The Devil's star hh-5

by Jo Nesbo

He turned towards the rotary dryer.

  It stooped a little to one side, but the post set in the tarmac had obviously taken the brunt of it. Only one of the strings that Wilhelm Barli was hanging on had broken. His arms hung to both sides, his wet hair clung to his face and his eyes were wrenched upwards, as if in prayer. It struck Harry that it was a strangely beautiful sight. With his naked body partly shrouded by the wet sheet he resembled a figurehead set up on the bows of a galleon. Wilhelm had got what he wanted. A grand finale.

  Harry picked up his mobile phone and pressed in his PIN code. His fingers would hardly obey him. They would soon be stone. He keyed in Bjarne Moller’s number. He was about to press the call button when the telephone gave a warning shriek. The display showed that there was a message on his answerphone. So what? It wasn’t Harry’s phone. He hesitated. Instinct told him that he should phone Moller first. He closed his eyes. And pressed.

  A woman announced that he had one message. There was a bleep followed by a few seconds’ silence. Then a voice whispered:

  ‘Hi, Harry. It’s me.’

  It was Tom Waaler.

  ‘You turned your phone off, Harry. That wasn’t wise. Because I have to talk to you, you know.’

  Tom’s mouth was so close to the receiver that Harry felt he was standing right next to him.

  ‘Apologies for having to whisper, but we don’t want to wake him, do we. Can you guess where I am? I think perhaps you can. Perhaps you ought to have anticipated it even.’

  Harry sucked on his cigarette without realising that it had gone out.

  ‘It’s a bit dark in here, but there’s a picture of a football team over the bed. Let’s see. Tottenham Hotspur? There’s a little machine on his bedside table. GameBoy. Listen now. I’m holding the phone over his bed.’

  He heard the calm, regular breathing of a little boy sleeping soundly in a black timber-clad house in Holmenkollveien.

  ‘We have our eyes and ears everywhere, Harry, so don’t try to phone or talk to anyone. Just do exactly as I say. Ring this number and talk to me. Do anything else and the boy is dead. Do you understand?’

  Harry’s heart began pumping blood round his paralysed body and slowly the numbness was replaced by almost unbearable pain.

  42

  Monday. The Devil’s Star.

  The windscreen wipers whispered and the tyres hissed.

  The Escort aquaplaned through the crossing. Harry drove as fast as he dared, but the rain was coming down like stair-rods onto the tarmac in front of him and he knew that the remaining tread on the tyres was only really of a cosmetic nature.

  He accelerated and took the next crossing on amber. Fortunately there were no cars on the streets. He snatched a glance at his watch.

  Twelve minutes left. It was eight minutes since he had been standing in the central yard in Sannergata, mobile in hand, and dialling the number he was forced to dial. Eight minutes since the voice had whispered in his ear:

  ‘At last.’

  Harry said all he wanted to, but couldn’t stop himself adding: ‘If you lay a hand on him, I’ll kill you.’

  ‘Well, well. Where are you and Sivertsen?’

  ‘No idea,’ Harry had said staring at the rotary dryer. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I just want to meet you. Find out why you want to break the deal we made. Find out if you’re unhappy about something that we can put right. It’s not too late, Harry. I’m willing to stick my neck right out to get you in the team.’

  ‘OK,’ Harry said. ‘Let’s meet. I’ll come to you.’

  Tom Waaler gave a low laugh.

  ‘I want to meet Sven Sivertsen as well. And I think it’s a better idea if I come to you. So give me the address. Now.’

  Harry hesitated.

  ‘Have you heard what it sounds like when you cut someone’s throat, Harry? First of all there’s the squeak as the steel cuts into the skin and cartilage, then a wheezing sound like the saliva sucker at the dentist’s. It comes from the severed trachea. Or is it the oesophagus? I can never tell the difference.’

  ‘Student block. Room 406.’

  ‘Christ. The crime scene? I should’ve thought of that.’

  ‘You should’ve.’

  ‘OK, but if you’re thinking of calling anyone or setting up a trap, forget it, Harry. I’m bringing the boy with me.’

  ‘No! Don’t… Tom… please.’

  ‘Please? Did you say “please”?’

