The Devil's star

42

Monday. The Devil’s Star.

The windscreen wipers whispered and the tyres hissed.

The Escort aquaplaned through the crossing. Harry drove as fast as he dared, but the rain was coming down like stair-rods onto the tarmac in front of him and he knew that the remaining tread on the tyres was only really of a cosmetic nature.

He accelerated and took the next crossing on amber. Fortunately there were no cars on the streets. He snatched a glance at his watch.

Twelve minutes left. It was eight minutes since he had been standing in the central yard in Sannergata, mobile in hand, and dialling the number he was forced to dial. Eight minutes since the voice had whispered in his ear:

‘At last.’

Harry said all he wanted to, but couldn’t stop himself adding: ‘If you lay a hand on him, I’ll kill you.’

‘Well, well. Where are you and Sivertsen?’

‘No idea,’ Harry had said staring at the rotary dryer. ‘What do you want?’

‘I just want to meet you. Find out why you want to break the deal we made. Find out if you’re unhappy about something that we can put right. It’s not too late, Harry. I’m willing to stick my neck right out to get you in the team.’

‘OK,’ Harry said. ‘Let’s meet. I’ll come to you.’

Tom Waaler gave a low laugh.

‘I want to meet Sven Sivertsen as well. And I think it’s a better idea if I come to you. So give me the address. Now.’

Harry hesitated.

‘Have you heard what it sounds like when you cut someone’s throat, Harry? First of all there’s the squeak as the steel cuts into the skin and cartilage, then a wheezing sound like the saliva sucker at the dentist’s. It comes from the severed trachea. Or is it the oesophagus? I can never tell the difference.’

‘Student block. Room 406.’

‘Christ. The crime scene? I should’ve thought of that.’

‘You should’ve.’

‘OK, but if you’re thinking of calling anyone or setting up a trap, forget it, Harry. I’m bringing the boy with me.’

‘No! Don’t… Tom… please.’

‘Please? Did you say “please”?’

Harry didn’t answer.

‘I picked you up from the gutter and gave you a chance. And you stabbed me in the back, please. It’s not my fault I have to do what I’m doing. It’s yours. Remember that, Harry.’

‘Listen -’

‘In twenty minutes. Leave the door open and sit on the floor where I can see you with your hands over your heads.’

‘Tom!’

Waaler had rung off.

Harry tore at the wheel and felt the tyres lose their grip. They floated on the water, sideways on. For a moment it was as if he and the car were hovering in a dream where all the laws of physics were suspended. It only lasted for the one second, but it was enough for Harry to have the liberating sensation that everything was over, that it was too late to do anything. Then the tyres regained their grip and he was back.

The car swerved outside the student building and pulled up in front of the exit door. Harry switched off the ignition. Nine minutes left. He got out and walked round the car. He opened the boot and threw away half-empty bottles of windscreen wash and filthy rags. Grabbed a roll of black insulation tape. As he went up the stairs he pulled the gun out from the waistband of his trousers and unscrewed the silencer. He hadn’t checked the weapon, but assumed that a Czech gun would stand the occasional 15-metre fall from a roof terrace. He stopped outside the lift door on the fourth floor. The handle was as he remembered: metal with a round solid wooden cap over the end. Just large enough to hide a gun minus silencer, if one was taped to the inside. He loaded the weapon and secured it with two strips of tape. If things went as planned from the beginning, he would need it. The hinges creaked as he opened the lid to the disposal chute beside the lift, but the silencer fell into the dark without a sound. Four minutes left.

He unlocked the door to room 406.

There was a clank of iron against the radiator.

‘Good news?’

Sven had an almost imploring tone. His breath smelled bad as Harry unlocked the handcuffs.

‘No,’ Harry answered.

‘No?’

‘He’s coming with Oleg.’

Harry and Sven sat on the floor in the corridor, waiting.

‘He’s late,’ Sven said.

‘Yes.’

Silence.

‘Iggy Pop songs beginning with C,’ Sven said. ‘You start.’

‘Pack it in.’

