Jo Nesbo - The Devil's star

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?