The Leopard: An Inspector Harry Hole Novel

by Jo Nesbo

  In the course of one year Herman Kluit became a rich man. In the course of three he was wealthy beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. Once a month they had traveled to the closest town, Goma, and slept in beds instead of on the jungle floor, where a carpet of mysterious bloodsucking flies emerged from holes every night and you woke up like a half-eaten corpse. Goma. Black lava, black money, black beauties, black sins. Half of the men in the jungle had contracted malaria, the rest sicknesses with which no white doctor was conversant and which were subsumed under the generic term jungle fever. That was the affliction Herman Kluit suffered from, and even though it left him in peace for long periods, he was never completely free.

  The only remedy Herman Kluit knew of was the Singapore sling. He had been introduced to the drink in Goma by a Belgian who owned a fantastic house that had reportedly been built by King Leopold back when the country was known as the Congo Free State. It was the monarch’s private playpen and treasure chest, situated down by the banks of Lake Kivu, with women and sunsets so beautiful that for a while you could forget the jungle, the Mai Mai and those flies.

  It was the Belgian who had shown Herman Kluit the king’s little treasury in the cellar. There he had collected everything, from the world’s most advanced clocks, rare weapons and imaginative instruments of torture to gold nuggets, unpolished diamonds and preserved human heads.

  That was where Herman Kluit had first come face-to-face with what they called a Leopold’s apple. By all accounts it had been developed by one of the king’s Belgian engineers to use on recalcitrant tribal chiefs who would not say where they found their diamonds. The earlier method had been to use buffaloes. They covered the chief in honey, tied him to a tree and brought along a captured forest buffalo, which began to lick off the honey. The point of this was that the buffalo’s tongue was so coarse that it licked off skin and flesh with it. But it took time to catch a buffalo, and they could be hard to stop once they had started. Hence Leopold’s apple. Not that it was particularly effective from a torturer’s angle—after all, the apple prevented the prisoner from speaking. But the effect on the natives who witnessed what happened when the interrogator pulled the string for the second time was impressive. The next man asked to open wide couldn’t speak fast enough.

  Herman Kluit nodded to his Filipina housemaid for her to take away the empty glass.

  “You remember rightly, Harry,” Herman Kluit said. “It’s still on my mantelpiece. Fortunately I do not know if it has ever been used. A souvenir. It reminds me of what there is in the heart of darkness. That’s always useful, Harry … No, I’ve neither seen it nor heard of it being used anywhere else. It’s a complicated piece of technology, you know, with all these springs and needles. Requires a special alloy … Coltan is correct … Yes, indeed. Very rare. The person from whom I purchased my apple, Eddie Van Boorst, claimed only twenty-four had been made, and that he had twenty-two of them, one of which was twenty-four-carat gold … That’s right—there are twenty-four needles as well. How did you know? Apparently the number twenty-four had something to do with the engineer’s sister—I don’t recall what. But that may also have been something Van Boorst said to push up the price. He’s Belgian, after all.”

  Kluit’s laughter transmuted into coughing. Damned fever.

  “However, he ought to have some idea of where the apples are. He lived in a splendid house in Goma, in north Kivu, by the border to Rwanda … The address?” Kluit coughed again. “Goma gets a new street every day, and now and then half the town is buried under lava, so addresses don’t exist, Harry. But the post office has a list of all the whites … No, I have no idea if he still lives in Goma. Or whether he is still alive, for that matter. Life expectancy in the Congo is thirty-something, Harry. For whites also. Besides, the town is as good as under siege … Exactly … No, of course you haven’t heard of the war. No one has.”

  Dumbfounded, Gunnar Hagen stared at Harry and leaned across his desk.

  “You want to go to Rwanda?” he said.

  “Just a flying visit,” Harry said. “Two days, including the flights.”

  “To investigate what?”

  “What I said. A missing-persons case. Adele Vetlesen. Kaja will go to Ustaoset to see if she can find out who Adele was traveling with before she disappeared.”

  “Why can’t you just call up and ask them to check the guest book?”

