The Devil's star

41

Monday. Happy Ending.

‘Goodnight.’

Rakel kissed Oleg on the forehead and tucked him in around his body. Then she went downstairs and sat in the kitchen watching the rain falling.

She liked rain. It cleaned the air and washed away the past. A new start. That was what was needed. A new start.

She walked over to the front door and felt to see if it was locked. It was the third time she had done so this evening. What was she really so frightened about?

Then she switched on the TV.

There was a kind of music programme. Three people sitting on the same piano stool. They were smiling at each other. Like a little family, Rakel thought.

She jumped as a clap of thunder rent the air.

‘You have no idea what a fright you gave me just now.’

Wilhelm Barli shook his head and his detumescent penis shook with it.

‘I can probably more or less imagine,’ Harry said. ‘Since I came in through the terrace door, I mean.’

‘No, Harry, you really can’t.’

Wilhelm stretched down over the edge of the bed to pick up the duvet off the floor and put it round him.

‘Sounds like you’re having a shower,’ Harry said.

Wilhelm shook his head and pulled a face.

‘Not me,’ he said.

‘Who then?’

‘I’ve got a visitor. A… woman.’

He smirked and pointed to a chair, which had a suede skirt, a black bra and one single black stocking with an elasticated top thrown over it.

‘Loneliness makes us men weak. Doesn’t it, Harry? We look for solace where we can find it. Some do it with a bottle. Others…’

Wilhelm shrugged his shoulders.

‘We willingly accept that we can make mistakes, don’t we, Harry? And, yes, I do have a guilty conscience.’

Harry’s eyes had focused and he could see them now, the trail of tears on Wilhelm’s cheeks.

‘Will you promise not to tell anyone, Harry? It was a lapse.’

Harry went over to the chair, hung the solitary stocking over the back of the chair and sat down.

‘Who should I tell, Wilhelm? Your wife?’

The room was suddenly lit up by a flash followed by the crack of thunder.

‘It’ll be right over us soon,’ Wilhelm said.

‘Yes.’ Harry ran his hand across his wet forehead.

‘So what do you want?’

‘I think you know that, Wilhelm.’

‘Say it anyway.’

‘We’ve come to take you away.’

‘Not we. You’re on your own, aren’t you. Completely on your own.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Your eyes. Body language. I can read people, Harry. You sneak in here and you’re dependent on the element of surprise. That’s not how you attack when you hunt in herds, Harry. Why are you on your own? Where are the others? Does anyone know you’re here?’

‘That’s not important. Let’s say I am on my own. You still have to answer for the murder of four people.’

Wilhelm placed a finger to his lips and seemed to be reflecting as Harry rolled off the names:

‘Marius Veland. Camilla Loen. Lisbeth Barli. Barbara Svendsen.’

Wilhelm stared vacantly in the air for a while. Then he slowly nodded and took his finger away from his mouth.

‘How did you find out, Harry?’

‘When I knew why. Jealousy. You wanted to take your revenge on them both, didn’t you. When you found out that Lisbeth had met Sven Sivertsen and they had been together during your honeymoon in Prague.’

Wilhelm closed his eyes and laid back his head. The waterbed gurgled.

‘I didn’t know that photograph of you and Lisbeth was taken in Prague until I saw the same statue in a photo I was e-mailed from Prague earlier today.’

‘And then you knew everything?’

‘Well, when the thought first occurred to me I rejected it as an absurd idea, but then gradually it seemed to make sense. As much sense as insanity can. It made sense that the Courier Killer was not a sexually fixated serial killer, but someone who stage-managed the murders to make them appear to be sexual crimes. To make the whole thing look as if Sven Sivertsen was the killer. The only one person who could stage-manage something like that was a professional, someone whose job and whose passion it was.’

Wilhelm opened one eye.

‘If I understand you correctly, you’re saying that this person planned to kill four people to take revenge on only one person?’

‘Of the five appointed victims only three were randomly chosen. You made the crime scenes look as if they had been determined by a randomly placed devil’s star, but in reality you designed the star from two of the points: your own address and the house belonging to Sven Sivertsen’s mother. Cunning, but simple geometry.’