‘“China Girl”.’

‘Not now.’

‘It helps. “Candy”.’

‘“Cry For Love”.’

‘“China Girl”.’

‘You’ve already said that one, Sivertsen.’

‘There are two versions.’

‘“Cold Metal”.’

‘Are you scared, Harry?’

‘Scared to death.’

‘Me too.’

‘Good. That increases our chances of survival.’

‘By how much? Ten per cent? Twenty…’

‘Shh.’

‘Is that the lift…?’ Sivertsen whispered.

‘It’s on its way up. Take slow, deep breaths.’

They heard the lift come to a halt with a low groan. Two seconds passed. Then the rattle of the grille door. A long drawn-out creak told Harry that Waaler was opening the lift door with caution. Low mumbling. The sound of the disposal chute lid being opened. Sven cast Harry a questioning glance.

‘Raise your hands so that he can see them,’ Harry whispered.

The handcuffs rattled as they raised their hands in one synchronised movement. Then the glass front door leading into the corridor opened.

Oleg was wearing slippers and a tracksuit jacket over his pyjamas, and images flashed through Harry’s brain. The corridor. Night clothes. The sound of shuffling slippers. Mummy. The hospital.

Tom Waaler was walking right behind Oleg. He had his hands in the pockets of his short jacket, but Harry could see the barrel of the gun pressing against the black leather.

‘Stop,’ Waaler said when there were five metres between them and Harry and Sven.

Oleg stared at Harry with black-rimmed, red eyes. Harry gave him what he hoped was a firm, reassuring look.

‘Why are you cuffed together, boys? Grown inseparable already?’

Waaler’s voice resounded sharply in the corridor and Harry realised that he had gone through the list they had put together before the whole operation started and found out what Harry already knew. There was no-one at home on the fourth floor.

‘We’ve come to the conclusion that we’re both sitting in the same boat,’ Harry said.

‘And why aren’t you sitting inside the room as I told you?’

Waaler made sure that Oleg was standing between them.

‘Why do you want us to sit inside?’ Harry asked.

‘You’re not asking the questions now, Hole. Get into the room. Now.’

‘Sorry, Tom.’

Harry turned over the hand that was not joined to Sven’s. Two keys lay on his fingers. A Yale key and another one, smaller.

‘To the room and to the handcuffs,’ he said.

Then Harry opened his mouth wide, put the two keys on his tongue and closed his mouth. He winked at Oleg and swallowed.

Tom Waaler gaped in disbelief at Harry’s Adam’s apple rising and falling.

‘You’ll have to change the plan, Tom,’ Harry panted.

‘And what plan is that?’

Harry tucked his legs beneath him and, with his back against the wall, pushed himself up into an almost standing position. Waaler took his hand out of his jacket pocket. The gun was pointing at Harry. Harry grimaced and patted his chest twice before speaking.

‘Remember, I’ve followed you for some years now, Tom. Bit by bit I’ve learned a little about how you operate. How you killed Sverre Olsen in a room in his house and made it look like self-defence. And how you did the same that time by the harbour warehouses. So my guess is that your plan was to shoot both me and Sivertsen in the room, then you would make it look as if I had shot him and then myself. You would disappear from the scene of the crime and leave it to colleagues to find me. An anonymous tip-off that someone had heard shots coming from the student block perhaps?’

Tom Waaler shot an impatient glance up and down the corridor.

Harry went on: ‘And the explanation would be obvious, wouldn’t it? In the end it became too much for Harry Hole, the psychotic alcoholic policeman. Abandoned by his girlfriend, kicked out of the force, he kidnaps a prisoner. Self-destructive fury ending in disaster. A personal tragedy. Almost – but only almost – incomprehensible. Wasn’t that what you were thinking?’

Waaler gave a faint smile.

‘Not bad, but you forgot the bit about you, grief-stricken at being rejected by your lover, driving to your ex-lover’s house in the middle of the night, creeping into her house and kidnapping her son. Who is found dead alongside you.’

Harry concentrated on breathing normally.

