The Devil's star hh-5

by Jo Nesbo

  ‘Didn’t you hear what I said, Harry? They check all incoming e-mails and calls. What do you think will happen if we get an e-mail or a fax from Prague right now? I can’t do it, Harry. And I’ll have to find a plausible explanation for why you phoned me and I’m not as quick-thinking as you. My God, what will I say to them?’

  ‘Relax, Beate. You don’t need to say anything. I haven’t rung you.’

  ‘What are you saying? You’ve rung me three times in all.’

  ‘Yes, but they don’t know that. I’m using a mobile I exchanged with a pal.’

  ‘So, you anticipated all this?’

  ‘No, not this. I did it because mobile phones send signals to phone masts that pinpoint which part of the town the phone is in. If Waaler has got people working on the mobile phone network trying to trace me with the help of my mobile they’ll have something to sharpen their wits on because it is more or less in constant motion all over Oslo.’

  ‘I want to know as little about this as possible, Harry. But don’t send me anything here. OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Harry.’

  ‘You’ve given me your right arm, Beate. You don’t need to apologise for holding on to your left.’

  He knocked at the door. Five short knocks at room number 303. He hoped it was loud enough to be heard over the music. He waited. He was going to knock once more when he heard the music being turned down and the padding of bare feet on the floor. The door opened. She looked as if she had been asleep.

  ‘Yes?’

  He flashed his ID card which, strictly speaking, was false since he was no longer a police officer.

  ‘Apologies again for what happened on Saturday,’ Harry said. ‘Hope you weren’t too frightened when they burst in.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ she said with a grimace. ‘I suppose you were only doing your job.’

  ‘Yes.’ Harry rocked on his heels while casting quick glances up and down the corridor. ‘A colleague from Forensics and I are checking Marius Veland’s room for clues. We have to send off a document right this minute but my laptop has gone on strike. It’s pretty important. I remembered that you were surfing the Net on Saturday and so I wondered…’

  She gestured that any further explanation was superfluous and switched on the computer.

  ‘The computer’s on. I suppose I ought to apologise for the mess or something like that. Hope you don’t mind if I don’t give a damn.’

  He sat down in front of the screen, got the e-mail program up, pulled out a slip of paper and banged Eva Marvanova’s address in with the greasy keys. The message was brief. Ready. This address. Send.

  He swung round on the chair and watched the girl, who was sitting on the sofa, pulling on a tight pair of jeans. He hadn’t even noticed that she was only wearing a pair of knickers, presumably because of the baggy T-shirt with a picture of a hemp leaf on.

  ‘On your own today?’ he asked, mostly to say something while waiting for Eva. He could tell by the expression on her face that it was not a particularly successful attempt at conversation.

  ‘I only screw at weekends,’ she said, sniffing a sock before she put it on. And she beamed with pleasure when it was apparent that Harry had no intention of following up her comment. It was apparent to Harry that she could have done with a trip to the dentist.

  ‘You’ve got an e-mail,’ she said.

  He turned round to the screen. It was from Eva. No text, just an attachment. He double-clicked on it. The screen went black.

  ‘He’s old and sluggish,’ the girl said with an even broader grin. ‘He’ll get it up eventually. You’ll just have to wait a bit.’

  In front of Harry the picture had begun to appear on the screen, first as a blue glaze, and then, when there was no more sky, a grey wall and a black and green monument. Then the square. And the tables. Sven Sivertsen. And a man in a leather jacket with his back to the camera. Dark hair. Powerful neck. It was no good as evidence, of course, but Harry was in no doubt at all that it was Tom Waaler. Nevertheless, that was not what made him sit and stare at the picture.

  ‘Er, you, I have to go to the loo,’ the girl said. Harry had no idea how long he had been sitting there. ‘And the bloody sound carries, so I get very embarrassed, don’t I? So if you could…’

  Harry stood up, mumbled his thanks and left.

  On the stairs between the third and the fourth floor he stopped.

  The picture.

