The Leopard: An Inspector Harry Hole Novel

by Jo Nesbo

  “What you’ve been brooding about ever since we got here.”

  The forensics officer scratched his sideburns while eyeballing Harry. Coughed once. Twice. Glanced at Kaja, as if to solicit help there. Opened his mouth, closed it.

  “Fine,” Harry said. “Let’s move on to—”

  “The rope.”

  The other two stared at Bjørn.

  “I found shells on it.”

  “Oh, yes?” Harry said.

  “But no salt.”

  They were still staring at him.

  “That’s pretty unusual,” Bjørn went on. “Shells. In freshwater.”

  “So?”

  “So I checked it out with a freshwater biologist. This particular mollusc is called a Jutland blue shell mussel—it’s the smallest of the pool mussels and has been observed in only two lakes in Norway.”

  “And the nominations are?”

  “Øyeren and Lyseren.”

  “Østfold,” Kaja said. “Neighboring lakes. Big ones.”

  “In a densely populated region,” Harry said.

  “Sorry,” Holm said.

  “Mm. Any marks on the rope that tell us where it might have been bought?”

  “No, that’s the point,” Holm said. “There are no marks. And it doesn’t look like any rope I’ve seen before. The fiber is one hundred percent organic; there’s no nylon or any other synthetic materials.”

  “Hemp,” Harry said.

  “What?” Holm said.

  “Hemp. Rope and hash are made from the same material. If you want a joint, you can just stroll down to the harbor and light up the mooring ropes of the Danish ferry.”

  “It’s not hemp,” Bjørn Holm said over Kaja’s laughter. “The fiber’s made from the elm and the linden tree. Mostly elm.”

  “Homemade Norwegian rope,” Kaja said. “They used to make rope on farms long ago.”

  “On farms?” Harry queried.

  Kaja nodded. “As a rule every village had at least one ropemaker. You just soaked the wood in water for a month, peeled off the outer bark and used the bast fiber inside. Twined it into rope.”

  Harry and Bjørn swiveled around to face Kaja.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked hesitantly.

  “Well,” Harry said, “is this general knowledge everyone ought to possess?”

  “Oh, I see,” Kaja said. “My grandfather made rope.”

  “Aha. And for rope-making you need elm and linden?”

  “In principle you can use bast fibers from any kind of tree.”

  “And the composition?”

  Kaja shrugged. “I’m no expert, but I think it’s unusual to use bast from several different trees for the same rope. I remember that Even, my big brother, said that Granddad used only linden because it absorbs very little water. So he didn’t need to tar his.”

  “Mm. What do you think, Bjørn?”

  “If the compositon is unusual, it will be easier to trace where it was made, of course.”

  Harry stood up and began to pace back and forth. There was a heavy sigh every time his rubber soles relinquished the linoleum. “Then we can assume production was limited and sales were local. Do you think that sounds reasonable, Kaja?”

  “Guess so, yes.”

  “And we can also assume that the centers of production and consumption were in close proximity. These homemade ropes would hardly have traveled far.”

  “Still sounds reasonable, but …”

  “So let’s take that as our starting point. You two begin mapping out local ropemakers near Øyeren and Lyseren.”

  “But no one makes ropes like that anymore,” Kaja protested.

  “Do the best you can.” Harry looked at his watch, grabbed his coat from the back of the chair and walked to the door. “Find out where the rope was made. I presume Bellman knows nothing about these Jutland blue shell mussels. That right, Bjørn?”

  Bjørn Holm forced a smile by way of answer.

  “Is it OK if I follow up the theory of a sexually motivated murder?” Kaja asked. “I can talk to someone I know at Sexual Offenses.”

  “Negative,” Harry said. “The general order to keep your trap shut about what we’re doing applies in particular to our dear colleagues at Police HQ. There seems to be some seepage between HQ and Kripos, so the only person we speak to is Gunnar Hagen.”

  Kaja had opened her mouth, but a glance from Bjørn was enough to make her close it again.

