by Jo Nesbo
Wilhelm shrugged his shoulders.
‘We willingly accept that we can make mistakes, don’t we, Harry? And, yes, I do have a guilty conscience.’
Harry’s eyes had focused and he could see them now, the trail of tears on Wilhelm’s cheeks.
‘Will you promise not to tell anyone, Harry? It was a lapse.’
Harry went over to the chair, hung the solitary stocking over the back of the chair and sat down.
‘Who should I tell, Wilhelm? Your wife?’
The room was suddenly lit up by a flash followed by the crack of thunder.
‘It’ll be right over us soon,’ Wilhelm said.
‘Yes.’ Harry ran his hand across his wet forehead.
‘So what do you want?’
‘I think you know that, Wilhelm.’
‘Say it anyway.’
‘We’ve come to take you away.’
‘Not we. You’re on your own, aren’t you. Completely on your own.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Your eyes. Body language. I can read people, Harry. You sneak in here and you’re dependent on the element of surprise. That’s not how you attack when you hunt in herds, Harry. Why are you on your own? Where are the others? Does anyone know you’re here?’
‘That’s not important. Let’s say I am on my own. You still have to answer for the murder of four people.’
Wilhelm placed a finger to his lips and seemed to be reflecting as Harry rolled off the names:
‘Marius Veland. Camilla Loen. Lisbeth Barli. Barbara Svendsen.’
Wilhelm stared vacantly in the air for a while. Then he slowly nodded and took his finger away from his mouth.
‘How did you find out, Harry?’
‘When I knew why. Jealousy. You wanted to take your revenge on them both, didn’t you. When you found out that Lisbeth had met Sven Sivertsen and they had been together during your honeymoon in Prague.’
Wilhelm closed his eyes and laid back his head. The waterbed gurgled.
‘I didn’t know that photograph of you and Lisbeth was taken in Prague until I saw the same statue in a photo I was e-mailed from Prague earlier today.’
‘And then you knew everything?’
‘Well, when the thought first occurred to me I rejected it as an absurd idea, but then gradually it seemed to make sense. As much sense as insanity can. It made sense that the Courier Killer was not a sexually fixated serial killer, but someone who stage-managed the murders to make them appear to be sexual crimes. To make the whole thing look as if Sven Sivertsen was the killer. The only one person who could stage-manage something like that was a professional, someone whose job and whose passion it was.’
Wilhelm opened one eye.
‘If I understand you correctly, you’re saying that this person planned to kill four people to take revenge on only one person?’
‘Of the five appointed victims only three were randomly chosen. You made the crime scenes look as if they had been determined by a randomly placed devil’s star, but in reality you designed the star from two of the points: your own address and the house belonging to Sven Sivertsen’s mother. Cunning, but simple geometry.’
‘Do you really believe this theory of yours, Harry?’
‘Sven Sivertsen had never heard of any Lisbeth Barli. But do you know what, Wilhelm? He remembered her well enough when I told him what her maiden name was: Lisbeth Harang.’
Wilhelm didn’t answer.
‘The only thing I don’t understand,’ Harry said, ‘is why you waited so many years to take your revenge.’
Wilhelm wriggled up the bed.
‘Let’s assume that I don’t understand what you’re trying to insinuate, Harry. I’m reluctant to make a confession and put both of us in a difficult spot. However, since I’m in the fortunate position of knowing that you cannot prove a thing, I don’t mind chatting for a bit. You know that I approve of people who can listen.’
Harry shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
‘Yes, Harry, it is correct that I knew Lisbeth was having an affair with this man, but I didn’t find out until this summer.’
It began to drizzle again. Raindrops spattered against the window.
‘Did she tell you that?’
Wilhelm shook his head. ‘She would never have done that. She came from a family where things were not talked about. It would never have come out if we hadn’t been doing up the flat. I found a letter.’
‘Yes?’
