The Devil's Star by Jo Nesbø

cigarette ends and stale refuse rose up to meet them.
    ‘Would you have felt better if you’d known?’
    Harry went in, and hesitantly Møller stepped in after him.
    ‘You don’t need to take your shoes off, boss,’ Harry shouted from the kitchen.
    Møller rolled his eyes and tried not to tread on any of the empty bottles, ashtrays full of cigarette butts and old vinyl records on his way across the sitting-room floor.
    ‘Have you been sitting here drinking for four weeks, Harry?’
    ‘With some breaks, boss. Long breaks. After all, I am on holiday, aren’t I? Last week I hardly touched a drop.’
    ‘I’ve got some bad news for you, Harry,’ Møller shouted, releasing the catches on the window and pushing feverishly at the glass. At the third shove the window sprang open. He groaned, loosened his belt and undid the top trouser button. As he turned round he saw Harry standing by the sitting-room door with an open bottle of whisky.
    ‘That bad, is it,’ Harry said, noticing the Chief Inspector’s slackened belt. ‘Am I going to be whipped or ravished?’
    ‘Slow digestion,’ Møller explained.
    ‘Mm.’ Harry put the top back on the whisky bottle. ‘Funny expression that, slow digestion. I’ve been suffering with my stomach a bit myself, so I read up about it. It takes somewhere between twelve and twenty-four hours to digest food. For everyone. Whoever and whatever. It might keep hurting, but your intestines don’t need any longer.’
    ‘Harry . . .’
    ‘A glass, boss? Unless it has to be clean, that is.’
    ‘I’ve come to tell you it’s finished, Harry.’
    ‘Are you resigning?’
    ‘Now that’s enough of that!’
    Møller banged the table so hard the empty bottles jumped. Then he sank down into a green armchair. He ran his hand across his face.
    ‘I’ve risked my own job too many times to save yours, Harry. There are people in my life I am closer to than you. People I provide for. This is where it stops, Harry. I can’t help you any more.’
    ‘Fine.’
    Harry sat down on the sofa and poured whisky into one of the glasses.
    ‘No-one asked you to help me, boss, but thank you anyway. For as long as it lasted. Skal.’
    Møller took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
    ‘Do you know what, Harry? At times you are the most arrogant, the most selfish and the most unintelligent pile of shit on this planet.’
    Harry shrugged his shoulders and emptied his glass in one swallow.
    ‘I’ve written your dismissal papers,’ Møller said.
    Harry refilled his glass.
    ‘They’re on the Chief’s desk. All that’s missing is his signature. Do you understand what that means, Harry?’
    Harry nodded. ‘Sure you won’t have a little snifter before you go, boss?’
    Møller got up. He paused by the sitting-room door.
    ‘You have no idea how much it hurts me to see you like this, Harry. Rakel and your work were everything you had. First of all you spat on Rakel, and now you’re spitting on your job.’
    I spat on both exactly four weeks ago, Harry declared roundly in his thoughts.
    ‘I’m really sorry, Harry.’
    Møller closed the door gently behind him as he left.
    Three-quarters of an hour later Harry was asleep in the chair. He had been visited. Not by his three regular women, but by the head of Kripos. Four weeks and three days ago, to be precise.
    The Chief Superintendent himself had asked to meet at the Boxer, a bar for the exuberantly thirsty a stone’s throw from Police HQ and a few teetering steps from the gutter. Just him, Harry and Roy Kvinsvik. He explained to Harry that as long as no official decision had been taken it was best to do everything as unofficially as possible so that he had room for manoeuvre.
    He didn’t say anything about Harry’s room for manoeuvre.
    When Harry arrived at the Boxer a quarter of an hour later than they had agreed the Chief Superintendent was sitting at a table at the back of the bar with a beer. Harry could feel his eyes on him as he sat down, his blue