The Devil's Star

by Jo Nesbo

  ‘Police,’ Harry said, and prepared himself to tackle the stairs.

  A strange figure stood in the doorway at the top, waiting as Harry came panting up the stairs. The man had a large tousled mane of hair, a black beard on a burgundy-red face and a matching tunic-like garment covering him from neck down to sandal-clad feet.

  ‘It’s good you could come so quickly,’ he said, holding out his paw.

  A paw it was in fact, the hand was so large that it completely enclosed Harry’s when the man introduced himself as Wilhelm Barli.

  Harry gave his name and tried to withdraw his hand. He didn’t like physical contact with men, and this handshake belonged more in the category of embrace. However, Wilhelm held on to him as if for his life.

  ‘Lisbeth has gone,’ he whispered. His voice was surprisingly clear.

  ‘Yes, we received the message. Shall we go inside?’

  ‘Yes, come in.’

  Wilhelm went ahead of Harry. It was only an attic flat, but while Camilla Loen’s flat was small and furnished in a strictly minimalist style, this one was large and the decoration was lavish and flashy, like a pastiche of new classicism. However, it was exaggerated to the point that it almost tipped over into being the backdrop for a toga party. Instead of normal sofas and chairs there were reclining arrangements in a sort of Hollywood version of Ancient Rome, and the wooden beams were clad in plaster to form Doric or Corinthian columns. Harry had never grasped the difference, but he did recognise the plaster relief that had been laid directly on the white wall in the hallway. His mother had taken him and Sis to a museum in Copenhagen when they were small and there they had seen Bertel Thorvaldsen’s Jason and the Golden Fleece. The flat had clearly just been done up. Harry noticed newly painted wood and bits of masking tape and could smell the blissful aroma of solvents.

  In the sitting room there was a low table set for two. Harry followed Barli up the staircase and out onto a large, tiled roof terrace looking down onto the central area that was enclosed on four sides by connecting apartment buildings. The outside setting was contemporary Norwegian. There were three charred cutlets smoking on the grill.

  ‘It gets so warm here in the afternoon in these attic flats,’ Barli apologised, pointing to a white plastic baroque chair.

  ‘So I’ve been finding out,’ Harry said, walking over to the edge and looking down into the central area.

  Generally heights didn’t bother him, but after longish spells of drinking relatively modest heights could suddenly make him feel dizzy. Fifteen metres beneath him he saw two ageing bikes, and a white sheet hanging from a rotary clothes dryer and flapping in the wind. He had to look up again smartish.

  Facing them across the courtyard, on a balcony with wrought-iron railings, two neighbours raised bottles of beer to him in greeting. Half of the table in front of them was covered in brown bottles. Harry nodded in return. He wondered how it could be that it was windy down in the yard but not up here.

  ‘A glass of red wine?’

  Barli had already begun to pour himself a glass from the half-empty bottle. Harry noticed that Barli’s hand was shaking. Domaine La Bastide Sy he read on the label. The name was even longer but agitated fingers had torn the rest off.

  Harry sat down. ‘Thanks, but I don’t drink when I’m on duty.’

  Barli grimaced and quickly put the bottle back down on the table.

  ‘Of course not, I apologise, I’m just beside myself with worry. I shouldn’t be drinking either in this situation.’

  As he put his glass to his mouth and drank, wine dribbled down the front of his tunic where a red stain began to grow.

  Harry looked at his watch so that Barli would appreciate that he would have to be fairly brief.

  ‘She was only supposed to be nipping down to the shop to buy some potato salad to go with the chops,’ Barli gasped. ‘Only two hours ago she was sitting where you are now.’

  Harry adjusted his sunglasses. ‘Your wife’s been missing for two hours?’

  ‘Yes, well, I’m not very sure any longer, but she was only supposed to be going to Kiwi round the corner and back.’

  The sun caught the beer bottles on the opposite balcony. Harry put his hand over his eyes, noticed his moist fingers and wondered where he could wipe off the sweat. He placed the tips of his fingers against the burning hot plastic of the chair arm and felt the moisture being slowly scorched away.