‘Do you really think they would swallow that story? Moller? Head of Kripos? The media?’

‘Of course,’ Waaler said. ‘Don’t you read the newspapers? Don’t you watch TV? This story would circulate for a few days, a week at most. If nothing else happens in the meantime. Something really sensational.’

Harry didn’t answer.

Waaler smiled. ‘The only sensational thing here is that you thought I wouldn’t find you.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘About what?’

‘That I didn’t know you would find your way here.’

‘If so, had I been in your shoes, I would have done a runner. There’s no way out now, Hole.’

‘That’s right,’ Harry said, putting a hand in his jacket pocket.

Waaler raised his gun. Harry took out a wet packet of cigarettes.

‘I’m sitting in a trap. The question is: Who is the trap for?’

He took a cigarette out of the packet.

Waaler’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well,’ Harry said, tearing the cigarette in half and putting the filter between his lips, ‘national holidays are a pain, aren’t they? There are never enough people on duty to get things put away, so everything’s delayed. Such as, for example, putting up surveillance cameras in a student block. Or taking them down again.’

Harry noticed a small twitch in his colleague’s eyelid. He pointed with his thumb back over his shoulder. ‘Look up in the right-hand corner, Tom. Do you see it?’

Waaler’s eyes leapt over to where Harry was pointing and then back again.

‘As I said, I know what makes you tick, Tom. I knew that you would find us here sooner or later. I just had to make it difficult enough that you wouldn’t think you were being lured into a trap. On Sunday morning I had a long chat with a person you know. He’s been sitting in his bus since then waiting to record this scene. Wave to Otto Tangen.’

‘You’re bluffing, Harry. I know Tangen, and he would never have dared do anything like this.’

‘I said he could have all the sales rights for the recording. Just think about it, Tom. A recording of the big showdown, starring the alleged Courier Killer, the crazy detective and the corrupt police inspector. Television companies the world over will be queuing for it.’

Harry took a pace forwards.

‘Perhaps you’d better give me the gun now before you make things worse than they already are, Tom.’

‘Stay right there, Harry,’ Waaler whispered, and Harry saw that the gun barrel had swung round into Oleg’s back. He stopped. Tom Waaler had stopped blinking. His jaw muscles were working hard with the concentration. No-one moved. It was so quiet in the building that Harry thought he could hear the sound of the walls: a long-wave, almost inaudible vibration that the ear registered as tiny changes in the air pressure. While the walls sang, ten seconds passed. Ten unending seconds in which Waaler did not blink. Oystein had once told Harry how much data a human brain could handle in one second. He couldn’t remember the figure, but Oystein had explained that it meant a human could easily scan through the contents of the average town library in ten of these seconds.

Waaler finally blinked and Harry noticed a kind of calm descend over him. He didn’t know what it meant, only that it was probably bad news.

‘The interesting thing about murder cases,’ Waaler said, ‘is that you’re innocent until proven guilty. And for the time being I cannot see how any cameras here have filmed me doing anything illegal.’

He went over to Harry and Sven and jerked hard at the handcuffs so that Sven got to his feet. Waaler searched them by running his free hand over the outside of their jackets and trousers while keeping his eyes on Harry.

‘On the contrary, I’m just doing my job as a policeman. Arresting a policeman who kidnapped a prisoner from the custody block.’

‘You’ve just confessed in front of a camera,’ Harry said.

‘To you, yes,’ Waaler smiled. ‘As far as I remember these cameras only record image, not sound. This is a normal arrest. Start moving towards the lift.’

‘What about kidnapping a ten-year-old?’ Harry said. ‘Tangen has got pictures of you pointing a gun at a boy?’

‘Oh, him,’ Waaler said, shoving Harry so hard that he staggered forwards taking Sven with him.

‘He obviously got up in the middle of the night and went down to the police station without saying anything to his mother. He’s done it before, hasn’t he? Let’s just say that I met the boy outside when I was on my way out to find you and Sven. The boy obviously knew something was up. When I explained the situation he said he wanted to help. In fact, it was him who suggested that I use him as a hostage so that you wouldn’t do anything stupid and get hurt, Harry.’

