The Devil's star hh-5

by Jo Nesbo

  And then she came. She sat astride him. She pushed the bridle into his mouth and pulled. His head spun round. She leaned down over him and blew her hot breath into his ear. A fire-breathing dragon. A wordless message, a hiss, on the telephone answerphone. She whipped his flanks, his haunches, and the pain was sweet, and soon, she said, she would be the only woman he would be able to love, so he may as well learn that from the outset.

  She didn’t let go until the sun shone over the highest roof tiles.

  19

  Wednesday. Under Water.

  When Harry parked outside the open-air pool in Frogner a little before 3.00 he realised where all the people who were left in Oslo had gone. There was a queue a hundred metres long in front of the ticket window. He read Verdens Gang while the queue shuffled forward towards their chlorine redemption.

  There was nothing new in the serial killer case, but they had still dug up enough material to cover four whole pages. The headlines were somewhat cryptic and directed at readers who had been following the case for a while. They referred to the murders as the ‘courier killings’ now. Everything was in the open, the police were no longer one step ahead of the press, and Harry guessed that the morning meetings with the editors would be identical to those he had with other detectives on the case. He read the statements of the witnesses they had themselves interviewed at Police HQ, but who remembered even more for the papers. He read newspaper surveys in which people said that they were afraid, very afraid or terrified, and about courier businesses who thought they should receive compensation because they couldn’t do their jobs if people wouldn’t let them in, and ultimately it was the authorities’ responsibility to catch this man, wasn’t it? The connection between the courier killings and Lisbeth Barli’s disappearance was no longer referred to as speculative, it was a fact. A big photograph below the headline ‘Takes Over From Sister’ showed Toya Harang and Wilhelm Barli standing in front of the National Theatre. The caption under the photograph ran: ‘The dynamic producer has no intention of cancelling.’

  Harry’s eyes ran down to the main text where Wilhelm Barli was quoted as saying: ‘“The show must go on” is more than a cheap cliche, it is deadly serious in our line of business, and I know that Lisbeth is behind us on this, whatever has happened to her. Naturally, the situation has had an impact, but, nevertheless, we are trying to stay positive. The show will be a tribute to Lisbeth; she is a great artist who has still not realised her potential, but she will. I simply cannot allow myself to think otherwise.’

  When Harry finally made his way through the entrance, he stopped and looked around. It must have been 20 years since he last came to the open-air pool in Frogner, but apart from the renovated exteriors of the buildings and a large blue water slide in the shallow end, not a great deal had changed. There was still the smell of chlorine, the fine spray which drifted from the showers into the pools making small rainbows, the sound of the patter of feet on the asphalt, shivering children in wet bathing costumes queuing in the shade in front of the kiosk.

  He found Rakel and Oleg on the grass slope beneath the children’s pool.

  ‘Hi.’

  Rakel smiled with her mouth, but it was difficult to see what her eyes were doing behind the large Gucci sunglasses. She was wearing a yellow bikini. There are not many women who can make a yellow bikini look good, but Rakel was one of them.

  ‘Do you know what?’ Oleg burst out, his head cocked to one side as he tried to shake the water out of his ears. ‘I jumped off the five-metre board.’

  Harry sat down on the grass beside them, even though there was plenty of space on the rug.

  ‘Now you’re telling me whoppers.’

  ‘I’m telling you the truth, I am.’

  ‘Five metres? You’re a real stunt man.’

  ‘Have you ever jumped from five metres, Harry?’

  ‘Only just.’

  ‘From seven?’

  ‘Well, I did a belly flop.’

  Harry sent Rakel a meaningful look, but she was looking at Oleg who suddenly stopped shaking his head and asked in a low voice:

  ‘From ten?’

  Harry glanced up at the diving pool, from where all the screams of pleasure and the braying voice of the lifeguard on the loudhailer were coming. Ten metres. The diving tower stood out like a black-and-white T against the blue sky. It wasn’t true that the last time he had been here was 20 years ago. He had come here one summer’s night a few years after that. He and Kristin had clambered over the fence, gone up the steps on the diving tower and lay side by side on the top board. They had stayed like that and just talked and talked, with the rough, rigid matting sticking into their skin and the starry sky twinkling above them. He had thought she was the only love he would ever have.

