The Leopard: An Inspector Harry Hole Novel

by Jo Nesbo

  Harry could already guess the conclusion. He flicked through.

  The other woman’s name was Charlotte Lolles. French father, Norwegian mother. Resident of Lambertseter, in Oslo. Twenty-nine years old. Qualified lawyer. Lived alone, but had a boyfriend: one Erik Fokkestad, who had been quickly eliminated from suspicion. He had been at a geology seminar in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. Charlotte should have joined him, but had let a serious property dispute on which she had been working take priority.

  Colleagues had last seen her at the office on Monday evening at around nine. She had probably never returned home. Her briefcase of papers had been found next to her body behind the abandoned car in Maridalen. In addition, both parties in the property dispute had solid alibis. The postmortem report highlighted bits of paint and rust found under Charlotte Lolles’s nails, which fit with the crime scene report’s mention of scrape marks around the car’s trunk lock, as though she had been trying to get it open. Closer examination of the lock revealed that it had been picked at least once. But hardly by Charlotte Lolles. Harry formed a mental image of her chained to something locked inside the trunk and speculated that that was why she had been trying to escape. Something the killer had taken with him afterward. But what? And how? And why?

  Records of the interview with a female colleague from the law firm included a quote: “Charlotte was an ambitious person and always worked late. Although how efficient she was, I don’t know. Always gentle, but not as outgoing as her smiles and Mediterranean appearance would have suggested. Quite private, basically. She never talked about her boyfriend, for example. But my bosses liked her very much.”

  Harry could imagine the female colleague serving up one intimate revelation after another about her boyfriend, without getting more than a smile from Charlotte in return. His investigative brain was on autopilot now: Perhaps Charlotte had held back from embracing a clingy sisterhood, perhaps she had had something to hide. Perhaps …

  Harry studied the photographs. Hardish but attractive features. Dark eyes, she looked like … Shit! He closed his eyes. Opened them again. Flicked through to the pathologist’s report. Skimmed through the document.

  He had to check Charlotte’s name at the top to make sure he wasn’t reading the report on Borgny for a second time. Anesthetic. Twenty-four wounds to the mouth. Drowning. No external violence, no signs of sexual violence. The only difference was that the time of death was between eleven and midnight. However, this report also had an additional note about traces of iron and coltan found on the victim’s teeth. Presumably because Krimteknisk had later realized that it might be relevant, since it was found on both victims. Coltan. Wasn’t Schwarzenegger’s Terminator made of that?

  Harry realized he was wide awake now and found himself perching on the edge of the chair. He felt the stirrings, the excitement. And the nausea. Like when he took his first drink, the one that made his stomach turn, the one his body desperately rejected. And soon he would be begging for more. More and more. Until it destroyed him and everyone around him. As this was doing. Harry jumped up so quickly he went dizzy, grabbed the file, knew it was too thick, but still managed to tear it in two.

  He picked up the bits of paper and took them back to the trash container. Let them fall down the side and lifted the plastic bags so that the documents slipped right down, to the very bottom. The garbage truck would be around tomorrow or the day after, he hoped.

  Harry went back and sat down in the green chair.

  As night softened into a grayish hue, he heard the first sounds of a waking town. But over the regular drone of the first rush-hour traffic on Pilestredet, he could also hear a distant, reedy police siren gyrating through the frequencies. Could be anything. He heard another siren winding up. Anything. And then another. No, not anything.

  The landline rang.

  Harry lifted the receiver.

  “Hagen speaking. We’ve just received a mess—”

  Harry put down the phone.

  It rang again. Harry looked out of the window. He hadn’t called Sis. Why not? Because he didn’t want to show himself to his little sister—his most enthusiastic, most unconditional admirer. The woman who had what she called “a touch of Down syndrome” and still coped with her life immeasurably better than he did his own. She was the only person he could not allow himself to disappoint.

  The telephone stopped ringing. And started again.

