The Leopard: An Inspector Harry Hole Novel

by Jo Nesbo

  They finished their cigarettes, and Altman was about to go when Harry asked, “Since you’re an anesthesia expert, could you tell me how a person might get hold of ketanome?”

  “Oh, dear,” Altman said. “I probably shouldn’t answer that.”

  “It’s OK,” Harry said with a wry smile. “It’s about the murder case I’m working on.”

  “Aha. Well, unless you work in anesthesia, ketanome is very hard to get hold of in Norway. It works like a bullet, almost literally—the patient is knocked flat. But the side effects—ulcers—are nasty. In addition, the risk of cardiac arrest with an overdose is high. It’s been used for suicide. But not anymore. Ketanome was banned in the EU and Norway some years ago.”

  “I know that, but where would you go to get it now?”

  “Well, ex-Soviet states. Or Africa.”

  “The Congo, for example?”

  “Definitely. The producer sells it at bargain-basement prices since the European ban, so it ends up in poor countries. It’s always like that.”

  Harry sat by his father’s bedside watching his frail pajama-clad chest rise and fall. After an hour he got up and left.

  Harry decided he would postpone making a call until he had unlocked the house, put on “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore”—one of his father’s Duke Ellington records—and taken out the brown clump. He saw that Gunnar Hagen had left a message, but he had no intention of listening to it, as he knew roughly what it was about. Bellman would have been nagging him again: From now on they were not allowed to touch the murder case, however compelling their excuses. And Harry was to report for normal duties if he still wanted a job with the police. Well, perhaps not the last part. It was time to head off on his travels. And the travels should start here, now, tonight. He took out the lighter with one hand while the other brought up the two texts he had received. The first was from Øystein. He suggested “a gentlemen’s night out” in the not-too-distant future, with an invitation to Tresko, who was probably the most well-to-do of the three. The second was a number Harry didn’t recognize. He opened the message.

  I SEE FROM THE AFTENPOSTEN WEBSITE THAT YOU’RE IN CHARGE OF THE CASE. I CAN HELP. ELIAS SKOG TALKED BEFORE HE WAS GLUED TO THE BATH. C.

  Harry dropped the lighter, which hit the glass table with a loud bang, and he felt his heart race. During murder cases they always got loads of people ringing in with tip-offs, advice and hypotheses. People who were willing to swear they had seen, heard or been told all sorts of things, and couldn’t the police spare them a moment to listen? Often it was the same old voices again and again, but there were always some new, mixed-up windbags. Harry was quite certain that this was not one of them. The press had written a lot about the case; readers possessed a considerable amount of information. The general public had not been told that Elias Skog had been glued to the bath, however. Or been given Harry’s cell number.

  38

  Permanent Scarring

  Harry had turned down Duke Ellington and sat with the phone in his hand. This person knew about the Super Glue. And had his number. Should he check the name and address of the caller, perhaps even have the person arrested because there was a chance he might frighten him off? On the other hand, whoever it was expected an answer.

  Harry pressed “return call.”

  It buzzed twice, then he heard a deep voice. “Yes?”

  “This is Harry Hole.”

  “Nice to talk to you again, Hole.”

  “Mm. When have we spoken before?”

  “Don’t you remember? Elias Skog’s flat. Super Glue.”

  Harry felt the carotid artery in his neck throb, cramp the space in his throat.

  “I was there. Who am I speaking to, and what were you doing there?”

  The other end went quiet for a second and Harry immediately concluded the person had hung up. But then the voice was back with a drawn-out “Oh, sorry, I may have signed the message with just C. Did I?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “I generally do. This is Inspector Colbjørnsen. From Stavanger. You gave me your number, remember?”

  Harry cursed himself, realized he was still holding his breath and let it out in a long hiss.

  “Are you there?”

  “Uh-huh,” Harry said, grabbing the teaspoon on the table and scraping off a bit of the opium. “You said you had something for me?”

  “Yes, I do. But on one condition.”

