Beyond the Truth: Hanne Wilhelmsen Book Seven (A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel) Read Online Free

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