  Harry snatched at the phone. “No, boss. The answer is no, I don’t want the job.”

  The other end of the line was quiet for a second. Then an unfamiliar voice said, “Oslo Energy here. Herr Hole?”

  Harry cursed to himself. “Yes?”

  “You haven’t paid the bills we sent you, and you haven’t responded to our final notices. I’m calling to say we are cutting off the electricity supply to Five Sofies Gate at midnight tonight.”

  Harry didn’t answer.

  “We will reconnect only when we’ve received the outstanding amount.”

  “And that is?”

  “With fees for reminders and disconnection, plus interest, it’s fourteen thousand, four hundred and sixty-three kroner.”

  Silence.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m here. I’m sort of broke right now.”

  “The outstanding amount will be recovered by our collection agency. In the meantime we’ll have to hope the temperature doesn’t fall below freezing. Won’t we?”

  “We will,” Harry confirmed, and hung up.

  The sirens outside rose and fell.

  Harry went for a nap. He lay there for a quarter of an hour with his eyes closed before giving up, getting dressed again and leaving the flat to catch a tram to Rikshospital.

  11

  Print

  When I woke up this morning, I knew I had been there again. In the dream it is always like that: We are lying on the ground, blood is flowing, and when I glance to the side, she’s there looking at us. She looks at me with sorrow in her eyes, as if it is only now that she has discovered who I am, only now that she has unmasked me, seen that I am not the man she wants.

  Breakfast was excellent. It’s on teletext. “Woman MP found dead in pool at Frogner Park.” The news sites are full of it. Print out, snip, snip.

  Before very long the first websites will publish the name. Thus far the so-called police investigation has been such a ridiculous farce that it has been irritating rather than exciting. But this time they will invest all their resources; they won’t play at investigation the way they did with Borgny and Charlotte. After all, Marit Olsen was an MP. It’s time this was stopped. Because I have appointed the next victim.

  12

  Crime Scene

  Harry was smoking a cigarette outside the hospital entrance. Above him the sky was pale blue, but beneath him, the town, lying in a dip between low green mountain ridges, was wreathed in mist. The sight reminded him of his childhood in Oppsal, when he and Øystein had skipped the first lesson at school and gone to the German bunkers in Nordstrand. From there they had looked down on the pea-souper enveloping downtown Oslo. But with the years the morning fog had gradually drifted away from Oslo, along with industry and wood-burning.

  Harry crushed the cigarette with his heel.

  Olav Hole looked better. Or perhaps it was merely the light. He asked why Harry was smiling. And what had actually happened to his jaw.

  Harry said something about being clumsy, wondering at what age the change took place, when children started protecting parents from reality. Around the age of ten, he concluded.

  “Your little sister was here,” Olav said.

  “How is she?”

  “Fine. When she heard you were back, she said that now she would look after you. Because she’s big now, and you’re small.”

  “Mm. Smart girl. How are you today?”

  “Well. Very well, actually. Think it’s about time I got out of here.”

  He smiled, and Harry smiled back.

  “What do the doctors s
ay?”

  Olav Hole was still smiling. “Far too much. Shall we talk about something else?”

  “Of course. What would you like to talk about?”

  Olav Hole reflected. “I’d like to talk about her.”

  Harry nodded. And sat silently listening to his father tell him about how he and Harry’s mother had met. Gotten married. About her illness when Harry was a boy.

  “Ingrid helped me all the time. All the time. But she needed me so rarely. Until she fell ill. Sometimes I thought the illness was a blessing.”

  Harry flinched.

  “It gave me the chance to repay her, you understand. And I did. Everything she asked me, I did.” Olav Hole fixed his eyes on his son. “Everything, Harry. Almost.”

  Harry nodded.

