The Devil's star

40

Monday. Rain.

It was 7.30. The sun was moving towards Ullern Ridge and from her veranda in Thomas Heftyes gate, widowed fru Danielsen saw that several white clouds had floated in over Oslo fjord. Beneath her, in the street, Andre Clausen and Truls passed by. She didn’t know either the man or his golden retriever by name, but she had often seen them coming down Gimle terrasse. They stopped at the lights by the crossroads near the taxi rank in Bygdoy alle. Fru Danielsen assumed that they were intending to go up to Frogner Park.

They both looked a bit the worse for wear, she thought. What’s more, the dog was in need of a good wash.

She wrinkled her nose when she saw the dog, half a step behind its owner, raise its backside and do its business on the pavement. And when the owner made no attempt to pick up the dog dirt – in fact, he just dragged the dog over the crossing as soon as the lights went green – Fru Danielsen became indignant and a little elated at the same time. She was indignant because she had always been concerned for the good of the town – well, at least for the good of this part of the town – and she was elated because now she had some material for another reader’s letter in Aftenposten, and she had not had a letter accepted of late.

She stood glaring at the scene of the crime while dog and dog owner, clearly guilt-ridden, scurried up Frognerveien. And so she became an unwilling witness to a woman rushing from the opposite direction to cross the lights before they turned red and falling victim to another person’s total disregard of their civic responsibilities. The woman was obviously trying to hail a taxi and was not looking where she was treading.

Fru Danielsen emitted a loud sniff, cast a final glance at the armada of clouds and went in to begin her reader’s letter.

A train passed like a long, gentle breath of air. Olaug opened her eyes and discovered that she was standing in the garden.

Odd. She couldn’t remember leaving the house. But there she was, standing between the railway lines with the smell of roses and lilacs in her nostrils. The pressure on her temples had not eased, quite the contrary. She looked up. It had clouded over – that was why it was so dark. Olaug looked down at her bare feet. White skin, blue veins, the feet of an old lady. She knew why she was standing on this exact spot. They had stood here. Ernst and Randi. She had been standing by the window in the maid’s room, watching them in the twilight by the rhododendron bushes, which were no longer there. The sun had been going down and he had been murmuring something in German and had plucked a rose which he put behind his wife’s ear. She had laughed and nuzzled his neck. Then they turned to face west, they put their arms round each other and stood still. She rested her head on her husband’s shoulder while they watched the sun setting, all three of them. Olaug did not know what they were thinking, but for her part she had been thinking that the sun would be up again another day. So young.

Olaug instinctively peered up at the window of the maid’s room. No Ina, no young Olaug, merely a black surface reflecting the popcorn-shaped clouds.

She would weep until the summer was over. Perhaps a little longer. And then the rest of life would begin again as it always did. It was a plan. You needed a plan.

There was a movement behind her. Olaug turned round cautiously. She could feel the cool grass being torn away as she twisted round on the balls of her feet. Then – in the middle of the movement – she froze.

It was a dog.

It gazed up at her with eyes that seemed to be begging forgiveness for something that as yet had not happened. At that moment something slid soundlessly from out under the fruit trees and towards the side of the dog. It was a man. His eyes were large and black, just like the dog’s. She felt as if someone had thrust a little animal down her throat and she couldn’t breathe.

‘We were inside, but you weren’t there,’ the man said, tilting his head and looking at her the way you would study an interesting insect.

‘You don’t know who I am, fru Sivertsen, but I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.’

Olaug opened her mouth and then closed it again. The man came closer. Olaug was looking over his shoulder, beyond him.

‘My God,’ she whispered, stretching out her arms.

She came down the steps, ran over the gravel laughing and into Olaug’s embrace.

‘I was so worried about you,’ Olaug said.

‘Oh?’ Ina said with surprise in her voice. ‘We just stayed in the log cabin a little longer than we’d planned. It is a holiday, you know.’

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Olaug said, squeezing her tight.