  Harry didn’t answer.

  ‘I picked you up from the gutter and gave you a chance. And you stabbed me in the back, please. It’s not my fault I have to do what I’m doing. It’s yours. Remember that, Harry.’

  ‘Listen -’

  ‘In twenty minutes. Leave the door open and sit on the floor where I can see you with your hands over your heads.’

  ‘Tom!’

  Waaler had rung off.

  Harry tore at the wheel and felt the tyres lose their grip. They floated on the water, sideways on. For a moment it was as if he and the car were hovering in a dream where all the laws of physics were suspended. It only lasted for the one second, but it was enough for Harry to have the liberating sensation that everything was over, that it was too late to do anything. Then the tyres regained their grip and he was back.

  The car swerved outside the student building and pulled up in front of the exit door. Harry switched off the ignition. Nine minutes left. He got out and walked round the car. He opened the boot and threw away half-empty bottles of windscreen wash and filthy rags. Grabbed a roll of black insulation tape. As he went up the stairs he pulled the gun out from the waistband of his trousers and unscrewed the silencer. He hadn’t checked the weapon, but assumed that a Czech gun would stand the occasional 15-metre fall from a roof terrace. He stopped outside the lift door on the fourth floor. The handle was as he remembered: metal with a round solid wooden cap over the end. Just large enough to hide a gun minus silencer, if one was taped to the inside. He loaded the weapon and secured it with two strips of tape. If things went as planned from the beginning, he would need it. The hinges creaked as he opened the lid to the disposal chute beside the lift, but the silencer fell into the dark without a sound. Four minutes left.

  He unlocked the door to room 406.

  There was a clank of iron against the radiator.

  ‘Good news?’

  Sven had an almost imploring tone. His breath smelled bad as Harry unlocked the handcuffs.

  ‘No,’ Harry answered.

  ‘No?’

  ‘He’s coming with Oleg.’

  Harry and Sven sat on the floor in the corridor, waiting.

  ‘He’s late,’ Sven said.

  ‘Yes.’

  Silence.

  ‘Iggy Pop songs beginning with C,’ Sven said. ‘You start.’

  ‘Pack it in.’

  ‘“China Girl”.’

  ‘Not now.’

  ‘It helps. “Candy”.’

  ‘“Cry For Love”.’

  ‘“China Girl”.’

  ‘You’ve already said that one, Sivertsen.’

  ‘There are two versions.’

  ‘“Cold Metal”.’

  ‘Are you scared, Harry?’

  ‘Scared to death.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Good. That increases our chances of survival.’

  ‘By how much? Ten per cent? Twenty…’

  ‘Shh.’

  ‘Is that the lift…?’ Sivertsen whispered.

  ‘It’s on its way up. Take slow, deep breaths.’

  They heard the lift come to a halt with a low groan. Two seconds passed. Then the rattle of the grille door. A long drawn-out creak told Harry that Waaler was opening the lift door with caution. Low mumbling. The sound of the disposal chute lid being opened. Sven cast Harry a questioning glance.

  ‘Raise your hands so that he can see them,’ Harry whispered.

  The handcuffs rattled as they raised their hands in one synchronised movement. Then the glass front door lea
ding into the corridor opened.

  Oleg was wearing slippers and a tracksuit jacket over his pyjamas, and images flashed through Harry’s brain. The corridor. Night clothes. The sound of shuffling slippers. Mummy. The hospital.

  Tom Waaler was walking right behind Oleg. He had his hands in the pockets of his short jacket, but Harry could see the barrel of the gun pressing against the black leather.

  ‘Stop,’ Waaler said when there were five metres between them and Harry and Sven.

  Oleg stared at Harry with black-rimmed, red eyes. Harry gave him what he hoped was a firm, reassuring look.

  ‘Why are you cuffed together, boys? Grown inseparable already?’

  Waaler’s voice resounded sharply in the corridor and Harry realised that he had gone through the list they had put together before the whole operation started and found out what Harry already knew. There was no-one at home on the fourth floor.

  ‘We’ve come to the conclusion that we’re both sitting in the same boat,’ Harry said.

