The Leopard: An Inspector Harry Hole Novel

by Jo Nesbo

  Aslak uttered a low curse. The crime scene officers had finished, and the snowmobile and Odd Utmo had been hoisted to the top. It was complicated and time-consuming work, since the only possible access to the scree was by rope, and even that was hard enough.

  During the lunch break one man had told them something a maid at the hotel had whispered into his ear in confidence: There had been bloodstains on the sheets in the room occupied by Rasmus Olsen, the husband of the dead woman MP, when he checked out. At first, she had thought it was menstrual blood, but then she had heard that Rasmus Olsen had been on his own and his wife had been at the Håvass cabin.

  Krongli had answered that he must have had a local girl in his room or met his wife the morning she arrived in Ustaoset and they had made up in bed. The man had mumbled that it was not certain it was menstrual blood.

  “Over here!”

  What a hassle. Aslak Krongli wanted to go home. Dinner, coffee, sleep. Put this whole shitty case behind him. The money he had owed in Oslo was paid, and he would never go there again. Never go back down into the quagmire. It was a promise he would keep this time.

  They had used a dog to be sure they found all the bits of Utmo in the snow, and it was the dog that had leapt up the scree and stood barking a hundred yards farther along. A hundred steep yards. Aslak assessed the climb.

  “Is it important?” he shouted and set off a symphony of echoes.

  He received an answer, and ten minutes later he was staring at what the dog had dug up from the snow. It was wedged in between the rocks so tightly that it must have been impossible to spot from the top.

  “Jesus,” Aslak said. “Who could that be?”

  “Not Tony Leike, anyway,” said the dog handler. “Here in the cold scree it would be a long time before the skeleton was picked that clean. Several years.”

  “Seventeen years.” It was Roy Stille. The officer had followed them and was panting.

  “She’s been here seventeen years,” Roy said, crouching down.

  “She?” Aslak queried.

  The officer pointed to the hips on the skeleton. “Women have a larger pelvis. We never did find her when she disappeared. That’s Karen Utmo.”

  Krongli heard something he had never heard before in Roy Stille’s voice. A quiver. The quiver of a man emotionally upset. Grief-stricken. But his granite face was as smooth as always, closed.

  “Well, I never—so it was true, then,” said the dog handler. “She killed herself out of anguish for her boy.”

  “Hardly,” Krongli said. The other two looked at him. He had stuck his little finger in a delicate round aperture in the forehead of the skull.

  “Is that a bullet hole?” the dog handler asked.

  “Yep,” said Stille, feeling the back of the skull. “And there’s no exit wound, so I reckon we’ll find the bullet in the skull.”

  “And should we bet that the bullet will match Utmo’s rifle?” said Krongli.

  “Well, I never,” the dog handler repeated. “Do you mean he shot his wife? How is that possible? To kill a person you’ve loved? Because you think she and your son … it’s like entering hell.”

  “Seventeen years,” Stille said, getting up with a groan. “Seven years left before the murder was deemed too old. That must be what they call irony. You wait and wait, afraid of being found out. The years pass and then, when you’re approaching freedom—bang!—you’re killed yourself and end up in the same scree.”

  Krongli closed his eyes and thought, Yes, it is possible to kill a person you have loved. Easily possible. But, no, you’re never free. Never. He would never come here again.

  Johan Krohn enjoyed the limelight. You don’t become the country’s most popular defense counsel without enjoying it. And when he had agreed to defend Sigurd Altman, Prince Charming, without a second’s hesitation, he knew there was going to be more limelight than he had hitherto experienced in his remarkable career. He had already reached his goal of beating his father as the youngest lawyer ever to appear before the Supreme Court. As a defense counsel in his twenties he was already being proclaimed the new star, the wonder boy. But that might have gone to his head a bit; he had not been used to so much attention at school. Then he had been the irritating top pupil who always waved his hand too eagerly in the classroom, who always tried a bit too hard socially and yet was always the last to know where the Saturday-night party was—if he knew about it at all. But now young female assistants and clerks might giggle and blush when he complimented them or suggested a dinner after work. And invitations rained down, to give talks, participate in debates on radio or TV and even go to the odd premiere his wife valued so highly. Such events may have occupied too much of his attention over recent years. At any rate, he had detected a downward trend in the number of legal triumphs, big media cases and new clients. Not so many that it had begun to affect his reputation, but enough for him to be aware that he needed the Sigurd Altman case. Needed something high-profile to put him back where he belonged: at the top.