  ‘No, I’ve never jumped from ten metres,’ he said.

  ‘Never.’

  Harry could hear the disappointment in Oleg’s voice.

  ‘Never. Just dived.’

  ‘Dived?’ Oleg leapt up. ‘But that’s even cooler. Did many people see you?’

  Harry shook his head. ‘I did it at night. All on my own.’

  Oleg groaned. ‘What’s the point of that? What’s the point of being brave if no-one sees you…?’

  ‘I wonder about that too now and then.’

  Harry tried to catch Rakel’s eye, but her sunglasses were too dark. She had packed her bag, put on a T-shirt and a blue denim miniskirt over her bikini.

  ‘But that’s what the most difficult thing about it is,’ Harry said. ‘Being alone with no-one watching.’

  ‘Thanks for doing me this favour, Harry,’ Rakel said. ‘It’s really good of you.’

  ‘The pleasure’s all mine,’ he said. ‘Take all the time you need.’

  ‘The dentist needs,’ she said. ‘Which is not too long, I hope.’

  ‘How did you land?’ Oleg asked.

  ‘The usual way,’ Harry said without taking his eyes off Rakel.

  ‘I’ll be back at five,’ she said. ‘Don’t move position.’

  ‘We won’t move a thing,’ Harry said and regretted it the instant he had said it. This was not the time and place to be pathetic. There would be more suitable occasions.

  Harry watched her go until she had disappeared. He wondered how difficult it had been to get an appoint ment in the middle of the national holiday.

  ‘Will you watch me jumping from five?’ Oleg asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Harry said, taking off his T-shirt.

  Oleg stared at him.

  ‘Don’t you ever sunbathe, Harry?’

  ‘Never.’

  After Oleg had jumped twice, Harry took off his jeans and joined him on the diving board. His droopy boxer shorts with the EU flag on were attracting disapproving stares from a couple of boys in the queue as he was telling Oleg how to do a jackknife. He held his hand out flat.

  ‘The trick is to stay horizontal in the air. It looks really weird. People think you’re going to land as flat as pancake. But then at the last minute…’

  Harry pressed his thumb against his index finger.

  ‘… you bend in the middle, like a jackknife, and break the surface of the water with your hands and feet at the same time.’

  Harry took a run up and jumped. He just caught the lifeguard’s whistle as he jackknifed and the surface of the water hit his forehead.

  ‘Hey, you, I said five was off-limits,’ he heard the megaphone voice bray as he reemerged from the water.

  Oleg made a sign from the diving platform and Harry raised his thumb to show that he had understood.

  He got out of the water, stepped gingerly down the stairs and stood by one of the windows looking into the diving pool. He ran two fingers across the cool glass and made a drawing in the condensation while staring through the green and blue underwater landscape. Up at the surface he could see swimming costumes, kicking legs and the contours of a cloud in the blue sky. He thought of Underwater.

  Then Oleg arrived. He braked sharply with a c
loud of bubbles, but instead of swimming up to the surface he gave a couple of kicks and swam to the window where Harry was standing.

  They looked at each other. Oleg was smiling, waving his arms and pointing. His face was pale, greenish. Harry couldn’t hear a sound from inside the pool; he could just see Oleg’s mouth moving and his black hair floating weightlessly above his head, dancing like sea grass, and him pointing upwards. It reminded Harry of something, something he didn’t want to think about at this moment. Standing there, with Oleg on the opposite side of the glass, with the sun burning down from the sky, amid all the joyful sounds of life around him, yet in absolute stillness, Harry had a sudden premonition that something terrible was going to happen.

  The very next minute he had forgotten and the premonition was replaced by another feeling when Oleg gave a kick and disappeared from view. Harry stayed with his eyes glued to the vacant TV screen. The vacant TV screen. With the lines he had drawn in the condensation. Now he knew where he had seen it.