  “Because the cabin in Håvass is self-service,” said Kaja, who had settled in the chair next to Harry’s. “But anyone who stays in a Tourist Association cabin has to sign the guest book and state his or her destination. It’s compulsory because if anyone’s reported missing in the mountains, the search party will know where to concentrate their efforts. I’m hoping Adele and her companion gave a full name and address.”

  Gunnar Hagen scratched his wreath of hair with both hands. “And none of this has anything to do with the other murders?”

  Harry stuck out his bottom lip. “Not as far as I can see, boss. Can you?”

  “Hm. And why should I decimate the travel budget for such an extravagant trip?”

  “Because human trafficking is a priority,” Kaja said. “As per the minister of justice’s statement to the press earlier this week.”

  “Anyway,” Harry said, stretching upward and entwining his fingers behind his head, “it may well be that other things come to light in the process, things that might lead to us cracking other cases.”

  Gunnar Hagen scrutinized his inspector thoughtfully.

  “Boss,” Harry added.

  30

  Guest Book

  A sign on an unassuming yellow station building announced that the train was in Ustaoset. Kaja checked that they had arrived on schedule, 10:44. She looked out. The sun was shining on the snow-covered plains and porcelain-white mountains. Apart from a clump of houses and a two-story hotel, Ustaoset was bare rock. To be fair, there were small cabins dotted around and the odd confused shrub, but it was still a wilderness. Beside the station building, almost on the platform itself, stood a lonely SUV with the engine idling. From the train it had seemed as if there weren’t a breath of wind. But when Kaja alighted, the wind seemed to pierce right through her clothing: special thermal underwear, anorak, ski boots.

  A figure jumped out of the SUV and came toward her. He had the low winter sun behind him. Kaja squinted. Light, confident walk, a brilliant smile and an outstretched hand. She stiffened. It was Even.

  “Aslak Krongli,” the man said, giving her hand a firm squeeze. “County officer.”

  “Kaja Solness.”

  “It’s cold, isn’t it? Not like in the lowlands, eh?”

  “Exactly,” Kaja said, returning the smile.

  “I can’t join you at the cabin today. There’s been an avalanche. A tunnel’s closed, and we have to redirect traffic.” Without asking, he took her skis, swung them over his shoulder and began to walk toward the SUV. “But I’ve got the man who keeps an eye on the mountain cabins to drive you there. Odd Utmo. Is that all right?”

  “Fine,” said Kaja, who was only too pleased. It meant perhaps she could escape all the questions about why the Oslo Police were suddenly interested in a missing-persons case from Drammen.

  Krongli drove her the quarter-mile or so to the hotel. There was a man sitting on a yellow snowmobile in the icy square in front of the entrance. He was wearing a red snowsuit, a leather hat with ear flaps, a scarf around his mouth and large goggles.

  When he pushed up the goggles and mumbled his name, Kaja saw that one eye was a white, transparent membrane, as though there had been a milk spillage. The other eye studied her from top to toe without embarrassment. The man’s erect posture could have belonged to a youngster, but his face was old.

  “Kaja. Thanks for turning up at such short notice,” she said.

  “I’m paid,” Odd Utmo said, then looked at his watch, pulled down the scarf and spat. Kaja saw the glint of an orthodontic brace between the snuff-stained teeth. The gobbet of tobacco made a black star on
the ice.

  “Hope you’ve had a bite to eat and a piss.”

  Kaja laughed, but Utmo had already straddled the snowmobile and turned his back on her.

  She looked at Krongli, who in the meantime had firmly stowed the skis and poles under the straps so they now spanned the length of the snowmobile, together with Utmo’s skis and a bundle of what looked like red sticks of dynamite, plus a rifle with telescopic sights.

  Krongli shrugged and flashed his boyish smile again. “Good luck, hope you find …”

  The rest was drowned out by the roar of the engine. Kaja quickly mounted. To her relief she saw handles she could hold on to, so that she wouldn’t have to cling to the white-eyed old man. The exhaust fumes surrounded them; then they started with a jerk.