  ‘And why aren’t you sitting inside the room as I told you?’

  Waaler made sure that Oleg was standing between them.

  ‘Why do you want us to sit inside?’ Harry asked.

  ‘You’re not asking the questions now, Hole. Get into the room. Now.’

  ‘Sorry, Tom.’

  Harry turned over the hand that was not joined to Sven’s. Two keys lay on his fingers. A Yale key and another one, smaller.

  ‘To the room and to the handcuffs,’ he said.

  Then Harry opened his mouth wide, put the two keys on his tongue and closed his mouth. He winked at Oleg and swallowed.

  Tom Waaler gaped in disbelief at Harry’s Adam’s apple rising and falling.

  ‘You’ll have to change the plan, Tom,’ Harry panted.

  ‘And what plan is that?’

  Harry tucked his legs beneath him and, with his back against the wall, pushed himself up into an almost standing position. Waaler took his hand out of his jacket pocket. The gun was pointing at Harry. Harry grimaced and patted his chest twice before speaking.

  ‘Remember, I’ve followed you for some years now, Tom. Bit by bit I’ve learned a little about how you operate. How you killed Sverre Olsen in a room in his house and made it look like self-defence. And how you did the same that time by the harbour warehouses. So my guess is that your plan was to shoot both me and Sivertsen in the room, then you would make it look as if I had shot him and then myself. You would disappear from the scene of the crime and leave it to colleagues to find me. An anonymous tip-off that someone had heard shots coming from the student block perhaps?’

  Tom Waaler shot an impatient glance up and down the corridor.

  Harry went on: ‘And the explanation would be obvious, wouldn’t it? In the end it became too much for Harry Hole, the psychotic alcoholic policeman. Abandoned by his girlfriend, kicked out of the force, he kidnaps a prisoner. Self-destructive fury ending in disaster. A personal tragedy. Almost – but only almost – incomprehensible. Wasn’t that what you were thinking?’

  Waaler gave a faint smile.

  ‘Not bad, but you forgot the bit about you, grief-stricken at being rejected by your lover, driving to your ex-lover’s house in the middle of the night, creeping into her house and kidnapping her son. Who is found dead alongside you.’

  Harry concentrated on breathing normally.

  ‘Do you really think they would swallow that story? Moller? Head of Kripos? The media?’

  ‘Of course,’ Waaler said. ‘Don’t you read the newspapers? Don’t you watch TV? This story would circulate for a few days, a week at most. If nothing else happens in the meantime. Something really sensational.’

  Harry didn’t answer.

  Waaler smiled. ‘The only sensational thing here is that you thought I wouldn’t find you.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘That I didn’t know you would find your way here.’

  ‘If so, had I been in your shoes, I would have done a runner. There’s no way out now, Hole.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Harry said, putting a hand in his jacket pocket.

  Waaler raised his gun. Harry took out a wet packet of cigarettes.

  ‘I’m sitting in a trap. The question is: Who is the trap for?’

  He took a cigarette out of the packet.

  Waaler’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well,’ Harry said, tearing the cigarette in half and putting the filter between his lips, ‘national holidays are a pain, aren’t they? There are never enough people on duty to get things put away, so everything’s delayed. Such as, for example, putting up surveillance cameras in a student block. Or taking them down again.’

  Harry noticed a small twitch in his colleague’s eyelid. He pointed with his thumb back over his shoulder. ‘Look up in the right-hand corner, Tom. Do you see it?’

  Waaler’s eyes leapt over to where Harry was pointing and then back again.

  ‘As I said, I know what makes you tick, Tom. I knew that you would find us here sooner or later. I just had to make it difficult enough that you wouldn’t think you were being lured into a trap. On Sunday morning I had a long chat with a person you know. He’s been sitting in his bus since then waiting to record this scene. Wave to Otto Tangen.’

  ‘You’re bluffing, Harry. I know Tangen, and he would never have dared do anything like this.’

  ‘I said he could have all the sales rights for the recording. Just think about it, Tom. A recording of the big showdown, starring the alleged Courier Killer, the crazy detective and the corrupt police inspector. Television companies the world over will be queuing for it.’

  Harry took a pace forwards.

