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

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