The Devil's Star (14 page)

His stomach pains came on suddenly. Bjarne Møller doubled up and stood gasping for breath. It wasn’t until a few minutes had passed that he was able to stand up straight and dial a number. If he had not been in such pain he might perhaps have noticed that the telephone number he had just dialled belonged to the name that the object from the envelope was now pointing to on the duty roster.

Marit was in love.

Again.

She cast a glance over to the church hall steps. The light shone through the circular window in the door with the inset Bethlehem Star, lighting up the face of the new boy, Roy. He was talking to one of the other girls in the choir. She had been thinking for several days now about how she could get him to notice her, but inspiration had deserted her. Going over to talk to him would not be a bad start. She would have to wait until an opportunity offered itself. At last week’s choir practice he had spoken up in a loud, clear voice about his past, about how he had been a Philadelphian, and about how he had been a neo-Nazi before he was saved! One of the other girls had heard a rumour that he had a big Nazi tattoo somewhere on his body. They were agreed that it was terrible, but Marit could feel how the very thought made her body tremble with excitement. She knew deep down that this was the reason she was in love. The newness, the unfamiliarity, this wonderful but transient excitement. She knew that ultimately she would be with someone else. Someone like Kristian. Kristian was the choirleader. Both his parents were in the congregation and he had just begun to preach at the youth meetings. People like Roy so often finished up among the defectors.

They had practised for a long time this evening. They had been rehearsing a new song and had gone through practically their whole repertoire as well. Kristian tended to do that when new members joined, to show how good they were. Usually they practised in their own rooms in Geitmyrsveien, but they were closed because of the national holidays, so they had borrowed Gamle Aker church hall in Akersbakken. Even though it was past midnight they stood outside after choir practice. Their voices were buzzing like a swarm of insects and it was as if there was an extra excitement in the air this evening. Perhaps it was the heat. Or maybe it was because the married and betrothed members of the choir were on holiday and thus they were spared the smiling, tolerant but nevertheless admonishing looks the younger members received when it was considered that the flirting had gone too far. Marit blurted out whatever came into her head when her girlfriends asked as she also stole a glance at Roy. She wondered where you would put a large Nazi tattoo.

One of her girlfriends nudged her and nodded towards a man coming up Akersbakken.

‘Look. He’s drunk,’ one girl whispered.

‘Poor man,’ one of the others said.

‘Those are the lost souls Jesus wants to redeem.’

It was Sofie who said that. She always said things like that. The others nodded. Marit did too. And then she realised. This was it, the opportunity. And without a moment’s hesitation she left her throng of girlfriends and stood in the man’s path.

He stopped and peered down at her. He was taller than she had anticipated.

‘Do you know Jesus?’ Marit asked in a loud, clear voice and with a smile.

The man’s face was bright red and his vision was blurred. The conversation behind her had suddenly died, and out of the corner of her eye she could see that Roy and the girls on the steps had turned towards them.

‘Unfortunately, I don’t,’ the man snuffled. ‘And neither do you, my girl, but perhaps you know Roy Kvinsvik?’

Marit could feel her blushes suffusing her face, and her follow-up –
Do you know he’s just waiting to meet you
? – became ensnared in her throat.

‘Well?’ the man asked. ‘Is he here?’

She took in the man’s cropped skull and his boots. She suddenly went very red. Was this man a neo-Nazi, someone from Roy’s past? Someone come to avenge his betrayal? Or to persuade him to return?

‘I . . .’

But the man had already sidestepped her.

She turned round, just in time to see Roy beat a hasty retreat into the church hall and slam the door behind him.

The drunk strode across the crunching gravel, his upper body tipped like a mast caught in a sudden gust of wind. In front of the steps he slipped and fell to his knees.

‘Oh my God . . .’ one of the girls gasped.

The man got up again.

Marit saw Kristian hurriedly draw back as the man ran up the steps. He stood on the top step, swaying to and fro. For a moment he teetered on the point of falling backwards. Then he regained control over the forces of gravity and snatched at the door handle.

Marit held her hand in front of her mouth.

He pushed. Fortunately Roy had locked the door.

‘Fuck!’ The man shouted in a voice thick with alcohol. He leaned back and then brought his head forward in a bow.

There was the crisp crack of broken glass as his forehead smashed the circular window in the door and the splintered glass fell to the steps.

‘Stop it!’ Kristian shouted. ‘You can’t . . .’

The man turned round and gaped at him. A triangular fragment of glass was protruding from his forehead. Blood ran down from it in a tiny stream and forked at the ridge of his nose.

Kristian didn’t say another word.

The man opened his mouth and began to howl. The sound was as chilling as a steel blade. He began to attack the door again with a fury that Marit had never witnessed before, beating the solid, white door with clenched fists. Howling like a wolf, he struck again and again, flesh against wood. It sounded like axe-blows in the stillness of the morning forest. Then he began to beat the wrought-iron Star of Bethlehem in the circular window. She thought she heard the sound of ripping skin as the splatter of blood began to discolour the white door.

‘Someone do something,’ a voice screamed. She saw Kristian take out his mobile phone.

The iron star was loose. All of a sudden the man sank to his knees.

Marit went closer. The others had moved back, but she had to go nearer. Her heart was thumping in her chest. In front of the steps she felt Kristian’s hand on her shoulder and she stopped. She could hear the man gasping for breath on the steps, like a fish drowning on dry land. It sounded as if he was weeping.

