The Devil's Star

‘My God,’ she whispered and could feel her heart pounding again.

  ‘What’s the matter now?’ Anders asked.

  ‘Go and get the caretaker. Then go with him and ring Camilla’s doorbell. I’ll call the police.’

  2

  Friday. Staff Leave.

  Oslo Police Headquarters in Grønland was situated at the top of the ridge between Grønland and Tøyen, and looked over the eastern part of the city centre. It was constructed of glass and steel and had been completed in 1978. There were no sloping surfaces; it stood in perfect symmetry and the architects Telje, Torp & Aasen had received an award for it. The electrician who installed the cables in the two long office wings on the seventh and ninth floors received social benefits and a good bollocking from his father when he fell from the scaffolding and broke his back.

  ‘For seven generations we were bricklayers, balancing between heaven and earth, before gravity brought us down. My grandfather tried to flee from the curse, but it followed him right across the North Sea. So the day you were born I swore to myself that you would not have to suffer the same fate. And I thought I had succeeded. An electrician . . . What the hell is an electrician doing six metres off the ground?’

  The signal from the central control room ran through the copper in the exact same cables the son had laid, through the partition between the floors moulded with a factory-made cement mix, up to Crime Squad Chief Inspector Bjarne Møller’s office on the sixth floor. At this moment Møller was sitting and wondering whether he was looking forward to or dreading his impending family holiday in a mountain cabin in Os, outside Bergen. In all probability, Os in July meant dire weather. Now, Bjarne Møller had nothing against exchanging the heatwave that had been forecast for Oslo with a little drizzle, but to keep two highly energetic young boys busy with no resources other than a pack of cards minus its jack of hearts would be a challenge.

  Bjarne Møller stretched his long legs and scratched behind his ear as he listened to the message.

  ‘How did they discover it?’ he asked.

  ‘There was a leak down to the flat below,’ the voice from the control room answered. ‘The caretaker and the man from downstairs rang the bell but no-one answered. The door wasn’t locked, so they went in.’

  ‘OK. I’ll send two of our people up.’

  Møller put down the receiver, sighed and ran his finger down the plasticated duty roster which was on his desk. Half the division was on leave. That was the way it was at this time every year. Not that it meant that the population of Oslo was in any particular danger since the villains in the town also seemed to appreciate a little holiday in July. It was definitely low season as far as the law-breaking that fell to the Crime Squad was concerned.

  Møller’s finger stopped by the name of Beate Lønn. He dialled the number for Krimteknisk, the forensics department in Kjølberggata. No answer. He waited for his call to go through the central switchboard.

  ‘Beate Lønn is in the lab,’ a bright voice said.

  ‘It’s Møller, Crime Squad. Could you get hold of her?’

  He waited. It was Karl Weber, the recently retired head of Krimteknisk, who had recruited Beate Lønn from the Crime Squad. Møller saw this as further proof of the neo-Darwinist theory that man’s sole drive was to perpetuate his own genes. Weber clearly thought that Beate Lønn shared quite a few genes with him. At first sight, Karl Weber and Beate Lønn would probably have seemed quite different. Weber was grumpy and irascible; Lønn was a small, quiet grey mouse, who, after graduating from Police College, would blush every time you talked to her. But their police genes were identical. They were the passionate type who, when they smelled their prey, had the ability to exclude everything else and simply concentrate on a forensic lead, circumstantial evidence, a video recording, a vague description, until ultimately it began to make some kind of sense. Malicious tongues wagged that Weber and Lønn belonged in the laboratory and not in the community where an investigator’s knowledge of human behaviour was still more important than a footprint or a loose thread from a jacket.

  Weber and Lønn would agree with what they said about the laboratory, but not about the footprints or the loose threads.

  ‘Lønn speaking.’

  ‘Hello, Beate. Bjarne Møller here. Am I disturbing you?’

  ‘Of course. What’s up?’

  Møller explained briefly and gave her the address.

  ‘I’ll send a couple of my lads up with you,’ he said.

  ‘Which ones?’

