The Leopard: An Inspector Harry Hole Novel

by Jo Nesbo

  “Really? Interesting. He didn’t strike me as the skiing type. Where?”

  “Can’t say. Speaking of skis, what was Adele wearing when she went to Håvass? There’s no ski gear here.”

  “She borrowed it from me, of course.”

  “She borrowed ski stuff from you?”

  “You sound so surprised.”

  “You didn’t strike me as … the skiing type.” Holm noticed that his words projected an innuendo that had not been intentional and felt his neck glow.

  Bruun chuckled and twirled around in the doorway. “Right, I’m more … the clothes type.”

  Holm cleared his throat and, without knowing why, made his voice go deeper. “May I take a look?”

  “Ooh, goodness me,” Bruun lisped, seeming to revel in Holm’s discomfort. “Come on—let’s go and see what I’ve got.”

  “Half past four,” Kaja said, passing the pot of stew to Harry for the second time. Their hands didn’t touch. Nor did their eyes. Nor their words. The night they had shared in Oppsal was as distant as a two-day-old dream. “According to the script, I’m supposed to be standing on the south side now, smoking a cigarette.”

  Harry nodded and passed the pot to Kolkka, who scraped it out before scarfing down the contents.

  “OK,” Harry said. “Kolkka, will you take the west-facing window? The sun’s low now, so check for the glint of binoculars.”

  “Not until I’ve eaten,” he answered slowly in Swedish and with emphasis, shoving yet another fully loaded fork into his mouth.

  Harry cocked an eyebrow. Glanced at Kaja and motioned for her to go.

  When she was outside, Harry sat by the window and combed the plateau and the ridges. “So Bellman employed you when no one else would, eh?” He said it softly, but the silence in the room was so complete he could have whispered it.

  A few seconds passed with no response. Harry assumed Kolkka was processing the fact that Harry had engaged him on a personal matter.

  “I know about the rumor that was spread after you were given the boot by Europol. You had beaten up an ex-con during questioning. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  “That’s my business,” Kolkka said, lifting the fork to his mouth. “But he might not have shown me sufficient respect.”

  “Mm. The interesting thing was that Europol spread the rumor themselves. So that the rumor would make things easier for them. And for you, I suppose. And of course for the parents and lawyers of the girl you were questioning.”

  Harry heard the chewing behind him stop.

  “So that they got their compensation secretly without having to drag you and Europol into a courtroom. The girl avoided having to sit on the witness stand and say that when you were in her room asking her about the friend who had been raped, you got so excited by the answers that you started to feel her up. Fifteen years old, it says in Europol’s internal files.”

  Harry could hear Kolkka breathing heavily.

  “Let’s assume that Bellman also read the files,” Harry continued. “Was given access via contacts and roundabout methods. Like me. He waited a bit before contacting you. Waited until the anger was out of you, until all the air was gone, until you were on the wheel rim, punctured. And then he picked you up. Gave you a job and gave you back some of the pride you had lost. And knew you would repay him with loyalty. He buys when the market is at the bottom, Kolkka. That’s how he gets his bodyguards.”

  Harry turned to Jussi Kolkka. The Finn’s face was white.

  “You’re bought, but you’re hardly paid, Jussi. Slaves like you don’t gain respect, not from Massa Bellman and not from me. Christ, you don’t even have any self-respect, man.”

  Kolkka’s fork fell to his plate with an almost deafening clatter. He got up, slipped his hand inside his jacket and pulled out a gun. He strode toward Harry and leaned over him. Harry didn’t budge, just calmly looked up.

  “So how are you going to find your respect again, Jussi? By shooting me?”

  The Finn’s pupils were quivering with rage.

  “Or by working yourself to hell?” Harry looked out at the snowy expanse again.

  Heard Kolkka’s heavy breathing. Waited. Heard him turn. Heard him move away. Heard him sit down by the west-facing window.

  The radio crackled. Harry grabbed the microphone.

  “Yes?”