When the police car came to collect him a quarter of an hour later, he was lying in a heap on the steps. They got him to his feet, and he allowed himself to be led to the car without putting up any resistance. One of the policewomen asked if anyone had any damage to report. They just shook their heads, too shocked to give the smashed window another thought.

Then the car was gone and all that was left was the warm summer night. It went through Marit’s mind that it was as if nothing had happened. She hardly noticed Roy emerge, pale and worn, and then disappear, or Kristian put his arm around her. She stared at the damaged star in the window. It was bent over and twisted; two of the five points of the star pointed upwards and one down. Despite the heat of the night, she pulled her jacket tighter round her shoulders.

It was well past midnight, and the moon was reflected in the windows of Police HQ. Bjarne Møller walked across the empty car park and into the custody block. As he entered, he took a quick look around. The three reception desks were unmanned; two officers were staring at the TV in the guard room. As an old Charles Bronson fan, Møller recognised the film.
Death Wish
. And he recognised the older of the two officers. It was Groth, also known as the ‘Griever’ on account of the liver-coloured scar that ran down from his left eye to the top of his cheek. Groth had worked in the custody block for as long as Møller could remember and everyone knew that to all intents and purposes he ran the place.

‘Hello?’ Møller shouted.

Without taking his eyes off the television screen, Groth raised a finger and pointed to the younger officer who reluctantly twisted in his chair to face him.

Møller flashed his ID card, but apparently that was superfluous. They knew him.

‘Where’s Hole?’ he shouted.

‘The idiot?’ Groth snorted as Charles Bronson raised his gun to exact revenge.

‘Cell five, I think,’ the younger officer said. ‘Check with one of the warders in there, if you can find one.’

‘Thank you,’ Møller said, and went through the door leading to the cells.

There were approximately a hundred detention cells and the number of inmates varied according to the season. Now it was definitely low season. Møller didn’t bother going to the warders’ guard room and began to walk down the corridors between the metal cubicles. His footsteps reverberated. He had always loathed the custody block. Firstly, it was absurd that living people should be incarcerated here. Secondly, there was the atmosphere of the gutter and ruined lives. Thirdly, he knew the kind of thing that went on here. Such as the time a prisoner had reported Groth for using a fire hose on him.
SEFO
rejected the claim when they took out the fire hose and discovered that it only reached halfway to the cell where the hosing down was alleged to have taken place. It seemed that
SEFO
were the only people at Police HQ who didn’t know that when Groth knew there would be a spot of bother, he would just cut a chunk off the fire hose.

Like all the other cells, number five had no lock and key, just a basic device for opening the door from the outside.

Harry was sitting on the floor with his head in his hands. The first thing that Møller noticed was that the bandage on Harry’s right hand was soaked in blood. Harry raised his head slowly and looked at him. He had a plaster on his forehead and his eyes were swollen as if he had been crying. There was the smell of vomit.

‘Why don’t you lie on the bunk?’ Møller asked.

‘Don’t want to sleep,’ Harry whispered in an unrecognisable voice. ‘Don’t want to dream.’

Møller pulled a face to hide the fact that he was shaken. He had seen Harry down before, but not like this, not so low. Never crushed.

He cleared his throat.

‘Let’s go.’

‘Griever’ Groth and the young officer did not even cast a glance their way as they passed the guard room, but Møller caught Groth’s telling shake of the head.

Harry threw up in the car park. He stood bent over, spitting and cursing as Møller lit a cigarette and passed it over to him.

‘This is out of hours,’ Møller said. ‘It’s staying unofficial.’

Harry choked on his laughter. ‘Thanks, boss. It’s good to know I’ll get the boot with a slightly better record than it might have been.’

‘That’s not why I said that. It’s because otherwise I would have had to suspend you with immediate effect.’

‘And so?’

‘I need a detective like you for the next few days. That is, the detective you are when you’re sober. So the question is whether you can stay sober.’

Harry straightened up and exhaled the cigarette smoke.

‘You know I can, boss. But do I want to?’

‘I don’t know. Do you want to, Harry?’

‘You have to have a reason, boss.’

‘Yes. I suppose you do.’

Møller surveyed his inspector thoughtfully. He considered the situation. Here they were, standing in the middle of a deserted car park one summer’s night in Oslo, under the light of the moon and a lamp full of dead insects. He thought of all the things they had been through together, all the things they had achieved and hadn’t achieved. In spite of everything, after all these years, was it going to be here, like this, as banal as it sounded, that they would finally go their separate ways?

‘For as long as I’ve known you, there’s only been one thing that’s kept you going,’ Møller said, ‘and that’s work.’

Harry didn’t answer.

‘I’ve got a job for you. If you want it.’

‘And that would be . . . ?’

‘I received this in a brown padded envelope today. I’ve been trying to get hold of you ever since.’

Møller opened his hand and studied Harry’s reaction. The moon and the lamp shone on the palm of Møller’s hand and one of the Forensics department’s plastic bags.

‘Mm,’ Harry said. ‘And the rest of her body?’

In the plastic bag was a long, slim finger with a red-lacquered nail. The finger was wearing a ring. The jewel set in the ring was in the shape of a star with five points.

‘That’s all we’ve got,’ Møller said. ‘The middle finger of the left hand.’

‘Did forensics manage to identify the finger?’

Bjarne Møller nodded.

‘So quickly?’

Møller pressed his hand against his stomach and nodded again.

‘Right,’ Harry said. ‘So it is Lisbeth Barli then.’

Part Three

13

Monday. Touch.