  ‘I’ll have to have a look to see who I can find. Summer break, you know.’

  Møller put down the phone and ran his finger further down the list.

  It stopped at Tom Waaler.

  The box for holiday dates was blank. That did not surprise Bjarne Møller. Now and then he wondered whether Inspector Tom Waaler took off any time at all or if he even had time to sleep. As a detective he was one of the department’s two star players. Always there, always on the ball and nearly always successful. In contrast with the other top-notch detective, Tom Waaler was reliable, had, an unblemished record and was respected by everyone. In short, a dream subordinate. With the indisputable leadership skills that Tom had, it was on the cards that he would take over Møller’s job as Chief Inspector when the time came.

  Møller’s call crackled through the flimsy partitions.

  ‘Waaler here,’ a sonorous voice replied.

  ‘Møller. We –’

  ‘Just a moment, Bjarne. I’m on another call.’

  Bjarne Møller drummed on the table while he was waiting. Tom Waaler could become the youngest ever Chief Inspector in the Crime Squad. Was it his age that made Bjarne Møller occasionally feel somewhat uneasy at the thought that he would be handing over his responsibilities to Tom? Or perhaps it was the two shooting incidents? The inspector had drawn his gun twice during arrests and, as one of the best marksmen in the police corps, he had hit the target both times with lethal results. Paradoxically enough, Møller also knew that one of the two episodes could ultimately push the appointment of the new Chief in Waaler’s favour. SEFO, the independent police investigation authority, had not uncovered anything to suggest that Tom had not fired in self-defence. In fact, it had concluded that in both cases he had shown good judgment and quick reactions in a tight situation. What better credentials could a candidate for the Chief’s job have?

  ‘Sorry, Bjarne. Call on the mobile. How can I help you?’

  ‘We’ve got a job.’

  ‘At last.’

  The conversation was over in ten seconds. Now he just needed one more person.

  Møller had thought of Halvorsen, but according to the list he was taking his leave at home in Steinkjer. His finger continued down the column. Leave, leave, sick leave. The Chief Inspector sighed when his finger stopped against the name he had been hoping to avoid.

  Harry Hole.

  The lone wolf, the drunk, the department’s enfant terrible and, apart from Tom Waaler, the best detective on the sixth floor. But for that and the fact that Bjarne Møller had over the years developed a sort of perverse penchant for putting his head on the block for this policeman with the serious drinking problem, Harry Hole would have been out years ago. Ordinarily Harry was the first person he would have rung and given the assignment to, but things were not ordinary.

  Or to put it another way: they were more extraordinary than usual.

  It had all come to a head the month before, after Hole had spent the winter reworking an old case, the murder of his closest colleague, Ellen Gjelten, who was killed close to the River Akerselva. During that time he lost all interest in any other cases. The Ellen Gjelten case had been cleared up a long time ago, but Harry had become more and more obsessed and quite frankly Møller was beginning to worry about his mental state. The crunch came when Harry appeared in his office four weeks ago and presented his hair-raising conspiracy theories. Basically, without any proof he was making fanciful charges against Tom Waaler.

  Then Harry simpl
y disappeared. Some days later Møller rang Restaurant Schrøder and learned what he had feared: that Harry had gone on another drinking binge. To cover his absence, Møller put Harry down as on leave. Once again. Harry generally put in an appearance after a week, but now four weeks had passed. His leave was over.

  Møller eyed the receiver, stood up and went to the window. It was 5.30 and yet the park in front of the police station was almost deserted. There was just the odd sun worshipper braving the heat. In Grønlandsleiret a couple of shop owners were sitting under an awning next to their vegetables. Even the cars – despite zilch rush-hour traffic – were moving more slowly. Møller brushed back his hair with his hands, a lifetime’s habit which his wife said he should give a rest now as people might suspect him of trying to cover his bald patch. Was there really no-one else except Harry? Møller watched a drunk staggering down Grønlandsleiret. He guessed he was heading for the Raven, but he wouldn’t get a drink there. He’d probably end up at the Boxer. The place where the Ellen Gjelten case was emphatically brought to a close. Perhaps Harry Hole’s career in the police force, too. Møller was being put under pressure; he would soon have to make up his mind what to do about the Harry problem. But that was long term; what was important now was this case.

