The Leopard hh-8

by Jo Nesbo

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Even when the phone’s not being used the base station will pick up signals every other hour. The fact that it didn’t receive any signals shows that the phone, before or after the call, was in the deserted mountain region around Ustaoset. Where perhaps it was carried during the avalanche and torture and so on.’

  No reaction. Harry knew that the euphoria from earlier had evaporated. He went to his chair.

  ‘There’s one possible way we could get a foothold as Bellman suggested,’ he said softly, knowing that he no longer had to work to gain attention. ‘Cast your minds back to Leike’s house and the break-in. Let’s assume our killer broke into Leike’s place to ring Elias Skog from there. And let’s assume that our white-clad crime scene officers were doing such a thorough job, as it appeared when I arrived and inadvertently… bumped into Holm…’ Bjorn Holm tilted his head and sent Harry a spare-methe-jokes look. ‘… Shouldn’t we already have fingerprints from Holmenveien that might well be… Prince Charming’s?’

  The sun lit up the room again. The others exchanged glances. Ashamed almost. So simple. So obvious. And none of them had thought of it…

  ‘It’s been a long meeting with lots of new information,’ Bellman said. ‘Our brains are clearly beginning to get a bit sluggish. But what do you think about this, Holm?’

  Bjorn Holm slapped his forehead. ‘Course we’ve got all the fingerprints. We did the investigation thinking Leike was the killer and his house a possible crime scene. We were hoping to find fingerprints that would match some of the victims’.’

  ‘Have you got many that were not identified?’ Bellman asked.

  ‘That’s the point,’ said Bjorn Holm, smiling. ‘Leike had two Polish women who did the cleaning once a week. They’d been there six days before and done a thorough job. So we only found prints for Leike himself, Lene Galtung, the two Polish women and an unknown person whose prints definitely did not match those of the victims. We stopped looking for matches after Leike came up with his alibi and was released. But I don’t remember off the top of my head where we found the unknown prints.’

  ‘But I do,’ Beate Lonn said. ‘I was given the report with sketches and photographs. The prints from X1’s left hand were found on top of the pompous and very ugly desk. Like so.’ She stood up and leaned on her left hand. ‘If I’m not much mistaken, it’s where the landline is. Like so.’ She used her right hand to make the international sign for a telephone, thumb to her ear and little finger to her mouth.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Bellman said with a broad smile and a sweeping arm gesture, ‘I’ll be damned if we don’t have a genuine lead. Carry on searching for a match to X1, Holm. But promise me it isn’t the husband of one of the Polish women who joined them to make a few free calls home, alright?’

  On the way out, the Pelican sidled up to Harry. She tossed one of her new dreads. ‘You might be better than I thought, Harry. But when you advance your theories, it wouldn’t hurt to intersperse the occasional “I think” here and there.’ She smiled and nudged him in the hip.

  Harry appreciated the smile; the nudge in the hip on the other hand… His phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out. Not Rikshospital.

  ‘He calls himself Nashville,’ said Katrine Bratt.

  ‘Like the American town?’

  ‘Yep. He’s been on the websites of all the big newspapers, read the whole caboodle about the murders. The bad news is that’s all I’ve got for you. Nashville’s only been active on the Net for a couple of months, you see, and he’s searched exclusively for things related to the murders. It almost seems as if Nashville has been waiting to be investigated.’

  ‘Sounds like our man, alright,’ Harry said.

  ‘Well,’ Katrine said, ‘you’ll have to search for men with cowboy hats.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nashville. Mecca of country music and all that.’

  Pause.

  ‘Hello? Harry?’

  ‘I’m here. Right. Thanks, Katrine.’

  ‘Kisses?’

  ‘All over.’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  They rang off.

  Harry had been allocated an office with a view of Bryn and was observing some of the more unlovely details of the area when there was a knock at the door.

  Beate Lonn was standing in the doorway.

  ‘Hm, how does it feel to be in bed with the enemy?’

  Harry shrugged. ‘The enemy’s name is Prince Charming.’

