantly staring at the cartridge clip. Billy T. scratched his crotch, swearing loudly.

“Say something, then! This is an honest-to-goodness breakthrough, isn’t it? There’s a fair amount for our ballistics team and gun technicians to work their way through for a while yet, but I’ll bet you a cup of coffee that this is starting to get interesting for them!”

The phone rang.

Annmari picked up the receiver and barked a greeting. Then she fell silent. Her expression changed from irritation to interest, before she said with a look of incredulity: “Then come straight up to my office. We’ll take it from there. Thanks.”

She slowly put the receiver back in place.

“A witness,” she said, “has come forward. A man who distinctly believes he saw a woman running along Eckersbergs gate in the direction of Gyldenløves gate last Thursday night.”

“Eh?”

Billy T. squinted at her in disbelief.

“And he’s only now phoning in? Eight days later?”

“It was the sergeant at the duty desk who called. The man’s downstairs. He tried to phone us last Friday, but got annoyed when he couldn’t get through on the phone. Only to the central switchboard, he said, and then it went quiet once he was being transferred through.”

“Well, it was like the Wild West here last Friday,” Billy T. commented.

“Exactly. This guy then went to Italy with his wife for the Christmas holidays, and gave up on the entire business. Came home today. After reading the past week’s newspapers, he was so shocked that he’s now downstairs at the front desk.”

“Shocked?”

“Yes,” Annmari said, slowly stroking her cheeks. “He’s seen the pictures in the papers. He says it was Hermine he saw. In a real fucking hurry away from Eckersbergs gate five. ‘Running like a madwoman’ was apparently the expression he used. ‘Running like a madwoman’ …”

Then she slapped her hand on the desk.

“But what in hell has become of Hanne Wilhelmsen?”

Hermine Stahlberg was not dead. Her lower arm was uncovered, and a vein was only just pulsating under her skin. Signs of life were also visible in the hollow of her neck. Silje felt it, to be on the safe side. She did not dare to move the woman, who was stretched out, half naked, on the floor in a storeroom. A bottle of detergent had fallen from a shelf just above her. The synthetic fragrance combined with a whiff of urine and feces. Silje spread a tartan blanket over her. Hermine was clutching a toy rabbit, a grubby pink creature with a torn ear and staring, over-large plastic eyes. Silje cautiously tried to loosen her grip. It was as if her fingers were frozen stiff to the dirty nylon fur. She let Hermine keep the soft toy.

Erik Henriksen struggled to decide what he had actually expected. The thought of what, at worst, might meet them in Alfred’s apartment had been so repulsive that for the entire drive he had tried to memorize the lyrics of old pop songs and rivers in Asia.

“Phone for an ambulance, Erik.”

Silje strode across the room and poked him hard in the side. He stood, feet astride and hands in the air, fingers slightly fanned out, as if about to pick up a child.

“Summon two,” she insisted. “We need two ambulances, Erik.”

“I don’t know what I had expected,” he said.

“Erik! Take out your phone and call an ambulance. Now!”

He did not know why she didn’t do this herself. His hands refused to budge. There was a cold prickle of running perspiration in his armpits.

“She wanted to go to the police,” Alfred complained from the corner beside the kitchen. “She wanted to go to the police, you see. I couldn’t find the photographs! I searched everywhere at Hermine’s, but I found … You understand I couldn’t let her go to the police.”

The corpulent man heaved himself up from the corner. Now and again his arms lunged vigorously into the air in a comical parody of karate.

“I haven’t done anything wrong, you know,” he said loudly and laughed. “Just take her with you. Just take her with you and disappear.”

A fresh pounce with stiff fingers struck Silje in the stomach as she tried to approach the man.

“
Call for reinforcements
,” she shouted, taking a step back. “
Now!
”

Finally Erik succeeded in lowering his arms. His mouth was unbearably parched. He bit his lip and made the cut worse by digging his front teeth deep into the soft flesh, feeling how painful it was.

In astonishment, he became aware of the taste of his own blood and at last took out his phone.

“As you appreciate, there’s been a lot going on here. Where in the world have you been? You look totally … sick. Is something wrong?”

Hanne Wilhelmsen looked really miserable. In her eagerness to tell her about the events of the day, Annmari had failed to notice that her colleague’s eyes were bloodshot and swollen. Her mouth had an unfamiliar, discouraged expression; something vulnerable that Annmari could not recollect having seen before. Hanne’s entire body seemed shattered.

“Last night I met a ghost,” Hanne said with a joyless smile. “Today has somehow been marked by that. But I’ll survive. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to say?”

“Where have you been?”

At first Hanne did not reply. It was now half an hour before midnight and the pitch darkness was closing in on the cold windowpanes. A candle, about to gutter, flickered on the far edge of the desk.

