Beyond the Truth E-Book

Anne Holt

• Herausgeber: Corvus
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

THE SEVENTH INSTALMENT IN THE HANNE WILHELMSEN SERIES. A wealthy Oslo family is murdered and the surviving family members are all acting guilty, because they all have something to hide. How will Hanne Wilhelmsen get to the truth in an endless web of deceit? Four people are found shot dead at the luxury home of the Stahlbergs, one of Oslo's wealthiest dynasties and notorious for highly publicised infighting. Three of the dead are members of the family and the fourth victim is a seeming nobody. With so many years of bad blood, it's hard to narrow down a shortlist of suspects. Hanne Wilhelmsen is drafted in to untangle the family's complex, bitter history and find the killer. Working with her longtime police partner Billy T., the pair unearth numerous motives for the murders; each surviving member of the Stahlberg family had good reason to want the victims dead. But as Hanne digs deeper she comes to believe there is a bigger secret concealed by the lies. As she draws closer to the truth, Hanne will once again risk everything for justice.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Thursday December 19

Friday December 20

Saturday December 21

Sunday December 22

Monday December 23

Tuesday December 24

Wednesday December 25

Thursday December 26

Friday December 27

Saturday December 28

Praise for Anne Holt

Half Title

Also by Anne Holt

Copyright

THURSDAY DECEMBER 19

It was an old dog with stiff joints, damaged by calcification. Illness had caused the animal to resemble a hyena, for its powerful chest and strong neck shrank abruptly into a skinny backside, with the tail curling around its testicles.

The mangy animal came and went. No one could remember when it had first appeared. In a way, it belonged to the district: an unpleasantness impossible to avoid, like the noise of the trams, double-parked vehicles, and untreated sidewalks. People had to take precautions, keep basement doors closed and locked, haul cats in for the night, and secure lids tightly on garbage bins in back yards. Now and again someone complained to the public-health authorities when food scraps and other items of rubbish were left scattered beside bicycle racks three mornings in a row. They rarely received any response, and nothing was ever done to catch the beast.

If anyone had stopped to consider how the dog actually lived, it would have been obvious that it moved around the neighborhood according to a pattern, out of step with the calendar and therefore difficult to spot. If anyone had taken the trouble, they would have realized that the dog was never very far off, and that it seldom roamed beyond an area measuring just fifteen or sixteen blocks.

He had lived like that for almost eight years.

He knew his territory and avoided other animals as much as possible, giving a wide berth to lapdogs on gaudy nylon leads, and had understood long ago that pedigree cats with bells around their necks were a temptation best resisted. He was a stray mongrel in Oslo’s upper-class west end and knew how to lie low.

The period of mild weather in early December was over, and now a biting pre-Christmas frost had glazed the asphalt. There was a hint of snow in the air. As the dog’s claws scratched the black ice, he dragged his back leg behind him. The glare from the street lamp highlighted a gash on his left haunch, liver-colored on his close-cropped fur and speckled with yellow pus. It had snagged on a spike the previous evening while he was searching for somewhere to sleep.

The apartment building was secluded, set back from the street. A paved walkway divided the front garden in two, and knee-high chain-link fencing, painted black, enclosed the wet, dead grass and a flowerbed covered with tarpaulin. A twinkling, decorated Christmas tree flanked either side of the entrance.

This was the dog’s second attempt to gain entry in the course of the evening. There was usually a way. Unlocked doors were easiest, of course. A quick leap, a swipe of the paw at the door handle. It was usually immaterial whether the door opened in or out: unlocked doors were a piece of cake. But rare. Normally he had to search for basement windows opened a chink, loose boards around walls due to be repaired, or gaps under rotting cellar stairs. Access points that everyone else, apart from him, had forgotten. They were not to be found everywhere and sometimes these gaps were mended, basement shutters shut, and walls replastered. Blocked and impenetrable. He walked on. Sometimes it took several hours to find a place for the night.

There was an opening in this block. He was familiar with it and though it was easy, it mustn’t be abused. He never slept in the same spot for more than one night. On his first attempt that evening, someone had turned up. These things happen. So he always made himself scarce, quick as a flash. Trotted on for two or three blocks. Lay down under a bush, behind a bike rack, hidden from anyone who did not look too closely. Then he tried again. A good den was worth a couple of forays.

The frost had worsened during the past hour and the snow was real now: dry, light flakes that painted the sidewalks white. He shivered: he had not had anything to eat for more than twenty-four hours.

The building was quiet now.

The lights both lured and scared him.

Light brought a chance of being seen. It was threatening. However, light also brought warmth. Blood pulsed painfully through his infected wound. Warily, he stepped over the low chain fence, whimpering as he lifted his back leg. His hole – access into the store where an old sleeping bag lay discarded in a corner – was at the rear of the building, between the basement stairs and two bicycles that were never used.

But the front door was open.

Front doors were dangerous. He could get locked in. A cozy glow enticed him all the same. Stairways were better than basements. At the very top, where people seldom ventured and nobody lived, it was warm.

Keeping his head down, he approached the stone steps and stood perfectly still, front paw raised, before stepping slowly into the beam of light. Nothing stirred anywhere; there were no alarming sounds to be heard, only the distant, reassuring murmur of the city.

He was inside.

There was another open door.

He could smell food, and everything was totally silent.

The scent of meat was strong and he no longer hesitated. Quickly he limped into the apartment, but came to a sudden stop in the hallway. Emitting a low growl, he bared his teeth at the man on the floor. Nothing happened. The dog drew closer, inquisitive now, and more curious than apprehensive. Gingerly, he thrust his nose nearer the motionless body and tried licking some of the blood around the man’s head. His tongue grew more eager, washing the floor, cleaning the congealed clots from the man’s cheek, probing into the hole just beside his temple; the starving dog slurped down what he could extract from the skull, before it dawned on him that he did not have to exert himself to obtain food.

There were three more bodies in the apartment.

His tail wagged in delight.

“There’s nothing to discuss. Nefis will damn well have to learn how we do things.”

Mary slammed the door behind her.

“One, two, three, four,” Hanne Wilhelmsen counted and when she reached the “f” of five, Mary had reappeared in the room again.

“Bloody hellfire, if I went to those Muslims at Christmastime, I’d eat whatever they put down in front of me. Pure, sheer good manners, if you ask me. She’s not even religious. She’s told me that, time after time. On Christmas Eve here in Norway we eat pork ribs. Enough said, and that’s the end of it.”

