The Leopard

by Jo Nesbo

  They assumed she would go to the nearest taxi rank, but none of the taxi drivers in the vicinity at the time in question (computerised lists from Norgestaxi and Oslotaxi attached) had recognised the photograph of Borgny Stem-Myhre or had driven to Sagene. In short, no one had seen her after she left Mono. Until two Polish brickies had showed up for work, noticed the padlock on the iron bomb shelter door had been snapped, and gone in. Borgny had been lying in the middle of the floor, in a contorted position, with all her clothes on.

  Harry examined the photo. The same military jacket. The face looked as if it had been made up with white foundation. The flash cast sharp shadows against the cellar wall. Photo shoot. Smart.

  The pathologist had determined that Borgny Stem-Myhre died somewhere between ten and eleven o’clock at night. Traces of the drug ketanome were found in her blood, a strong anaesthetic that worked fast even when injected intramuscularly. But the direct cause of death was drowning, triggered by blood from wounds in the mouth. And this was where the most disturbing elements came in. The pathologist found twenty-four stab wounds in the mouth, symmetrically distributed and at the same depth, seven centimetres, those that did not pierce the face, that is. But the police were at a loss as to what kind of weapon or instrument had been used. They had simply never seen anything like it. There were absolutely no forensic clues: no fingerprints, no DNA, not even shoe or boot prints, as the concrete floor had been cleaned the day before in preparation for heating cables and floor covering. In the report collated by Kim Erik Lokker, a forensics officer who must have been appointed after Harry’s time, there was a photograph of two grey-black pebbles found on the floor which did not originate from the gravel around the crime scene. Lokker pointed out that small stones often got stuck in boots with heavy-duty tread, and came loose when worn on firmer ground, such as this concrete floor. Furthermore, these stones were so unusual that if they turned up later in the investigation, for example in a gravel path, they might well find a match. There was one addition to the report after it had been signed and dated: small traces of iron and coltan had been found on two molars.

  Harry could already guess the conclusion. He flicked through.

  The other woman’s name was Charlotte Lolles. French father, Norwegian mother. Resident of Lambertseter, in Oslo. Twenty-nine years old. Qualified lawyer. Lived alone, but had a boyfriend: one Erik Fokkestad who had been quickly eliminated from inquiries. He had been at a geology seminar in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, USA. Charlotte should have joined him, but had prioritised a serious property dispute on which she had been working.

  Colleagues had last seen her at the office on Monday evening at around nine. She had probably never returned home. Her briefcase of papers had been found next to her body behind the abandoned car by the wood in Maridalen. In addition, both parties in the property dispute had been eliminated. The post-mortem report highlighted bits of paint and rust found under Charlotte Lolles’s nails, which fitted with the crime scene report’s mention of scrape marks around the car-boot lock, as though she had been trying to get it open. Closer examination of the lock revealed that it had been picked at least once. But hardly by Charlotte Lolles. Harry formed a mental image of her chained to something locked inside the boot and speculated that that was why she had been trying to escape. Something the killer had taken with him afterwards. But what? And how? And why?

  Records of the interview with a female colleague from the law firm included a quote: ‘Charlotte was an ambitious person and always worked late. Although how efficient she was, I don’t know. Always gentle, but not as outgoing as her smiles and Mediterranean appearance would have suggested. Quite private, basically. She never talked about her partner, for example. But my bosses liked her very much.’

  Harry could imagine the female colleague serving up one intimate revelation after another about her boyfriend, without getting more than a smile from Charlotte in return. His investigative brain was on autopilot now: perhaps Charlotte had held back from embracing a clingy sisterhood, perhaps she had had something to hide. Perhaps . . .

  Harry studied the photographs. Hard-ish but attractive features. Dark eyes, she looked like … Shit! He closed his eyes. Opened them again. Flicked through to the pathologist’s report. Skimmed through the document.

