The Devil's Star (41 page)

‘Don’t worry, fru Sivertsen.’

‘Olaug.’

‘Olaug. Sorry, I’m not quite awake yet.’

‘I’m ringing because I’m concerned about Ina, my lodger. She should have been home ages ago and with all the things that have happened, well, yes, I’m worried.’

When Olaug did not get an immediate response, she wondered if Beate had gone back to sleep. But then her voice was there again, and this time it was not sleepy.

‘Are you telling me that you’ve got a lodger, Olaug?’

‘Yes, indeed. Ina. She has got the maid’s room. Oh, yes, I didn’t show you, did I. It’s because it’s on the other side of the back steps. She’s been away all weekend.’

‘Where? Who with?’

‘I wish I knew. The person is a relatively new acquaintance whom I have not yet been introduced to. She just said they were going to his holiday cabin.’

‘You should have told us that before, Olaug.’

‘Should I? I’m really very sorry . . . I . . .’

Olaug could feel the tears welling up, but she was powerless to prevent it.

‘No, I didn’t mean it like that, Olaug,’ she heard Beate hasten to add. ‘It’s not you I’m angry with. It’s my job to check these things. You couldn’t have known this was relevant to our inquiry. I’ll ring the police control room and they’ll phone you back for personal details about Ina so that they can look into the matter. I’m sure nothing has happened to her, but it’s better to be on the safe side, isn’t it. After that, I think you should try to get a little sleep. I’ll ring you back early in the morning. Shall we say that, Olaug?’

‘Yes,’ Olaug said, trying to put a smile into her voice. She really wanted to ask Beate if she knew how things were going with Sven, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask.

‘Yes, let’s say that. Bye, Beate.’

She replaced the handset with tears running down her cheeks.

Beate settled down and tried to sleep. She listened to the house. It was talking. Mother had switched off the television at 11.00 and now it was quite still on the floor below. Beate wondered if her mother was also thinking about him, about her father. They seldom spoke of him. It took too much out of them. She had started looking for a flat in the city centre. Last year she had begun to feel confined living on one floor in her mother’s house. Especially since she had started seeing Halvorsen, the rock-steady officer from Steinkjer whom she called by his surname and who treated her with a kind of respect and trepidation that she unaccountably set great store by. She would not have so much room in Oslo. And she would miss the sounds of this house, the wordless monologues she had gone to sleep to all her life.

The telephone rang again. Beate sighed and reached out her arm.

‘Yes, Olaug?’

‘It’s Harry. You seem to be awake already.’

She sat up in bed.

‘Yes, the phone’s been going non-stop tonight. What’s up?’

‘I need some help. And you’re the only person I dare trust.’

‘Right. Knowing you, I suppose that means hassle for me.’

‘Loads of hassle. Are you with me?’

‘What if I say “no”?’

‘Listen to what I have to say first, and then you can say “no” afterwards.’

36

Monday. The Photograph.

At 5.45 on Monday morning the sun was shining down from Ekeberg Ridge. The Securitas guard on duty in reception at Police HQ yawned loudly and raised his eyes from his
Aftenposten
as the first arrival signed in with his ID card.

‘Rain on the way according to the paper,’ he said, happy to see another human being.

The tall, somber-looking man cast a brief glance at him, but he didn’t respond.

During the next two minutes three other men followed him in, all equally uncommunicative and sombre.

At 6.00 the four men were sitting in the Divisional Commander’s office on the sixth floor.

‘Well,’ the Divisional Commander said, ‘one of our police inspectors has taken a possible killer from the custody block and nobody knows where they are.’

One of the things that made the Divisional Commander relatively well suited to his position was his ability to sum up a problem. Another was his ability to formulate what had to be done concisely:

‘So I propose we find them quick as fuck. What’s happened so far?’

The head of
Kripos
stole a furtive glance at Møller and Waaler before clearing his throat and answering:

‘We’ve put a small but experienced group of detectives on the case. Handpicked by Inspector Waaler, who is leading the search. Three from
POT.
Two from Crime Squad. They began last night only an hour after the officers in the custody block reported that Sivertsen had not been returned.’

