The Leopard: An Inspector Harry Hole Novel

by Jo Nesbo

  “Oh?”

  “You examined me with the same circumspection that I examined you.”

  Harry shrugged.

  The door opened. The other officer was back, accompanied by a woman dressed like a secretary with clickety-clack heels and glasses on the tip of her nose.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in impeccable English, looking at Harry. “I’ve checked the date. There was no Adele Vetlesen on that flight.”

  “Mm. Could there be a mistake?”

  “Unlikely. Landing cards are filed by date. The flight you’re talking about is a thirty-seven-seater DH8 from Entebbe. It didn’t take long to check.”

  “Mm. If that’s the case, may I ask you to check something else for me?”

  “You may ask, of course. What is it?”

  “Could you see if any other foreign women arrived on that flight?”

  “And why should I do that?”

  “Because Adele Vetlesen was booked onto that flight. So either she used a false passport here—”

  “I doubt that very much,” the passport officer said. “We check all the passport photos very carefully before they are scanned by a machine that matches the passport number against the International Civil Aviation Organization register.”

  “Or someone else was traveling in Adele Vetlesen’s name and then used their own, genuine passport to pass through here. Which is more than possible, as passport numbers are not checked before passengers board the aircraft.”

  “True,” the chief passport official said, pulling at his beret. “Airline staff only make sure the name and photo match more or less. For that purpose you can have a false passport made for fifty dollars anywhere in the world. It’s only when you get off the plane at your final destination and have to go through checks that your passport number is matched and false passports are revealed. But the question is the same: Why should we help you, Mr. Hole? Are you on an official mission here and do you have the papers to support that?”

  “My official mission was in the Congo,” Harry lied. “But I found nothing there. Adele Vetlesen is missing, and we fear she may have been murdered by a serial killer who has already murdered at least three other women, among them a government MP. Her name is Marit Olsen—you can verify that on the Net. I’m conscious that the procedure now is for me to return home and go through formal channels, as a result of which we will lose several days and give the killer a further head start. And time to kill again.”

  Harry saw that his words had made some impression on them. The woman and the chief official conferred, and the woman marched off again.

  They waited in silence.

  Harry looked at his watch. He hadn’t checked in for his flight yet.

  Six minutes had passed when they heard the click-clack heels coming closer.

  “Eva Rosenberg, Juliana Verni, Veronica Raúl Gueño and Claire Hobbes.” She spat out the names, straightened her glasses and put four landing cards on the table in front of Harry before the door had even closed again. “Not many European women come here,” she said.

  Harry’s eyes ran down the cards. All of them had given Kigali hotels as their address, but not the Hotel Gorilla. He looked at their home addresses. Eva Rosenberg’s was in Stockholm.

  “Thank you,” Harry said, noting down the names, addresses and passport numbers on the back of a taxi receipt he found in his jacket pocket.

  “I regret that we can’t be of any more assistance,” the woman said, pushing her glasses up again.

  “Not at all,” Harry said. “You’ve been a great help. Really.”

  “And now, Mr. Policeman,” said the tall, thin officer, with a smile that lit up his black-as-night face.

  “Yes?” Harry said in anticipation, ready to take out the coffee-brown envelope.

  “Now it’s time we got you checked in on the flight to Nairobi.”

  “Mm,” Harry said, looking at his watch. “I may have to catch the next one.”

  “Next one?”

  “I have to go back to the Hotel Gorilla.”

  Kaja was sitting in the Norwegian railway’s so-called comfort coach, which—apart from offering free newspapers, two cups of free coffee and an outlet for your laptop—meant that you sat like sardines in a can instead of in the almost-empty economy areas. So when her phone rang and she saw it was Harry, that was where she hurried.

  “Where are you?” Harry asked.

  “On the train. Passing Kongsberg right this minute. And you?”