  ‘Have you rung round friends and acquaintances? Have you been down to the supermarket and checked? Perhaps she met someone and they went for a beer. Perhaps –’

  ‘No, no, no!’ Barli held up the palms of his hands in front of his chest, his fingers splayed. ‘She didn’t! She’s not like that.’

  ‘Not like what?’

  ‘She’s like someone . . . who comes back.’

  ‘Right . . .’

  ‘First of all I rang her on her mobile, but of course she’d left it here. Then I rang people we know whom she might have bumped into. I rang Kiwi, Police Headquarters, three police stations, all the casualty departments, Ullevål hospital and the Rikshospital. Nothing. Nada. Nichts.’

  ‘I can see that you’re concerned.’

  Barli leaned across the table, his moist lips aquiver in his beard.

  ‘I’m not concerned. I’m scared out of my wits. Have you ever heard of anyone going out in just a bikini with a fiftykroner note while the meat is frying on the grill and then deciding that this is a good opportunity to hop it?’

  Harry wavered. Just when he had decided to accept a glass of wine after all, Barli poured the rest of the bottle’s contents into his own glass. So why didn’t he stand up, say something reassuring about how many people ring in with missing person reports just like his, that almost all of them have a natural, unexceptional explanation, and then, after asking Barli to ring back later if she hadn’t turned up by bedtime, take his leave? Perhaps it was the minor detail about the bikini and the 50-kroner note. Or perhaps it was because Harry had been waiting all day for something to happen, and this was at least an opportunity to put off what was waiting for him in his own flat. But most of all it was Barli’s obvious and illogical terror. Harry had underrated intuition before, both other people’s and his own, and it had been to his cost every time without exception.

  ‘I have to make a couple of calls,’ Harry said.

  At 6.45 p.m. Beate Lønn arrived at the flat of Wilhelm and Lisbeth Barli in Sannergata, and a quarter of an hour later a police dog handler arrived with a German shepherd. The man introduced both himself and his dog as Ivan.

  ‘It’s a coincidence,’ the man said. ‘It’s not my dog.’

  Harry saw that Ivan was waiting for some witty comment, but Harry didn’t have one.

  While Wilhelm Barli went to the bedroom to find some recent photos of Lisbeth and some clothes to give Ivan – the dog – a scent, Harry quickly spoke to the other two in a low voice:

  ‘OK, she could be absolutely anywhere. She could have left him, she could have had a funny turn, she could have said she was going somewhere else and he didn’t realise. There are a million possibilities, but she could also be lying in the back seat of a car at this very moment, doped up, being raped by four kids who freaked out at the sight of her bikini. I don’t want you to look for anything specific. Just search.’

  Beate and Ivan nodded to show they had understood.

  ‘A patrol car will be on its way soon. Beate, you meet them and get them to check the neighbours out, talk to people, especially in the supermarket where she was supposed to be going. Then you talk to the people in this part of the building. I’ll just go over to the neighbours sitting on the balcony in the building over the way.’

  ‘Do you think they know anything?’ Beate asked.

  ‘They have a perfect view of this flat and, judging by the number of empty bottles, they’ve been sitting there for a while. According to the husband, Lisbeth has been at home all day. I want to know whether they’ve seen her on the terrace, and if so, when.’<
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  ‘Why’s that?’ the officer asked, jerking Ivan’s lead.

  ‘Because if a lady in a bikini in this oven of a flat has not been on the terrace, I’ll be damn suspicious.’

  ‘Naturally,’ Beate whispered. ‘Do you suspect the husband?’

  ‘I suspect the husband on principle,’ Harry said.

  ‘Why’s that?’ Ivan said again.

  Beate gave the smile of the initiated.

  ‘It’s always the husband,’ Harry said.

  ‘Hole’s First Law,’ Beate said.

  Ivan looked from Harry to Beate and back again.

  ‘But . . . wasn’t he the one who reported her missing?’

  ‘Yes, he was,’ Harry said. ‘And still it’s always the husband. That’s why you and Ivan are not starting the search outside on the street, but in here. You’ll have to find an excuse if you have to, but I want the flat and the storage areas in the loft and the cellar checked out first. Afterwards you can continue outside. OK?’

