The Leopard

by Jo Nesbo

  Van Boorst laughed again. ‘Nice try, Hole. But the Chief of Police in Goma happens to be a personal acquaintance of mine, and anyway –’ he threw his arms in the air – ‘what have I done after all?’

  ‘What you have done is less interesting,’ Harry said, taking a photo out of his breast pocket. ‘The Norwegian state is one of the most important providers of aid to the Congo. If the Norwegian authorities ring Kinshasa, name you as a non-cooperative source of the murder weapon in a Norwegian double murder, what do you think will happen?’

  Van Boorst was no longer smiling.

  ‘You won’t be falsely convicted of anything, gracious, no,’ Harry said. ‘You’ll just be on remand, which should not be confused with punishment. It’s the judicious confinement of a person while a case is being investigated and perhaps there are fears that evidence may have been tampered with. But it is prison nevertheless. And this investigation could take a long time. Have you ever seen the inside of a Congolese prison, Van Boorst? No, I suppose there are not many white men who have.’

  Van Boorst pulled the dressing gown round him tighter. Eyed Harry while gnawing at the cigarette holder. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘a thousand dollars.’

  ‘Five hundred,’ Harry said.

  ‘Five? But you—’

  ‘Four,’ Harry said.

  ‘Done!’ Van Boorst shouted, raising his arms into the air. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Everything,’ Harry said, leaning against the wall and producing a pack of cigarettes.

  When, half an hour later, Harry stepped out of Van Boorst’s house and into Joe’s Land Rover, darkness had fallen.

  ‘The hotel,’ Harry said.

  The hotel turned out to be right down by the lake. Joe warned Harry against swimming. Not because of the guinea parasite he would be unlikely to discover until one day a thin worm began to wriggle under his skin, but because of the methane gas that rose from the bottom in the form of large bubbles that could render him unconscious and precipitate drowning.

  Harry sat on the balcony, looking down on two long-legged creatures walking stilt-like over the illuminated lawn. They looked like flamingos in peacock costume. On the floodlit tennis court two young black boys were playing with just two balls, both so ragged that they looked like rolled-up socks sailing to and fro across the semi-torn net. Every now and then aeroplanes thundered across the sky, above the hotel roof.

  Harry heard the clink of bottles at the bar. It was exactly sixty-eight paces from where he was sitting. He had counted when he entered. He took out his phone and rang Kaja’s number.

  She sounded happy to hear his voice. Happy anyway.

  ‘I’m snowbound in Ustaoset,’ she said. ‘It’s coming down horses and cows here, not cats and dogs. But at least I’ve been invited to dinner. And the guest book was interesting.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘The page for the day we’re interested in was missing.’

  ‘There you go. Did you check if—’

  ‘Yes, I checked if there were any fingerprints or if the writing had gone through to the next page.’ She giggled, and Harry guessed that she had had a couple of glasses of wine.

  ‘Mm. I was thinking more of—’

  ‘Yes, I checked what had been written the day before and after. But almost no one stays more than one night in such basic accommodation. Unless they’re snowed in. And the weather was clear on the 7th of November. But the officer up here has promised me that he’ll check the guest books at the surrounding cabins on the days before and after to see which guests might have stayed over at Håvass on their trek.’

  ‘Good. Sounds like we’re getting warmer.’

  ‘Maybe. How about you?’

  ‘Bit cooler here, I’m afraid. I’ve found Van Boorst, but none of the fourteen customers he dealt with were Scandinavian. He was fairly sure. I have six names and addresses, but they’re all known collectors. Otherwise there were a few names he half remembered, a few descriptions, that’s all. There are two more apples, but Van Boorst happened to know they were still in the hands of a collector in Caracas. Did you check out Adele and her visa?’

  ‘I called the Rwandan consulate in Sweden. I have to confess I expected chaos but everything was bang on the button.’

  ‘The Congo’s small, straightforward big brother.’

  ‘They had a copy of Adele’s visa application, and the dates matched. The period covered by the visa is well out of date now, but of course they had no idea where she was. They told me to contact the immigration authorities in Kigali. I was given a number, tried it and was bounced around between offices like a pinball, until I was put through to an English-speaking know-all who pointed out that there was no cooperation agreement with Rwanda in that area, regretted politely that he would have to decline my request and wished me and my family a long and happy life. You haven’t got a sniff of anything, either?’