  Møller lifted the receiver and considered for a moment what he was about to do: put Harry Hole and Tom Waaler on the same case. These holiday periods were such a pain. The electrical impulse started on its journey from Telje, Torp & Aasen’s monument to an ordered society and began to ring in a place where chaos reigned, a flat in Sofies gate.

  3

  Friday. The Awakening.

  She screamed again and Harry Hole opened his eyes.

  The sun gleamed through the idly shifting curtains as the grating sound of the tram slowing down in Pilestredet faded away. Harry tried to find his bearings. He lay on the floor of his own sitting room. Dressed, though not well dressed. In the land of the living, though not really alive.

  Sweat lay like a clammy film of make-up on his face, and his heart felt light, but stressed, like a ping-pong ball on a concrete floor. His head felt worse.

  Harry hesitated for a moment before making up his mind to continue breathing. The ceiling and the walls were spinning around, and there was not a picture or a ceiling light in the flat his gaze could cling to. Whirling on the periphery of his vision was an IKEA bookcase, the back of a chair and a green coffee table from Elevator. At least he had escaped any more dreams.

  It had been the same old nightmare. Rooted to the spot, unable to move, in vain he had tried closing his eyes to avoid seeing her mouth, distorted and opened in a silent scream. The large, blankly staring eyes with the mute accusation. When he was young, it had been his little sister, Sis. Now it was Ellen Gjelten. At first the screams had been silent, now they sounded like squealing steel brakes. He didn’t know which was worse.

  Harry lay there quite still, staring out between the curtains, up at the shimmering sun over the streets and back yards of Bislett. Only the tram broke the summer stillness. He didn’t even blink. He stared at the sun until it became a leaping golden heart, beating against a thin, milky-blue membrane and pumping out heat. When he was young, his mother told him that if children looked straight into the sun it would burn away their eyesight and that they would have sunlight inside their heads all day long and for all their lives. Sunlight in their heads consuming everything else. Like the image of Ellen’s smashed skull in the snow by the Akerselva with the shadow hanging over it. For three years he had tried to catch that shadow. But he hadn’t managed it.

  Rakel . . .

  Harry raised his head cautiously and gazed at the lifeless, black eye of the telephone answer machine. There had been no life in it for however many weeks had passed since his meeting with the head of Kripos, the Norwegian CID, at the Boxer. Presumably burned up by the sun as well.

  Shit, it was hot in here!

  Rakel . . .

  He remembered now. At one point in the dream the face had changed and it became Rakel’s. Sis, Ellen, Mum, Rakel. Women’s faces. As if in one constantly pumping, pulsating movement they could change and merge again.

  Harry groaned and let his head sink back down on the floor. He caught a glimpse of the bottle balancing on the edge of the table above him. Jim Beam from Clermont, Kentucky. The contents were gone. Evaporated, vaporised. Rakel. He closed his eyes. There was nothing left.

  He had no idea what the time was, he just knew that it was late. Or early. Whatever it was, it was the wrong moment to wake up. Or to be precise, to be asleep. You should do something else at this time of day. Such as drink.

  Harry got up onto his knees.

  There was something vibrating in his trousers. That, he now realised, was what had woken him. A moth trapped and desperately flapping its wings. He shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out his mobile phone.

  Harry walked slowly towards St Hanshaugen. His headache throbbed behind his eyeballs. The address Møller had given him was within walking distance. He had splashed a little water over his face, found a drop of whisky in the cupboard under the sink and set off hoping that a walk would clear his head. Harry passed Underwater: 4 p.m. till 3 a.m., 4 p.m. till 1 a.m. on Mondays, closed Sundays. This was not one of his more frequent watering holes since his local, Schrøder, was in the parallel street, but like most serious drinkers Harry always had a place in his brain where the opening hours of taprooms were stored automatically.

