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

fingers through her thick hair. Her scent always made him feel giddy. They had been secret lovers for three years, living in fear of his father’s reprisals. A crazy, impulsive wedding in Las Vegas, with no witnesses other than a fat woman at a Hammond organ, had been the start of five years of escalating conflict with his family. But Mabelle had never let him down. As far as he knew, she had never cheated on him. Even though she sometimes went through periods of being distant and indifferent to him, it seemed as if she had made a choice, forever and always; after a while she was tender and vivacious again, almost slavishly in love.
    Before Mabelle, there had been no one. An occasional chance bed companion, of course; he did after all have money, and learned early that that sort of thing could make up for lack of charm. All the same, nothing more ever came of it. In his twenties he began to appreciate why. He was a coward. He possessed an evasive personality, something physically expressed in an almost non-existent chin. His eyes were not attractive, either: too large, slightly protruding, as if he suffered from a touch of goiter.
    His father had caused him to regress. Eventually, as his dependency on the shipping company and everything comprising his father’s life and dominion increased, the scraps of independence and strength that Carl-Christian had acquired in his youth, through a career of sorts as a skier, had diminished. He came third in the Norwegian National Junior Skiing Championships, before his father put a stop to that kind of frivolity. Skiing was to be confined to Sundays. For the rest of the week, it was work from eight till seven. Carl-Christian had endured it. Year after year.
    Then Mabelle came along: a knockout, a daredevil. She was purposeful where Carl-Christian was ineffectual, courageous where he acquiesced to his father’s will.
    “It shouldn’t happen that way,” she whispered through her sobs into his neck.
    “It shouldn’t happen like that,” he agreed.
    Mabelle must not break down. If Mabelle were unable to cope with this, then everything would unravel. He was not strong enough; for far too long his strength had lain in her, and only her.
    “What about Hermine?” Mabelle asked in desperation. “It’s impossible to rely on that girl. At least now, when everything’s screwed up. What will we do?”
    Carl-Christian could not bring himself to answer. Hermine was a loose cannon on board.
    “It’ll turn out fine,” he reassured her, without answering her question. “Everything will turn out fine, Mabelle.”
    But he didn’t believe a word of what he said.
    When Hanne Wilhelmsen woke, Christmas had arrived with a bang.
    At ten o’clock she was rudely awoken from sleep by a mandarin orange smacking her in the eye. Mary was attempting to hang a stocking filled with goodies on her headboard.
    “It’s not Christmas Eve yet,” Hanne said, drugged with sleep. “What are you up to?”
    “I’ve waited long enough. It’s the last Sunday in Advent. The decorations are going up now.”
    Drawing on her dressing gown, Hanne shuffled out into the living room. The minimalist furnishings were drowned in glitter and trimmings. Red and green snakes crisscrossed the ceiling, with twinkling bulbs inside.
    “Photocells,” Mary said in delight. “Every time someone walks through here, then—”
    “ Dashing through the snow ,” a children’s choir bellowed.
    In the corner beside the balcony door, a sturdy elf sat eating porridge.
    “ Ho, ho, ho ,” he laughed as he raised his arm in mechanical greeting.
    “Good Lord,” Hanne whispered.
    Plaited red and green baskets festooned the walls, together with spray-painted spruce branches, brass stars, and golden vine tendrils. Like a monument to bad taste, the tree loomed overhead, culminating in the biggest star-topper Hanne had ever seen. Excited, Mary pressed a button on the wall. “ Merry Christmas ,” the star tinkled in two-part harmony,