Waaler kept his eyes on Harry for a long time. Then he blinked cheerily and let go of Harry’s hand.

‘You’re right. My mistake.’

Waaler stood up and walked out.

Harry’s stomach pains continued to overpower him, but he tried to take deep breaths and stay calm. Beate would never forgive him if he threw up over her crime scene.

He rested his cheek against the cool floor tiles and lifted up Barbara’s jacket so that he could see what was underneath her. Between her knees and beneath the smooth curve of her upper body he saw a white beaker. What really caught his attention though was her hand.

‘Fuck,’ Harry whispered. ‘Fuck.’

At 6.20 Beate came rushing into the offices of Halle, Thune amp; Wetterlid. Harry was sitting on the floor and leaning up against the wall outside the ladies’ lavatory, drinking from a white plastic cup.

Beate pulled up in front of him, put down her metal cases and drew the back of her hand across her moist, bright red forehead.

‘Sorry. I was lying on the beach in Ingierstrand. Had to go home first and change and then drive to Kjolberggata to pick up the equipment. Some idiot gave orders to close off the lift, so I had to take the stairs up here.’

‘Hmm. The person in question probably did that to protect the evidence. Has the press stuck its snout in yet?’

‘There are a few reporters making themselves comfortable in the sun outside. Not many. Holidays.’

‘I’m afraid the holidays are over.’

Beate grimaced.

‘Do you mean…?’

‘Come here.’

Harry went into the lavatory ahead of her and crouched down.

‘Look underneath her, her left hand. Her ring finger has been cut off.’

Beate groaned.

‘Not much blood,’ Harry said. ‘So it happened after she was dead. And then we’ve got this.’

He lifted the hair up over Barbara’s left ear.

Beate screwed up her nose: ‘An earring?’

‘In the shape of a heart. Quite unlike the silver earring she has in her other ear. I found the other earring on the floor in one of the cubicles. So the killer put this earring in her ear. The funny thing is that you can open it. Like this. Unusual contents or what?’

Beate nodded.

‘A red diamond in the shape of a five-pointed star,’ she said.

‘And so what have we got?’

Beate looked at him.

‘Can we say the words aloud now?’ she asked.

‘Serial killer?’

Bjarne Moller was speaking in such a low whisper that Harry instinctively pressed his mobile phone harder against his ear.

‘We’re at the scene of the crime and it is the same pattern,’ Harry said. ‘You’ll have to get things moving and cancel holidays, boss. We’re going to need everyone you can muster.’

‘Is it a copycat killing?’

‘Out of the question. We’re the only ones who know about the mutilation and the diamonds.’

‘This is very inconvenient, Harry.’

‘Convenient serial murders are rare, boss.’

Moller went quiet for a few moments.

‘Harry?’

‘I’m still here, boss.’

‘I’m going to ask you to spend your final weeks assisting Tom Waaler on this case. You’re the only person in Crime Squad who has any experience of serial killings. I know you’ll say no, but I’m going to ask you anyway. Just to get us moving, Harry.’

‘OK, boss.’

‘This is more important than the disagreements between you and Tom… What did you say?’

‘I said it was fine.’

‘Do you mean that?’

‘Yes. I’ll have to be going now though. We’ll be here most of the evening, so it would be good if you could organise the first meeting of those involved in the case for tomorrow. Tom suggests eight o’clock.’

‘Tom?’ Moller asked in astonishment.

‘Tom Waaler.’

‘I know who it is. I’ve just never heard you use his Christian name before.’

‘The others are waiting for me, boss.’

‘OK.’

Harry slipped the phone back into his pocket, tossed the plastic beaker into the litter bin, locked himself in one of the cubicles in the Gents and clung onto the toilet bowl as he threw up.

Afterwards he stood in front of the basin with the tap running, looking at himself in the mirror. He listened to the buzz of voices from the corridor. Beate’s assistant was urging people to keep behind the barriers; Waaler was telling policemen to find out who had been in the vicinity of the building; Magnus Skarre was shouting to a colleague that he wanted a cheeseburger without chips.

When the water finally ran cold, Harry stuck his face under the tap. He let the water run down his cheek, into his ear, down over his neck, inside his shirt, along his shoulder and down his arm. He drank greedily. He refused to listen to the enemy deep inside him. Then he ran into the cubicle and threw up again.

Outside, the evening had drawn in quickly and Carl Berners plass lay deserted as Harry walked out of the building, lit a cigarette and raised a hand in defence to one of the newspaper vultures approaching him. The man stopped. Harry recognised him. Gjendem, wasn’t that his name? He had chatted to him after the case in Sydney. Gjendem was no worse than the others, maybe even a little better.

The television shop was still open. Harry went in. There was no-one about except for a fat man in a filthy flannel shirt sitting behind the counter reading a newspaper. On the counter an electric fan was blowing around his carefully placed strands of hair intended to conceal his baldness, and radiating his sweaty odour all over the shop. He sniffed when Harry showed him his ID and asked whether he had seen anyone suspicious inside or outside the shop.

‘They’re all suspicious here,’ he said. ‘This area is going to the dogs.’

‘Anyone who looked like they might kill someone?’ Harry asked drily.

The man squeezed one eye shut. ‘Is that why there are so many police cars round here?’

Harry nodded.

The man shrugged his shoulders and began to read the paper again.

‘Who hasn’t thought about killing someone at one time or another, Constable?’

On his way out Harry stopped when he saw his own car on one of the television screens. The camera swept across Carl Berners plass and stopped when it met the redbrick building. Then the picture went back to TV2 news and the next moment it was a fashion show. Harry sucked hard at his cigarette and closed his eyes. Rakel was coming towards him on a catwalk, no, twelve catwalks. She walked through the wall with the television sets on and stood in front of him with her hands on her hips. She fixed him with a look, tossed her head back, turned round and left him. Harry opened his eyes again.

It was 8.00. He tried not to remember that there was a bar close by, in Trondheimsveien. They had a licence to serve spirits.

The hardest part of the evening lay before him.

Then there was the night.

It was 10.00, and even though the mercury had mercifully dropped by two degrees, the air was still hot and static, waiting for an offshore breeze or an onshore breeze, or any kind of breeze. Forensics was deserted except for Beate’s office where a light still burned. The murder in Carl Berners plass had turned the whole day upside down and Beate was still at the crime scene when her colleague Bjorn Holm had rung to say there was a woman in reception from De Beers who had come to examine some diamonds.

Beate had returned in a hurry and now she was concentrating on the short, energetic woman in front of her who spoke the perfect kind of English you would expect from a Dutch person settled in London.

‘Diamonds have geological fingerprints which, theoretically, makes it possible for us to trace them right back to the owner as certificates, which go everywhere with the diamond, are issued showing their origin. Not in this case though, I’m afraid.’

‘Why not?’ Beate asked.

‘Because the two diamonds I have seen are what we call blood diamonds.’

‘Because of the red colour?’