  ‘Good. Just wanted to say we’ve run the fingerprints on the desk against the database and he’s not on it.’

  ‘I didn’t expect him to be.’

  ‘How’s your dad?’

  ‘Days away.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  They looked at each other. And suddenly it struck Harry that this was a face he would see at the funeral. A small pale face he had seen at other funerals, tear-stained, with large tragic eyes. A face as if made for funerals.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ she asked.

  ‘I know only one killer who has murdered in this way,’ Harry said, turning back to the view.

  ‘He reminds you of the Snowman, does he?’

  Harry nodded slowly.

  She sighed. ‘I promised I wouldn’t say, but Rakel rang.’

  Harry stared at the blocks of flats in Helsfyr.

  ‘She asked about you. I said you were fine. Did I do the right thing, Harry?’

  Harry took a deep breath. ‘Sure.’

  Beate remained in the doorway for a while. Then she left.

  How is she? How is Oleg? Where are they? What do they do when night falls, who looks after them, who keeps watch? Harry rested his head on his arms and covered his ears with his hands.

  Only one person knows how Prince Charming thinks.

  The afternoon gloom descended without warning. The Captain, the overenthusiastic receptionist, rang to say someone had called to ask if Iska Peller, the Australian lady in Aftenposten, was staying there. Harry said it was probably a journalist, but the Captain thought even the lowest press vermin knew the rules of the game; they had to introduce themselves by name and state where they worked. Harry thanked him and was on the point of asking him to call back if he heard any more. Until he considered what this invitation would involve. Bellman rang to say there was a press conference; if Harry felt like taking part, then…

  Harry declined and could hear Bellman’s relief.

  Harry drummed on the desk. Lifted the receiver to phone Kaja, but cradled it again.

  Raised it again and rang some city centre hotels. None of them could recall being asked questions about anyone called Iska Peller.

  Harry looked at his watch. He felt like a drink. He felt like going into Bellman’s office, asking what the hell he had done with his opium, raising his fist and watching him cower…

  Only one person knows.

  Harry got up, kicked the chair, grabbed his woollen coat and strode out.

  He drove to town and parked in a glaringly illegal spot outside the Norwegian Theatre. Crossed the street and went to the hotel reception desk.

  The Captain had acquired his nickname while he was working as a doorman at the same hotel. The reason was probably a combination of the gaudy red uniform and the fact that he was continually commenting on, and issuing commands to, everyone and everything around. Furthermore, he saw himself as an intersection for anything of importance that happened in the city centre, the man with his finger on the city’s pulse, the man who knew. The Informant with a capital I, an inestimable part of the police force’s machinery keeping Oslo safe.

  ‘Right at the very back of my brain, I can hear a rather special voice,’ the Captain said, tasting his own words with an appreciative smack. Harry caught the rolling eyes of his colleague standing next to the Captain behind the reception desk.

  ‘Sort of gay,’ the Captain concluded.

  ‘Do you mean high-pitched?�
�� Harry asked, thinking of something Adele’s friends had mentioned. Adele had said it was a turn-off the way her boyfriend spoke, like her gay flatmate.

  ‘No, more like this.’ The Captain crooked his hands, fluttered his eyelashes and peformed a parody of a loud-mouthed queen. ‘I’m just sooo cross with you, Soren!’

  His colleague, who, sure enough, was wearing a name tag inscribed with SOREN, giggled.

  Harry thanked him and again it was on the tip of his tongue to ask the Captain to call him should anything else occur to him. He went outside. Lit a cigarette and looked up at the hotel sign. There was something… At that moment he spotted the Traffic Department car parked behind his and the overalled warden jotting down his registration number.

  Harry crossed the street and held up his ID card. ‘I’m on police business.’

  ‘Makes no difference. No parking is no parking,’ Overalls said without pausing his writing. ‘Send in a complaint.’

  ‘Well,’ Harry said, ‘you know we also have the authority to dish out parking fines if we want to?’

  The man poked up his head and grinned. ‘If you think I’m going to let you write your own fine, you’re wrong, pal.’