  “Which is?”

  “It stays between us.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I don’t want that prick Bellman coming over here thinking he’s God’s gift to criminal investigations. He and fucking Kripos are trying to get a monopoly over the whole country. Far as I’m concerned he can go to hell. The problem is my bosses. I’m not allowed to touch the fucking Skog case.”

  “So why come to me?”

  “I’m a simple lad from the provinces, Hole. But when I see in Aftenposten that you’ve been given the case I know what’s going to happen. I know you’re like me—you won’t just lie down and die.”

  “Well …” Harry said, looking at the opium in front of him.

  “So if you can use this to outsmart the smart-ass and it leads to Bellman’s plans for the evil empire being shelved, accept it with my blessing. I’ll wait until the day after tomorrow before sending Bellman my report. That gives you a day.”

  “What’ve you got?”

  “I’ve spoken to people in Skog’s circle, which was small, as he was an oddball, unusually intense and traveled around the world on his own. Two persons in all. The landlady. And a girl we traced via the phone numbers he had called in the days leading up to his death. Her name is Stine Ølberg, and she said she spoke to Elias the night he was killed. They were on the bus leaving town, and he said he’d been to the Håvass cabin at the same time as the murdered women in the newspapers. He thought it was strange no one had discovered they’d all been to the same cabin and he’d been wondering about whether to go to the police. But he was reluctant because he had no desire to get involved. And I can understand that. Skog had been in trouble with the police before. He’d been reported for stalking on two occasions. He hadn’t done anything illegal, to be fair to him. He was, as I said, just the intense type. Stine said she had been frightened of him, but that evening it was the opposite: He was the one who had seemed frightened.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Stine had pretended not to know who the three murder victims were, and then Elias had said that he would tell her about someone else who had been there, someone he was sure she did know. And this is the really interesting part. The man is well known. At least a B-list celebrity.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  “According to Elias Skog, Tony Leike was there.”

  “Tony Leike. Should I know who that is?”

  “He lives with the daughter of Anders Galtung, the shipping magnate.”

  A couple of newspaper headlines flashed in Harry’s mind.

  “Tony Leike is a so-called investor, which means he has become rich and no one quite understands how, just that it certainly wasn’t by dint of hard work. Not only that—he’s a real pretty boy. Hardly Mr. Nice Guy, though. And this is the critical part. The guy’s got a sheet.”

  “ ‘Sheet’?” Harry asked, affecting incomprehension to imply what he thought of Colbjørnsen’s Americanisms.

  “A record. Tony Leike has a conviction for violent assault.”

  “Mm. Checked the charge?”

  “Years ago Tony Leike beat up and maimed one Ole S. Hansen on the seventh of August between eleven-twenty and eleven forty-five p.m. It happened outside a dance hall in the town where Tony was living with his grandfather. Tony was eighteen, Ole seventeen, and of course it was over a skirt.”

  “Mm. Jealous kids fighting after they’ve been drinking is not exactly unusual. Did you say violent assault?”

  “Yes; in fact, there was more. After Leike had knocked down the other boy, he sat on him and carve
d up the poor lad’s face with a knife. He was permanently scarred, though the report said it could have been much worse if people hadn’t dragged Leike off.”

  “But no more than the one conviction?”

  “Tony Leike was known for his temper and was regularly involved in brawls. At the trial a witness said that at school Leike had tried to strangle him with a belt because he had said something less than flattering about Tony’s father.”

  “Sounds like someone should have a long chat with Leike. Do you know where he lives?”

  “On your turf. Holmenveien … wait … number one seventy-two.”

  “West End. Hm. Thanks, Colbjørnsen.”

  “Not at all. Erm, there was one other thing. A man got on the bus after Elias. He got off at the same stop as Elias, and Stine says she saw the man following him. But she couldn’t give a description because his face was hidden by a hat. Might be of some significance, or not.”

  “Right.”

  “So I’m counting on you, Hole.”

  “Counting on what?”