The dog, an English setter, let itself get carried away by the pleasure of being reunited and it jumped up and put its paws on Olaug’s back.

‘Thea!’ the man said. ‘Sit!’

Thea sat.

‘And who’s this?’ Olaug asked, finally releasing Ina.

‘This is Terje Rye.’ Ina’s cheeks glowed in the dusk. ‘My fiance.’

‘Goodness me,’ Olaug said, clapping her hands together.

The man put his hand forward with a broad smile. He was no picture. Snub nose, wispy hair and closeset eyes. But he had an open, direct look that Olaug liked.

‘Nice to meet you,’ he said.

‘Nice to meet you, too,’ Olaug said, hoping the darkness would conceal her tears.

Toya Harang didn’t notice the smell until they were well up Josefines gate.

She examined the taxi driver suspiciously. He was dark-skinned, but he certainly wasn’t an African or she wouldn’t have dared enter the taxi. It wasn’t that she was a racist; it was just all the talk about statistics.

What was the smell though?

She caught the driver’s glance in the mirror. Had she dressed too provocatively? Was the red blouse cut too low? The skirt with the slit up the side over her cowboy boots too short? She pursued another, more pleasant, thought. He had recognised her from the splash in today’s papers with all the big pictures of her. ‘ TOYA HARANG: NEW QUEEN OF MUSICALS,’ the headline read. True, the reviewer in Dagbladet had called her ‘gauche but charming’ and said that she was more convincing as Eliza the flowerseller than as the society lady that Professor Higgins had turned her into, but the reviewers were all agreed that she could sing and dance the braids off anyone around. There. What would Lisbeth have said to that?

‘Party?’ the driver asked.

‘Sort of,’ Toya said.

A party for two, she thought. A party to Venus and… What was it again, what was the other name he had said? Well, Venus was her, anyway. He had come up to her during the celebrations after opening night was over and whispered in her ear that he was one of her secret admirers. Then he invited her back to his place tonight. He had not bothered to disguise his intentions and she ought to have said no. For decency’s sake she ought to have said no.

‘That’ll be nice,’ the driver said.

Decency and no. She could still smell the silo and the dust from the straw, and see her father’s belt cutting through the stripes of light which fell through cracks between the slats in the barn as he tried to beat it into her. Decency and no. And she could still feel her mother’s hand stroking her hair in the kitchen afterwards as she asked her why she could not be like Lisbeth. Quiet and clever. One day Toya had torn herself away and said that she was the way she was and she must have inherited it from her father and hadn’t she seen him mounting Lisbeth like a sow in the sty, or didn’t Mother know about that? Toya had watched her mother’s face change, not because her mother didn’t know that it was lies, but because she knew now that Toya would not shy away from using any weapon at her disposal to harm them. Then Toya had screamed as loudly as she could that she hated them all and her father had come in from the sitting room with the newspaper in his hand and she could see on their faces that they knew that she was not lying now. Did she still hate them now that they had gone? She didn’t know. No. Nowadays she didn’t hate anyone. That wasn’t why she was doing what she was doing. She was doing it for the fun of it. For indecency and yes. And because it was so irresistibly forbidden.

She gave the driver 200 kroner and a smile and told him to keep the change, despite the smell in the car. It was only when the taxi had driven away that she realised why the driver had been staring in his mirror. The smell had not come from him, but from her.

‘Bloody hell!’

She scraped the leather sole of her high-heeled cowboy boot against the pavement, making brown stripes. She searched around for a puddle, but there had not been one in Oslo for close to five weeks. She gave up and went to the door and rang the bell.

‘Yes?’

‘This is Venus,’ she cooed.

She smiled to herself.

‘And this is Pygmalion,’ the voice said.

That was the one!

There was a buzz in the door lock. She hesitated for a second. Last chance to retreat. She flicked back her hair and pulled open the door.

He was standing in the doorway with a drink in one hand waiting for her.

‘Did you do as I said?’ he asked. ‘You didn’t tell anyone where you were going?’