  He had to check Charlotte’s name at the top to make sure he wasn’t reading the report on Borgny for a second time. Anaesthetic. Twenty-four wounds to the mouth. Drowning. No external violence, no signs of sexual interference. The only difference was that the time of death was between eleven and midnight. However, this report had an additional note as well, concerning traces of iron and coltan found on the victim’s teeth. Presumably because Krimteknisk had later realised that it might be relevant since it was found on both victims. Coltan. Wasn’t Schwarzenegger’s Terminator made of that?

  Harry realised he was wide awake now and found himself perching on the edge of the chair. He felt the stirrings, the excitement. And the nausea. Like when he took his first drink, the one that made his stomach turn, the one his body desperately rejected. And soon he would be begging for more. More and more. Until it destroyed him and everyone around him. As this was doing. Harry jumped up so quickly he went dizzy, grabbed the file, knew it was too thick, but still managed to tear it in two.

  He picked up the bits of paper and took them back to the refuse container. Let them fall down the side and lifted the plastic bags so that the documents slipped right down, to the very bottom. The dustcart would be round tomorrow or the day after, he hoped.

  Harry went back and sat down in the green chair.

  As night softened into a greyish hue, he heard the first sounds of a waking town. But over the regular drone of the first rush-hour traffic in Pilestredet, he could also hear a distant, reedy police siren gyrating through the frequencies. Could be anything. He heard another siren winding up. Anything. And then another. No, not anything.

  The landline telephone rang.

  Harry lifted the receiver.

  ‘Hagen speaking. We’ve just received a mess—’

  Harry put down the phone.

  It rang again. Harry looked out of the window. He hadn’t rung Sis. Why not? Because he didn’t want to show himself to his little sister – his most enthusiastic, most unconditional admirer. The woman who had what she called ‘a touch of Down’s syndrome’ and still coped with her life immeasurably better than he did his own. She was the only person he could not allow himself to disappoint.

  The telephone stopped ringing. And started again.

  Harry snatched at the phone. ‘No, boss. The answer is no, I don’t want the job.’

  The other end of the line was quiet for a second. Then an unfamiliar voice said, ‘Oslo Energy here. Herr Hole?’

  Harry cursed to himself. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You haven’t paid the bills we sent you, and you haven’t responded to our final demands. I’m ringing to say we are cutting off the electricity supply to Sofies gate 5 from midnight tonight.’

  Harry didn’t answer.

  ‘We will only reconnect when we’ve received the outstanding amount.’

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘With fees for reminders and disconnection, plus interest, it’s fourteen thousand, four hundred and sixty-three kroner.’

  Silence.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘I’m here. I’m a bit out of pocket right now.’

  ‘The outstanding amount will be recovered by our debt collection agency. In the meantime we’ll have to hope the temperature doesn’t fall below zero. Won’t we?’

  ‘We will,’ Harry confirmed, and rang off.

  The sirens outside rose and fell.

  Harry went for a lie-down. He lay there for a quarter of an hour with his eyes closed before giving up, getting dressed again and leaving the flat to catch a tram to Rikshospital.

  11

  Print

  When I woke up this morning, I knew I had been there again. In the dream it is always like th
at: we are lying on the ground, blood is flowing, and when I glance to the side, she’s there looking at us. She looks at me with sorrow in her eyes, as if it is only now that she has discovered who I am, only now that she has unmasked me, seen that I am not the man she wants.

  Breakfast was excellent. It’s on teletext. ‘Woman MP found dead in diving pool at Frogner Lido.’ The news sites are full of it. Print out, snip, snip.

  Before very long the first websites will publish the name. Thus far the so-called police investigation has been such a ridiculous farce that it has been irritating rather than exciting. But this time they will invest all their resources, they won’t play at investigation the way they did with Borgny and Charlotte. After all, Marit Olsen was an MP. It’s time this was stopped. Because I have appointed the next victim.