  ‘Oleg!’ He sprinted up the stairs.

  By and large, Karl was not that interested in people. Although he had been running the television shop in Carl Berners plass for more than 20 years, he had never been interested enough, for example, to find out a few details about his namesake, who had given his name to the square. Nor was he interested in finding out anything about the tall man standing in front of him with the police ID card, or the boy with wet hair standing beside him. Or the girl the policeman was talking about, the one they had found in the toilet at the solicitors’ place across the street. The only person Karl was interested in right now was the girl on the front of Vi Menn and how old she was, and if she really came from Tonsberg and liked sunbathing in the nude on the balcony of her flat so that men passing by could see her.

  ‘I was here the day Barbara Svendsen was murdered,’ the policeman said.

  ‘If you say so,’ Karl said.

  ‘Can you see the TV by the window? It’s not plugged in,’ the policeman said, pointing with his finger.

  ‘Philips,’ Karl said, shoving Vi Menn to one side. ‘Nice, isn’t it? Fifty Hertz. Flat screen. Surround sound, teletext and radio. It sells for seven nine, but you can have it for five nine.’

  ‘Someone’s been drawing in the dust on the screen. Can you see?’

  ‘OK then,’ Karl sighed. ‘Five six.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit about the TV,’ the policeman said. ‘I want to know who did it.’

  ‘Why?’ Karl said. ‘I wasn’t really thinking of reporting it.’

  The policeman leaned over the counter. Karl could see by the colour of his face that he didn’t like the answers he was getting.

  ‘Listen to me carefully. We are trying to find a killer and I have reason to believe that he’s been in here drawing on that TV screen. Is that good enough?’

  Karl nodded mutely.

  ‘Excellent. And now I want you to have a good think.’

  The policeman turned as a bell rang behind him. A woman with a metal case appeared in the doorway.

  ‘The Philips TV,’ the policeman said, pointing.

  She nodded without saying a word, crouched down in front of the wall where the TV was and opened her case.

  Karl stared at them with his eyes open wide.

  ‘Well?’ said the policeman.

  It had begun to dawn on Karl that this was more important than Liz from Tonsberg.

  ‘I can’t remember everyone who’s been in here, can I,’ he stammered, meaning he couldn’t remember anyone.

  That was just how it was. Faces didn’t mean a thing to him. Even Liz’s face was already forgotten.

  ‘I don’t need to know about all of them,’ the policeman said. ‘Just this one. Things seem to be a bit quiet here today.’

  Resigned, Karl shook his head.

  ‘What about looking at a few pictures?’ the policeman asked. ‘Would you recognise him?’

  ‘Dunno. I didn’t recognise you…’

  ‘Harry…’ the boy said.

  ‘But did you see anyone drawing on the TV?’

  ‘Harry…’

  Karl had seen someone in the shop that day. It had occurred to him the time the police came in and asked him if he had seen anything suspicious. The problem was that this person had not done anything in particular, apart from stand and stare at TV screens. So what should he have said? That someone whose face he couldn’t remember had been in his shop and behaved suspiciously? And got a whole load of hassle and unwanted attention into the bargain?

  ‘No,’ Karl said. ‘I didn’t see anyone drawing on the TV.’

  The policeman mumbled something or other.

  ‘Harry…’ The boy caught hold of the policeman’s T-shirt. ‘It’s five o’clock.’

  The policeman straightened up and consulted his wristwatch.

  ‘Beate,’ he said. ‘Can you see anything?’

  ‘Too early to say,’ she said. ‘There are marks right enough, but he’s dragged his finger along, so it is difficult to find a complete fingerprint.’

  ‘Call me.’

  The bell over the door clanged again, and Karl and the woman with the metal case were alone in the shop.

  He picked up Liz from Tonsberg again, but changed his mind. He left her face down and went over to the policewoman. With a tiny brush she was delicately brushing away a kind of powder she had sprinkled over the screen. He could see it now, the drawing in the dust. He had been on an economy drive, with cleaning too, so it was no surprise that the drawing was still there after a few days. The drawing was a surprise though.