  Utmo stood with his knees like shock absorbers and used his body weight to balance the snowmobile, which he guided past the hotel, over a snowdrift into the soft snow and diagonally up the first gentle slope. On reaching the top, which offered a view to the north, Kaja saw a boundless expanse of white spread out before them. Utmo turned with an inquiring expression. Kaja nodded back that everything was OK. Then he accelerated. Kaja watched the buildings disappear through the fountain of snow spraying off the drive belts.

  Kaja had often heard people say that snowy plains made them think of deserts. It made her think of the days and nights with Even on his ocean racer.

  The snowmobile sliced through the vast, empty landscape. The combination of snow and wind had erased, smoothed over, leveled the contours until they were one huge ocean in which the tall mountain, Hallingskarvet, towered like a menacing monster wave. There were no sudden movements; the weight of the snowmobile and the softness of the snow made the ride gentle, cushioned. Kaja rubbed her nose and cheeks carefully to ensure enough blood was circulating. She had seen what even relatively minor frostbite could do to faces. The engine’s monotonous roar and the terrain’s reassuring uniformity had lulled her into a drowsy state until the engine died and they came to a standstill. She woke up and looked at her watch. Her first thought was that the engine had cut out and they were at least a forty-five-minute drive from civilization. How far was it on skis? Three hours? Five? She had no idea. Utmo had already jumped off and was loosening the skis from the scooter.

  “Is there something wrong …?” she began, but stopped when Utmo stood up and pointed to the little valley in front of them.

  “Håvass cabin,” he said.

  Kaja squinted through her sunglasses. And, indeed, at the foot of the mountain face she saw a small black cabin.

  “Why don’t we drive—”

  “Because people are stupid, and that’s why we have to creep up on the cabin.”

  “Creep?” Kaja said, hurriedly clipping on her skis, as Utmo had.

  He pointed the pole to the side of the mountain. “If you drive the scooter into such a narrow valley, sound ricochets to and fro. Loosens new snow …”

  “Avalanche,” Kaja said. She remembered something her father had told her after one of his trips to the Alps. More than sixty thousand troops had died in avalanches there during the Second World War, and most of them had been caused by sound waves from artillery fire.

  Utmo stopped for a moment and faced her. “These nature freaks from town think they’re being clever when they build cabins in sheltered areas. But it’s just a question of time before they’re covered in snow, too.”

  “Too?”

  “The Håvass cabin has been here only three years. This year is the first winter with decent avalanche snow. And soon there’s going to be more.”

  He pointed westward. Kaja shielded her eyes. On the snowy horizon she could see what he meant. Heavy, gray-white cumulus clouds were building giant mushroom formations against the blue background.

  “Going to snow all week,” said Utmo, unhitching the rifle from the snowmobile and hanging it over his shoulder. “If I were you, I’d hurry. And don’t shout.”

  They entered the valley in silence, and Kaja felt the temperature fall as they reached the shade and the cold filled the depressions in the ground.

  They undid their skis by the black timber cabin and rested them against the wall, and Utmo took a key from his pocket and inserted it into the lock.

  “How do overnight guests get in?” Kaja asked.

  “They buy a skeleton key. Fits all four hundred and fifty Tourist Association cabins nationwide.” He twisted the key, pressed down the handle and pushed the door. Nothing happened. He cursed under his breath, placed his shoulder against the door and shoved. It came away from the frame with a shrill scream.

  “Cabins shrink in the cold,” he muttered.

  Inside it was pitch black and smelled of paraffin and a wood-burning stove. Kaja inspected the cabin. She knew the lodging arrangements were very simple. You came, entered details in the guest book, took a bed, or a mattress if it was crowded, lit the fire, cooked your own food in the kitchen, where there was a stove and cooking utensils, or if you used the food provided in the cupboards, you put some money in a can. You paid for your stay in the same can or you filled in a bank authorization slip. All payments were on the honor system.

