Jo Nesbo - The Devil's star

‘Hellfire,’ mumbled Falkeid as he and two of the men from Special Forces came in.

Harry thought it a very accurate image. The sun outside may have been low in the sky and losing power over to the west, but it had spent all day charging the roof tiles, which now radiated with the force of storage heaters and turned the loft into a veritable sauna.

‘Looks like the storage room for 406 is this way,’ Harry said, heading to the right.

‘Why are you so sure that he’ll be in the loft?’

‘Well, because the killer has himself pointed out the obvious fact that the fifth floor is above the fourth. In this case, the loft.’

‘Pointed out?’

‘A kind of rebus.’

‘Are you aware that it’s absolutely impossible for there to be a body up here?’

‘Why’s that?’

‘We came up here yesterday with a dog. A body lying here in this heat for four weeks… Transfer a dog’s olfactory organs to our own sense of hearing and it would have been like searching for a wailing siren inside here. It would have been impossible for a dog not to find it, even a less competent dog. And the one we had yesterday was first rate.’

‘Even if the body is wrapped in something that prevents the smell escaping?’

‘Molecules of air move quickly and can penetrate even microscopic openings. It is not possible for -’

‘Vulcanisation,’ Harry said.

‘Eh?’

Harry stopped in front of one of the storage areas. Instantly the two uniformed men were on the spot with their crowbars.

‘Let’s try it this way first, boys.’

Harry dangled the bunch of keys with the skull on in front of them.

The smallest key fitted the padlock.

‘I’ll go in alone,’ Harry said. ‘The forensics people don’t like the place being trampled under foot.’

He borrowed a torch and stood in front of a tall, broad white wardrobe with double doors which took up most of the room in the storage area. He laid his fingers on the handle and steeled himself before jerking open the door. The smell of musty clothes, dust and wood met his nostrils. He switched on the torch. There were three generations of blue suits hanging in a row on the bar which Marius must have inherited. Harry shone the torch inside and ran his hand across the material. Coarse wool. One of them had a thin plastic cover over it. Inside was a grey protective bag for a suit.

Harry shut the wardrobe doors and turned towards the back wall of the storage space where there was a pair of curtains – home-made by the look of them – hanging over a clothes horse. Harry heaved them off. A set of small sharp predator teeth snarled silently at him. What was left of its coat was grey and the brown marble-like eyes needed a polish.

‘A marten,’ Falkeid said.

‘Mm.’

Harry cast his eyes around. There weren’t many places left to look. Had he really been mistaken?

Then he spotted the roll of carpet. It was Persian – at least, that was what he thought – and was lodged against the chicken wire and reached halfway up to the roof. Harry pushed a wicker chair up against the carpet, climbed onto it and shone the torch down into the carpet. The policemen standing outside stared at him with tense expressions on their faces.

‘Right,’ Harry said, getting down from the chair and switching off the torch.

‘Well?’ Falkeid said.

Harry shook his head. A sudden fury possessed him and he kicked the side of the wardrobe so that it began to stand and sway like a belly dancer. The dogs barked. A drink, one drink, a moment without torment. He turned to leave the room when he heard a scraping noise. As if something was sliding down a wall. He turned instantaneously and just saw the wardrobe door shoot open before the suit bag leapt onto him and knocked him to the ground.

Harry knew he must have been out for a second because when he opened his eyes again he was lying on his back and could feel a dull ache at the back of his head. He breathed in a cloud of dust that had risen from the dry wooden floor. The weight of the suit bag had knocked the air out of him and he felt as if he were drowning, lying underneath a big plastic bag filled with water. He hit out in panic and felt his fist strike the smooth surface and, inside, something soft that gave way.

Harry went rigid and remained totally still. Slowly he managed to focus his eyes; just as slowly the feeling that he was drowning began to wear off. And was replaced by the feeling that he had drowned.

Glazed eyes stared back at him from behind a grey plastic membrane.

They had found Marius Veland.

Saturday. The Arrest

The express train glided past outside, shiny silver, quiet as a tentative puff of air. Beate watched Olaug Sivertsen. She straightened her head and looked out of the window, blinking again and again. Her wrinkled, sinewy hands on the kitchen table resembled a bird’s-eye view of the countryside. The wrinkles were long valleys, the blue-black veins rivers and the knuckles chains of mountains with the skin stretched over like a grey-white tent canvas. Beate examined her own hands. She thought about what hands can do in the course of a lifetime. And what they cannot do. Or what they don’t manage to achieve.

At 21.56 Beate heard the gate open and the sound of steps on the gravel path outside.

She stood up, her heart beating as quickly and lightly as a Geiger counter.

‘That’s him,’ Olaug said.

‘Are you sure?’

Olaug gave her a distressed smile. ‘I’ve heard his steps on the gravel path ever since he was a little boy. When he was old enough to go out in the evening I used to wake up to the second step he took. He used to take twelve steps. Just count.’

Suddenly Waaler was standing in the kitchen doorway.

‘Someone’s coming,’ he said. ‘I want you to stay there. Whatever happens. OK?’

‘It’s him,’ Beate said, nodding in Olaug’s direction.

Waaler gave a brief nod. Then he was gone again.

Beate put her hand on the old lady’s.

‘It’ll be alright,’ she said.

‘You’ll see that there’s been a mistake,’ Olaug said, without meeting her eyes.

Eleven, twelve. Beate heard the door opening in the hall.

Then she heard Waaler shout:

‘Police! My ID card is on the floor in front of you. Drop the gun or I’ll shoot!’

She felt Olaug’s hand jerk.

‘Police! Put down your gun or I’ll be forced to shoot!’

Why was he shouting so loudly? They couldn’t be more than five or six metres apart.

‘For the last time!’ Waaler shouted.

Beate got up and took her revolver out of the holster she had in the belt across her shoulder.

‘Beate…’ Olaug’s voice shook.

Beate looked up and met the old lady’s imploring eyes.

‘Drop your weapon! You’re shooting at a policeman.’

Beate took the four steps to the door, pulled it open and stepped into the hallway with her weapon raised. Tom Waaler was two metres away, with his back to her. In the doorway stood a man wearing a grey suit. He was holding a suitcase in one hand. Beate had taken a decision based on what she thought she would see. That was why her first reaction was one of confusion.

‘I’ll shoot!’ Waaler shouted.

Beate could see the open mouth and the stunned face of the man standing in line with the front door. Waaler had already thrust his shoulder forward to take the recoil when he pulled the trigger.

‘Tom…’

She said it in a low voice, but Tom Waaler’s back went as rigid as if she had shot him from behind.

‘He hasn’t got a gun, Tom.’

Beate had the feeling she was watching a film. An absurd scene where someone had pressed the pause button and the picture was locked in position, frozen; the picture quivered and jerked and time stood still. She waited for the crack of the gun, but it didn’t come. Tom Waaler was not crazy. Not in a clinical sense. He didn’t lack control where his impulses were concerned. That was presumably what had frightened her most at that time. The cold control as he abused her.