Free The Devil's Star by Jo Nesbø Page B

hours?’
    ‘Yes, well, I’m not very sure any longer, but she was only supposed to be going to Kiwi round the corner and back.’
    The sun caught the beer bottles on the opposite balcony. Harry put his hand over his eyes, noticed his moist fingers and wondered where he could wipe off the sweat. He placed the tips of his fingers against the burning hot plastic of the chair arm and felt the moisture being slowly scorched away.
    ‘Have you rung round friends and acquaintances? Have you been down to the supermarket and checked? Perhaps she met someone and they went for a beer. Perhaps –’
    ‘No, no, no!’ Barli held up the palms of his hands in front of his chest, his fingers splayed. ‘She didn’t! She’s not like that.’
    ‘Not like what?’
    ‘She’s like someone . . . who comes back.’
    ‘Right . . .’
    ‘First of all I rang her on her mobile, but of course she’d left it here. Then I rang people we know whom she might have bumped into. I rang Kiwi, Police Headquarters, three police stations, all the casualty departments, Ullevål hospital and the Rikshospital. Nothing. Nada . Nichts .’
    ‘I can see that you’re concerned.’
    Barli leaned across the table, his moist lips aquiver in his beard.
    ‘I’m not concerned. I’m scared out of my wits. Have you ever heard of anyone going out in just a bikini with a fiftykroner note while the meat is frying on the grill and then deciding that this is a good opportunity to hop it?’
    Harry wavered. Just when he had decided to accept a glass of wine after all, Barli poured the rest of the bottle’s contents into his own glass. So why didn’t he stand up, say something reassuring about how many people ring in with missing person reports just like his, that almost all of them have a natural, unexceptional explanation, and then, after asking Barli to ring back later if she hadn’t turned up by bedtime, take his leave? Perhaps it was the minor detail about the bikini and the 50-kroner note. Or perhaps it was because Harry had been waiting all day for something to happen, and this was at least an opportunity to put off what was waiting for him in his own flat. But most of all it was Barli’s obvious and illogical terror. Harry had underrated intuition before, both other people’s and his own, and it had been to his cost every time without exception.
    ‘I have to make a couple of calls,’ Harry said.
    At 6.45 p.m. Beate Lønn arrived at the flat of Wilhelm and Lisbeth Barli in Sannergata, and a quarter of an hour later a police dog handler arrived with a German shepherd. The man introduced both himself and his dog as Ivan.
    ‘It’s a coincidence,’ the man said. ‘It’s not my dog.’
    Harry saw that Ivan was waiting for some witty comment, but Harry didn’t have one.
    While Wilhelm Barli went to the bedroom to find some recent photos of Lisbeth and some clothes to give Ivan – the dog – a scent, Harry quickly spoke to the other two in a low voice:
    ‘OK, she could be absolutely anywhere. She could have left him, she could have had a funny turn, she could have said she was going somewhere else and he didn’t realise. There are a million possibilities, but she could also be lying in the back seat of a car at this very moment, doped up, being raped by four kids who freaked out at the sight of her bikini. I don’t want you to look for anything specific. Just search.’
    Beate and Ivan nodded to show they had understood.
    ‘A patrol car will be on its way soon. Beate, you meet them and get them to check the neighbours out, talk to people, especially in the supermarket where she was supposed to be going. Then you talk to the people in this part of the building. I’ll just go over to the neighbours sitting on the balcony in the building over the way.’
    ‘Do you think they know anything?’ Beate asked.
    ‘They have a perfect view of this flat and, judging by the number of empty bottles, they’ve been sitting there for a while. According to