Jo Nesbo - The Devil's star

She stared at him. Her mouth moved.

‘What are you doing?’

Harry’s heart stopped beating, partly because the echo of the words still hung in the room so that he knew it could not have been a dream, and partly because the voice did not belong to a woman, but mostly because there was someone standing in front of the bed, leaning over him.

His heart began to race again and he flung himself round in an attempt to grope for the torch that was still switched on. It fell on the floor with a soft thud and rolled around in a circle as the beam of light and the shadow of the figure ran across the walls.

Then the ceiling lights came on.

Harry was blinded and his first reflex action was to hold up his arms in front of his face. A second came and went. Nothing happened. No shots, no blows. Harry lowered his arms.

He recognised the man standing in front of him.

‘What on earth are you up to?’ the man asked.

He was wearing a pink dressing gown, but otherwise did not look as if he had just got up. The side parting in his hair was immaculate.

It was Anders Nygard.

‘I was woken up by the noise,’ Nygard said, pushing a cup of filter coffee in front of Harry. ‘My first thought was that someone had realised that it was vacant upstairs and had broken in. So I went up to check.’

‘Understandable,’ said Harry. ‘Though I thought I had locked the door after me.’

‘I’ve got the caretaker’s key. Just in case.’

Harry heard the shuffle of feet and turned round.

Vibeke Knutsen, wearing a dressing gown, appeared in the doorway with a sleepy face and red hair sticking out in all directions. Without makeup and in the harsh light of the kitchen she looked older than the version Harry had seen before. She gave a start when she discovered he was there.

‘What’s going on?’ she mumbled, her eyes darting between Harry and her partner.

‘I was checking a few things out in Camilla’s flat,’ Harry quickly interposed when he saw her forebodings. ‘I was sitting on the bed and resting my eyes for a couple of seconds and then I nodded off. Nygard, here, heard noises and woke me up. It’s been a long day.’

Without being absolutely sure why, Harry yawned demonstratively.

Vibeke peered at her partner.

‘What are you wearing?’

Anders Nygard looked at the pink dressing gown as if he had only just realised he was wearing it.

‘Wow, I must look like a regular drag queen.’

He sniggered.

‘It’s a present I bought you, love. It was still in my suitcase and it was all I could find in my haste. Here you are.’

He loosened the belt, tore the gown off and threw it to Vibeke. She was taken aback but caught it.

‘Thank you,’ she said, bewildered.

‘It’s a surprise to see you up, by the way,’ he purred. ‘Didn’t you take your sleeping pill?’

Vibeke cast an embarrassed glance over to Harry.

‘Goodnight,’ she mumbled and left.

Anders went to the coffee machine and put back the jug of coffee. His back and upper arms were pale, almost white, but his lower arms were brown, exactly the way lorry drivers’ arms are in the summer. The same sharp division was apparent on his knees.

‘Normally she sleeps like a log all night,’ he said.

‘But you don’t?’

‘How’s that?’

‘Well, since you know that she sleeps like a log.’

‘That’s what she says.’

‘And so someone only has to walk across the floor above you and you’re awake?’

Anders looked at Harry. He nodded.

‘You’re right, Inspector. I don’t sleep. It’s not so easy after all that has happened. You lie awake thinking and come up with all sorts of possible theories.’

Harry took a sip of his coffee. ‘Any you want to share with the rest of us?’

Anders shrugged his shoulders.

‘I don’t know that much about mass murderers. If that’s what it really is.’

‘It’s not. It’s a serial killer. Big difference.’

‘Right, but haven’t you noticed that the victims have something in common?’

‘They’re young women. Anything else?’

‘They’re promiscuous, or they were.’

‘Oh?’

‘You can read about it in the papers. What you read about these women’s pasts speaks for itself.’

‘Lisbeth Barli was a married woman and, as far as I know, faithful.’

‘After she was married, yes, but before that she was in a band travelling all over the country playing at dances. You’re not so naive, are you, Inspector?’

‘Mm. What do you conclude from this similarity then?’

‘This kind of murderer who acts as an arbiter over life and death has elevated himself into the position of God. And, in our Bible, in Hebrews, chapter 13, verse 4, it says that God will judge whosoever commits fornication.’

Harry nodded and raised his wrist to check the time.

‘I’ll make a note of that.’

Nygard fidgeted with his cup.

‘Did you find what you were looking for?’

‘You could say that. I found a pentagram. I suppose that since you deal with the interiors of churches you’ll know what that is.’

‘You mean a five-pointed star?’

‘Yes, drawn with one continuous line. Do you have any idea what a sign like that might symbolise?’

Harry’s head was bent over the table, but he was furtively studying Nygard’s face.

‘Quite a lot,’ Nygard said. ‘Five is the most important figure in black magic. Did it have one or two points sticking upwards?’

‘One.’

‘So it’s not the sign of evil then. The sign you’re describing might symbolise both vitality and passion. Where did you find it?’

‘On a beam above her bed.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Nygard said. ‘That’s a simple one then.’

‘Oh?’

‘It’s what we call a mare cross, or a devil’s star.’

‘A mare cross?’

‘A pagan symbol. They used to carve it over beds or doorways to keep away the mare.’

‘The mare?’

‘The mare, yes. As in nightmare. A female demon who sits on the chest of a sleeping person and rides him so that he has bad dreams. The pagans thought she was a spirit. Not that strange since “mare” is derived from the Indo-Germanic “mer”.’

‘Have to confess that my Indo-Germanic is not up to much.’

‘It means “death”.’ Nygard stared down into his cup of coffee. ‘Or to be more precise, “murder”.’

There was a message on Harry’s answerphone when he arrived home. It was from Rakel. She wondered if Harry could possibly stay with Oleg in the swimming pool in Frogner the following day as she had an appointment at the dentist’s from three till five. Oleg had asked, she said.

Harry sat and played the recording over and over again to see if he could hear any breathing, like the call he had received a few days previously, but without any success.

He undressed and got into bed naked. The night before he had taken the duvet out of the cover and slept with only the cover over him. He kicked it around for a while, slept, got his foot caught in the opening, panicked and woke up to the splitting sound of the cotton material. The darkness outside had already taken on a grey hue. He threw what remained of the duvet cover onto the floor and lay facing the wall.

And then she came. She sat astride him. She pushed the bridle into his mouth and pulled. His head spun round. She leaned down over him and blew her hot breath into his ear. A fire-breathing dragon. A wordless message, a hiss, on the telephone answerphone. She whipped his flanks, his haunches, and the pain was sweet, and soon, she said, she would be the only woman he would be able to love, so he may as well learn that from the outset.

She didn’t let go until the sun shone over the highest roof tiles.