  That was why Johan Krohn sat listening quietly to the lean man with the round glasses. Listening while Sigurd Altman told a story that was not only the least likely story Krohn had ever heard but also a story he believed. Johan Krohn could already see himself in the courtroom, the sparkling rhetorician, the agitator, the manipulator, who nonetheless never lost sight of legal justice, a delight for both layman and judge. He was therefore disappointed at first when Sigurd Altman revealed his plans. However, after reminding himself of his father’s repeated admonition that the lawyer was there for the client, and not vice versa, he accepted the case. For Johan Krohn was not really a bad person.

  And when Krohn left Oslo District Prison, where Sigurd Altman had been transferred, he saw new potential in the assignment, which in its way, despite everything, was extraordinary. The first thing he did when he got back to his office was contact Mikael Bellman. They had met only once before—at a murder trial, of course—but Johan Krohn had immediately known where he was with Bellman. A hawk recognizes a hawk. So he appreciated how Bellman was feeling after the day’s headlines about the county officer’s arrest.

  “Bellman.”

  “Johan Krohn. Nice to talk to you again.”

  “Good afternoon, Krohn.” The voice sounded formal, but not unfriendly.

  “Is it? I imagine you feel you’ve been overtaken down the final stretch.”

  Short pause. “What’s this about, Krohn?” Teeth clenched. Angry.

  Johan Krohn knew he was on to a winner.

  …

  Harry and Sis sat by their father’s bed at Rikshospital. On the bedside table and on two other tables in the room there were vases of flowers that had appeared from nowhere in the last few days. Harry had done the rounds and read the cards. One of them had been addressed to “My dear, dear Olav,” and was signed “Your Lise.” Harry had never heard of any Lise, much less considered the notion that there may have been any women in his father’s life other than his mother. The remaining cards were from colleagues and neighbors. It must have reached their ears that the end was nigh. And despite knowing that Olav would not be able to read the cards, they had sent these sweet-smelling flowers to compensate for the fact that they had not taken the time to visit him. Harry saw the flowers surrounding the bed as vultures hovering around a dying man. Heavy, hanging heads on thin stalk necks. Red and yellow beaks.

  “You’re not allowed to have your cell on here, Harry!” Sis whispered severely.

  Harry took out his phone and read the display. “Sorry, Sis. Important.”

  Katrine Bratt got straight to the point. “Leike has undoubtedly been in Ustaoset and the surrounding district a fair bit,” she said. “In recent years he’s bought the odd train ticket on the Net, paid for fuel with a credit card at the gas station in Geilo. The same with provisions, mostly in Ustaoset. The only thing to stand out is a bill for building materials, also in Geilo.”

  “Building materials?”

  “Yep. I went onto the li
sts of invoices. Boards, nails, tools, steel cables, Leca blocks, cement. Over thirty thousand kroners’ worth. But it’s four years old.”

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “He’s been building himself a little annex or something up there?”

  “He didn’t have a registered cabin to build an annex onto—we’ve checked. But you don’t stock up with provisions if you’re going to live in a hotel or a Tourist Association cabin. I reckon Tony built himself an illegal getaway in the national park, just as he told me he dreamed about. Well hidden from view, of course. A place where he could be very, very undisturbed. But where?” Harry realized he had gotten up and was pacing to and fro in the room.

  “Well, you tell me,” said Katrine Bratt.

  “Wait! What time of the year did he buy this?”

  “Let me see … The sixth of July, it says on the printout.”

  “If the cabin has to be hidden it must be somewhere off the beaten track. A desolate area without roads. Did you say steel cables?”

