Jo Nesbo - The Devil's star

As a priest Nikolai was bound by his oath of secrecy and he had no intention of breaking it as a result of what he had heard. Yet there was something about the man’s voice, the way he had said he had thoughts about… about what?

Nikolai gazed out of the window. Where were the clouds? It was so sultry now that something had to happen soon. Rain. First of all though, thunder and lightning.

He closed the door, knelt in front of the small altar and prayed. He prayed with an intensity that he had not felt for many years. For guidance and strength. And for forgiveness.

At 2.00 Bjorn Holm stood in the doorway to Beate’s office and told her they had something she should have a look at.

She got up and followed him into the photo lab, where he pointed to a photograph that was still hanging on a piece of cord to dry.

‘That’s from last Monday,’ Bjorn said. ‘Taken at about half past five, so roughly half an hour after Barbara Svendsen was shot in Carl Berners plass. You can easily cycle to Frogner Park in that time.’

The picture showed a girl smiling in front of the Fountain. Beside her you could see part of a sculpture. Beate knew which one it was. One of the ‘tree groups’, the carving of a girl diving. She had always stood in front of the sculpture when she and her mother and father had driven to Oslo to go for a Sunday walk in Frogner Park. Her father had explained that Gustav Vigeland had intended the diving girl to symbolise the young girl’s fear of adult life and becoming a mother.

However, today it was not the girl Beate was looking at. It was the back of a man on the margin of the picture. He was standing in front of a green litter bin. In his hand he was holding a brown polythene bag. He was wearing a tight yellow top and black cycling pants. On his head he wore a black helmet, sunglasses and there was a cloth over his mouth.

‘The courier,’ Beate whispered.

‘Maybe,’ Bjorn Holm said. ‘Unfortunately, he is still masked.’

‘Maybe.’ It sounded like an echo. Beate stretched out her hand without taking her eyes off the photo. ‘The magnifying glass.’

Holm found it on the table between the bags of chemical reagents and passed it to her.

She squeezed one eye shut as she moved the magnifying glass across the photograph.

Bjorn Holm watched his boss. Of course he had heard the stories about Beate Lonn when she was working on bank robbery cases. About how she had sat for days on end in the ‘House of Pain’ – the hermetically sealed video room – playing the videos of the robbery, frame by frame, while she checked every detail of build, body language, contours of faces behind the masks. In the end she discovered the identity of the bank robber because she had seen him in another recording, from some post office robbery 15 years before, when she had still been pre-pubescent, a recording that had been stored on the hard disk containing a million faces and every bank robbery committed in Norway since video surveillance began. Some people had maintained it was down to Beate’s unusual fusiform gyrus – the part of the brain that recognises faces – and that it must have been a talent she was born with. That was why Bjorn Holm didn’t look at the photo, just at Beate Lonn’s eyes scrutinising the picture in front of her, examining it in minute detail in a way that would be impossible to learn.

That was how he noticed that it was not the face of the man she was studying through the magnifying glass.

‘The knee,’ she said. ‘Can you see it?’

Bjorn went closer.

‘What about it?’ he said.

‘On the left knee. Looks like a plaster.’

‘You mean we should keep an eye open for people with plasters on their left knee?’

‘Very funny, Holm. Before we can find out who it is in the photo we have to find out if he could be the Courier Killer.’

‘And how do we do that?’

‘We visit the only man we know of who has seen the Courier Killer close up. Make a copy of the photo while I fetch the car.’

Sven Sivertsen stared at Harry, thunderstruck. Harry had just explained his theory to him, his impossible theory.

‘I really had no idea,’ Sivertsen whispered. ‘I never saw any of the pictures of the victims in the papers. They mentioned names when they questioned me, but none of them meant a thing.’

‘For the moment it’s simply a theory,’ Harry said. ‘We don’t know it’s the Courier Killer. We need concrete proof.’

Sivertsen smiled and said, ‘You’d better convince me first that you’ve got enough to get me off the hook already. Then I’ll agree to our giving ourselves up and you can have the use of my evidence to incriminate Waaler.’

Harry shrugged.

‘I can ring the head of my section, Bjarne Moller, and ask him to come in a patrol car and get us out of here safely.’

Sivertsen shook his head firmly.

‘There have got to be others involved in this, in higher positions in the police force than Waaler. I don’t trust anyone. You’ll have to find the proof first.’

Harry opened and closed his fist. ‘We have an alternative. One that would protect both of us.’

‘And that is?’

‘Go to the papers and tell them what we know. About the Courier Killer and Waaler. Then it would be too late for anyone to do anything.’

Sivertsen wore a sceptical expression.

‘Time’s running out for us,’ Harry said. ‘He’s getting closer. Can’t you feel it?’

Sivertsen rubbed his wrist.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Do it.’

Harry shoved his hand in his back pocket and pulled out a crumpled business card. He hesitated for a second. Possibly because he anticipated the consequences of what he was about to do. Or perhaps because he didn’t anticipate them. He tapped in the work number. The reply came surprisingly quickly.

‘Roger Gjendem.’

Harry could hear the hum of voices, the clatter of computer keyboards and telephones ringing in the background.

‘This is Harry Hole. I want you to listen very carefully, Gjendem. I have some information about the Courier Killer. And arms smuggling. One of my colleagues in the police is involved. Do you understand?’

‘I believe so.’

‘Good. The story’s yours exclusively so long as you publish it on Aftenposten ’s web pages as quickly as possible.’

‘Of course. Where are you ringing from, Inspector Hole?’

Gjendem sounded less surprised than Harry had expected.

‘It’s not important where I am. I have information which proves Sven Sivertsen cannot be the Courier Killer and that a leading policeman is involved in a network of arms smuggling that has been operating in Norway for several years.’

‘That’s fantastic. But I’m sure you’re aware that I cannot write that on the basis of one telephone conversation.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘No serious newspaper would print an allegation about a named police inspector smuggling arms without checking that the sources are reliable. I don’t doubt for a minute that you’re the person you say you are, but how do I know that you aren’t drunk or crazy or both? If I don’t check this out properly, the paper can be sued. Let’s meet, shall we, Inspector Hole. Then I’ll write everything you tell me. I promise.’

In the pause that followed Harry could hear someone laughing in the background. A carefree ripple of laughter.

‘Don’t even think about ringing other papers – they’ll give you the same answer. Trust me, Inspector.’

Harry took a deep breath.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘At Underwater in Dalsbergstien. At five o’clock. Come on your own or I won’t turn up. And not a single word about this to a living soul, understood?’

‘Understood.’

‘See you.’

Harry pressed the ‘off’ button and chewed his bottom lip.