  “You doing the right thing.”

  “Mm.”

  “Good night.”

  Harry sat listening to the Duke. Then he grabbed the phone and looked up Kaja’s number. He was about to press the “call” button but hesitated. He was doing it again. Dragging people down with him. Harry tossed the phone aside. There were two options. The smart one, which was to call Bellman. Or the stupid one, which was to go it alone.

  Harry sighed. Who was he kidding? He had no choice. So he stuffed the lighter in his pocket, wrapped up the ball in silver foil, put it in the liquor cabinet, undressed, set the alarm for six and went to bed. No choice. A prisoner of his own behavior patterns, whereby every action was compulsive. In that sense, he was neither better nor worse than those he pursued.

  And with this thought he fell asleep, a smile on his lips.

  The night is so blessedly still, it heals your sight, clears your mind. The new, old policeman. Hole. I’ll have to tell him that. I won’t show him everything, just enough for him to understand. Then he can stop it. So that I don’t have to do what I do. I spit and spit, but blood fills my mouth, over and over again.

  39

  Relational Search

  Harry arrived at Police HQ at a quarter to seven in the morning. Apart from the security guard at the reception desk there was no one around in the large atrium inside the heavy front doors.

  He nodded to the guard, swiped his card in the reader by the gate and took the elevator down to the cellar. From there he loped through the culvert and unlocked the room. He lit the day’s first cigarette and called the cell number while the computer booted up. Katrine Bratt sounded sleepy.

  “I want you to run those relational searches of yours,” Harry said. “Between a Tony Leike and each of the murder victims. Including Juliana Verni from Leipzig.”

  “The recreation room’s free until half past eight,” she said. “I’ll get going this minute. Anything else?”

  Harry hesitated. “Could you check on a Jussi Kolkka for me? Policeman.”

  “What’s the story with him?”

  “That’s the point,” Harry said. “I don’t know what the story is.”

  Harry put down the phone and set to work on the computer.

  Tony Leike had one conviction—that was correct. And according to the register he had been in trouble with the police on two other occasions as well. As Colbjørnsen had indicated, both were for physical violence. In the first instance the charge had been withdrawn and in the second the case had been dropped.

  Harry Googled Tony Leike’s name and got a number of hits: minor newspaper mentions—most of which were connected with his fiancée, Lene Galtung—but also some in the financial press, where he was referred to alternately as an investor, a speculator and an ignorant sheep. This last, in Kapital, was a reference to Leike belonging to the flock that mimicked a lead sheep, the psychologist Einar Kringlen, in everything he did: from buying stocks, mountain cabins and cars to choosing the right restaurant, drink, woman, office, house and vacation destination.

  Harry searched through the links until he stopped at an article in a financial newspaper.

  “Bingo,” he mumbled.

  Tony Leike was clearly able to stand on his own two feet. Or in his own two mining boots. At any rate the Finansavisen wrote about a mining project with Leike as the entrepreneur and enthusiast. He was photographed alongside his colleagues, two young men with side parts. They were not wearing the standard designer suits, but overalls and work clothes, and were sitting on a pile of wood in front of a helicopter and smiling. Tony Leike wore the biggest smile of them all. He was broad-shouldered, long-limbed, dark, both his skin and his hair, and he had an impressive aquiline nose that in conjunction with his coloring made Harry think that he must have at least a dash of Arab blood in his veins. But the reason for Harry’s restrained outburst was the headline: KING OF THE CONGO?

  Harry continued to follow the links.

  The yellow press was more interested in the imminent wedding to Lene Galtung and the guest list.

  Harry glanced at his watch. Five past seven. He called the duty officer.

  “I need assistance for an arrest on Holmenveien.”

  “Detention?”

  Harry knew very well that he didn’t have enough to ask the prosecutor for an arrest warrant.

  “To be brought in for questioning,” Harry said.

  “I thought you said arrest. And why do you need assistance if it’s only—”

  “Could you have two men and a car ready outside the garage in five minutes?”

