The Devil's star hh-5

by Jo Nesbo

  ‘I have to make a couple of calls,’ Harry said.

  At 6.45 p.m. Beate Lonn arrived at the flat of Wilhelm and Lisbeth Barli in Sannergata, and a quarter of an hour later a police dog handler arrived with a German shepherd. The man introduced both himself and his dog as Ivan.

  ‘It’s a coincidence,’ the man said. ‘It’s not my dog.’

  Harry saw that Ivan was waiting for some witty comment, but Harry didn’t have one.

  While Wilhelm Barli went to the bedroom to find some recent photos of Lisbeth and some clothes to give Ivan – the dog – a scent, Harry quickly spoke to the other two in a low voice:

  ‘OK, she could be absolutely anywhere. She could have left him, she could have had a funny turn, she could have said she was going somewhere else and he didn’t realise. There are a million possibilities, but she could also be lying in the back seat of a car at this very moment, doped up, being raped by four kids who freaked out at the sight of her bikini. I don’t want you to look for anything specific. Just search.’

  Beate and Ivan nodded to show they had understood.

  ‘A patrol car will be on its way soon. Beate, you meet them and get them to check the neighbours out, talk to people, especially in the supermarket where she was supposed to be going. Then you talk to the people in this part of the building. I’ll just go over to the neighbours sitting on the balcony in the building over the way.’

  ‘Do you think they know anything?’ Beate asked.

  ‘They have a perfect view of this flat and, judging by the number of empty bottles, they’ve been sitting there for a while. According to the husband, Lisbeth has been at home all day. I want to know whether they’ve seen her on the terrace, and if so, when.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ the officer asked, jerking Ivan’s lead.

  ‘Because if a lady in a bikini in this oven of a flat has not been on the terrace, I’ll be damn suspicious.’

  ‘Naturally,’ Beate whispered. ‘Do you suspect the husband?’

  ‘I suspect the husband on principle,’ Harry said.

  ‘Why’s that?’ Ivan said again.

  Beate gave the smile of the initiated.

  ‘It’s always the husband,’ Harry said.

  ‘Hole’s First Law,’ Beate said.

  Ivan looked from Harry to Beate and back again.

  ‘But… wasn’t he the one who reported her missing?’

  ‘Yes, he was,’ Harry said. ‘And still it’s always the husband. That’s why you and Ivan are not starting the search outside on the street, but in here. You’ll have to find an excuse if you have to, but I want the flat and the storage areas in the loft and the cellar checked out first. Afterwards you can continue outside. OK?’

  Officer Ivan shrugged his shoulders and looked down at his namesake, who returned his resigned look.

  The two people on the opposite balcony did not turn out to be two young men, as Harry had assumed when he saw them from Barli’s terrace. Harry was aware that because a mature woman had pictures of Kylie Minogue on the wall, lived with a woman of the same age with a fringe and a T-shirt with Trondheim Eagles printed on it, this did not necessarily mean that she was a lesbian, but he drew this provisional conclusion anyway. He sat back in an armchair with the two women facing him, exactly as he had done with Vibeke Knutsen and Anders Nygard five days earlier.

  ‘Apologies for dragging you in from the balcony,’ Harry said.

  The one who had introduced herself as Ruth put her hand to her mouth to suppress a belch.

  ‘That’s alright. We’ve had enough, haven’t we?’ she said

  She slapped her partner on the knee. In a masculine way, Harry thought, and instantly recalled something Aune, the police psychologist, had said: that stereotypes were self-reinforcing because unconsciously you were looking for things to confirm them. That was why policemen thought – based on so-called experience – that all criminals were stupid, and criminals thought the same about all policemen.

  Harry quickly put them in the picture. They stared at him in surprise.

  ‘This will undoubtedly be resolved quickly, but we are obliged to go through standard police procedures. For the moment we are simply trying to establish a timetable.’

  They nodded with serious expressions on their faces.

  ‘Excellent,’ Harry said, trying out the Hole smile. That, at any rate, was what Ellen used to call the grimace he pulled whenever he tried to appear jolly and good-natured.

  Ruth confirmed that they had spent the whole afternoon on their balcony. They had seen Lisbeth and Wilhelm Barli lying on the terrace until about 4.30 when Lisbeth went inside. Immediately afterwards Wilhelm had got the barbecue going. He had shouted something about potato salad and she had answered from indoors. Then he went in and came out again with the steaks (which Harry corrected to ‘chops’) about 20 minutes later. After a while – they agreed that it was at 5.15 – they saw Barli making a call on his mobile.

  ‘Sound carries over enclosed spaces like this,’ Ruth said. ‘We could hear another phone ringing inside the flat. Barli was obviously annoyed. At least, he slammed his phone down on the table.’

  ‘Apparently he was trying to ring his wife,’ Harry said.

  He noted the immediate exchange of glances and regretted the ‘apparently’.

  ‘How long does it take to buy potato salad at the supermarket round the corner?’

  ‘At Kiwi? I can make it there and back in five minutes if there isn’t a queue.’

  ‘Lisbeth Barli doesn’t sprint,’ the partner said in a low voice.

  ‘So you know her?’

  Ruth and the Trondheim Eagle exchanged looks as if to harmonise their responses.

  ‘No. But we certainly know who she is.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, you must have seen the big spread in Verdens Gang about Wilhelm Barli directing a musical at the National Theatre this summer.’

  ‘That was just a five-liner, Ruth.’

  ‘Certainly was not,’ snapped Ruth. ‘Lisbeth is to play the main role. Big picture and all that. You must have seen it.’

  ‘Mm,’ Harry said. ‘Haven’t got round to… much reading of the papers this summer.’

  ‘There was a big row, wasn’t there. All the cultural elite thought it was scandalous putting on a summer show at the National Theatre. What’s the play called again? My Fat Lady?’

  ‘ Fair Lady,’ the Trondheim Eagle mumbled.

  ‘So you follow the theatre then?’ Harry intervened.

  ‘Bit of this and that. Wilhelm Barli is the type to keep himself busy with all sorts of things. Revues, films, musicals…’

  ‘He’s a producer. And she sings.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sure you can remember Lisbeth from the time before they got married, when she was called Harang.’

  Harry regretfully shook his head and Ruth released a deep sigh.

  ‘At that time she sang with her sister in Spinnin’ Wheel. Lisbeth was a real babe, a bit like Shania Twain. With a real belter of a voice on her.’

  ‘She wasn’t that well known, Ruth.’

  ‘Well, she sang on that programme of Vidar Lonn Arnesen’s. And they sold a stack of records.’

  ‘Cassettes, Ruth.’

  ‘I saw Spinnin’ Wheel at Momarkedet Country Festival. Pretty good stuff, you know. They should have recorded in Nashville and all that, but then she was discovered by Barli. He was going to make a musical star out of her. Certainly taken its time, though.’

  ‘Eight years,’ said the Trondheim Eagle.

  ‘Anyway, Lisbeth Harang stopped singing with Spinnin’ Wheel and married Barli. Money and beauty, ever heard that somewhere before?’

  ‘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 Ullevalsveien. 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 a
t 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 Rodelokka.

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