  “Yes. And I can guess why. When Bergensians built cabins in the most wind-blown parts of Ustaoset in the sixties, they generally used steel cables to anchor them.”

  “So Leike’s cabin would be somewhere wind-blown and desolate, and he has to transport thirty thousand kroners’ worth of building materials there. Weighing at least a couple of tons. How do you do that in the summer, when there’s no snow, so you can’t use a snowmobile?”

  “Horse? Jeep?”

  “Over rivers, marshland, up mountains? Keep going.”

  “I have no idea.”

  “But I do. I’ve seen a picture of it. OK, bye.”

  “Wait.”

  “Yes?”

  “You asked me to look into Utmo’s activities during the final days of his life. There’s not very much on him in the electronic world, but he did make some calls. One of the last ones he made was to Aslak Krongli. Just got voice mail, looks like. The very last conversation on his phone was with SAS. I went through their ticketing system. He booked a plane ticket to Copenhagen.”

  “Mm. He doesn’t seem the type to travel much.”

  “That’s for sure. A passport was issued to him, but he isn’t registered in a single ticketing system. And we’re talking many years here.”

  “So a man who has barely left his home district suddenly wants to go to Copenhagen. When would he have traveled, by the way?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “OK. Thanks.”

  Harry hung up, grabbed his coat, turned in the doorway. Looked at her. The attractive woman who was his sister. Was about to ask if she was coping on her own, without him. But managed to stop himself asking such an idiotic question. When had she not coped without him?

  “Take care,” he said.

  Jens Rath was in the reception area of the shared office. Inside his jacket and shirt, his back was drenched with perspiration. Because the police were paying him a visit. He had had a skirmish with the Fraud Squad a few years ago, but the case had been dropped. Nevertheless, he still broke out into a sweat whenever he saw a police car. And now Jens Rath could feel his pores opening big-time. He was a small man and looked up at the officer who had just risen to his feet. And continued to rise. Until he towered more than a foot above Jens and gave him a cursory, firm handshake.

  “Harry Hole, Crime Sq—Kripos. We’ve come about Tony Leike.”

  “Anything new?”

  “Shall we sit down, Rath?”

  They took a seat in a pair of Le Corbusier chairs, and Rath signaled discreetly to Wenche in reception that she shouldn’t serve them coffee, which was standard policy when investors came visiting.

  “I want you to show us where his cabin is,” the policeman said.

  “Cabin?”

  “I saw you cancel the coffee, Rath, and that’s fine—like you, I don’t have much time. I also know that your Fraud Squad case has been dropped, but it would take me one phone call to reopen it. They may not find anything this time, either, but I promise you that the documentation they will demand you make available …”

  Rath closed his eyes. “Oh my God …”

  “… will keep you busy for longer than it took to build a cabin for your colleague, pal and bedfellow Tony Leike. OK?”

  Jens Rath’s sole talent was that he could calculate worthwhile risks faster and more efficiently than anyone else. Accordingly, it took him approximately one second to respond to the calculation with which he had just been presented.

  “Fine.”

  “We’re leaving at nine tomorrow morning.”

  “How …?”

  “The same way you transported the materials. Helicopter.” The policeman stood up.

  “Just one question. Tony’s always been very concerned that no one should know about this cabin—I don’t even think Lene, his fiancée, knows about it—so how—”

  “An invoice for building materials from Geilo, plus the photo of you three in work gear sitting on a pile of timber in front of a helicopter.”

  Quick nod of the head from Jens Rath. “ ’Course. The photo.”

  “Who took it, by the way?”

  “The pilot. Before we left from Geilo. And it was Andreas’s idea to send it with the press release when we opened the office. He thought dressing in work clothes was cooler than in suits and ties. And Tony agreed because he figured it looked as if we owned the helicopter. Anyway, the financial papers use the photo all the time.”

  “Why didn’t you and Andreas mention the cabin when Tony was reported missing?”

