The Leopard hh-8

by Jo Nesbo

  ‘Mmm,’ she purred as his fingers began to massage the exact spot where she knew he knew she loved it. ‘What do you mean by what you want?’

  ‘Give it some thought. What do you imagine is going to happen?’

  Marit Olsen gave it some thought. Closed her eyes and felt his fingers massaging calm and harmony into her body. She had met Rasmus when she had been working at the Norwegian Employment Service in Alta, in Finnmark. She had been elected as an official for NTL, a union for state employees, and they had sent her south on a training course to the Sormarka conference centre. There a thin man with vivid blue eyes beneath a fastreceding hairline had approached her the first evening. He had talked in a way that was reminiscent of redemption-happy Christians at the youth club in Alta. Except that he was talking politics. He worked in the secretariat for the Socialist Party, helping MPs with practical office jobs, travel, the press and even, on the odd occasion, writing a speech for them.

  Rasmus had bought her a beer, asked if she wanted to dance and after four increasingly slow evergreen numbers with increasingly close physical contact had asked if she wanted to join him. Not in his room, but in the party.

  After returning home she had started going to party meetings in Alta, and in the evenings she and Rasmus had long telephone conversations about what they had done and thought that day. Of course, Marit had never said it aloud: that sometimes she thought the best time they had spent together was when they were two thousand kilometres apart. Then the Appointments Committee had rung, put her on a list and, hey presto, she was elected to Alta Town Council. Two years later she was the vice chairperson of Alta Socialist Party, the year after she was sitting on the County Council, and then there was another telephone call, and this time it was the Appointments Committee for Stortinget.

  And now she had a tiny office in Stortinget, a partner who helped her with her speeches, and prospects of climbing the ladder so long as everything went to plan. And she avoided blunders.

  ‘They’ll detail a policeman to keep an eye on me,’ she said. ‘And the press will want to know why a woman MP no one has ever heard of should be walking around with a bloody bodyguard at the taxpayer’s expense. And when they find out why – she suspected someone had been following her in the park – they will write that with that kind of reasoning every woman in Oslo will be asking for state-subsidised police protection. I don’t want any protection. Drop it.’

  Rasmus laughed silently and used his fingers to massage his approval.

  ***

  The wind howled through the leafless trees in Frogner Park. A duck with its head drawn deep into its plumage drifted across the pitch-black surface of the lake. Rotting leaves stuck to the tiles of the empty pools at Frogner Lido. The place seemed abandoned for all eternity, a lost world. The wind blew up a storm in the deep pool and sang its monotonous lament beneath the ten-metre-high diving tower that stood out against the night sky like a gallows.

  8

  Snow Patrol

  It was three o’clock in the afternoon when Harry awoke. He opened his bag, put in a set of clean clothes, found a woollen coat in the wardrobe and went out. The drizzle roused Harry enough for him to look moderately sober as he entered the brown, smoky rooms of Schroder’s. His table was taken, so he went into the corner, under the TV.

  He looked around. He spotted a couple of faces he hadn’t seen before, hunched over beer glasses, otherwise time had stood still. Rita came and placed a white mug and a steel jug of coffee in front of him.

  ‘Harry,’ she said. Not as a form of welcome, but to confirm that it was indeed he.

  Harry nodded. ‘Hi, Rita. Old newspapers?’

  Rita scuttled off to the back room and returned with a pile of yellowing papers. Harry had never been given a clear explanation as to why they kept newspapers at Schroder’s, but he had benefited from this arrangement on more than one occasion.

  ‘Been a long time,’ said Rita and was gone. And Harry remembered what he liked about Schroder’s, apart from its being the closest taproom to his flat. The short sentences. And respect for your private life. Your return was noted; no elucidation was required.

  Harry downed two mugs of the surprisingly unpleasant coffee while flicking through the newspapers in a fast-forward kind of way to furnish himself with a general perspective of what had happened in the kingdom over the last months. Not much, as usual. Which was what he liked best about Norway.

