The Bat by Jo Nesbø

packed with tourists. An energetic woman greeted them with a radiant smile and welcomed them with such enthusiasm it was as if they were the first people she had seen here in months.
    “Is this your first time here?” she asked, as though her crystal shop were a habit-forming affair people flocked to regularly once they had been hooked. And for all they knew that is exactly how it might have been.
    “I envy you,” she said after they confirmed it was. “You’re about to experience the Crystal Castle for the first time! Take that corridor there. On the right is our wonderful vegetarian cafe with the most exquisite meals. After you’ve been there, go left, into the crystal and mineral room. That’s where the real action is! Now, go, go, go!”
    She waved them off. After such a build-up, naturally it was an anticlimax to discover that the cafe was basically a standard outlet selling coffee, tea, lettuce with yogurt and lettuce sandwiches. In the designated crystal and mineral room there was an exhibition of glittering crystals, Buddha figures with crossed legs, blue and green quartz and uncut stones in an elaborate light display. The room was filled with a faint aroma of incense, soporific pan-pipe music and the sound of running water. Harry considered the shop nice enough, though a touch camp, and unlikely to take your breath away. What might cause respiratory difficulties, however, were the prices.
    “Ha ha,” Andrew laughed, on seeing some of the price tags. “The woman’s a genius.”
    He pointed to the generally middle-aged and evidently well-off customers in the shop. “The flower-power generationhas grown up. They have adult jobs, adult incomes, but their hearts are somewhere on an astral planet.”
    They walked back to the counter. The energetic woman was still wearing her radiant smile. She took Harry’s hand and pressed a blue-green stone in his palm.
    “You’re Capricorn, aren’t you? Put this stone under your pillow. It will remove all the negative energy in the room. It costs sixty-five dollars, but you really should have it, I think, so let’s say fifty.”
    She turned to Andrew.
    “And you must be a Leo?”
    “Oh no, ma’am, I’m a policeman.” He discreetly held up his badge.
    She blanched and stared at him in horror. “How awful. I hope I haven’t done anything wrong.”
    “Not as far as I know, ma’am. I presume you’re Margaret Dawson, formerly White? If so, may we have a word with you in private?”
    Margaret Dawson quickly pulled herself together and called one of the girls to take charge of the till. Then she accompanied Andrew and Harry to the garden where they sat around a white wooden table. A net was stretched out between two trees. At first Harry thought it was a fishing net, but upon closer inspection it proved to be an enormous spider’s web.
    “Looks like rain,” she said, rubbing her hands.
    Andrew cleared his throat.
    She bit her lower lip.
    “I’m sorry, Officer. This makes me so nervous.”
    “That’s OK, ma’am. Quite a web you’ve got there.”
    “Oh, that. That’s Billy’s, our mouse spider. He’s probably asleep somewhere.”
    Harry unconsciously tucked his legs under him. “Mouse spider? Does that mean it eats … mice?” he asked.
    Andrew smiled. “Harry’s from Norway. They aren’t used to big spiders.”
    “Oh, well, I can put your mind at rest. The big ones aren’t dangerous,” Margaret Dawson said. “However, we do have a lethal little creature called a redback. It likes towns best, though, where it can hide in the crowd, so to speak. In dark cellars and damp corners.”
    “Sounds like someone I know,” Andrew said. “But back to business, ma’am. Your son.”
    Now Mrs. Dawson really did blanch.
    “Evans?”
    Andrew eyed Harry.
    “To our knowledge, he hasn’t been in trouble with the police before, Mrs. Dawson,” Harry said.
    “No, no, he hasn’t. Thank God.”
    “We actually drove by because your place was on our route back