Jo Nesbo - The Devil's star

‘Something happened once when he went to Berlin. I don’t know quite what. He’s never liked talking about what he does, Sven hasn’t. Always so secretive. But I think he might have been visiting his father. And I think it made him feel better about himself. Ernst Schwabe was a dashing man.’

Olaug sighed.

‘But I may be wrong. Anyway, Sven changed.’

‘Oh, how?’

‘He became calmer. Before, he was always chasing things.’

‘Such as what?’

‘Everything. Money. Excitement. Women. He’s like his father, you know. An incurable romantic and ladies’ man. He likes young women, Sven does. And they like him. But I suspect he’s found someone special. He said on the phone that he’s got some news for me. He sounded excited.’

‘He didn’t say what it was?’

‘He wanted to wait until he got here, he said.’

‘Got here?’

‘Yes, he’s coming this evening. He has a meeting first. He’s staying in Oslo until tomorrow, then he’s going back.’

‘To Berlin?’

‘No, no. It’s a long time since Sven lived there. Now he lives in the Czech Republic. Bohemia, he usually calls it, the show-off.’

‘In… er… Bohemia?’

‘Prague.’

Marius Veland stared out of the window of room 406. A girl was lying on a towel on the lawn in front of the student building. She was not unlike the one in 303 whom he had secretly christened Shirley, after Shirley Manson from Garbage. But it wasn’t her. The sun over Oslo fjord had hidden itself behind the clouds. At last the weather had begun to warm up – a heatwave was forecast for the week. Summer in Oslo. Marius Veland was looking forward to it. The alternative had been to go home to Bofjord, the midnight sun and a summer job at the petrol station. To Mother’s meatballs and Father’s endless questions about why he had begun to study Media Studies in Oslo when he had the grades to train to become a civil engineer at NTNU in Trondheim. To Saturdays at the community centre with drunken locals, screaming classmates who had never left their own neighbourhood and thought that those who had were traitors; to the dance band that called itself a ‘blues band’, but always managed to mangle Creedence Clearwater Revival and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

That was not the only reason for him to be in Oslo this summer, though. He had landed the dream job. He was going to listen to records, watch movies and get paid for typing up his opinions on a PC. Over the past two years he had sent his reviews to several of the established papers, without success, but last month he went to So What! where a friend had introduced him to Runar. Runar had told him that he had wound up the clothes business he was running to start Zone , a free paper whose first issue would come out in August, if everything went to plan. The friend had mentioned that Marius liked writing reviews; Runar had said that he liked his shirt and employed him there and then. As a reviewer, Marius’s brief was to reflect ‘new urban values by dealing with popular culture with an irony that was warm, well informed and inclusive’. Such was Runar’s formulation of Marius’s assignment, and for it Marius would be richly rewarded, not in cash, but in free tickets to concerts, films, new bars and access to a milieu where he could make interesting contacts with a view to his future. This was his chance and he needed to be properly prepared. Of course, he had a good general background in pop, but he had borrowed CDs from Runar’s collection to do some further swotting up on the history of popular music. In recent days it had been American rock in the ’80s: R.E.M., Green On Red, Dream Syndicate, Pixies. Right now Violent Femmes was on the CD player. It sounded dated, but energetic.

The girl below got up from her towel. It was probably a little cool. Marius followed her with his eyes towards the neighbouring block. On her way she passed someone walking with a bike. From his clothing he looked like a courier. Marius closed his eyes. He was going to write.

Otto Tangen rubbed his eyes with nicotine-stained fingers. A sense of unease had spread through the bus, though it may have seemed to the outside world like calm. No-one stirred and no-one uttered a word. It was 5.20 and there had not been so much as a movement on one of the screens, just tiny fragments of time spurting by in white digits in the corner. Another drop of sweat rolled down between Otto’s buttocks. Sitting like this you began to have paranoid thoughts, you imagined that someone had been tampering with the equipment and that you were sitting watching a recording from the previous day or something of that kind.

He was drumming his fingers on the table beside the console. That bastard Waaler had banned smoking in the bus.

Otto leaned to the right and squeezed out a silent fart while looking at the guy with the blond shaven skull. He had been sitting in a chair without saying a word ever since he arrived. Looked like a retired bouncer.

‘Doesn’t seem our man’s turning up for work today,’ Otto said. ‘Perhaps he thought it was too hot. Perhaps he postponed it till tomorrow and went for a beer in Aker Brygge instead. They said in the weather report that -’

‘Shut up, Tangen.’

Waaler spoke in a low voice, but it was loud enough.

Otto gave a deep sigh and flexed his shoulders.

The clock in the corner of the screen said 5.21.

‘Has anyone seen the guy in 303 leave?’

It was Waaler’s voice. Otto discovered that Waaler was looking at him.

‘I was asleep this morning,’ he said.

‘I want room 303 checked. Falkeid?’

The head of Special Forces cleared his throat.

‘I don’t consider the risk -’

‘Now, Falkeid.’

The fans cooling the electronics buzzed as Falkeid and Waaler exchanged looks.

Falkeid cleared his throat again.

‘Alpha to Charlie Two. Come in. Over.’

Atmospheric noise.

‘Charlie Two.’

‘Clear 303 right away.’

‘Received. Clearing 303.’

Otto studied the screen. Nothing. Imagine if…

There they were.

Three men. Black uniforms, black balaclavas, black machine guns, black boots. It all happened quickly, but it seemed strangely undramatic. It was the sound. There was no sound.

They didn’t use the smart little explosives to open the door, but an old-fashioned crowbar. Otto was disappointed. Must be the cutbacks.

The soundless men on the screen positioned themselves as if they were starting a race, one with the bar hooked under the lock, the other two one metre behind with their weapons raised. Suddenly they went into action. It was one coordinated movement, a crisp dance routine. The door flew open. The two men standing at the ready stormed in and the third man literally dived after them. Otto was already looking forward to showing the recording to Nils. The door glided back half-way where it stopped. Great shame they hadn’t had the time to put cameras in the rooms.

Eight seconds.

Falkeid’s radio crackled.

‘303 cleared. One girl and one boy, both unarmed.’

‘And alive?’

‘Extremely… er, alive.’

‘Have you searched the boy?’

‘He’s naked, Alpha.’

‘Get him out,’ Waaler said. ‘Fuck!’

Otto stared at the doorway. They’ve been doing it. Naked. They’ve been doing it all night and all day. He stared at the doorway, transfixed.

‘Get him dressed and take him back to your position, Charlie Two.’

Falkeid put the walkie-talkie down, looked at the others and gently shook his head.

Waaler banged the flat of his hand down hard against the arm of the chair.

‘The bus is free tomorrow, too,’ Otto said, casting a fleeting glance at the inspector.

He would have to tread warily now.

‘I don’t charge any more for Sundays, but I have to know when -’