‘Do you really believe this theory of yours, Harry?’

‘Sven Sivertsen had never heard of any Lisbeth Barli. But do you know what, Wilhelm? He remembered her well enough when I told him what her maiden name was: Lisbeth Harang.’

Wilhelm didn’t answer.

‘The only thing I don’t understand,’ Harry said, ‘is why you waited so many years to take your revenge.’

Wilhelm wriggled up the bed.

‘Let’s assume that I don’t understand what you’re trying to insinuate, Harry. I’m reluctant to make a confession and put both of us in a difficult spot. However, since I’m in the fortunate position of knowing that you cannot prove a thing, I don’t mind chatting for a bit. You know that I approve of people who can listen.’

Harry shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

‘Yes, Harry, it is correct that I knew Lisbeth was having an affair with this man, but I didn’t find out until this summer.’

It began to drizzle again. Raindrops spattered against the window.

‘Did she tell you that?’

Wilhelm shook his head. ‘She would never have done that. She came from a family where things were not talked about. It would never have come out if we hadn’t been doing up the flat. I found a letter.’

‘Yes?’

‘The external wall in her study is just bare brick. It’s the original wall from when the building work was done at the turn of the century. Solid, but it gets absolutely freezing in winter. I wanted to clad it with panelling and insulate it on the inside. Lisbeth objected. I thought that was weird, because she was a practical girl, brought up on a farm, not the type to become sentimental about an old brick wall. So one day, when she was out, I examined the wall. I didn’t find anything until I shoved her desk to one side. I still couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but I poked at each of the bricks. One moved just a little. I pulled, and it came away. She had camouflaged the cracks round it with grey building mortar. Inside I found two letters. The name of Lisbeth Harang was on the envelope and a poste restante address I had no idea she had. My first reaction was to put the letters back unread and convince myself that I had never seen them. But I’m a weak man. I wasn’t capable of it. “ Liebling, you are always in my thoughts. I can still feel your lips against mine, your skin against mine” – that’s how the letter begins.’

The bed made a rippling noise.

‘The words smarted like lashes from a whip, but I kept on reading. It was eerie because every word that was written could have been written by me. When he finished saying how much he loved her, he went on to describe what they had done together in the hotel room in Prague in some detail. It wasn’t the description of their love-making that hurt me most, though. It was when he quoted what she had obviously said about our relationship. That for her it was just “a practical solution to a loveless life”. Can you imagine how something like that feels, Harry? When it turns out that the woman you love has not only deceived you, but she has never loved you. Not to be loved – isn’t that the essential definition of a failed life?’

‘No,’ Harry said.

‘No?’

‘Carry on, if you wouldn’t mind.’

Wilhelm gave Harry a searching look.

‘He’d enclosed a photo of himself. I presume she had begged him to send it. I recognised him. He was the Norwegian we met at a cafe in Perlova, a rather shady area of Prague with prostitutes and what were, to all intents and purposes, brothels. He was sitting in the bar when we came in. I noticed him because he was just like one of those mature, distinguished gentlemen that Boss uses as models. Elegantly dressed and old, actually. But with such young, playful eyes that men need to keep an extra careful eye on their wives. So I was not particularly surprised when the man came over to our table after a little while, introduced himself in Norwegian and asked us if we would like to buy a necklace. I thanked him politely and said no, but when he took it out of his pocket anyway and showed it to Lisbeth, she was swooning of course and said that she loved it. The pendant was a red diamond in the shape of a five-pointed star. I asked him what he wanted for the star and when he gave me a price that was so ridiculously over the top that it could only be interpreted as provocation, I asked him to leave us. He smiled at me as if he’d just won a victory, wrote down the address of another cafe on a slip of paper and said that we could find him there at the same time the following day if we changed our minds. Naturally he gave the piece of paper to Lisbeth. I can remember that I was in a bad mood for the rest of the morning. But then I forgot everything. Lisbeth is clever at making you forget. On occasion she manages…’ Wilhelm ran his finger under his eye, ‘… to do that with her mere presence.’