‘The external wall in her study is just bare brick. It’s the original wall from when the building work was done at the turn of the century. Solid, but it gets absolutely freezing in winter. I wanted to clad it with panelling and insulate it on the inside. Lisbeth objected. I thought that was weird, because she was a practical girl, brought up on a farm, not the type to become sentimental about an old brick wall. So one day, when she was out, I examined the wall. I didn’t find anything until I shoved her desk to one side. I still couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but I poked at each of the bricks. One moved just a little. I pulled, and it came away. She had camouflaged the cracks round it with grey building mortar. Inside I found two letters. The name of Lisbeth Harang was on the envelope and a poste restante address I had no idea she had. My first reaction was to put the letters back unread and convince myself that I had never seen them. But I’m a weak man. I wasn’t capable of it. “ Liebling, you are always in my thoughts. I can still feel your lips against mine, your skin against mine” – that’s how the letter begins.’
The bed made a rippling noise.
‘The words smarted like lashes from a whip, but I kept on reading. It was eerie because every word that was written could have been written by me. When he finished saying how much he loved her, he went on to describe what they had done together in the hotel room in Prague in some detail. It wasn’t the description of their love-making that hurt me most, though. It was when he quoted what she had obviously said about our relationship. That for her it was just “a practical solution to a loveless life”. Can you imagine how something like that feels, Harry? When it turns out that the woman you love has not only deceived you, but she has never loved you. Not to be loved – isn’t that the essential definition of a failed life?’
‘No,’ Harry said.
‘No?’
‘Carry on, if you wouldn’t mind.’
Wilhelm gave Harry a searching look.
‘He’d enclosed a photo of himself. I presume she had begged him to send it. I recognised him. He was the Norwegian we met at a cafe in Perlova, a rather shady area of Prague with prostitutes and what were, to all intents and purposes, brothels. He was sitting in the bar when we came in. I noticed him because he was just like one of those mature, distinguished gentlemen that Boss uses as models. Elegantly dressed and old, actually. But with such young, playful eyes that men need to keep an extra careful eye on their wives. So I was not particularly surprised when the man came over to our table after a little while, introduced himself in Norwegian and asked us if we would like to buy a necklace. I thanked him politely and said no, but when he took it out of his pocket anyway and showed it to Lisbeth, she was swooning of course and said that she loved it. The pendant was a red diamond in the shape of a five-pointed star. I asked him what he wanted for the star and when he gave me a price that was so ridiculously over the top that it could only be interpreted as provocation, I asked him to leave us. He smiled at me as if he’d just won a victory, wrote down the address of another cafe on a slip of paper and said that we could find him there at the same time the following day if we changed our minds. Naturally he gave the piece of paper to Lisbeth. I can remember that I was in a bad mood for the rest of the morning. But then I forgot everything. Lisbeth is clever at making you forget. On occasion she manages…’ Wilhelm ran his finger under his eye, ‘… to do that with her mere presence.’
‘Mm. What was in the other letter?’
‘It was a letter she had written and obviously tried to send
to him. The envelope was stamped with “Return to sender”. She wrote that she’d tried to get in touch with him in all sorts of ways, but no-one answered at the telephone number he’d given her and neither directory enquiries nor the Post Office had been able to trace him. She wrote that she hoped the letter would find him somehow and asked if he’d had to flee from Prague. Perhaps he was still beset by the same economic problems he’d had when he’d borrowed money from her?’
Wilhelm gave a hollow laugh.
‘If so, he should contact her, she wrote. And she would help him again. Because she loved him. She couldn’t think of anything else – the separation was driving her mad. She’d hoped it would pass with time, but instead it had spread like a disease and every centimetre of her body ached. And some centimetres obviously ached more than others because she wrote to him that when she let her husband – me, in other words – make love to her she closed her eyes and pretended it was him. I was shocked, of course. Yes, stunned. But I died when I saw the date stamp on the envelope.’