  Someone had won Norwegian Idol, a celeb had been eliminated from a dance competition, a footballer in the third division had been caught taking cocaine, and Lene Galtung, daughter of the shipping magnate Anders Galtung, had pre-inherited some of the millions and got engaged to a better-looking but presumably less affluent investor called Tony. The editor of Liberal, Arve Stop, wrote that for a nation wanting to stand out as a social-democratic model, it was beginning to be embarrassing that Norway was still a monarchy. Nothing had changed.

  In the December newspapers Harry saw the first articles about the murders. He recognised Kaja’s description of the crime scene, a basement in an office complex under construction in Nydalen. The cause of death was unclear, but the police suspected foul play.

  Harry thumbed through, preferring to read about a politician who boasted that he was standing down to spend more time with his family.

  Schroder’s newspaper archives were by no means complete, but the second murder appeared in a paper dated a couple of weeks later.

  The woman had been found behind a wrecked Datsun dumped at the edge of a wood by Lake Daudsjoen in Maridalen. The police did not rule out a ‘criminal act’, but nor did they reveal any details about the cause of death.

  Harry’s eyes scanned the article and established that the reason for police silence was the usual: they had no leads, nada, the radar was sweeping across an open sea of nothingness.

  Only two murders. Yet Hagen had seemed so certain of his facts when he said this was a serial killer. So, what was the connection? What was it that the press didn’t say? Harry could feel his brain beginning to pursue the old, familiar paths; he cursed himself for his inability to refrain and continued to leaf through.

  When the steel coffee jug was empty, he left a crumpled banknote on the table and went into the street. Tightened his coat around him and squinted up at the grey sky.

  He hailed an unoccupied taxi, which pulled into the kerb. The driver leaned across and the rear door swung open. A trick you rarely saw nowadays, and one Harry decided to reward with a tip. Not just because he could step right in, but because the window in the door had reflected a face at the wheel of a car parked behind Harry.

  ‘Rikshospital,’ Harry said, wriggling to the middle of the back seat.

  ‘Righto,’ said the driver.

  Harry studied the rear-view mirror as they drove off from the kerb. ‘Oh, could you go to Sofies gate 5 first, please?’

  In Sofies gate the taxi waited, its diesel engine clattering away, while Harry mounted the staircase with long, quick strides and his brain assessed the range of possibilities. The Triad? Herman Kluit? Or good old paranoia. The gear lay where he had left it before taking off, in the toolbox in the food cupboard. The old, expired ID card. Two sets of Hiatt handcuffs with a spring-loaded arm for speed-cuffing. And the service revolver, a. 38 calibre Smith amp; Wesson.

  Returning to the street, he looked neither left nor right, just jumped straight into the taxi.

  ‘Rikshospital?’ asked the driver.

  ‘Drive in that direction at any rate,’ Harry answered, studying the mirror as they turned up Stensbergata and then Ullevalsveien. He saw nothing. Which meant one of two things. It was good old paranoia. Or the guy was a pro.

  Harry hesitated, then said finally, ‘Rikshospital.’

  He continued to keep an eye on the mirror as they passed Vestre Aker Church and Ulleval Hospital. Whatever he did, he mustn’t lead them straight to where he was most vulnerable. Where they would always try to strike. The family.

  The country’s
biggest hospital was situated high above the town.

  Harry paid the driver, who thanked him for the tip and repeated the trick with the rear door.

  The facades of the buildings rose in front of Harry and the low cloud cover seemed to sweep away the roofs.

  He took a deep breath.

  Olav Hole’s smile from the hospital pillow was so gentle and frail that Harry had to swallow.

  ‘I was in Hong Kong,’ Harry replied. ‘I had to do some thinking.’

  ‘Did you get it done?’

  Harry shrugged. ‘What do the doctors say?’

  ‘As little as possible. Hardly a good sign, but I’ve noticed that I prefer it like that. Tackling life’s realities has, as you know, never been our family’s strong suit.’

  Harry wondered whether they would talk about Mum. He hoped not.

  ‘Have you got a job?’