  It couldn’t be chance. It was theoretically impossible.

  Or was it?

  Anyway, it couldn’t be true. No-one did that kind of thing.

  No-one.

  37

  Monday. Confession.

  The two men standing opposite each other in the church of the Holy Apostolic Princess Olga were the same height. The warm, clammy air smelled of sweet smoke and acrid tobacco. The sun had shone on Oslo every day now for almost five weeks, and the sweat was running in streams down Nikolai Loeb’s thick woollen tunic as he was reading the prayer to take confession:

  ‘Lo, you have come to the place of healing. The invisible spirit of Jesus Christ is here and will receive your confession.’

  He had tried to find a lighter, more modern tunic in Welhavens gate, but they didn’t have any for Russian Orthodox priests, they said. The prayer over, he placed the book beside the cross on the table between them. The man standing in front of him would soon clear his throat. They always cleared their throats before confessing, as if their sins were encapsulated in mucus and saliva. Nikolai had a vague sensation that he had seen the man before, but he could not remember where. And the name meant nothing to him. The man had seemed a little taken aback when he realised that the confession would be face to face and that he would even have to give his name. To tell the truth, Nikolai had had a feeling that the man had not given his real name, either. He may have come from a different congregation. Occasionally they came here with their secrets because this was a small anonymous church where they didn’t know anyone. Nikolai had often pardoned the sins of members of the established Church of Norway. If they asked for it, they got it; the mercy of the Lord was infinite.

  The man cleared his throat. Nikolai closed his eyes and promised himself that he would cleanse his body with a bath and his ears with Tchaikovsky as soon as he arrived home.

  ‘It is said that lust – exactly like water – will find the lowest level, Father. If there is an opening, a crack or a flaw in your character, lust will find it.’

  ‘We are all sinners, my son. Have you any sins to confess?’

  ‘Yes. I have been unfaithful to the woman I love. I have been together with a wanton woman. Even though I do not love her, I have not been able to resist going back to her.’

  Nikolai suppressed a yawn. ‘Continue.’

  ‘I… she became an obsession.’

  ‘Became, you say. Does that mean that you have stopped meeting her?’

  ‘They died.’

  It was not just what he said; there was also something in his voice that startled Nikolai.

  ‘They?’

  ‘She was pregnant. I believe.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear of your loss, my son. Does your wife know this?’

  ‘No-one knows anything.’

  ‘What did she die of?’

  ‘A bullet through the head, Father.’

  The sweat on Nikolai Loeb’s skin suddenly went ice cold. He swallowed.

  ‘Are there any other sins you would like to confess, my son.’

  ‘Yes. There is a person. A policeman. I have seen the woman I love go to him. I have thoughts about…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sinning. That is all, Father. Can you read the prayer of absolution now?’

  A silence fell over the church.

  ‘I…’ Nikolai began.

  ‘I have to go now, Father. Would you be so kind?’

  Nikolai closed his eyes again. Then he began to read and did not open his eyes until he came to ‘I absolve you of you
r sins in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost’.

  He crossed himself over the man’s bowed head.

  ‘Thank you,’ the man whispered. He turned and scurried out of the church.

  Nikolai did not move from the spot and listened to the echo of the words still hanging between the walls. He thought he could remember where he had seen him now. In Gamle Aker assembly house. He had brought a new Star of Bethlehem to replace the ruined one.

  As a priest Nikolai was bound by his oath of secrecy and he had no intention of breaking it as a result of what he had heard. Yet there was something about the man’s voice, the way he had said he had thoughts about… about what?

  Nikolai gazed out of the window. Where were the clouds? It was so sultry now that something had to happen soon. Rain. First of all though, thunder and lightning.

  He closed the door, knelt in front of the small altar and prayed. He prayed with an intensity that he had not felt for many years. For guidance and strength. And for forgiveness.

  At 2.00 Bjorn Holm stood in the doorway to Beate’s office and told her they had something she should have a look at.