  “Soon be dark.” It was Bellman’s voice. “He’s not coming.”

  “Still keep a lookout.”

  “What for? It’s clouded over and without moonlight we can’t see a—”

  “If we can’t see, neither can he,” Harry said. “So keep a lookout for a head flashlight.”

  The man had switched off the flashlight. He didn’t need any light; he knew where the ski trail he was following led. To the Tourist Association cabin. And his eyes would get used to the dark; he would have large, light-sensitive pupils before he arrived. There it was, the log wall with black windows. As though no one were at home. The new snow creaked as the man kicked off and slid down the last few yards. He stopped and listened to the silence for a couple of seconds before soundlessly unclipping his skis. He took out the large, heavy Sami knife with the intimidating boat-shaped blade and the smooth, varnished yellow wooden hilt. It was as good at cutting down branches for a fire as carving up a reindeer. Or slitting throats.

  The man opened the door as quietly as he could and entered the hall. Stood listening at the sitting-room door. Silence. Too silent? He pressed the handle and threw open the door while standing back against the wall next to the doorway. Then—to make himself as elusive and small a target as possible—he crouched down and rushed into the darkness with the knife to the fore.

  He glimpsed the figure of the dead man sitting on the floor with his head hanging and arms still embracing the stove.

  He returned the knife to its sheath and switched on the light by the sofa. It hadn’t struck him until now that the sofa was identical to the one at the Håvass cabin. The Tourist Association must have gotten a discount at a job lot. But the sofa cover was old; the cabin had been closed for several years and it was in much too dangerous an area. There had been accidents with people plunging down cliff faces while trying to find the cabin.

  Next to the wood stove, the dead man’s head rose slowly.

  “Sorry to burst in on you like this.” He checked that the restraints holding the dead man’s hands shackled around the stove were as they should be.

  Then he began to unpack his knapsack. He had pulled his hat down and been in and out of the shop in Ustaoset in a flash. Crackers. Bread. Papers. Which had more about the press conference. And this witness at the Håvass cabin.

  “Iska Peller,” he said aloud. “Australian. She’s at the Håvass cabin. What do you think? Could she have seen anything?”

  The other man’s vocal cords could hardly move enough air for them to make a sound. “Police. Police at cabin.”

  “I know. It’s in the papers. One detective.”

  “They’re there. The police have rented the cabin.”

  “Oh?” He looked at the other man. Had the police set a trap? And was this bastard in front of him trying to help him, to save him from falling into it? The very idea angered him. But this woman must have seen something, anyway; otherwise they wouldn’t have brought her all this way from Australia. He grabbed the poker.

  “Fuck, you stink. Did you shit in your pants?”

  The dead man’s head slumped onto his chest. The dead man had obviously moved in here. There were a few personal possessions in the drawers. A letter. Some tools. Some old family photographs. Passport. As if the dead man were planning an escape, thinking he could recover somewhere else. Other than down there, down in the flames, where he would be tortured for his sins. Even though he had begun to think that the dead man might not have been behind all the devilry after all. There are limits to how much pain a man can stand before he talks.

  He checked the phone again. No coverage—shit!

  And what a stenc
h. The storehouse. He would have to hang him out to dry there. That was what you did with smoked meat.

  Kaja had gone to her bedroom, and Harry hoped she would catch some shut-eye before it was her watch.

  Kolkka poured the percolated coffee into his own and then Harry’s cup.

  “Thanks,” Harry said, staring into the darkness.

  “Wooden skis,” Kolkka said, standing by the fireplace and inspecting Harry’s skis.

  “My father’s,” Harry said. He had found the ski equipment in the cellar at Oppsal. The poles were new and made of some metal alloy that seemed to weigh less than air. Harry had for a moment wondered whether the hollow pole might have been filled with helium. But the skis were the same old broad mountain ones.

