The Devil's star hh-5

by Jo Nesbo

  Harry rubbed his face hard with both hands.

  ‘When you go to the scene of a crime, you’re concentrating so hard that the most peripheral things your brain takes in are much more than you can work through. They simply remain there until something happens, until something new crops up, one piece of the jigsaw fits another, but then you can’t remember where you got the first piece from. Your gut feeling tells you that it’s important, though. How does that sound?’

  ‘Like a psychosis,’ Aune said, yawning.

  The other three looked at him.

  ‘Can you not at least smile when I’m being funny?’ he said. ‘Harry, it sounds like an absolutely normal working brain. Nothing to be frightened of.’

  ‘I think there are four brains here that have done enough for one day,’ Moller said and got up.

  At that moment the telephone in front of him rang.

  ‘Moller here… Just a minute.’

  He passed the telephone over to Waaler, who took it and placed it against his ear.

  ‘Yes?’

  There was a scraping of chairs, but Waaler motioned with his hand that they should wait.

  ‘Great,’ he said, hanging up.

  The others turned to him with renewed interest.

  ‘A witness has called in. She saw a cyclist coming out of an apartment block in Ullevalsveien near Our Saviour’s Cemetery on the Friday afternoon when Camilla Loen was killed. She remembered it because she thought it was so peculiar that he was wearing a white cloth round his mouth. The courier who nipped off for a beer in St Hanshaugen wasn’t wearing one.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She didn’t know which number it was in Ullevalsveien, but Skarre drove her past. She pointed out the building and it was Camilla Loen’s.’

  Moller slammed his hand down hard on the surface of the table.

  ‘At last!’

  Olaug was sitting on the bed with her hand around her throat and feeling her pulse slowly return to normal.

  ‘How you frightened me,’ she whispered in a voice which was hoarse and unrecognisable now.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Ina said, taking the last Maryland cookie. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’

  ‘It’s me who should apologise,’ Olaug said. ‘Bursting in like that. I didn’t see that you were wearing those…’

  ‘Headphones,’ Ina laughed. ‘I probably had the music on pretty loud. Cole Porter.’

  ‘You know I’m not so up to date with modern music.’

  ‘Cole Porter is an old jazz musician. He’s dead, in fact.’

  ‘Dear me, someone as young as you shouldn’t be listening to dead people.’

  Ina laughed again. When she had felt something touch her cheek she had automatically struck out with her hand and had hit the tray with the teaset on. There was still a fine layer of white sugar on the carpet.

  ‘Someone played me his records.’

  ‘That’s such a secretive smile,’ Olaug said. ‘Was it your gentleman friend?’

  She regretted her question the moment she asked it. Ina would think she was spying on her.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Ina said, her eyes a-twinkle.

  ‘He’s older than you then, is he?’ Olaug wanted to intimate indirectly that she hadn’t gone out of her way to catch a glimpse of him. ‘Since he likes old music, I mean.’

  She could hear that was the wrong thing to say, too. Now she was asking questions and probing like an old tittle-tattle. In a flash of panic, she saw Ina mentally looking for somewhere else to live already.

  ‘A bit older, yes.’

  Ina’s playful smile confused Olaug.

  ‘Much like you and Herr Schwabe perhaps.’

  Olaug laughed happily along with Ina, mostly out of relief.

  ‘Just imagine. He was sitting exactly where you’re sitting now,’ Ina said out of the blue.

  Olaug ran her hand across the blanket on the bed.

  ‘Yes, just imagine.’

  ‘When he was crying that evening was it because he couldn’t have you?’

  Olaug was still stroking the blanket. The rough wool felt good under her hand.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I didn’t dare ask. Instead I made up my own answers, the ones I liked best, dreams I could cosset at night. That was probably why I was so much in love as I was.’

  ‘Did you ever go out together?’

  ‘Yes. He took me once in his car to Bygdoy. We went swimming. That is, I went swimming while he sat and watched. He called me his very own nymph.’

