Jo Nesbo - The Devil's star

‘Thanks,’ Harry said as they walked down Schweigaards gate past the sheds and the low factory buildings. They stood in sharp contrast to the detached house with the garden which was like a green oasis amid the black gravel.

Beate smiled without a blush.

‘Thought we should avoid the mental equivalent of a fractured thigh bone. We are allowed to beat around the bush a little, present things in a somewhat gentler way, as it were.’

‘Yes, I have heard that said.’

He lit a cigarette.

‘I’ve never been much good at talking to people. I’m better at listening. And perhaps…’

He broke off.

‘What?’ Beate asked.

‘Perhaps I’ve become a little insensitive. Perhaps I don’t care so much any more. Perhaps it’s time I… did something else. Are you OK to drive?’

He threw the keys over the car roof.

She caught them and looked down at them with a concerned frown.

At 8.00 the four detectives heading the investigation, plus Aune, were sitting together in the conference room again.

Harry reported back on the meeting in Ville Valle and said that Olaug Sivertsen had taken the news calmly. She was obviously frightened, but far from panic-stricken at the thought that she might be on a serial killer’s death list.

‘Beate suggested that she might move in with her son for a while,’ Harry said. ‘I think that would be a good idea -’

Waaler shook his head.

‘No?’ Harry said, surprised.

‘The killer may be keeping a lookout for future murder scenes. If unusual things begin to happen, we may scare him away.’

‘You mean that we should use an innocent old lady as… as… as…’ Beate tried to hide her anger, but managed to stutter out, with a red face, ‘bait?’

Waaler held Beate’s stare. And for once she held his. In the end the silence became so oppressive that Moller opened his mouth to say something, anything, any random selection of words, but Waaler beat him to it.

‘I just want to be sure that we catch the guy so that we can all sleep soundly at night. And as I understand it, it isn’t the old dear’s turn until next week.’

Moller laughed a loud, strained laugh. And it became even louder when he noticed that the tense atmosphere had not been smoothed over.

‘Anyway,’ Harry said. ‘She stays put. The son lives too far away, abroad somewhere.’

‘Good,’ Waaler said. ‘As for the students’ building, it’s pretty empty now because of the holiday, but all of the occupants we’ve talked to have been told in no uncertain terms that they have to stay in their rooms tomorrow. Other than that, they’ve been given minimal information. We told them all this was to do with a burglar we were trying to catch red-handed. We’re going to put in the surveillance equipment tonight while the killer’s asleep, we hope.’

‘And the Special Forces?’

Waaler smiled. ‘They’re happy.’

Harry gazed out of the window. He tried to remember what it was like to be happy.

Moller concluded the meeting and Harry noticed that the patches of sweat forming on both sides of Aune’s shirt were shaped like Somalia.

The three of them sat down again.

Moller produced four Carlsbergs from the kitchen fridge.

Aune nodded, with a happy expression on his face. Harry shook his head.

‘But why?’ Moller asked as he opened the bottles of beer. ‘Why is he voluntarily giving us the key to the code and thus to his next moves?’

‘He’s trying to tell us how we can catch him,’ Harry said, pushing up the window.

In flooded the sounds of city life on a summer’s night: the desperate life cycle of the mayfly, music from a cruising cabriolet, exaggerated laughter, high heels clicking frenetically against tarmac. People enjoying themselves.

Moller stared at Harry in disbelief and cast Aune a glance in the hope that he would receive confirmation that Harry had lost his senses.

The psychologist placed his fingertips together in front of his floppy bow tie.

‘Harry may be right,’ he said. ‘It’s not unusual for a serial killer to court and assist the police because he wants, deep down, to be stopped. There’s a psychologist called Sam Vaknin who maintains that serial killers want to be caught and punished to satisfy their sadistic superego. I incline more to the theory that they need help to stop the monster in them. I put their desire to be caught down to a degree of objective understanding of their illness.’

‘Do they know they’re insane?’

Aune nodded.

‘It must be hell,’ Moller said softly, raising his bottle of beer.

Moller went off to return a call to a journalist on Aftenposten who wanted to know whether the police supported the Children’s Council’s appeal for children to be kept indoors.

Harry and Aune stayed where they were, listening to the distant sounds of a party, the indistinct shouting and the Strokes, broken by a call to prayer which for some reason or other suddenly reverberated metallically and probably blasphemously, yet in a strangely beautiful way, from the same open window.

‘Just out of curiosity,’ Aune said, ‘what triggered it off? How did you know it was five?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I know a little about creative processes. What happened?’

Harry smiled.

‘You tell me. Anyway, the last thing I saw before I went to sleep this morning was the clock on the bedside table showing three fives. Three women. Five.’

‘The brain is a wondrous instrument,’ Aune said.

‘I suppose so,’ Harry said. ‘According to a code-savvy friend of mine we have to find the answer to the question “why” before the code is fully cracked. And the answer is not five.’

‘So, why?’

Harry yawned and stretched.

‘“Why” is your field, Stale. I’ll just be happy if we catch him.’

Aune smiled, looked at his watch, then got up.

‘You’re a very strange person, Harry.’

He put on his tweed jacket.

‘I know you’ve been drinking a bit recently, but you look a little better. Are you over the worst this time?’

Harry shook his head.

‘I’m just sober.’

As Harry walked home the sky arced over him in all its splendour.

A woman wearing sunglasses stood on the pavement below the neon sign over Niazi, the little grocery in the block next to where Harry lived. She had one hand on her hip; in her other hand she was holding one of Niazi’s anonymous white plastic bags. She smiled and pretended that she had been standing there waiting for him.

It was Vibeke Knutsen.

Harry knew that she was play-acting. It was a joke she wanted him to join in, so he slowed down and sent her the same smile in return. To show that he had been waiting to see her there. The odd thing was that he had been. He just hadn’t realised it until that moment.

‘Haven’t seen you at Underwater recently, precious,’ she said, lifting her sunglasses and peering out as if the sun still hung low over the rooftops.

‘I’ve been trying to keep my head above water,’ Harry said, taking out a packet of cigarettes.

‘Ooh, a play on words,’ she said, stretching.

She wasn’t wearing anything exotic this evening – a blue summer dress with a plunging neckline. She filled it well and she knew it. He passed her the packet, and she took a cigarette, which she managed to place between her lips in a way that Harry could only characterise as indecent.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked. ‘I thought you usually shopped at Kiwi?’

‘Closed. It’s almost midnight, Harry. I had to come down your way to find somewhere still open.’

Her smile spread and her eyes narrowed, like those of a playful cat.

‘This is a dodgy area for a little girl on a Friday night,’ Harry said, lighting her cigarette. ‘You could’ve sent your man out if you needed a bit of shopping…’