The Devil's Star (10 page)

‘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 Barli 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.

‘I know a few things about Muslims that you also know, Inspector. For them, a woman who comes in wearing a bikini is begging to be raped. It’s almost a duty, you could say.’

‘Oh?’

‘That’s just the way their religion is.’

‘Now I think you’re confusing Islam with Christianity.’

‘Ivan and I have finished in here now,’ the dog handler said, coming down the stairs with his dog.

‘We found a couple of chops in the bin, that’s all. Have there been any other dogs here recently by the way?’

Harry looked at Wilhelm. He just shook his head. His facial expression suggested that his voice would not have carried.

‘In the entrance hall Ivan reacted as if there was another dog there, but it must have been something else. We’re ready for the loft and cellar now. Can someone come with us?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Wilhelm said, getting up onto his feet.

They went out the door, and the police officer from the patrol car asked Beate if he could leave.

‘You’ll have to ask the boss,’ she said.

‘He’s gone to sleep.’

He nodded scornfully in the direction of Harry who was testing out the Roman reclining chair.

‘Constable,’ Harry said in a low voice without opening his eyes. ‘Please come closer.’

The police officer stood in front of Harry with his legs apart and his thumbs tucked into his belt.

‘Yes,
Inspector
.’

Harry opened one eye.

‘If you allow Tom Waaler to talk you into handing in another report on me, I’ll make sure that you work on patrol cars for the rest of your career. Is that understood,
Constable
?’

The officer’s facial muscles twitched. When he opened his mouth Harry was expecting swearing and ill temper. Instead the officer spoke in a controlled, low voice:

‘First of all, I don’t know any Tom Waaler. Secondly, I see it as my duty to report police officials who put themselves and colleagues at risk by turning up for work intoxicated. And thirdly, I have no desire to work anywhere else except on patrol cars. Can I go now,
Inspector
?’

Harry stared at the officer with his cyclops eye. Then he closed it again, swallowed and said:

‘Please do.’

He heard the outer door slam shut and groaned. He needed a drink. And pronto.

‘Are you coming?’ Beate asked.

‘Just go,’ Harry said. ‘I’ll stay here and help Ivan to sniff around the streets as soon as they’ve finished with the loft and cellar.’

‘Sure?’

‘Absolutely.’

Harry went up the stairs and out onto the terrace. He watched the swallows and listened to the sounds coming from the open windows in the yard. He lifted up the bottle of red wine from the table. There was just a drop left. He polished it off and waved to Ruth and the Trondheim Eagle, who had not had enough after all, and went inside again.

He felt it immediately he opened the bedroom door. He had often noticed it, but he had never discovered where the stillness of other people’s bedrooms came from.

There were still signs of someone’s decorating here.

One wardrobe door with a mirror on the inside was ajar and a toolbox lay open beside the neatly made double bed. Over the bed was a photo of Wilhelm and Lisbeth. Harry had not taken a close look at the photograph Wilhelm had given to the patrol car officers, but now he could see that Ruth was right. Lisbeth really was a babe. Blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes and a slim, agile body. She had to be at least ten years younger than Wilhelm. They were tanned and happy in the picture – they must recently have returned from a holiday abroad. Behind them he could just make out a magnificent building and a statue of a horseman. Somewhere in France maybe. Normandy.

Harry perched on the edge of the bed and was caught by surprise when the bed moved. A waterbed. He lay back and felt how it moulded to the shape of his body. The cool duvet cover was wonderful against the bare skin of his arm. The water made a slapping sound inside the rubber mattress as he changed position. He closed his eyes.

Rakel. They were on a river. No, a canal. Their canal boat bobbed down and the water slapped against both sides making a kissing sound. They were below deck and Rakel lay quietly beside him in bed. She gave a low laugh as he whispered to her. Now she was pretending to sleep. He liked that. That she was pretending to sleep. It was a kind of game they played. Harry twisted round to look at her. His gaze fell on the mirror on the wardrobe door which reflected the whole of the bed. He looked at the open toolbox. On the top there was a short chisel with a green wooden handle. He lifted the tool up. Light, small, no sign of rust under the fine layer of builder’s plaster.

He was going to put the chisel back when his hand froze. There was a severed part of a body in the toolbox. He had seen the same thing at other crime scenes. Severed sexual parts. It took a second before he realised that the skin-coloured, very realistic-looking penis was merely a dildo.

He lay back on the bed again with the chisel still in his hand. He gulped.