  ‘Did his wife find out that her husband was the father when you became pregnant?’

  Olaug gave Ina a lingering look. Then she shook her head.

  ‘They left the country in May of 1945. I never saw them again. It was only in July that I discovered I was pregnant.’

  Olaug slapped the blanket with her hand.

  ‘But you must be sick and tired of my old stories, my dear. Let’s talk about you. Who is your gentleman friend?’

  ‘He’s a fine man.’

  Ina still had the dreamy expression on her face that she usually wore when Olaug was telling her about her first and last lover, Ernst Schwabe.

  ‘He’s given me something,’ Ina said, opening a drawer in the desk and holding up a little packet tied with a golden ribbon.

  ‘He said I couldn’t open it until we got engaged.’

  Olaug smiled and stroked Ina’s cheek. She was happy for her.

  ‘Are you fond of him?’

  ‘He’s different from all the others. He’s not so… he’s old-fashioned. He wants us to wait. With… you know what.’

  Olaug nodded. ‘It sounds like he’s serious.’

  ‘Yes.’ A little sigh escaped her.

  ‘You’ll have to make sure he’s the man for you before you let him go any further,’ Olaug said.

  ‘I know,’ Ina said. ‘That’s what’s so difficult. He’s just been here, and before he left, I told him I needed time to think. He said he understood, I am so much younger than him.’

  Olaug was going to ask if he had a dog, but caught herself in time. She had done enough prying and probing. She ran her hand across the blanket for the last time and stood up.

  ‘I’m going to go back and put on some more tea, my dear.’

  It was a revelation. Not a miracle, just a revelation.

  It was half an hour since the others had left and Harry had just finished reading the interview transcripts of the two women who lived together across from Lisbeth Barli. He turned off the reading lamp on the desk, blinked in the dark and suddenly it came to him. Perhaps because he had turned off the light as you do when you go to bed. Or perhaps because he had stopped thinking for a moment. Whatever the reason, it was as if someone had thrust a clear, sharp photograph in his face.

  He went into the office where the keys for the crime scenes were kept and found the one he was looking for. Then he drove to Sofies gate, collected his torch and walked to Ullevalsveien. It was almost midnight. The first floor was locked and the launderette was closed. In the shop selling headstones there was a spotlight in the window lighting up ‘Rest in Peace’.

  Harry let himself into Camilla Loen’s flat.

  None of the furniture or anything else had been removed, but still his footsteps echoed. It was as if the demise of the owner had lent the flat a physical void it hadn’t had before. At the same time he had the feeling that he wasn’t alone. Harry believed in the existence of the soul. Not that he was particularly religious as such, but it was one thing which always struck him when he saw a dead body: the body was bereft of something, something that wasn’t to do with the processes of physical change that bodies undergo. Bodies looked like the empty shells of insects in a spider’s web – the creature had gone, the light had gone, there was not the illusory afterglow that long-since burned-out stars have. The body was missing its soul and it was this absence of the soul that made Harry believe.

  He didn’t put on the light; the light of the moon through the
skylights was enough. He went straight into the bedroom where he switched on his torch and shone it at the load-bearing beam beside the bed. A sharp intake of breath. It wasn’t a heart round a triangle as he had first thought.

  Harry sat down on the bed and ran the tips of his fingers over the grooves in the beam. The cuts in the brown, aged wood were so clear that they had to be fresh. And it was clear it had to be one cut. One long cut consisting of straight lines which doubled back and intersected each other. A pentagram.

  Harry shone the torch on the floor. There were a fine layer of dust and a couple of hefty dustballs on the wood. Camilla Loen obviously had not done the cleaning before she departed. But there, by one of the legs at the top of the bed, he saw what he had been looking for. Wood shavings.

  Harry lay back on the bed. The mattress was soft and giving. He stared up at the slanting ceiling while trying to think. If it really was the killer who had carved the star in the beam above the bed, what did it mean?

  ‘Rest in peace,’ Harry mumbled, closing his eyes.