  ‘No. I showed Van Boorst the photo of Adele. He said the only woman who had bought anything off him was a woman with big rust-red curls and an East German accent.’

  ‘East German accent? Does such a thing exist?’

  ‘I don’t know, Kaja. This man walks around in a dressing gown, has a cigarette holder, is an alcoholic and a specialist in accents. I’m trying to keep my mind on the case and then get out.’

  She laughed. White wine, Harry wagered. Red-wine drinkers don’t laugh as much.

  ‘But I have an idea,’ he said. ‘Landing cards.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You have to give the address of where you plan to stay on your first night. If they hold onto the cards in Kigali and there is further info, such as a forwarding address, perhaps I can find out where Adele went. That might be a lead. For all we know she may be the only person alive who knows who was at the Håvass cabin that night.’

  ‘Good luck, Harry.’

  ‘Good luck to you, too.’

  He rang off. Of course he could have asked her who she was having dinner with, but if that had been relevant to the investigation she would probably have told him.

  Harry sat on the balcony until the bar closed and the clinking of bottles stopped, to be replaced by the sounds of lovemaking from an open window above. Throaty, monotonous cries. They reminded him of the gulls at Åndalsnes when he and his grandfather used to get up at the crack of dawn to go fishing. His father never went with him. Why not? And why had Harry never thought about it, why hadn’t he instinctively known that Olav didn’t feel at home in a fishing boat? Had he already understood, as a five-year-old, that his father had opted for an education and left the farm precisely so that he wouldn’t have to sit in boat? Nevertheless, his father wanted to return and spend eternity there. Life was strange. Death, at any rate.

  Harry lit up a cigarette. The sky was starless and black apart from above the Nyiragongo crater, where a red glow smouldered. Harry felt a smarting pain as an insect stung him. Malaria. Methane gas. Lake Kivu glittered in the distance. Very nice, very deep.

  A boom resounded from the mountains, and the sound rolled across the lake. Vocanic eruption or just thunder? Harry looked up. Another clap; the echo rang between the mountains. And another echo, distant, reached Harry at the same time.

  Very deep.

  He stared, wide-eyed, into the darkness, hardly noticing that the heavens were opening and the rain was hammering down and drowning the gull cries.

  32

  Police

  ‘I’M GLAD YOU GOT AWAY FROM THE HÅVASS CABIN BEFORE this swept in,’ Officer Krongli said. ‘You could have been stranded there for several days.’ He nodded towards the hotel restaurant’s large panoramic window. ‘But it’s wonderful to see, don’t you think?’

  Kaja looked out at the heavy snowfall. Even had been like that, too; he was excited by the power of nature, regardless of whether it was working for or against him.

  ‘I hope my train will finally get through,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Krongli said, fingering his wine glass in a way
that suggested to Kaja that wining and dining was not something he did that often. ‘We’ll make sure it does. And sort out the guest books from the other cabins.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Kaja said.

  Krongli ran a hand through his unruly locks and put on a wry smile. Chris de Burgh with ‘Lady in Red’ oozed like syrup through the loudspeakers.

  There were only two other guests in the restaurant, two men in their thirties, each sitting at a table with a white cloth, each with a beer in front of them, staring at the snow, waiting for something that wasn’t going to happen.

  ‘Doesn’t it get lonely here sometimes?’ Kaja asked.

  ‘Depends,’ the rural policeman said, following her glance. ‘If you don’t have a wife or family, it means you tend to gather at places like this.’

  ‘To be lonely together,’ Kaja said.

  ‘Yep,’ Krongli said, pouring more wine into their glasses. ‘But I suppose it’s the same in Oslo, too?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kaja said. ‘It is. Have you got any family?’

  Krongli shrugged. ‘I did live with someone. But she found life too empty here, so she moved down to where you live. I can understand her. You have to have an interesting job in a place like this.’

  ‘And you do?’