‘No, are you crazy?’

She rolled her eyes.

‘Maybe,’ he said opening the door wide. ‘Come in and say hello to Galatea.’

She laughed even though she hadn’t a clue what he was talking about. She laughed even though she knew something awful was about to happen.

Harry found a place to park some way down Markveien, switched off the engine and got out of the car. He lit up and had a quick recce. The streets were deserted. It seemed as if people had retired indoors. The innocent white clouds from the afternoon had spread out to form a blue-grey wall-to-wall carpet in the sky.

He followed the graffiti-covered house fronts until he stood outside the door. Just the filter remained on his cigarette and he threw it away. He rang and waited. It was so muggy that the palms of his hands were sweating. Or was it terror? He looked at his watch and took note of the time.

‘Yes?’ The voice sounded irritated.

‘Good evening. It’s Harry Hole.’

No answer.

‘From the police,’ he added.

‘Of course. Sorry, my mind was on something else. Come in.’

The door buzzed.

Harry took the steps slowly.

They stood waiting in the door for him, both of them.

‘Oh no,’ Ruth said. ‘All hell’s about to break loose.’

Harry stood on the landing in front of them.

‘The rain,’ the Trondheim Eagle added by way of explanation.

‘Oh, I see.’ Harry dried his palms on his trousers.

‘How can we help you, Inspector?’

‘You can help me to catch the Courier Killer,’ Harry said.

Toya lay in a foetal position in the middle of the bed staring at herself in the mirror on the wardrobe door, which hung open against the wall. She listened to the shower from the lower floor. He was washing the smell of her off him. She rolled over. The waterbed gently moulded itself to her body. She looked at the photo. They were smiling at the camera. They were on holiday. In France maybe. She ran her fingers over the cool duvet cover. His body had also been cold. Cold and hard and muscular for someone so old. Particularly his backside and thighs. It was because he had been a dancer, he said. He had trained his muscles every day for 15 years. They would never disappear.

Toya’s attention was caught by the black belt in his trousers lying on the floor.

Fifteen years. They would never disappear.

She rolled over onto her back, pushed herself up higher in the bed and heard the water gurgle on the inside of the rubber mattress. But now everything would be different. Toya was clever now. A good girl. Just the way Daddy and Mummy wanted. She was Lisbeth now.

Toya rested her head against the wall and sank deeper. Something was tickling her between the shoulder blades. It was like lying in a boat on the river. She lay there thinking.

Wilhelm had asked her if she would use a dildo while he watched. She had gone along with it. Good girl. He opened his toolbox. She closed her eyes, but still she had seen the stripes of light – the light through the cracks between the slats in the barn – on the inside of her eyelids. Then when he came in her mouth, it tasted of silo, but she didn’t say anything. Clever girl.

Clever is how she was when Wilhelm was training her to speak and sing like her sister. Try to smile like her. Wilhelm had given make-up a photograph of Lisbeth and told them that that was how Toya was to look. The only thing she had not been able to do was laugh like Lisbeth, so Wilhelm had asked her not to try. Now and then she had been unsure how much was about playing Eliza Doolittle and how much was about Wilhelm’s desperate yearning for Lisbeth. And now she was here in his bed. And perhaps this, too, was about Lisbeth, both for him and for her. What was it that Wilhelm had said? Lust found the lowest level?

Something was sticking into her back again and she twitched angrily.

For herself, Toya had not particularly missed Lisbeth much, if she were to be absolutely honest. Not that she wasn’t shocked like everyone else when she had heard the news about her disappearance. But it had opened quite a lot of new doors. Toya was interviewed and Spinnin’ Wheel had just received an offer for a series of well-paid concerts in memory of Lisbeth. And now the main role in My Fair Lady. Which on top of all this was well on the way to becoming a hit. Wilhelm had told her at the opening-night party that she would have to prepare herself for becoming a celebrity. A star. A diva. She put her hand under her back. What was digging into her? A lump. Under the sheet. It disappeared when she pressed it down. There it was again. She would have to find out.

