Jo Nesbo - The Devil's star

‘And that means?’

‘If I can put it this way, it is the level that lies above letters and numerals. Above language. The answers that don’t tell you how, but why. Do you understand?’

‘No, but tell me how you do it.’

‘No-one knows. It has something in common with religious visions and is more like a gift.’

‘Let’s assume that I know why. What happens after that?’

‘You can take the long road. Going through all the permutations until you die.’

‘It’s not me who’s going to die. I’ve only got time for the short road.’

‘I only know of one method.’

‘Yes?’

‘A trance.’

‘Of course, a trance.’

‘I’m not kidding. You keep staring at the data until you stop thinking conscious thoughts. It’s like straining a muscle until it gets cramp and starts doing its own thing. Have you ever seen a climber’s leg go into convulsions when he is stuck in the mountains? No, well, it’s like that. In ’88 I got into the accounts of Den Danske Bank in four nights, on a few frozen drops of LSD. If your subconscious cracks the code, you’ll get there. If it doesn’t…’

‘Yes?’

Oystein laughed. ‘It’ll crack you. Psychiatric departments are full of people like me.’

‘Mm. Trance?’

‘Trance. Intuition. And a tiny bit of pharmaceutical help…’

Harry took the black tube and held it up in front of him.

‘Do you know what, Oystein?’

‘What?’

He threw the tube over the table and Oystein caught it.

‘I was lying about “Under My Thumb”.’

Oystein put the tube on the edge of the table as he tied the laces of a pair of unusually battered Puma trainers bought long before the fashion for retro.

‘I know. Do you see anything of Rakel?’

Harry shook his head.

‘That’s what bothers you, isn’t it?’

‘Maybe,’ Harry said. ‘I’ve been offered a job. I don’t know that I can turn it down.’

‘Well, it’s obviously not the job my boss offered you that you’re talking about.’

Harry smiled.

‘Sorry, I’m not the right man to ask about career advice,’ Oystein said and got up. ‘I’ll put the tube here. Do what you like with it.’

Thursday. Pygmalion

The head waiter scrutinised him from top to toe. Thirty years in the job had given him a bit of a nose for trouble and this man stank from a long way off. Not that all trouble was bad. A good scandal from time to time was, in fact, what customers at the Viennese Theatre Cafe had come to expect. It had to be the right kind of trouble, though, such as when young, aspiring artists sang from the gallery in the Theatre Cafe that they were the next big thing or when a drunken ex-romantic lead from the National Theatre loudly proclaimed that the only positive remark he could make about the famous financier on the neighbouring table was that he was a homosexual, and therefore unlikely to reproduce himself. The person standing in front of the head waiter, however, did not seem as if he had anything witty or original to say; his appearance suggested more the tedious kind of trouble: unpaid bill, pissed and a scuffle. The external indications – black jeans, red nose and skinhead – had made him think he was one of the drunken stage hands who belonged in the cellar at Burns. But when the man asked to speak to Wilhelm Barli he knew he had to be one of the sewer rats from the journalists’ pub Tostrupkjelleren, which was under the aptly named openair restaurant the Loo Lid. He had no respect for the vultures who had gorged so uninhibitedly on what remained of poor Barli after his charming wife had so tragically disappeared.

‘Are you sure that the gentleman in question is here?’ the head waiter asked, looking in the reservations book even though he knew perfectly well that Barli had turned up at 10.00 on the dot, as always, and sat down at his usual table on the glass veranda facing Stortingsgata. The unusual thing – which gave the head waiter some cause for concern about Barli’s mental state – was that the jovial producer had made a mistake with the day and come on a Thursday instead of on his regular day, Wednesday.

‘Forget it. I can see him,’ the man in front of him said. And he was gone.

Harry had recognised Wilhelm Barli by his mane of hair, but as he drew closer he began to wonder if he was mistaken.

‘Herr Barli?’

‘Harry!’

Wilhelm’s eyes lit up, but died just as quickly. His cheeks were sunken and the healthy, suntanned skin of just a few days before was now covered with a layer of white, lifeless powder. Wilhelm Barli seemed to have shrunk; even his broad shoulders appeared to be narrower.

‘Herring?’ Wilhelm pointed to the table in front of him. ‘Oslo’s best. I eat them every Wednesday. Good for the heart, they say. But that presupposes that you have one, and the people who come to this cafe…’ Wilhelm spread out his arm to present the almost deserted room.

‘No, thanks,’ Harry said, taking a seat.

‘Have a piece of bread, anyway.’ Wilhelm held out the bread basket. ‘This is the only place in Norway where you can get genuine fennel bread with whole fennel seeds. Perfect for herring.’

‘Just coffee, thank you.’

Wilhelm signalled to the waiter.

‘How did you find me here?’

‘I went to the theatre.’

‘Oh? They were told to say I was out of town. The journalists…’

Wilhelm imitated a stranglehold. Harry was not sure if that was supposed to demonstrate Wilhelm’s own situation or what he would like to do to the journalists.

‘I showed them police ID and said it was important,’ Harry said.

‘Good. Good.’

Wilhelm’s attention was focused somewhere in front of Harry when the waiter arrived with a second cup and poured coffee from the pot already on the table. The waiter withdrew, and Harry cleared his throat. Wilhelm gave a start, and his attention returned.

‘If you’ve come with bad news I want it straightaway, Harry.’

Harry shook his head while drinking his coffee.

Wilhelm closed his eyes and mumbled something inaudible.

‘How’s the play going?’ Harry asked.

Wilhelm smiled weakly.

‘A woman rang from the culture desk at Dagbladet yesterday and asked exactly the same question. I explained how the artistic side of things was going, but then it turned out that what she really wanted to know was if all the publicity surrounding Lisbeth’s mysterious disappearance and her sister’s jumping into the breech was good for ticket sales.’

He rolled his eyes.

‘Well,’ said Harry, ‘is it?’

‘Are you crazy, man?’

Wilhelm’s voice boomed forebodingly.

‘It’s summer. People want to have fun, not mourn for some woman they don’t even know. We have lost our main attraction: Lisbeth Barli, the undiscovered singing star from C amp;W land. Losing her just before opening night is not good for business!’

A couple of heads deeper into the room turned, but Wilhelm continued in the same loud voice.

‘We’ve sold almost no tickets. Well, apart from for the opening night – for that the tickets went like hot cakes. People are so bloodthirsty, they can smell a scandal. Basically, Harry, we are entirely dependent on rave reviews to pull this one off. But right now…’

Wilhelm banged a fist on the white tablecloth and the coffee jumped in the air.

‘… I can’t think of anything less important than bloody business!’

Wilhelm stared at Harry. All the signs were that the outburst would continue when, without any prior indication, an invisible hand wiped the fury from his expression. He was dazed for a moment, as if he didn’t know where he was. Then his face fell apart and he quickly hid it in his hands. Harry saw the head waiter send them a strange, hope-filled look.