“But, Mary,” Hanne made a desperate effort, “can’t we have rack of lamb? Then the whole problem is solved. After all, we had your pork ribs last year.”

“The problem?”

Mary Samuelsen had once lived under the name “Hairy Mary”, the oldest street hooker in Oslo. Hanne had bumped into her three years ago in connection with a homicide case. Mary was near to death at that time, high on drugs and freezing in the bitter cold of the big city. Now she kept house for Hanne and Nefis in a seven-room apartment in Kruses gate.

Mary ran her arthritic hands stiffly over her apron.

“The problem, my dear Hanne Wilhelmsen, is that the only rack of lamb I ever put in my toothless gob before I met you and Nefis was cold, watered down, and arrived on a paper plate, courtesy of the Salvation Army.”

“I know that, Mary. We could have both, don’t you think? For heaven’s sake, we can certainly afford it.”

Hanne added the latter as she glanced despairingly around the room. The only furniture that remained from the apartment in Lille Tøyen where she had lived for more than fifteen years was an antique bureau, almost lost in a recess beside the door leading out to a gigantic terrace.

“Christmas is no time for compromise,” Mary declared solemnly. “If you’d sat like I had, sucking on a scrap of fatty meat too tough to swallow, year after year, one Christmas Eve after another, out of sight and forgotten in a corner, then you’d realize this has something to do with holding on to your dreams. Christmas Eve with crystal and silver and a decorated tree and a huge fat rib of pork in the center of the table, with crackling so crisp that you can hear it crow. Throughout all those years, that was what I dreamed of. And that’s the way it has to be. You could show that much respect for a poor old woman who might not have very much longer to live.”

“Give over, Mary. You’re remarkably fit. And not so old, either.”

Without a word, Mary turned on her heel once more and marched out, dragging one leg behind her. Her rhythmic hirpling disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. Hanne had measured it when they moved in, pacing it out when she thought no one was looking: sixteen meters from the settee to the kitchen door. From the dining room to the largest bathroom was eleven meters. From the bedroom to the front door, six and a half. The whole apartment was filled with distances.

She poured out more coffee from a stainless-steel thermos, before switching on the TV set.

For the very first time she had taken the entire festive period off work. A whole fortnight. Nefis and Mary had invited every Tom, Dick, and Harry to a sumptuous breakfast on Christmas morning, lunches during the following week, and a huge party on New Year’s Eve. On Christmas Eve it would be just the three of them. At least, that was what she thought. You never knew.

Hanne Wilhelmsen was both dreading and looking forward to Christmas.

The television was broadcasting a dramatization of the Christmas gospel story. Oddly enough, the baby Jesus was blue-eyed. The Virgin Mary wore heavy make-up and had blood-red lips. Closing her eyes, Hanne turned down the volume.

She tried not to think about her father. These days, that demanded all her strength.

The letter had reached her too late, three weeks ago now. Hanne suspected her mother of ulterior motives for using the postal service. Everyone knew that snail mail was no longer reliable. The message reporting his death had taken six days to reach her. By then the funeral had already taken place. Actually that was just as well. Hanne would not have attended anyway. She could visualize the scene: the family on the front pew, her brother with his mother’s hand in his, a repulsive claw, covered in eczema, sprinkling flakes of skin all over her son’s dark suit trousers. Her sister would most likely be wearing some expensive creation and would burst into tears at regular intervals, but not be so distressed that she neglected to look her brilliant best for the assembled congregation; her father’s colleagues from home and abroad, a few celebrated academics, elderly women no longer in full control of their morning ablutions and who therefore dispersed an odor of old-fashioned perfume along the rows of pews.

Her phone played an Arabian dance. Mary had tinkered with the list of ringtones and felt that oriental tunes would please Nefis. Hanne grabbed the receiver swiftly, to prevent Mary from reaching it first.

“Billy T. here.” The words were spoken before she managed to say anything. “It would be best if you came over here.”

“Now? It’s past eleven o’clock.”

“Now. It’s a major case.”

“Tomorrow’s my last workday before the holidays, Billy T. There’s no point in me starting something I won’t be able to finish.”

“You can damn well forget about that time off, Hanne.”

“Cut it out. Bye. Ring someone else. Call the police.”

“Very funny. Come on. Four bodies, Hanne. Mother, father, and son. And somebody else whose identity we haven’t figured out yet.’

“Four … four bodies? Four people murdered?”

“Yep. In your own neighborhood, by the way. If you want, I’ll meet you there.”

“Quadruple homicide—”

“Eh?”

“Do you mean we’re faced with homicide times four?”

A demonstrative sigh crackled through the receiver.

“How many times do I have to repeat it?” Billy T. asked her irascibly. “Four dead people! In an apartment in Eckersbergs gate. All of them shot. It looks fucking horrendous. Not only are the bodies punctured, but there … There’s been … someone’s been there afterwards. An animal. Or something like that—”

“Good God …”

On the TV screen, Joseph had begun to knock on doors at nightfall. In a brief close-up of his knuckles rapping on a rustic door in Bethlehem, Hanne noticed that the actor had forgotten to remove his wristwatch.

“Absurd,” she mumbled. “An animal?”

“A dog, we think. It has … eaten its fill, you might say.”

“Eckersbergs gate, was that what you said?”

“Number five.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“I might take longer than that.”

“Fine.”

They both hung up simultaneously. Hanne gulped down the last of her coffee and stood up.

“Are you thinking of going out?”

Mary stood with her legs astride, her hip leaning on the doorway, and her gaze forced Hanne to sit down again, raising her hands in a defensive gesture.

“This is an extremely serious case,” she began.

“I’ll give you serious,” Mary barked. “Nefis is coming home in half an hour. She’s on her way from the airport. She’s been gone for a whole week now, and I’ve been busy in the kitchen since seven. You’re not going anywhere.”

“I must.”

Mary sucked through her teeth. For a moment she seemed to be thinking of something else.

“Then you’ll have to take some food with you. Are you going to meet that slob?”

“Mmm.”

Ten minutes later, Hanne was ready. She had two plastic boxes of venison stew in her shoulder bag, half a sliced loaf spread generously with butter, a couple of apples, one and a half liters of cola, a large bar of chocolate, a packet of napkins, two plastic cups, and some silver cutlery into the bargain. She tried to protest.

“It’s the middle of the night, Mary. I don’t need all this!”

“Yes, you do. We never know when we’ll see you again,” Mary muttered. “Remember to bring that silver cutlery home with you!”