  ‘Perhaps you’d better give me the gun now before you make things worse than they already are, Tom.’

  ‘Stay right there, Harry,’ Waaler whispered, and Harry saw that the gun barrel had swung round into Oleg’s back. He stopped. Tom Waaler had stopped blinking. His jaw muscles were working hard with the concentration. No-one moved. It was so quiet in the building that Harry thought he could hear the sound of the walls: a long-wave, almost inaudible vibration that the ear registered as tiny changes in the air pressure. While the walls sang, ten seconds passed. Ten unending seconds in which Waaler did not blink. Oystein had once told Harry how much data a human brain could handle in one second. He couldn’t remember the figure, but Oystein had explained that it meant a human could easily scan through the contents of the average town library in ten of these seconds.

  Waaler finally blinked and Harry noticed a kind of calm descend over him. He didn’t know what it meant, only that it was probably bad news.

  ‘The interesting thing about murder cases,’ Waaler said, ‘is that you’re innocent until proven guilty. And for the time being I cannot see how any cameras here have filmed me doing anything illegal.’

  He went over to Harry and Sven and jerked hard at the handcuffs so that Sven got to his feet. Waaler searched them by running his free hand over the outside of their jackets and trousers while keeping his eyes on Harry.

  ‘On the contrary, I’m just doing my job as a policeman. Arresting a policeman who kidnapped a prisoner from the custody block.’

  ‘You’ve just confessed in front of a camera,’ Harry said.

  ‘To you, yes,’ Waaler smiled. ‘As far as I remember these cameras only record image, not sound. This is a normal arrest. Start moving towards the lift.’

  ‘What about kidnapping a ten-year-old?’ Harry said. ‘Tangen has got pictures of you pointing a gun at a boy?’

  ‘Oh, him,’ Waaler said, shoving Harry so hard that he staggered forwards taking Sven with him.

  ‘He obviously got up in the middle of the night and went down to the police station without saying anything to his mother. He’s done it before, hasn’t he? Let’s just say that I met the boy outside when I was on my way out to find you and Sven. The boy obviously knew something was up. When I explai
ned the situation he said he wanted to help. In fact, it was him who suggested that I use him as a hostage so that you wouldn’t do anything stupid and get hurt, Harry.’

  ‘A ten-year-old?’ Harry groaned. ‘Do you really think that anyone will believe that?’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Waaler said. ‘OK, everyone, we go out through here and stop in front of the lift. The first person to try anything gets the first bullet.’

  Waaler went over to the lift and pressed the button. A rumbling sound came from the depths of the shaft.

  ‘Strange how quiet it is in a student block during the holidays, isn’t it?’

  He gave Sven a smile.

  ‘Like a haunted house.’

  ‘Give up, Tom.’

  Harry had to concentrate to articulate the words, his mouth seemed to be full of sand.

  ‘It’s too late. You must know that no-one will believe you.’

  ‘You’re beginning to repeat yourself, my dear colleague,’ Waaler said casting a glance at the slanting needle as it rotated, slowly like a compass, behind the glass cover.

  ‘They’ll believe me, Harry. For the simple reason…’ He ran a finger across his top lip. ‘… that no-one will be able to contradict me.’

  Harry knew what the plan was now. The lift. There was no camera in the lift. That’s where it was going to happen. He didn’t know how Waaler had imagined he would present it afterwards – a scuffle had broken out and Harry had grabbed the gun – but he was in no doubt: they were all going to die there, in the lift.

  ‘Daddy…’ Oleg began to say.

  ‘Everything’ll be OK, son,’ Harry said, trying to smile.

  ‘Yes,’ Waaler said. ‘Everything’ll be OK.’

  They heard a clicking noise, a metallic smacking sound. The lift was getting closer. Harry looked at the round wooden handle on the lift door. He had secured the gun in such a way that he could place his hand around the handle of the gun, put his finger on the trigger and pull it off all in one movement.

  The lift stopped in front of them with a thud and swayed a little.

  Harry breathed in and stretched out his hand. His fingers closed around and underneath the tiled wooden surface. He expected to feel the cold, hard steel against his fingertips. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Only more wood. And a loose bit of tape.