Wilhelm squeezed his eyes shut hard again.
‘The letter was sent in February. This year.’
A new flash of lightning cast shadows on the wall. The shadows remained there like spectres of light.
‘What do you do?’ Wilhelm asked.
‘Yes, what did you do?’
Wilhelm smiled weakly.
‘My solution was to serve foie gras with white wine. I covered the bed with roses and we made love all night. As she slept through in the early morning I lay watching her. I knew that I could not live without her, but I also knew that to make her mine, first of all I would have to lose her.’
‘And so you planned the whole thing. Stage-managed how you were going to take the life of your wife and at the same time ensure that the man she loved would be blamed.’
Wilhelm shrugged his shoulders.
‘I went to work in the same way that I did with any stage production. Like all men of the theatre, I know that the most important thing is the illusion. The deceit must be presented as so credible that the truth would seem extremely unlikely. That may sound as if it is tricky to achieve, but in my profession you quickly discover that it is generally easier than the alternative. People are much more used to hearing lies than the truth.’
‘Mm. Tell me how you did it.’
‘Why should I risk that?’
‘I can’t use any of what you say in a court of law anyway. I have no witnesses and I entered your flat illegally.’
‘No, but you’re a smart fellow, Harry. I might give something away that you can use in the investigation.’
‘Maybe, but I think you’re willing to take that risk.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you really want to tell me. You’re burning to tell me. To hear yourself say it.’
Wilhelm Barli laughed out loud.
‘So you think you know me, do you, Harry?’
Harry shook his head as he searched for his packet of cigarettes. In vain. He may have lost them when he fell from the roof.
‘I don’t know you, Wilhelm. Or any others like you. I’ve worked with killers for fifteen years and I still know only one thing: that they’re searching for someone to reveal their secrets to. Do you remember what you made me promise in the theatre? To find the killer. Well, I’ve kept my promise. So let’s make a deal. You tell me how you did it and I’ll tell you the proof we’ve got.’
Wilhelm studied Harry’s face. One hand stroked the mattress.
‘You’re right, Harry. I want to tell you. Or to be more precise, I want you to understand. From what I know of you, I think you can take it. You see, I’ve been following your progress ever since this case started.’
Wilhelm laughed when he saw Harry’s face.
‘You didn’t know, did you.
‘It took me longer than I thought it would to find Sven Sivertsen,’ Wilhelm said. ‘I made a copy of the photo Lisbeth was sent and travelled to Prague. I trawled through the cafes and bars in Mustek and Perlova showing the photo and asking if anyone knew a Norwegian called Sven Sivertsen. Nothing. But it was obvious that some of them knew more than they were willing to divulge. So, after a few days I changed my tactics. I began to ask if there was someone who could procure some red diamonds for me. I knew that it was possible to get hold of some in Prague. I took on the identity of a Danish diamond collector by the name of Peter Sandmann and I made it apparent that I was prepared to pay very well for a special diamond that had been cut into the shape of a five-pointed star. I said where I was staying and after two days the telephone in my room rang. I knew it was him as soon as I heard the voice. I disguised my voice and spoke in English. I told him I was in the middle of negotiations for another diamond and asked if I could phone him later that evening. Did he have a number where I could be sure to get hold of him? I could hear how he was trying not to sound keen and thought how easy it would be to meet him in some dark back street that evening. I controlled myself, though, like the hunter who has to control himself when he has the prey in his sights, but must still wait until everything is perfect. Do you understand?’
Harry nodded slowly. ‘I understand.’
‘He gave me his mobile phone number. The next day I returned to Oslo. It took me a week to find out what I needed about Sven Sivertsen. Identifying him was the easiest. There were twenty-nine Sven Sivertsens on the national register, nine of them the right age and only one without fixed residence in Norway. I noted down his last known address, got the telephone number from directory enquiries and rang.