With that, she shut the door firmly behind Hanne, using all three locks.

Hanne had never grown accustomed to these streets. The wide spaces between the grand apartment blocks and forbidding villas cloaked in darkness created an atmosphere of angst, as if something dreadful were about to happen. Infrequent pedestrians crossed the road diagonally, with their eyes on the ground to avoid being drawn into any kind of intimacy with others. It was natural for Mary to choose to shut herself inside. After almost half a century under the influence of drugs and alcohol, isolation was probably a good idea. It was impossible to understand why all the other residents of this area seemed to make the same choice. Maybe they were perpetually absent. Maybe no one really lived here. The whole of Frogner is a stage set, Hanne thought.

She tugged her winter jacket more snugly around her frame.

It was pretty crowded outside the stone villa at Eckersbergs gate 5. Red-and-white police tape constrained a small group of curious spectators, but the interior of the cordoned area was swarming with uniformed colleagues. She recognized several of the journalists making friendly overtures to the youngest and most inexperienced police officers: shocked, immature, on edge, and easy to engage in conversation. The number of journalists swelled unbelievably fast, as if they all lived in the vicinity. At the sight of Hanne Wilhelmsen, they did no more than hoist their shoulders brashly to ward off the cold, conveying a greeting by lifting their heads ever so slightly.

“Hanne! Brilliant!”

Sergeant Silje Sørensen broke free from a group of eagerly gesticulating police personnel.

“My goodness,” Hanne said, sizing her up. “Uniform? This must be something to write home about.”

“Had an extra shift. But yes, this is something to write home about. Come on in!”

“I’ll wait for a bit. Billy T. will be here soon.”

She was dazzled by the temporary lighting that the police had already managed to rig up, making it difficult to gain a general impression of the apartment block. Hanne stepped back a few paces, using her hand to shield her eyes. It did not help much, until she walked all the way to the opposite side of the street.

“What are you looking for?” Silje Sørensen asked, following in her footsteps.

Silje always asked questions. Pestered. What are you looking for? What are you doing? What are you thinking? Like a child. A smart but slightly annoying child.

“Nothing. Just looking around.”

The apartment block was antique-rose in color, with broad cornices. Above each window was a statue of a man battling a hideous fabled creature. The front garden was tiny, but a broad paved footpath snaking around the western corner of the building might indicate a more impressive back yard concealed at the rear. The building seemed to contain only four apartments. The one on the top left-hand side was in darkness. Frugal lamplight shone from the ground and first floors on the right of the building, leaving little doubt about where the crime had taken place. Through three of the windows down on the left she could see figures in white overalls and hairnets moving to and fro, precise and apparently purposeful. Someone drew a curtain.

Suddenly Hanne was embraced from behind and lifted off her feet.

“Bloody hell,” Billy T. yelled. “You’ve put on weight!”

She kicked him on the shin with the heel of her boot.

“Ouch! You could just have said something.”

“I have done,” Hanne told him. “Don’t lift me every time you see me. I’ve said that a thousand times.”

“You just say that because you’re getting fatter and fatter,” he grinned, brushing her shoulders. “You never mentioned it before. Never. You used to like it.”

Snow was falling more thickly now, light, bone-dry flakes.

“I don’t think you’re any fatter,” Silje was quick to say, though Hanne was already halfway across the street.

“Let’s go inside,” she murmured, noticing how dread had made her feel queasy.

The eldest of the three murder victims bore a resemblance to the famous portrait of Albert Einstein. The corpse lay in the hallway with one hand tucked under his head as if he had made himself comfortable on the floor, his hair forming a voluminous garland around his crown, with a bushy mop in the middle. His tongue also dangled from his mouth, extended to a bizarre length, and his eyes were wide open.

“That guy looks as if he’s had a shock. An electric shock!”

Billy T. leaned inquisitively over the old man.

“If it hadn’t been for this here, eh?”

He used a pen to point to an entry wound just below his left eye. Not particularly large, it appeared black rather than blood-red.

“And this. And this.”

The doctor, obviously responsible for the cadaver’s shirt front being carefully folded to one side, waved Billy T. aside. Between the sparse gray chest hairs, Hanne could see two further wounds.

“How many shots are we actually dealing with?” she asked.

“Too early to say,” the physician answered tersely. “Quite a number. You ought to have had a pathologist here, if you ask me. It’s about time you had a workable rota system sorted out with the Forensics Institute. All I can say is that these people are dead. Pretty grotesque, in my opinion. That man over there’s the worst, I believe.”

Hanne Wilhelmsen did not want to look at “that man over there”. She had to steel herself to step around the old man and take a closer look at the body in the overcoat. An ill-tempered grunt sounded from one of the technicians, who could not bear having police investigators tramping around the crime scene.

Hanne ignored him. When she leaned over the corpse nearest to the front door and noticed how the exit wound in the skull had been licked clean of blood, her nausea increased. Swiftly straightening her back, she swallowed and pointed at the body of the third man, whose age she estimated at about forty.

“Preben,” Billy T. introduced him. “The elder son of the father, Hermann, over there. That much we know, at least.”

His arms were by his sides, as if the son of the family had stiffened into a military pose as he hit the floor. His pale-blue shirt showed two small bullet holes on the breast pocket and his shoulder was ripped open with dark, fleshy lacerations.

The doctor nodded almost imperceptibly.

“I haven’t managed to look at him more closely. The dog has gorged itself on … if we are talking about a dog, that is.”

“Come here!”

Billy T. waved her toward the kitchen at the end of the spacious, dark hallway. Dressed all in white, he looked odd, with green socks outside his shoes and a paper hairnet stretched tight on his head.

A woman’s body stood by the kitchen sink. She had no hair, but a wig lay on the floor beside her. The woman’s pale scalp was disfigured by scars. She wore an elegant pink dress and her eyes were wide open, with a piercing, almost reproachful look. A perplexed young police officer was making a feeble attempt to set her hair to rights before Billy T. stopped him.

“Are you crazy or what? Don’t touch! Hell and damnation, what are you doing here anyway? This place is overcrowded as it is.”

Irritated, he began to sort out those who were necessary from those who were not. Hanne stood calmly by, struggling to make sense of what she could see.

The woman was actually upright.

Her face was singularly sexless. That must be because of the lack of hair. When Hanne approached more closely, she saw that the woman’s eyebrows were also fake, painted on, a bit too high, too distinctive. Above her left eye the painted brow formed an arch toward the bridge of her nose that served to reinforce her skeptical expression. Her eyes were open. Pale-blue, small, and without lashes. On the other hand, her mouth was well formed, with full lips, and appeared younger than the rest of her face, as if it had recently been worked on by a plastic surgeon.

