Jo Nesbo - The Devil's star

‘Now you’re just painting a devil on the wall, Inspector Hole, aren’t you.’ Skarre looked round at the others. ‘We don’t know yet whether there is a motive behind these killings or not.’

Tom Waaler cleared his throat.

Moller saw the muscles in Harry’s jaw tighten.

‘He’s right,’ Waaler said.

‘Of course I’m right,’ Skarre said. ‘It’s obvious that -’

‘Shut up, Skarre, Inspector Hole’s right. We’ve worked on these two cases for ten and fifteen days respectively without finding one single thing that might be a connection between these murder victims. And when the only connection between the victims is the way they were dispatched, the rituals and things that look like coded messages, then we begin to think about a word that I suggest we don’t say out loud yet, but all of us have at the back of our minds. I also suggest that Skarre and the other new boys from college keep their mouths shut from now on and open their ears when Inspector Hole speaks.’

The room went quiet.

Moller saw Harry staring at Waaler.

‘To sum up,’ Moller said, ‘we’re trying to keep two thoughts in our minds at the same time. On the one hand, we are working systematically as if these were two run-of-the-mill killings. On the other hand, we are painting a big, fat, nasty devil on the wall. No-one else speaks to the press except me. The next meeting is at five. Now get cracking.’

The man in the spotlight was elegantly dressed in tweeds, holding a Sherlock Holmes pipe and rocking on his heels as he looked upon the woman in rags in front of him with a sympathetic expression.

‘How much do you propose to pay me for the lessons?’

The woman in rags threw back her head and put her hands on her hips.

‘Oh, I know what’s right. A lady friend of mine gets French lessons for eighteen pence an hour from a real French gentleman. Well, you wouldn’t have the face to ask me the same for teaching me my own language as you would for French; so I won’t give more than a shilling. Take it or leave it.’

Wilhelm Barli sat in the twelfth row and let his tears flow freely. He could feel them running down his neck and in under his silk Thai shirt, over his chest; he felt the salt make his nipples smart before the tears continued down over his stomach.

They would not stop.

He held a hand in front of his mouth so that his sobs would not distract the actors or the stage director in the fifth row.

He gave a start when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned round and saw a tall man towering over him. A premonition rooted him to his chair.

‘Yes?’ he whispered in a strangulated voice.

‘It’s me,’ the man whispered. ‘Harry Hole. Police.’

Wilhelm Barli took his hand away from his mouth and studied Harry’s face in detail.

‘Of course it is,’ he said with relief in his voice. ‘Sorry, Inspector. It’s so dark. I thought…’

The policeman sat down in the seat beside Wilhelm.

‘You thought what?’

‘You’re dressed in black.’

Wilhelm blew his nose in a handkerchief.

‘I thought you were a priest. A priest coming… with bad news. Stupid, isn’t it?’

The policeman didn’t answer.

‘You caught me at a rather emotional moment, Inspector. We have the first dress rehearsal today. Look at her.’

‘Who?’

‘Eliza Doolittle. Up there. When I saw her on the stage, I thought for a moment it was Lisbeth and that

I had only been dreaming she was gone.’

Wilhelm was taking deep breaths and trembling.

‘But then she began to speak, and my Lisbeth disappeared.’

Wilhelm discovered that the policeman was staring at the stage in amazement.

‘A striking resemblance, isn’t it? That’s why I brought her in. It was supposed to be Lisbeth’s musical.’

‘Is it…?’ Harry started to say.

‘Yes, that’s her sister.’

‘Toya? I mean Toy-A.’

‘We’ve managed to keep it secret so far. The press conference is later today.’

‘Right. That ought to create a bit of publicity.’

Toya swung herself round and cursed loudly when she stumbled. Her partner raised his arms in desperation and his eyes sought the director.

Wilhelm sighed.

‘Publicity isn’t everything. As you can see, there is quite a lot of work to do. She has a sort of raw talent, but appearing on the stage of the National Theatre is rather different to singing cowboy songs at the community centre in a small town in central Norway. It took me two years to teach Lisbeth how to behave on stage, but with her up there we’ll have to do it in two weeks.’

‘If I’m disturbing you, I can run through this very quickly, herr Barli.’

‘Run through it quickly?’

Wilhelm tried to read the expression on Harry’s face in the dark. Fear had him in its grip again, and when Harry opened his mouth, instinct took over and Wilhelm interrupted.

‘You’re not disturbing at all, Inspector. I’m just the producer. You know, someone who gets things moving. The others take over now.’

He waved his hand towards the stage where the man dressed in tweeds was loudly proclaiming at that moment:

‘I shall make a duchess of this draggletailed guttersnipe!’

‘Director, stage designer, actors,’ Barli said. ‘As from tomorrow I’ll be a mere onlooker watching this…’ He continued to wave his hand in the air until he found the word. ‘… comedy.’

‘Well, we all have to discover our own talents.’

Wilhelm gave a hollow laugh, but stopped when he saw the silhouette of the director’s head turn suddenly towards them. He leaned over to the policeman and whispered: ‘You’re right. I was a dancer for 20 years. A very bad dancer if you have to know, but there’s always a desperate shortage of male dancers in opera so they take almost anyone who can half dance. Anyway, we’re pensioned off when we reach 40 and then I had to find something new. It was then that I realised that my real talent lay in getting others to dance. Stage management, Inspector. That’s the only thing I can do. But do you know what? We become pathetic at the merest hint of success. Because things happen to go our way on a couple of productions we believe we are gods who can control all the variables and that we are the architects of our fortunes in all areas. And then something like this happens, and we discover how helpless we are. I…’

Wilhelm suddenly broke off.

‘I’m boring you, aren’t I?’

The other man shook his head and cleared his throat.

‘It’s about your wife.’

Wilhelm screwed up his eyes as if waiting to hear an unpleasant, loud noise.

‘We received a package. Containing a severed finger. I’m afraid it belonged to her.’

Wilhelm swallowed hard. He had always seen himself as a man of love, but now he could feel it growing again. The lump under his heart that had been there ever since that day. The tumour that was driving him to the edge of insanity. He sensed that it had a colour, he sensed that hatred was yellow.

‘Do you know what, Inspector? It’s almost a relief. I’ve known it all the time. That he would harm her.’

‘Harm?’

Wilhelm detected a note of anxious surprise in the other man’s voice.

‘Can you promise me something, Harry? Is it OK if I call you Harry?’

The policeman nodded.

‘Find him. Find him, Harry. And punish him. Punish him severely. Will you promise me?’

Wilhelm thought he saw the other man nod, but he wasn’t sure. His tears distorted everything.

Then the man was gone. Wilhelm took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the stage again.

‘No! I’ll call the police, I will,’ Toya shouted.

Harry sat in his office staring at the desk top. He was so tired he didn’t know if he was capable of doing any more.