  12

  Crime Scene

  HARRY WAS SMOKING A CIGARETTE OUTSIDE THE HOSPITAL entrance. Above him the sky was pale blue, but beneath him, the town, lying in a dip between low, green mountain ridges, was wreathed in mist. The sight reminded him of his childhood in Oppsal when he and Øystein had skipped the first lesson at school and gone to the German bunkers in Nordstrand. From there they had looked down on the peasouper enveloping Oslo city centre. But with the years the morning fog had gradually drifted away from Oslo, along with industry and woodburning.

  Harry crushed the cigarette with his heel.

  Olav Hole looked better. Or perhaps it was merely the light. He asked why Harry was smiling. And what had actually happened to his jaw.

  Harry said something about being clumsy and wondered at what age the change took place, when children started protecting parents from reality. Around the age of ten, he concluded.

  ‘Your little sister was here,’ Olav said.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Fine. When she heard you were back, she said that now she would look after you. Because she’s big now. And you’re small.’

  ‘Mm. Smart girl. How are you today?’

  ‘Well. Very well, actually. Think it’s about time I got out of here.’

  He smiled, and Harry smiled back.

  ‘What do the doctors say?’

  Olav Hole was still smiling. ‘Far too much. Shall we talk about something else?’

  ‘Of course. What would you like to talk about?’

  Olav Hole reflected. ‘I’d like to talk about her.’

  Harry nodded. And sat silently listening to his father tell him about how he and Harry’s mother had met. Got married. About her illness when Harry was a boy.

  ‘Ingrid helped me all the time. All the time. But she needed me so rarely. Until she fell ill. Sometimes I thought the illness was a blessing.’

  Harry flinched.

  ‘It gave me the chance to repay, you understand. And I did. Everything she asked me, I did.’ Olav Hole fixed his eyes on his son. ‘Everything, Harry. Almost.’

  Harry nodded.

  His father kept talking. About Sis and Harry, how wonderfully gentle Sis had been. And what willpower Harry had possessed. How frightened he had been but kept it to himself. When he and Ingrid had listened at the door, they had heard Harry crying and cursing invisible monsters in turn. However, they knew they shouldn’t go in to console and reassure him. He would become furious, shout that they were ruining everything and tell them to get out.

  ‘You always wanted to fight the monsters on your own, you did, Harry.’

  Olav Hole told the ancient story about Harry not speaking until he was nearly five. And then – one day – whole sentences just flowed out of him. Slow, earnest sentences with adult words; they had no idea where he had learned them.

  ‘But your sister is right,’ Olav smiled. ‘You’re a small boy again. You don’t speak.’

  ‘Mm. Do you want me to speak?’

  Olav shook his head. ‘You have to listen. But that’s enough for now. You’ll have to come back another day.’

  Harry squeezed his father’s left hand with his right and stood up. ‘Is it OK if I stay in Oppsal for a few days?’

  ‘Thanks for the offer. I didn’t want to hassle you, but the house does need to be looked after.’

  Harry dropped his plan to tell him that the power was going to be cut off in his flat.

  Olav rang a bell and a young, smiling nurse came in and used his father’s first name in an innocent, flirty way. And Harry noted how his father deepened his voice as he explained that Harry needed the suitcase containing the keys. He saw the way the sick man in the bed tried to fluff his plumage for her. And for some reason it didn’t seem pathetic; it was the way it should be.

  In parting, his father repeated: ‘Everything she asked me.’ And whispered: ‘Bar one thing.’

  Leading him to the storage room, the nurse told Harry the doctor wanted to have a couple of words with him. After locating the keys in the suitcase, Harry knocked on the door the nurse had indicated.

  The doctor nodded to a seat, leaned back on his swivel chair and pressed his fingertips together. ‘Good thing you came home. We had been trying to get hold of you.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘The cancer has spread.’

  Harry nodded. Someone had once told him that was a cancer cell’s function: to spread.

  The doctor studied him, as though considering his next move.

  ‘OK,’ Harry said.

  ‘OK?’

  ‘OK, I’m ready to hear the rest.’

  ‘We don’t usually say how much time a person has left. The errors of judgement and the psychological strain that ensue are too great for that. However, in this case, I think it is appropriate to tell you he is already living on borrowed time.’

