by Jo Nesbo
‘Tchort,’ Nikolai said, gently pressing down three keys. Dissonance. ‘Also called Satan.’
In the afternoon Olaug Sivertsen opened the French doors to the balcony facing Bjorvika, sat down on a chair and watched the red train glide past her house. It was quite an ordinary house, a detached redbrick building dating back to 1891; what was so extraordinary was its location. Villa Valle – named after the man who designed it – stood on its own beside the railway track just outside Oslo Central Station, inside railway domain. The nearest neighbours were some low sheds and workshops belonging to Norwegian Railways. Villa Valle was built to accommodate the station master, his family and servants and was designed with extra thick walls so that the station master and his wife would not be awakened every time a train passed. In addition, the station master had asked the builder – who had got the job because it was well known that he used a special mortar to make the walls extra solid – to strengthen it even further. In the event that a train came off the rails and hit the house, the station master wanted the train driver to take the brunt of the collision and not him and his family. So far no train had crashed into the elegant station master’s house that stood in such strange isolation, like a castle in the air above a wilderness of black gravel in which the rails gleamed and wriggled like snakes in the sun.
Olaug closed her eyes and basked in the warmth of the sun.
As a young woman she hadn’t liked the heat. Her skin went red and itched and she had longed for the cool, damp summers of northwest Norway. Now she was old – almost 80 – she preferred the hot to cold, light to darkness, company to solitude, sound to silence.
It hadn’t been like that when, in 1941 and at 16 years of age, she had left Averoya and gone to Oslo on those same rails and begun work as a maidservant for Gruppenfuhrer Ernst Schwabe and his wife Randi in Villa Valle. He was a tall, good-looking man, and she came from an aristocratic family. Olaug was terrified in the first few days. However, they treated her well and showed her respect, and soon Olaug realised that she had nothing to fear so long as she did her job with the thoroughness and punctuality that Germans are, not unjustifiably, famous for.
Ernst Schwabe was responsible for the WLTA, the Wehrmacht’s Landtransportabteilung, their transport division, and he himself chose the house by the railway station. His wife, Randi, probably also worked in the WLTA, but Olaug never saw her in uniform. Olaug’s room faced south, overlooking the garden and the tracks. During the first weeks the clattering of the long trains, the shrill whistles and all the other noises of a town kept her awake at night, but gradually she became used to it. When she went home on her first holiday the year after, she lay in bed in the house she had grown up in, listening to the silence and the nothingness and longed for the sounds of life and living people.
Living people, there had been many of them in Villa Valle during the war. The Schwabes were very active socially, and both Germans and Norwegians were present at social engagements. If only people knew which heads of Norwegian society had been here, eating, drinking and smoking with the Wehrmacht as their hosts. One of the first things she was told to do after the war was to burn the seating cards she had been hoarding. She did what she was told and never said a word to anyone. Of course, she had felt an occasional urge to disobey when photographs of the selfsame persons appeared in the press, which went on about living under the yoke of the German occupation. However, she kept her mouth shut for one reason only: when peace came, they threatened to take away her young son and he was all she had ever had or valued in the world. The fear was still well entrenched within her.
Olaug screwed up her eyes in the weak sun. It was flagging now, not so unremarkable since it had been shining all day and had done its best to kill her flowers in the window boxes. Olaug smiled. My goodness, she had been so young, no-one had ever been so young. Did she yearn to be young again? Maybe not, but she yearned for company, life, people milling around. She had never understood what they meant when they said that old people were lonely, but now…
It was not so much being alone as not being there for someone. She had become so deeply sad from waking up in the morning knowing that she could stay in bed all day and it would not make any difference to anybody.
That was why she had taken in a lodger, a cheerful young girl from Trondelag.
It was odd to think that Ina, who was only a few years older than she had been when she moved to Oslo, was now staying in the same room as she had. She probably lay awake at night thinking about how she longed to be far from the din of town life, back in the silence of somewhere small in North Trondelag.
