Jo Nesbo - The Devil's star

The very next minute he had forgotten and the premonition was replaced by another feeling when Oleg gave a kick and disappeared from view. Harry stayed with his eyes glued to the vacant TV screen. The vacant TV screen. With the lines he had drawn in the condensation. Now he knew where he had seen it.

‘Oleg!’ He sprinted up the stairs.

By and large, Karl was not that interested in people. Although he had been running the television shop in Carl Berners plass for more than 20 years, he had never been interested enough, for example, to find out a few details about his namesake, who had given his name to the square. Nor was he interested in finding out anything about the tall man standing in front of him with the police ID card, or the boy with wet hair standing beside him. Or the girl the policeman was talking about, the one they had found in the toilet at the solicitors’ place across the street. The only person Karl was interested in right now was the girl on the front of Vi Menn and how old she was, and if she really came from Tonsberg and liked sunbathing in the nude on the balcony of her flat so that men passing by could see her.

‘I was here the day Barbara Svendsen was murdered,’ the policeman said.

‘If you say so,’ Karl said.

‘Can you see the TV by the window? It’s not plugged in,’ the policeman said, pointing with his finger.

‘Philips,’ Karl said, shoving Vi Menn to one side. ‘Nice, isn’t it? Fifty Hertz. Flat screen. Surround sound, teletext and radio. It sells for seven nine, but you can have it for five nine.’

‘Someone’s been drawing in the dust on the screen. Can you see?’

‘OK then,’ Karl sighed. ‘Five six.’

‘I don’t give a shit about the TV,’ the policeman said. ‘I want to know who did it.’

‘Why?’ Karl said. ‘I wasn’t really thinking of reporting it.’

The policeman leaned over the counter. Karl could see by the colour of his face that he didn’t like the answers he was getting.

‘Listen to me carefully. We are trying to find a killer and I have reason to believe that he’s been in here drawing on that TV screen. Is that good enough?’

Karl nodded mutely.

‘Excellent. And now I want you to have a good think.’

The policeman turned as a bell rang behind him. A woman with a metal case appeared in the doorway.

‘The Philips TV,’ the policeman said, pointing.

She nodded without saying a word, crouched down in front of the wall where the TV was and opened her case.

Karl stared at them with his eyes open wide.

‘Well?’ said the policeman.

It had begun to dawn on Karl that this was more important than Liz from Tonsberg.

‘I can’t remember everyone who’s been in here, can I,’ he stammered, meaning he couldn’t remember anyone.

That was just how it was. Faces didn’t mean a thing to him. Even Liz’s face was already forgotten.

‘I don’t need to know about all of them,’ the policeman said. ‘Just this one. Things seem to be a bit quiet here today.’

Resigned, Karl shook his head.

‘What about looking at a few pictures?’ the policeman asked. ‘Would you recognise him?’

‘Dunno. I didn’t recognise you…’

‘Harry…’ the boy said.

‘But did you see anyone drawing on the TV?’

‘Harry…’

Karl had seen someone in the shop that day. It had occurred to him the time the police came in and asked him if he had seen anything suspicious. The problem was that this person had not done anything in particular, apart from stand and stare at TV screens. So what should he have said? That someone whose face he couldn’t remember had been in his shop and behaved suspiciously? And got a whole load of hassle and unwanted attention into the bargain?

‘No,’ Karl said. ‘I didn’t see anyone drawing on the TV.’

The policeman mumbled something or other.

‘Harry…’ The boy caught hold of the policeman’s T-shirt. ‘It’s five o’clock.’

The policeman straightened up and consulted his wristwatch.

‘Beate,’ he said. ‘Can you see anything?’

‘Too early to say,’ she said. ‘There are marks right enough, but he’s dragged his finger along, so it is difficult to find a complete fingerprint.’

‘Call me.’

The bell over the door clanged again, and Karl and the woman with the metal case were alone in the shop.

He picked up Liz from Tonsberg again, but changed his mind. He left her face down and went over to the policewoman. With a tiny brush she was delicately brushing away a kind of powder she had sprinkled over the screen. He could see it now, the drawing in the dust. He had been on an economy drive, with cleaning too, so it was no surprise that the drawing was still there after a few days. The drawing was a surprise though.

‘What’s that supposed to be?’ he asked.

‘Don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’ve only just been told what it’s called.’

‘And that is?’

‘A devil’s star.’

Wednesday. Cathedral Builders.

Harry and Oleg met Rakel on her way out of the Frogner open-air pool. She ran over to Oleg and flung her arms round him while looking daggers at Harry.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she whispered.

Harry stood there with his arms down by his sides, shifting weight from one foot to the other. He knew he could give her an answer. He could have said that what he was ‘doing’ was trying to save lives in the city, but even that would have been a lie. The truth was he was ‘doing’ his own thing and letting everyone around him pay the price. It had always been like that, and it always would be, and if it happened to save lives, then that was a bonus.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said instead. At any rate, that was the truth.

‘We went somewhere where the serial killer’s been,’ Oleg said overjoyed, but stopped in his tracks when he saw his mother’s look of disbelief.

‘Well -’ Harry began.

‘Don’t,’ Rakel interrupted. ‘Don’t even try.’

Harry shrugged, and smiled sadly at Oleg.

‘Let me drive you home anyway.’

He knew what the response would be before it came. He stood and watched them go. Rakel strode ahead briskly. Oleg turned and waved. Harry waved back.

The sun was pumping behind his eyelids.

The canteen was on the top floor of Police HQ. Harry stood inside the door and his eyes swept around the room. Apart from a person sitting with his back to one of the tables, the large area was totally empty. Harry had driven from Frogner Park straight to Police HQ. On his way through the corridors on the sixth floor he established that Tom Waaler’s office was unoccupied, but the light was on.

Harry went to the counter where the steel shutters were down. On the TV suspended in the corner the draw was being made for the lottery. Harry watched the ball roll down the funnel. The volume was down low, but Harry could hear a woman’s voice say ‘Five, the number is five’. Someone had been lucky. A chair scraped by the table.

‘Hi, Harry. The counter’s closed.’

It was Tom.

‘I know,’ Harry said.

Harry thought about what Rakel had asked, about what he was actually doing.

‘Thought I would just have a smoke.’

Harry nodded towards the door to the roof terrace, which in practice functioned as a year-round smoking room.

The view from the roof terrace was wonderful, but the air was just as hot and still as it was down on the street. The afternoon sun angled across the town and came to rest in Bjorvika, an area of Oslo containing a motorway, a deposit for shipping containers and a refuge for junkies, but it was soon to have an opera house, hotels and millionaires’ apartments. Wealth was beginning to take the whole city by storm. It made Harry think of the catfish in the rivers in Africa, the large, black fish that didn’t have the sense to swim into deeper waters when the drought came and in the end were trapped in one of the muddy pools that slowly dried up. All the building works had started; the cranes stood out like the silhouettes of giraffes against the afternoon sun.