‘Mm. What was in the other letter?’

‘It was a letter she had written and obviously tried to send to him. The envelope was stamped with “Return to sender”. She wrote that she’d tried to get in touch with him in all sorts of ways, but no-one answered at the telephone number he’d given her and neither directory enquiries nor the Post Office had been able to trace him. She wrote that she hoped the letter would find him somehow and asked if he’d had to flee from Prague. Perhaps he was still beset by the same economic problems he’d had when he’d borrowed money from her?’

Wilhelm gave a hollow laugh.

‘If so, he should contact her, she wrote. And she would help him again. Because she loved him. She couldn’t think of anything else – the separation was driving her mad. She’d hoped it would pass with time, but instead it had spread like a disease and every centimetre of her body ached. And some centimetres obviously ached more than others because she wrote to him that when she let her husband – me, in other words – make love to her she closed her eyes and pretended it was him. I was shocked, of course. Yes, stunned. But I died when I saw the date stamp on the envelope.’

Wilhelm squeezed his eyes shut hard again.

‘The letter was sent in February. This year.’

A new flash of lightning cast shadows on the wall. The shadows remained there like spectres of light.

‘What do you do?’ Wilhelm asked.

‘Yes, what did you do?’

Wilhelm smiled weakly.

‘My solution was to serve foie gras with white wine. I covered the bed with roses and we made love all night. As she slept through in the early morning I lay watching her. I knew that I could not live without her, but I also knew that to make her mine, first of all I would have to lose her.’

‘And so you planned the whole thing. Stage-managed how you were going to take the life of your wife and at the same time ensure that the man she loved would be blamed.’

Wilhelm shrugged his shoulders.

‘I went to work in the same way that I did with any stage production. Like all men of the theatre, I know that the most important thing is the illusion. The deceit must be presented as so credible that the truth would seem extremely unlikely. That may sound as if it is tricky to achieve, but in my profession you quickly discover that it is generally easier than the alternative. People are much more used to hearing lies than the truth.’

‘Mm. Tell me how you did it.’

‘Why should I risk that?’

‘I can’t use any of what you say in a court of law anyway. I have no witnesses and I entered your flat illegally.’

‘No, but you’re a smart fellow, Harry. I might give something away that you can use in the investigation.’

‘Maybe, but I think you’re willing to take that risk.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you really want to tell me. You’re burning to tell me. To hear yourself say it.’

Wilhelm Barli laughed out loud.

‘So you think you know me, do you, Harry?’

Harry shook his head as he searched for his packet of cigarettes. In vain. He may have lost them when he fell from the roof.

‘I don’t know you, Wilhelm. Or any others like you. I’ve worked with killers for fifteen years and I still know only one thing: that they’re searching for someone to reveal their secrets to. Do you remember what you made me promise in the theatre? To find the killer. Well, I’ve kept my promise. So let’s make a deal. You tell me how you did it and I’ll tell you the proof we’ve got.’

Wilhelm studied Harry’s face. One hand stroked the mattress.

‘You’re right, Harry. I want to tell you. Or to be more precise, I want you to understand. From what I know of you, I think you can take it. You see, I’ve been following your progress ever since this case started.’

Wilhelm laughed when he saw Harry’s face.

‘You didn’t know, did you.

‘It took me longer than I thought it would to find Sven Sivertsen,’ Wilhelm said. ‘I made a copy of the photo Lisbeth was sent and travelled to Prague. I trawled through the cafes and bars in Mustek and Perlova showing the photo and asking if anyone knew a Norwegian called Sven Sivertsen. Nothing. But it was obvious that some of them knew more than they were willing to divulge. So, after a few days I changed my tactics. I began to ask if there was someone who could procure some red diamonds for me. I knew that it was possible to get hold of some in Prague. I took on the identity of a Danish diamond collector by the name of Peter Sandmann and I made it apparent that I was prepared to pay very well for a special diamond that had been cut into the shape of a five-pointed star. I said where I was staying and after two days the telephone in my room rang. I knew it was him as soon as I heard the voice. I disguised my voice and spoke in English. I told him I was in the middle of negotiations for another diamond and asked if I could phone him later that evening. Did he have a number where I could be sure to get hold of him? I could hear how he was trying not to sound keen and thought how easy it would be to meet him in some dark back street that evening. I controlled myself, though, like the hunter who has to control himself when he has the prey in his sights, but must still wait until everything is perfect. Do you understand?’