‘Snappy work. But why haven’t the uniformed police been informed? And the patrol cars?’

‘We wanted to await developments and make a decision at this meeting, Lars. Hear what you thought.’

‘What I thought?’

The head of
Kripos
ran his finger along his top lip.

‘Inspector Waaler has promised that he’ll catch Hole and Sivertsen before the day is out. We’ve managed to confine the spread of information so far. We four and Groth in the custody block are the only ones who know that Sivertsen is out. In addition, we’ve phoned Ullersmo and cancelled Sivertsen’s cell and transport. We told them that we’d received information which gave us reason to believe that Sivertsen might not be safe there and therefore he would be transferred to a, for the moment, secret destination. To cut a long story short, we’re in a position to keep the lid on this until Waaler and his group have resolved the situation for us. Naturally, it is your decision, though, Lars.’

The Divisional Commander placed the tips of his fingers together and nodded thoughtfully. Then he got up and went to the window, where he remained with his back to them.

‘Last week I took a taxi. The driver had a paper lying open on the seat next to me. I asked him what he thought about the Courier Killer. It’s always interesting to hear what people at grass-roots level think. He said it was the same problem with the Courier Killer as with the World Trade Center: questions were being asked in the wrong order. Everyone was asking “who” and “how”. But to solve a riddle you first have to ask another question. And do you know what that question is? Torleif?’

The head of
Kripos
didn’t answer.

‘It’s “why”, Torlief. This taxi driver was no dummy. Has anyone here asked themselves that question, gentlemen?’

The Divisional Commander rocked on his heels and waited.

‘With all respect to the taxi driver,’ the head of
Kripos
said finally, ‘I’m not so sure there is a “why” in this case. At least, not a rational “why”. All of us here know that Hole is psychologically unstable and an alcoholic. That’s why he’s being dismissed.’

‘Even crazy people have motives, Torleif.’

There was the sound of someone discreetly clearing their throat.

‘Yes, Waaler.’

‘Batouti.’

‘Batouti?’

‘The Egyptian pilot who deliberately crashed a full passenger plane to avenge himself on the airline who had demoted him.’

‘What are you getting at, Waaler?’

‘I ran after Harry and talked to him in the car park after we’d arrested Sivertsen on Saturday evening. It was obvious that he was bitter, both for being dismissed and because he thought we’d cheated him out of the credit he was due for arresting the Courier Killer.’

‘Batouti . . .’

The Divisional Commander shaded his eyes from the first rays of sun to hit his window.

‘You haven’t said anything yet, Bjarne. What do you think?’

Bjarne Møller stared up at the silhouette in front of the window. He had such pains in his stomach that he not only felt that he was going to explode, he hoped he would. From the moment he was woken up in the night and informed about the kidnapping he had waited for someone to give him a good shake and tell him he was having a nightmare.

‘I don’t know,’ he sighed. ‘Quite frankly, I don’t understand what’s going on.’

The Divisional Commander nodded slowly.

‘If it leaks out that we’ve kept this under wraps we’ll be crucified,’ he said.

‘A concise summary, Lars,’ the head of
Kripos
said. ‘But if it leaks out that we’ve let a serial killer go, we’ll also be crucified. Even if we find him again. There’s still one way of resolving this problem on the quiet. Waaler has, I’m led to understand, a plan.’

‘And what is it, Waaler?’

Tom Waaler put his left hand round his clenched fist.

‘Let’s put it this way,’ he said. ‘It’s absolutely clear to me that we cannot afford to fail, so I may have to use some unconventional methods. Bearing possible repercussions in mind, I’m going to suggest that you know nothing about the plan.’

The Divisional Commander swivelled round with a mildly astonished expression on his face.

‘That’s very generous of you, Waaler, but I’m afraid we cannot agree to –’

‘I insist.’

The Divisional Commander frowned.

‘You insist? Are you aware of the risks, Waaler?’

