Jo Nesbo - The Devil's star

‘So while the rehearsals for My Fair Lady were in full swing, I put the finishing touches to my plan. Will that do, Harry?’

Harry shook his head. The sound of the shower. How long was she planning to stay in there?

‘I want details.’

‘They’re mostly technical things,’ Wilhelm said. ‘Aren’t they tedious?’

‘Not to me.’

‘Very well. The first thing I had to do was to give Sven Sivertsen a personality. The most important thing you have to do when unveiling a character to an audience is to show what motivates the person, what the character’s innermost wishes and dreams are: in a nutshell, what makes this person tick. I decided that I would present him as a murderer without any rational motive, but with a sexual need for ritual killings. A little commonplace maybe, but the vital ingredient was that all the victims except Sivertsen’s mother had to appear to have been chosen at random. I read up about serial killers and found a couple of amusing details I elected to use. For example, the stuff about mother fixation and Jack the Ripper’s choice of murder locations, which investigators took to be a code. So I went to the City Planning Department where I bought a detailed map of Oslo city centre. When I returned home I drew a line from our own apartment building in Sannergata to the house where Sven Sivertsen’s mother lives. From this one line I then drew a precise pentagram and found the addresses closest to the tips of the other star points. And I admit that it did give me an adrenalin rush when I put the point of the pencil down on the map and I knew that there – right there – lived someone whose fate had just been sealed that very second.

‘For the first few nights I fantasised about who it could be, what they might look like and how their lives had been so far. I soon forgot them though. They weren’t important – they were the scenery, the extras, the non-speaking parts.’

‘Building materials.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Nothing. Go on.’

‘I knew that the blood diamonds and the murder weapons would be traced back to Sven Sivertsen when he’d been arrested. To strengthen the illusion of ritual deaths I threw in a few clues: the severed fingers, five days between each murder, five o’clock and the fifth floor.’

Wilhelm smiled.

‘I didn’t want to make it too easy, but not too difficult either. And I wanted a little humour. Good tragedies always have a little humour, Harry.’

Harry told himself to sit completely still.

‘You received the first gun a few days before you killed Marius Veland. Is that right?’

‘Yes. The gun was in the litter bin in Frogner Park, as arranged.’

Harry took a deep breath: ‘And how was that, Wilhelm? What was it like to kill?’

Wilhelm pressed his lower lip forward and appeared to be considering the question.

‘They’re right, the people who say the first time is the most difficult. I slipped into the student block without a problem, but it took much more time than I had ever imagined to seal the rubber bag I put him in with the heat gun. And despite having spent half of my life lifting up well-nourished Norwegian ballerinas, it was a tough job carrying the boy up into the loft.’

Pause. Harry cleared his throat.

‘And afterwards?’

‘Afterwards I cycled to Frogner Park to pick up the second gun and the diamond. The German half-breed Sven Sivertsen proved to be as punctual and greedy as I’d hoped. The technique of placing him in Frogner Park at the time every murder was committed was a good touch, don’t you think? After all, he was committing a crime himself, so he would take care not to be recognised and make sure no-one knew where he’d been. I simply made sure that he would not have an alibi.’

‘Bravo,’ Harry said and ran his finger across wet eyebrows.

He felt as if there was damp and condensation everywhere, as if the water was driving in through the walls, through the roof from the terrace, and then there was the shower.

‘But everything you’ve told me up to now I’d worked out for myself, Wilhelm. Tell me something I don’t know. Tell me about your wife. What did you do with her? The neighbours saw you on the terrace at regular intervals, so how did you manage to get her out of the flat and hide her before we came?’

Wilhelm smiled.

‘You’re not saying anything,’ Harry said.

‘For a play to retain some of its mystique the author should refrain from explaining too much.’

Harry sighed.

‘OK, but be so kind as to explain this much to me. Why did you make it so complicated? Why couldn’t you have simply killed Sven Sivertsen? You had the chance in Prague. It would’ve been less bother and much safer than killing three innocent people in addition to your wife.’

‘First of all, I needed a scapegoat. If Lisbeth had disappeared and the case was never cleared up, everyone would have thought it was me. Because it’s always the husband, isn’t it, Harry? But primarily I did it this way because love is a thirst, Harry. It needs to drink. Water. A thirst for revenge. It’s a good expression, isn’t it? You know what I’m talking about, Harry. Death is no revenge. Death is a delivery, a happy ending. What I wanted to make for Sven Sivertsen was a true tragedy, suffering without end. And I’ve achieved that. Sven Sivertsen has become one of the restless spirits wandering along the banks of the River Styx and I’m the ferryman, Charon, who refuses to ferry him across to the kingdom of the dead. Is that all Greek to you? I sentenced him to life, Harry. He’ll be consumed by hatred as it consumed me. Hating without knowing whom you hate makes you turn your hatred onto yourself, onto your own miserable fate. That’s what happens when you’re betrayed by the one you love. Sitting behind lock and key, sentenced for something you don’t know you did. Can you imagine a better revenge, Harry?’

Harry rummaged in his pocket to see if the chisel was still there.

Wilhelm chuckled. The next thing he said gave Harry a sense of deja vu.

‘You don’t need to answer, Harry. I can see it in your face.’

Harry closed his eyes and listened to Wilhelm’s voice rumbling on.

‘You’re no different from me. It’s passion that drives you, too. And passion, like lust, always finds…’

‘… the lowest level.’

‘The lowest level. But now I think it’s your turn, Harry. What’s this proof you were talking about? Is it anything I should be concerned about?’

Harry opened his eyes again.

‘First you’ll have to tell me where she is, Wilhelm.’

Wilhelm gave a low laugh and placed a hand against his heart.

‘She’s here.’

‘You’re blathering,’ Harry said.

‘If Pygmalion was capable of loving Galatea, the statue of a woman he had never met, why could I not love a statue of my wife?’

‘I don’t follow you, Wilhelm.’

‘You don’t have to, Harry. I know it isn’t easy for others to understand.’

In the silence which followed, Harry could hear the water beating down in the shower downstairs with undiminished force. How would he get this woman out of the flat without losing control of the situation?

Wilhelm’s deep voice blended into a blur of sounds.

‘The mistake was that I thought it was possible to bring the statue back to life again. But the person who was to do that refused to understand. That illusion is stronger than what we call reality.’

‘Who are you talking about now?’

‘The other one. The living Galatea, the new Lisbeth. She panicked and threatened to ruin everything. Now I can see that I’ll have to be content with living with the statue. But that’s fine.’

Harry could feel something was on its way up. It was cold and came from his stomach.