  “When I was small we went to my grandfather’s cabin in Lesja every Easter. There was this peak my dad always wanted to climb. So he told my sister and me that there was a kiosk at the top where they sold Pepsi, which was my sister’s favorite drink. So if we could manage the last slope, then we …”

  Kolkka nodded and ran a hand over the back of the white skis. Harry took a swig of the fresh coffee.

  “Sis always managed to forget from Easter to Easter that it was the same old bluff. And I always wished I could have done the same. But I was lumbered with remembering everything that Dad instilled in me. The mountain code, how to use nature as a compass and how to survive avalanches. Norwegian kings and queens, the Chinese dynasties and American presidents.”

  “They’re good skis,” Kolkka said.

  “A little too short.”

  Kolkka sat by the window at the other end of the room. “Yes, you think it will never happen. Your father’s skis being too short for you.”

  Harry waited. Waited. Then it came.

  “I thought she was so wonderful,” Kolkka said. “And I thought she liked me. Strange. I only touched her breasts. She didn’t put up any resistance. I suppose she must have been scared.”

  Harry succeeded in curbing his urge to leave the room.

  “You’re right,” Kolkka said. “You’re loyal to those who lift you out of the garbage heap. Even though you can see they’re using you. What else can you do? You have to choose sides.”

  When Harry realized the conversational tap had been turned off, he got up and went to the kitchen. He went through all the cupboards in a vain attempt to find what he knew was not here, a kind of desperate diversion from the shouting inside his head. “A drink, just one.”

  He had been given a chance. One. The ghost had undone his chains, lifted him up, sworn because of the stench of the shit and helped him into the bathroom, where he had dropped him on the shower floor and turned on the water. The ghost had stood there for a moment watching him while trying to make a cell-phone call, cursed the lack of coverage and then gone back into the sitting room, where he heard him trying again.

  He wanted to cry. He had moved up here, hidden himself away so that no one would be able to find him. Installed himself in the moth-balled Tourist Association cabin, taken with him what he needed. Thought he was safe among the precipices. Safe from the ghost. He didn’t cry. For as the water seeped through his clothes, soaking the remains of the red flannel shirt stuck to his back, it dawned on him that this was his chance. His mobile phone was in the pocket of his trousers, folded on the chair beside the sink.

  He tried to get to his feet, but his legs wouldn’t respond. Didn’t matter, it was only a few yards to the chair. He put his scorched black arms on the floor, defied the pain and dragged himself forward, heard the blisters pop, noticed the smell, but in two lunges he was there, searching his pockets, grabbing his phone. He had saved that policeman’s number, mostly so that he would recognize it on the display if he called.

  He pressed the “call” button. The phone seemed to be drawing breath in the tiny eternity between each ring. One chance. The shower was making too much noise for the man to hear him speak. There! He heard the policeman’s voice. He interrupted him with his hoarse whisper, but the voice continued on. And he realized he was talking to voice mail. He waited for the voice to finish, squeezed the phone, felt the skin on his hand tear, but didn’t let go. Couldn’t let go. Had to leave a message about … finish, for Christ’s sake, come on, beeps!

  He hadn’t heard him come in; the shower had drowned out his light steps. The phone was seized from his hand, and he had time to see the ski boot coming.

  When he regained consciousness, the man was standing over him and studying his phone with interest.

  “So you’ve got coverage?”

  The man left the bathroom dialing a number, then the noise of the shower drowned everything out. But not long after, he was back.

  “We’re going on a journey. You and I.” The man seemed to be in a good mood all of a sudden. The man was holding a passport in one hand. His passport. In the other hand he was holding the pliers from the toolbox.

  “Open wide.”

  He swallowed. Lord Jesus, have mercy.

  “Open wide, I said!”

  “Mercy. I swear I’ve told you everything I—” He didn’t say any more because a hand had grabbed him around the throat and stopped the supply of air. He fought for a while. Then at last came the tears. And then he opened wide.

  57

  Thunder

  Under the glare of the lamp, Bjørn Holm and Beate Lønn were standing by the steel table in the laboratory, staring at the navy-blue ski pants in front of them.