  The cabin had four north-facing bedrooms with four bunk beds in each. The sitting room faced south and had traditional decor, solid pine furniture. There was a large open fireplace for a homey effect and the wood-burning stove for more efficient heating. Kaja calculated that there was seating space for twelve to fifteen people around the table, and sleeping space for double that if people squeezed together and used the floor and mattresses. She visualized the light from candles and the fire flickering over familiar and unfamiliar faces as conversation covered the day’s skiing and the next day’s plans over a beer or a glass of wine. Even’s ruddy complexion smiled at her, and he toasted her from one of the darkened corners.

  “The guest book’s in the kitchen,” Utmo said, pointing to one of the doors. Still standing by the front door with hat and gloves on, he seemed impatient. Kaja was holding the door handle and about to press it when an image flashed into her mind. County Officer Krongli. He had looked similar. She had known the thought would reappear—she just hadn’t known when.

  “Can you open the door for me?” she said.

  “Eh?”

  “It’s stuck,” Kaja said. “The cold.”

  She closed her eyes as she listened to him approach, heard the door open with barely a sound, felt his astonished gaze on her. Then she opened her eyes and went in.

  There was a smell of slightly rancid fat in the kitchen. Her pulse raced as her eyes skimmed over the surfaces, cupboards. She spotted the black leather-bound register on the countertop under the window. It was attached to the wall by a blue nylon cord.

  Kaja breathed in. She walked over to the book. Flicked through.

  Page after page of handwritten names, scribbled by the guests. Most had observed the rule and noted down their next destination.

  “In fact, I’d been planning to come here over the weekend to check the book for you,” she heard Utmo say behind her. “But obviously the police couldn’t wait, could they?”

  “No,” said Kaja, thumbing through the dates. November. November 6. November 8. She flicked back. And forward again. It wasn’t there.

  November 7 was gone. She laid the book flat. The jagged edges of the torn sheet stood upright. Someone had taken it.

  31

  Kigali

  The airport at Kigali, Rwanda, was small, modern and surprisingly well organized. However, it was Harry’s experience that international airports told you little or nothing about the country in which they were situated. In Mumbai, India, there was total calm and efficiency; at JFK in New York paranoia and chaos. The passport line took a tiny lurch forward, and Harry followed. Despite the pleasant temperature, he could feel sweat trickling down between his shoulder blades under the thin cotton shirt. He thought again about the figures he had seen at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, where the delayed Oslo plane had finally landed.
Harry had worked up a sweat running through the corridors, the alphabet and the ever larger numbers of the gates to catch the flight to Kampala, Uganda. As corridors crossed he had seen something out of the corner of his eye. A figure that had seemed vaguely familiar. He had been looking into the light and the figure was too far away for him to make out the face. Once onboard the plane, the last passenger, Harry had concluded the patently obvious: It had not been her. What were the chances of it happening? There was no chance the boy next to her had been Oleg. He couldn’t have grown that much.

  “Next.”

  Harry stepped forward to the window and presented his passport, landing card, a copy of the visa application he had printed off the Net and the crisp sixty dollars the visa had cost.

  “Business?” the passport official asked, and Harry met his eyes. The man was tall and thin and his skin was so dark that it reflected light. Probably Tutsi, Harry thought. They controlled the national borders now.

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “The Congo,” Harry said, then used the local name to distinguish the two Congo countries.

  “Congo Kinshasa,” the passport official corrected.

  He pointed to the landing card Harry had filled in on the plane. “Says here you’re staying at Hotel Gorilla in Kigali.”

  “Just tonight,” Harry said. “Then I’m going to the Congo tomorrow, one night in Goma and then back here and home. It’s a shorter drive than from Kinshasa.”

  “Have a pleasant stay in the Congo, busy man,” the uniformed official said with a hearty laugh. He smacked the stamp down on the passport and returned it.

  Half an hour later Harry filled in the hotel registration card at Gorilla, signed it and was given a key attached to a wooden gorilla. When Harry went to bed it was eighteen hours since he had left his home in Oppsal. He stared at the fan howling at the foot of the bed. It provided hardly a puff of air even though the blades were rotating at a hysterical speed. He wasn’t going to be able to sleep.