Beyond the Truth: Hanne Wilhelmsen Book Seven (A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel) (32 page)

She had been married to a lawyer for nearly fifty years and had never once touched her husband’s papers.

Kristina placed the unopened folder on her husband’s bedside table. Terje could skim through the contents when he came back. She took a deep breath as she crossed to the wardrobe. Sooner or later, she would have to clear things out and she might as well get it over and done with now.

Carl-Christian Stahlberg did not dare to raise the glass of water to his mouth. Instead he sat on his own hands. Thirst made his tongue grow large inside his mouth, and he smacked his lips to stimulate his saliva secretions. Someone had forgotten to provide him with water for the night, perhaps deliberately. He did not know for certain, but of course rumors flew around. Torture was of course not something that Norwegian police engaged in, but letting someone sit in an overheated cell for ten hours with neither food nor drink was not very friendly, either. Now that he had finally been given something to drink, he was more consumed by fear of revealing how scared he was. The glass of water could just sit there.

“Thirsty?”

The woman who was about to question him might be in her early forties. Carl-Christian tried to memorize her, to focus his attention on her oval face with the first signs of wrinkles around her big blue eyes. They weren’t entirely blue, though: it was as if someone had placed a washer over the iris, a coal-black border around the light. Carl-Christian reluctantly called to mind a science-fiction film in which invaders from another galaxy sneaked around in human guise among fortunately unwitting earth-dwellers, who had not yet discovered that the strangers could be unmasked by their eyes, which were black and blue at the same time.

He had to stare at this woman, intently. Last night, through all the absurd hours in a room stinking of urine where there was barely space to walk three steps in any single direction, he had felt his grasp on reality slip away. He visualized glimpses of his mother in summer wearing an unbecoming dress that his father had claimed to like: it had a floral pattern, and little Carl-Christian had thought the yellow sunflowers looked like smiling lions. A contented cat’s head had grown in his thoughts until he hit his fist against the cell wall to force the pain in his knuckles to bring him back to his present surroundings.

For a moment he had thought he was asleep; that must have been about three o’clock. They had taken his watch away, so it was difficult to know for sure. He felt cold. The snow blinded him, he squinted at a pale spring sun, wearing skis that were far too large and which he struggled to lift off the ground, when he discovered he was standing in the cell pissing into the bricked-up hole in the corner. At daybreak he had realized the only way to anchor reality was to fix his eyes and keep his focus on one specific object.

In fact the woman was attractive, even though Mabelle would have advised her to lose some weight. Her hair was uneven at the edges and probably hadn’t been cut in a long time. But it was shiny and brown and fell beautifully over her shoulders. Her clothes were another story. Carl-Christian tried to think about clothes. About fashions. About Mabelle’s magazine, about
F&F
, which now appeared to generate a tidy little profit. If only this hadn’t happened. Only the fates now knew how things would turn out. He didn’t even dare to consider how the press would be treating them as they sat in prison.

“You should know that we are doing what we can to emphasize that this case remains unsolved,” the policewoman said. “To the media, I mean. If that’s what you’re thinking about.”

Carl-Christian tried to remember what the movie was called, that film in which the invaders with blue-black eyes could read human thoughts and in the end our entire civilization gets dumped into a gigantic space shuttle.

“Are you actually willing to say anything at all?”

He could not remember her name. He no longer remembered anything, no matter how much he concentrated on something other than his thirst – that dreadful thirst that he lacked the courage to do anything about – he kept forgetting her name, but she seemed friendly enough, with an inexplicable mild manner that confused him and made it impossible to recall who she was and what he was supposed to say.

“Hanne Wilhelmsen,” she repeated for the third time. “My name is Hanne Wilhelmsen.”

Carl-Christian Stahlberg was no stranger to lies. He had once read that the average person lied five times every day. He thought that seemed an underestimate. As for himself, he could easily nod approvingly at something he found idiotic. He thought nothing of nattering enthusiastically with his neighbors about things he found totally uninteresting. Lies were tools to maintain an expedient harmony with your environment.

All the same, the lie he must now tell was too enormous. It had no beginning and most certainly no end. This was a real lie, so fictional and contrived that he quite simply had no idea how to make a start on it. Each time the policewoman posed a question, he opened his mouth to answer. He wanted to say something. He wanted to be reliable and trustworthy. He wanted to satisfy this dark-haired woman in her slightly-too-tight suit jacket, flamboyant footwear, with her dangerous eyes. He wanted to get her on his side. But the lie was too far-reaching. Carl-Christian was not adult enough for his own story and so he closed his mouth after uttering a few incoherent words.

“Of course you have the right to refuse to provide a statement,” Hanne Wilhelmsen said. “But it would be beneficial really if you could say so. That way, we avoid wasting time.”

All of a sudden he realized that she smelled nice. Something struck him. A soft stroke on his face, almost physical: he shut his eyes and grew aware of a heavy scent that reminded him of something that was almost over. He smiled and breathed deeply for the first time in fifteen hours.

“It’s Turkish,” Hanne Wilhelmsen said, returning his smile; now at last he remembered her name. “I have a … friend from Turkey who makes this perfume herself. I’ve no idea what she puts into it, but I do like it.”

Then she laughed, slightly self-conscious, as if they were two strangers reluctantly seated together at a dinner party, who had finally found something to talk about.

“I do, too,” Carl-Christian said. “It smells of autumn.”

“Autumn?”

Now she laughed again, inclining her head and sizing him up.

“I have to ask you again,” she said gently. “Are you sure you don’t want a lawyer?”

