The Devil's star hh-5

by Jo Nesbo

  Silence. It wasn’t the telephone connection that made Harry’s voice seem distant to Beate.

  ‘Anything new from Forensics?’

  ‘Just what you’ve read in the newspapers,’ she said.

  ‘What newspapers?’

  She sighed. ‘Just what you already know. We’ve taken fingerprints and DNA from the flat, but for the moment there doesn’t seem to be a clear link to the murderer.’

  ‘We don’t know if there was malice aforethought,’ Harry said. ‘Killer.’

  ‘Killer,’ Beate yawned.

  ‘Have you found out where the diamond came from?’

  ‘We’re working on it. The jewellers we’ve talked to say that red diamonds are not unusual, but there’s very little demand for them in Norway. They doubt that the diamond came via Norwegian jewellers. If it came from abroad then that increases the likelihood that the perpetrator is a foreigner.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘What is it, Harry?’

  Harry coughed loudly. ‘Just trying to keep myself up to date.’

  ‘The last thing I heard was that it wasn’t your case.’

  ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘So what do you want?’

  ‘Well, I woke up because I was having a nightmare.’

  ‘Do you want me to come and tuck you in?’

  ‘No.’

  New silence.

  ‘I was dreaming about Camilla Loen. And the diamond you found.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Yes. I think there’s something in that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m not quite sure, but did you know that in the past they used to place a coin on the eyes of a corpse before it was buried?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It was payment for the ferryman to deliver the soul into the kingdom of the dead. If the soul wasn’t delivered, it would never find peace. Think about it.’

  ‘Thank you for the wisdom, but I don’t believe in ghosts, Harry.’

  Harry didn’t answer.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Just one small question. Do you know if the Chief Super starts his holidays this week?’

  ‘Yes, he does.’

  ‘You wouldn’t by any chance happen to know… when he comes back?’

  ‘Three weeks’ time. What about you?’

  ‘What about me?’

  Beate heard the click of a lighter. She sighed: ‘When are you coming back?’

  She heard Harry inhale, hold his breath and slowly let it out again before he answered:

  ‘I thought you said you didn’t believe in ghosts.’

  As Beate was putting down the phone, Bjarne Moller woke up with abdominal pains. He lay in bed twisting and turning until 6.00 when he gave up and got out of bed. He had a long breakfast without any coffee and immediately felt better. When he arrived at Police HQ just after eight, to his surprise, the pains had completely gone. He took the lift up to his office and celebrated by swinging his feet onto the desk, taking his first mouthful of coffee and grappling with the day’s newspapers.

  Dagbladet ran a picture of a smiling Camilla Loen on the front page under the headline ‘Secret Lover?’. Verdens Gang ran the same picture but with a different headline: ‘Clairvoyant Sees Jealousy’. Only the article in Aftenposten seemed to be interested in reality.

  Moller shook his head, cast a glance at his watch and dialled Tom Waaler’s number. Timed to perfection. He would just have finished his morning meeting with the detectives on the case.

  ‘No breakthrough yet,’ Waaler said. ‘We’ve been conducting door-to-door inquiries with all the neighbours and we’ve talked to all the shops nearby. Checked the taxis who were in the area at the relevant time, had a chat with informers and gone through the alibis of old friends with tarnished records. No-one stands out as a suspect, let’s put it that way. And, to be frank, in this case I don’t think the man is someone we know. No evidence of a sexual assault. No money or valuables touched. No familiar features here and no bells ringing. This finger and the diamond for example…’

  Moller could feel his guts grumbling. He hoped it was hunger.

  ‘So no good news for me then.’

  ‘Majorstua police station has sent us three men, so now we have ten men working on the strategic side of the investigation. And the technicians at Kripos are giving Beate a hand to go through what they found in the flat. We’re pretty well staffed, considering it’s the holiday period. Does that sound good?’

  ‘Thanks, Waaler, let’s hope it stays that way. As regards the staffing, I mean.’

  Moller put the phone down and turned his head to look out of the window before going back to the papers. However, he remained in this position, with his head twisted round very uncomfortably and his eyes rooted to the lawn outside Police HQ. He had caught sight of a figure wandering up Gronlandsleiret. The person in question was not walking quickly, but he appeared at any rate to be walking in a moderately straight line and there was no doubt where he was headed: he was coming towards the police station.

  Moller got up, went out into the corridor and called for Jenny to come in right away with more coffee and an extra cup. Then he went back, sat down and hastily pulled out some old documents from one of his drawers.

  Three minutes later there was a knock at the door.

  ‘Come in!’ Moller shouted without looking up from his papers, a twelve-page letter of complaint written by a dog owner accusing the dog clinic in Skippergata of administering the wrong medicine and thus killing his two chow chows. The door opened and Moller casually waved him in as he perused a page about the dogs’ breeding, their awards from dog shows and the remarkable intelligence with which both dogs had been blessed.

  ‘My God,’ Moller said when he finally looked up. ‘I thought we’d given you the boot.’

  ‘Well. Since my dismissal papers are still lying unsigned on the Chief Superintendent’s desk, and will be doing so for at least the next three weeks, I thought I might as well turn up for work in the meantime. Eh, boss?’

  Harry poured himself a cup of coffee from Jenny’s coffee pot and carried the cup with him round Moller’s desk and over to the window.