  He was too tired to think clearly. There was another question churning around in his brain. Why hadn’t he actually noticed the pentagram? Why hadn’t he put the two things together, the star and the diamonds? Or had he? Perhaps he had been too quick, perhaps his subconscious had connected the pentagram with something else, something he had seen at one of the killings, but he hadn’t managed to draw out.

  He tried to establish a mental picture of the crime scenes.

  Lisbeth in Sannergata. Barbara in Carl Berners plass. And Camilla here in the shower, in the room next door. She was almost naked. Wet skin. He had felt it. The hot water had made it seem as if she had been dead for less time than she really had. He had felt her skin. Beate watched him. He couldn’t stop touching her. It was like running your fingers over warm, smooth rubber. He looked up and saw that they were alone, and it was only then that he felt the warm stream of water from the shower. His eyes wandered down again; he saw her staring up at him with an odd gleam in her eyes. He gave a start and withdrew his hands; her stare faded away like on a television screen when the set has been switched off. Odd, he thought, and put a hand against her cheek. He waited while the hot water from the shower soaked through his clothes. The gleam came slowly back. He placed his other hand on her stomach. Her eyes became alive and he could feel her body stir beneath his fingers. He knew that it was touch that brought her back to life, that without touch she would disappear, die. He rested his forehead against her forehead. The water ran down the inside of his clothing, soaked his skin and lay like a warm filter between them. It was then that he noticed that her eyes were not blue, but brown. And her lips were no longer pale, but red and full of life. Rakel. He put his lips against hers. He recoiled when he discovered that they were ice cold.

  She stared at him. Her mouth moved.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Harry’s heart stopped beating, partly because the echo of the words still hung in the room so that he knew it could not have been a dream, and partly because the voice did not belong to a woman, but mostly because there was someone standing in front of the bed, leaning over him.

  His heart began to race again and he flung himself round in an attempt to grope for the torch that was still switched on. It fell on the floor with a soft thud and rolled around in a circle as the beam of light and the shadow of the figure ran across the walls.

  Then the ceiling lights came on.

  Harry was blinded and his first reflex action was to hold up his arms in front of his face. A second came and went. Nothing happened. No shots, no blows. Harry lowered his arms.

  He recognised the man standing in front of him.

  ‘What on earth are you up to?’ the man asked.

  He was wearing a pink dressing gown, but otherwise did not look as if he had just got up. The side parting in his hair was immaculate.

  It was Anders Nygard.

  ‘I was woken up by the noise,’ Nygard said, pushing a cup of filter coffee in front of Harry. ‘My first thought was that someone had realised that it was vacant upstairs and had broken in. So I went up to check.’

  ‘Understandable,’ said Harry. ‘Though I thought I had locked the door after me.’

  ‘I’ve got the caretaker’s key. Just in case.’

  Harry heard the shuffle of feet and turned round.

  Vibeke Knutsen, wearing a dressing gown, appeared in the doorway with a sleepy face and red hair sticking out in all directions. Without makeup and in the harsh light of the kitchen she looked older than the version Harry had seen before. She gave a start when she discovered he was there.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she mumbled, her eyes darting between Harry and her partner.

  ‘I was checking a few things out in Camilla’s flat,’ Harry quickly interposed when he saw her forebodings. ‘I was sitting on the bed and resting my eyes for a couple of seconds and then I nodded off. Nygard, here, heard noises and woke me up. It’s been a long day.’

  Without being absolutely sure why, Harry yawned demonstratively.

  Vibeke peered at her partner.

  ‘What are you wearing?’

  Anders Nygard looked at the pink dressing gown as if he had only just realised he was wearing it.

  ‘Wow, I must look like a regular drag queen.’

  He sniggered.

  ‘It’s a present I bought you, love. It was still in my suitcase and it was all I could find in my haste. Here you are.’

  He loosened the belt, tore the gown off and threw it to Vibeke. She was taken aback but caught it.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, bewildered.