Harry nodded slowly. ‘I understand.’

‘He gave me his mobile phone number. The next day I returned to Oslo. It took me a week to find out what I needed about Sven Sivertsen. Identifying him was the easiest. There were twenty-nine Sven Sivertsens on the national register, nine of them the right age and only one without fixed residence in Norway. I noted down his last known address, got the telephone number from directory enquiries and rang.

‘An old lady answered the phone. She said that Sven was her son, but that he hadn’t lived at home for many years. I told her that myself and a couple of others from his old school class were trying to get everyone together for an anniversary reunion. She said he lived in Prague, but that he travelled a lot and didn’t have a fixed address or telephone number. On top of which, she said, he wouldn’t be very interested in meeting any of his old classmates. What did I say my name was? I said that I’d only been in his class for six months, so it was doubtful whether he would remember my name. And if he did, it was probably because I’d landed myself in a spot of bother with the police at the time. Was the rumour true that Sven had, too? His mother’s tone became a bit sharp then and she said it was all a long time ago, and it was not so strange that Sven became a bit rebellious, considering the way we treated him. I apologised on behalf of the class, put down the phone and called the Law Courts. I said I was a journalist and asked if they could tell me what sentences Sven Sivertsen had received. An hour later I had a pretty good idea what he was up to in Prague. Smuggling diamonds and weapons. A plan began to take shape in my mind, based on what I now knew: that he made his money through smuggling; the five-pointed diamonds; weapons; his mother’s address. Do you begin to see the links now?’

Harry didn’t answer.

‘When next I rang Sven Sivertsen, three weeks had gone by since my trip to Prague. I spoke Norwegian in my normal voice, went straight to the point and told him that I’d been looking for someone to procure weapons and diamonds for me for a long time and I didn’t want any middle-men involved. I said I thought I had found someone: him, Sven Sivertsen. He asked me how I’d got hold of his name and number and I answered that my discretion could also benefit him. I suggested that we didn’t ask each other any further unnecessary questions. That wasn’t particularly well received and the conversation almost came to a halt there and then. Until I mentioned the sum of money I was willing to pay for the goods, up front and into a Swiss bank account if required. We even had the classic film dialogue where he asked me if I meant kroner and I answered in a somewhat surprised tone that of course we were talking euros. I knew that the sum of money alone would dispel any lingering suspicion that I might be a policeman. You don’t need an almighty sledgehammer to crack a nut like Sivertsen. He said everything could be arranged. I said I’d get back to him presently.

‘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.

‘Have you ever felt a statue, Harry? It’s quite remarkable how the skin of a dead person feels. It’s not really warm, and it’s not really cold.’

Wilhelm stroked the blue mattress.

Harry could feel the cold freezing his insides, as if someone had given him an injection of ice water. He felt his throat constrict when he said: ‘You know you’re finished, don’t you?’

Wilhelm stretched out across the bed.

‘Why should I be, Harry? I’m just a storyteller who’s told you a story. You can’t prove a thing.’

He stretched over for something on the bedside table. There was a flash of metal and Harry’s muscles went taut. Wilhelm raised it in the air. A wristwatch.

‘It’s late, Harry. Shall we say visiting time is over? It doesn’t matter if you go before she’s out of the shower.’

Harry didn’t move. ‘Finding the killer was only half the promise you made me make, Wilhelm. The other half was that I should punish him. Severely. And I think you meant it. Part of you is longing to be punished, isn’t that right?’

‘Freud has passed its sell-by date, Harry. Just like this visit.’