Waaler opened the palms of his hands and examined them.

‘Yes, but it’s my responsibility. I ran the investigation and worked closely with Hole. As the person in charge I ought to have seen the signs before and done something. At any rate, after the conversation in the car park.’

The Divisional Commander gave Waaler a searching look. He turned back to the window and stayed there as a rectangle of light crept across the floor. Then he raised his shoulders and shook himself as if he were freezing cold.

‘You’ve got until midnight,’ he said to the window pane. ‘Then the news of the disappearance will be announced to the press. And this meeting never took place.’

On the way out Møller noticed the head of
Kripos
squeeze Waaler’s hand and flash him a warm smile of gratitude. The way you thank a colleague for loyalty, Møller mused. The way you tacitly appoint a Crown Prince.

Police Officer Bjørn Holm from Forensics felt a complete fool standing there with a microphone in his hand looking at the Japanese faces staring expectantly back at him. His palms were sweaty, and not just from the heat. Quite the contrary, the temperature in the air-conditioned luxury bus standing outside Hotel Bristol was several degrees lower than the temperature in the morning sun outside. It was from having to speak into a microphone. In English.

He had been introduced by the guide as a Norwegian police officer and an old man with a smile on his face had pulled out his camera as if Bjørn Holm was an integral part of the sightseeing tour. He looked at his watch: 7.00. He had more groups to see, so it was simply a question of pressing on. He took a deep breath and started the sentence he had rehearsed on the way:

‘We have checked the schedules with all the tour operators here in Oslo,’ Holm said. ‘And this is one of the groups that visited Frogner Park around five o’clock on Saturday. What I want to know is: how many of you took pictures there?’

No reaction.

Holm was disconcerted and glanced over to the guide.

He bowed with a smile, relieved him of the microphone and gave the passengers what Holm could only assume was roughly the same message he had given, in Japanese. He concluded with a small bow. Holm surveyed all the outstretched arms. They were going to have a busy day at the photo lab.

Roger Gjendem was humming a song about ‘turning Japanese’ as he locked his car. The distance from the car park to
Aftenposten
’s new offices in the Post House was short, but still he knew he would jog in, not because he was late, quite the opposite. The reason was that Roger Gjendem was one of the lucky few who looked forward to going to work every day, who could not wait until he had all the familiar things around him that reminded him of work: the office with the telephone and the computer, a pile of the day’s newspapers, the hum of colleagues’ voices, the gurgling coffee machine, the gossip in the smokers’ room, the alert atmosphere at the morning meeting. He had spent the previous day outside Olaug Sivertsen’s house with nothing more than a picture of her in the window to show for it. But it was good. He liked difficult tasks. And there were more than enough of those in the crime section. A crime junkie. That was what Devi had called him. He didn’t like her using those words. Thomas, his little brother, was a junkie. Roger was a hard worker who had studied political science and happened to like working as a crime reporter. That apart, she had a point of course, in that there were aspects of the job that were reminiscent of an addiction. After working with politics he had subbed in the crime section of the paper and it was not long before he felt the rush that only the daily adrenalin kick of stories about life and death can give. The same day he talked to the chief editor and was immediately transferred on a permanent basis. The editor had obviously seen it happen to others before him. And from that day on Roger jogged from his car to work.

On this day, however, he was pulled up before he got into his stride.

‘Good morning,’ said the man who had appeared from nowhere and who now stood in front of him. He was wearing a short, black leather jacket and aviator sunglasses even though it was fairly dark in the multi-storey car park. Roger knew a policeman when he saw one.

‘Good morning,’ Roger said.

‘I’ve got a message for you, Gjendem.’

The man’s arms hung straight down. His hands were covered in black hair. Roger thought that he would have appeared more natural if he had kept them in the pockets of his leather jacket. Or behind his back. Or folded in front of him. As it was, you had the impression he was about to use his hands for something, but it was impossible to guess what.

‘Yeah?’ Roger asked. He heard the echo of his own ‘e’ vibrate briefly between the walls, the sound of a question mark.