“Turid Stahlberg,” Billy T. said, having now halved the number of people present in the apartment, and the atmosphere was conspicuously quieter. “Her name’s Turid. Tutta, to the family.”

“Stahlberg,” Hanne said, slightly confused, as she surveyed the enormous kitchen. “Not the Stahlberg family?”

“Yep. Hermann, the father, is the eldest of the three you saw in the hallway. I’ve also introduced you to Preben. He is forty-two. What is actually keeping this lady on her feet?”

Billy T. leaned forward and tried to peer behind the upright woman. Her ample backside was resting on the kitchen worktop and her feet were planted on the floor, well spaced, as if she had found her sea legs when faced with the killer.

“She’s only just supported here,” Billy T. mumbled. “By her ass. But her torso … why doesn’t she topple over?”

A faint tearing sound should have warned him, as he stood halfway crouched over the corpse in an effort to seek an explanation. The woman, who must weigh at least seventy kilos, collapsed on to his back and knocked him off-balance. First of all he fell to his knees. The floor was slick with tea from a smashed thermos and something that looked like honey or syrup. Fast as lightning, Billy T.’s knee skidded out to one side.

“Hanne! Bloody hell! Help!”

Billy T. was spreadeagled and floundering under a pink-clad female cadaver with a shiny scalp.

“What in all …”

The curses of two crime-scene technicians reverberated around the room.

“Lie still! Completely still!”

Five minutes later, Billy T. was able to stand up, looking more abject than Hanne had seen him in a very long time.

“Sorry, boys,” he muttered, disconsolately struggling to assist them with moving the woman’s body on to a stretcher.

“Get away,” one of his colleagues snarled. “You’ve done enough in here!”

Only now did Hanne notice a cake dish, licked clean, on the worktop where the woman’s body had rested. The marks left by an animal’s tongue could be distinguished in the greasy traces of whipped cream: wiry gray hairs plastered to the porcelain.

“Well, at least Tutta escaped the attentions of the dog,” she said crisply. “Saved by cream cake.”

“I think they were planning a celebration,” Billy T. said. “There’s an opened, but full, bottle of champagne in the living room. Four glasses. Yes, okay! I’m leaving. I’m going, I said.”

The most senior of the crime-scene examiners was literally trying to push Billy T.’s huge bulk out of the kitchen, through the door into the living room.

“I’m going,” Billy T. barked. “I’m leaving right now. Don’t you listen?”

“Four glasses,” Hanne repeated, following him into the vast living room crammed with heavy furniture. “And sandwiches. Open sandwiches, that is.”

The plate of sandwiches was still on the dining table. Empty, apart from a salad leaf and three slices of cucumber, meticulously licked clean of mayonnaise.

“Did they have a dog?” Hanne asked distractedly.

“No,” Silje Sørensen replied, and Hanne noticed for the first time that she had sneaked in. “Pet dogs were forbidden here. Or … the owners had agreed that no one should keep pets.”

“How do you already know that?”

“The neighbor,” Silje said, waving vaguely in the direction of the street. “I spoke to a woman who lives across the street.”

“What else did you find out?”

“Not much.”

Licking her fingertip, Silje Sorensen leafed through a spiral notebook. A massive diamond ring glittered on her right hand.

“The neighbors directly above …”

She pointed at the ceiling.

“… are away. They have a holiday house in Spain, and traveled south as early as November.”

“No one looking after their apartment?”

“The woman outside, Aslaug Kvalheim, says their daughter pops in now and again. She hasn’t been there for a few days, though, according to Mrs. Kvalheim. And to be honest …”

Silje flashed a smile.

“… I think Mrs. Kvalheim knows most of what goes on in this street. A real old busybody.”

“Just as well for us,” Hanne said. “What did she see tonight?”

“Nothing, unfortunately. She was at bingo from seven o’clock, and came back an hour ago. We were already here by then.”

Hanne pulled a grimace.

“The other apartments, then?”

“Across the landing …”

Silje used her thumb to point, before turning the page.

“… lives someone called Henrik Backe. A grumpy old man. I spoke to him myself, and he was three sheets to the wind. Bad-tempered about all the commotion. He didn’t let me in.”

“You didn’t go in? Did you just talk to him and leave him be?”

“Of course not, Hanne. Take it easy. Two men are in with him now. For the time being, all I know is that he claims he’s been at home all evening, and he hasn’t heard anything.”

“That’s impossible,” Billy T. blurted. “Look around! There must have been all sorts of bloody bangs and explosions in here.”

“Whether it’s possible or not is something we don’t know very much about, as yet,” Silje said, sounding slightly peeved. “The guy could have used a silencer. In any case, the boys will bring Henrik Backe in for interview tonight, no matter how much he protests. Then we’ll see.”

“And who reported it?”

“A chance caller. We’re checking him out, of course, but it seems he’s a young man who was just—”

“Fine. I see.”

Hanne caught herself speculating about the size of the apartment. The living room must be more than seventy square meters – at least if you counted the conservatory overlooking the back yard. The furniture was crowded, but each item was beautiful, when regarded individually. Pride of place, against the exterior wall, was given to a dark oak sideboard, with carved door panels and glass doors on the top cupboards. The dining table was surrounded by twelve chairs with armrests. In addition to the manila-hemp seating in the conservatory, there was sufficient room for three other suites. Only one seemed to be in regular use: the upholstery was obviously worn on the furniture in front of the TV set. The paintings on the walls were probably genuine, all with national romantic or maritime motifs. In particular, Hanne noticed an imminent shipwreck on the wall facing the kitchen. She stepped closer.

“Peder Balke,” she said in hushed tones. “My goodness!”

The ice cubes in the champagne cooler had melted long ago. Hanne studied the label without touching the bottle.

“That’s the sort of stuff you drink,” Billy T. said. “Damned expensive.”

“Do we know anything at all of interest?” Hanne asked, without taking her eyes off the bottle. “For instance, what they were celebrating?”

“Maybe they were just enjoying themselves,” Silje Sørensen ventured. “After all, it will soon be—”

“Christmas,” Hanne broke in. “There are five days left till Christmas. This is a fairly normal Thursday. That bottle there costs eight hundred and fifty kroner at the liquor store. There are limits to enjoying yourself, Silje. They were going to celebrate something. Something pretty major.”