  “Hotel Gorilla in Kigali. I’ve gotten a look at Adele Vetlesen’s hotel registration card. I won’t get away now before the afternoon flight, but I’ll be home early tomorrow. Could you call your friend the pumpkin head at the Drammen Police, and see if we can borrow the postcard Adele wrote? You can ask him to come to the train station with it. The train stops at Drammen, doesn’t it?”

  “You’re pushing your luck. I’ll try, anyway. What are we going to do with it?”

  “Compare the handwriting. There’s a handwriting expert named Jean Hue who worked at Kripos before he retired. Get him to the office at seven tomorrow.”

  “So early? D’you think he’ll—”

  “You’re right. I’ll scan Adele’s registration card and email it to you so you can go to Jean’s place with both this evening.”

  “This evening?”

  “He’ll be happy to see you. If you had any other plans, they are hereby canceled.”

  “Great. By the way, sorry about the late call last night.”

  “No problem. Entertaining story.”

  “I was a little tipsy.”

  “Thought so.”

  Harry hung up.

  “Thanks for all your help,” he said.

  The receptionist responded with a smile.

  The coffee-brown envelope had finally found a new owner.

  Kjersti Rødsmoen went into the common room and over to the woman looking out of the window at the rain falling on Sandviken’s timber houses. In front of her was an untouched slice of cake with a little candle on it.

  “This phone was found in your room, Katrine,” she said softly. “The ward sister brought it to me. You know they’re forbidden, don’t you?”

  Katrine nodded.

  “Anyway,” Rødsmoen said, passing it over, “it’s ringing.”

  Katrine Bratt took the vibrating cell phone and pressed “answer.”

  “It’s me,” said the voice at the other end. “I’ve got four women’s names here. I’d like to know which of them was not booked on BA flight one-oh-one to Kigali on the twenty-fifth of November. And to receive confirmation that this person was not in any reservation system for a Rwandan hotel that same night.”

  “I’m fine, thanks, Auntie.”

  Silence for a second.

  “I see. Call when you can.”

  Katrine passed the phone back to Rødsmoen. “My aunt wishing me many happy returns.”

  Kjersti Rødsmoen shook her head. “Rules say the use of phones is forbidden. So there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have a phone, so long as you don’t use it. Just make sure the ward sister doesn’t see it, OK?”

  Katrine nodded, and Rødsmoen left.

  Katrine sat looking out of the window for a while longer, then got up and went toward the recreation room. The ward sister’s voice reached her as she was about to cross the threshold.

  “What are you going to do, Katrine?”

  Katrine answered without turning. “Play solitaire.”

  33

  Leipzig

  Gunnar Hagen took the elevator down to the basement.

  Down. Downer. Downtrodden. Downsized.

  He got out and set off through the culvert.

  But Bellman had kept his promise; he hadn’t blabbed. And he had thrown him a line, a top-management post in the new, expanded Kripos. Harry’s report had been short and to the point. No results. Any idiot would have realized it was time to start swimming toward the lifebuoy.

  Hagen opened the door at the end
of the culvert without knocking.

  Kaja Solness smiled sweetly while Harry Hole—sitting in front of the computer screen with a telephone to his ear—didn’t even turn around, just sang out, “Siddown-boss-want-some-crap-coffee?” as though the unit head’s doppelgänger had announced his forthcoming arrival.

  Hagen stood in the doorway. “I received the message that you were unable to find Adele Vetlesen. Time to pack up. Time was up ages ago, and you’re needed for other cases. At least you are, Kaja Solness.”

  “Dankeschön, Günther,” Harry said on the telephone, put it down and swiveled around.

  “Dankeschön?” Hagen repeated.

  “Leipzig Police,” Harry said. “By the way, Katrine Bratt sends her regards, boss. Remember her?”

  Hagen eyed his inspector with suspicion. “I thought Bratt was in a mental institution.”

  “No doubt about that,” Harry said, getting up and making for the coffee machine. “But the woman’s a genius at searching the Net. Speaking of searches, boss …”

  “Searches?”

  “Could you see your way to giving us unlimited funds to mount a search?”