  ‘I was thinking more of that car.’ Harry pointed.

  ‘That’s mine and the Traffic-’

  ‘No parking is no parking.’

  Overalls sent him a grouchy look.

  Harry shrugged. ‘Send in a complaint. Pal.’

  Overalls slammed his notepad shut, spun on his heel and walked back to his car.

  As Harry drove up Universitetsgata, his phone rang. It was Gunnar Hagen. Harry could hear the quiver of excitement in the usually controlled voice of the Crime Squad boss.

  ‘Come here right away, Harry.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Just come. The culvert.’

  Harry heard the voices and saw the flashes going off long before he had reached the end of the concrete corridor. Gunnar Hagen and Bjorn Holm were standing by the door to his old office. A woman from Krimteknisk was brushing the door and door handle for fingerprints while a Holm lookalike was taking pictures of half a boot print in the corner.

  ‘The print’s old,’ Harry said. ‘It was here before we moved in. What’s going on?’

  The lookalike questioned Holm, who nodded that would be enough.

  ‘One of the prison wardens discovered this on the floor by the door,’ Hagen said, holding up an evidence bag containing a brown envelope. Through the transparent bag Harry read his name. Printed on an address label stuck to the envelope.

  ‘The prison warden reckoned it had been lying here for a couple of days max. People don’t go through this culvert every day, of course.’

  ‘We’re measuring the moisture in the paper,’ Bjorn said. ‘We’ve put a similar envelope here and are waiting to see how long it takes to reach the same level of moisture. Then we work backwards.’

  ‘There you go. Shades of CSI,’ Harry said.

  ‘Not that the timing will help us,’ Hagen said. ‘There are no surveillance cameras where I assume he must have been. Which, of course, is fairly straightforward. Into a busy reception area, in the lift, down here, no locked doors before you go up into the prison.’

  ‘No, why should we lock up here?’ Harry said. ‘Anyone object to me having a smoke?’

  No one answered, but looks were eloquent enough. Harry shrugged.

  ‘I suppose at some point someone is going to tell me what was in the envelope,’ he said.

  Bjorn Holm held up another evidence bag.

  It was difficult to see the contents in the poor lighting, so Harry stepped closer.

  ‘Oh shit,’ he said and recoiled half a step.

  ‘The middle finger,’ Hagen said.

  ‘The finger looks as if it might have been broken first,’ Bjorn said. ‘Clean, smooth cut, no ragged skin. Chop. An axe. Or a large knife.’

  From the culvert came the resonant sound of rapid strides approaching.

  Harry stared. The finger was white, drained of blood, but the tip was a bluish-black.

  ‘What’s that? Have you taken fingerprints already?’

  ‘Yes,’ Bjorn said. ‘And if we’re lucky the answer is on its way.’

  ‘My guess is right hand,’ Harry said.

  ‘You’re correct. ‘Well observed,’ Hagen said.

  ‘Did the envelope contain anything else?’

  ‘No. Now you know as much as we do.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Harry said, fidgeting with the cigarette packet. ‘But I know something else about the finger.’

  ‘We thought about that, too,’ Hagen said, exchanging glances with Bjorn Holm. The sound of clomping steps rose. ‘The middle finger of the right hand. It’s the same finger the Snowman took off you.’

  ‘I’ve got something here,’ the female forensics officer interrupted.

  The others turned to her.

  She was squatting down holding an object between her thumb and first finger. It was greyish black. ‘Doesn’t it look like the tiny stones we found at the Borgny crime scene?’

  Harry went closer. ‘Yup. Lava.’

  The runner was a young man with a police ID card hanging from the breast pocket of his shirt. He stopped in front of Bjorn Holm, placed his hands on his knees and gasped for breath.

  ‘Well, Kim Erik?’ Holm said.

  ‘We found a match,’ the young man panted.

  ‘Let me guess,’ Harry said, poking a cigarette between his lips.

  The others turned their attention to him.

  ‘Tony Leike.’

  Kim Erik looked genuinely disappointed: ‘H-how…?’