  Jens Rath shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong—we’re just as anxious as you for Tony to return pronto. We’ve got a project in the Congo that will go belly-up unless he can find ten million readies. But whenever Tony goes AWOL it’s always because he wants to. He can look after himself. Don’t forget he was a mercenary. I would guess that right now Tony is sitting somewhere with a shot of the hard stuff, some exotic wildcat of a woman on his arm and grinning because he’s come up with a solution.”

  “Mm,” Harry said. “I assume the feline chomped off his middle finger, then. Fornebu Airport, nine tomorrow.”

  Jens Rath stood watching the policeman. The sweat was pouring off him; he was being washed away.

  When Harry returned to Rikshospital Sis was still sitting there. She was leafing through a magazine and eating an apple. He surveyed the kettle of vultures. There were more flowers.

  “You look worn out, Harry,” she said. “You should go home.”

  Harry chuckled. “You can go. You’ve been sitting here on your own for long enough.”

  “I haven’t been on my own,” she said with a mischievous smile. “Guess who was here.”

  Harry sighed. “I’m sorry, Sis—I do enough guessing as it is in my job.”

  “Øystein!”

  “Øystein Eikeland?”

  “Yes! He brought a bar of milk chocolate with him. Not for Daddy, but for me. Sorry—there’s none left.” She laughed so much her eyes shrank into her cheeks.

  When she got up to go for a walk, Harry checked his phone. Two missed calls from Kaja. He pushed the chair into the wall and leaned back.

  77

  Fingerprint

  At ten minutes past ten the helicopter landed on a ridge west of the Hallingskarvet mountains. By eleven they had located the cabin.

  It was so well hidden from view that even if they had known more or less where it was, they would have struggled to find it without Jens Rath’s help. The cabin was built on rock high up to the east, the leeward side of the mountain, too high to be affected by avalanches. The stones had been carried there from surrounding areas and cemented in against two enormous rocks forming the side and rear walls. There were no conspicuous right angles. The windows resembled gun slits and were set so deep into the wall that the sun did not reflect off them.

  “That’s what I call a decent cabin,” Bjørn Holm said, unstrapping skis and immediately sinking up to his knees in the snow.

&n
bsp; Harry told Jens that they no longer needed his services, and that he should go back to the helicopter and wait there with the pilot.

  The snow was not so deep by the front door.

  “Someone dug here not that long ago,” Harry said.

  The door had a plate and a simple padlock, which ceded to Bjørn’s crowbar without much protest.

  Before opening it, they removed their mittens and put latex gloves on their hands and blue plastic bags over their ski boots. Then they entered.

  “Wow,” Bjørn said under his breath.

  The whole cabin consisted of one single room of around fifteen by ten feet and was reminiscent of an old-fashioned captain’s berth, with porthole-like windows and compact, space-saving solutions. The floor, walls and ceiling were made of coarse, untreated boards that had been given a couple of coats of white paint to exploit the little light that was let in. The short wall to the right was taken up by a plain countertop with a sink and a cupboard underneath. Plus a divan that obviously doubled as a bed. In the middle of the room there was a table with a single spindleback chair spattered with paint. In front of one window stood a well-used writing desk with initials and snatches of songs carved into the wood. To the left, on the long wall where the rear rock was revealed, there was a black wood stove. To make maximal use of the heat, the flue was diverted around the rock to the right, then rose vertically. The wood basket was filled with birch and newspapers to get the fire started. On the walls hung maps of the local area, but there was also one of Africa.

  Bjørn looked out of the window above the desk.

  “And that’s what I call a decent view. Jeez, you can see half of Norway from here.”

  “Let’s get cracking,” Harry said. “The pilot’s given us two hours. There’re clouds coming in from the coast.”

  As usual, Mikael Bellman had gotten up at six and jogged himself into consciousness on the treadmill in the cellar. He had been dreaming about Kaja again. She had been riding on the back of a motorbike with her arms around a man who was all helmet and visor. She had smiled so happily, showing her pointed teeth, and waved as they rode away. But hadn’t they stolen the bike? Wasn’t it his? He didn’t know for sure, as her hair, which was fluttering in the wind, was so long it covered the license plate.