  ‘It’s a surprise to see you up, by the way,’ he purred. ‘Didn’t you take your sleeping pill?’

  Vibeke cast an embarrassed glance over to Harry.

  ‘Goodnight,’ she mumbled and left.

  Anders went to the coffee machine and put back the jug of coffee. His back and upper arms were pale, almost white, but his lower arms were brown, exactly the way lorry drivers’ arms are in the summer. The same sharp division was apparent on his knees.

  ‘Normally she sleeps like a log all night,’ he said.

  ‘But you don’t?’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Well, since you know that she sleeps like a log.’

  ‘That’s what she says.’

  ‘And so someone only has to walk across the floor above you and you’re awake?’

  Anders looked at Harry. He nodded.

  ‘You’re right, Inspector. I don’t sleep. It’s not so easy after all that has happened. You lie awake thinking and come up with all sorts of possible theories.’

  Harry took a sip of his coffee. ‘Any you want to share with the rest of us?’

  Anders shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘I don’t know that much about mass murderers. If that’s what it really is.’

  ‘It’s not. It’s a serial killer. Big difference.’

  ‘Right, but haven’t you noticed that the victims have something in common?’

  ‘They’re young women. Anything else?’

  ‘They’re promiscuous, or they were.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘You can read about it in the papers. What you read about these women’s pasts speaks for itself.’

  ‘Lisbeth Barli was a married woman and, as far as I know, faithful.’

  ‘After she was married, yes, but before that she was in a band travelling all over the country playing at dances. You’re not so naive, are you, Inspector?’

  ‘Mm. What do you conclude from this similarity then?’

  ‘This kind of murderer who acts as an arbiter over life and death has elevated himself into the position of God. And, in our Bible, in Hebrews, chapter 13, verse 4, it says that God will judge whosoever commits fornication.’

  Harry nodded and raised his wrist to check the time.

  ‘I’ll make a note of that.’

  Nygard fidgeted with his cup.

  ‘Did you find
what you were looking for?’

  ‘You could say that. I found a pentagram. I suppose that since you deal with the interiors of churches you’ll know what that is.’

  ‘You mean a five-pointed star?’

  ‘Yes, drawn with one continuous line. Do you have any idea what a sign like that might symbolise?’

  Harry’s head was bent over the table, but he was furtively studying Nygard’s face.

  ‘Quite a lot,’ Nygard said. ‘Five is the most important figure in black magic. Did it have one or two points sticking upwards?’

  ‘One.’

  ‘So it’s not the sign of evil then. The sign you’re describing might symbolise both vitality and passion. Where did you find it?’

  ‘On a beam above her bed.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Nygard said. ‘That’s a simple one then.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It’s what we call a mare cross, or a devil’s star.’

  ‘A mare cross?’

  ‘A pagan symbol. They used to carve it over beds or doorways to keep away the mare.’

  ‘The mare?’

  ‘The mare, yes. As in nightmare. A female demon who sits on the chest of a sleeping person and rides him so that he has bad dreams. The pagans thought she was a spirit. Not that strange since “mare” is derived from the Indo-Germanic “mer”.’

  ‘Have to confess that my Indo-Germanic is not up to much.’

  ‘It means “death”.’ Nygard stared down into his cup of coffee. ‘Or to be more precise, “murder”.’

  There was a message on Harry’s answerphone when he arrived home. It was from Rakel. She wondered if Harry could possibly stay with Oleg in the swimming pool in Frogner the following day as she had an appointment at the dentist’s from three till five. Oleg had asked, she said.

  Harry sat and played the recording over and over again to see if he could hear any breathing, like the call he had received a few days previously, but without any success.

  He undressed and got into bed naked. The night before he had taken the duvet out of the cover and slept with only the cover over him. He kicked it around for a while, slept, got his foot caught in the opening, panicked and woke up to the splitting sound of the cotton material. The darkness outside had already taken on a grey hue. He threw what remained of the duvet cover onto the floor and lay facing the wall.