The Devil's Star
(2003) by Jo Nesbø. A policewoman struggles to keep up appearances
at work despite having been put through an ordeal of rape, sexual
abuse and humiliation in the hands of a higher ranking officer. And despite still
having to work with her abuser.
CHAPTER 20
Beate Lønn enjoyed her
work. She like the routines, the security, the knowledge that she was
competent, and she knew that the others at the Forensics Institute at
Kjolberggata 21A knew that too. Since work was the only thing in her
life she considered important, it was reason enough to get up in the
morning. Everything else was a musical interlude. She lived in her
mothers house in Oppsal and had the whole of the top floor to
herself. They got on extremely well. She had always been Daddys girl
when he was alive; she assumed that was why she joined the police
force, like him. She had no hobbies. Even though she and Halvorsen,
the officer Harry shared his office with, had become a sort of
couple, she was not convinced about it. She had read in a womens
magazine that this kind of doubt was natural and that you should take
risks. Beate didnt like taking risks. Or being in doubt. That was why
she enjoyed her work.
As she was growing up
she blushed at the thought that anyone could be thinking about her
and she spent most of her time devising different ways to hide. She
still blushed, but she had found good places to hide. She could sit
for hours inside the worn redbrick walls of Forensics studying
fingerprints, ballistics reports, video recordings, comparisons of
voices, the analyses of DNA or textile fibres, footprints, blood and
an endless number of technical leads which might resolve important,
complicated, controversial cases in total peace and quiet. She had
also discovered that working was not nearly as dangerous
as it seemed. So long as she spoke loudly and clearly and managed to
repress her panic about blushing, losing face, her clothes, standing
there exposed and full of shame, for what reason she didnt know. The
office in Kjolberggata was her castle; the uniform and her
professional duties her mental armour.
The
clock showed 12.30 a.m. when the telephone on her office desk rang,
interrupting her reading of the laboratory report on Lisbeth Barlis
finger. Her heart began to quicken with fear when she saw on the
display that the caller was ringing from an unknown number. It could
only mean that it was him.
"Beate
Lønn."
It
was him. His words came out in a flurry of blows.
"Why
didnt you ring me about the fingerprints?"
She held her breath for
a second before she replied.
"Harry said he
would pass on the message."
"Thank you. I
received it. Next time, you ring me first. Is that understood?"
Beate gulped. She didnt
know whether out of fear or anger.
"Fine."
"Anything else you
told him that you didnt tell me?"
"No. Except that
Ive got the results from the lab on what was under the finger we were
sent through the post."
"Lisbeth Barli's?
And it was?"
"Excrement."
"What?"
"Poo."
"Thank you very
much. I know what it is. Any idea where it came from?"
"Er, yes."
"Correction. Who
it came from."
"I dont know for
certain, but I can guess."
"Would you be so
kind."
"The excrement
contains blood, perhaps from a haemorrhoid. In this particular case,
blood group B. Only seven per cent of the country has this blood
group. Wilhelm Barli is a registered blood donor. He has --"
"Right. And what
do you conclude from this?"
"I dont know,"
Beate said quickly.
"But you know that
the anus is an erogenous zone, Beate? In men and women. Or had you
forgotten?"
Beate squeezed her eyes
shut. Please dont let him start again. Not again. It was a long time
ago, she had begun to forget, to get it out of her system. But his
voice was there, smooth and tough, like snakeskin.
"Youre good at
playing the very ordinary girl, Beate. I like that. I liked it when
you pretended you didnt want to."
You know something, I
know something, no-one else knows anything, she thought.
"Does Halvorsen do
it to you as well as I did?"
"Im putting the
phone down now," Beate said.
His laughter crackled
in her ears. She knew it then. There was nowhere to hide. They could
find you anywhere, just as they had found the three women where they
felt safest. There was no castle. And no armour.
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