Jo Nesbo - The Devil's star

When the water finally ran cold, Harry stuck his face under the tap. He let the water run down his cheek, into his ear, down over his neck, inside his shirt, along his shoulder and down his arm. He drank greedily. He refused to listen to the enemy deep inside him. Then he ran into the cubicle and threw up again.

Outside, the evening had drawn in quickly and Carl Berners plass lay deserted as Harry walked out of the building, lit a cigarette and raised a hand in defence to one of the newspaper vultures approaching him. The man stopped. Harry recognised him. Gjendem, wasn’t that his name? He had chatted to him after the case in Sydney. Gjendem was no worse than the others, maybe even a little better.

The television shop was still open. Harry went in. There was no-one about except for a fat man in a filthy flannel shirt sitting behind the counter reading a newspaper. On the counter an electric fan was blowing around his carefully placed strands of hair intended to conceal his baldness, and radiating his sweaty odour all over the shop. He sniffed when Harry showed him his ID and asked whether he had seen anyone suspicious inside or outside the shop.

‘They’re all suspicious here,’ he said. ‘This area is going to the dogs.’

‘Anyone who looked like they might kill someone?’ Harry asked drily.

The man squeezed one eye shut. ‘Is that why there are so many police cars round here?’

Harry nodded.

The man shrugged his shoulders and began to read the paper again.

‘Who hasn’t thought about killing someone at one time or another, Constable?’

On his way out Harry stopped when he saw his own car on one of the television screens. The camera swept across Carl Berners plass and stopped when it met the redbrick building. Then the picture went back to TV2 news and the next moment it was a fashion show. Harry sucked hard at his cigarette and closed his eyes. Rakel was coming towards him on a catwalk, no, twelve catwalks. She walked through the wall with the television sets on and stood in front of him with her hands on her hips. She fixed him with a look, tossed her head back, turned round and left him. Harry opened his eyes again.

It was 8.00. He tried not to remember that there was a bar close by, in Trondheimsveien. They had a licence to serve spirits.

The hardest part of the evening lay before him.

Then there was the night.

It was 10.00, and even though the mercury had mercifully dropped by two degrees, the air was still hot and static, waiting for an offshore breeze or an onshore breeze, or any kind of breeze. Forensics was deserted except for Beate’s office where a light still burned. The murder in Carl Berners plass had turned the whole day upside down and Beate was still at the crime scene when her colleague Bjorn Holm had rung to say there was a woman in reception from De Beers who had come to examine some diamonds.

Beate had returned in a hurry and now she was concentrating on the short, energetic woman in front of her who spoke the perfect kind of English you would expect from a Dutch person settled in London.

‘Diamonds have geological fingerprints which, theoretically, makes it possible for us to trace them right back to the owner as certificates, which go everywhere with the diamond, are issued showing their origin. Not in this case though, I’m afraid.’

‘Why not?’ Beate asked.

‘Because the two diamonds I have seen are what we call blood diamonds.’

‘Because of the red colour?’

‘No, because they most probably come from the Kiuvu mines in Sierra Leone. All the diamond dealers in the world boycott diamonds from Sierra Leone because the diamond mines are controlled by rebel forces who export diamonds to finance a war that is not about politics, but about money. Hence the name, blood diamonds. I believe these diamonds are new, and I suppose they have been smuggled out of Sierra Leone to another country where false certificates have been issued claiming they come from well-known mines in, say, South Africa.’

‘Any idea which country they were smuggled into?’

‘Most of them end up in ex-communist countries. When the Iron Curtain came down, the expertise acquired making false ID papers had to find a new outlet. And authentic-looking diamond certificates cost a pretty penny. That’s not the only reason, however, that I would go for Eastern Europe.’

‘Oh?’

‘I have seen these star-shaped diamonds before. They were smuggled in from the former GDR and Czechoslovakia. Like these ones, they were ground into diamonds of mediocre quality.’

‘Mediocre quality?’

‘Red diamonds may look attractive, but they’re cheaper than the white ones, the clear diamonds. The stones you’ve found also have substantial remains of uncrys-tallised carbon in them which makes them less clear than one would like. If you have to grind away so much of the diamond to produce the star shape, then you prefer not to use diamonds that are perfect from the very start.’

‘So, East Germany and Czechoslovakia.’ Beate closed her eyes.

‘Just an educated guess. If there’s nothing else, I can still make the evening flight back to London…’

Beate opened her eyes and got up.

‘Please forgive me. It’s been a long, hectic day. You’ve been a great help. Thank you very much for coming.’

‘Not at all. I only hope that it can help you catch the person who did this.’

‘So do we. I’ll call you a taxi.’

While Beate waited for Oslo Taxis to answer she noticed that the diamond expert was looking at her right hand holding the telephone. Beate smiled.

‘That’s a very attractive diamond you’ve got there. Looks like an engagement ring.’

Beate blushed without quite knowing why.

‘I’m not engaged. It’s the engagement ring my father gave my mother. I inherited it when she died.’

‘Right. That explains why you are wearing it on your right hand.’

‘Eh?’

‘Yes, you would usually wear it on your left hand. Or on the middle finger of your left hand, to be precise.’

‘The middle finger? I thought your ring finger was next to your little finger.’

‘Not if you have the same beliefs as the Egyptians.’

‘And what did they believe?’

‘They thought that the vein of love, vena amoris, went directly from the heart to the middle finger on the left hand.’

After the taxi had arrived and the woman had left, Beate stood for a moment looking at her hand, at the middle finger on her left hand.

Then she rang Harry.

‘The gun was Czech, too,’ Harry said when she finished.

‘Perhaps there’s something in it,’ Beate said.

‘Perhaps,’ Harry said. ‘What was the vein called again?’

‘ Vena amoris?’

‘ Vena amoris,’ Harry mumbled. Then he put down the receiver.

Monday. Dialogue.

You’re sleeping. I place my hand against your face. Have you missed me? I kiss your stomach. I go down lower and you begin to stir. Waves. A dance of elfins. You’re silent. You pretend to sleep. You can wake up now, darling. You have been found.

Harry sat bolt upright in bed. It took a few seconds before he realised that it was his own scream that had woken him. He stared out into the semi-darkness and studied the shadows by the curtains and the wardrobe.

He laid his head back on the pillow. What had he been dreaming about? He’d been in a dark room. Two people were moving towards each other in a bed. Their faces were hidden. He switched on his torch and was shining it at them when he was woken by his own scream.

Harry looked at the digits on the clock on his bedside table. It was still two and a half hours away from 7.00. You can dream your way to hell and back in that time. He had to sleep though. Had to. He took a deep breath as if he were going to dive under water, and closed his eyes.