After doing a job for so many years, going through people’s private property and personal lives on a daily basis, this was no big deal. That wasn’t why he gulped.

Here – in this bed.

Would have to have a drink now.

Sound carries over an enclosed space.

Rakel.

He tried not to think, but it was too late. Her body against his.

Rakel.

The erection came. Harry closed his eyes and could feel her hand moving, a sleeping person’s unconscious, arbitrary movement, and then resting on his stomach. Her hand just lay there as if it had no intention of going anywhere. Her lips against his ear, her warm breath sounding like the roar of something burning. Her lips began to move as soon as he touched her. Her small, soft breasts with the sensitive nipples that stiffened when he so much as breathed on them; her sex which would open and devour him. There was an explosion in his throat as if he wanted to cry.

Harry gave a start on hearing the door close on the floor below. He sat up, smoothed the duvet, stood up and checked himself over in the mirror. He rubbed his face hard with both hands.

Wilhelm insisted on staying outside to see if the canine Ivan could detect a scent.

As they were coming out of Sannergata, a red bus glided soundlessly away from the bus stop. A little girl stared at Harry through the back window; her round face grew smaller and smaller as the bus disappeared towards Rodeløkka.

They walked to Kiwi and back without any reaction from the dog.

‘It doesn’t mean your wife hasn’t been here,’ Ivan said. ‘In a busy street with traffic and a lot of people around it’s difficult to isolate the scent of one person.’

Harry looked around him. He had the feeling that he was being observed, but the street was deserted, and all he saw in the windows of the row of house fronts was a dark sky and sun. An alkie’s paranoia.

‘Well,’ Harry said. ‘Then there’s nothing more we can do for the moment.’

Wilhelm stared at them in despair.

‘It’ll be alright,’ Harry said.

‘No, it won’t be alright,’ Wilhelm answered in the same flat voice that radio weather forecasters use.

‘Come here, Ivan!’ the police officer shouted, jerking the lead. The dog had stuck its nose under the front bumper of a VW Golf parked close to the kerb.

Harry gave Wilhelm a pat on the shoulder and avoided his intense stare.

‘All the patrol cars have been informed. If she doesn’t turn up before midnight, we’ll organise a search party. OK?’

Wilhelm did not answer.

Ivan barked at the Golf and pulled on his lead.

‘Wait a moment,’ the policeman said.

He went down on all fours, put his head close to the tarmac and stretched out an arm under the car.

‘Found anything?’ Harry asked.

The officer turned round. He was holding a lady’s high-heeled shoe. Harry heard Wilhelm sob behind him and asked: ‘Is this her shoe, Wilhelm?’

‘It won’t be alright,’ Wilhelm said. ‘It won’t be alright.’

10

Thursday and Friday.

Nightmares.

On Thursday afternoon a red mail van stopped outside a post office in Rodeløkka. The contents of the postbox were emptied into a sack, eased gently into the back of the van and driven to the mail centre at Biskop Gunnerus gate 14, better known in Oslo as the Post House. The same evening, at the mail centre, the post was sorted by size and so the brown padded envelope ended up in a tray with other letters of C5 format. The envelope passed through several pairs of hands, though naturally enough no-one paid any special attention to it, nor when it was sorted by geographical area and was put first in the Østland tray and then in the tray for postcode 0032.

When the letter finally lay in a post sack in the back of a red van ready for delivery the following morning, it was nighttime and most people in Oslo were sleeping.

‘It’ll be fine,’ the boy said, patting the round-faced girl on the head. He felt her long, thin hair stick to his fingers. It was electric.

He was eleven years old. She was seven and his little sister. They had been visiting their mummy at the hospital.

The lift arrived and they opened the door. A man wearing a white coat pushed the grille to one side, gave them a fleeting smile and left. They entered the lift.

‘Why is it such an old lift?’ the girl asked.

‘Because it’s an old house,’ the boy said, pulling the grille closed.

‘Is it a hospital?’

‘Not exactly,’ he said, pressing the button for the ground floor.

‘It’s a house for people who are very tired to rest a little.’

‘Is Mummy tired?’

‘Yes, but she’ll be fine. Don’t lean against the door, Sis.’

‘What?’

The lift started with a jerk and her long blonde hair moved. Electricity, he thought, and stared as the hair on her head slowly rose. Her hands shot up to her head, and she screamed. A thin, piercing scream that fixed him to the spot. Her hair was trapped on the other side of the grille. It must have been caught in the lift door. He tried to move, but it was as if he was stuck, too.