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

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.