  ‘I think so. I know everyone here, and they know me. We help each other. I need them and they … well . . .’ He twirled the glass.

  ‘They need you,’ Kaja said.

  ‘I believe so, yes.’

  ‘And that’s important.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Krongli said firmly, looking up at her. Even’s eyes. Which had the embers of laughter in them; something amusing or something to be happy about always seemed to have just happened. Even if it hadn’t. Especially when it hadn’t.

  ‘What about Odd Utmo?’ Kaja said.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He left as soon as he had dropped me off. What does he do on an evening like tonight?’

  ‘How do you know he isn’t sitting at home with his wife and children?’

  ‘If I’ve ever met a recluse, Officer—’

  ‘Call me Aslak,’ he said, laughing and tipping back his glass. ‘And I can see that you’re a real detective. But Utmo hasn’t always been like that.’

  ‘He hasn’t?’

  ‘Before his son went missing he was apparently pretty approachable. Yes, now and then he was nothing less than affable. But I suppose he’s always had a dangerous temper.’

  ‘I would have thought a man like Utmo would be single.’

  ‘His wife was good-looking, too. When you consider how ugly he is. Did you see his teeth?’

  ‘I saw he was wearing an orthodontic brace, yes.’

  ‘He says it’s so that his teeth don’t go crooked.’ Aslak Krongli shook his head, with laughter in his eyes, though not in his voice. ‘But it’s the only way to make sure they don’t fall out.’

  ‘Tell me, was that really dynamite he was carrying on his snow - mobile?’

  ‘You saw it,’ Krongli said. ‘Not me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There are lots of residents up here who can’t quite see the romanticism of sitting for hours with a fishing rod by the mountain lakes, but who would like to have the fish they regard as their own on the dinner table.’

  ‘They chuck dynamite in the lakes?’

  ‘As soon as the ice has gone.’

  ‘Isn’t that somewhat illegal?’

  Krongli held up his hands in defence. ‘As I said, I didn’t see anything.’

  ‘No, that’s true, you only live here. Have you got dynamite, too, by any chance?’

  ‘Just for the garage. Which I’m planning to build.’

  ‘Right. What about Utmo’s gun? Looked modern with the telescopic sights and so on.’

  ‘Certainly is. Utmo was good at hunting bears. Until he went half blind.’

  ‘I saw his eye. What happened?’

  ‘Apparently his boy spilt a glass of acid on him.’

  ‘Apparently?’

  Krongli rolled his shoulders. ‘Utmo is the only person left who knows what happened. His son went missing when he was fifteen. Soon afterwards his wife disappeared as well. But that was eighteen years ago, before I moved up here. Since then Utmo has lived alone in the mountains, no TV, no radio, doesn’t even read the papers.’

  ‘How did they disappear?’

  ‘You tell me. There are lots of sheer drops around Utmo’s farm where you might fall. And the snow. The son’s shoe was found after an avalanche, but there was no sign of him after the snow melted that year, and it was strange to lose a shoe like that up in the snow. Some thought it was a bear. Though, as far as I know, there weren’t any bears up here eighteen years ago. And then there were those who reckoned it was Utmo.’

  ‘Oh? Why’s that?’

  ‘We-ell,’ Aslak said, dragging it out, ‘the boy had a bad scar on his chest. Folk reckoned he’d got that from his father. It was something to do with the mother, Karen.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘They were competing for her.’

  Aslak shook his head at the question in Kaja’s eyes. ‘This was before my time. And Roy Stille, who has been an officer here since the dawn of time, went to the house, but only Odd and Karen were there. And they both said the same. The boy had gone out hunting and hadn’t returned. But this was in April.’

  ‘Not hunting season?’

  Aslak shook his head. ‘And since then no one has seen him. The following year, Karen went missing. Folk here believe it was the grief that broke her and she took a one-way ticket off a cliff.’

  Kaja thought she detected a little quiver in the officer’s voice, but concluded it must have been the wine.

  ‘What do you believe?’ she asked.

  ‘I believe it’s true. The boy was caught by an avalanche. He suffocated under the snow. The snow melted and he was carried into a lake and that’s where he is. With his mother, let’s hope.’

