Jo Nesbo - The Leopard

‘Ulla was my woman and it was so bloody good because everyone round Manglerud was in love with Ulla.’ Julle nodded as if agreeing with himself. ‘But no one was so insanely jealous as him.’

‘Mikael Bellman?’

Julle shook his head. ‘The other one. The shadow. Beavis.’

‘What happened?’

Julle opened his palms. Roger had noticed the scabs. A jailbird migrating between dope in prison and dope outside. ‘Mikael Bellman grassed me up over nicking some petrol; I already had a suspended sentence for hash, and so had to do time. I heard rumours that Bellman and Ulla had been seen together. Anyhow, when I got out and went to pick her up, the Beavis guy was waiting for me. Almost killed me. Said Ulla belonged to him. And Mikael. Not to me, at any rate. And if I ever showed my face near…’ Julle ran his forefinger across a lean neck with grey stubble. ‘Pretty insane. And bloody scary. No one in the sodding gang believed me when I told them the Beavis guy had been so close to doing me in. The slavering idiot just trotted after Bellman.’

‘You mentioned something about quantities of heroin,’ Roger said. When he interviewed people in drugs cases he always made sure he used precise terminology that could not be misunderstood, as the slang expressions changed quickly and meant different things in different places. For example, smack might mean cocaine in Hovseter, heroin in Hellerud and anything that got you high in Abildso.

‘Me, Ulla, TV and his woman were on a bike tour in Europe the summer I went to the slammer. We took half a kilo of boy with us from Copenhagen. Bikers like me and TV were checked at every single border crossing, but we sent the girls over separately. Jesus, they looked good, wearing summer dresses, with blue eyes and a quarter of a kilo up their cunts. We sold most to a dealer down in Tveita.’

‘You’re very open,’ Roger said while taking notes, putting brackets round ‘cunts’ for later rewording and adding ‘boy’ to a long list of synonyms for heroin.

‘Time’s lapsed, so they can’t arrest anyone for it now. The point is that the dealer in Tveita was arrested. And was offered a reduced sentence if he grassed on the suppliers. Which, of course, he did, the scumbag.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Hah! The guy told me a few years later when we were doing time together in Ullersmo. He’d given the names and addresses of all fucking four of us, including Ulla. All that was missing was our national identity numbers. We were so bloody lucky that the case was shelved.’

Roger made feverish notes.

‘And guess who had the case at the Stovner cop shop? Guess who questioned the guy? Who in all probability recommended the case should be dropped, thrown out, shelved? Who saved Ulla’s skin?’

‘I’d like you to say, Julle.’

‘Very happy to. It was the cunt thief himself. Mikael Bellman.’

‘One last question,’ Roger said, knowing he had arrived at a critical point. Could the story be proved? Could the source be checked? ‘Have you got the name of the dealer? I mean, he’s not risking anything and his name won’t be mentioned anyway.’

‘Would I grass him up, you mean?’ Julle laughed out loud. ‘You bet your ass I will.’

He spelt the name, and Roger turned a page and wrote it in capital letters while noticing that his jaw was broadening. Into a smile. He controlled himself and put on a straight face. But he knew the taste was going to be there for a long time: the sweet taste of a scoop.

‘Thank you for your help,’ Roger said.

‘Thank you,’ said Julle. ‘Just make sure you crush that Bellman, then we’re even.’

‘Er, by the way, out of curiosity, why do you think the dealer told you he had informed on you?’

‘Because he was frightened.’

‘Frightened? Why?’

‘Because he knew too much. He wanted others to know the story in case the cop carried out his threat.’

‘Bellman threatened the informer?’

‘Not Bellman. His shadow. He said if the guy so much as mentioned Ulla’s name again he would put something in him that would shut him up. For ever.’

Bjorn Holm’s Volvo Amazon turned into Rikshospital, opposite the tram stop. Sigurd Altman stood waiting with his hands in his duffel coat pockets. Harry beckoned him from the back seat. Sigurd and Bjorn said hello, and they drove onto Ringveien where they continued eastwards towards the Sinsen intersection.

Harry leaned forward between the seats.

‘It was like one of the chemistry experiments we did at school. In fact, you have all the ingredients you need to get a reaction, but you don’t have the catalyst, the external component, the spark that’s necessary to trigger it. I had the information, all I needed was something to help me assemble it in the correct fashion. My catalyst was a sick man, a murderer known as the Snowman. And a bottle on a bar shelf. Alright if I have a smoke?’

Silence.

‘I see. Well…’

They drove through the tunnel at Bryn, up towards the Ryen intersection and Manglerud.

Truls Berntsen stood on the old undeveloped site, looking up the slope, up to Bellman’s house.

How peculiar it was that he who had so often eaten dinner, played and slept there when they were growing up had not been there a single time since Mikael and Ulla took over the house.

The reason was obvious: he had not been invited.

He sometimes stood where he was now, in the afternoon dusk, looking up at the house to catch a glimpse of her. Her, the unattainable one no one could have. No one except him, the prince, Mikael. Now and then he wondered whether Mikael knew. Knew and that was why they didn’t invite him. Or was she the one who knew? And made it clear to Mikael, without saying as much, that this Beavis he had grown up with was not someone they needed to associate with privately. At least not now his career had finally taken off, and it was more important to move in the right circles, meet the right people, send out the right signals. It wasn’t tactically astute to surround yourself with ghosts from a past that contained things best forgotten.

Oh, he knew that. He just didn’t know why she couldn’t understand it: that he would never hurt her. The opposite. Had he not protected her and Mikael all these years? Yes, he had. He kept watch, was there for them, cleared up. Ministered to their happiness. Such was his love.

The windows up there this evening were lit. Were they having a party? Were they eating and laughing, drinking wines the Manglerud Vinmonopol had never stocked and speaking in the new way? Was she smiling and were her eyes sparkling, eyes that were so beautiful it hurt when they looked at you? Would she see more in him if he acquired money, became rich? Was that a possibility? So simple?

He stood for a while at the bottom of the explosion-riddled building site. Then he lumbered home.

Bjorn Holm’s Amazon tilted majestically around the Ryen roundabout.

A sign showed the exit for Manglerud.

‘Where are we going?’ Sigurd Altman asked, leaning against the door.

‘We’re going where the Snowman said we should go,’ Harry said. ‘Way back in time.’

They passed the exit.

‘Here,’ Harry said, and Bjorn bore right.

‘The E6?’

‘Yep, we’re going east. To Lyseren. Know these parts, Sigurd?’

‘Well enough, but-’

‘This is where the story starts,’ Harry said. ‘Many years ago, outside a dance hall. Tony Leike, the man who owned the finger I showed you photos of before, is standing at the edge of the wood, kissing Mia, County Officer Skai’s daughter. Ole, who’s in love with Mia, goes out to look for Mia and bumps into them. Ole, devastated and angry, throws himself on the interloper, the charmer Tony. But now another side of Tony reveals itself. Gone is the smiling, charming flirt everyone likes. To be replaced by a beast. And like all animals that feel threatened he attacks, with a fury and brutality that numb Ole, Mia and subsequent onlookers. The blood mist has descended, he takes out a knife and cuts off half of Ole’s tongue before he is dragged away. And even though Ole is innocent in this matter, he is the one who is afflicted by shame. The shame of his unrequited love exhibited in front of others, humiliation in rural Norway’s ritual mating duel and his stunted speech as eternal evidence of his defeat. So he flees. Flees. Are you with me so far?’