The Devil's star

26

Saturday. The Soul. The Day.

As the sun streamed across Ekeberg Ridge on Saturday morning, with the promise of another record-breaking temperature, Otto Tangen was going over the mixing console for the last time.

It was dark and cramped in the bus, and there was the smell of mouldy clothes that neither Otto’s Elvis Presley car fresheners nor his roll-up tobacco would ever succeed in dispersing. Sometimes he felt like he was sitting in a bunker in the trenches with the stench of death in his nostrils, but still isolated from what was going on immediately outside.

The student building stood in the middle of a piece of land at the top of Kampen with a view down towards Toyen. On each side of and almost parallel with the old four-storey red-brick building were two taller blocks of flats from the ’50s. The same paint and the same type of windows were used in the student building as in the blocks of flats, presumably in an attempt to give the area a unified look. However, the age difference could not be camouflaged; it still looked as if a waterspout had sucked up the student building and gently planted it down in the middle of a housing cooperative.

Harry and Waaler agreed to locate the bus in the car park with all the other cars, directly in front of the student building, where reception was good and the bus was not too conspicuous. Passers-by who still might cast a cursory glance its way would assume that the rusty, blue Volvo bus with the isoprene-covered windows belonged to the rock band ‘Kindergarden Accident’, which was painted in black letters on the side with skulls as dots over the two ‘i’s.

Otto dried his sweat and checked that all the cameras were working, that all the angles were covered and that everything that moved outside the building was picked up by at least one camera, so that they could follow the target from the moment he entered the hallway to the doorway of any one of the 80 student rooms in the eight corridors on the four floors.

They had been assembling, lining up and screwing in cameras to the wall all night. Otto still had the metallic, bitter taste of dry mortar in his mouth and yellow wall plaster dusted the shoulders of his filthy denim jacket, like the scaly scurf of dandruff.

Waaler had listened to reason in the end and realised that if they were to keep to the deadline, they would have to manage without sound. It wouldn’t affect the arrest in the slightest; the only thing was that they would lose material proof if the target were to say anything incriminating.

They had not managed to put cameras in the lift, either. Using a cable-free camera, Otto couldn’t get a decent picture in the bus because the concrete shaft blocked the signals, and the problem with using cables was that, however they placed them, they were either visible or there was the chance that they would get entangled in the lift machinery. Waaler had given the OK on that since the target would be on his own in the lift anyway. The occupants of the house had been sworn to secrecy and had received strict instructions to lock their doors and stay inside their rooms from 4.00 till 6.00.

Otto Tangen moved the mosaic of small pictures round on the three large data screens and increased the size of them until they formed a logical whole. On the screen to the left: the corridors running north, the fourth floor at the top and the ground floor at the bottom. On the middle screen: the entrance to the block, all the stair landings and the doors to the lift. On the screen to the right: the corridors running south.

Otto clicked ‘Save’, put his hands behind his head and leaned backwards in his chair with a satisfied grunt. He could monitor the whole building. Of young students. If they had had more time, he might have set up a few cameras in some of the student rooms. Without any of the students knowing, of course. Tiny little fish-eye lenses placed where they would never be discovered. Along with Russian microphones. Randy young trainee nurses from Norway. He could have videoed them and sold the videos through his contacts. Screw that bastard Waaler. How the hell could he have known about Astrup and the barn in Asker! A suspicion of an idea fluttered through Otto’s brain and disappeared again. He had long suspected that Astrup was paying someone to spread a protective wing over his operation.

Otto lit up a cigarette. The pictures were like stills; not a single movement in the yellow-painted corridors or on the stairs betrayed that this was a live transmission. Those students who were spending the summer in their rooms were probably still in bed sleeping. But if he waited for a couple of hours he might catch sight of the guy who was let in by the doll in room 303 at 2.00 in the morning. She had looked drunk. Drunk and ready. He had just looked ready. Otto thought about Aud-Rita. The first time he had met her for pre-drinks at Nils’s place everyone had had their fat paws out to shake hands, and when she put out her own little white hand to Otto and drawled ‘Aud-Rita’ it had sounded as though she was asking if he was pissed: Er’u drita.

Otto released a deep sigh.

That bastard Waaler had been going over the course with people from Special Forces right up until midnight. Otto had caught the discussion between Waaler and the head of the soldiers outside his bus. Later in the day some soldiers from a special unit were to be deployed in threes in every corridor on each floor, 24 in all, dressed in black with balaclavas and carrying loaded MP5s, tear gas and gas masks. At a signal from the bus they would jump into action immediately the target knocked on a door or tried to enter one of the rooms. The thought made Otto tremble with excitement. He had seen them in action twice before and the guys were bloody unreal. There were bangs and flashes of light, just like at a heavy-rock concert, and on both occasions the targets were so numb with fear that the whole thing was over in seconds. Otto had been told that was the point of it, to frighten the wits out of the target so that he couldn’t raise the mental capacity to resist.