“We don’t know—”

“Look here, Silje.”

Hanne pointed at the TV set, the screen partly hidden by Venetian blinds; the set was in itself a massive piece of furniture in mahogany or teak.

“The TV set is at least thirty years old. The settee is so worn that you can see the warp in the weave. The pictures – at least that one there …”

She pointed at the Peder Balke.

“It’s fairly valuable. The crystal in the cupboard over there is worth a fortune. There are only three kinds of sandwich topping in the fridge: yellow cheese, liver pâté, and jam. The apartment here must be worth seven or eight million, at least. His sweater …”

Wheeling around, she nodded to the hallway where Hermann Stahlberg’s body was being transferred to a stretcher.

“… is from some time in the seventies. Nice and clean, but nevertheless so worn that the elbows are darned. What does all this tell you?”

“Tight-fisted folk,” Billy T. answered, before Silje had a chance to consider the question. “Miserly. But rich. Come on, let’s go.”

Hanne made no sign of following him.

“Is there really nobody who knows who that stranger in the hallway is?”

“He’s been removed now,” Silje murmured.

“Thank God for that,” Billy T. exclaimed. “But do we know anything about him?”

“Not a thing.”

Silje Sørensen leafed aimlessly through her notes.

“No wallet. No ID. But elegant clothes. Suit. Good overcoat.”

“Nothing very elegant about that guy,” Billy T. said, shuddering. “The dog has—”

“Overcoat,” Hanne Wilhelmsen interrupted. “He was wearing a coat. Had he just arrived or was he about to leave?”

“Arrived,” Silje suggested. “The champagne was untouched. Besides, with all those men out in the hallway—”

“Lobby,” Billy T. corrected her. “It’s big enough for three dead bodies, for heaven’s sake.”

“Lobby, then. It looks like a real welcoming committee out there, don’t you think? I’ll bet the stranger had just arrived.”

Hanne scanned the living room one final time, making up her mind to inspect the rest of the apartment later. There were enough people here at present. Photographers balancing on short stepladders. Crime-scene technicians moving around quietly with their steel cases, wearing plastic gloves and looking purposeful. The doctor, gray, drawn, and obviously in a foul temper, was on his way out. The silence with which the technicians enveloped themselves was broken only by rapid commands of one syllable, demonstrating both their efficiency and their coordination, but also an ill-concealed displeasure at the continued presence of the police investigators. Later, Hanne thought, I’ll look at the rest later. The thought was accompanied by a grudging sense of relief that the Christmas holiday would come to naught yet again this year.

The idea brought a smile to her face.

“What is it?” Billy T. asked.

“Nothing. Let’s go.”

In the lobby, Hanne was confronted by her own reflection in the mirror and stopped short for a moment. Billy T. was right. She had put on weight. Her chin was rounded, her face seemed slightly broader, and there was an unfamiliar aspect to the bridge of her nose that made her look away. It must be the mirror, black-speckled with age.

The cadaver of the horribly lacerated and hitherto unidentified male in his sixties had been removed. Marker tape glistened on the parquet.

“Not a single damn trace of blood left,” Billy T. said, crouching down. “That dog’s had a feast.”

“Stop it,” Hanne said. “I feel sick.”

“I’m hungry,” Billy T. said, shadowing her on the way out.

They both noticed the nameplate as they closed the front door behind them: magnificent, almost awe-inspiring, in worn brass with black lettering: “Hermann Stahlberg.”

No Tutta. Or Turid. None of the children, even though the nameplate obviously originated from a time long before any of the children had left home.

“Here lived Hermann Stahlberg,” Billy T. said. “Cock of the walk.”

They settled on the steps outside Hanne’s apartment in Kruses gate. She had brought newspapers from the recycling container to sit on.

“Picnic in the depths of winter,” Billy T. said, munching, his mouth full of food. “Can’t we go up? Bloody hell, I’m freezing to death!”

Hanne tried to follow the snowflakes, one by one, with her eyes. The temperature had plummeted. As the crystals whirled through the air, she caught them in the palm of her hand. One glimpse of hexagonal symmetry and then they were gone.

“Don’t want to wake the others.”

“What do you think?” he asked, tucking into another slice of bread.

“That they’ll wake if we go up.”

“Idiot! About the case, I mean. Nothing was stolen.”

“We don’t know that.”

“That’s how it looks,” he said impatiently. “The silverware was still there. The paintings … you said yourself that they were valuable. To me, it looked as if nothing had been taken. It wasn’t a robbery-related homicide.”

“We don’t know that, Billy T. Don’t jump—”

“… to conclusions,” he completed for her, sounding discouraged, as he got to his feet. “Thanks for the food,” he said, brushing snow off his jacket. “Is Mary okay?”

“As you can see,” Hanne said, nodding at the leftovers. “Methadone, isolation, and housework are doing wonders. She and Nefis are like this.”

She crossed her fingers in the air, and Billy T. hooted with laughter.

“Not so easy sometimes,” Hanne said, “for me. There’s a lot of two against one, in our everyday lives, if I can put it that way.”

“Huh. You love it. Haven’t seen you looking so happy in years. Not since … the old days, you know. It’s almost as if everything’s the same as before.”

They cleared up in silence. It was past two o’clock and the weather had turned blustery, with sudden biting gusts. Their footsteps on the courtyard were swept away. There was no longer light from any of the apartments. Only the street lamps beyond the stone wall cast a glimmer of visibility over the snow that now blanketed everything. Hanne squinted into the wind.

“Nothing’s like it was before,” she said softly. “Never say that. This is now. Everything’s different. Cecilie is dead. Nefis has come. You and I are … we’re older – nothing is like it was before. Never.”

He had already started to walk, lurching unsteadily in the drifts, with his hands thrust deep inside his pockets. Her gaze followed his retreating back.

“Don’t go!” she shouted. “I only meant …”

Billy T. did not want to hear her. As he negotiated his way around the gate and quickly threw a backward glance, his expression scared her. At first she did not understand. Then she did not want to understand. She did not want to catch what he muttered under his breath; she must have been mistaken. The distance was too great. The weather made contours indistinct and sounds unclear.

Grabbing her bag, she fumbled for the keys and let herself in.

“Fuck!” she said through gritted teeth.

She ignored the elevator and slowly took the stairs.