‘Wilhelm?’

She was going to shout louder to drown out the noise of the shower below, but remembered that Wilhelm had given strict instructions that she was to rest her voice. After a day off today they would have to perform every night until the end of the week. When she arrived he had asked her not to speak at all, not under any circumstances. Even though he had told her before that he wanted to rehearse a few snatches of dialogue with her that were not quite right, and he had asked her to make herself up as Eliza, for the sake of realism.

Toya undid the stretch undersheet from one side of the water bed and pulled it to the side. There was no other bedding, just the blue translucent rubber mattress. But what was sticking out over there? She laid her hand against the mattress. It was there, under the rubber. There was nothing to see. She stretched over to the side, switched on the bedside table lamp and twisted it over so that it pointed to the right spot. The bulge had gone again. She placed her hand over the rubber and waited. It came back, slowly, and she realised that whatever it was sank when she poked it and then came up again. She moved her hand.

At first she saw the contours outlined against the rubber. Like a profile. No, it wasn’t like a profile. It was a profile. Toya lay down flat. She had stopped breathing. She could feel it now. Down from her stomach to her toes. There was a complete body on the inside. A body that was forced up by the buoyancy of the water and forced down by the weight of Toya as if two people were trying to be one. And perhaps they were. Because it was like looking in a mirror.

She wanted to scream now. Wanted to ruin her voice. Didn’t want to be a good girl. Or clever. She wanted to be Toya again. But she couldn’t be. She could only stare at the pallid, blue face of her sister, staring back at her with pupilless eyes. And listen to the ssshh sounds of the shower, so like the TV set after transmission had finished. And then the sound of dripping water on the parquet floor by the foot of the bed behind her, telling her that Wilhelm was no longer in the shower.

‘It can’t be him,’ Ruth said. ‘It’s… it’s… not possible.’

‘The last time I was here you said you were thinking about going over the roof to Barli’s to do a bit of spying,’ Harry said. ‘And that his terrace door was left open all summer. Are you sure about that?’

‘Absolutely, but can’t you just phone?’ the Trondheim Eagle asked.

Harry shook his head.

‘He’ll become suspicious and we cannot risk him getting away. I have to catch him this evening, if it’s not too late already.’

‘Too late for what?’ the Trondheim Eagle asked, scrunching up one eye.

‘Listen, all I’m asking is that you let me use your balcony to get up onto the roof.’

‘Is there really no-one else with you?’ the Trondheim Eagle asked. ‘Haven’t you got a search warrant or something like that?’

Harry shook his head.

‘Justified grounds for suspicion,’ he said. ‘You don’t need one.’

A rumble of thunder boomed low and menacingly over Harry’s head. The gutter above the balcony had been painted yellow, but most of it had flaked off revealing large patches of red rust. Harry grabbed hold with both hands and pulled gently to see if it was properly attached. The gutter gave way with a groan and a screw detached itself from the plaster and hit the ground in the yard with a tinkle. Harry released his grip and swore. There was no alternative, however, so he put a foot on the railing and hauled himself up. He peered over the edge. An automatic sharp intake of breath. The sheet on the rotary dryer down below was like a white stamp blowing in the wind.

He forced one leg onto the gutter and scrambled over. Even though the roof was steep, the grip his robust Doc Martens had on the tiles was good enough for him to take the two steps to the drainpipe and clutch it to his chest as if it were a long-lost friend. He straightened and looked around. There was a flash of lightning over Nesodden. The air, which had not stirred when he arrived, was softly plucking at his jacket. Harry gave a start as a black shadow suddenly raced past his face. The shadow intersected the space above the central yard. A swallow. Harry just caught sight of it as it sought shelter under the eaves.

Harry scrabbled his way to the top of the roof, aimed for a black weathervane 15 metres away, took a deep breath and began to walk along the ridge of the roof with his arms held out like a line dancer.