  “That is definitely a semen stain,” Beate said.

  “Or a line of semen,” Bjørn Holm said. “Look at the shape.”

  “Too little for an ejaculation. Looks like an erect, wet penis has been shoved up the bottom of the person wearing the ski pants. You said Bruun was homosexual, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but he says he hasn’t worn them since he lent them to Adele.”

  “Then I would say we have semen stains typical of a rape. We’ll just have to send them for DNA testing, Bjørn.”

  “Agreed. What do you think about that?” Holm pointed to the light blue hospital trousers, which had two friction marks under both back pockets.

  “What is it?”

  “Something that won’t go away in the wash, at any rate. It’s a nonylphenol-based material called PSG. It’s used in car-cleaning products, among other things.”

  “She’s obviously been sitting somewhere.”

  “Not just sitting—it’s deep in the fiber. She’s been rubbing. Hard. Like this.” He thrust his hips backward and forward.

  “I see. Any theories as to why?”

  She put on her glasses and looked at Holm as his mouth distorted into a variety of shapes to articulate expressions his brain generated and immediately rejected.

  “Dry humping?” Beate asked.

  “Yes,” Holm said, with relief.

  “I see. And where and when does a woman who doesn’t work at a hospital wear hospital gear and dry-hump on PSG?”

  “Simple,” said Bjørn Holm. “At a nighttime rendezvous in a disused PSG factory.”

  The clouds parted, and again they were bathed in the magic blue light in which everything, even the shadows, became phosphorized, frozen as if for a still-life.

  Kolkka had gone to bed, but Harry presumed the Finn was lying in the bedroom with his eyes open and his other senses on maximum alert.

  Kaja sat by the window with her chin resting on her hand, looking out. She was wearing her white sweater since they had only electric radiators. They had agreed it might look suspicious if smoke were coming from the chimney all the time when supposedly there were just two people there.

  “If you ever miss the starry sky over Hong Kong, look outside now,” Kaja said.

  “I can’t remember any starry sky,” Harry said, lighting a cigarette.

  “Isn’t there anything about Hong Kong you miss?”

  “Li Yuan’s glass noodles,” Harry said. “Every day.”

  “Are you in love with me?” She had lowered her voice only a fract
ion and was looking at him attentively while tying an elastic band around her hair.

  Harry examined his feelings. “Not right now.”

  She laughed, her face expressing surprise. “Not right now? What does that mean?”

  “That that part of me is tuned out as long as we’re here.”

  She shook her head. “You’re damaged goods, Hole.”

  “About that,” Harry said with a crooked smile, “there is little doubt.”

  “And what about when this job is over in”—she looked at her watch—“ten hours?”

  “Then I may be in love with you again,” Harry said, placing his hand next to hers on the table. “If not before.”

  She looked at their hands. Saw how much bigger his were. How much more delicately shaped hers were. How much paler and how gnarled his were, with thick blood vessels twisting and turning all over the backs of his hands.

  “So you could be in love before the job is over, after all, eh?” She placed her hand on his.

  “I meant the job could be over before—”

  She withdrew her hand.

  Harry looked at her in surprise. “I just meant—”

  “Listen!”

  Harry held his breath and listened. But heard nothing.

  “What was it?”

  “Sounded like a car,” Kaja said, peering out. “What do you think?”

  “Unlikely, in my opinion,” Harry said. “It’s more than six miles to the nearest road open in winter. What about a helicopter? Or a snowmobile?”

  “Or what about my overactive imagination?” Kaja said with a sigh. “The sound’s gone. And, on reflection, perhaps it was never there. Sorry, but you can easily become a little oversensitive when you’re afraid and—”

  “No,” Harry said, getting up. “Suitably afraid. Suitably sensitive. Describe what you heard.” Harry took his revolver from his shoulder holster and went to the second window.

  “Nothing—I keep telling you!”

  Harry opened the window a fraction. “Your hearing’s better than mine. Listen for both of us.”