Otto stubbed out his cigarette. The trap was set. It was just a question of waiting for the rat.

The police were due to arrive at about 3.00. Waaler had banned any movement into and out of the bus before or after that time. It was going to be a long, hot day.

Otto threw himself down on the mattress on the floor. He wondered what was going on in room 303 right now. He missed his own bed. He missed its movement. He missed Aud-Rita.

At that same moment the entrance gate slammed behind Harry. He stood still to light his first cigarette of the day as he peered up at the sky where the morning mist lay, like a thin veil that the sun was in the process of burning through. He had slept. A deep, continuous, dreamless sleep. It hardly seemed possible.

‘That one gonna stink today, Harry! The weather forecast say it’s gonna be hottest day since 1907. Maybe.’

It was Ali, who lived in the flat below Harry and owned Niazi. It didn’t matter how early Harry got up, Ali and his brother were always busy at work when he was leaving for the office. Ali had raised his broom and pointed to something on the pavement.

Harry squinted to see what it was Ali was pointing at. A dog turd. He hadn’t seen it when Vibeke was standing on exactly the same spot the previous evening. Someone had obviously been a little distracted when they took the dog for a walk this morning. Or last night.

He looked at his watch. This was the day. In a few hours they would have an answer.

Harry inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs and felt how the mixture of fresh air and nicotine perked up the system. For the first time in a very long time he could taste the tobacco. It even tasted good. And for a moment he had forgotten all the things he was going to lose: his job, Rakel and his soul.

For this was the day.

And it had started well.

Once again, it hardly seemed possible.

Harry could feel that she was happy when she heard his voice.

‘I’ve talked to Dad. He’s more than happy to look after Oleg. Sis will be there, too.’

‘Opening night?’ She said it with a cheery laugh in her voice. ‘At the National Theatre? Goodness me.’

She was exaggerating – she liked to do that now and then – but Harry noticed that he was getting excited all the same.

‘What will you wear?’ she asked.

‘You haven’t said “yes” yet.’

‘It depends.’

‘A suit.’

‘Which one?’

‘Let me see… the one I bought in Hegdehaugsveien on May 17 the year before last. You know, the grey one with -’

‘That’s the only suit you’ve got.’

‘Then I’ll definitely wear that one.’

She laughed. The soft laugh, as soft as her skin and kisses, but it was still her laugh he liked best. It was as simple as that.

‘I’ll come and pick you up at six,’ he said.

‘Fine. But Harry…’

‘Yes?’

‘Don’t think…’

‘I know. It’s just a play.’

‘Thanks, Harry.’

‘Oh, it’s my pleasure.’

She laughed again. Once she had started he could get her to laugh at almost anything, as if they were in the same head looking out through the same eyes, and he could just point without saying anything in particular. He had to force himself to put the phone down.

This was the day. And it was still good.

They had agreed that Beate would stay with Olaug Sivertsen during the operation. Moller didn’t want to risk the target (two days before, Waaler had started calling the killer ‘the target’ and now everyone was saying it) discovering the trap and changing the order of the crime scenes.

The telephone rang. It was Oystein. He wondered how things were going. Harry told him that things were going well and asked what he wanted. Oystein said that was what he wanted: to know how things were going. Harry became self-conscious – he wasn’t used to that kind of thoughtfulness.

‘Are you sleeping?’

‘I slept last night,’ Harry said.

‘Good. And the code? Did you crack it?’

‘Partly. I know where and when. I just don’t know why.’

‘So now you can read the text, but you don’t know what it means?’

‘Something like that. We’ll have to wait for the rest when we’ve got him.’

‘What don’t you understand?’

‘Loads. Like why hide one of the bodies? Or trivial things like him cutting all the fingers from the victims’ left hands, but different fingers. The index finger with the first victim, the middle finger with the second and the ring finger with the third.’

‘In sequence then. Must like systems.’

‘Yes, but why not start with the thumb? Is there a message there?’

Oystein burst out laughing.

‘Take care, Harry. Codes are like women: if you can’t crack them, they’ll crack you.’

‘You’re telling me.’

‘Am I? Good, because that means I’m a caring person. I can’t believe my own eyes, but it looks to me as if I’ve just got a customer in the car, Harry. Talk to you later.’

‘OK.’

Harry watched the smoke dance pirouettes in slow motion. He looked at his watch. There was one thing he hadn’t told Oystein: that he had a hunch the rest of the details would soon fall into place. It was a little too pat because, despite the rituals, there was something unemotional about the killings, an almost conspicuous lack of hatred, desire or passion. Or love for that matter. They had been carried out too perfectly, almost mechanically, according to the book. It felt as if he was playing chess against a computer, not against someone whose mind was agitated or unbalanced. Time would tell, though.

He looked at his watch again.

His heart was beating faster.