  ‘Sounds nicer than the bear story, anyway.’

  ‘Well, it isn’t.’

  Kaja looked up at Aslak. There was no laughter in his eyes now.

  ‘Buried alive in an avalanche,’ he said, and his gaze wandered out of the window, to the drifting snow. ‘The darkness. The loneliness. You can’t move, it holds you in its iron grip, laughs at your attempts to free yourself. The certainty that you’re going to die. The panic, the mortal fear when you can’t breathe. There’s no worse way to go.’

  Kaja took a gulp of wine. She put down the glass. ‘How long were you lying there?’ she asked.

  ‘I thought it was three, maybe four hours,’ Aslak said. ‘When they dug me out, they said I had been trapped for fifteen minutes. Another five and I would have been dead.’

  The waiter came and asked if they wanted anything else; he would call last orders in ten minutes. Kaja said no, and the waiter responded by putting the bill in front of Aslak.

  ‘Why does Utmo carry a gun?’ Kaja asked. ‘As far as I’m aware, it isn’t the hunting season now.’

  ‘He says it’s because of beasts of prey. Self-defence.’

  ‘Are there any here? Wolves?’

  ‘He never tells me exactly what kind of animal he means. By the way, there’s a rumour going round that at night the boy’s ghost walks the plains. And that if you see him, you have to be careful, because it means there’s a sheer drop or an avalanche nearby.’

  Kaja finished her drink.

  ‘I can have drinking hours extended for a bit if you like.’

  ‘Thanks, Aslak, but I have to be up early tomorrow.’

  ‘Ooh,’ he said, laughing with his eyes and scratching his locks, ‘now that sounds like I . . .’ He paused.

  ‘What?’ Kaja said.

  ‘Nothing. I suppose you have a husband or boyfriend down south.’

  Kaja smiled, though didn’t answer.

  Aslak stared at the table, and said quietly, ‘Well, there you go: provincial policeman couldn’t take his drink
and started wittering.’

  ‘That’s alright,’ she said. ‘I haven’t got a boyfriend. And I like you. You remind me of my brother.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Don’t forget I’m a real detective, too. I can see you’re no hermit. There is someone, isn’t there?’

  Kaja laughed. Normally she would have left it at that. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was because she liked Aslak Krongli. Maybe it was because she didn’t have anyone to talk to about that sort of thing, not since Even died, and Aslak was a stranger, a long way from Oslo, someone who didn’t talk to her circle of acquaintances.

  ‘I’m in love,’ she heard herself say. ‘With a police officer.’ She put the glass of water to her mouth to hide a flurry of confusion. The strange thing was that it hadn’t struck her as true until she heard the words said aloud.

  Aslak raised his glass to hers. ‘Skål to the lucky guy. And the lucky girl, I hope.’

  Kaja shook her head. ‘There’s nothing to skål about. Not yet. Maybe ever. My God, listen to me . . .’

  ‘We don’t have anything else to do, do we? Tell me more.’

  ‘It’s complicated. He’s complicated. And I don’t know if he wants me. In fact, that bit is fairly straightforward.’

  ‘Let me guess. He’s got someone, and he can’t let go.’

  Kaja sighed. ‘Perhaps. I honestly don’t know. Aslak, thank you for all your help, but I—’

  ‘—have to go to bed now.’ The police officer rose. ‘I hope it all goes sour with your friend, you want to escape from your broken heart and the city and that you could envisage giving this a chance.’ He passed her an A4 piece of paper with a Hol Police Station letterhead.

  Kaja read it and laughed out loud. ‘A post in the sticks?’

  ‘Roy Stille is retiring in the autumn and good officers are hard to find,’ Aslak said. ‘It’s our advertisement for the post. We put it out last week. Our office is in Geilo city centre. Time off every alternate weekend and free dentistry.’

  As Kaja went to bed she could hear the distant rumbles. Thunder and snow rarely came as a joint package.

  She rang Harry and got his voicemail. Left a little ghost story about the local guide Odd Utmo with the rotten teeth and brace, and about his son who had to be even uglier since he had been haunting the district for eighteen years. She laughed. Realised she was drunk. Said goodnight.