  His father kept talking. About Sis and Harry, how wonderfully gentle Sis had been. And what willpower Harry had possessed. How frightened he had been but kept it to himself. When he and Ingrid had listened at the door, they had heard Harry crying and cursing invisible monsters in turn. However, they knew they shouldn’t go in to console and reassure him. He would become furious, shout that they were ruining everything and tell them to get out.

  “You always wanted to fight the monsters on your own, Harry.”

  Olav Hole told the ancient story about Harry not speaking until he was nearly five. And then—one day—whole sentences just flowed out of him. Slow, earnest sentences with adult words; they had no idea where he had learned them.

  “But your sister is right.” Olav smiled. “You’re a small boy again. You don’t speak.”

  “Mm. Do you want me to speak?”

  Olav shook his head. “You have to listen. But that’s enough for now. You’ll have to come back another day.”

  Harry squeezed his father’s left hand with his right and stood up. “Is it OK if I stay in Oppsal for a few days?”

  “Thanks for the offer. I didn’t want to hassle you, but the house does need to be looked after.”

  Harry dropped his plan to tell him that the power was going to be cut off in his flat.

  Olav rang a bell and a young smiling nurse came in and used his father’s first name in an innocent, flirty way. And Harry noted how his father deepened his voice as he explained that Harry needed the suitcase containing the keys. He saw the way the sick man in the bed tried to fluff his plumage for her. And for some reason it didn’t seem pathetic; it was the way it should be.

  In parting, his father repeated: “Everything she asked me.” And whispered: “Except one thing.”

  Leading him to the storage room, the nurse told Harry the doctor wanted to have a couple of words with him. After locating the keys in the suitcase, Harry knocked on the door the nurse had indicated.

  The doctor nodded toward a seat, leaned back in his swivel chair and pressed his fingertips together. “Good thing you came home. We had been trying to get hold of you.”

  “I know.”

  “The cancer has spread.”

  Harry nodded. Someone had once told him that that was a cancer cell’s function: to spread.

  The doctor studied him, as though considering his next move.

  “OK,” Harry said.

  “OK?”

  “OK, I’m ready to hear the rest.”

  “We don’t usually say how much time a person has left. The errors of judgment and the psychological strain that ensue are too great for that. However, in this case, I think it is appropriate to tell you he is already living on borrowed time.”

  Harry nodded. Gazed out the window. Fog was still as thick down below.

  “Do you have a cell number we can contact you on should anything happen?”

  Harry shook his head. Was that a siren he heard down in the fog?

  “Anyone you know who can pass on a message?”

  Harry shook his head again. “Not a problem. I’ll call in and visit him every day. OK?”

  The doctor nodded and watched Harry get up and stride out.

  It was nine by the time Harry got to the Frogner pool. The whole of Frogner Park measured about 120 acres, but since the public pool constituted a small fraction of this and, furthermore, was fenced in, the police had an easy job cordoning off the crime scene; they had simply run a tape around the entire fence and put a guard in the ticket office. The kettle of crime-correspondent vultures was in flight and they swooped in, then stood cackling outside the gate wondering when they would gain access to the cadaver. For Christ’s sake, this was a bona-fide MP—didn’t the public have a right to photos of such a prominent corpse?

  Harry bought an americano at Kaffepikene. They had chairs and tables on the pavement throughout February, and Harry took a seat, lit a cigarette and watched the flock in front of the ticket booth.

  A man sat down on the chair next to him.

  “Harry Hole himself. Where have you been?”

  Harry looked up. Roger Gjendem, the Aftenposten crime correspondent, lit a cigarette and gestured toward Frogner Park. “At last Marit Olsen gets what she wants. By eight this evening she’ll be a celebrity. Hanging herself from the diving tower? Good career move.” He turned to Harry and grimaced. “What happened to your jaw? You look dreadful.”

  Harry didn’t answer. Just sipped his coffee and said nothing to alleviate the embarrassing silence, in the futile hope that the journalist would get that he was not desirable company. From the bank of fog above them came the noise of whirring rotors. Roger Gjendem peered up.