  “But what you can do,” Harry said, “is get hold of a volcano expert. And send him the test results of the small stones.”

  Bjørn’s fair eyebrows rose a substantial way up his forehead.

  “Porous black stone, basalt rock,” Harry said. “I would reckon lava. I’ll be back from Bergen at four-ish.”

  “Say hello to Baa-baargen Police HQ,” Bjørn bleated and raised his coffee cup.

  “I won’t be going to the police station,” Harry said.

  “Oh? Where then?”

  “Sandviken Hospital.”

  “Sand—”

  The door slammed behind Harry. Kaja watched Bjørn Holm, who was staring at the closed door with a stunned expression on his face.

  “What’s he going to do there?” she asked. “See a pathologist?”

  Bjørn shook his head. “Sandviken Hospital is a mental hospital.”

  “Really? So he’s going to meet a psychologist who’s a serial-killer specialist?”

  “I knew I should have said no,” Bjørn whispered, still staring at the door. “He’s clean out of his mind.”

  “Who’s out of his mind?”

  “We’re working in a prison,” Bjørn said. “We’re risking our jobs if the boss finds out what we’re up to, and the colleague in Bergen …”

  “Yes?”

  “She is seriously out of her mind.”

  “You mean she’s …?”

  “Certifiably out of her mind.”

  18

  The Patient

  For every step the tall policeman took, Kjersti Rødsmoen had to take two. Even so, she was left behind as they walked along the corridor of Sandviken Hospital. The rain was pouring down outside the high, narrow windows facing the fjord, where the trees were so green you would have thought spring had arrived before winter.

  The day before, Kjersti Rødsmoen had recognized the policeman’s voice at once. As though she had been waiting for him to call. And to make the very request he did: to talk to the Patient. The Patient had come to be called that to give her maximum anonymity after the strain of the detective work on her most recent murder case had sent her right back to square one: the psychiatric ward. In fact, she had recovered with remarkable speed, had moved back home, but the press—which was still hysterically pursuing the Snowman case long after it had been cleared up—had not left her in peace. And one evening, a few months ago, the Patient had called Rødsmoen and asked if she could return.

  “So she’s in serviceable shape?” the police officer asked. “On medication?”

  “Yes to the first,” Kjersti Rødsmoen said. “The second is confidential.” The truth was the Patient was so well that neither medicine nor hospitalization was required any longer. Nevertheless Rødsmoen had wondered whether she should let him visit her; he had been on the Snowman case and could cause old issues to emerge. Kjersti Rødsmoen had, in her time as a psychiatrist, come to believe more and more in repression, in shutting things off, in oblivion. It was an unfashionable view within the profession. On the other hand, meeting a person who had been on that particular case might be a good test of how robust the Patient had become.

  “You’ve got half an hour,” Rødsmoen said before opening the door to the common room. “And don’t forget that the mind is tender.”

  …

  The last time Harry had seen Katrine Bratt she had been unrecognizable. The attractive young woman with the dark hair and the glowing skin and eyes had gone, to be replaced by someone who reminded him of a dried flower: lifeless, frail, delicate, wan. H
e had had a feeling he might crush her hand if he squeezed too hard.

  So it was a relief to see her now. She looked older, or perhaps she was just tired. But the gleam in her eyes returned as she smiled and got up.

  “Harry H.,” she said, giving him a hug. “How’s it going?”

  “Fair to middling,” Harry said. “And you?”

  “Dreadful,” she said. “But a lot better.”

  She laughed, and Harry knew she was back. Or that enough of her was back.

  “What happened to your jaw? Does it hurt?”

  “Only when I speak and eat,” Harry said. “And when I’m awake.”

  “Sounds familiar. You’re uglier than I remember, but I’m glad to see you anyway.”

  “Same to you.”

  “You mean same to me, except for the ugly bit?”

  Harry smiled. “Naturally.” He looked around. The other patients in the room stared out of the window, at their laps or straight at the wall. But no one seemed interested in him or Katrine.