‘An old lady answered the phone. She said that Sven was her son, but that he hadn’t lived at home for many years. I told her that myself and a couple of others from his old school class were trying to get everyone together for an anniversary reunion. She said he lived in Prague, but that he travelled a lot and didn’t have a fixed address or telephone number. On top of which, she said, he wouldn’t be very interested in meeting any of his old classmates. What did I say my name was? I said that I’d only been in his class for six months, so it was doubtful whether he would remember my name. And if he did, it was probably because I’d landed myself in a spot of bother with the police at the time. Was the rumour true that Sven had, too? His mother’s tone became a bit sharp then and she said it was all a long time ago, and it was not so strange that Sven became a bit rebellious, considering the way we treated him. I apologised on behalf of the class, put down the phone and called the Law Courts. I said I was a journalist and asked if they could tell me what sentences Sven Sivertsen had received. An hour later I had a pretty good idea what he was up to in Prague. Smuggling diamonds and weapons. A plan began to take shape in my mind, based on what I now knew: that he made his money through smuggling; the five-pointed diamonds; weapons; his mother’s address. Do you begin to see the links now?’
Harry didn’t answer.
‘When next I rang Sven Sivertsen, three weeks had gone by since my trip to Prague. I spoke Norwegian in my normal voice, went straight to the point and told him that I’d been looking for someone to procure weapons and diamonds for me for a long time and I didn’t want any middle-men involved. I said I thought I had found someone: him, Sven Sivertsen. He asked me how I’d got hold of his name and number and I answered that my discretion could also benefit him. I suggested that we didn’t ask each other any further unnecessary questions. That wasn’t particularly well received and the conversation almost came to a halt there and then. Until I mentioned the sum of money I was willing to pay for the goods, up front and into a Swiss bank account if required. We even had the classic film dialogue where he asked me if I meant kroner and I answered in a somewhat surprised tone that of course we were talking euros. I knew that the sum of money alone would dispel any lingering suspicion that I might be a policeman. You don’t need an almighty sledgehammer to crack a nut like Sivertsen. He said everything could be arranged. I said I’d get back to him presently.
‘So while the rehearsals for My Fair Lady were in
full swing, I put the finishing touches to my plan. Will that do, Harry?’
Harry shook his head. The sound of the shower. How long was she planning to stay in there?
‘I want details.’
‘They’re mostly technical things,’ Wilhelm said. ‘Aren’t they tedious?’
‘Not to me.’
‘Very well. The first thing I had to do was to give Sven Sivertsen a personality. The most important thing you have to do when unveiling a character to an audience is to show what motivates the person, what the character’s innermost wishes and dreams are: in a nutshell, what makes this person tick. I decided that I would present him as a murderer without any rational motive, but with a sexual need for ritual killings. A little commonplace maybe, but the vital ingredient was that all the victims except Sivertsen’s mother had to appear to have been chosen at random. I read up about serial killers and found a couple of amusing details I elected to use. For example, the stuff about mother fixation and Jack the Ripper’s choice of murder locations, which investigators took to be a code. So I went to the City Planning Department where I bought a detailed map of Oslo city centre. When I returned home I drew a line from our own apartment building in Sannergata to the house where Sven Sivertsen’s mother lives. From this one line I then drew a precise pentagram and found the addresses closest to the tips of the other star points. And I admit that it did give me an adrenalin rush when I put the point of the pencil down on the map and I knew that there – right there – lived someone whose fate had just been sealed that very second.
‘For the first few nights I fantasised about who it could be, what they might look like and how their lives had been so far. I soon forgot them though. They weren’t important – they were the scenery, the extras, the non-speaking parts.’
‘Building materials.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Nothing. Go on.’
‘I knew that the blood diamonds and the murder weapons would be traced back to Sven Sivertsen when he’d been arrested. To strengthen the illusion of ritual deaths I threw in a few clues: the severed fingers, five days between each murder, five o’clock and the fifth floor.’