‘A ten-year-old?’ Harry groaned. ‘Do you really think that anyone will believe that?’

‘We’ll see,’ Waaler said. ‘OK, everyone, we go out through here and stop in front of the lift. The first person to try anything gets the first bullet.’

Waaler went over to the lift and pressed the button. A rumbling sound came from the depths of the shaft.

‘Strange how quiet it is in a student block during the holidays, isn’t it?’

He gave Sven a smile.

‘Like a haunted house.’

‘Give up, Tom.’

Harry had to concentrate to articulate the words, his mouth seemed to be full of sand.

‘It’s too late. You must know that no-one will believe you.’

‘You’re beginning to repeat yourself, my dear colleague,’ Waaler said casting a glance at the slanting needle as it rotated, slowly like a compass, behind the glass cover.

‘They’ll believe me, Harry. For the simple reason…’ He ran a finger across his top lip. ‘… that no-one will be able to contradict me.’

Harry knew what the plan was now. The lift. There was no camera in the lift. That’s where it was going to happen. He didn’t know how Waaler had imagined he would present it afterwards – a scuffle had broken out and Harry had grabbed the gun – but he was in no doubt: they were all going to die there, in the lift.

‘Daddy…’ Oleg began to say.

‘Everything’ll be OK, son,’ Harry said, trying to smile.

‘Yes,’ Waaler said. ‘Everything’ll be OK.’

They heard a clicking noise, a metallic smacking sound. The lift was getting closer. Harry looked at the round wooden handle on the lift door. He had secured the gun in such a way that he could place his hand around the handle of the gun, put his finger on the trigger and pull it off all in one movement.

The lift stopped in front of them with a thud and swayed a little.

Harry breathed in and stretched out his hand. His fingers closed around and underneath the tiled wooden surface. He expected to feel the cold, hard steel against his fingertips. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Only more wood. And a loose bit of tape.

Tom Waaler sighed.

‘I’m afraid I threw it down the disposal chute, Harry. Did you really think I wouldn’t search for planted weapons?’

Waaler pulled open the iron door with one hand while pointing the gun at them.

‘The boy goes in first.’

Harry averted his eyes when Oleg looked up at him. He couldn’t meet Oleg’s questioning gaze searching for further assurances. Instead Harry nodded mutely towards the door. Oleg went in and stood at the back of the lift. A dim light from the ceiling fell onto the brown walls of imitation rosewood and a collage of declarations of love, slogans, sexual organs and greetings carved into its surface.

SCREW U was etched above Oleg’s head.

A burial chamber, Harry thought. It was a burial chamber.

He stuffed his free hand inside his jacket pocket. As he had demonstrated before, he didn’t like lifts. Harry jerked his left hand and the sudden movement sent Sven sprawling against Waaler. Waaler turned towards Sven as Harry raised his right hand over his head. He took aim like a matador with a sword. He knew he would get only one stab, and accuracy was more important than power.

He brought down his hand.

The point of the chisel went through the leather jacket with a tearing sound. The metal end sank into the soft tissue over the right collar-bone, perforated the jugular vein and penetrated the network of nerves in the plexus brachialis and paralysed the motor neurones leading to the arm. There was a clunk as the gun hit the stone floor and clattered down the stairs. Waaler looked down at his right shoulder with an expression of surprise. Beneath the protruding short green handle his arm hung limply by his side.

It had been a long, shitty day for Tom Waaler. The shit had started when he was woken up and told that Harry had taken Sivertsen and cleared off. And it continued when it proved to be much harder to find Harry than he had anticipated. Tom had explained to the others in the association that they would have to use the boy. They had refused; it was too risky, they said. In his heart of hearts he had always known that he would have to take the last few steps on his own. It was always like that. No one would stop him and no one would help him. Loyalty was a question of how much something was worth; charity began at home. And the shit just kept coming. He couldn’t feel his arm any longer. The only thing he felt was the warm stream down his chest telling him that something with a lot of blood in had been punctured.