  ‘But that doesn’t mean I’ll work on the Camilla Loen case.’

  Bjarne Moller turned round and contemplated Harry. He had seen it all several times before, how Harry could have a near-death experience one day and the very next be strolling around like some red-eyed Lazarus. For all that, it was still a surprise every time.

  ‘If you think your dismissal is a bluff, Harry, you’re wrong. This is not a shot across the bows this time. It’s definitive. All the times you’ve disobeyed instructions it was me who ensured that you were dealt with leniently. For that reason I can’t run away from my responsibilities now, either.’

  Bjarne Moller searched for hints of an appeal in Harry’s eyes. He found none. Fortunately.

  ‘That’s how it is, Harry. It’s over.’

  Harry didn’t answer.

  ‘And while I remember, your gun licence is withdrawn with immediate effect. Standard procedure. You’ll have to nip down to the armoury and return whatever hardware you have on you today.’

  Harry nodded. The department head scrutinised him. Did he detect a faint touch of the bewildered schoolboy who had received an unexpected box around the ears? Moller placed his hand against the lowest buttonhole on his shirt. It wasn’t easy to work Harry out.

  ‘If you think you can make yourself useful in your last weeks, and you feel like turning up for work, that’s absolutely fine by me. You are not suspended and we have to pay your salary to the end of the month anyway. And we know what your alternative is to sitting here, don’t we.’

  ‘Fine,’ Harry grunted and stood up. ‘I’ll just go and see if my office still exists. You’ll have to tell me if there’s anything you need any help with, boss.’

  Bjarne Moller flashed an indulgent smile.

  ‘Yes, I’ll take you up on that, Harry.’

/>   ‘On the chow chow case, for example,’ Harry said, closing the door quietly behind him.

  Harry stood in the doorway contemplating his shared office. Halvorsen’s desk, cleared for his holiday and empty, was set against his. On the wall over the filing cabinet hung a picture of Officer Ellen Gjelten, taken at the time when she used to sit in Halvorsen’s seat. The other wall was almost completely covered with a street map of Oslo. The map was decorated with pins, lines and times indicating where Ellen, Sverre Olsen and Roy Kvinsvik were at the time of the murder. Harry went over to the wall and stood in front of the map. Then, in one swift movement, he tore it down and stuffed it into one of the drawers of the filing cabinet. He took a silver hip flask out of his jacket pocket, took a quick swig and rested his forehead against the metal cabinet’s cooling surface.

  He had worked for more than ten years in this office. Room 605. The smallest office in the red zone on the sixth floor. Even when they hit on the weird idea of promoting him to detective inspector he had insisted on remaining here. Room 605 didn’t have any windows, but he observed the world from here. In these ten square metres he had learned his trade, celebrated his victories and suffered his defeats and acquired the little insight he had into the human mind. He tried to remember what else he had done over those ten years. There must have been something. You only work eight to ten hours every day. Not more than twelve, anyway. Plus the weekends.

  Harry slumped down into his battered office chair, and the damaged springs screamed joyously. He could happily sit here for another two weeks.

  At 5.25 p.m. Bjarne Moller would normally have been at home with his wife and child. However, since they were visiting Grandma he decided to use these days of holiday tranquillity to catch up on neglected paperwork. The shooting in Ullevalsveien had to some extent spoiled these plans, but he determined to make up for lost time.

  When he received a call from the control room, Moller answered in an irritated tone that they would have to ring uniformed police as Crime Squad could not start taking responsibility for missing persons.

  ‘Apologies, Moller. Patrol officers were busy dealing with a field fire in Grefsen. The caller is convinced that the missing person has been the victim of a crime.’

  ‘All the staff still here are working on the shooting in Ullevalsveien. That would be…’ Moller stopped in his tracks. ‘Or, just a minute. Wait a sec, let me just check…’

  9

  Wednesday. Missing Person.

  The police officer reluctantly put his foot on the brake and the police car came to a halt in front of the red traffic lights by Alexander Kiellands plass.

  ‘Or shall we stick the siren on and go for it?’ asked the officer, turning towards the passenger seat.

  Harry absentmindedly shook his head. He gazed across to the park which used to be a grass area with two benches occupied by boozers trying to drown out the sound of traffic with their songs and streams of abuse. A couple of years ago, though, they had decided to spend a few million on cleaning up the square bearing the writer’s name, and the park was cleared, some planting was done, asphalt and paths were laid and an impressive fountain shaped like a salmon ladder was installed. It was without question a much more scenic background for singing songs and hurling abuse.

  The police car swung to the right across Sannergata, crossed the bridge over the Akerselva and stopped in front of the address Harry had been given by Moller.

  Harry told the officer he’d make his own way back, stepped out onto the pavement and straightened his back. On the other side of the road was a newly erected office building which still stood empty and according to the newspapers would continue to do so for a while. The windows reflected the apartment building whose address he had been given. It was a white building from the ’40s or thereabouts, not completely functional, but an indeterminate close relative. The facade was richly appointed with graffiti tags marking territories. At the bus stop there was a darkskinned girl with her arms folded, chewing gum as she studied a large hoarding for Diesel clothing on the other side of the street. Harry found the name by the top doorbell.

  ‘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 yo
u 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, Ulleval 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.