  She got up and followed him into the photo lab, where he pointed to a photograph that was still hanging on a piece of cord to dry.

  ‘That’s from last Monday,’ Bjorn said. ‘Taken at about half past five, so roughly half an hour after Barbara Svendsen was shot in Carl Berners plass. You can easily cycle to Frogner Park in that time.’

  The picture showed a girl smiling in front of the Fountain. Beside her you could see part of a sculpture. Beate knew which one it was. One of the ‘tree groups’, the carving of a girl diving. She had always stood in front of the sculpture when she and her mother and father had driven to Oslo to go for a Sunday walk in Frogner Park. Her father had explained that Gustav Vigeland had intended the diving girl to symbolise the young girl’s fear of adult life and becoming a mother.

  However, today it was not the girl Beate was looking at. It was the back of a man on the margin of the picture. He was standing in front of a green litter bin. In his hand he was holding a brown polythene bag. He was wearing a tight yellow top and black cycling pants. On his head he wore a black helmet, sunglasses and there was a cloth over his mouth.

  ‘The courier,’ Beate whispered.

  ‘Maybe,’ Bjorn Holm said. ‘Unfortunately, he is still masked.’

  ‘Maybe.’ It sounded like an echo. Beate stretched out her hand without taking her eyes off the photo. ‘The magnifying glass.’

  Holm found it on the table between the bags of chemical reagents and passed it to her.

  She squeezed one eye shut as she moved the magnifying glass across the photograph.

  Bjorn Holm watched his boss. Of course he had heard the stories about Beate Lonn when she was working on bank robbery cases. About how she had sat for days on end in the ‘House of Pain’ – the hermetically sealed video room – playing the videos of the robbery, frame by frame, while she checked every detail of build, body language, contours of faces behind the masks. In the end she discovered the identity of the bank robber because she had seen him in another recording, from some post office robbery 15 years before, when she had still been pre-pubescent, a recording that had been stored on the hard disk containing a million faces and every bank robbery committed in Norway since video surveillance began. Some people had maintained it was down to Beate’s unusual fusiform gyrus – the part of the brain that recognises faces – and that it must have been a talent she was born with. That was why Bjorn Holm didn’t look at the photo, just at Beate Lonn’s eyes scrutinising the picture in front of her, examining it in minute detail in a way that would be impossible to learn.

  That was how he noticed that it was not the face of the man she was studying through the magnifying glass.

  ‘The knee,’ she said. ‘Can you see it?’

  Bjorn went closer.

  ‘What about it?’ he said.

  ‘On the left knee. Looks like a plaster.’

  ‘You mean we should keep an eye open for people with plasters on their left knee?’

  ‘Very funny, Holm. Before we can find out who it is in the photo we have to find out if he could be the Courier Killer.’

  ‘And how do we do that?’

  ‘We visit the only man we know of who has seen the Courier Killer close up. Make a copy of the photo while I fetch the car.’

  Sven Sivertsen stared at Harry, thunderstruck. Harry had just explained his theory to him, his impossible theory.

  ‘I really had no idea,’ Sivertsen whispered. ‘I never saw any of the pictures of the victims in the papers. They mentioned names when they questioned me, but none of them meant a thing.’

  ‘For the moment it’s simply a theory,’ Harry said. ‘We don’t know it’s the Courier Killer. We need concrete proof.’

  Sivertsen smiled and said, ‘You’d better convince me first that you’ve got enough to get me off the hook already. Then I’ll agree to our giving ourselves up and you can have the use of my evidence to incriminate Waaler.’

  Harry shrugged.

  ‘I can ring the head of my section, Bjarne Moller, and ask him to come in a patrol car and get us out of here safely.’

  Sivertsen shook his head firmly.

  ‘There have got to be others involved in this, in higher positions in the police force than Waaler. I don’t trust anyone. You’ll have to find the proof first.’

  Harry opened and closed his fist. ‘We have an alternative. One that would protect both of us.’