Olaug may have been wrong, though. Ina had a gentleman friend. She hadn’t seen him, let alone met him, but from her bedroom she had heard his footsteps up the back staircase, the entrance to Ina’s room. It was not possible to forbid Ina from receiving men in her room, unlike when Olaug had been a maid, not that she wanted to, anyway. Her only hope was that no-one would come and take Ina away. She had become a close friend, even like a daughter, the daughter she had never had.
However, Olaug was aware that in a relationship between an old lady and a young girl such as Ina it would always be the young girl who offered friendship and the old lady who received it. Consequently, she took care not to be obtrusive. Ina was always friendly, but Olaug thought that may have had something to do with the low rent.
It had become a sort of fixed ritual: Olaug made some tea and knocked on Ina’s door carrying a tray of biscuits at around 7.00 in the evening. Olaug preferred them to be there. It was strange, but this room was still the room where she felt most at home. They chatted about everything under the sun. Ina was especially interested in the war and what had gone on in Villa Valle. And Olaug told her. About how much Ernst and Randi had loved each other, about how they would sit for hours in the living room just talking and tenderly touching, brushing away a lock of hair, resting a head on a shoulder. Olaug told her how sometimes she secretly observed them from behind the kitchen door. She described Ernst Schwabe’s erect figure, his thick black hair and his high, open forehead, how the expression of his eyes could alternate between joking and seriousness, anger and laughter, self-assurance in the larger things of life and boyish confusion in smaller, trivial things. Mostly, though, she watched Randi Schwabe with her shiny red hair, her slim white neck and bright eyes with a pale blue iris surrounded by a circle of dark blue. They were the most beautiful eyes Olaug had ever seen.
Seeing them like this, Olaug thought the two were made for each other, that they were soulmates and nothing would ever be able to tear them apart. Yet, she told Ina, the happy atmosphere at parties in Villa Ville could disintegrate into furious rows as soon as the guests had gone home.
It was following one such row, after Olaug had gone to bed, that Ernst Schwabe knocked on her door and entered her bedroom. Without switching on the light, he sat down on the edge of her bed and told her that his wife had left the house in a rage and had gone to a hotel for the night. Olaug could smell from his breath that he had been drinking, but she was young and didn’t know what you do when a man 20 years her senior, a man she respected, admired and was even a little in love with, asked her to take off her nightdress so that he could see her naked.
He didn’t touch her the first night, he just looked at her, caressed her cheek, told her she was beautiful, more beautiful than she would ever be able to understand, and then he got up. As he was leaving he appeared to be on the verge of tears.
Olaug stood up and closed the balcony doors. It was almost 7.00. She took a peek at the door at the top of the back steps and saw a pair of smart men’s shoes on the doormat outside Ina’s door. So she had a visitor. Olaug sat down on the bed and listened.
At 8.00 the door opened. She could hear someone putting on their shoes and going down the steps, but there was another sound, a scuffling, scratching sound, like a dog’s paws. She went into the kitchen and put on some hot water for tea.
When she knocked on Ina’s door a few minutes
later, she was surprised to find that Ina didn’t answer, especially since she could hear the sound of soft music coming from her room.
She knocked again, but still there was no answer.
‘Ina?’
Olaug pushed the door and it swung open. The first thing she noticed was how stuffy the air was. The window was closed and the curtains were drawn so it was almost completely black inside.
‘Ina?’
No-one answered. Perhaps she was asleep. Olaug went in and had a look behind the door where the bed was. Empty. Strange. Her old eyes were used to the darkness now, and she spotted Ina. She was sitting in the rocking chair by the window and it did look as if she was sleeping. Her eyes were closed and her head hung to the side. Olaug still couldn’t make out where the low hum of music was coming from.
She went over to the chair.
‘Ina?’
Her lodger didn’t react now, either. Olaug held the tray with one hand and gently placed her other hand against the young girl’s cheek.