FRIDAY DECEMBER 20

As usual, the silence woke her at the crack of dawn. She had always slept lightly in the mornings, and without the familiar friendly clamor of the east end and the soothing sound of heavy traffic through Tøyen, she no longer felt the need for an alarm clock. Not even to be on the safe side. Even though only two hours had elapsed since she had dropped off, she knew how futile it was to turn over and try to prolong the night. An open window would have helped, of course. Fresh air and noise would have kept Hanne asleep for another hour or two. Clammy with perspiration, she pulled the quilt aside and got up. Nefis muttered in her sleep, with half her body visible under her thin blanket. The dark-blue oriental pattern made her skin appear paler than it was. She looked childlike as she lay there, mouth open and arms above her head. A sliver of saliva had left the outline of a stain on the pillow. The room temperature was more than twenty degrees Celsius. Hanne felt terribly thirsty.

The copy of Aftenposten had already been delivered. The aroma of fresh coffee hit her as she entered the kitchen and closed the door quietly behind her. As usual, Mary had programmed the machine for half past five. The entire kitchen was filled with absurd aids, all with timers and precision controls for every conceivable and inconceivable requirement. Nefis wanted it like that, and Nefis could afford it. Nefis had money for anything and everything. Nefis was building her first real home at the age of thirty-eight and delighted in filling it with unnecessary gadgets that Mary used with enthusiasm and surprising proficiency, despite the old woman being hardly able to spell her way through an instruction leaflet.

Hanne filled a mug with coffee and poured in some milk, before drinking half a liter of juice straight from the carton. She did not feel hungry. To her amazement, her cigarette craving was always acute in the mornings. When she had finally managed to quit about a year ago, she had been most afraid of the evenings. Of alcohol. Of socializing with other people. The stress of her job, perhaps. All the same, it was the mornings that had proved to be the test. She felt the gravitation toward the cabinet above the cooker, where Mary’s stash of rolling tobacco was kept, bought by Nefis on a monthly basis and painstakingly sealed in plastic containers by their housekeeper, who adhered scrupulously to Nefis’s instruction to restrict her smoking to her own small section of the apartment.

The coverage in Aftenposten was extravagant. Virtually the entire first page was dedicated to the murders in Eckersbergs gate. A composite image was splashed over six columns: the façade of the apartment block formed the backdrop to three personal photographs of the mother, father, and eldest son in the Stahlberg family. The photo of Hermann Stahlberg had obviously been snapped on board a boat; he stood smartly at the rail, dressed in a blazer with gold buttons and the shipping-company emblem on its breast pocket. He gave a faint smile, with his chin thrust forward as he stared past the photographer. His wife’s smile was broader, in a photo taken indoors. She was cutting into a cream cake decorated with more candles than Hanne could be bothered to count; the flash was reflected in her glasses, making the woman look hysterical. The image of Preben was indistinct, though he seemed far younger than his forty-plus years. His hair was mid-length and he wore an open-necked shirt. It must have been taken years ago.

Where did the journalists get them? Hanne wondered, struggling to drown her cigarette craving with coffee. Only two or three hours after the murders, and they’ve already acquired some personal photographs. How do they do it? What questions do they ask, when they contact friends and family, before the blood has even congealed at the crime scene? Who hands over such things?

“My dear Hanna,” Nefis said softly.

Startled, Hanne whipped her head round. Nefis, stark naked, held out her arms.

“You always jump! What am I to do? Do I have to wear a gong around my neck?”

“Bell,” Hanne corrected her. “A gong is huge. Like in an Indian temple and suchlike. You need to get yourself a bell. Hello, by the way.”

They kissed tenderly. The scent of night still clung to Nefis, and goosebumps formed on her skin as Hanne caressed her back.

“Don’t walk about like that, though. Mary might come in.”

“Mary never comes out of her quarters before eight,” Nefis said, but nevertheless plucked an enormous woolen sweater from a chair back and drew it over her head. “Like so? Am I … respectable enough now?”

Nefis had grappled with a new language with the same enthusiasm that she embraced most aspects of Norwegian life. Although she still refrained from pork and insisted on an unbearably hot bedroom, she had begun to knit with great fascination, become tolerably good at skiing, and in addition displayed an incomprehensible interest in Oslo trams. She wrote angry letters to the editor complaining about the Tramway Company’s constant reductions in public-transport facilities. When Hanne occasionally reminisced about their first meeting, in a piazza in Verona in 1999, it was a completely different woman she pictured, an almost unreal memory. The Nefis of that time was a deep secret, harboring an impenetrable passion. When she encountered Norway, it was as if she were rushing headlong, as if she were desperate to catch up with something she wasn’t clear about, something that had never belonged to her at the time when she, despite her impressive academic career, had first and foremost been the beloved daughter in an enormously wealthy Turkish family.

Nefis could use words such as “respectability” and “paradigm-shift”. However, she had never learned to pronounce the name of her live-in partner.

“Hanna,” she said ecstatically, twirling around in a sweater that reached to her knees. “It scratches! Come on, let’s go back to bed.”

Shaking her head, Hanne drained her cup and refilled it.

“Is this your case?” Nefis nodded at the newspaper.

“Yes.”

“We heard it on the news last night. Mary and I. Hoooorrrible!” She drew out the “o” so much that Hanne simply had to smile.

“Go back to bed. I’m heading straight for work, once I’ve had a shower.”

Instead, Nefis pulled a chair over to the table and sat down.

“Tell me,” she said. “Some sort of famous family? I got that impression from the radio.”

“Famous …”

Hanne lingered on the word.

“Not exactly. But well known to people who read pink newspapers.”

“Pink newspapers,” Nefis repeated doubtfully, before the penny dropped. “Business papers!”

“Yes. I’m not really up to speed yet. But the family – that is to say, the father, I think …”

She pointed at Hermann Stahlberg.

“… owned a medium-sized shipping company. Not such a huge concern, but pretty lucrative all the same. He’d been smart enough to duck in and out of various tonnages just in advance of cyclical fluctuations. But I don’t think he’s ever been particularly well known. Not outside the trade, anyway. I hadn’t heard of either him or his shipping company until they began to quarrel. The family, that is. That must have been …”

She pondered.

“… two years ago? One year? Difficult to say. I don’t know the details. Not at all. I expect I’ll know a great deal more before this day is out, though. But if my recollection’s not entirely mistaken, then it had something to do with one son being preferred over the other.”

“That’s an old story, isn’t it?”

“Is this where you’re sitting, then?”

Mary shuffled over to the coffee machine. Her pink terry-toweling dressing gown was puffed up around her chest and gathered at the waist with a silk cord from an old-fashioned curtain. The pompoms slapped against her skinny thighs with every halting step she took. She looked like a party balloon.