‘Don’t you want to hear the proof first?’

Wilhelm sighed with irritation.

‘If it’ll make you leave, go on.’

‘I really should have known everything when we received Lisbeth’s finger with the diamond ring in the post. Third finger on the left hand. Vena amoris. She was the one the murderer wanted to love him. Paradoxically enough, it was also this finger that gave him away.’

‘Gave away…’

‘To be precise, the excrement under the nail…’

‘With my blood. Yes, but that’s old news, Harry. And I’ve already explained that we liked to…’

‘Yes, and when we found that out, the excrement was investigated more carefully. Usually this does not reveal a great deal. The food we eat takes twelve to twenty-four hours to travel from mouth to rectum and in the course of this time the stomach and the network of intestines has turned the food into an unrecognisable waste product. So unrecognisable that even under the microscope it is difficult to determine what a person has eaten. Nevertheless, there are still some things that manage to pass through the digestive tract unscathed. Grape pips and -’

‘Can you skip the lecture, Harry?’

‘Seeds. We found two seeds. Nothing special about that. So it was only today, when I realised who the killer might be, that I asked the laboratory to examine the seeds closer. And do you know what they found?’

‘No idea.’

‘There was a complete fennel seed.’

‘So what?’

‘I had a chat with the chef at the Theatre Cafe. You were right when you told me that it was the only place in Norway where they make fennel bread with complete seeds. It goes so well with -’

‘Herring,’ Wilhelm said. ‘You know I eat there. What are you getting at?’

‘Earlier you said that the Wednesday Lisbeth disappeared you had herring for breakfast at the Theatre Cafe as usual. Somewhere between nine and ten o’clock in the morning. What I’m wondering is how the seed got from your stomach to under Lisbeth’s nail.’

Harry waited to be sure that Wilhelm was taking everything in.

‘You said that Lisbeth had left the flat at about five o’clock. So, around eight hours after you ate herring for breakfast. Suppose that the last thing you did before she went out was to make love and she penetrated you with her finger. However efficiently your intestines worked they would not have been able to shift the fennel seed to your rectum within eight hours. It’s a medical impossibility.’

Harry noticed a slight twitch in Wilhelm’s open-mouthed face as he enunciated the word ‘impossibility’.

‘The earliest the fennel seed could have reached the rectum is at nine o’clock. So you must have had Lisbeth’s finger inside you at some point in the evening, the night or the following day. All after you had reported her missing. Do you understand what I’m saying, Wilhelm?’

Wilhelm stared at Harry. That is, he was staring in Harry’s direction, but his eyes were fixed on a point a lot further away.

‘That’s what we call forensic evidence,’ Harry said.

‘I understand.’ Wilhelm nodded slowly. ‘Forensic evidence.’

‘Yes.’

‘A specific, irrefutable fact?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Judges and juries love that sort of thing, don’t they. It’s better than a confession, isn’t it, Harry.’

The policeman nodded.

‘A farce, Harry. I thought it was all a farce. People rushing on stage and then off again. I made sure we stayed on the terrace so that the neighbours over the way would see us before I asked Lisbeth to come into the bedroom with me where I took a gun out of the toolbox and she stared – yes, just like in a farce – with widening eyes at the long barrel with the silencer.’

Wilhelm took his hand out from underneath the duvet. Harry stared at the gun with the black lump round the barrel, which was now pointed at him.

‘Sit down, Harry.’

Harry felt the chisel sticking into his side as he dropped down onto the chair again.

‘She misunderstood me in the most amusing way. It would have been such poetic justice. To have her riding on my hand as I ejaculated hot lead into where she’d let him come.’

Wilhelm got up from the bed, which rippled and gurgled behind him.

‘But the essence of farce is speed, speed, so I was forced to arrange a hasty departure.’

He stood up naked in front of Harry and raised the gun.

