Beyond the Truth: Hanne Wilhelmsen Book Seven (A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel) by Anne Holt Page A

purposes, I mean.”
    “Strange family.”
    The Superintendent yawned and made an effort to shake himself awake.
    “Anything more on that, Billy T.?”
    “Nothing apart from there being quite an extended family. Aunts and uncles and lots of cousins all over the place. And then there’s Hermine, of course. The little sister.”
    A question mark appeared against Hermine’s name on the overhead transparency, tucked away in an insignificant corner of the chart.
    “We know a lot less about her. At least for the present. She seems almost … stupid. No education. No real job, despite being in apparent good health. She’s done a number of odd jobs for her sister-in-law at F&F , and from her appearance she would fit in well there. Also, she has done some odds and ends for her father, and for an uncle that she has a lot to do with. He’s an art dealer, I think. The strange thing is that she …”
    All the focus in the room was directed at Billy T.
    “She got a fucking enormous amount of money from her father for her twentieth birthday,” he said at length, running his hand over his head, where the millimeter-long tufts of hair had clearly turned gray. “Ten million plus- plus . An apartment, car, and suchlike. This demonstrates, of course, that the family fortune is considerably greater than the taxman gets to know about, but in itself that isn’t of any consequence now. What is striking is that the stingy Hermann Stahlberg was so generous. Neither of the boys has received anything like it, from what we know. Even odder is that Hermine seems to be on good terms with everyone in the family. The only one.”
    “Could the money have been remuneration for precisely that?” Erik speculated. “Nothing less than a reward for being kind and pleasant?”
    “Don’t know.”
    “It might just as easily have been a gift to make amends for a guilty conscience,” Hanne said slowly. “Even though it would have to be an extremely guilty conscience.”
    It seemed as if the whole room turned to face her, as if the building noticeably flipped over and the center of gravity shifted from the authoritarian end of the table, where Billy T. stood beside the Superintendent and Deputy Chief of Police. They all stared down at the newcomers and at Hanne Wilhelmsen.
    “I suppose so,” Billy T. said curtly.
    “I don’t really have any idea, of course,” Hanne said, rubbing her neck. “I’m just trying to agree with you here! It’s really peculiar that she should receive so much money, taking into consideration the circumstances. Everything about this Hermine character is odd.”
    “And that’s why we’ll bring her in for interview as soon as the funeral is out of the way,” the Superintendent said, glancing at the clock.
    “I wouldn’t have postponed it so long,” Hanne murmured.
    “Anything further?”
    The Superintendent’s voice grated as he scanned the room with an expression indicating that any information would have to be of major significance if anyone was going to keep him confined in this stuffy, overheated room for very much longer.
    “The guns,” Erik said, raising his right hand slightly. “Entirely provisional analysis results.”
    “So we’re dealing with more than one?” Billy T. said.
    “Two. Two types of ammunition. A 9mm Luger and a .357 Magnum: one pistol and one revolver. A total of eleven shots were fired with the pistol, and five with the revolver. We don’t yet have the full type-descriptions of the weapons.”
    “Eleven shots with pistol ammo,” Billy T. repeated. “There are quite a few pistols that hold as much as that in one magazine. The murderer wouldn’t actually have had to reload.”
    “Or murderers,” Deputy Police Chief Jens Puntvold said, scratching his chin; a rasping sound came from his unshaved skin. “Two weapons may well indicate two killers.”
    “Not necessarily,” Hanne said.
    She felt a rising irritation that Puntvold was even present. The Stahlberg case was complex