There was a soft thud as the teapot met the carpet. Followed immediately by two teacups, a silver sugar bowl with the German imperial eagle on, a plate and six Maryland cookies.
At the same moment that Olaug’s – or, to be more precise, the Schwabe family’s – teacups hit the floor, Stale Aune raised his cup – or, to be more precise, Oslo Police Department’s.
Bjarne Moller studied the plump psychologist’s distended little finger and wondered to himself how much was playacting and how much was just a distended little finger.
Moller had called a meeting in his office and in addition to Aune he had asked those leading the investigation – Tom Waaler, Harry Hole and Beate Lonn – to attend.
They all looked jaded, largely perhaps because the hope that had sprung into life with the discovery of the bogus courier was beginning to fade.
Tom Waaler had just gone through the results of the appeal for information they had put out over TV and radio. Twenty-four calls they had received, 13 of which were from their regulars who always rang in whether they had seen something or not. Of the other eleven calls, seven turned out to be genuine couriers on genuine jobs. Four callers told them what they already knew: that there had been a courier near Carl Berners plass on Monday at around 5 p.m. What was new was that he had been seen cycling down Trondheimsveien. The only interesting call came from a taxi driver who had seen a cyclist wearing a helmet, glasses, and a yellow and black shirt outside the Art and Technical School on his way up Ullevalsveien at around the time when Camilla Loen was killed. None of the courier services had taken on jobs anywhere near the Ullevalsveien area at that time of day. Then someone from Forstemann Courier Services had called in to say that he had nipped up Ullevalsveien on his way to the terrace restaurant in St Hanshaugen for a beer.
‘In other words, our inquiries have led nowhere.’ Moller said.
‘Still early days,’ Waaler said.
Moller nodded, but his expression indicated that he was not encouraged. Apart from Aune, everyone in the room knew that the first responses were the important ones. People forget quickly.
‘What do they say in the understaffed Institute of Forensic Medicine?’ Moller asked. ‘Have they found anything that can help identify our man?’
‘’Fraid not,’ Waaler said. ‘They’ve put the other autopsies to one side and prioritised ours, but so far nothing. No semen, no blood, no hair, nothing. The only physical clue the murderer has left is bullet holes.’
‘Interesting,’ Aune said.
Somewhat dejectedly, Moller asked what was so interesting.
‘It’s interesting because it suggests that he didn’t attack the victims sexually,’ Aune said. ‘And that’s very unusual for serial killers.’
‘Perhaps this is not about sex,’ Moller said.
Aune shook his head. ‘It’s always sexually motivated. Always.’
‘Perhaps he’s like Peter Sellers in Being There,’ Harry said. ‘“I like to watch.”’
The others stared at him in total incomprehension.
‘I mean, perhaps he doesn’t have to touch them to get sexual satisfaction.’
Harry avoided Waaler’s gaze.
‘Perhaps the killing and the sight of the body are enough.’
‘That could be right,’ Aune said. ‘What usually happens is that the murderer wants an orgasmic release, but he may have ejaculated without leaving his seed at the scene of the crime. Or he might have had enough self-control to wait until he was in safety.’
It went quiet for a few seconds. Harry knew they were all thinking the same as he was. What had the killer done with the woman who had disappeared, Lisbeth Barli?
‘What about the weapons we found at the crime scene?’
‘We’ve checked them,’ Beate said. ‘The tests show that they are ninety-nine point nine per cent certain to be the murder weapons.’
‘That’s good enough,’ Moller said. ‘Any idea where the weapons came from?’
Beate shook her head. ‘As before, the serial numbers have been filed off. The marks are the same as those we see on most of the weapons we confiscate.’
‘Hm,’ Moller said. ‘So, the great gun-running fraternity myth again. Surely the security service guys, POT, will get their hands on them soon, won’t they?’
‘Interpol has been working on the case for more than four years without anything to show for their efforts,’ Waaler said.
