The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgaard

Author:Karl Ove Knausgaard [Knausgaard, Karl Ove]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Norwegian Literature, Fiction
ISBN: 9780399563423
Publisher: Penguin Press
Published: 2020-09-17T23:00:00+00:00

JOSTEIN

I might not have been the happiest man in the world as I closed the door behind me and hurried along the corridor to the elevator, but it wasn’t far off. A triple murder wasn’t exactly an everyday occurrence. And if Geir was saying it was the most horrific thing he’d seen, it had to be bad. A serial killer on the loose in the city, it didn’t get much better than that. What’s more, it gave me an alibi in case Turid happened to ask. How was she to know what time I’d been called out? And for all I knew, that little artist piece in the room back there might even be sticking around another day yet. I could pop back and check once I’d got the article done.

Coming down into reception, I was somehow expecting it to be winter, snow piled up in drifts against the buildings, a black sky full of whirling snowflakes. Only it wasn’t. It was summer and hot as hell. The air outside was like walking into a wall, anyone would have thought it was the middle of the day.

The taxi rank was deserted, not a cab in sight. I lit a cig and typed the address into the app. For destination I put Svartediket, but deleted it again thinking no one in their right mind was going to take me up there at this time of night. Instead, I looked the place up on Google Maps to see what roads led up there. The junction of Svartediksveien and Stemmeveien looked all right.

Six minutes away, it said.

I stood and watched as the little black car icon turned round on the map and headed toward the center of town.

Torgallmenningen lay empty and desolate in front of me. From one of the top-floor apartments, some music blared all of a sudden. I looked up and saw three people step out onto a balcony, each with a bottle in their hand.

Butchered, he’d said.

And killed with what? A slaughter knife? Or maybe a good old-fashioned ax?

Skinned, too.

That was extreme.

Why had he done it?

Or why had they? There’d been four lads in that band. That meant there could be more than one killer. But didn’t he say only three had been killed? So where was the fourth?

The fourth one had killed the others. And they hadn’t got him, he was still out there. Maybe down here in town now, with me standing about.

The taxi was on its way through the tunnel. I flicked my cig end onto the sidewalk and went toward the road where he’d soon come into view.

The birds had already started twittering in the trees above me. Cheep-cheep, you fat creep. Cheep-cheep, and no sleep. Wasn’t that what they were saying?

I didn’t notice him until then, but there was a man standing back against the wall on the other side of the road, staring at me. Or staring at something. He was probably just a drunk standing gawking while he tried to find the strength to walk the last bit of the way home.

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