  Harry shook his head. His father’s hair hung over his forehead, so tidy and white that Harry assumed it wasn’t his hair but an accessory that had been handed out with the pyjamas and slippers.

  ‘Nothing?’ his father said.

  ‘I’ve had an offer to lecture at a police college.’

  It was almost the truth. Hagen had offered him that after the Snowman case, as a kind of leave of absence.

  ‘Teacher?’ His father chuckled cautiously, as if any further effort would be the end of him. ‘I thought one of your principles was never to do anything I had done.’

  ‘It was never like that.’

  ‘That’s alright. You’ve always done things your way. This police stuff… Well, I suppose I should just be grateful you haven’t done what I did. I’m no model for anyone to follow. You know, after your mother died…’

  Harry had been sitting in the white hospital room for twenty minutes and already felt a desperate urge to flee.

  ‘After your mother died, I struggled to make sense of anything. I retreated into my shell, found no joy in anyone’s company. It was as though loneliness brought me closer to her, or so I thought. But it’s a mistake, Harry.’ His father’s smile was as gentle as an angel’s. ‘I know losing Rakel hit you hard, but you mustn’t do what I did. You mustn’t hide, Harry. You mustn’t lock the door and throw away the key.’

  Harry looked down at his hands, nodded and felt ants crawling all over his body. He had to have something, anything.

  A nurse came in, introduced himself as Altman, held up a syringe and said, with a slight lisp, that he was going to give ‘Olav’ something to help him sleep. Harry felt like asking if he had something for him, too.

  His father lay on his side, the skin on his face sagging; he looked older than he had on his back. He gazed at Harry with heavy, blank eyes.

  Harry stood up so abruptly that the chair legs scraped loudly on the floor.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Olav asked.

  ‘Out for a smoke,’ Harry said. ‘I won’t be long.’

  Harry sat on a low brick wall with a view of the car park and lit up a Camel. On the other side of the motorway he could see Blindern and the university buildings where his father had studied. There were those who asserted that sons always became, to some degree or other, disguised variants of their fathers, that the experience of breaking out was never more than an illusion; you returned; the gravity of blood was not only stronger than your willpower, it was your willpower. To Harry it had always seemed he was evidence of the contrary. So why had seeing his father’s naked, ravaged face on the pillow been like looking into a mirror? Listening to him speak like hearing himself? Hearing him think, the words… like a dentist’s drill that found Harry’s nerves with unerring accuracy. Because he was a copy. Shit! Harry’s searching gaze had found a white Corolla in the car park.

  Always white, that’s the most anonymous colour. The colour of the Corolla outside Schroder’s, the one with the face behind the wheel, the same face that had been staring at him with its narrow, slanting eyes less than twenty-four hours before.

  Harry tossed away his cigarette and hurried inside. Slackened his pace when he entered the corridor leading to his father’s room. He turned where the corridor widened to an open waiting area and pretended to search through a pile of magazines on the table while scanning the people sitting there from the corner of his eye.

  The man had hidden himself behind a copy of Liberal.

  Harry picked up a Se og Hor gossip rag with a picture of Lene Galtung and her fiance and left.

  Olav Hole was lying with his eyes closed. Harry bent down and put his ear to Olav’s mouth. He was breathing so lightly it was barely audible, but Harry felt a current of air on his cheek.

  He sat for a while on the chair beside the bed watching his father as his mind played back poorly edited childhood memories in arbitrary order and with no other central theme than that they were things he remembered clearly.

  Then he placed the chair by the door, which he opened a crack, and waited.

  It was half an hour before he saw the man come from the waiting area and walk down the corridor. Harry noticed that the squat, robustlooking man was unusually bow-legged; he seemed to be walking with a beach ball stuck between his knees. Before entering a door marked with the international sign for the men’s toilet, he plucked at his belt. As if something heavy was hanging from it.

  Harry got up and followed.

  Stopped outside the toilet and breathed in. It had been a long time. Then he pushed open the door and slipped in.

