The Devil's star

30

Saturday. The Arrest

The express train glided past outside, shiny silver, quiet as a tentative puff of air. Beate watched Olaug Sivertsen. She straightened her head and looked out of the window, blinking again and again. Her wrinkled, sinewy hands on the kitchen table resembled a bird’s-eye view of the countryside. The wrinkles were long valleys, the blue-black veins rivers and the knuckles chains of mountains with the skin stretched over like a grey-white tent canvas. Beate examined her own hands. She thought about what hands can do in the course of a lifetime. And what they cannot do. Or what they don’t manage to achieve.

At 21.56 Beate heard the gate open and the sound of steps on the gravel path outside.

She stood up, her heart beating as quickly and lightly as a Geiger counter.

‘That’s him,’ Olaug said.

‘Are you sure?’

Olaug gave her a distressed smile. ‘I’ve heard his steps on the gravel path ever since he was a little boy. When he was old enough to go out in the evening I used to wake up to the second step he took. He used to take twelve steps. Just count.’

Suddenly Waaler was standing in the kitchen doorway.

‘Someone’s coming,’ he said. ‘I want you to stay there. Whatever happens. OK?’

‘It’s him,’ Beate said, nodding in Olaug’s direction.

Waaler gave a brief nod. Then he was gone again.

Beate put her hand on the old lady’s.

‘It’ll be alright,’ she said.

‘You’ll see that there’s been a mistake,’ Olaug said, without meeting her eyes.

Eleven, twelve. Beate heard the door opening in the hall.

Then she heard Waaler shout:

‘Police! My ID card is on the floor in front of you. Drop the gun or I’ll shoot!’

She felt Olaug’s hand jerk.

‘Police! Put down your gun or I’ll be forced to shoot!’

Why was he shouting so loudly? They couldn’t be more than five or six metres apart.

‘For the last time!’ Waaler shouted.

Beate got up and took her revolver out of the holster she had in the belt across her shoulder.

‘Beate…’ Olaug’s voice shook.

Beate looked up and met the old lady’s imploring eyes.

‘Drop your weapon! You’re shooting at a policeman.’

Beate took the four steps to the door, pulled it open and stepped into the hallway with her weapon raised. Tom Waaler was two metres away, with his back to her. In the doorway stood a man wearing a grey suit. He was holding a suitcase in one hand. Beate had taken a decision based on what she thought she would see. That was why her first reaction was one of confusion.

‘I’ll shoot!’ Waaler shouted.

Beate could see the open mouth and the stunned face of the man standing in line with the front door. Waaler had already thrust his shoulder forward to take the recoil when he pulled the trigger.

‘Tom…’

She said it in a low voice, but Tom Waaler’s back went as rigid as if she had shot him from behind.

‘He hasn’t got a gun, Tom.’

Beate had the feeling she was watching a film. An absurd scene where someone had pressed the pause button and the picture was locked in position, frozen; the picture quivered and jerked and time stood still. She waited for the crack of the gun, but it didn’t come. Tom Waaler was not crazy. Not in a clinical sense. He didn’t lack control where his impulses were concerned. That was presumably what had frightened her most at that time. The cold control as he abused her.

‘Since you’re here, anyway…’ Waaler said finally. His voice sounded strained. ‘… perhaps you can put the handcuffs on our prisoner.’