He had reached the halfway point when it happened.

Harry heard a whoosh, which he first thought came from the tops of the trees beneath him. The sound rose in volume at the same time as the rotary dryer down in the yard began to rotate and shriek. He couldn’t feel any wind, not yet. Then it hit him. The drought was over. The wind struck him in the chest like an avalanche of air set in motion by a plunging mass of water. He tottered back a step and stood swaying on the ridge. He heard it advancing towards him over the clattering roof tiles. The rain. The deluge. It beat down against the roof and in less than a second everything was wet. Harry tried to keep his balance, but there was nothing to grip; it was like walking on soap. One shoe slipped and he made a desperate dive for the weathervane. His arms were stretched out in front of him, his fingers splayed. His right hand scrabbled at the surface of a tile, searching for something to hold on to, but there was nothing. Gravity was pulling at him. The scratching of his nails made the same rasping noise as a scythe blade on a whetstone as he slid downwards. He heard the shriek of the rotary dryer abating, felt the gutter against his knees and knew he was on his way over the edge. He stretched his body out in a last-ditch attempt, tried to make himself longer, turn himself into an aerial. An aerial. His left hand grabbed hold of it, held on tight. The metal softened, bowed and bent. It threatened to follow him down into the yard. But it held.

Harry took hold of it with both hands and pulled himself up. He managed to get his rubber soles back underneath him and pushed as hard as he could against the surface and gained a foothold. With the rain furiously whipping into his face he crawled up to the ridge, sat astride it and breathed a deep sigh of relief. The contorted metal aerial beneath him was pointing downwards. Someone was going to have a reception problem with tonight’s repeat showing of Beat for Beat.

Harry waited until his pulse had calmed down a little. Then he stood up and continued the tightrope walk. The weathervane received a kiss.

Barli’s terrace was inset in the roof, so he could easily swing his legs down onto the red terracotta tiles. His feet made a splash as he landed, but the sound was drowned out by the roaring and gurgling of the flooded roof gutters.

The chairs had been taken in, the barbecue lay black and dead in a corner, but the terrace door was ajar.

At first, all he could hear was the drumming of the rain on the tiles, but as he cautiously crossed the threshold and entered the room he could discern another sound, also made by water. It came from the bathroom downstairs. The shower. Finally a bit of luck. Harry patted the pockets of his drenched jacket to find his chisel. An undressed and unarmed Barli was the best he could hope for, especially if Wilhelm still had the gun that Sven handed over in Frogner Park on Saturday.

Harry saw that the bedroom door was open. There was a Sami knife in the toolbox beside the bed. He tiptoed over to the door and crept into the bedroom.

The room was dark, barely lit by the reading lamp on the bedside table. Harry stood at the foot of the bed; his gaze fell on the wall and the picture of Lisbeth and Wilhelm on their honeymoon in front of an old majestic building and the statue of a horse and rider. Harry knew now that this picture had not been taken in France. In Sven’s opinion, any half-educated person should be able to recognise this statue of the Czech national hero, Vaclav, in front of the National Museum in Vaclav Square in Prague.

Harry’s eyes were used to the dark now. He shifted his attention to the double bed and froze: he held his breath and stood as rigid as a snowman. The duvet had been thrown to the floor and the sheet had been half removed so that blue rubber was revealed. On top, a naked person was lying stomach down, the upper body supported by its elbows. The eyes were directed towards the area where the cone of light from the reading lamp met the blue mattress.

The rain on the roof played its last drum roll before it abruptly stopped. The person had clearly not heard Harry coming into the room, but Harry had the same problem as most snowmen in July. Water was running off him. Water was dripping from his jacket and onto the parquet floor with what, to Harry’s ears, sounded like a thundering roar.

The body on the bed tensed up. And turned over. First of all his head. Then his entire, naked body.

What Harry first noticed was the erect penis oscillating to and fro like a metronome.

‘My God! Harry?’

Wilhelm Barli’s voice sounded at once frightened and relieved.