“You should take care with that,” Hanne said dully. “Last time you nearly set fire to the whole building.”

“I’ve taken the decoration off. That was what caught fire. Where have you been? Today has been an absolute merry-go-round. The Stahlberg case is rolling away like an express train, and I would be much happier if my chief investigator saw the value of being accessible in the midst of—”

“I’ve been working,” Hanne interrupted her. “You must realize that much. First of all, I slept late. After that, I was playing my part.”

She produced two plastic bags from her voluminous shoulder bag. There was a clunking noise as she placed them on the desk between her and the Police Prosecutor.

“If I’m not entirely mistaken,” she said, “ then these are the guns that were used to kill four people last Thursday. In two or three days we’ll know for certain. And this …”

She placed a document beside the weapons.

“… is a special report from me. About how they were found. I’ve embroidered the story as best I can, so that a promising but fairly naive and overenthusiastic young lad won’t have his career in the police destroyed before he’s begun. I’m asking you to back me in this. He’s called Audun Natholmen. Take note of that name.”

Annmari did not move a muscle. Her eyes were fixed on Hanne. A faint sound of her breathing, short and wheezy, was the only noise that could be heard.

Hanne crossed her arms, smiling listlessly, and closed her eyes.

The guns – a pistol and a revolver, wrapped in plastic – lay in front of her, but she did not even dare to examine them more closely. The candle flickered and would soon burn down: the wick began to splutter. The fluorescent light on the ceiling flashed on and off with a harsh blue glare. Then the light tube died completely.

“Are you joking?” Annmari finally asked. “Hanne Wilhelmsen, are you pulling my leg?”

Her voice was anxious, almost childish.

“Are you ill?” she suddenly added, her voice trembling. “Hanne! What on earth is this? You look unwell. Where did you get these from?” Hanne opened her eyes slowly, as if waking from a dream she did not want to lose hold of.

“It’s so dark in here,” she said, reaching forward to the table lamp. “There. That’s better. No, I’m not unwell. I’m …”

She used her right hand to push the report over to Annmari, who did not want to take it.

“Explain this to me instead. Tell me.”

“Read it,” Hanne said.

Hesitantly, and still without taking a closer look at the guns, Annmari pulled the report toward her. After a few minutes she looked up from the final page and laid the document on the far side of her desk, as if the paper reeked of something nauseous.

“This is scandalous, Hanne. They could have ruined everything! These young boys most certainly have not thought of securing evidence in the area. How … how in hell could he think of doing something so … so
completely idiotic
? And why have you written this report that makes you into a scapegoat to such an extent? Write another one, Hanne. This young man is finished anyway. Behaving so impetuously on the basis of a tip-off he’s received while on duty, without technicians, without … There’s no reason on earth for you to go down the drain along with him. I refuse permission for you to hand this in.”

“It has been handed in,” Hanne said. “To you. And I’m taking the blame upon myself because the blame actually belongs to me. I’ve tried to think back to what I said to Audun. Reconstructed all of it. As it states in the report, I expressed myself extremely ambiguously. Of course I meant it only as a joke, but I ought to have realized that the boy would understand my words as some kind of … approval.”

“Hanne …”

Annmari was more composed now; it was as if the power relationship between them had shifted all at once. She adjusted the architect’s desk lamp and took a new candle out of a drawer.

“Maybe I should find something else to do,” Hanne broke in, “in any case.”

She smiled a genuine, surprised smile.

“My time in the police might well be over. There’s so much else I could think of doing. I’m at the right age. I’m forty-two. If I’m going to do something else with my life, then I should grab the chance now.”

Annmari inserted the candle into the holder and lit it. Then she got to her feet and crossed over to Hanne. She crouched down. Hanne shrank away. Her arms were still folded over her chest, like a knot.

“You won’t survive without this job,” Annmari said calmly. “And this job would be unbelievably boring without you. I just wish … that you could be a bit more strategic sometimes. As far as other people are concerned. I’ve never understood why you have to challenge the system as if your life depended on it. I haven’t been here as long as you have, but I’ve heard stories about what you were like. In the past. Distant, okay, but always according to the book. Always irreproachable. What … what happened, Hanne?”

“I got tired. I couldn’t stand it any more.”

“Stand what? What is it you couldn’t stand?”

Hanne’s eyes began to brim.

“I’m not crying,” she said. “It’s just an infection.”

Warily, Annmari tried to take her hand.

“I’m not really crying,” Hanne said loudly. “These eyes of mine are just so fucking sore. And I really can’t bring myself to talk about my personal business. That evidence there should be more than enough for us to be going on with.”

She nodded in the direction of the guns.

“More than enough,” she repeated, struggling to change position in her seat without touching Annmari.

“They’re really out to get you, Hanne.”