He nodded hesitantly. He did not know for definite. Most of all he wanted this to be over. That it was all a jest, a rude practical joke that had gone much too far and would soon be uncovered when someone popped up with a clown nose and a bunch of balloons. A deception that would be broadcast on TV, so that people could laugh at how stupid he looked and how easily he had allowed himself to be duped. He could have put up with that. He would have laughed at himself, slapped his thighs perhaps, sworn a little, and entered into a play-fight with the presenter, because it was all over and of course Carl-Christian could go along with a genuine prank.

A lawyer would only make it all bigger. Truer.

“You really should have a lawyer.”

Now she was leaning toward him. The tape recorder was switched off. There were only the two of them in the room and, from the corridor outside, no sound could any longer be heard. Carl-Christian tried to think, tried to return to where he should be.

He had a terrible thirst and would give anything to know how Mabelle was getting on.

Mabelle was actually looking good. Erik Henriksen thought she could have been really attractive, if it hadn’t been for her hair being lightened a touch too much and her face having a tad too much make-up. Her eyes lingered slightly too long on his, as if she felt the key to credibility was a steady and unflinching gaze. Instead, it all seemed inappropriately flirtatious. Erik did not quite understand where and when she had managed to fix herself up like this. It appeared as if she had come directly from a beauty salon, and not from a night’s uncomfortable stay in a remand cell.

Mabelle had an enormous range. That much, at least, was clear. Even her lawyer seemed tired of her fluctuations between pleading and rage, tears and disbelief, desperate laughter and affected indifference to what must now take place: her life was in ruins anyway, thanks to the terrible mistake made by the police.

Of course Mabelle had accepted a lawyer. However, she had contented herself with her usual shyster, an elderly business lawyer, partner in one of the middle-sized firms in Oslo. He sat erect in his chair, immaculately dressed in a charcoal-gray suit, and had immediately shown himself to be an approachable man. Erik was relieved and somewhat surprised. Gunnar Huse, the lawyer, had shown up a mere half hour after Erik’s phone call to explain the situation. He was polite, borderline friendly, and had no objections to the actual arrest. Admittedly, he was alert and watchful when Mabelle was on the point of saying too much, but he did not seem excessively eager to spoil the interview situation. That made Erik more vigilant, preparing himself for a long day. After this, other lawyers would come. The guy with the alert eyes behind discreet glasses would hardly last the next twenty-four hours. The next one would be worse. Gunnar Huse had said as much himself when he arrived, in a confidential tone, bending to speak in Erik’s ear: “I’m the young Stahlbergs’ regular lawyer. My domain is business affairs. I see no reason to object to my client being interviewed today, but I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that my office is already working on finding a replacement. A lawyer with better qualifications to handle a case of … these dimensions and character.”

Then he had given Erik an apologetic look, as if washing his hands of having to contribute to the noise and fuss to follow, and the roughly handled preliminary procedure that a case like this would be subject to, the moment a high-profile criminal lawyer got his claws into it.

“Our relationship was absolutely fine, I’m telling you!”

Now Mabelle was playing discouraged. She smacked her forehead and rolled her eyes dramatically, before suddenly switching to logical argument.

“I mean, we all have our family quarrels, don’t we? Our disputes and disagreements. With our parents and our parents-in-law. That doesn’t mean that we want them dead, does it?”

All of a sudden she burst into tears, and once again fixed her eyes on Erik’s: Mabelle turned into a hurt child, unfairly treated.

“I don’t understand any of it,” she sobbed. “I just don’t understand how this could happen.”

Impatient, Erik threw his pen down on the desk.

“Listen to me,” he said, trying to appear relaxed. “This is going nowhere. You haven’t answered anything I’ve asked you. All you say is just disconnected …”

Drivel, he thought, but checked himself just in time.

“… fragments of something that bears no resemblance to an explanation. I suggest that we—”

“We’ll start over again,” Mabelle’s lawyer said firmly.

He leaned toward his client and laid a reassuring hand on hers.

“Mabelle, this is something you have to go through. The police officer is entirely correct. You don’t have a duty to say anything. However, it’s my firm conviction that it will benefit your case if you give a statement, and be a little more … attentive and focused, you might say. Now you and I will have a little chat without …”

He nodded benevolently toward Erik.

“… Inspector Henriksen here. Could I have a few minutes alone with my client, do you think?”

Again that smile – almost sympathetic – to Erik, who had already stood up.

“Of course,” he replied as he left the room.

Not a word about Mabelle going to wait for a new lawyer, it crossed his mind as he closed the door behind him. She wanted an audience, now as always. Erik had already understood that much. Mabelle had no intention of returning to a foul, deaf cell. If only she could weep, threaten, and beg for long enough, everyone would understand that it was hair-raisingly unreasonable to keep her locked up. Mabelle Stahlberg seemed far from stupid. Probably she had planned to stay silent. It was her self-absorption that ruined this for her, the selfsame egocentricity that had helped her earlier, in situations in which it had been advantageous to be quick-witted, always to the fore, first in line. Reserve was quite simply a strategy she had not mastered.

Mabelle wants to go home, Erik thought, and so she was going to make a statement at an early stage in the proceedings.

“Is everything going well?”

Annmari placed a hand on his shoulder, and he gave a start.

“Yes,” Erik said. “I think in fact we’re having a bit of luck here. Her lawyer actually seems to be going after …”

He searched for a word, but couldn’t find the right one.

“The truth?” Annmari suggested.

“Exactly,” Erik said in surprise. “But he’ll be replaced shortly.”

“You’ll have to strike while the iron’s hot, then.”

She gave him another encouraging pat on the back and went off to find a settee to sleep on. Even if only to snatch forty winks.

They had already taken three breaks. Carl-Christian had at least begun to take something to drink. It had loosened his tongue a little. The account he gave was disjointed, brief, and so obviously fallacious that Hanne felt an increasingly intense unease at the man’s refusal to permit the assistance of a lawyer.