  Harry nodded. Gazed out the window. Fog was still as thick down below.

  ‘Have you got a mobile number we can contact you on should anything happen?’

  Harry shook his head. Was that a siren he heard down in the fog?

  ‘Anyone you know who can pass on a message?’

  Harry shook his head again. ‘Not a problem. I’ll ring in and visit him every day. OK?’

  The doctor nodded and watched Harry get up and stride out.

  It was nine by the time Harry got to Frogner Lido. The whole of Frogner Park measures about fifty hectares, but since the public lido constitutes a small fraction of this and, furthermore, is fenced in, the police had an easy job cordoning off the crime scene; they had simply run a cordon round the entire fence and put a guard in the ticket office. The kettle of crime-correspondent vultures was in flight and they swooped in, stood cackling outside the gate wondering when they would gain access to the cadaver. For Christ’s sake, this was a bona fide MP, didn’t the public have a right to photos of such a prominent corpse?

  Harry bought an americano at Kaffepikene. They had chairs and tables on the pavement throughout February, and Harry took a seat, lit a cigarette and watched the flock in front of the ticket booth.

  A man sat down on the chair next to him.

  ‘Harry Hole himself. Where have you been?’

  Harry looked up. Roger Gjendem, the Aftenposten crime correspondent, lit a cigarette and gestured towards Frogner Park. ‘At last Marit Olsen gets what she wants. By eight this evening she’ll be a celeb. Hanging herself from the diving tower? Good career move.’ He turned to Harry and grimaced. ‘What happened to your jaw? You look dreadful.’

  Harry didn’t answer. Just sipped his coffee and said nothing to alleviate the embarrassing silence in the futile hope that the journalist would twig that he was not desirable company. From the bank of fog above them came the noise of whirring rotors. Roger Gjendem peered up.

  ‘Gotta be Verdens Gang. Typical of that tabloid to hire a helicopter. Hope the fog doesn’t lift.’

  ‘Mm. Better that no one gets photos than VG does?’

  ‘Right. What do you know?’

  ‘I’m sure less than you,’ said Harry. ‘The body was found by one of the nightwatchmen at dawn, and he rang the police straight away. And you?’

  �
��Head torn off. Woman jumped from the top of the tower with a rope around her neck, it seems. And she was pretty hefty, as you know. Over a hundred kilos.

  ‘They’ve found threads that may match her tracksuit on the fence where they reckon she entered. They didn’t find any other clues, so they think she was alone.’

  Harry inhaled the cigarette smoke. Head torn off. They spoke how they wrote, these journalists, the inverted pyramid, as they called it: the most important information first.

  ‘Must have happened in the early hours, I suppose?’ Harry fished.

  ‘Or in the evening. According to Marit Olsen’s husband, she left home at a quarter to ten to go jogging.’

  ‘Late for a jog.’

  ‘Must have been when she usually jogged. Liked having the park to herself.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘By the way, I tried to track down the nightwatchman who found her.’

  ‘Why?’

  Gjendem sent Harry a surprised look. ‘To get a first-hand account, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ Harry said, sucking on his cigarette.

  ‘But he seems to have gone into hiding. He’s not here or at home. Must be in shock, poor fella.’

  ‘Well, it’s not the first time he’s found bodies in the pool. I assume the detective leading the investigation has seen to it that you can’t lay your hands on him.’

  ‘What do you mean, it’s not the first time?’

  Harry shrugged. ‘I’ve been called here two or three times before. Young lads sneaking in during the night. One time it was suicide, another an accident. Four drunken friends on their way home from a party wanted to play, see who dared to stand closest to the edge of the diving board. The boy who won the dare was nineteen. The oldest was his brother.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Gjendem said dutifully.

  Harry checked his watch as if he had to hurry off.

  ‘Must have been some strength in that rope,’ Gjendem said. ‘Head torn off. Ever heard the like?’

  ‘Tom Ketchum,’ said Harry, draining the rest of his coffee in one swig and getting up.