  Hagen’s eyes almost popped out. Then he burst out laughing. “You’re fucking incredible, Harry. You’ve just wasted half the travel budget on a fiasco in the Congo and now you want a police search operation? This investigation comes to a halt right now. Do you understand?”

  “I understand …” Harry said, pouring coffee into two cups and passing one to Hagen, “… so much more. And soon you will, too, boss. Grab my chair and listen to this.”

  Hagen looked from Harry to Kaja. Stared skeptically at the coffee. Then he sat down. “You’ve got two minutes.”

  “It’s quite simple.” Harry said. “Based on Brussels Airlines passenger lists, Adele Vetlesen traveled to Kigali on the twenty-fifth of November. But according to passport control, no one of that name entered the country. What happened is that a woman with a false passport made out in Adele’s name traveled from Oslo. The false passport would have worked without a hitch until she reached her final destination in Kigali, because that’s where it’s computer-checked and the number’s matched. So this mysterious woman must have used her own passport, which was genuine. Passport control officials don’t ask to see the name on your ticket, so any mismatch between passport and ticket is not discovered. So long as no one looks, of course.”

  “But you did?”

  “Yep.”

  “Couldn’t it just be an administrative oversight? They forgot to register Adele’s arrival?”

  “Indeed. But then there’s the postcard …”

  Harry nodded to Kaja, who held up a card. Hagen saw a picture of something akin to a smoking volcano.

  “This was mailed from Kigali the same day she was supposed to have arrived,” Harry said. “But first of all, this is a picture of Nyiragongo, a volcano situated in the Congo, not Rwanda. Second, we got Jean Hue to compare the handwriting on this card with the check-in card the alleged Adele Vetlesen filled in at the Hotel Gorilla.”

  “He established beyond a doubt what even I can see,” Kaja said. “It’s not the same person.”

  “All right, all right,” Hagen said. “But where are you going with all of this?”

  “Someone has gone to great effort to make it seem as if Adele Vetlesen went to Africa,” Harry said. “My guess is that Adele was in Norway and was forced to write the card. Then it was taken to Africa by a second person, who sent it back. All to give the impression that Adele had traveled there and written home about her dream guy and that she wouldn’t be back before March.”

  “Any idea who the impersonator might be?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “The immigration authorities at Kigali Airport found a card made out in the name of Juliana Verni. But our friendly fruitcake in Bergen says this name was not registered on any airline passenger lists to Rwanda or at any hotels with modern, electronic booking equipment on the date in question. But she is on the Rwandan passenger list from Kigali three days later.”

  “Would I like to know how you acquired this information?”

  “No, boss. But you would like to know who and where Juliana Verni is.”

  “And that is?”

  Harry looked at his watch. “According to the information on the landing card, she lives in Leipzig, Germany. Ever been to Leipzig, boss?”

  “No.”

  “Nor me. But I know it’s famous for being the home of Goethe, Bach and one of the waltz kings. What’s his name again?”

  “What has this got to do with …?”

  “Well, you see, Leipzig is also famous for holding the main archives of the Stasi, the security police. The town was in the old East Germany. Did you know that over the forty years East Germany existed, the German spoken there developed in such a way that a sensitive ear can hear the difference between East and West Germans?”

  “Harry—”

  “Sorry, boss. The point is that in late November a woman with an East German accent was in the town of Goma in the Congo, which is just a three-hour drive from Kigali. And I’m positive that, while there, she bought the murder weapon that took the lives of Borgny Stem-Myhre and Charlotte Lolles.”

  “We’ve been sent a copy of the form the police keep when passports are issued,” Kaja said, passing Hagen a sheet of paper.

  “Matches Van Boorst’s description of the buyer,” Harry said. “Juliana Verni had big rust-red curls.”

  “Brick-red,” Kaja said.

  “I beg your pardon?” Hagen said.

  Kaja pointed to the sheet. “She’s got one of the old-fashioned passports with hair color listed. They called it “brick-red.” German thoroughness, you know.”