“Mary, for heaven’s sake,” Nefis said, laughing. “It’s far too early for you!”

“Are you aware of all the things I have to do before Christmas Eve, eh?”

Gruffly she began to count on her scrawny fingers.

“One: we’re still short of two kinds of Christmas baking, fattigmann cookies and jødekake cakes. Two: the decorations from last year have to be vacuumed and maybe even repaired. There was a pretty wild party here on New Year’s Eve, if I remember rightly. Also, I’ve a lot of new things to try out. Three: I have to—”

“I’m off anyway,” Hanne said, getting to her feet.

“I thought so! And when are you coming back, may I ask, Your Ladyship?”

“I’ll phone,” Hanne said airily, heading for the living room.

“Hanne,” Mary said, grabbing her by the arm. “Does that mean …”

She curled her index finger toward the open newspaper.

“Does that mean we can dream on about that Christmas holiday of yours?”

Hanne smiled feebly, but did not answer.

“Honestly, Hanna.”

Nefis rose to stand by Mary’s side, forming a wall of familiar complaint and vexatious unanimity.

“I’ll phone,” Hanne said obstinately, before leaving the room.

When she clambered into her car twenty minutes later, she was still aware of the vague taste of sleep on her tongue from Nefis’s mouth.

What she wanted most of all was to take sick leave. Maybe that was what she should do. Unequivocally. She would endure this day and all it offered, and then come to a decision later. In the late afternoon, perhaps.

Or over the weekend.

In an apartment in Blindernveien, an old woman sat in floods of tears. A cleric was seated beside her on the overstuffed settee, trying to provide consolation.

“Your son will be here soon,” said the pastor, a woman who had not yet reached the age of thirty. “His plane has already landed.”

There was not much more to say.

“There, there,” she said helplessly, stroking the old woman’s hand. “There, there.”

“At least he died happy,” the widow said all of a sudden.

The pastor straightened her back, feeling relieved.

“He died in my arms,” the old woman said, her grimace changing to a smile.

The pastor stared into her tear-stained face, partly shocked, but mostly embarrassed, and said, “A cup of coffee, maybe? Your son will be here shortly.”

“I can’t talk about this with him! That would be far too awkward. For both of us. It’s none of my son’s business that his father and I still enjoyed the physical side of our marriage. For heaven’s sake! What’s today’s date?”

The pastor quickly racked her brains, but this time did not dare express any sense of relief: “The twentieth. Yes. December the twentieth. Soon be Christmas Eve.”

She could have bitten off her tongue. The widow burst into tears again.

“My first Christmas without Karl-Oskar. The first one after so many …”

The rest disappeared in violent sobs. It crossed the pastor’s mind that she would just have to let her cry. And her son had better get here soon!

“We usually go to Duvamåla,” the widow eventually said. “Yes, that’s our house in the country, you see. Since I’m called Kristina and my husband Karl-Oskar, we thought it would be fun to call it that.”

Duvamåla.

Obviously unfamiliar with the Wilhelm Moberg series, The Emigrants, the pastor did not understand any of it, but she seized on the subject eagerly.

“Our summer cottage is called Fredly,” she stammered.

“Why is that?” the old woman asked.

“Well …”

“At least he died happy,” the widow brusquely repeated.

Exuding a scent of light summer perfume, she was remarkably well groomed for someone widowed scarcely twelve hours earlier. The pastor began to notice a whiff of her own stress and clutched her arms to her body to conceal the rings of perspiration.

“Is it too hot in here?” Kristina Wetterland asked. “Perhaps you could open the balcony door? When will my son’s plane land?”

“He landed a while ago,” the pastor said, feeling quite distraught now. “As I said some time ago, he should have landed—”

“You are a pastor, aren’t you?”

A slight edge had crept into her voice now. She was more composed.

“Yes. Temporary post.”

“You’re young. You’ve a lot to learn.”

“Yes,” the pastor agreed.

Kristina Wetterland, widow of Supreme Court Advocate Karl-Oskar Wetterland, blew her nose energetically into a clean, freshly ironed handkerchief. Then she folded it neatly, pushed it up the sleeve of her cardigan and took a deep breath.

They heard keys rattling somewhere in the distance and someone enter the apartment. A moment or two later, a mature man stood in the living-room doorway. Tall and well dressed, he appeared extremely flustered.

“Mum,” he exclaimed. “My dear Mum! How are you?”

He ran across the room and knelt down in front of his mother to hug her.

“When did this happen? How … I didn’t find out until early this morning! Why didn’t you phone me?”

“Sweetheart,” the woman said, stroking the man’s head, though he was double her size. “Your father died yesterday. About seven o’clock. He died in his sleep, darling. Just a little nap. He was going to a meeting at eight. He just needed a little nap, as usual, you know. After dinner. I don’t think he suffered at all. We’ll have to comfort ourselves with that, my dear. We’ll just have to comfort ourselves with that.”

Suddenly her eyes caught sight of the pastor.

“You can go now, Pastor. Thank you for your visit.”

The young woman slunk out, closing the door quietly behind her. She had not even said hello to the son. She forced back tears all the way out into the street, where it was snowing heavily. It was now five days until Jesus’s birthday.

“It’s really quite incomprehensible,” Hanne Wilhelmsen said in annoyance as she glanced at her watch. “The guy looked Norwegian, well groomed and established. We’re not talking about some lost foreigner or poor homeless down-and-out. How can it be so damned difficult to identify a Norwegian in Norway? Eh?”

Feeling discouraged, Billy T. shrugged and ran his hand over his shaved head.

“We’re working on it. We’ve a fair amount to get to grips with here, Hanne.”

“A fair amount? Yes, you can say that again. But it looks as though the entire police force has forgotten that there’s actually a fourth victim there. You’d think the most important thing would be to discover who he is.”

Public Prosecutor Håkon Sand pulled a grimace, before removing his glasses and polishing them with his shirt tail. He reclined into an oversized office chair behind a desk strewn with documents. A phone rang and he rummaged around in confusion under the folders, struggling to locate the phone. It fell silent before he had found it.

“We’ll get there,” he said wearily. “Relax, Hanne. How many have actually been allocated to this inquiry now?”

“At the moment, fourteen officers, taking everyone into account,” Billy T. answered. “We’ll have more in the course of the day. The Superintendent is canceling holidays and time off in lieu, pulling out all the stops. In other words, the station’s in uproar.”

