‘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.
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?’