He turned towards Harry again, just in time to see his face grow in size, and the next moment his head was filled with a crunching sound as Harry’s spring-loaded skull hit him over the bridge of his nose. Harry took a swing at him with his right arm, but Waaler managed to move out of the way. Harry went after him, but was pulled back by Sven Sivertsen’s left arm. Tom inhaled greedily through his mouth as he felt the pain unleash the blind, life-giving rage into his veins. He regained his balance. In all senses. He estimated the distance, went into a crouch position, kicked out and whirled round on one foot with the other held high. It was a perfect O’ou tek and hit Harry in the temple. He fell sideways and dragged Sven Sivertsen down with him.

Tom turned and looked for the gun. It was on the landing below them. He held onto the railing and was down there in two bounds. His right arm still wouldn’t obey him. He swore, picked up the gun with his left hand and sprinted back.

Harry and Sven had disappeared.

He turned, just in time to see the lift door close. He clenched the gun between his teeth, grabbed hold of the door handle with his left hand and yanked. It felt as if his arm was coming out of its socket. Locked. Tom put his face against the round window in the door. They had pulled the grille shut and he could hear the excited voices inside.

An absolutely shit day. But now it was going to come to an end. Now it would be perfect. Tom raised his gun.

Out of breath, Harry leaned against the back wall and waited for the lift to move. He had just managed to close the grille and press the BASEMENT button when the door began to shake and they heard Waaler swearing on the other side.

‘The bloody lift won’t start!’ wheezed Sven. He had sunk down to his knees beside Harry.

The lift gave a jerk, like a massive hiccup, but it didn’t move.

‘If the bloody lift is that slow, he can just run down the stairs and then say “welcome back” when we get there!’

‘Hell,’ Harry muttered. ‘The door between the entrance and the basement is locked.’

Harry saw a shadow flit across the round window.

‘Look out!’ he screamed, pushing Oleg over towards the grille.

The sound was like a cork being drawn out of a wine bottle as the bullet bored its way into the pseudo-rosewood panel above Harry’s head. He pulled Sven over towards Oleg.

At that moment the lift jerked again and, with a lot of creaking noises, started to move.

‘Fuck,’ Sven whispered.

‘Harry…’ Oleg began.

There was a crash. Harry caught a fleeting glimpse of a clenched fist between the latticework of the grille and above Oleg’s head before he instinctively closed his eyes as the glass fragments showered over him.

‘Harry!’

Oleg’s scream went right through Harry. Through his ears, his nose, his mouth, his throat, he drowned in it. Harry opened his eyes again and looked straight into Oleg’s wide-open eyes; his gaping mouth distorted with pain and panic; his long, black hair caught by a large white hand. Oleg was being lifted off the floor.

‘Harry!’

Harry went blind. He thrust open his eyes, but couldn’t see anything. Only a white sheet of panic. But he could hear. Hear Sis screaming.

‘Harry!’

He could hear Ellen screaming. Rakel screaming. Everyone was screaming his name.

‘Harry!’

He stared into the white void as it slowly transformed itself into black. Had he passed out? The screams subsided, like fading echoes. He floated away. They were right. He was never there when it mattered. He made sure he was elsewhere. Packed his case. Opened a bottle. Locked the door. Became scared. Went blind. They were always right. And if they weren’t, they would be.

‘Daddy!’

A foot struck him in the chest. He could see again. Oleg was dangling in front of him, his legs kicking out; his head held tight in Waaler’s hand. But the lift had stopped. He instantly saw why. The grille had been knocked out of position. Harry looked at Sven, who was sitting on the floor beside him, his eyes fixed into a frozen stare.

‘Harry!’ Waaler’s voice from outside. ‘Bring the lift up or I’ll shoot the boy.’

Harry stood up and then ducked again immediately. He had seen what he needed to see. The door to the fourth floor was half a metre higher than the lift.

‘If you shoot from there, Tangen will have the murder on film,’ Harry said.