“I see,” Håkon Sand said, squinting through his glasses; they did not look any cleaner. “And when do you expect to have identified the fourth man?”

“Pretty soon,” Silje Sørensen said, in an attempt to soothe the rattled atmosphere. “Someone must be missing him.”

Hanne Wilhelmsen let her eyes rest on her own reflection in the window. Outside, the half light suggested daybreak, even though the hour was already far advanced. The light lacked purchase. A chill blanket of fog pressed heavily on the city and a gray veil of exhaust fumes and miscellaneous pollution enveloped the streets; even the snowflakes dancing behind her image in the glass seemed grimy.

“Strictly speaking, this unidentified man isn’t the most important focus for the investigation, either,” Billy T. said. “Here’s the file on the family. And these are only newspaper cuttings. In addition, we’re busy gathering all the correspondence and other documentation we can lay our hands on. The lawyers on both sides are putting up a fight, of course. The old story about duty of confidentiality. But we’ll win out in the end. This stuff here is all in the public domain anyway.”

He tossed a substantial folder on to Håkon Sand’s desk. Håkon, yawning loudly, let it lie.

“We’re all well aware that this family were engaged in a quarrel,” he said finally, still without touching the red ring binder. “It happens in the best of families. People don’t kill for that reason.”

The room went completely quiet. Fiddling with her ring, Silje Sørensen gazed self-consciously at the floor. Billy T. smirked as he stared at the ceiling. Hanne Wilhelmsen fixed her eyes on Håkon Sand. Håkon spat a gob of snuff into a trashcan, before straightening up, pulling his chair closer to the desk, and heaving a deep sigh.

“I’m meeting Puntvold, Head of CID, later today,” he said, raking his fingers through his hair. “This case is so massive … Though the media have given us a hard time previously, I don’t think we’ve seen the likes of this until now, all the same. They’re crawling all over us now. The Head of CID feels we should have a coordinated plan involving both the Public Prosecution Service and Oslo Police District. From the very outset, I mean.”

“If I’m not entirely mistaken, it’ll be Jens Puntvold himself who’ll take care of that aspect.”

A sarcastic smile crossed Hanne’s face. Following a career that had started in Bergen Police Station and subsequently progressed via the Ministry of Justice to the National Police Directorate at its inception in January 2001, Deputy Chief of Police and Head of CID Jens Puntvold had taken up post as second in command in Oslo seven months earlier. In his mid-forties, he was brash, blond, and childless. Moreover, he kept house with TV2’s most glamorous weather woman, and was more than willing to turn up for interviews with or without his girlfriend.

Håkon sighed again, almost theatrically. Hanne was not entirely certain whether it was because of her or Puntvold.

“He always succeeds in calling attention to the police force,” he said reprovingly. “Always, Hanne. It’s true that he appears rather too often, but the police haven’t been over-supplied with positive profiles in the past, you know. Single-handedly, Puntvold has managed to—”

“He’s competent, I’ll give you that,” Hanne interrupted. “I just get a bit discouraged about all these campaigns he launches. Many of them are nothing more than pandering to the public.”

“It’s the public who, at the end of the day, decide how many resources we have at our disposal,” Håkon said. “But enough of that. I just wanted to have a chat with the three of you before I talk to him. Annmari Skar will be the prosecutor responsible for the case in your headquarters, anyway. I’m meeting her afterwards. I’ll probably be working with her more closely than usual, and I’d appreciate you giving me a call if anything crops up. This case … hell’s teeth!”

He shook his head and tucked another wad of snuff under his lip.

“I wouldn’t mind taking a look at that folder,” Silje Sørensen said while Håkon fumbled with his top lip: the snuff was too dry and would not grip. “I’ve picked up a few things here and there, but I—”

“In a nutshell,” Billy T. said, “it revolves around a middle-sized shipping company, Norne Norway Shipping. Hermann Stahlberg was the first generation. He built up the whole enterprise from 1961 to the present day. Smart guy. Hard as nails. Cynical – at least if the newspaper commentators are to be believed.”

His finger, its nail bitten down to the quick, tapped the red ring binder.

“The man has three children. The eldest, Preben, went to sea in his early twenties. He had quarreled with his father and wouldn’t even sign on board one of his dad’s ships. A few years later, the guy came ashore in Singapore. Started his own shipbroking firm, which was extremely successful. At home here in Norway he had been written off completely. The younger son, Carl-Christian, eventually took the place intended for his brother in the shipping company. Obviously he was easier to deal with. Though not as promising as his brother.”

“Not as strong,” Hanne interjected. “More willing to defer to his father, in other words.”

“That may be,” Billy T. said impatiently. “In any case, the point is as follows: Carl-Christian works his socks off for Hermann. He does well, without ever distinguishing himself in any way. The father begins to get impatient. He refuses to hand over the shipping company as long as he remains unimpressed by the younger son’s abilities.”

“But Preben,” Håkon asked. “When did he come home?”

“Two years ago.”

Billy T. grabbed the folder of newspaper clippings and began to browse through them.

“All of a sudden, he sold the entire business in Asia and came home to the old country, pretty well loaded with cash. His father was still pissed off and dismissive, of course, until the prodigal son coughs up a considerable sum to invest in the family firm and shows himself to be the spitting image of his father. He is given a chance in the shipping company and, after two or three advantageous maneuvers, he’s back in his old father’s good books. The younger brother is increasingly sidelined.”

“Then the fun begins,” Silje said with a sigh.

“Yep. Accusations have been thrown about all over the place. Two court cases are pending at present, and there could be a few more to look forward to.”

“We’ll be spared them now, of course,” Hanne said tartly and yawned.

“But who’s the third?” Silje asked.

“The third?”

“You said that Hermann and Tutta Stahlberg had three children. What part has the third sibling played in all this?”

“Oh, her … a young girl. An afterthought. Drop-dead gorgeous, as far as I can make out. She’s the family’s free spirit, loved by all. Respected by none. Apparently she made an effort at bridge-building, but to no avail. According to what I found out last night, she spends most of her time splurging the unexpectedly generous fortune that her father endowed her with on her twentieth birthday. It doesn’t say much about her here.”

Once again they heard a piercing ring from somewhere below the chaos on the desk.

“Sand,” Håkon said crisply, when he finally retrieved the phone.

He listened for three minutes without speaking. A frown appeared behind the heavy frames of his glasses. He fished out a pen and scribbled something on the back of his hand. Hanne thought it looked like a name.