Harry rocked back on his chair and stole a furtive glance at Waaler. While doing that, to his consternation, he felt something he had never felt for Waaler before: admiration. The same kind of admiration you feel for beasts of prey that have perfected what they do to survive.
Moller sighed. ‘I know. We’re three-nil down and our opponent still hasn’t given us a sight of the ball. Does no-one have any bright ideas?’
‘I’m not exactly sure if it’s an idea…’
‘Come on, Harry.’
‘It’s more like a gut feeling about the crime scenes. They’ve all got something in common, but I can’t put my finger on what it is yet. The first shooting was in an attic flat in Ullevalsveien. The second about a kilometre north-west, in Sannergata. And the third about the same distance again from there, this time towards the east, in an office block by Carl Berners plass. He moves, but I have the feeling that there is a logic behind it.’
‘How’s that?’ Beate asked.
‘His territory,’ Harry said. ‘The psychologist can probably explain.’
Moller turned to Aune, who was just taking a gulp of tea.
‘Any comment, Aune?’
Aune grimaced. ‘Well, it’s not exactly Earl Grey.’
‘I didn’t mean the tea.’
Aune sighed.
‘It was a joke, Moller. I know what you’re getting at though, Harry. The killer has strong preferences with respect to the geographical location of the crime. Here, in rough terms, we can distinguish between three types.’
Aune counted on his fingers:
‘There is the stationary killer who entices or forces victims into his home and kills them. There is the territorial killer who operates in a restricted area, like Jack the Ripper who only killed in the red-light district, but their territory could easily be a whole town. Finally, there is the nomadic killer who is probably the one with most killings on his conscience. Ottis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas went from state to state in the US and killed more than three hundred people between them.’
‘Right,’ Moller said. ‘Though I can’t quite see the logic you were talking about, Harry.’
Harry shrugged his shoulders.
‘As I was saying, boss, just a gut feeling.’
‘There is one thing they’ve got in common,’ Beate said.
As if operated by remote control, the others turned to face her. Her cheeks immediately flushed and she seemed to regret saying anything. However, she ignored it and went on:
‘He intrudes where women feel at their most secure. Into their home. Into a stre
et in broad daylight. Into the Ladies at work.’
‘Well done, Beate,’ Harry said, and received a quick flash of gratitude.
‘Well observed, young lady,’ Aune chimed in. ‘Since we’re talking about patterns of movement, I’d like to add one more thing. Killers of the sociopath variety are often very self-assured, just as it seems to be in this case. A characteristic feature of theirs is that they follow the investigation closely and tend to take every opportunity to be physically close to whatever is going on. They may interpret the investigation as a game between themselves and the police. Many have expressed pleasure at seeing the police in confusion.’
‘Which means that somewhere out there someone is sitting and lapping it up right now,’ Moller said, clapping his hands together. ‘That’s all for today.’
‘Just one more little thing,’ Harry said. ‘The diamonds that the murderer has placed on the victims…’
‘Yes?’
‘They’ve got five points. Almost like a pentagram.’
‘Almost? As far as I know, it’s exactly like a pentagram.’
‘A pentagram is drawn with one unbroken line which intersects itself.’
‘Aha!’ Aune exclaimed. ‘That pentagram. Drawn using the golden section. Very interesting shape. By the way, did you know that there is a theory that in Viking times the Celts were going to convert Norway to Christianity, so they drew a holy pentagram which they placed over southern Norway and used it to determine the location of towns and churches?’
‘What’s that got to do with diamonds?’ Beate asked.
‘It’s not the diamonds,’ Harry said. ‘It’s the shape, the pentagram. I know I’ve seen it somewhere, at one of the crime scenes, I just can’t remember which and where. This may sound like rubbish, but I think it’s important.’
‘So,’ Moller said, supporting his chin on his hands. ‘You can remember something you can’t quite remember, but you think it’s important?’