He heard Waaler’s deep laugh.

‘Tell me, Harry. If this cavalry of yours really exists, shouldn’t it have ridden in before now?’

‘Daddy…’ Oleg moaned.

Harry closed his eyes.

‘Listen, Tom. The lift won’t move as long as the grille isn’t properly shut. Your arm is between the bars, so you had better let Oleg go so that we can get it into position.’

Waaler laughed again.

‘Do you think I’m stupid, Harry? The grille only needs to move a few centimetres. You can manage that without me letting go of the boy.’

Harry looked at Sven, but only received an unfocused, faraway look in return.

‘OK,’ Harry said. ‘But I’ve got cuffs on, so I’ll need Sven’s help. And at this moment it looks as if he’s freaked out.’

‘Sven!’ Waaler shouted. ‘Can you hear?’

Sven barely raised his head.

‘Do you remember Lodin, Sven? Your predecessor in Prague?’

The echo rumbled down to the entrance. Sven swallowed.

‘Head fell in a lathe, Sven. Fancy trying that?’

Sven staggered to his feet. Harry grabbed his collar and pulled him up close.

‘Do you know what you’ve got to do, Sven?’ he shouted into wan, trance-like features as he put his hand into his back pocket and brought out a key.

‘Make sure the grille stays in position. Do you hear? Hold the grille tight when we start.’

Harry pointed to one of the worn, round, black buttons on the panel.

Sven gazed intently at Harry as he put the key in the lock for the handcuffs and twisted. Then he nodded.

‘OK,’ Harry shouted. ‘We’re ready. We’re putting the grille in position.’

Sven stood with his back to the grille. He took hold with both hands and pushed to the right. Waaler groaned as the latticework pulled his arm the same way. There was a gentle click as the contact points on the floor and the grille met.

‘There!’ Harry shouted.

They waited. Harry took a step across the lift and stared up. In a small crack between the round window and Waaler’s shoulder two eyes glared down at him. One, Waaler’s enraged, wide-open eye; the other, the black, unseeing eye of the gun.

‘Come back up,’ Waaler said.

‘If you spare the boy,’ Harry said.

‘It’s a deal.’

Harry nodded slowly. Then he pressed the button.

‘I knew you would do the right thing in the end, Harry.’

‘One usually does,’ Harry said.

He saw Waaler’s one eyebrow suddenly darken. Maybe it was because he had just discovered that the handcuffs were hanging from one of Harry’s wrists. Maybe it was something in Harry’s intonation. Or maybe he felt it too. That the moment had come.

There was an ominous scream in the steel wires as the lift jerked into action. At the same moment Harry took a quick pace forward and stretched up on his toes. There was a dry click as the handcuff locked into place around Waaler’s wrist.

‘Bloody h -’ Waaler began.

Harry lifted one leg. The handcuffs were biting into both of their wrists as Hole’s 95 kilos dragged Waaler down. Waaler tried to take the strain, but his arm was pulled through the window until it was blocked by his shoulder.

A shit day.

‘Let me go, for fuck’s sake!’ Tom screamed, as his chin pressed against the iron door. He tried to pull his arm back, but it was too heavy. He bellowed with rage and slammed his gun against the iron door. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. They were ruining everything for him. They’d destroyed the sandcastle, kicked it to pieces and now stood there laughing. But they would see, one day they would see. That was when he noticed. That the bars of the grille were touching his lower arm, that the lift was moving. But the wrong way. Downwards. He felt his throat tighten when he realised. That he was going to be crushed. That the lift was now a slow motion guillotine. That he too was about to meet his fate.

‘Hold the grille tight, Sven!’ Harry shouted.

Tom let go of Oleg and tried to pull his arm away. But Harry was too heavy. Tom panicked. He made another desperate attempt to free himself. And another. His feet skidded on the slippery floor. He felt the inside of the lift roof against his shoulder. All reasoning deserted him.

‘Don’t, Harry. Stop.’

He meant to shout, but sobs stifled his words.

‘Mercy…’