  Harry received a snort by way of response, which he interpreted as a yes. He took two puffs of his cigarette, stubbed it out, got up, locked the door and left. He was thirty-five feet down the culvert when he heard a faint noise behind him, which he knew was the landline ringing.

  He had come out of the elevator and was on his way to the door when he heard someone shout his name. He turned and saw the security guard waving to him. By the counter Harry saw the back of a mustard-yellow woolen coat.

  “This man was asking for you,” the receptionist said.

  The woolen coat turned. It was the type that is supposed to look as if it is cashmere, and on occasion it is. In this case, Harry assumed it was. Because it was filled out by a broad-shouldered, long-limbed man with dark eyes, dark hair and possibly a dash of Arab blood in his veins.

  “You’re taller than you appear in the photos,” said Tony Leike, exhibiting a row of porcelain dental high-rises and an outstretched hand.

  “Good coffee,” said Tony Leike, looking as if he meant it. Harry studied Leike’s long, distorted fingers, which were wrapped around the coffee cup. It wasn’t contagious, Leike had explained as he had proffered his hand to Harry, just good old-fashioned arthritis, an inherited affliction fhat—if nothing else—made him a reliable meteorologist. “But, to be frank, I thought they gave inspectors slightly better offices. A little warm?”

  “The prison boiler,” Harry said, sipping his coffee. “So you read about the case in Aftenposten this morning?”

  “Yes, I was having breakfast. Almost choked on it, to be honest.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Leike rocked in his chair, like a Formula 1 driver in a bucket seat before the start. “I trust what I say can remain between us.”

  “Who is us?”

  “The police and me. Preferably you and me.”

  Harry hoped his voice was neutral and did not reveal his excitement. “The reason being?”

  Leike took a deep breath. “I don’t want it to come out that I was in the Håvass cabin at the same time as the MP Marit Olsen. For the moment I have a very high media profile because of my impending wedding. It would be unfortunate if I were to be linked with a murder investigation right now. The press would be on it and that might … things would emerge from my past that I would prefer remain dead and buried.”

  “I see,” Harry said i
nnocently. “Of course, I will have to weigh a number of factors, and for that reason cannot promise anything. But this is not an interview, just a conversation, and I don’t usually leak this kind of thing to the press.”

  “Nor to my … er, nearest and dearest?”

  “Not unless there is a reason for it. If you’re afraid it will be made public that you were here, why did you come?”

  “You asked people who were at the cabin to come forward, so it’s my civic duty, isn’t it?” He sent Harry a questioning look. And then made a face. “Christ, I was frightened. I knew that those who were there that night were next in line. Jumped in my car and drove straight here.”

  “Has anything happened recently to make you concerned?”

  “No.” Tony Leike sniffed the air thoughtfully. “Apart from a break-in through the cellar door a few days ago. Christ, I should get an alarm, shouldn’t I?”

  “Did you report it to the police?”

  “No, they only took a bike.”

  “And you think serial killers steal bicycles on the side?”

  Leike shook his head with a smile. Not the sheepish smile of someone who is ashamed of having said something stupid, Harry thought. But the disarming, winning smile that says, “You got me there, pal,” the gallant congratulation from someone used to his own victories.

  “Why did you ask for me?”

  “The papers said you were in charge, so I thought it only natural. Anyway, as I said, I was hoping it would be possible to keep this between as few people as possible, so I came straight to the top.”

  “I’m not the top, Leike.”

  “Aren’t you? Aftenposten gave the impression you were.”

  Harry stroked his jutting jaw. He hadn’t made up his mind about Tony Leike. He was a man with a groomed exterior and bad-boy charm that reminded Harry of an ice-hockey player he had seen in an underwear ad. He seemed to want to present an air of unruffled, worldly-wise smoothness but also to come across as a sincere human being with feelings that could not be hidden. Or perhaps it was the other way around; perhaps the smoothness was sincere and the feelings were pretense.