  “I’ve also asked the police in Leipzig to confiscate her passport and check that it has a stamp from Kigali on the date in question.”

  Gunnar Hagen stared blankly at the printout. He appeared to be trying to absorb what Harry and Kaja had said. At length he looked up with one raised bushy eyebrow. “Are you telling me … are you telling me that you may have the person who …” The POB swallowed, struggled to find an indirect way of saying it, terrified that this miracle, this mirage, might vanish if he said it aloud. But he gave up the attempt. “Is our serial killer?”

  “I’m not saying any more than what I’m saying,” Harry said. “For the moment. My colleague in Leipzig is going through her personal data and criminal records now, so we’ll soon know a bit more about Fräulein Verni.”

  “But this is fantastic news,” Hagen said, sending a smile from Harry to Kaja, who gave him a nod of encouragement.

  “Not,” Harry said, with a swig from his cup of coffee, “for Adele Vetlesen’s family.”

  Hagen’s smile faded. “True. Do you think there’s any hope for …?”

  Harry shook his head. “She’s dead, boss.”

  “But …”

  At that moment the telephone rang.

  Harry took it. “Ja, Günther!” And repeated with a strained smile: “Ja, Dirty Harry. Genau.”

  Gunnar Hagen and Kaja observed Harry as he listened in silence. Harry rounded off the conversation with a “Danke” and cradled the receiver. Cleared his throat.

  “She’s dead.”

  “Yes, you said that,” Hagen said.

  “No, Juliana Verni is. She was found in the Elster River on the second of December.”

  Hagen cursed under his breath.

  “Cause of death?” Kaja asked.

  Harry stared into the distance. “Drowning.”

  “Might have been an accident.”

  Harry shook his head slowly. “She didn’t drown in water.”

  In the ensuing silence they heard the rumble of the boiler in the adjacent room.

  “Wounds in the mouth?” Kaja asked.

  Harry nodded. “Twenty-four, to be precise. She was sent to Africa to bring back the instrument that would kill her.”

  34

  Mediumr />
  “So Juliana Verni was found dead in Leipzig three days after she flew home from Kigali,” Kaja said. “Where she’d traveled as Adele Vetlesen, checked in at the Hotel Gorilla as Adele Vetlesen and sent a postcard written by the real Adele Vetlesen, probably dictated.”

  “That’s about the size of it,” said Harry, who was in the process of brewing some more coffee.

  “And you think that Verni must have done that in collusion with someone,” Hagen said. “And this second person killed her to cover the traces.”

  “Yes,” Harry said.

  “So it’s just a question of finding the link between her and this second person. That shouldn’t be too difficult. They must have been very close if they committed this kind of crime together.”

  “Well in that case I’d have thought it would be pretty difficult.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because,” Harry said, smacking down the lid of the machine and flicking the switch, “Juliana Verni had a record. Drugs. Prostitution. Vagrancy. In short, she was the type it would have been easy to hire for a job like this, if the money was right. And everything so far suggests that the person behind it won’t have left any clues for us, that he has considered most angles. Katrine discovered that Verni traveled from Leipzig to Oslo. From there she continued to Kigali using Adele’s name. Nevertheless, Katrine did not find so much as a phone conversation between Verni’s cell and Norway. This person has been scrupulous.”

  Hagen shook his head dejectedly. “So close …”

  Harry sat on the desk. “There is another dilemma we have to resolve. The overnight guests at Håvass cabin that night.”

  “What about them?”

  “We cannot exclude the possibility that the page torn out of the guest book is a hit list. They have to be warned.”

  “How? We don’t know who they are.”

  “Through the media. Even if it means we would be letting the killer know we’ve picked up his trail.”

  Hagen slowly shook his head. “Hit list. And you’ve only reached this conclusion now?”

  “I know, boss.” Harry met Hagen’s eyes. “If I’d gone to the media with a warning as soon as we stumbled on the Håvass cabin, it might have saved Elias Skog’s life.”