  The toilet was like the whole hospital: clean, nice, new and too big. Along the main wall there were six cubicle doors, none with a red square above the lock. On the shorter wall four basins, and on the other long wall four porcelain urinals at hip height. The man was standing at a urinal, with his back to Harry. On the wall above him ran a horizontal pipe. It looked solid. Solid enough. Harry took out his revolver and handcuffs. International etiquette in men’s toilets is not to look at each other. Eye contact, even unintentional, is cause for murder. Accordingly, the man didn’t turn to look at Harry. Not when Harry locked the outside door with infinite care, not when he walked over slowly and not when he placed the gun barrel against the roll of fat between the man’s neck and head and whispered what a colleague used to claim all police officers should be allowed to say at least once in their careers: ‘Freeze.’

  The man did exactly that. Harry could see the gooseflesh appear on the roll of fat as the man stiffened.

  ‘Hands up.’

  The man lifted a couple of short, powerful arms above his head. Harry leaned forward. And realised at that moment it had been a blunder. The man’s speed was breathtaking. Harry knew from the hours spent swotting up on hand-to-hand combat techniques that knowing how to take a beating was as important as giving one. The art was to let your muscles relax, to appreciate that punishment cannot be avoided, only reduced. So, when the man spun round, with his knee raised, as supple as a dancer, Harry reacted by following the movement. He moved his body in the same direction as the kick. The foot hit him above the hip. Harry lost balance, fell and slid along the tiled floor until he was out of range. He remained there, sighed and looked at the ceiling as he took out his pack of cigarettes. He poked one in his mouth.

  ‘Speed-cuffing,’ Harry said. ‘Learned it the year I did an FBI course in Chicago. Cabrini Green, digs were the pits. For a white man, there was nothing to do in the evenings unless you wanted to go out and get yourself robbed. So I sat indoors practising two things. Loading and unloading my service pistol as fast as I could in the dark. And speed-cuffing on a table leg.’

  Harry levered himself up onto his elbows.

  The man was still standing with his short arms stretched up above his head. His wrists were shackled to the handcuffs on either side of the pipe. He stared blankly at Harry.

  ‘Mr Kluit send you?’ Harry asked, in English.

  The man held Harry’s gaze without blinking.

  ‘The Triad? I’ve paid my debts, haven’t you heard?’ Harry studied the man’s expressionless fa
ce. The features could have been Asian, but he didn’t have a Chinese face or complexion. Mongolian maybe? ‘So what do you want from me?’

  No answer. Which was bad news, as the man had most probably not come to ask for anything, but to do something.

  Harry stood up and walked in a semicircle so that he could approach him from the side. He held the revolver to the man’s temple while slipping his left hand inside the man’s suit jacket. His hand ran over the cold steel of a weapon, then found a wallet and plucked it out.

  Harry stepped back three paces.

  ‘Let’s see… Mr Jussi Kolkka.’ Harry held an American Express card up to the light. ‘Finnish? I suppose you know some Norwegian then?’

  No answer.

  ‘You’ve been a policeman, haven’t you. When I saw you in arrivals at Gardemoen, I thought you were an undercover narco cop. How did you know I was catching that particular flight, Jussi? It’s alright if I call you Jussi, isn’t it? It feels sort of natural to address a guy with his schlong hanging out by his first name.’

  There was a brief throaty noise before a gobbet of spit came whirling through the air, rotating on its axis, and landed on Harry’s chest.

  Harry looked down at his T-shirt. The black snus-spit had drawn a diagonal line through the second ‘o’ and it now read ‘Snow Patrol’.

  ‘So you do understand Norwegian,’ Harry said. ‘Who do you work for then, Jussi? And what do you want?’

  Not a muscle stirred in Jussi’s face. Someone shook the door handle outside, swore and went away.

  Harry sighed. Then he raised his revolver until it was level with the Finn’s forehead and cocked it.

  ‘You might suppose, Jussi, that I’m a normal, sane person. Well, this is how sane I am. My father is lying helpless in his sickbed in there. You’ve found out, and that presents me with a problem. There’s only one way to solve it. Fortunately, you’re armed so I can tell the police it was self-defence.’