‘I placed the mouth of the gun against her forehead. She frowned in surprise as she always did when she thought the world was unjust or simply confusing. Like the evening I told her about Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion on which My Fair Lady is based. In it, Eliza Doolittle does not marry Professor Higgins, the man who trained her and transformed her from a market girl into a well-mannered young woman. Instead she runs off with young Freddy. Lisbeth was furious and said that Eliza owed that much to the professor, and that Freddy was a dull person of no consequence. Do you know what, Harry? I started crying.’

‘You’re crazy,’ Harry whispered.

‘Apparently,’ Wilhelm said gravely. ‘What I’ve done is monstrous. There’s none of the control you find in people motivated by hatred. I’m just a simple man who has followed the dictates of his heart. And it dictates love, the love that is given to us by God and makes us God’s instrument. Weren’t the prophets and Jesus thought to be crazy, too, perhaps? Of course we’re crazy, Harry. Crazy, and yet the sanest on this earth. When people say that what I’ve done is insane, that my heart must be crippled inside, then I say: Whose heart is more crippled, the heart that cannot stop loving or the one that is loved but cannot return that love?’

A long silence ensued. Harry cleared his throat.

‘And so you shot her?’

Wilhelm nodded slowly.

‘There was a little lump in her forehead,’ he said with surprise in his voice. ‘And a little black hole. Just as when you hammer a nail into sheet metal.’

‘And then you concealed her. In the only place even a police dog would not find her.’

‘It was hot in the flat.’ Wilhelm had fixed his gaze somewhere above Harry’s head. ‘A fly was buzzing by the window, and I took all my clothes off so that I wouldn’t get any blood on them. Everything was carefully laid out in the toolbox. I used the pincers to cut off the middle finger of her left hand. Then I undressed her, took out the silicon foam spray and quickly sealed the bullet hole, the wound on her finger and all the other orifices of her body. I had let some water out of the bed earlier in the day so that it was only half full. I hardly spilled a drop as I stuffed her in through the hole I’d cut in the mattress. Then I sealed it again with glue, rubber and a heat gun. It went a lot better than the first time.’

‘And she’s been there ever since? Buried in her own waterbed?’

‘No, no,’ Wilhelm said, staring thoughtfully at the point above Harry’s head. ‘I didn’t bury her. On the contrary, I put her back in a womb. That was the start of her rebirth.’

Harry knew that he ought to be frightened. That it would be dangerous not to be frightened now, that his mouth should be dry and he should feel his heart thumping. He ought not to be feeling this exhaustion creeping up on him.

‘And you shoved the severed finger up your anus,’ Harry said.

‘Hm,’ Wilhelm said. ‘The perfect hiding place. As I said, I thought you would use dogs.’

‘There are other places that don’t give off a smell, but perhaps that gave you a perverse thrill? What did you do with Camilla Loen’s finger, by the way? The one you cut off before you killed her.’

‘Camilla, yes…’ Wilhelm nodded with a smile as if it were a happy memory Harry had revived. ‘That will have to remain a secret between her and me, Harry.’

Wilhelm released the safety catch. Harry swallowed.

‘Give me the gun, Wilhelm. It’s all over. There’s no point.’

‘Of course there’s a point.’

‘And what might that be?’

‘The same as always, Harry. The performance has to have a decent ending. You don’t think that the audience will be fobbed off with me going quietly, do you? We need a grand finale, Harry. A happy ending. If there isn’t a happy ending, I make one. That’s my…’

‘Motto in life,’ Harry whispered.

Wilhelm smiled and put the gun to Harry’s temple. ‘I was going to say, my motto in death.’

Harry closed his eyes. All he wanted was to sleep. To be carried down to a gently flowing river. And over to the other side.

Rakel twitched and thrust open her eyes.

She had been dreaming about Harry. They had been aboard a boat.

The bedroom was in the dark. Had she heard something? Had something happened?

She listened to the rain drumming reassuringly onto the roof. For safety’s sake she checked that her mobile phone, which lay on the bedside table, was switched on. In case he phoned.

She closed her eyes. Flowed gently onwards.

Harry had lost track of time. When he opened his eyes he had the impression the light was different in the empty room, and he had no idea whether a second or a minute had passed.

The bed was empty. Wilhelm was gone.