  Harry told her what had happened since the last time they’d seen each other. About Rakel and Oleg, who had moved to an unnamed destination abroad. About Hong Kong. About his father’s illness. About the case he had taken on. She even laughed when he said she mustn’t tell anyone.

  “What about you?” Harry asked.

  “They want me out of here, really; they think I’m well and I’m taking up someone else’s place. But I like it here. The room service stinks, but it’s safe. I’ve got TV and can come and go as I want. In a month or two I’ll move back home, maybe—who knows.”

  “Who knows?”

  “No one. The madness is intermittent. What do you want?”

  “What do you want me to want?”

  She gave him a long, hard look before answering. “Apart from wanting you to have a burning desire to fuck me, I want you to have some use for me.”

  “And that’s exactly what I have.”

  “A desire to fuck me?”

  “Some use for you.”

  “Shit. Well, OK. What’s it about?”

  “Do you have a computer with Internet access here?”

  “We have a communal computer in the recreation room, but it isn’t connected to the Net. They wouldn’t risk that. The only thing it’s used for is playing solitaire. But I’ve got my own computer in my room.”

  “Use the communal one.” Harry put his hand in his pocket and tossed a dongle across the table. “This is a mobile office, as they called it in the shop. You just plug it into—”

  “One of the USB ports,” Katrine said, taking the device and pocketing it. “Who pays the subscription?”

  “I do. That is, Hagen does.”

  “Yippee—there’s gonna be some surfing tonight. Any hot new porno sites I should know about?”

  “Probably.” Harry pushed a file across the table. “Here are the reports. Three murders, three names. I want you to do the same as you did on the Snowman case. Find connections we’ve missed. Have you heard any media reports on the case?”

  “Yes,” Katrine Bratt said without looking at the file. “They were women. That’s the connection.”

  “You read newspapers …”

  “Barely. Why do you believe they’re any more than random victims?”

  “I don’t believe anything. I’m looking.”

  “But you don’t know what you’re looking for?”

  “Correct.”

  “But you’re sure Marit Olsen’s killer is the same person who killed the other two? The method was completely different, I understand.”

  Harry smiled. Amused by Katrine’s attempt to hide the fact that she had scrutinized every detail in the papers. “No, Katrine, I’m not sure. But I can hear you’ve drawn the same conclusion as I have.”

  “ ’Course. We were soul mates, remember?”

  She laughed, and at a stroke she was Katrine again, and not the skeleton of the brilliant, eccentric detective he had only just gotten to know before everything crumbled. Harry felt, to his surprise, a lump in his throat. Fucking jet lag.

  “Can you help me, do you think?”

  “To find something Kripos has spent two months not finding? With an outdated computer in the recreation room of a mental institution? I don’t even know why you’re asking me. There are folks at Police HQ who are a lot more computer-savvy than me.”

  “I know, but I have something they don’t. And cannot give them: the password to the underground.”

  She fixed him with an uncomprehending stare. Harry checked that no one was within earshot.

  “When I was working for the Security Service, POT, on the Redbreast case, I gained access to the search engine they were using to trace terrorists. They use secret back doors on the Net like MILNET, the American military network, made before they released the Net for commercial purposes through ARPANET in the eighties. ARPANET became, as you know, the Internet, but the back doors are still there. The search engines use Trojan horses that update the passwords, codes and upgrades at the first entry point. Plane ticket bookings, hotel reservations, road tolls, Internet banking: These engines can see everything.”

  “I’d heard rumors of the search engines, but I honestly thought they were nonexistent,” Katrine said.

  “They do exist. They were set up in 1984. The Orwellian nightmare come true. And best of all, my password is still valid. I checked it.”

  “So what do you need me for? You can do this yourself, can’t you?”