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘Go to the papers and tell them what we know. About the Courier Killer and Waaler. Then it would be too late for anyone to do anything.’

  Sivertsen wore a sceptical expression.

  ‘Time’s running out for us,’ Harry said. ‘He’s getting closer. Can’t you feel it?’

  Sivertsen rubbed his wrist.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Do it.’

  Harry shoved his hand in his back pocket and pulled out a crumpled business card. He hesitated for a second. Possibly because he anticipated the consequences of what he was about to do. Or perhaps because he didn’t anticipate them. He tapped in the work number. The reply came surprisingly quickly.

  ‘Roger Gjendem.’

  Harry could hear the hum of voices, the clatter of computer keyboards and telephones ringing in the background.

  ‘This is Harry Hole. I want you to listen very carefully, Gjendem. I have some information about the Courier Killer. And arms smuggling. One of my colleagues in the police is involved. Do you understand?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘Good. The story’s yours exclusively so long as you publish it on Aftenposten ’s web pages as quickly as possible.’

  ‘Of course. Where are you ringing from, Inspector Hole?’

  Gjendem sounded less surprised than Harry had expected.

  ‘It’s not important where I am. I have information which proves Sven Sivertsen cannot be the Courier Killer and that a leading policeman is involved in a network of arms smuggling that has been operating in Norway for several years.’

  ‘That’s fantastic. But I’m sure you’re aware that I cannot write that on the basis of one telephone conversation.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘No serious newspaper would print an allegation about a named police inspector smuggling arms without checking that the sources are reliable. I don’t doubt for a minute that you’re the person you say you are, but how do I know that you aren’t drunk or crazy or both? If I don’t check this out properly, the paper can be sued. Let’s meet, shall we, Inspector Hole. Then I’ll write everything you tell me. I promise.’

  In the pause that followed Harry could hear someone laughing in the background. A carefree ripple of laughter.

  ‘Don’t even think about ringing other papers – they’ll give you the same answer. Trust me, Inspector.’

  Harry took a deep breath.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘At
Underwater in Dalsbergstien. At five o’clock. Come on your own or I won’t turn up. And not a single word about this to a living soul, understood?’

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘See you.’

  Harry pressed the ‘off’ button and chewed his bottom lip.

  ‘I hope that was wise,’ said Sven.

  Bjorn Holm and Beate turned off busy Bygdoy alle and one moment later they found themselves in a silent road with misshapen detached timber houses on one side and fashionable brick apartment buildings on the other. The kerbsides came complete with rows of German makes of car.

  ‘Nobsville,’ Bjorn said.

  They pulled up outside a doll’s-house-yellow building.

  A voice answered the intercom after the second buzz.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Andre Clausen?’

  ‘I believe so, yes.’

  ‘Beate Lonn, police. May we come in?’

  Andre Clausen was waiting for them in the doorway, dressed in a thigh-length dressing gown. He was scratching at the scab of a cut on his cheek as he made a half-hearted attempt at suppressing a yawn.

  ‘Apologies,’ he said. ‘I got home late last night.’

  ‘From Switzerland perhaps?’

  ‘No, I’ve just been up in the mountains. Come in.’

  Clausen’s sitting room was a little on the small side for the collection of objets d’art he had, and Bjorn Holm was quick to establish that Clausen’s taste tended more towards Liberace than minimalism. Water trickled through a fountain in the corner where a naked goddess stretched up towards the Sistine paintings on the vaulted ceiling.

  ‘I’d like you to concentrate first and think about the time you saw the Courier Killer in the reception area at the solicitors’ office,’ Beate said. ‘And then look at this.’

  Clausen took hold of the picture and studied it while running a finger across the cut on his cheek. Bjorn Holm examined the sitting-room area. He heard a shuffling noise behind a door and the sound of paws scratching against the other side.

  ‘Maybe,’ Clausen said.

  ‘Maybe?’ Beate was perched on the edge of the chair.

  ‘Very possible. The clothes are the same. The cycling helmet and the sunglasses too.’