  He smiled at his reflection in the grimy windows. Another time.

  At the corner he turned right, down Ullevålsveien. Harry didn’t like walking in Ullevålsveien. It was a street for cars, not for pedestrians. The best thing he could say about Ullevålsveien was that the pavement on the right afforded some shade on days like this.

  Harry stopped in front of the house bearing the number he had been given. He gave it a quick once-over.

  On the ground floor was a launderette with red washing machines. The note on the window gave the opening times as 8.00 till 21.00 every day and offered a 20-minute dry for the reduced price of 30 kroner. A dark-skinned woman in a shawl sat beside a rotating drum, staring out into the air. Next to the launderette was a shop window with headstones in, and further down, a green neon sign displaying KEBAB HOUSE above a snack-bar-cum-grocer’s. Harry’s eyes wandered over the filthy house front. The paint on the old window frames had cracked, but the dormer windows on the roof suggested there were new attic conversions on top of the original four floors. A camera was placed over the newly installed intercom system by the rusty iron gate. Money from Oslo’s West End was flowing slowly but surely into the East End. He rang the top bell next to the name of Camilla Loen.

  ‘Yes,’ the loudspeaker replied.

  Møller had warned him, but nevertheless he was taken aback when he heard Tom Waaler’s voice.

  Harry tried to answer, but could not force a sound from his vocal cords. He coughed and made a fresh attempt.

  ‘Hole. Open up.’

  There was a buzzing sound and he grasped the cold, rough door handle of black iron.

  ‘Hi.’

  Harry turned round.

  ‘Hi, Beate.’

  Beate Lønn was just under average height, with dark blonde hair and blue eyes, neither good-looking nor unattractive. In short, there was nothing particularly striking about Beate Lønn, apart from her clothes. She was wearing a white boiler suit that looked a bit like an astronaut’s outfit.

  Harry held open the gate while she carried in two large metal containers.

  ‘Have you just arrived?’

  He tried not to breathe on her as she passed.

  ‘No. I had to come back down to the car for the rest of my stuff. We’ve been here for half an hour. Hit yourself?’

  Harry ran a finger over the scab on his nose.

  ‘Apparently.’

  He followed her through the next door leading into the stairwell.

  ‘What’s it like up there?’

  B
eate put the boxes in front of a green lift door, still looking up at him.

  ‘I thought it was one of your principles to look first and ask questions later,’ she said, pressing the lift button.

  Harry nodded. Beate Lønn belonged to that section of the human race who remembered everything. She could recite details from criminal cases he had long forgotten and from before she began Police College. In addition, she had an unusually well-developed fusiform gyrus – the part of the brain that remembers faces. She had had it tested and the psychologists were amazed. Just his luck that she remembered the little he had managed to teach her when they worked together on the spate of bank robberies that swept Oslo the previous year.

  ‘I like to be as open as possible to my impressions the first time I am at the scene of a crime, yes,’ Harry said and gave a start when the lift sprang into action. He began to go through his pockets looking for cigarettes. ‘But I doubt that I’m going to be working on this particular case.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Harry didn’t answer. He pulled out a crumpled pack of Camels from his left-hand trouser pocket and extracted a crushed cigarette.

  ‘Oh yes, now I remember,’ Beate smiled. ‘You said this spring that you were going to go on holiday. To Normandy, wasn’t it? You lucky thing . . .’

  Harry put the cigarette between his lips. It tasted dreadful. And it would hardly do anything for his headache, either. There was only one thing that helped. He took a look at his watch. Mondays, 4 p.m. to 1 a.m.

  ‘There won’t be any Normandy,’ he said.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘No, so that’s not the reason. It’s because he’s running this case.’

  Harry took a long drag on his cigarette and nodded upwards.

  She gave him a long, hard look. ‘Watch out that he doesn’t become an obsession. Move on.’

  ‘Move on?’ Harry blew out smoke. ‘He hurts people, Beate. You should know that.’

  She blushed. ‘Tom and I had a brief fling, that’s all, Harry.’