  ‘What’s that supposed to be?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’ve only just been told what it’s called.’

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘A devil’s star.’

  20

  Wednesday. Cathedral Builders.

  Harry and Oleg met Rakel on her way out of the Frogner open-air pool. She ran over to Oleg and flung her arms round him while looking daggers at Harry.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she whispered.

  Harry stood there with his arms down by his sides, shifting weight from one foot to the other. He knew he could give her an answer. He could have said that what he was ‘doing’ was trying to save lives in the city, but even that would have been a lie. The truth was he was ‘doing’ his own thing and letting everyone around him pay the price. It had always been like that, and it always would be, and if it happened to save lives, then that was a bonus.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said instead. At any rate, that was the truth.

  ‘We went somewhere where the serial killer’s been,’ Oleg said overjoyed, but stopped in his tracks when he saw his mother’s look of disbelief.

  ‘Well -’ Harry began.

  ‘Don’t,’ Rakel interrupted. ‘Don’t even try.’

  Harry shrugged, and smiled sadly at Oleg.

  ‘Let me drive you home anyway.’

  He knew what the response would be before it came. He stood and watched them go. Rakel strode ahead briskly. Oleg turned and waved. Harry waved back.

  The sun was pumping behind his eyelids.

  The canteen was on the top floor of Police HQ. Harry stood inside the door and his eyes swept around the room. Apart from a person sitting with his back to one of the tables, the large area was totally empty. Harry had driven from Frogner Park straight to Police HQ. On his way through the corridors on the sixth floor he established that Tom Waaler’s office was unoccupied, but the light was on.

  Harry went to the counter where the steel shutters were down. On the TV suspended in the corner the draw was being made for the lottery. Harry watched the ball roll down the funnel. The volume was down low, but Harry could hear a woman’s voice say ‘Five, the number is five’. Someone had been lucky. A chair scraped by the table.

  ‘Hi, Harry. The counter’s closed.’

  It was Tom.

  ‘I know,’ Harry said.

  Harry thought about what
Rakel had asked, about what he was actually doing.

  ‘Thought I would just have a smoke.’

  Harry nodded towards the door to the roof terrace, which in practice functioned as a year-round smoking room.

  The view from the roof terrace was wonderful, but the air was just as hot and still as it was down on the street. The afternoon sun angled across the town and came to rest in Bjorvika, an area of Oslo containing a motorway, a deposit for shipping containers and a refuge for junkies, but it was soon to have an opera house, hotels and millionaires’ apartments. Wealth was beginning to take the whole city by storm. It made Harry think of the catfish in the rivers in Africa, the large, black fish that didn’t have the sense to swim into deeper waters when the drought came and in the end were trapped in one of the muddy pools that slowly dried up. All the building works had started; the cranes stood out like the silhouettes of giraffes against the afternoon sun.

  ‘It’s going to be really great.’

  He hadn’t even heard Tom approach.

  ‘We’ll see.’

  Harry pulled on his cigarette. He wasn’t sure what he had responded to.

  ‘You’ll like it,’ Waaler said. ‘It’s just a question of getting used to it.’

  Harry could see the catfish lying in front of him in the mud after the last water had gone, their tails beating, their mouths wide open as they tried to get used to breathing air.

  ‘But I need an answer, Harry. I have to know if you’re in or out.’

  Drowning in air. The death of the catfish was perhaps no worse than the death of anything else. Death by drowning was supposed to be relatively pleasant.

  ‘Beate rang,’ Harry said. ‘She’s checked the fingerprints from the TV shop.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Just partial prints. And the owner doesn’t remember a thing.’

  ‘Shame. Aune says that they get good results from hypnosis with forgetful witnesses in Sweden. Perhaps we should try that.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And there was an interesting bit of information from Forensics this afternoon. About Camilla Loen.’

  ‘Mm?’