  Officer Ivan shrugged his shoulders and looked down at his namesake, who returned his resigned look.

  The two people on the opposite balcony did not turn out to be two young men, as Harry had assumed when he saw them from Barli’s terrace. Harry was aware that because a mature woman had pictures of Kylie Minogue on the wall, lived with a woman of the same age with a fringe and a T-shirt with Trondheim Eagles printed on it, this did not necessarily mean that she was a lesbian, but he drew this provisional conclusion anyway. He sat back in an armchair with the two women facing him, exactly as he had done with Vibeke Knutsen and Anders Nygård five days earlier.

  ‘Apologies for dragging you in from the balcony,’ Harry said.

  The one who had introduced herself as Ruth put her hand to her mouth to suppress a belch.

  ‘That’s alright. We’ve had enough, haven’t we?’ she said

  She slapped her partner on the knee. In a masculine way, Harry thought, and instantly recalled something Aune, the police psychologist, had said: that stereotypes were self-reinforcing because unconsciously you were looking for things to confirm them. That was why policemen thought – based on so-called experience – that all criminals were stupid, and criminals thought the same about all policemen.

  Harry quickly put them in the picture. They stared at him in surprise.

  ‘This will undoubtedly be resolved quickly, but we are obliged to go through standard police procedures. For the moment we are simply trying to establish a timetable.’

  They nodded with serious expressions on their faces.

  ‘Excellent,’ Harry said, trying out the Hole smile. That, at any rate, was what Ellen used to call the grimace he pulled whenever he tried to appear jolly and good-natured.

  Ruth confirmed that they had spent the whole afternoon on their balcony. They had seen Lisbeth and Wilhelm Barli lying on the terrace until about 4.30 when Lisbeth went inside. Immediately afterwards Wilhelm had got the barbecue going. He had shouted something about potato salad and she had answered from indoors. Then he went in and came out again with the steaks (which Harry corrected to ‘chops’) about 20 minutes later. After a while – they agreed that it was at 5.15 – they saw Barli making a call on his mobile.

  ‘Sound carries over enclosed spaces like this,’ Ruth said. ‘We could hear another phone ringing inside the flat. Barli was obviously annoyed. At least, he slammed his phone down on the table.’

  ‘Apparently he was trying to ring his wife,’ Harry said.

  He noted the immediate exchange of glances and regretted the ‘apparently’.

  ‘How long does it take to buy potato salad at the supermarket round the corner?’

  ‘At Kiwi? I can make it there and back in five minutes if there isn’t a queue.’

  ‘Lisbeth Barli doesn’t sprint,’ the partner said in a low voice.

  ‘So you know her?’

  Ruth and the Trondheim Eagle exchanged looks as if to harmonise their responses.

  ‘No. But we certainly know who she is.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, you must have seen the big spread in Verdens Gang about Wilhelm Barli directing a musical at the National Theatre this summer.’

  ‘That was just a five-liner, Ruth.’

  ‘Certainly was not,’ snapped Ruth. ‘Lisbeth is to play the main role. Big picture and all that. You must have seen it.’

  ‘Mm,’ Harry said. ‘Haven’t got round to . . . much reading of the papers this summer.’

  ‘There was a big row, wasn’t there. All the cultural elite thought it was scandalous putting on a summer show at the National Theatre. What’s the play called again? My Fat Lady?’

  ‘Fair Lady,’ the Trondheim Eagle mumbled.

  ‘So you follow the theatre then?’ Harry intervened.

  ‘Bit of this and that. Wilhelm Barli is the type to keep himself busy with all sorts of things. Revues, films, musicals . . .’

  ‘He’s a producer. And she sings.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sure you can remember Lisbeth from the time before they got married, when she was called Harang.’

  Harry regretfully shook his head and Ruth released a deep sigh.

  ‘At that time she sang with her sister in Spinnin’ Wheel. Lisbeth was a real babe, a bit like Shania Twain. With a real belter of a voice on her.’