  “Only POT is allowed to use the system, and only in emergency situations. As with Google, your searches can be traced back to the user. If it’s discovered that I or anyone else at Police HQ have been using the search engines, we risk a prison sentence. But if the search were traced and led back to a communal computer in a psychiatric hospital …”

  Katrine Bratt laughed. Her other laugh, the evil-witch variety. “I’m beginning to see. Katrine Bratt, the brilliant detective, is not my strongest qualification here, but”—she threw up her hands—“Katrine Bratt the patient is. Because she, being of unsound mind, cannot be prosecuted.”

  “Correct.” Harry smiled. “And you’re one of the few people I can trust to keep your mouth shut. And if you’re not a genius, you’re definitely smarter than the average detective.”

  “Three smashed nicotine-stained fingers up your tiny little asshole.”

  “No one can find out what we’re up to. But I promise you we’re the Blues Brothers here.”

  “ ‘On a mission from God’?” she quoted.

  “I’ve written the password on the back of the SIM card inside the dongle.”

  “What makes you think I know how to use the search engines?”

  “It’s like Googling. Even I worked that out when I was at POT.” He gave a wry smile. “After all, the engines were created for the police.”

  She released a deep sigh.

  “Thank you,” Harry said.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “When can you have something for me, do you think?”

  “Fuck you!” She banged the table with her hand. Harry noticed a nurse glance in their direction. Harry held Katrine’s wild stare. Waited.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t think I should be sitting in the recreation room using illegal search engines in broad daylight, if I can put it like that.”

  Harry got up. “OK. I’ll contact you in three days.”

  “Haven’t you forgotten something?”

  “What?”

  “To tell me what’s in it for me?”

  “Well,” Harry said, buttoning up his coat, “now I know what you want.”

  “What I want …” The surprise on her face gave way to amazement as the meaning dawned on her, and she shouted after Harry, who was already on his way to the door: “You cheeky bastard! And presumptuous, too!”

  Harry got into the taxi, said, “Airport,” removed his cell phone and saw three missed calls from one of the only two numbers he had in his cont
acts. Good—that meant they had something.

  He called back.

  “Lake Lyseren,” Kaja said. “Rope-making business there. Closed down fifteen years ago. The county officer responsible for Ytre Enebakk can show us the place this afternoon. He had a couple of persistent criminals in the area, but small potatoes: break-ins and car theft. Plus one who had done time for beating up his wife. He’s sent us a list of men, though, and I’m going to run a check with Criminal Records right now.”

  “Good. Pick me up from Gardermoen on the way to Lyseren.”

  “It’s not on the way.”

  “You’re right. Pick me up anyway.”

  19

  The White Bride

  Despite the slow speed, Bjørn Holm’s Volvo Amazon was rolling and pitching on the narrow road that snaked between Østfold’s meadows and fields.

  Harry was asleep in the backseat.

  “So no sex offenders around Lake Lyseren,” Bjørn said.

  “None that have been caught,” Kaja corrected. “Didn’t you see the survey in VG? One in twenty say they have committed what might be termed sexual abuse.”

  “Do people really answer that sort of questionnaire honestly? If I’d pushed a girl too far I think my brain would’ve goddamn rationalized it away afterward.”

  “Is that what you did?”

  “Me?” Bjørn swung out and overtook a tractor. “Nope. I’m one of the nineteen. Ytre Enebakk. Christ, what’s the name of that comic who hails from these parts? The bumpkin with the cracked glasses and moped. What’s-his-face from Ytre Enebakk. Hilarious parody.”

  Kaja shrugged. Bjørn looked into the mirror, but found himself looking down Harry’s open mouth.

  As arranged, the county officer for Ytre Enebakk was waiting for them by the treatment plant on the Vøyentangen peninisula. They parked, he introduced himself as Skai—the Norwegian name for the synthetic leather that Bjørn Holm seemed to hold in such high regard—and they accompanied him to a jetty, where a dozen boats bobbed up and down in the calm waters.

  “Early to have boats in the lake, isn’t it?” Kaja said.

  “There hasn’t been any ice this year—won’t be, either,” the officer said. “First time since I was born.”