  ‘I thought I saw his right hand protruding from under the scooter, and it wasn’t missing any fingers. So it must have been the left.’ Harry nodded towards the evidence bag. ‘The finger isn’t broken, it’s just distorted. Good old-fashioned arthritis. Hereditary but not contagious.’

  69

  Looped Writing

  The woman who opened the door of the terraced house in Hovseter was as broad-shouldered as a wrestler and as tall as Harry. She gazed at him and waited patiently, as if in the habit of giving people the necessary seconds to state their business.

  ‘Yes?’

  Harry recognised Frida Larsen’s voice from the telephone. Which had made him visualise a slender, petite woman.

  ‘Harry Hole,’ he said. ‘I found your address through the phone number. Is Felix in?’

  ‘Out playing chess,’ she intoned flatly; a standard response, it seemed. ‘Email him.’

  ‘I would like to talk to him.’

  ‘What about?’ She filled the doorway in a manner that prevented prying. And not only through the size of her.

  ‘We found a fragment of lava down at the police station. I was wondering if it was from the same volcano as the previous sample we sent him.’

  Harry stood two steps below her, holding the little stone. But she didn’t budge from the threshold.

  ‘Impossible to see,’ she said. ‘Email Felix.’ She made a move to close the door.

  ‘I suppose lava is lava, is it?’ Harry said.

  She hesitated. Harry waited. He knew from experience that experts can never resist correcting laymen.

  ‘Each volcano has its own unique lava composition,’ she said. ‘But it also varies from eruption to eruption. You have to analyse the stone. The iron ore content can tell you a lot.’ Her face was expressionless, her eyes uninterested.

  ‘What I would really like,’ Harry said, ‘is to enquire about these people who travel round the world studying volcanoes. There can’t be that many of them, so I was wondering if Felix had an overview of the Norwegian contingent.’

  ‘There are more of us than you imagine,’ she said.

  ‘So you’re one of them?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘What’s the last volcano you two were on?’

  ‘Ol Doinyo Lengai in Tanzania. And we weren’t on it, but nearby. It was erupting. Mag
matic natrocarbonites. The lava that emerges is black, but it reacts with air and after a few hours it’s completely white. Like snow.’

  Her voice and face were suddenly alive.

  ‘Why doesn’t he want to speak?’ Harry asked. ‘Is your brother mute?’

  Her face went rigid again. The voice was flat and dead. ‘Email.’

  The door was slammed so hard Harry got dust in his eyes.

  Kaja parked in Maridalsveien, jumped over the crash barrier and trod carefully down the steep slope to the wood where the Kadok factory was situated. She switched on her torch and tramped through the shrubs, brushed away bare branches that wanted to thrust themselves into her face. The growth was dense, shadows leapt around like silent wolves and even when she stopped, listened and watched, shadows of trees fell upon trees, so that you didn’t know what was what, like in a labyrinth of mirrors. But she wasn’t frightened. It was an oddity that she who was so frightened of closed doors was not frightened of the dark. She listened to the roar of the river. Had she heard anything? A sound that ought not to be there? She went on. Ducked under a wind-blown tree trunk and stopped again. But the other sounds stopped the second she stopped. Kaja took a deep breath and finished her line of thought: as if someone who didn’t want to be seen was following her.

  She turned and shone the light behind her. Was no longer so sure about not being scared of the dark. Some branches swayed in the light, but they must be the ones she had disturbed, mustn’t they?

  She faced forward again.

  And screamed when her torch lit up a deathly pale face with enlarged eyes. She dropped the torch and backed away, but the figure followed her with a grunting noise reminiscent of laughter. In the dark she could make out the figure bending down, standing up, then the next moment the blinding light from her torch was shining in her face.

  She held her breath.

  The grunted laughter stopped.

  ‘Here,’ rasped a man’s voice and the light jumped.

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Your torch,’ the voice said.

  Kaja took it and shone the torch to the side of him. So that she could see him without blinding him. He had blond hair and a prognathous jaw.