Jo Nesbo - The Devil's star

‘It’s not him,’ the doorman said.

The bus went quiet.

Waaler leaned forward in his chair.

‘What’s that, Harry?’

‘It’s not him, 205 is one of the rooms we didn’t have any luck with. According to the room list I have here, his name is Odd Einar Lillebostad. It’s difficult to see what the guy on the floor is holding in his hand, but it looks to me as though it could be a key. Sorry, guys, but my guess is that Odd Einar Lillebostad has just returned home.’

Otto stared at the picture. He had equipment worth over a million kroner in the bus, bought and borrowed equipment that could focus on the hand and magnify it easy as wink to see if that bastard doorman was right. But he didn’t need to. The branch in the apple tree was cracking. He could see the light in the windows from the garden. The tin can crackled.

‘Bravo Two to Alpha. According to his bank card, this guy’s name is Odd Einar Lillebostad.’

Otto slumped back in his chair.

‘Relax, folks,’ Waaler said. ‘He may still come. Isn’t that right, Harry?’

That bastard Harry didn’t answer. Instead his mobile phone bleeped.

Marius Veland stared at the two blank pieces of paper he had taken out of the envelope.

‘Who are your next of kin?’ the man asked.

Marius gulped and wanted to answer, but his voice would not obey.

‘I’m not going to kill you,’ the man said. ‘So long as you do what I say.’

‘Mum and Dad,’ Marius whispered. It sounded like a pathetic SOS.

The man told him to write his parents’ names and address on the envelope. Marius put pen to paper. The names. The familiar names. And Bjoford. He stared at the writing afterwards. So crooked and shaky.

The man began to dictate a letter. Marius moved his hand compliantly across the page.

‘Hi! Sudden change of plans! I’m off to Morocco with Georg, a Moroccan boy I’ve met here. We’re going to stay with his mother and father in a little mountain village called Hassane. I’ll be away for four weeks. Probably difficult to get a signal, but I’ll try to write, though Georg says the post is a bit iffy. Anyway, I’ll get in touch as soon as I’m back, love…’

‘Marius,’ said Marius.

‘Marius.’

The man told Marius to put the letter in the envelope and then in the bag he held in front of him.

‘On the other piece of paper just write “Gone abroad. Back in four weeks ”. Sign it with the day’s date and Marius. That’s it, thank you.’

Marius sat in the chair contemplating his lap. The man was standing directly behind him. A puff of wind made the curtain sway. The birds were twittering hysterically outside. The man leaned forwards and closed the window. Now there was only the low hum of the combined radio and CD player on the bookshelf.

‘What’s the song?’ the man asked.

‘“Blister In The Sun”,’ Marius said. He had pressed ‘repeat’. He liked it. He would have given it a good review. A warmly ironic, inclusive review.

‘I’ve heard it before,’ the man said, found the volume knob and turned it up. ‘I just can’t remember where.’

Marius lifted his head and gazed out of the window, at the summer that had gone mute, at the birch tree that seemed to be waving farewell, at the green lawn. In the reflection he saw the man behind him raise the gun and point it at the back of his head.

‘Go wild!’ came the squeal from the small loudspeakers.

The man lowered the gun again.

‘Sorry. Forgot to release the safety catch. That’s it.’

Marius squeezed his eyes shut. Shirley. He thought about her. Where was she now?

‘Now I remember,’ the man said. ‘It was in Prague. They’re called Violent Femmes, I think. My wife took me to a concert. They’re not very good, are they?’

Marius opened his mouth to answer, but at that moment the gun gave a dry cough and no-one ever found out what Marius thought about Violent Femmes.

Otto kept his eyes on the screens. Behind him, Falkeid was speaking the bandit lingo with Bravo Two. That bastard Harry answered the bleeping mobile phone. He didn’t say a lot. Probably some ugly dame who wants to get laid, Otto thought, and pricked up his ears.

Waaler didn’t say anything, just sat biting his knuckles with a blank face as he watched Odd Einar Lillebostad being led away. No handcuffs. No real cause for suspicion. No bloody nothing.

Otto kept his eyes on the screens. He had the feeling he was sitting beside a nuclear reactor. On the outside there was nothing to see, on the inside it was seething with stuff you wouldn’t want to touch with a barge pole for anything in the world. Eyes on the screens.

Falkeid said ‘over and out’ and put the jabber thingy down. That bastard Harry was still feeding her monosyllables.

‘He’s not coming,’ Waaler said, his eyes on the pictures showing empty corridors and stairs.

‘Still early days,’ Falkeid said.

Waaler slowly shook his head. ‘He knows we’re here. I can feel it in my bones. He’s sitting somewhere laughing at us.’

In a tree in the garden, Otto thought.

Waaler got up.

‘Let’s just pack everything up, boys. The theory about the pentagram won’t hold. We’ll start from scratch again tomorrow.’

‘The theory holds.’

The other three turned towards that Harry bastard who slipped his mobile phone into his pocket.

‘His name is Sven Sivertsen,’ he said. ‘Norwegian national living in Prague, born in Oslo in 1946, but looks a lot younger, according to our colleague Beate Lonn. He’s been done twice for smuggling. He gave his mother a diamond which is identical to the ones we’ve found on the bodies. His mother says he’s been in Oslo to visit her on all the days in question. In Villa Valle.’

Otto saw Waaler’s face stiffen and blanch.

‘His mother,’ Waaler almost whispered. ‘In the house the last point of the star was pointing to?’

‘Yes,’ that bastard Harry said. ‘And now she’s waiting for a visit from him. This evening. A car with reinforcements is already on its way to Schweigaards gate. I’ve got my car here in the street.’

He got up from his chair. Waaler was rubbing his chin.

‘We have to regroup,’ Falkeid said, grabbing the walkie-talkie.

‘Wait!’ Waaler shouted. ‘Nobody does anything until I say.’

The others looked at him expectantly. Waaler closed his eyes. Two seconds passed. Then he opened them again.

‘Stop the car before it gets there, Harry. I don’t want a police car within a kilometre’s radius of that house. If he gets wind of the slightest danger, we’ve had it. I know a few things about smugglers from Eastern Europe. They always – always – make sure they have a way out. And another thing is that when you’ve lost them, you never find them again. Falkeid, you and your boys stay here and continue with the job until you hear otherwise.’

‘But you yourself said that he wasn’t -’

‘Do as I say. This may be the only chance we get, and since it’s my head on the block, I’d like to deal with this personally. Harry, you take charge here. OK?’

Otto saw the Harry bastard staring at Waaler, but in a vacant sort of way.

‘OK?’ Waaler repeated.

‘Fine,’ the bastard said.

Saturday. The Dildo.

Olaug Sivertsen watched Beate with big red eyes as Beate checked that she had bullets in all the chambers of her revolver.

‘My Sven? Goodness me, they have to understand they’re making a mistake! Sven wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

Beate clicked the drum of her revolver into place and went over to the kitchen window with the view out onto the car park in Schweigaards gate.

‘Let’s hope so. But to find out, first we have to arrest him.’