The sounds of water returned. The rain. The shower.

Harry struggled to his feet and stared at the blue mattress. He felt as if something was crawling inside his clothes. In the light from the bedside table he could see the contours of a human body inside the waterbed. The face had floated up and formed a mould like a plaster cast.

He left the bedroom. The door to the terrace was wide open. He glanced over the railing and down into the yard. He trod wet footprints on the white staircase as he walked down to the lower floor. He opened the bathroom door. The silhouette of a woman’s body was outlined against the window behind the grey shower curtain. Harry drew it to the side. Toya Harang’s neck was bent towards the stream of water, her chin almost touching her chest. A black stocking was tied round her neck and the top of the shower tap. Her eyes were closed and drops of water hung from the long, black lashes. Her mouth was half open and filled with a yellow mass, like hardened foam. The same material filled her nostrils, ears and the small hole in her temple.

He turned off the shower before he left.

There was no-one around on the stairs.

Harry put one foot carefully in front of the other. He felt numb, as if his body were turning to stone.

Bjarne Moller.

He had to ring Bjarne Moller.

Harry went through the entrance hall and into the yard. The rain settled on his head, but he didn’t feel it. Soon he would be totally paralysed. The rotary dryer was not screeching any longer. He avoided looking at it. He caught sight of a yellow packet on the tarmac and went over to it. He opened it, pulled out a cigarette and shoved it into his mouth. He tried to light it with his lighter but discovered that the end of the cigarette was wet. Water must have got into the packet.

Ring Bjarne Moller. Get them to come here. Go with Moller over to the students’ house. Question Sven Sivertsen there. Record his testimony against Tom Waaler immediately. Listen to Moller giving the order for Inspector Waaler’s arrest. Then go home. Home to Rakel.

He could see the rotary dryer in his peripheral vision.

He swore, tore the cigarette in half, put the filter between his lips and lit it at the second attempt. Why was he so stressed? There was nothing left to do. It was finished, over.

He turned towards the rotary dryer.

It stooped a little to one side, but the post set in the tarmac had obviously taken the brunt of it. Only one of the strings that Wilhelm Barli was hanging on had broken. His arms hung to both sides, his wet hair clung to his face and his eyes were wrenched upwards, as if in prayer. It struck Harry that it was a strangely beautiful sight. With his naked body partly shrouded by the wet sheet he resembled a figurehead set up on the bows of a galleon. Wilhelm had got what he wanted. A grand finale.

Harry picked up his mobile phone and pressed in his PIN code. His fingers would hardly obey him. They would soon be stone. He keyed in Bjarne Moller’s number. He was about to press the call button when the telephone gave a warning shriek. The display showed that there was a message on his answerphone. So what? It wasn’t Harry’s phone. He hesitated. Instinct told him that he should phone Moller first. He closed his eyes. And pressed.

A woman announced that he had one message. There was a bleep followed by a few seconds’ silence. Then a voice whispered:

‘Hi, Harry. It’s me.’

It was Tom Waaler.

‘You turned your phone off, Harry. That wasn’t wise. Because I have to talk to you, you know.’

Tom’s mouth was so close to the receiver that Harry felt he was standing right next to him.

‘Apologies for having to whisper, but we don’t want to wake him, do we. Can you guess where I am? I think perhaps you can. Perhaps you ought to have anticipated it even.’

Harry sucked on his cigarette without realising that it had gone out.

‘It’s a bit dark in here, but there’s a picture of a football team over the bed. Let’s see. Tottenham Hotspur? There’s a little machine on his bedside table. GameBoy. Listen now. I’m holding the phone over his bed.’

He heard the calm, regular breathing of a little boy sleeping soundly in a black timber-clad house in Holmenkollveien.

‘We have our eyes and ears everywhere, Harry, so don’t try to phone or talk to anyone. Just do exactly as I say. Ring this number and talk to me. Do anything else and the boy is dead. Do you understand?’

Harry’s heart began pumping blood round his paralysed body and slowly the numbness was replaced by almost unbearable pain.