  ‘She wasn’t that well known, Ruth.’

  ‘Well, she sang on that programme of Vidar Lønn Arnesen’s. And they sold a stack of records.’

  ‘Cassettes, Ruth.’

  ‘I saw Spinnin’ Wheel at Momarkedet Country Festival. Pretty good stuff, you know. They should have recorded in Nashville and all that, but then she was discovered by Barli. He was going to make a musical star out of her. Certainly taken its time, though.’

  ‘Eight years,’ said the Trondheim Eagle.

  ‘Anyway, Lisbeth Harang stopped singing with Spinnin’ Wheel and married Barli. Money and beauty, ever heard that somewhere before?’

  ‘So the wheel stopped spinnin’?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘He’s asking about the band, Ruth.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. The sister sang solo, but Lisbeth was the real star. Think they’re playing holiday hotels and the Denmark ferries now. Sure they are.’

  Harry got up.

  ‘Just one last routine question. Do you have any idea what Wilhelm and Lisbeth’s marriage was like?’

  The Trondheim Eagle and Ruth exchanged further radar communication.

  ‘Sound carries over enclosed spaces like this, as we told you,’ Ruth said. ‘Their bedroom also looks out over the yard.’

  ‘You could hear them having a row?’

  ‘Not having a row.’

  They held Harry’s gaze with meaningful expressions. A couple of seconds went by before he twigged what they meant and to his irritation he noticed that he was blushing.

  ‘It’s your impression then that the marriage worked especially well?’

  ‘His terrace door is left ajar all summer, so I joked that we should sneak up onto the roof, go round the square and jump down onto his terrace,’ Ruth grinned. ‘Spy on them a bit, why not? It’s not difficult, you just stand on the railing of our balcony and put a foot on the gutter and . . .’

  The Trondheim Eagle nudged her partner in the ribs.

  ‘It’s not really necessary though,’ Ruth said. ‘After all, Lisbeth is a professional . . . what do you call it?’

  ‘Communicator,’ said the Trondheim Eagle.

  ‘Exactly. All the great imagery is in the vocal cords, you know.’

  Harry rubbed the back of his neck.

  ‘Real screamer,’ the Trondheim Eagle said with a tentative smile.

  When Harry returned, the Ivans were still going through the flat. Officer Ivan was sweating and German Shepherd Ivan’s tongue was hanging out of its open mouth like a liver-coloured welcome carpet for VIPs.

  Harry sat down carefully on one of the reclining arrangements and asked Wilhelm B
arli to tell him everything right from the beginning. His account of the afternoon and the timings confirmed what Ruth and the Trondheim Eagle had said.

  Harry recognised genuine despair in the husband’s eyes. And he began to suspect that if a crime had taken place, then this might – might – be one of the exceptions to the statistics. But most of all it strengthened his belief that Lisbeth would turn up soon enough. If it wasn’t the husband, it wasn’t anyone. Statistically speaking.

  Beate returned and reported that people were at home in only two of the apartments in the building, and they hadn’t heard or seen a thing, not in the stairwell and not outside on the street.

  There was a knock at the door and Beate opened up. It was one of the uniformed officers from the patrol car. Harry recognised him immediately. It was the same officer who had stood watch at Ullevålsveien. He turned to Beate without showing any awareness of Harry’s presence.

  ‘We’ve been talking to people on the street and at Kiwi. We’ve checked the entrance and the yard. Nothing. But it is the holiday period and the streets are almost deserted, so the lady could easily have been dragged into a car without anyone noticing a thing.’

  Harry felt Wilhelm Barli, who was standing next to him, give a start.

  ‘Perhaps we ought to check with the Pakis who have shops in the area,’ the policeman said, sticking his little finger in his ear and revolving it.

  ‘Why them precisely?’ Harry asked.

  The officer finally turned round and said with exaggerated stress on the last word: ‘Haven’t you read the crime statistics, Inspector?’

  ‘Indeed I have,’ Harry said. ‘And as far as I remember, shop owners are way down the list.’

  The policeman studied his little finger.