  “Gotta be Verdens Gang. Typical of that tabloid to hire a helicopter. Hope the fog doesn’t lift.”

  “Mm. Better that no one gets photos than VG does?”

  “Right. What do you know?”

  “I’m sure less than you,” said Harry. “The body was found by one of the nightwatchmen at dawn, and he called the police right away. And you?”

  “Head torn off. Woman jumped from the top of the tower with a rope around her neck, it seems. And she was pretty hefty, as you know. Over two hundred pounds.

  “They’ve found threads that may match her tracksuit on the part of the fence where they figure she entered. They didn’t find any other clues, so they think she was alone.”

  Harry inhaled the cigarette smoke. Head torn off. They spoke the way they wrote, these journalists, the inverted pyramid, as they called it: the most important information first.

  “Happened in the early hours, I suppose?” Harry fished.

  “Or in the evening. According to Marit Olsen’s husband, she left home at a quarter to ten to go jogging.”

  “Late for a jog.”

  “Must have been when she usually jogged. Liked having the park to herself.”

  “Mm.”

  “By the way, I tried to track down the nightwatchman who found her.”

  “Why?”

  Gjendem gave Harry a surprised look. “To get a firsthand account, of course.”

  “Of course,” Harry said, sucking on his cigarette.

  “But he seems to have gone into hiding. He’s not here or at home. Must be in shock, poor fella.”

  “Well, it’s not the first time he’s found bodies in the pool. I assume the detective leading the investigation has seen to it that you can’t lay your hands on him.”

  “What do you mean, it’s not the first time?”

  Harry shrugged. “I’ve been called here two or three times before. Kids sneaking in during the night. One time it was suicide, another an accident. Four drunken friends on their way home from a party wanted to play, see who dared to stand closest to the edge of the diving board. The boy who won the dare was nineteen. The oldest was his brother.”

  “Damn,” Gjendem said dutifully.

  Harry checked his watch as if he had to hurry off.

  “Must have been some strength in that rope,” Gjendem said. “Head torn off. Ever heard the like?”

  “Tom Ketchum,” said Harry, draining the rest of his coffee in one swig and getting up.

  “Ketchup?”

  “Ketchum. Hole
-in-the-Wall Gang. Hanged in New Mexico Territory in 1901. Standard gallows—they just used too much rope.”

  “Oh. How much?”

  “Just over six feet.”

  “Not more? He must have been a fat lump.”

  “Nope. Tells you how easy it is to lose your head, doesn’t it.”

  Gjendem shouted something after him, but Harry didn’t catch it. He crossed the parking lot north of the pool, continued across the grass and took a left over the bridge to the main gate. The fence was more than eight feet high all the way around. Over two hundred pounds. Marit Olsen might have tried, but she did not get over the pool fence unaided.

  On the other side of the bridge, Harry turned left so that he could approach the pool area from the opposite angle. He stepped over the orange police tape and stopped at the top of the slope by a shrub. Harry had forgotten an alarming amount over recent years. But the cases stuck. He could still remember the names of the four boys on the diving tower. The older brother’s distant eyes as he answered Harry’s questions in a monotone. And the hand pointing to the place where they had gotten in.

  Harry chose his steps carefully, not wishing to destroy possible clues, and bent the shrub to one side. Oslo’s park-maintenance people planned well in advance. If they planned at all. The tear in the fence was still there.

  Harry crouched down and studied the jagged edges of the tear. He could see dark threads. Someone who had not sneaked in, but had forced her way through here. Or was pushed. He looked for other evidence. From the top of the tear hung a long black piece of wool. The tear was so high that the person must have been standing upright to touch the fence at that point. The head. Wool made sense, a woolen hat. Had Marit Olsen been wearing a woolen hat? According to Roger Gjendem, Marit Olsen had left home at a quarter to ten to jog in the park. As usual, he had surmised.